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diversions
'Scarlet' in full
bloom at CPAC
By Alisha Gomez
On-line Forty-Niner
As the curtain
rose at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, the audience
was taken to the last performance of main character Marguerite
St. Just, an actress in a grand French theater. Marguerite,
played by Kim Huber, was a French actress at the Comedie Francaise.
Huber lit up the
stage with her gorgeous voice and sparkling performance in
an extravagant costume for the opening scene of "The
Scarlet Pimpernel."
The musical moves
from May to July in 1794, transporting between England and
France. Marguerite is to be married to an Englishman, Sir
Percy Blakeney (played by Michael DeVries), announcing to
everyone that tonight is her last performance, shocking the
leader of the French Revolution, Chauvelin (Roger Befeler).
When Chauvelin
learns of this, he instantly shuts down the theater, ruining
Mar-guerite's last performance and blackmailing her into giving
him information about an English Marquis' location, who is
being hidden in France. Her fiancée has no idea of
her betrayal to his country and finds out on his wedding day
that the English Marquis was guillotined.
After this atrocious
event, an unknown man begins to free prisoners from the guillotine,
upsetting the French regime. Nothing is known about this man
except that he leaves a note with a scarlet pimpernel stamped
on it and thus becomes known as "The Scarlet Pimpernel."
From there, the
musical jumps from comical scenes to adventurous fighting.
The entire cast
gave an outstanding performance. The musical was lively and
entertaining with song and dance. The three main characters,
Marguerite St. Just, Sir Perci-val Blakeney and Chauvelin
have a few astounding scenes together with intensified songs
about their love triangle and the deception that exists among
the three.
Various companies
have performed "The Scarlet Pimpernel" in their
own ways.
"Our version
for this is that we wanted to make it a little more serious
than it was perhaps in New York and some of the more recent
productions that wrote company versions that went a lot more
for the comedy," Director Paul Garman said.
Garman said he
finds what makes "The Scarlet Pimpernel" unique
is that he was the first superhero.
"The uniqueness
of it is the fact that it sets the standards for years to
come," Garman said. "[Orczy] wrote the book in,
I think, 1904 and then she wrote 15 other books all based
on that same character, so it is a character that has been
around for awhile."
Remaining shows
are Nov. 1, 2, 3 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 3, 4 at 2 p.m. For ticket
information call (562) 430-2324.
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