REVIEW from EXAMINER.COM
By Jim Strope

In Maidrid's Bow, 9 actors play 22 characters using costume changes, masks, funny fake beards and complete personality transformations to lead the audience through the hilarious farce. 

The effeminate men live on one side of the river, and the warlike women on the other, with cunning diversity on both sides.  Contact with the disgusting men is forbidden except under the auspices of the official annual orgy.  The Mighty Priestess Magora tries to keep everyone under heavy sexual constraint but lovers escape their bondage, or in some cases enter into it. 

Compared to the men, the warlike Amazons have a complex social life and much of the action of the play is focused on their familial struggles.  Played by Linda Wang, Vora is urged to be more violent and evolves from mildness to consummate wildness.  

Everyone on stage gets their moment, including the child, but Jason Jeremy as Mighty Priestess Magora dominates the stage with his/her/his decrees, poise and superb diction, ruling the society with a devotion to cosmic duty that is relieved with perfectly-timed asides that reveal a suppressed inner passion and intelligence. 

The versatile Monique Gonsalves is a pleasure to watch as Philandria the uncontrollably horny mouse and the domineering queen Jokonda who runs the fertility rite with brazen sexuality. 

Celeste Russi undergoes a profound personality change when disguised as an advising fox .  This is an actor's play and it's amazing what she can do behind a mask. 

Ryan Hayes plays the effeminate Fars with a catalog of over-the-top flamboyant mannerisms that give everyone permission to laugh at this very adult fairy tale. 

Morgan Ludlow's script is packed with reversals, double-entendres and in-your-face action.  The action is so emotionally charged that the pace slows down when the script occasionally tries to get logical. 

Under the direction of director David Stein, it is the personality of the characters, the plentiful slapstick, exaggerated gesture and the fast-paced and sometimes violent action that carries the play.  The characters are in constant physical and emotional motion.  The stylized over-acting is perfect for the story and the intimate Stage Werx theatre.  The diction is very good and the fight scenes have moments of surprising realism.  The excellent stagecraft makes this production among the very best that community theatre has to offer. It teases on the very edge of theatre, dance, and song. 

Go see this beautiful actor's play.  They have taken over the stage and are having a great time. 

Maidrid's Bow plays at the Stage Werx theatre in San Francisco until August 8th. 

http://www.examiner.com/x-7599-SF-Community-Theater-Examiner~y2009m7d10-Maidrids-Bow