“A toilet onstage in a Shakespeare play — and for this crowd. I thought I was going to die,” Realtor Giselle Theberge Jeppson declared as she swept out of a benefit performance of “The Comedy of Errors” at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elizabethan Theatre Thursday night.
Director Joe Banno’s “Soprano”-esque production of Shakespeare’s shortest and most farcical work, set in Brooklyn with dialogue to match (“Da dook himself comes in poysun dis way”), may or may not have been tweaked to roil the formally attired guests attending the library’s annual gala. Suffice it to say that some were more steeled to the spaghetti-slurping Mafiosi, stripper gyrating in a leather harness, blotto bishop and nutty nun going about their, um, personal routines, than others.
“I’ve seen nudity in theater, but I’ve never seen flossing. I won’t sleep tonight,” Marcia McGhee Carter said at the post-performance dinner, after the calming influences of chilled tomato puree, roasted breast of duckling, endive and watercress salad and dessert — accompanied by three wines — finally took effect.
Although Mr. Banno was heard to crow that “the more flat lines there are in the audience, the more successful the production,” Gail Kern Paster, the Folger’s director, thought a “crowd dressed to the nines” taking in a gonzo night of theater gave the evening a “wonderful incongruity.”
British Ambassador Sir David Manning seemed rather keen as well.
“Energetic, bawdy and irreverent. Exactly the way it would have been in the pit” in Shakespeare’s day, Her Majesty’s envoy pronounced.
Whatever their opinion, it gave guests plenty to discuss besides the decorations in the Reading Room, which was filled with more than 5,000 roses and spectacularly lighted to better display its vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows.
“We have a beautiful space,” Mrs. Paster said, making the point, perhaps once and for all, that the library is “no longer in the business of re-creating Paris and Budapest” at its annual gala.
Though certainly fabulous, the themed events of the past just didn’t produce enough revenue to justify doing them year after year, especially because nearly half of the guests received complimentary tickets as a membership benefit.
That practice has been ended, along with the $1,000 ticket price, lowered to $500. As is the case with most large benefits, corporate support accounts for the bulk of the evening’s revenues. (This year, 17 corporate donors contributed three-quarters of the $275,000 raised).
John D. Macomber, a former chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, and his wife, Caroline, did a noteworthy job as benefit co-chairmen. Their ties to the business community and old-guard Washington guaranteed a sold-out event.
“I didn’t pull anyone in. I just urged them along,” Mr. Macomber said with a laugh as he greeted benefactors throughout the night, among them: Buck and Sally Chapoton, Mike and Pamela Peabody, David and Janet Bruce, Nina Auchincloss Straight, Bill and Ann Nitze, John and JoAnn Mason, Jay Gates, Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay, Dr. LaSalle and Ruthie Leffall, Dr. Thomas and Jane Nigra, Roger and Vicki Sant, Wesley and Karen Williams, former Sen. Harris Wofford, Bill and Lynda Webster, and Jan and Tazewell Shepard.
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