On the program cover for the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse’s new family musical, right under the names of show creators Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich, you’ll find this brief synopsis: “A delightful adaptation of four of Barbara Park’s best-selling books.” The built-in praise seemed a tad presumptuous: Its delightfulness wasn’t (hopefully) going to be our opinion, but was rather a fact? Well ... yeah. With its hugely endearing ensemble and peppy, cheerfully sung songs, Junie B. Jones: The Musical is almost inarguably entertaining, and would likely have been an hour of radiant, capitalized Sunshine even if that weren’t also the first name of its gifted leading performer.
During Friday's performance, the QC Theatre Workshop's The Pillowman had me in stitches. While I didn't laugh loudly often, I did chuckle repeatedly throughout the performance, only subduing my laughs out of concern that the subject of my delight was too dark to be funny. But playwright Martin McDonagh's dark comedy is both unquestionably dark and outrageously funny. I mean, it has a young girl (Laila Haley) who considers herself Christ-like proclaiming, "I don't think I'm Jesus. I [effing] am Jesus!" That is some dark comedy.
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