The Knight of the Burning Pestle

It's not quite clear whom producer-director Richard Mazda doesn't trust enough. Is it Jacobean playwright Francis Beaumont? Is it Mazda's own committed, youthful, Equity-free cast of 15, the resident Queens Players? Or is it the real audience for this production, as opposed to the shills who are a key part of Beaumont's plot? Perhaps it's all of the above. Beaumont wrote his groundbreaking comedy 400 years ago, when he was not yet a knight himself (despite his grandiloquent "Sir Francis Beaumont" billing in this mounting's program). Nor was he yet yoked for posterity to his playwriting partner John Fletcher. No, Beaumont here soloed as a pioneer of breaking the fourth wall and creating a play-within-a-play. He nailed his fellow citizens in a largely forgotten satire of actors, playwrights, and audiences. Any serious theatergoer will recognize and laugh at these same targets today. So thanks to this company for presenting a lost treasure.

A grocer from the Strand, Citizen, and his wife, Nell, wander into a theater where a play called "The London Merchant" is on. First-time theatergoers (but clearly "Don Quixote" fans), the couple doesn't really care for this offering, which itself is Beaumont's parody of the rambunctious, moralistic, colloquial, yet romanticized plays of his contemporary Thomas Dekker. Citizen and Nell immediately interrupt the play's action to suggest their apprentice Rafe as the star of a more sweeping and sentimental tale, one of a knight errant who engages in chivalric episodes and romance: "The Knight of the Burning Pestle." Rafe eagerly obliges, and the two plays run more or less concurrently for the next two-and-a-half hours, frequently punctuated with Nell's demands for more Rafe face time and more engaging plot twists. Beaumont neatly skewers two contemporary styles of plays for the price and playing time of one.

Thus it isn't really necessary for Mazda to overlay more recent—but not exactly fresh—pop-culture references for his audience to get the picture. The perpetual optimist Charles Merrythought (Alexander Stine) wears a tuxedo and a red Shriner's fez and rides around on a kid's red tricycle. Not to be outdone, his wife (Kate Siepert) is hauled in a red Flexible Flyer wagon by their son (Kyrian Friedenberg, who nicely doubles on entr'acte violin). Merrythought also plays with Bert and Ernie–esque puppets, and another character does a Michael Jackson moonwalk. Even a duet rap number and a pair of Groucho Marx nose-and-eyebrow glasses are employed here. Please.

The entire company cheerfully does Mazda's high-decibel bidding in a fairly small space, proving yet again that louder isn't funnier. Joshua Warr, as Rafe, gives the most consistent and best-modulated performance. Thom Brown III, as Citizen, and Helyn Rain Messenger, as Nell, would be even more amusing at lower volume. They should reteam someday as the bellowing and screaming Mr. and Mrs. Bumble in "Oliver!"



Presented by and at the Secret Theatre, 4402 23rd St., Long Island City, Queens, N.Y. Feb. 17–March 5. Wed.–Sun., 8 p.m. (No performance Sat., Feb. 26.) (718) 392-0722 or www.secrettheatre.com.