BOSWELL
by Marie Kohler
Lighting Design: Katy Atwell; Wig Artisan: Emily Christoffersen;
In a small theater packed with artifacts of the time, depicting 1763 when Boswell, a Scottish-biographer, diarist and a lawyer visited London and met one of the greatest conversationalist, Dr, Samuel Johnson who was a poet, an English writer who wrote the dictionary of the English language and was also an essayist, moralist, critic, lexicographer and a man of letters.
Boswell was a young ambitious man who had great curiosity and he, made notes of every experience in his every day life diligently and that's how he ended up composing the biography of Johnson called, The life of Samuel Johnson, a rare book which had real quotations of Johnson and it was of a different style of biography because it was based on Boswell's journals and his memory and his conversations with Samuel Johnson.
In Boswel, a contemporary fictional researcher, Joan (Phoebe Gonzalez ), a graduate student travels from Chicago to Scotland in 1950 being aware of the newly unearthed, scripts, letters, diaries in(1920-1950) to check out the new material.
The set by Jody Sekas serve many locations and have many maps, books, old trunks filled with papers, notes, manuscripts, pure gold for the researcher, and also serves as a salon, meeting places of great literary scolars of London such as Oliver Goldsmith, most famous actor of his times, David Garrick and a reat friend of Samuel Johnson, Burke and Henry Thrale and his wife Hester.
It also serves as an Inn where a certain lady Fiona (Miriam A. Laube, who also plays three different roles) Has a treasure of gold for Pheobe to dig in. They bicker quite a bit but it's an intersting, intelligent, and mildly acidic bicker.
Boswell is played by very charming and likeable Josh Krause. He is also very well liked by the ladies he meet and for sure is a ladies man but doesn't shy away from making copius notes of everything he hears.
After 11 years of their friendship, Boswell and Dr, Johnson travell together to Scotland and Boswell ends up writing his journal of a tour to the Hebrides on which the biography, The life of Samuel Johnson is based.
Brian Mani is excellent as Samuel Johnson and he even looks like him. Majestic and bigger than life,
the greatest conversationalist and wit who ever lived. His costume is also very effective. In-fact all costumes are brilliant. All actors did a wonderful job. The play is very well directed by Laura Gordon. The transition between scenes is smooth and subtle. Boswell is MHK production's award winning play.
It was a great delight to see this play acted with intelligence, skill and wit. Boswell is MHK production's award winning play. It's one of the very best play I have seen recently and I have always loved Dr, Samuel Johnson and Boswell and their amazing contribution to the history and literature.
Miriam A. Laube and Phoebe Gonzalez
Reviewed by Bina Sharif (ATCA); Editor/Publisher:artsinternational.blogspot.com email:binashariff@gmail.com Cell: 212-260-6207; Facebook; Instagram
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