Wonderland Theatre ©2003-2009

La Locandiera (or Mirandolina)

 Production Details Production Index
Irish Mail on Sunday
Delicious Florentine Fancy
If you fancy an unusual evening out, you couldn’t do better than this eighteenth century Italian comedy of love and manners, which includes in the ticket price an excellent three-course tapas meal with wine.

Wonderland Productions has been making the running in recent years with site-specific presentations and this one is perfect for the intimate setting of the Port House Tapas Bar which, for the night, becomes the Florentine inn of the flirtatious Mirandolina, the hostess of the title. The action occurs in the inn, between the bar and the tables where the audiences sit as punters with whom the cast often interact.

The wealthy old roué (Mal Whyte) competes with a penniless marquis (Neill Fleming) and the humble waiter (Damien O’Donnell) for the hand of Mirandolina (Claire Jenkins). But the arrogant gentleman from Ulster (Connolly Heron) scoffs at the idiocy of men humiliating themselves for women.

The feisty Mirandolina sets out to break down the Irishman’s self-assurance and there is some lovely interaction between Jenkins and Heron in this teasing battle of the sexes. The characters also sing songs to guitar accompaniment. The comic touch is so assured that they even get away with playing the Dean Martin hit, That’s Amore.

The tantalising question is whether Mirandolina is looking for the love of the Irishman or simply using her wiles to conquer his misogyny. The brisk comedy ridicules the pretensions of the aristocracy while applauding the ordinary folk. Damien O’Donnell doubles splendidly as the Irishman’s manservant.

Translation and direction are by Alice Coghlan, who makes expert use of the small space. It’s the sort of show that returns play-going to the realms of pure entertainment.
Irish Mail on Sunday
Sunday 15th March 2009
Sunday Business Post
Wonderland Production’s new site-specific show blends live theatre with gourmet dining. Based on Carlo Goldoni’s 18th century comedy, it transforms the Port House tapas bar in Dublin city centre into a Florentine inn.

The bare brick walls of the restaurant require little set dressing, and the candlelit ambience laid out by the frock-coated, guitar strumming actors and the ravishing landlady Mirandolina set the scene for the complex romantic games that will unfold.

The audience are treated by the actors as guests, charming them with playful eye contact and direct asides. The cast confidently negotiates a two way relationship with the spectators, although it never becomes intrusive.

The comedy is an old-fashioned kind – four men vexed by a woman’s wily ways – but the eventual reversal, in which Mirandolina manipulates her happy-ever after, could almost be read as an early proto-feminist gesture. But the drama is more playful than political.

In a traditional theatre setting, this would make for gently amusing theatre, but what makes La Locandiera so special is that the dining experience that Wonderland Productions simultaneously offers the audience. This is not merely because the ticket price includes a three course meal and a glass of wine, but because the idea is so well integrated into the action.

At the end of the first act, for example, Mirandolina herself serves us while confessing her devious plan. It is an intimate, charming conceit.

The cast provides transitional musical entertainment between the acts – Damien O’Donnell on guitar, the irrepressible Mal Whyte on bodhrán, and Claire Jenkins sweet voiced Mirandolina singing with support from Connolly Heron and Neil Fleming.

Director Alice Coghlan makes a slight slip here with her choice of music, crowd-pleasing anthems like That’s Amore break the otherwise carefully constructed frame. However, Tara Jones Hamilton’s brilliantly constructed costumes- which survive close scrutiny even in this intimate setting – are testament to the attention to detail that Coghlan achieves throughout La Locandiera.

This is not just an unusual event, but one that is executed almost to perfection.
Sunday Buisness Post
Sunday 8th March 2009
Metro
Florentine fops, farce and feminine wiles combine for a unique night of 18th century Carlo Goldoni entertainment upstairs at the Port House tapas bar. Mirandolina (Claire Jenkins) is ‘La Locandiera’ – an inn keeper and a coquette to boot, driving her male tenants to distraction, among them the Marchese (Neill Fleming), a poodle-haired miserly dandy and The Conte (Mal Whyte) a powder puffed nobleman who showers her with diamonds. She ‘treats herself to all of them’ once in a while, but by massaging their egos rather than their sweaty breeches, which only makes them want her more. But when an Ulster Gentleman (Connolly Heron) checks in and declares that he is ‘the enemy of all women and Italian women in particular’ proclaiming that he would rather ‘endure a latent strain of malaria’ than marriage, the furious Mirandolina vows to vindicate her sex by making him fall in love with her.

An exuberant battle of the sexes ensues between the restaurants tables, the buffoonery interspersed with live Neapolitan arias, folk and pop songs. Wisely Jenkins represents Mirandolina as a woman’s woman rather than a brazen hussy, winning over the female members of the audience with conspiratorial asides, and Damien O’Donnell plays both Fabrizio and the Gentleman’s manservant charmingly...

La Locandiera is a tasty prospect, not least for the three course dinner and a glass of wine that accompanies the performance.
By Lucy White
Friday 6th March 2009
The Irish Times
“The savage Irish beast slowly moves towards domestication!” The comedy La Locandiera was written by Carlo Goldoni in Venice in 1753. A cheeky, frothy piece about playacting, which questions the role of women in Italian society, it brought to the stage the character of a seductive, feisty and independently minded innkeeper called Mirandolina.

Mirandolina is a woman who controls not just the purse-strings but the hearts and longings of her various bewigged and bewitched male guests, ultimately turning her attentions to the inn’s latest arrival, the misogynistic Ulster Gentleman, who would rather endure “the latent strains of malaria” than the attentions of a woman. Har, har.

Wonderland Productions, a young company under the directorship of Alice Coghlan, has shown spirit in its staging of classical theatre, recently bringing a Leoncavallo opera to lunchtime audiences and also producing a site-specific production of Molière’s The Miser. In truth, its latest offering is a somewhat dusty farce, but the company has once again set itself a challenge in terms of form. Innovatively, the piece is performed as a theatrical cabaret, with the upstairs bar of the Port House doubling as an 18th-century Italian inn, where the drama, played out around the restaurant tables, is accompanied by wine and tapas.

This is a warm, well-intentioned piece of theatre, and, in this intimate setting, the five musically accomplished actors give relaxed and polished performances. Connolly Heron, as the Ulster Gentleman, with his longing for fine linen and his capitulating misogyny, is terrific, as are Mal Whyte, Neill Fleming and Damien O’Donnell as aspiring suitors to Mirandolina (the seductively able Claire Jenkins).

La Locandiera provides a convivial evening, and Wonderland is to be congratulated on pushing ahead with its singular vision.
The Irish Times
Sunday 9th March 2009
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