Princess Turandot, European Repertory Company, at the Theatre Building. Director Luda Lopatina’s contemporary rendition of an 18th-century Italian adaptation of an ancient Chinese fable seems an exercise in style. But that’s a pretty sterile excuse for a play–especially when the style is pastiche. It’s appropriate to Princess Turandot’s mixed origins but doesn’t correct the real problem: is this a human Punch-and-Judy show, full of slapstick battles that hurt no one, or a morality tale about fate and the illusions of love? Because playwright Carlo Gozzi fails to decide, the work fails at both. Similarly, viewers sophisticated enough to catch the production’s Niagara of cultural references–from StreetWise and the Florida recount to Hamlet, the Marx Brothers, and The Lucy Show–will be unlikely to care about the romance at its core, and those taken by the romance will be annoyed by the comic tangents and let down by the denouement.
