26
Jan
2015
The beauty of New Ground Theatre's comedy Things Being What They Are lies in how our hearts gradually soften for Michael Carron's crotchety, imposing Jack, a rudely forward character who pushes his presence onto his neighbor Bill (Matt Moody), and whom playwright Wendy MacLeod uses to explore themes of marriage and mortality.
New Ground Theatre's Clybourne Park, written by Bruce Norris as a sequel, of sorts, to Lorraine Hansberry's classic play A Raisin in the Sun, takes quite a bit of time to get rolling. But once it does, this exploration of racial tensions at different points in American history is wickedly hilarious. Director Chris Jansen effectively employs a slow, nearly dull pacing to build to a significant payoff, particularly in the second act, when the purposefully bland tone fits the play's scene of a neighborhood-association meeting. Following Friday's performance, I was amused at how, during the presentation, I went from being almost bored to laughing heartily.
If I were to detail the plot of playwright Matthew Lopez's The Whipping Man, it would sound like the outline of a soap opera, given that the twists seem so melodramatically shocking. However, the story doesn't play out that way, both because Lopez handles the revelations so well, and because New Ground Theatre presents this story of a Confederate soldier and two of his family's freed slaves with respect and sincerity.
