Zastrozzi

at the Melville Theatre

Summary of play from Melville theatre website.

Zastrozzi tells the story of an amoral and charismatic criminal mastermind and master swordfighter who cuts a swath of destruction across Europe in the 19th century.

Zastrozzi relentlessly pursues revenge against Verezzi, a naïve and disturbed artist who has been one step ahead of Zastrozzi for the past three years thanks to his tutor, Victor. But Zastrozzi, with his not too bright sidekick Bernardo, and Matilda (the greatest seductress of Europe and lover of Zastrozzi), have finally caught up.

Now, it is time for all to meet, and what is left to do is decide if you on the side of goodness and purity, or evil… or like Julia, being simply thrown into world you know nothing about and hope to land on your feet!

This is a play adaptation of the classic story of Zastrozzi by  Percy Bysshe Shelley. The first half of it was pretty good but the second half seemed a little hastil wrapped up. At the end of it I felt the characters deteriorated from the plot, in that I did not have a clear idea of why the characters do what they did. Their dialogue seemed slightly off character and in the end I do not see the purpose of what Zastrozzi as done. If Zastrozzi was as smart as he claims, more should have came from how things ended. If one were to bank on wit and charisma to be his strong points, I would have liked to have seen this being brought through to the end. Overall, it was average. Plot could have been better developed, maybe keeping to the original story more would have been better.