November 2001 found Miles gleefully playing Banco in the New York premiere of MACBETT:

Revolving Shakespeare's mind-blowing Monty Python meets Brecht meets Blackadder meets Darwin meets Puppet Show meets Chaos Theory inside a Faberge Egg variation on Eugene Ionesco's wildly absurdist take on The Scottish Play.

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"Finally, in the Ionesco Festival, it was the last of the staged full-length plays that got it entirely right: Ionesco's delightfully wacky Shakespeare parody, MACBETT . . . received a production as surrealistically absurd as the writing. The credit for this inventing and witty Revolving Shakespeare Company production goes to director Kip Rosser . . . set and lighting designer Roman J. Tatarowicz . . . and nine cast members . . . well attuned to the zaniness of the production style . . . MACBETT was performed in a black box framed in white. The set . . . black and white with a forced perspective. The props and set pieces were all clever pen-and-ink drawings in two dimensions on cardboard. For example, Duncan was killed with cardboard daggers thrown at him that stuck with blood red tape.

"Ionesco's comic variations include . . . the appearance of such characters as the Thanes of Glamiss and Candor (both played by Andrew Thacher simultaneously), and Macbett and Banco working together to rid the world of Duncan. Ionesco's message concerns the abuse of power, in contrast to Shakespeare's focus on the evil effects of ambition.

"The animated Miles Phillips gave the most interesting performance as a philosophical and effete Banco. Among the women, Kim Patton proved her versatility, first as the obedient wife to Duncan who turns into a shrew, and then as Macbett's passionate lover, and finally revealed to be the lusty first witch. As Macol, son to Duncan, Jonathan Green had some wonderfully hilarious moments with an impenetrable Scottish accent. James Leach's Duncan was suitably dictatorial, while Theseus Roche's bland, nerdy Macbett placed the focus on the entire ensemble."

Victor Gluck - Backstage

"Thorough if not extensive research suggests that MACBETT has never been produced by a professional theatre company in New York City; this surprising bit of information all by itself makes Revolving Shakespeare's revival of this 1972 play by Eugene Ionesco newsworthy and important . . . Artistic director Ralph Carhart, producing director Daniel Colb Rothman, and director Kip Rosser must be congratulated for providing New York with a belated but very necessary look at this neglected work from one of the 20th century's master playwrights . . . set/lighting designer Roman Tatarowicz, has filled the stage with gorgeous, resonant images of warfare and statecraft that provide commentary – sometimes ironic, sometimes not – on the dubious virtues of each . . . It's also very funny, in places, and very smart. Rosser has cast the piece well, with solid work in the leading roles (Theseus Roche as Macbett, Miles Phillips as Banco, James Leach as Duncan, Kim Patton as Lady Duncan) and excellent support from five actors who play what feels like a thousand different roles (Jonathan Green, Lanie MacEwan, Matthew Pendergast, Dara Seitzman, and Andrew Thacher).

This is as expert an ensemble as you'll find off-off-Broadway . . . My cultural education has been enhanced by this worthy production; I had a pretty good time, too! See MACBETT for either reason. (But see it soon: it only runs one more week.)"

Martin Denton - nytheatre.com

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Set in the dark time during and just following the reign of fascist leader Benito Mussolini, Revolving Shakespeare's productions of The Merchant of Venice and The Doctor of Rome re-examine Shakespeare's classic tale.

Even now, Merchant finds itself listed under the comedies in the canon. It does follow the classic comedy mold in that the play ends with multiple marriages, features cross-dressing and, even though the threat of death hangs over the play, no one, in fact, dies. However, if the canon is to be thought of as a living, breathing entity (and what else is the purpose of theatre but to take text and make it live?) it is difficult to look at the circumstances within the play in a contemporary context and call them joyous. This is why we have chosen to set them during one of the darkest periods in human history.

Yes, the play ends in marriages, but none of them are worry free. Portia and Bassanio have to live with the specter of Bassanio's betrayal in the courtroom, verbally choosing Antonio's life over Portia's. Plus, there is the question of Lorenzo's motives in marrying Jessica.

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And, even though no one dies, if we look to the character who is most associated with this play, Shylock, his fate is perhaps worse than death. Forced to surrender a large portion of his wealth, abandon his religion and convert, and, most importantly, losing his daughter, Shylock is a broken man at the end of the play. While the prejudice of 16th-century England would have made his fate deserving in the eyes of Shakespeare's audience, the same is not true today. While his quest for the "pound of flesh" is certainly extreme, the thirst for revenge has enobled other Shakespearean characters from Romeo to Hamlet. And, just as with Romeo... and Hamlet, this thirst leads to his downfall.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

"Revolving Shakespeare's excellent new production of The Merchant of Venice is being presented in conjunction with the premiere of a sequel, The Doctor of Rome. I've just seen Merchant and I can't wait to find out what happens next: as director/adaptor Ralph Carhart rightly points out in program notes, one of the things that sets The Merchant of Venice apart from Shakespeare's other comedies is the fact that, though the story has come to an end, almost nothing seems to have been settled.

"Of course, the other distinguishing feature of this difficult, complicated play is its theme of anti-Semitism, and it is here that Carhart's production really raises the bar. Carhart has rearranged Shakespeare's text, a practice I'm not usually in favor of; but it's been done here with exceeding skill and for worthy purpose.

"This Merchant of Venice is an exploration of intolerance and prejudice and the blind hatred they cause, certainly a subject that has been and needs to be on our minds these days. Antonio, the merchant of the title, is a bigot of some zeal, denouncing the Jew Shylock as a cur even as he stoops to borrow three thousand ducats from him. Shylock despises the Christians who persecute him and becomes obsessed with the idea of murdering one of them as a symbolic act of vengeance. Jessica, Shylock's daughter, fears her father's obsessions and hates the virtual imprisonment that, because of her religion, has been her lot; consequently, she eagerly embraces the chance to run off with the Christian fortune-hunter Lorenzo, probably against her better judgment.

"But Carhart doesn't stop here. He makes much of Portia's racist denunciation of the Prince of Morocco; though he's clearly less a fool than the Caucasian Prince of Aragon, he nevertheless comes in for far more of her wrath. And later in the play, when Lorenzo chides Shylock's former servant Launcelot for fathering a child with a Moorish girl, an exchange that's usually played for laughs feels very ugly indeed. The one thing worse than marrying a Jew, according to Lorenzo, is to marry a Negro.

"Carhart sets the play in the Italy of Mussolini, which works well. The reduced liberties of an independent woman like Portia tie in deftly with her assumption of male drag as a lawyer in the play's second half. And the unstated imminent fate of European Jews like Shylock provides potent subtext for the piece.

"So Carhart mines Shakespeare's comedy for its most serious revelations about humankind's ignorant hatreds and we wind up with plenty to think about throughout the play. This does not mean, though, that this Merchant is overly dour; indeed, the scenes involving Portia and her suitors come off as the light-hearted fairy tale they should. Carhart has cut the character of Gratiano (Bassanio's servant who flirts with Portia's maid Nerissa); this helps move things along more quickly without any real cost. The clown Launcelot, happily foolish in the early scenes, joins Mussolini's Black Shirts near the end of the play, becoming a menacing thug—a shrewd notion, that.

"The production features the intelligent, well-crafted performances that are Revolving Shakespeare's hallmark. Lou Tally is superb as Shylock, revealing the layers of complexity of this man. When, after Jessica elopes with Lorenzo, he speaks of the loss of his diamonds, it's clear that it's the daughter, not the stones, that he is lamenting. Lanie MacEwan (Portia), Michael Mendelson (Antonio), Miles Phillips (Bassanio), Derek Johnson (Lorenzo), Matthew Pendergast (Launcelot), and David Alan Bachrach (Balthazar) also offer particularly finely-wrought characterizations. Rob Langeder is supremely funny as the annoyingly egotistical Prince of Aragon.

"Sebastien Grouard's unit set is effective and, especially during the scenes at Portia's home in Belmont, quite lovely. Andrew Dickey's lighting and Jim Parks' costumes serve the production well.

"Giving us a Merchant of Venice that is entertaining and thought-provoking, Carhart and the Revolving Shakespeare folks prove that this play need not be the problem it is often presumed to be. They're breathing new life into the canon, and they deserve our gratitude for that."

Martin Denton - nytheatre.com

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Unlike most of the comedies, which usually wrap things up in a neat little package at their completion, Merchant just leaves one with more questions. Which is why Nat Colley's The Doctor of Rome is such an excellent play. Colley has taken the main characters from the first story and has shown us what has happened to them eighteen years after the events that take place in Merchant: Portia and Bassanio are still married and Jessica has a son by Lorenzo, Daniel, Shylock's grandson.

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THE DOCTOR OF ROME

"I can't decide whether the most impressive thing about The Doctor of Rome, Nat Colley's sequel to The Merchant of Venice, is that it's so well-crafted or that it's so smart. As presented by Revolving Shakespeare Company in repertory with their excellent production of Merchant, The Doctor of Rome emerges immediately as an important new work, one that forces us to reconsider the Bard's original "comedy" as well as our own attitudes about religion, tolerance, justice, and the institutions that surround these noble ideas.

"Colley's play begins eighteen years after Shakespeare's, in Belmont, where Portia and Bassanio now live and where their godson, Daniel, spends much of his time. Daniel is the son of Jessica and Lorenzo, and as he approaches manhood his future is the source of some controversy among those who love him. Portia wants him to become a doctor of laws, like her cousin Bellario (and her alter ego Balthazar, the young attorney who saved the day at Antonio's trial against Shylock). She has convinced Jessica to send Daniel to Padua, where he will become Bellario's apprentice; Jessica, for her part, is happy to do so when she discovers that Daniel is in love with (and wants to marry) Rachel, the daughter of her old servant Launcelot Gobbo and a Moor.

"Bassanio, on the other hand, wants Daniel to follow in his own footsteps (and his father Lorenzo's) and become a merchant. Neither Bassanio nor Lorenzo has had much success running Antonio's business (that gentleman having died in the ensuing years), but they have high hopes for Daniel, who is eager to prove them correct.

"Portia, rather typically, decides to get her way in this matter by drugging Bassanio's drink. But as Bassanio collapses, temporarily ill, he begs Daniel to go to Venice and carry out a life-or-death deal in pork with a Roman trader named Largo. Daniel of course pledges to go. Just then, an old Jew appears, whom Jessica and Bassanio recognize as Tubal, Shylock's friend. He bears the news that Shylock has died and, in accordance with the settlement those long years ago, his property must be conveyed to Jessica. Daniel, who has grown up entirely unaware of his ancestor, suddenly comes face to face with a troubling new truth.

"This truth—that a young man who has grown up as a Christian can suddenly become a Jew—propels the rest of the play. Daniel journeys with his mother to Venice, where he encounters prejudice from practically all sides. The merchants who willingly trade with a Christian wish only to spit upon and beat the same man when they discover he's a Jew. The Jews are not much more accepting of Daniel's fiancée Rachel, with her half-Muslim background. And the Duke of Venice is not at all willing to dispense justice to the now down-and-out Daniel—that is, until the economy of Venice is threatened when Daniel inadvertently exposes the fraudulent Balthazar.

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"Colley proves himself a worthy heir to Shakespeare with what happens next. Indeed, he very nearly trumps the master by proving that what seemed like light-hearted folly when only the life of a Jew hung in the balance, turns deadly serious as Portia and Bassanio struggle to defend themselves. What once seemed trivial to these privileged people—disguises, deceptions, wedding rings, and so on—suddenly takes on the greatest import.

"Colley's final scene, itself a kind of homage to the original work, ends the play on a slightly jarring, cynical note. But his points about the way the world really works—and, especially, about what's most important to the modern polity (i.e., preservation of the status quo to ensure that the rich and powerful remain so)—are right on target. In finishing Shakespeare's famous story, Colley has also updated some of the play's most compelling themes, with an insight and intelligence that provokes and challenges us to look carefully not only at what we think we know about The Merchant of Venice but also at ourselves.

"Daniel Colb Rothman directs the piece with assurance and grace. The cast is generally quite good, with particularly fine work turned in by John Peterson as the questing protagonist Daniel (though he needs to guard against occasionally swallowing his lines); Miles Phillips as the eternal weakling Bassanio; Lanie MacEwan as scheming Portia, less noble than we remember her from Merchant; Brian Linden as the pragmatic Duke of Venice; Mike Finesilver as an aged, understanding Tubal; and Lawrence Merritt as the aristocratic merchant Largo."

Martin Denton - nytheatre.com

"The actors are game, however, and do their best. Lanie MacEwan and Miles Phillips do fine by Portia and Bassanio, despite facing almost embarrassing turns of fate in Colley's hands. Peterson is good as Daniel, and Butler makes a highly appealing Rachel. Lawrence Merritt is quietly threatening as the trader Largo, and Brian Linden brings plenty of comedy (a good deal of it most likely unintended) to the Duke of Venice."

Matthew Murray - talkinbroadway.com

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