“The word 'theatre' comes from the Greeks. It means 'the seeing place.' It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.” – Stella Adler
The QC Theatre Workshop's latest production, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (and Davenport native) Susan Glaspell's Inheritors, is rightly the place to look for one's truth in life, and to understand views on a diverse archive of social situations.
In the beginning, Brent Tubbs directed a play. And the production was without form and void; darkness was upon the face of the show. And the spirit of Brent moved upon the three-person cast. And Brent said, “Let there be humor,” and there was laughter. And Brent heard the giggles, and it was good. And Brent said, “Behold, I have provided everything necessary for entertainment.” And he knew that it was heavenly … even though yours truly, on Saturday, missed out on several probably heavenly scenes.
While waiting for the Prenzie Players' Thursday-night dress rehearsal of the William Shakespeare comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost to begin, I realized it had been a long time since I had seen one of the Bard of Avon’s plays performed live. I pondered whether I would be able to follow the plot and comprehend the dialogue. I worried that the show might be too stuffy for my unrefined sense of theatre. “Holy crap, I'm supposed to write a review – what if I don’t get it?” Yet as the show began, the Prenzies put my neuroses to rest very quickly.
The local theatre troupe the Prenzie Players is most commonly known for stylistically bold, occasionally gender-bending takes on classical dramas and comedies, principally the works of William Shakespeare. But the company is about to embark on a particularly challenging experiment with its forthcoming production of the debuting Bear Girl - and the play's author, Prenzie co-founder J.C. Luxton, could hardly be accused of aiming too low.
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.
There are so many smart line deliveries in the Prenzie Players' Tartuffe that I could gush over each one here and still not have space for half of them. From Stephanie Moeller's forceful proclamation "I'm timid!" to Jessica Sheridan's delightfully wicked warning about being stuck with the unbearable title character "each day ... and night ... for life," Friday's performance had me cackling over and over again. I won't, however, point to any more specific line interpretations, for fear of ruining the element of surprise. A large part of the production's humor lies in hearing its words delivered in unexpected ways.
Roughly 10 minutes before the Prenzie Players' presentation of The Winter's Tale gets underway, there's a brief, improvisational scene between the Bohemian king Polixenes (David Furness) and Prince Mamillius (Stephanie Moeller), the young son of the king and queen of Sicily.
The Prenzie Players' presentation of Euripides' The Trojan Women, adapted by Richard Lattimore, runs just over an hour, and I can't imagine who would want it to last longer than that. There's so much anguish and grief on display, and the material appears so deeply felt by director Jill Sullivan-Bennin's cast, that the production leaves you not just haunted, but shaken; it's questionable whether either the actors or the audience could endure two hours of such extreme emotional states.
There's a special thrill you get from a stage work that seems not just beautifully, but perfectly cast, and following the curtain call for the Green Room's Friday-evening presentation of Doubt: A Parable - currently playing at the Harrison Hilltop Theatre - that thrill stuck with me for the rest of the night, and into the next day.
