"From Richard’s team of insurgents to the representatives of the royal state, everybody in power treats women abominably. Aware of that, Hagerty counters with his secret weapon: Christianna Nelson, his most reliable collaborator. Nelson, a Shakespeare specialist, applies her knack for making thick passages of archaic language intelligible for audiences to the difficult role of Queen Elizabeth (not the one you’re thinking of). She sees Elizabeth as a woman in an exalted position whose practical power to shape her world is tightly circumscribed by convention. The looks she shoots Richard — who gives as good as he gets — during stuffy court sequences are a delight. As she did as Lady Macbeth and Juliet’s Nurse in prior Curtain productions, Nelson uses her body, her inflections, and her sense of rhythm to quicken and intensify the scenes she’s in. A lengthy negotiation between Nelson’s Elizabeth and Sellon’s Richard is as deft and propulsive as jazz players trading fours."
-Tris McCall, Jersey City Times
"Christiana Nelson gives Queen Elizabeth a fierce dignity even as her children fall to Richard’s schemes."
"Even if Elizabethan verse isn’t your comfort zone, The Curtain’s nimble cast and the theater’s admirable acoustics make it clear as day... Here, the stakes stay personal, not historical, and you won’t need to dive through your Cliff Notes to follow the story or identify the characters."
Photo by Will O’Hare
Photo by Will O’Hare
Photo by Will O’Hare