MOONSTRUCK

posted by James Reel

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, my review of a stage adaptation of Keats’ Endymion:

    Endymion, the handsome young Greek shepherd-king, has fallen in love with the goddess of the moon. To unite with her and achieve immortality, he must undertake a long journey through forests, into the underworld, to the bottom of the sea, through a 4,000-line poem by John Keats and ultimately through a two-hour adaptation of the Keats poem by The Rogue Theatre's Joseph McGrath.
    That adaptation opened last weekend, and McGrath has done a magnificent job of transforming the bloated poem into a successful theatrical piece, full of story, distinct characterizations, movement, the simplest of visual illusions and live music. Yet the play, like Endymion himself, does meander through a series of discrete scenes united only by the theme of love. Through much of the evening, you wonder how it can all possibly coalesce. The stories ultimately do hold together, if you're willing to make the connections yourself--that is, if you're willing to surrender to the genre needs of what might be called a picaresque romance, rather than be led beat by beat through a linear plot.