items tagged with Liz Paxton

The trouble with the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s The Trouble with Cats is that Patti Flaherty is not featured enough during its two-and-a-half-hour length. Playing a dry, crass, flirtatious lowbrow named Joy Bombay, Flaherty proves it’s possible to present bad material in a way that’s enjoyable to watch, and when I laughed during Friday’s performance, it was usually due to Flaherty’s comedically nuanced deliveries or comically condescending or cruel facial expressions and body language. The actor is clearly gifted when it comes to comedy.

The last time I watched Nancy Teerlinck perform, earlier this year, she offered a moving portrayal of a matriarch making tough, emotional decisions in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s Moving. Yet as much as I liked her in that role, I think she’s even better when she’s playing … well, a bitch … such as the one she portrays in Playcrafters’ current offering, The Christmas Express. Teerlinck’s Hilda, who runs the play's Holly Railway Station, is an acerbic, crotchety, sarcastic, bitchy delight, and I think I now love the performer, and want to see this side of her comicality a lot more often.

There’s a lovely sincerity to the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s production of Bernard Slade’s Moving, and Saturday’s performance possessed such realism – with notable acting from every member of director Bryan Woods' cast – that I had to wonder how such an impressively produced piece could feel so mismatched with its script.