After 12 years in the television-news business, I spent my first Election Day in more than a decade not covering the elections, but rather seeing a play about a bid for the presidency and the decision of whether to use personal attacks on opponents. And while watching the District Theatre's The Best Man, directed by Bryan Tank, I wondered if the point being made in this political morality play - that the business of politics is on a downward moral spiral - is one that needs to be made. Don't we, as a nation, already know that dirty politics are wrong, and doesn't this make the message of playwright Gore Vidal's 1960 work dated? A day later, though, I read an article about personal attacks and dishonesty continuing to be a part of political campaigns because these tactics work, and so Vidal's play, for better or worse, appears relevant after all.
Three days after seeing A Nice Family Gathering at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre, I was still trying to understand the inclusion of the word "nice" in playwright Phil Olson's title. This isn't a feel-good, fuzzy-holiday-feelings sort of Thanksgiving play that would render the title appropriate, if clichéd. Nor is it an over-the-top, crass, outrageous comedy that makes the use of the word ironic. (Nor, for the record, is it a play about a family with the last name Nice.) I'm guessing, however, that an over-the-top, crass, outrageous comedy was Olson's intent, given that the content of his play kind of approaches shocking, though barely.
During Thursday's presentation, actor James Thames seemed out of place in Scott Community College's The Actor's Nightmare, acting like he was acting, offering a limited range of emotions and inflections, and speaking with a note of desperation in his tone. However, his amateurish performance, whether by design or not, actually proved spot-on for this comedy in which a non-actor finds himself forced to perform roles in four plays with no prior rehearsals.
Jeremy Mahr seems to be dancing with his dialogue as Willmore, the titular character in the Prenzie Players' The Rover. Author Aphra Behn's words trip the light fantastic off his tongue, with Mahr presenting his rakish playboy so playfully that it's as though he's fluent in the stylized, 17th Century language of the period. And when the meaning of what he's saying is expressed through his entire body - particularly during Willmore's more amorous lines - the obviously fully invested Mahr is incredibly fun to watch.
Director Jeffrey Coussens makes some beautiful choices regarding the positioning of his Greek chorus of public-safety officers in Augustana College's The Arsonists. At different points in the play, he places this group of seven - with the character of the Policeman leading six firefighters - huddled on the stairs to the set's attic, flanking both sides of the stage with the same legs crossed, and sitting along the front of the stage, watching the action. And their orderly placement, along with the chorus members' bright yellow uniforms, are a striking contrast to the escalating destruction that's taking place on stage.
Avenue Q is one of a few musicals that I thought should maybe only be staged by Broadway professionals. However, it didn't take long during Friday's performance at the District Theatre for director Marc Ciemiewicz and his cast to prove they can handle Avenue Q, and handle it well.
As much as I love theatre-in-the-round, I recognize that not all plays work in a 360-degree environment. Take, for instance, Noises Off, the current offering at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre. A farcical comedy about the staging of a play (within the play) titled Nothing On, the show's second act offers, essentially, a view of the first act's goings-on seen from backstage, and the production's set is typically turned 180 degrees during the intermission to allow for that behind-the-scenes look. Consequently, prior to Thursday's performance at the Barn, I was baffled as to how director Jalayne Riewerts would pull off, in the round, this production of author Michael Frayn's farce. She does it, it turns out, by not staging the piece in the round.
The Irish accents are so good in New Ground Theatre's The Beauty Queen of Leenane that, during Friday night's performance, it actually took me a while to understand the actors - particularly Susan Perrin-Sallak and Melissa Anderson Clark, who play the mother and daughter at the center of the play. It took me about as long to also understand the reason playwright Martin McDonagh's work has won so many awards, as I found the story a bit slow and dull at first, though it gradually built to a punch that I didn't see coming despite (as I recognized in hindsight) it being clearly foreshadowed.
Prior to the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's opening-night performance of Smokey Joe's Café, and immediately following the Bootleggers' "birth of rock 'n' roll"-themed pre-show, my partner's daughter, Hannah, tried to argue that the doo-wop style of music heard in the wait staff's entertainment was not rock n' roll because ... well, because she's 13 and knows everything, the history of the genre be damned. Yet despite also proclaiming that she hated this sort of "it's not really rock 'n' roll" music that I warned her would populate the entire evening's entertainment, Hannah was all smiles at intermission, excitedly talking about how much she loved the songs, and even citing a few favorites by name. I hope Hannah's changes of opinion and attitude are testaments to the quality of Circa '21's endeavor. It's truly fantastic.
Judging by Friday's performance of The 39 Steps at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, it's apparent that director Tom Morrow likes sight gags and British humor. He handles playwright Patrick Barlow's comically melodramatic take on the 1915 spy thriller - and Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film - with care, avoiding over-the-top staging but highlighting the humor in ways that elicit a lot of laughs. (Whereas overselling the gags would likely elicit groans.)
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