A review of a comedy sketch with great character actors but lacking in laughs and wit.
The Servant of Two Masters.sketch with the best character actors in the business, you can triple the budget to DeMille proportions, you can gloss this silly comedy with a beguiling set design and stunning costumes, but what are you finally left with? Not Lubitsch or DeMille, only a mere Three Stooges comedy that looks great. There's no way to make this a Grade-A Paramount, when it's really B-Columbia.
The great set piece should be the first-act closer when servant Truffaldino must serve dinner to his two masters at the same time. Although frenetic, as our hero races back and forth between the rooms as the inn's cooks hand him another course with each stage cross, the action doesn't really build, it just repeats...and repeats. It's not funny, or clever, or witty – it's just busy. Which is what this play is entirely about.
Four of the actors wear commedia dell'arte masks and costumes, while the others are in contemporary couture Italian design of no-socks, linen coats, leather loafers, and cocktail dresses. This mash-up only serves to blunt our involvement, especially when it's Truffaldino we never see. This isn't ancient Greece, you know. Show us Salazar's funny faces, his expressions. Hiding our hero behind a mask is terribly off-putting.
Comedy Sketch Character Actors Laughs Wit Goldoni Playwright
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