Eliza Bockstahler and Liz Stigler in The Learned LadiesSet 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.

Oh man, how I'm going to miss Don Wooten.

The Genesius Guild founder, who will be retiring from active Guild duties after this, his 50th season with the organization, kicked off Saturday night's production of Aristophanes' The Birds with a few opening remarks to the Lincoln Park audience, and as is often the case, they were the most sincere, relaxed, and effortlessly amusing words heard all night. (Wooten also serves as The Birds' director and, uncredited, wrote its faithful but very loosely structured Genesius adaptation.)

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