Sharpenicity

The Love of the Nightingale is at Constellation Theatre  Overheard after the show: “Powerful” “So elegant.” “Violent beyond television but thought provoking.” These are not words to describe some modern day urban myth which might be debunked as an unbelievable scary story-- but it well sums up an ancient one that Sophocles first told of 2500 years ago. The snippets of his tale has been been adapted in many forms from Ovid in his magnificent opus Metamorphoses to the lastest theatrical treasure, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale .    Allison Stockman, Constellation Theatre Company’s founder and director, said she loved this play from the moment she read it.  Not only does it include all the exciting possibilities of theater (choreographied fight scenes, a retelling of Phaedra , a bawdy puppet show, wild Bacchanalian frenzy) but it goes to the meaning of theater and its  power of expression.    What is shocking in the ancient myth of th