• Review: "Bristol's 'Around the World' Soars Above and Beyond (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Review: "Globe Theatre" (Bucks County Courier Times)
• Review: "BRT Goes 'Around the World in 80 Days'" (The Times of Trenton)
• Review: "Fogg-ing Good Show " (Philadelphia Weekly)
• Preview: "Globe Trotters" (Time Off Bucks County/The Princeton Packet)

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The Philadelphia Inquirer

Posted on Sat, Sep. 30, 2006

Bristol's 'Around the World' soars above and beyond
By Howard Shapiro
Inquirer Staff Writer

Putting the theatrical version of Around the World in 80 Days onto the stage is risky business altogether - to bring it off, a director and cast had better be one clever group, developing a constant array of risky business. This is exactly what Edward Keith Baker, the artistic director of Bristol Riverside Theatre, and his five talented actors have done.

Their production greatly outshines the play itself. This is a particularly happy result, because Around the World, which opened Thursday night, launches Bristol Riverside's 20th season. Given the challenges theater companies have in staying alive, staging the adaptation of Jules Verne's adventure novel seems just right.

Before the opening-night lights went up and then after the curtain call, Bristol Riverside celebrated itself, with the founding producing director, Susan D. Atkinson, and theater longtimers onstage and in the audience. You cannot talk about a producing theater in 2006 without mentioning the collateral blessings it can bring - parking spaces filled, restaurants busy, all the stuff that binds the arts and the economy arm-in-arm, and hats were properly tipped to the theater's relationship to its Bucks County town.

But the best part of opening night was what people primarily came for: the show, staged precisely and executed with passion. Around the World is a tough play, a comic thriller that makes an unwise demand on its audience: Stay with it, or you'll be overwhelmed. Mark Brown's script races through the detail-laden, herky-jerky late-19th-century adventures of Phileas Fogg as he races around the world to make a deadline and win a huge bet.

To attempt the breathlessness of the novel, Brown turns a plot on a sentence, maybe sometimes a phrase - I tried to catch all this, but it goes by too quickly in the setup of a lengthy Act 1. If Act 1 were a wave coming at you, you'd duck under, as low as you could get. Then comes Act 2, tight, controllable and engaging, all with the same timing.

The play, first staged in Utah in 2001, has scored a metropolitan Philadelphia hat trick: People's Light produced it in 2004, then the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival did it last year. Its current, smart incarnation at Bristol employs a bag of shticks, everything from wigs that drop from the rafters, to actors popping from behind cargo trunks, to exacting movements in the best tradition of mime.

The five actors play the show - and this is the triumph of the cast - like an old-fashioned farce, with all the character tics the script encourages, then more.

Ezra Barnes is a cucumber-cool Phileas Fogg, tall and stern but with a big heart that conceals its size. The other actors play multiple roles - 39 in all, with 18 of them played by the remarkable Kenneth Boys, who may in real life be a chameleon. Tim Moyer and the play's lone female, Alana Gerlach, are outstanding, and Evan Zes is hands-down a show stealer among equals. He mostly plays Passepartout, Fogg's French manservant, and as the night goes on, you have to wonder whether the kinetic, flexible-faced Zes somehow escaped from a cartoon.

Around the World in 80 Days

Written by Mark Brown, based on Jules Verne's novel. Directed by Edward Keith Baker, costumes by Millie Hiibel, set by A. Nelson Ruger IV, lighting by Ryan O'Gara, sound by Daniel A. Little. Presented by Bristol Riverside Theatre.

The cast: Ezra Barnes, Kenneth Boys, Alana Gerlach, Tim Moyer, Evan Zes.

Playing at: Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol. Through Oct. 15. Tickets: $29-$37. Information: 215-785-0100 or www.brtstage.org.

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Bucks County Courier Times

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Globe Theater

by Gwen Shrift

Around the World in 80 Days admirably launches the Bristol Riverside's 20th Season

......

Whom You're seeing: Kenneth Boys in 18 roles; Tim Moyer in nine roles; Evan Zes in two roles; Alana Gerlach in four roles; Ezra Barnes as Phileas Fogg.

No identity crisis: The actors switch parts like lightning as Phileas moves from his house, to his club, then to trains, boats, an elephant and a high-speed sled before arriving back in London.  The performers switch accents as quickly as they do hats and fake beards.  The stage furnishings are limited to a table and a few chairs.  Don't worry; you will believe that table is an elephant by the time these actors are through.  As for the typhoon scene that opens the second act, we can only say you'll be drawn in completely.

At your service: Evan Zes is a standout as Passepartout, Fogg's dauntless servant.  The agile Zes drew cheers from the audience on opening night for the studied silliness and sheer indestructibility he brings to his character.

Aaaactiing!  That Cockney newsboy is also a Parsi princess.  The Scotland yard detective runs an elephant hire service.  The Chinese waiter is a pistol packing cowboy, and a judge and a Brooklyn sailor; and so on.

Stolen Scene: Tim Moyer in a maid's costume.

Exit, stage right, And left, and center....Director Edward Keith Baker had a juicy morsel with this play, which would seem to be an unforgiving two-hour exercise in split-second timing.  This was pulled off so well we half expected to see Boys bumping into himself, so full of characters is the stage despite the small cast.  The pace is breathtaking and the laughs, endless.

Imaginary world: A striking high-Victorian arch frames the stage...

Swiftly flowing stream of words: "Around the World in 80 Days" is a thoroughly well written play with heart-warming doses of heroism, nobility and persistence.  Baker chose another Brown play, " The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge," for the next production.  We can hardly wait.

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The Times of Trenton

October 3, 2006

BRT goes “Around the World in 80 Days”

by Anita Donovan, Special to The Times

Globalization is supposedly the watchword of the 21st century, but it was clearly on the minds of the Europeans in 1872, when Jules Verne wrote his wild adventure story, “Around the World in 80 Days,” best known today in its award-winning 1956 film version staring David Niven.

A fast-and-furious mini-version has set up on the Bristol Riverside stage with a whirling dervish cast that keeps the mischief and mirth coming.  Full of thrills and spills – but no balloon – the show demonstrates the essence of theater as it might have been seen in the Middle Ages.  Using only essential props, five nimble actors and an imaginative spirit, Mark Brown’s adaptation makes for an amusing evening. 

When an 1872 news story states that travel has become so speedy that a man can circumnavigate the globe in under three months, gentlemen at London’s Reform Club pooh-pooh the idea.  But one intrepid member, Phileas Fogg, decides to make a large wager – 20,000 pounds, which was real money then – that he can go completely around the world in 80 days.  Moreover, he is so confident that he leaves home with one overnight bag; an untried servant, Passepartout; and a huge wad of cash – such an amount, in fact, that leads a Scotland Yard detective to suspect that the departing Fogg is in fact a certain bank robber, using the wager as a ruse to cover his escape with his ill-gotten gains.  Detective Fix sets out in hot pursuit.

The party is attacked by all and sundry, and various ingenious methods of escape are devised.  They involve sailboats, steamboats and elephants.  In the United States, Fogg gets an assist from a cowboy and his prairie sled, wittily assembled on stage out of a table top, pole and sheet.

Well, you get the idea.  The charm of the play is the rough-hewn production, with little scenery besides some antique world maps that make the “round trip” seem even more challenging.  Set designer A. Nelson Ruger IV has little on stage but chairs and a table, but uses these pieces ingeniously.  Costume designer Millie Hilbel provides a multitude of quick changes for the busy cast.  Ryan O’Gara and Daniel A. Little supply lighting and sound designs.

Director Keith Baker has a small miracle in his cast: five people with tremendous breath captivity – for they are invariably whirling about changing clothes and characters.  Ezra Barnes plays the unflappable Phileas Fogg with cool assurance. Rubber-limbed Evan Zes portrays the accommodating servant Passepartout with evident glee.  Alana Gerlach morphs from a scruffy newsboy to the elegant lady Aouda.  Tim Moyer takes on the dauntless Detective Fix, plus half a dozen other parts, while Kenneth Boys performs his magic in no fewer than 18 roles.  Moreover, all of them seem to be having a heck of a time doing it.

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Philadelphia Weekly

Week of October 4-10, 2006

Fogg-ing Good Show

by J. Cooper Robb

Theater has tended to eschew the works of Jules Verne. After all, journeying to the center of the earth or traveling 20,000 leagues beneath the sea would present enormous technical difficulties. But that didn’t stop playwright Mark Brown from adapting Verne’s celebrated novel Around the World in 80 Days, currently playing in a satisfying production at Bristol Riverside Theatre. Perhaps best remembered as an Academy Award-winning film starring David Niven, World is set in 1872, at the height of the British empire.

Phileas Fogg (a wonderfully unruffled Ezra Barnes) is a London gentleman aptly summarized as “exactitude personified.” Fogg wagers he can traverse the globe in 80 days. On Broadway such a venture would call for elaborate sets and props to depict the various modes of transport and exotic locales. Brown’s clever script requires little more than five astute actors, four chairs, a table and the audience’s imagination.

It helps to have a creative director as well, and Edward Keith Baker’s flamboyant style perfectly suits Brown’s theatrical interpretation. Under Baker’s swift pacing, Fogg and his servant Passepartout (the flexible Evan Zes) race around the globe while managing to find time to drink tea aboard a thundering elephant, outwit a dogged detective (played with bumbling precision by Tim Moyer) and navigate a fierce typhoon (which includes a soggy surprise for the audience).

It’s all perfectly ridiculous, but as a bit of diversionary fun, Bristol’s World hits the mark.

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Time Off Bucks County/The Princeton Packet

09/28/2006

Globe Trotters

By: Jillian Kalonick , TIMEOFF

A cast of five transforms into more than 30 characters in 'Around the World in 80 Days' at Bristol Riverside Theatre.    The running joke is that Ezra Barnes has it easy. The actor plays Phileas Fogg, a wealthy English gentleman who steps up to the challenge of circling the globe, in Around the World in 80 Days at Bristol Riverside Theatre. He is the star, but Mr. Barnes is the only actor playing just one character.

    Kenneth Boys, Alana Gerlach, Tim Moyer and Evan Zes all have multiple roles in Mark Brown's comic adaptation of Jules Verne's 1872 novel, which opened Bristol Riverside Theatre's 20th anniversary season and continues through Oct. 15. Mr. Boys, who plays 20 or so characters, is constantly changing costumes.

    "'Around the World in 80 Days' has been dramatized for a long time," says Mr. Barnes between rehearsals. "In fact, Jules Verne was making money from it during his lifetime when it was done as a play. It was a musical — they had Orson Wells adapt it and direct it, and Cole Porter wrote the music for it in the '40s. Part of the gimmick then was the scenery, set changes and a 'cast of thousands,' everything like that, but this is about five actors creating everything. There are sound effects, but it's really our behavior and how we define the space that creates the story."

    Mr. Barnes and the other actors are onstage almost nonstop in the fast-paced play, in which Fogg and his servant Passepartout are pursued by Detective Fix, who is convinced Fogg is a bank robber on the lam. Their whirlwind tour includes stops in Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong and San Francisco, elephant rides in India and a train trip through the Wild West.

    "When they get to America they're in the Wild West, and the train has to go across a bridge that's going to fall down so they're going to speed up the train," says Mr. Barnes. "We're all standing on the stage leaning one way, and then the other and bouncing and jiggling while we play the scene. This kind of bigoted cowboy type, I've challenged him to a duel because he's called my servant a coward. We're trying to fight this duel while the train is speeding up and jumping across the bridge.

    "It's good because it's theatrical in that it's not trying to be a film," he adds. "It's not trying to do what films do, which is go to any location, or go around the world. This is all done through suggestion and through imagination."

    The physical comedy and modern references and jokes make the play a lot of fun, but not without a theme, says Mr. Barnes.

    "I think that the playwright and Jules Verne are poking fun at pompous people and hypocrites," he says. "With Phileas, he says very little — though he's the center of the play, he doesn't say much. I think that he hates hypocrisy and dishonesty, and sort of goes through his life trying to live as honorably as possible. The people that Fogg meets on the way who are hypocritical — I think there is social commentary in that. I think a big theme of the play is what is it to live honorably? What is it to conduct your life in an honest way?"

    Besides his earnest determination, Mr. Fogg tells his naysayers, who insist a single mishap will keep him from making his deadline, that "The unforeseen does not exist."

    "That's an interesting approach to life," says Mr. Barnes. "It's a metaphysical statement — everything can be foreseen, as long as you're willing to be open to all the different things that can happen."

    Mr. Barnes, a Brooklyn native, made his debut at Bristol Riverside 13 years ago when he appeared in Eugène Ionesco's Macbett. He is the founding artistic director of Shakespeare on the Sound, a summer outdoor festival in Norwalk, Conn., where he has directed and acted in several plays. He has appeared in productions at the Philadelphia Festival Theatre for New Plays and Paper Mill Playhouse, and on television in Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU.

    In 2005, the 10th year of Shakespeare in the Sound, Mr. Barnes discovered the impact that the festival was making on the community. After a performance of The Tempest in which he played Prospero, "I was chatting with people, and they'd come up and say 'I've seen all of them,'" Mr. Barnes says — meaning all of Shakespeare on the Sound's productions. "And they'd be 16 or 17 years old, and that means they'd seen a Shakespeare play every year since they were 6 or 7," he says. "It does add up, and it gives them a different perspective. To be exposed to those plays from a young age is really valuable."

    In addition to performing and directing, Mr. Barnes also teaches after-school acting classes in Brooklyn, and taught and directed for a Shakespeare camp, where he and a group of eighth-graders put on a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

    "It was just fantastic. The power of language is amazing," says Mr. Barnes. "To give those kids that opportunity to work on Shakespeare — it just broadens you. It makes you bigger."

Around the World in 80 Days will continue at Bristol Riverside Theatre, 120 Radcliffe St., Bristol, Pa., through Oct. 15. Performances: Wed. 2, 8 p.m.; Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2, 8 p.m.; Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $29-$37, $10 students. Opening night/grand opening celebration, Sept. 28; theater luncheon at the King George II Inn, Sept. 30, noon; Around the Delaware in 80 Minutes dinner cruise, Oct. 7, 6 p.m. For information, call (215) 785-0100. On the Web: www.brtstage.org

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