'No Apologies' Final Ex Production

Without Apologies offers no excuses for its rather inaccurate sub-title: a program of satire. There is little more than surface resemblance between the authors aped and the playlets penned by an anonymous aper. The Shakespearean parody might just as well be one of Marston and that of Odets is nothing more than a 1930ish view of Chayefskyland.

The Loeb Experimental production, though, while not offering anything approaching incisive parody, provides enough comic moments to keep the audience from worrying too seriously about the script's literary pretensions.

The six pieces attempt to represent what six authors--Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen, Wilde, Odets and Williams--might have done with commonplace dramatic themes: love and letters, cuckolds and cash-on-the-line weddings. The "typical Shakesperian clown engages in a "typical" mixup of missives. The deranged Blanche du Bois figure in the Williams parody imagines a Spanish pen pal to take her from the beer-and-beatings world of her Stanley Kowalski type mate.

When the parallels are as obvious as this, the plays are naturally entertaining. But true dramatic parody needs more than an occasional gesture, a ludicrous cognomen, or a familiar setting. It requires clever, outrageous dialogue, and in this respect the plays achieve only fitful distinction.

What this production lacks in authorial wit, it compensates for by the concerted effort of cast and director. Except for a noticeable lack of energy in the Wilde offering and the shoddiness of all concerned in the Ibsen episode, the director, Clayton Koelb, manages to impose appropriate styles upon the four other parodies.

Four actors are assigned the protean labor of deviding twenty roles among them. The task of creating four or more characters is a challenge which, unfortunately, none of the performers meets with total success. The one who comes nearest to doing so is Laura Esterman. The mock innocence of her Desdemona-like refrain, "Me thinks my lord hath anger in his look," is as convincing as her langorous intonation of pseudo-Chekhovian eclectic imagery: "I see a cloud shaped just like a samovar." Her Odets mama ("A dry-goods store you don't sneeze at, papa") carries on the grand tradition of Molly Picon and Gertrude Berg. However, her miming as the maid in Drainpipes owes more to French farce than to Ibsen.

In these skits, John Williams turns to advantage the tenseness which marred his other performances this summer. As a victim of jealousy, he brings to the Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams parodies an aggressiveness which is a pleasant relief from the fops who cavorted through the impotent summer session on the main stage.

Like the son in The Glass Menag- erie John Williams sets the Southern landscape with his lyrical prologue: "I remember the evening now with remoteness and detachment." In hilarious counterpoint to these words, he grinds out a cigarette and his body surges with the restless energy of Brando-like animalism. These moments are enough to absolve him from the shortcomings of his unchanging demeanor throughout the afternoon.

Robert Lanchester attains no minor milestone. In Little Me Sid Caesar created a six distinct comic roles. Lanchester goes one step further--he creates six indistinct ones. On several occasions, though, he is very funny to watch as he combines verbal and visual dexterity. He makes the Shakespearian buffoon, Tedious, into a physically contorted Elizabethan-pretzel.

Although her first appearances are unrewarding, Etain O'Malley finds substance in the shadows of the Wilde and Williams parodies. In the latter she reveals a new facet of her talents. The abuse she skillfully suffers at the hands of her husband would qualify her for a position as an apache dancer. As the interlocutor between scenes, Mark Bramhall takes impish delight in the reading of the well-written stage directions.

The setting by Debbie Samson conveys an atmosphere suitable only to the Shakespearean segment, but Paul Pietz's lighting contributes to the general professional elan of the production.

The success of Without Apologies caps a season in which Clayton Koelb has presented at least three other productions of considerable value--a fine rendition of Shaw's Village Wooing; the first play of Timothy Mayer, That Day They Read of It No More; and an acceptable production of Strindberg's The Link, the only important drama of a serious nature seen here this summer