- OTHER MEDIA
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- review in the SF Bay Guardian May 11, 2011 (Nicole Gluckstern)
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- The axiom "well-behaved women seldom make history" comes
to mind when watching a reenactment of the strange but true tale of the
meeting between renegade pirate "queen" Grace O'Malley and Queen
Elizabeth I. Both exceptionally powerful women in their day, they must
surely have found some novel comfort in the presence of the other. Christina
Augello plays both divas for DIVAfest with swashbuckling verve in Maggie
Cronin's historical drama, A Most Notorious Woman. Also inhabiting several
bit characters along the way, Augello infuses Grace with a matter-of-fact,
workaday groundedness, while her Elizabeth is all fuss and neuroses, chattering
away to "Leicester" on a thoroughly modern cell-phone while plotting
political intrigues. Watching Augello shift between the two strong-willed
characters is the production's greatest pleasure, along with some clever
set and costuming flourishes courtesy of John Mayne and Laura Hazlett.
There are some awkwardly-paced attempts at shadowplay which interrupt the
overall flow, and the presence of an omniscient narrator, a sea-queen wrapped
in kelp, is a puzzling distraction, but as staged history lessons of ill-behaved
women go, Notorious is both informative and entertaining.
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