items tagged with Patti Flaherty

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.

I could’ve left Saturday’s Playcrafters Barn Theatre production of Ghost of a Chance at intermission and been quite pleased with the evening’s entertainment. Unfortunately, I exited after the night's second act frustrated almost to the point of anger – not at director Patti Flaherty or her cast, but at the show's playwrights Flip Kobler and Cindy Marcus.

For our third-annual conversation on the Year in Theatre, Thom White – the Reader’s chief theatre reviewer – and I thought we’d shake things up a bit. So instead of meeting for an hours-long breakfast to discuss the area stage scene, we met for an hours-long dinner to discuss the area stage scene.

And while I managed to keep things lively by spilling a completely full glass of water not 10 minutes after sitting down, we also managed to touch on many of the varied experiences that Thom (occasionally accompanied by his partner’s daughter Madison) and/or I had during another eventful year for fans of the theatre. Pack a lunch, sit back, and dive in ... .

Director Paul Workman deserves high praise for making the Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s Titanic Aftermath at all watchable, particularly as the boat is sinking in the second act. Throughout Friday’s performance, I kept thinking that playwright Michael Wehrli’s script was a fantastic historical account, but also kept wondering, “Why is it a stage play?” With so much action described, and so little played out visually, especially during the first act, this piece might as well be a radio drama, or the script for a documentary on the Titanic. As a theatrical production, however, Wehrli's work is … well, rather boring.

New Ground Theatre’s current offering, Mr. Marmalade, is about four-year-old Lucy and her imaginary friends. Suicidal, coke-snorting, physically and mentally abusive imaginary friends. And it’s incredibly funny. One particularly dark scene during Thursday's performance, in fact, had me laughing so hard, for so long, that I was wiping away tears by the end of it.