items tagged with Rae Mary

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.

New Ground Theatre’s Bad Habits is one of those rare local productions where the focus is on the writers rather than the actors, directors, or technical aspects. While a cast and crew, of course, are involved, the work gathers short plays written by local playwrights. Running a touch more than an hour, Thursday’s performance showcased the promise of these local wordsmiths, while also revealing areas on which they need to focus as they work on their next pieces – the most notable being writing as people would actually speak.

Originally produced in 1934, Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour - the current presentation at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre - concerns a monstrous little boarding-school brat who falsely accuses her headmistresses of engaging in a lesbian affair, a charge that leads to parental panic, financial ruin, and the destruction of several lives. In an era that finds the Iowa Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage, Hellman's melodrama now seems more like a museum piece than it would have even two months ago, and so it was wise of director Patti Flaherty to set her production firmly in the past - even though that past feels less like the 20th Century than 400 BC.

Genesius Guild's season-ender opens with a visual gag so wonderfully surprising that I wouldn't dream of describing it, and closes with a slapstick chase so wonderfully goofy that I couldn't describe it if I wanted to.

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.