Sometimes I will read a great book, or see a great play, and wait in excited expectation for the author’s next work. That was my feeling when I attended the District Theatre’s May 13 production of A Behanding in Spokane.
Let's say you're a young, male biology professor who has landed a job at a small New England college. After a faculty party and lots of drinking, you and your wife are invited for a nightcap at the home of a middle-aged history professor whose sexually charged spouse happens to be the college president's daughter. It's 2 a.m., the liquor keeps coming, and your hosts start to argue. Do you stay? Of course you do. What could go wrong?!
On a cold night indicative of February, weary of politicians and the weather, I escaped to Rock Island for the latest District Theatre offering Moon Over Buffalo. A Tony-nominated play that debuted on Broadway in 1995, author Ken Ludwig's farce is a comedy of silly, exaggerated humor, and probably not to every theatre-goer’s taste. But in my opinion, and judging by the belly laughs coming from Friday's opening-night audience, the humor as performed here clearly worked for a number of us.
At a time when current events make the world seem very dark and sick, the holidays remind us to reminisce with old friends, break out the carols, and bake a batch of Grandma's legendary cookies. One recipe to such a cruel world can be found in the District Theatre's current production Big Rock Candy Christmas. A sequel to last year's Big Rock Candy Mountain, this Christmas-flavored chapter brings back the same characters from the original with a new mission, new music, and even a few new faces.
Taking The Addams Family as a sign, I'm excited about the District Theatre's future in downtown Rock Island's former Argus building, and while there are still a few growing pains to overcome, the company is clearly off to a good start.
With its ornate ceiling and fascinating, borderline-gaudy hanging light fixtures in the District Theatre's new home in the former Rock Island Argus building, A Few Good Men seems an appropriate inaugural production, in that the space looks like a courtroom - at least while you're looking up. Following the company's sometimes uncomfortable (for patrons) stint in its previous, rather cramped venue, this open area with the ceiling rising two stories above the floor is a much welcome relief, allowing director Lora Adams' staging of Aaron Sorkin's courtroom drama to breathe in ways that, for the District Theatre, it otherwise couldn't have.
Genesius Guild's The Merry Wives of Windsor is a study in comedic styles, particularly in comparing the portrayals of Bob Hanske's lothario Falstaff and Andy Curtiss' hot-headed Ford. Hanske offers a vocally robust - and, thanks to costume designer Ellen Dixon, physically robust - performance that's delightfully buffoonish in his mannerisms and goofball inflections. Curtiss, on the other hand, plays his part of the jealous husband whose wife is coveted by Falstaff almost without accentuating its humor, choosing instead to allow his fluctuating anger to carry the comedy. And both actors are hilarious in their roles, stealing the show every moment they're on stage.
Thursday's preview performance of the District Theatre's High Fidelity was, during its first act, a painful experience ... because by intermission, my facial muscles actually hurt from smiling so much. While this musical - composed by Tom Kitt and Amanda Green, with a book by David Lindsay-Abaire - is, in itself, a lot of fun, director James Fairchild and his cast rocked the hell out of it, presenting its story of a record-store owner's most recent breakup (in a long line of them) with infectious energy.
Agatha Christie's whodunit The Mousetrap is among my favorites in the genre, mostly due to the humor the author wrote into it, as well as the clues she included that make it possible to actually discern who did do it. Although the murderer's identity still comes as something of a shock, the game of figuring out the killer remains fun. I just wish the District Theatre's current production of the piece were as enjoyable.
As with many things in life, it can be blamed on a friendly purple dinosaur.
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