Play Review: A Servant to Two Master

The play that I will be reviewing here is titled A Servant to Two Masters. My wife and I went to see this play on April 21’st at 8:00 pm in Waller Hall at IUP. This play is a Theater- by- the Grove production and is a comical play. The basic plot of this play is the main character Truffaldino the servant takes on two masters, Florindo and his lover Beatrice who unknown to everyone else is disguised as her dead brother. This is confusing to describe and even more so in the play as the story proceeds.

When it comes to the actors and their performances in this play I think they did an excellent job. Sean Barrett, the actor playing Truffaldino the main character, did an amazing job. He was hilarious, seemed to know most of his lines very well, and was a joy to watch. His on stage antics along with his use of the stage and set were funny and kept things interesting. The other actors in this onstage performance also did an excellent job, knew their parts well, and were hilarious in their own ways. Two characters that were especially funny to me were Silvio, played by Chris Anthony, and Smeraldina, played by Natalie Palamides. Chris played the dramatic spoiled Silvio to perfection and Natalie portrayed the seemingly “sex- starved” Smeraldina flawlessly and had me laughing. I believe all of the actors in this play did great, shared the spotlight fairly evenly, and were very familiar with the script. All seemed to connect well with their character and made every scene and line seem believable.

The writing and interpretation of this play was great. The plot and characters did seem well developed, and everything seemed to fit together flawlessly. From the dramatic scenes and action scenes, to the comical scenes and love scenes everything tied together well and the story line was fairly easy to follow. There was a clear protagonist, Truffaldino, a clear conflict, his serving of two masters and the love triangle of Beatrice, Clarice, and Silvio, and there were a few defining dramatic events. To me there was no real clear or defined super- objective, however this did not really take away from the whole experience for me. It was mainly a comedy when it comes to genre, however bits and pieces of romantic- comedy were thrown in.

The directing of A Servant to Two Masters to me was great. I believe that there was a unified vision and also an interesting concept. The vision was one of confusion and comedy and all of the actors playing into that and the concept of serving two masters that were actually lovers was genius. To me there were no spots that really dragged or bored me, and the choreography was great. One of my favorite moments in the play was the fight scene between Beatrice and Silvio. It was very well choreographed and directed and was great to watch.

The technical side of the play was good. It didn’t seem real complicated because there was only two different stage settings, not many lighting effects, and no real special effects. I could not see any type of microphone, which was a neat concept to me because I’m used to seeing high school productions where microphones and other technical effects are very noticeable. The technical side of this play was good because it did what it was supposed to. This play didn’t need special effects or lighting effects. When the scene was day time the lights were bright and when the scene was night the lights were dimmer. The sound didn’t fail once and you could hear everything the actors were saying. The costumes and makeup weren’t real elaborate as they didn’t need to be. They fit the characters and did what they needed to.

Overall my wife and I both enjoyed this play and would recommend it to anyone over the age of 18 looking for a good laugh. I say over 18 because of the language and sexual references and conduct. Our tickets only cost 8$ a piece and that was more than worth it for this performance. It is the first time that I have been in Waller Hall and it is an older building, but was a good venue for this play. The audience wasn’t large at all and this was good for us because we could stretch out a little and didn’t have to worry about the person sitting beside you. Overall I think the performance of A Servant to Two Masters was great and I would definitely not mind seeing it again. It exceeded my expectations and was very entertaining. The actors did a great job portraying their characters and it was a funny and interesting show to watch. I thoroughly enjoyed it.