items tagged with Dee Canfield

If you haven't yet attended a production of the show, Agatha Christie's murder mystery The Mousetrap - which has been running in London's West End for more than 56 years now - is definitely worth a look-see. Boasting ripe British caricatures and the author's signature brand of mordant wit, this clever, funny play is one of Christie's most enjoyably constructed contraptions.

If, however, you have seen The Mousetrap before, you'll still find plenty to enjoy in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's current presentation of the piece ... even if the most enjoyable aspects of director Tristan Layne Tapscott's production are ones I can't get into here (at least not without plastering SPOILER ALERT at the top of every paragraph).

Euripides' Medea, the title character of the Greek drama currently being produced in Rock Island's Lincoln Park, is a vengeful sorceress who - after discovering the unfaithfulness of her lover, Jason - kills Jason's wife, the king of Corinth, and, in her most monstrous act, her two young sons. And while I'm not sure what it says about me, I may have had more sheer fun at this Genesius Guild endeavor than at any other I've seen over the past two years. With superior direction by Peggy Hanske, this Medea is a vibrantly dramatic, unexpectedly funny, and completely accessible version of the classic tale, and it's the most consistently well-acted Genesius Guild production I've yet seen.

Here's one for fellow fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy: You know how badly we wanted to see The Two Towers after The Fellowship of the Ring? That's how badly I want to see the Prenzie Players' King Henry the Fourth after Saturday night's production of King Richard the Second.

For those of you who aren't Lord of the Rings fans, I think you still get my meaning; King Richard the Second - the first installment in the Shakespeare troupe's three-part cycle of Henry plays, entitled The Henriad - is so thrillingly staged and sublimely well acted that the February continuation can't possibly come soon enough.

A leading actor tortured by the inability to play a role he can't feel. A narcissistic starlet unashamedly flaunting her sexuality. A group of second bananas complaining about the sizes of their roles. A sweet-faced ingénue enduring the advances of an older sponsor. A clueless playwright convinced that his pedestrian dialogue is marvelous.

No, Genesius Guild isn't tackling Terrence McNally or Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, but rather Henri Gheon, whose play The Comedian opened at Lincoln Park this past Saturday.