As the villainous Iachimo, Kent could have easily gone the Iago route, playing the character as a straightforward baddie. Instead, Kent infuses Iachimo with comedy and no small amount of heart, a touch that brings the heart of the show to the fore.
Geoffrey Kent, who also choreographed the fights, embodies interesting contradictions in this role: You sense the powerful fighter beneath the louche, sloppy appearance that Achilles first presents; later, you sympathize with his genuine agony at the death of Patroclus — it feels deeper than anything you’ve seen from Troilus or Cressida — and then within minutes you’re despising him for his sleazy tactics.
Kent has great fun with Achilles… His charm and confidence warm the audience immediately, setting them up for chills later when less heroic and more vicious choices begin to be made.
Kent’s inventiveness and the answering playfulness of his cast combine to create a joyous, light-as-air celebration, and a good start to the 2016 Colorado Shakespeare Festival season.
While the scope is smaller, there’s still some exciting action. Since the Dairy Arts Center is being renovated, BETC is staging this show at the much larger Lone Tree. This allows for some terrific swordfights, staged by fightmeister Geoffrey Kent.
“She Kills Monsters” is a brilliant collaborative effort, and the ultimate date night for gamer couples — or gamers whose partners want a better grasp of the obsession.
…a shoutout for the brilliantly kinetic wrestling match between Jones and William Oliver Watkins’s Charles, staged by fight master Geoffrey Kent…
This is the second time in two years I’ve watched actor Geoffrey Kent walk away with a production in which he’s not actually the lead. Last year his Hotspur stole every scene of Henry IV, Part One that he entered. Now Kent is playing Iago in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Othello — and he’s the best reason to see the play.
Geoffrey Kent is a jokester… So you know it’s dangerous to give him control of a production that features major battles with unorthodox weapons, elves and fairies, puppets, monsters, cheerleaders doing a dance-off, costumes that look as if someone’s mother had run them up for a quick Halloween fix but nonetheless work very effectively, a funky set that a bunch of inventive high-schoolers might have rigged up in the garage, lots of ’90s pop music, monster-slaying girls and many, many swordfights.
Geoffrey Kent comes close to galloping away with the entire production in the role; his Hotspur is tough and quick to anger but also very funny, and both rough and tender…
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