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Arts
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‘Master Class’ is dynamic
by Lisa Gauthier Nov 5, 2003

Theater Review | Thru Nov. 16

Civic Theatre is staging the Tony Award-winning play Master Class as the second offering of their season. The play is a different sort than Civic usually stages, but that didn’t stop them from creating a dynamic show.

Miki Mathioudakis as Maria Callas in Civic’s ‘Master Class’

Master Class is about the opera singer Maria Callas. In it, she is teaching a singing master class in the early ’70s, after her professional career has dried up. Three students, “victims” she — rightfully — calls them, are subjected to her rantings and abuse. The audience is directly addressed as spectators in the class. Though the three students — Erin Lynn Pickering, Rachael E. Noble and David Ackerman — each exhibit lovely operatic singing, their characters are merely vehicles to allow Callas’ story to come through. There is no question that Callas is, and always will be in her mind, the center of attention. Miki Mathioudakis as Callas is a firecracker as the aging, bitter diva. Callas was involved with Aristotle Onassis, whom she left her husband and, eventually, her career for. She expected Onassis to marry her. When Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy instead, Callas’ passion for life dwindled until her death in 1977 at the age of 53 — many said she died of a broken heart. I have no knowledge of what the real Callas was like, but Mathioudakis projects a rancorous attitude — one that could be understood given Callas’ love life, and her hike to fame — as well as the vulnerable moments of her personal life. Callas was a fat, ugly girl who made good — climbing the ladder to diva-hood by her fingernails. She is belligerently proud of her success, and never lets the students forget that music is sacrifice. Scenes from Callas’ life are told through flashbacks, which leak into the class through the music that is being performed. Callas’ stardom was a bitter-sweet tonic in the face of a lovelorn life. Highly recommended. Master Class, directed by Rose Kleiman, continues through Nov. 16; call 923-4597.

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