CASTANETS

Told with humor and humanity, this offers some penetrating satire on the relationship of royalty and subjects. The reigning Braganzas skip from Portugal to Brazil in retreat from Napoleon's conquests. The royal cast includes an indecisive king, Dom Juan; a mad queen, Marie; a hideous princess, one of the Spanish Infantas, and some excess baggage in the form of Prince Pedro's fiery mistress who throws words and objects with indiscriminate force. (Sad that we must go back 150 years to a non-English country, and fiction to boot, in order to be able to poke fun pointedly in an area that begs for it but persists in semi-piety for full royalty.)