There are so many smart line deliveries in the Prenzie Players' Tartuffe that I could gush over each one here and still not have space for half of them. From Stephanie Moeller's forceful proclamation "I'm timid!" to Jessica Sheridan's delightfully wicked warning about being stuck with the unbearable title character "each day ... and night ... for life," Friday's performance had me cackling over and over again. I won't, however, point to any more specific line interpretations, for fear of ruining the element of surprise. A large part of the production's humor lies in hearing its words delivered in unexpected ways.
Set in 17th Century France, Augustana College's production of the Molière comedy The Learned Ladies takes place in the salon of a Paris manor, and among the first things you notice about Adam Parboosingh's scenic design are the stacks of books standing five feet high from the floor. It's actually impossible not to notice them, as the (prop) books have been painted in a variety of bright colors that make them resemble oversize, rectangular Skittles, or perhaps the reading material for Belle's library in Disney's Beauty & the Beast. They're certainly eye-catching, but there's no way anyone could mistake them for, you know, real books, and The Learned Ladies itself turns out to be a lot like them - deliberately artificial, kind of amusing, and, unfortunately, pretty much divorced from real-world experience.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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