The Dentist (or Be Careful What You Put In Your Mouth)

A Capricious Clown Comedy by Jason Kendall

With bedtime stories by French maids, magic candy from flying witches, succulent borscht from the Dells of Wisconsin, and a healthy dose of uncontrolled nymphomania and sword-swashbuckling, this raucous, absurd farce is better than nitrous oxide! Open wide and say AAAAAAAH!

Pantalone, he of the corpulent girth, extended ego, aged years and extreme wealth has decided to take the lovely (and much younger) Isabella as his new bride, despite the fact that she is in love with his son Oratio, and he with her. It’s up to Pantalone’s crafty servant Pedrolino to save the day. Aided by Isabella’s maidservant Franceschina, her self-absorbed brother Flavio, Pantalone’s nymphomaniac daughter and a very angry doctor, Pedrolino concocts a scheme to make Pantalone believe he has the worst breath in history, figuring that while Pantalone goes to seek the help of a dentist, the young lovers will have time to run away together. (Ever notice how young lovers always seem to need help in these sorts of stories?)

However the path of true love never runs smooth, nor do schemes to keep it so, it seems; and Pedrolino has to contend with a rhyming witch, several misguided suitors for Isabella’s hand, and some candy that has a very unusual effect upon whomever so shall decide to take a taste — all the while trying to keep his own plans on track. A hit at the 2000 International Fringe Festival, The Dentist was also staged at the Duplex Cabaret in New York for several weeks in 2005.

Playwright Jason Kendall is in the casting pool of Cirque du Soleil in their clown group. The Dentist was inspired by the combination of Cirque, studies with commedia master Carlo Mazzone-Clemente at Dell’Arte School of Physical Theater, the writings of Flaminia Scala and a long story about the Mud People and red-nosed clowns getting arrested in Austin, Texas for indecent exposure. Jason specializes in the direction of farce and comedic plays, having directed Two Gentlemen of Verona (all-minority cast), Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure at the New York Comedy Club. Elsewhere he has directed For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls, All the World’s a Stage (a farcical musical based on As You Like It), Don Juan in Hell, and Merry Wives of Windsor. Jason also is the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Saturdays, a minority-outreach reading series of Shakespeare.

Part of The Merry Month of May theater festival.

Box Office Hours: one hour before showtime

Appropriate For Ages: 17+