The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute
presents

SNOW WHITE & THE BEAST

Written & Produced by MATHILDE DEHAYE
Directed by RENOLY SANTIAGO

July 23 - 25, 2014

The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute
115 E. 15th Street, NYC

Set Designer LILIANA INES BARRERA
Costume Designer URSULA GARCIA TINOCO
Sound/Lighting Designer NICHOLAS THOMAS
Press Representative SCOTTI RHODES PUBLICITY

Cast

Lili - Mathilde Dehave
Vincent - Malik Ali
Harold - David Woodrow
Gregory - Andre Torquato
Jerry - Brad Bolle
George - Gary Tavitian
The Man - Mauricio Bustamante
Keira - Christine Paterno


SNOW WHITE & THE BEAST is a cautionary tale of life choices, love, abuse and addiction told through the stories of painter Lili and poet Vincent. After meeting in a bar in New York City, the two become virtually inseparable, slipping deep into drug addiction and the deception that comes with it.

The play introduces a lot of material, mainly told in flashback by bar owner, Harold, including Lili's abusive father and Vincent's second life in London, to act as biography to explain the characters as they have become, but almost every scene inevitably runs too long, and some do little to add to the impact of the play. Many of the scenes between Lili and Vincent feature the effects of their drug use, and while interesting exercises in character studies, repetitive glimpses of them in these altered states undermined the script. Shorter hints of their various faces - Vincent's undercurrent of rage turned to actual violence; Lili's defiance and determination in the face of abuse; their moments of infatuation and lust posing as love and romance - would have made the piece stronger.

The set design made good use of the stage, although some of the scene changes themselves were not as smooth as they could be. Props and costumes were on point too, allowing the art created by Lili and Vincent's poems to act almost as additional characters in the play with physical presence on the stage.

Mathilde Dehaye's SNOW WHITE & THE BEAST is the winner of the 2014 StrasbergWorks competition. It is a flawed work, but also one that shows the promise of better things to come from playwright/performer/producer Dehaye.

- Kessa De Santis -