Downstairs at the Garage, Cambridge, Mass.
May 31 – June 24, 2007
As Don Armado, with Khalil Flemming as Moth (PHOTO: Kippy Goldfarb)
As Don Armado, with Khalil Flemming as Moth (PHOTO: Kippy Goldfarb)
As Boyet, with Sarah Newhouse as the Princess of France (PHOTO: Kippy Goldfarb)
Critical Response
“But it’s Johnny Lee Davenport, who minces the language with a fine comic edge and flounces about with a parody of a macho mustache in the part of Armado, between bouts as the dogged and suspicious Dull and the brightly troublesome Boyet, who steals the show. Imposing in physical size as well as in the comic incandescence of his personae, Davenport seems to set the pace; it’s around his roles and his presence that Moth sports and the other characters fumble their way toward their hearts’ desires. It’s no passing jest when Boyet reads Armado’s hash of a love letter aloud as the Princess and her gal pals, hunting in the forest, make sport with a bow; Davenport is the emotional lynchpin of the piece.”
—Killian Melloy, EDGE Boston (June 3, 2007)
“Shakespeare & Company vet Johnny Lee Davenport makes an aptly intense, fancy-language-butchering Don Armado. ”
—Carolyn Clay, Boston Phoenix (June 5, 2007)
“Holofernes is matched, bite for bite, in scenery chewing by the ecstatically over-the-top Don Armado of Johnny Lee Davenport, rolling his Rs up one side of his twirling mustachios and down the other.”
—Louise Kennedy, Boston Globe (June 6, 2009)
“Johnny Lee Davenport, the accomplished Shakespearean actor, leads the troupe by virtue of his suave, melodious handling of the language, always a pleasure for listening. He’s better known for his portrayals of Othello and Iago, but he cuts a funny figure as the constable Dull, and a terrific body in motion for the dance sequences, choreographed by Kelli Edwards.”
—Iris Fanger, The Patriot Ledger (June 8, 2007)
“Johnny Lee Davenport’s Don Armado was a boldly, but accurately, rendered delight.”
—Thomas Garvey, The Hub Review (June 14, 2007)
“[This] uproarious production that goes for the humor of a music hall or vaudeville performance, or even in the case of cast member Johnny Lee Davenport whom the director has perform three roles—Dull, Boyet, and Don Armado—in the vein of commedia dell’ arte. A bear of a man working on a pocket hanky of a stage, Davenport is most magnificent when he takes a character to the heights of absurdity.”
—Kay Bourne, Kay Bourne Arts Report (June 15, 2007)
“The adorably pompous Don Armado transforms himself from “exampling” glorious affectation into the quick witted accomplice of the princess merely by adjusting the direction of his handlebar mustache up or down! Johnny Lee Davenport’s Spanish accent is only surpassed by his dimmest of constables.”
—Beverly Creasey, Theater Mirror (June 2007)