It struck me, during Saturday's matinée performance of Big River at the Timber Lake Playhouse, that theatre is my church, considering I repeatedly wanted to raise my hands in praise and shout "Amen!" at various points, and in ways I used to while attending Sunday services in my younger years. Theatre, for me, is a spiritual experience, and this Big River served as a big-tent revival that reminded me of that truth.
Prior to last Thursday, I had seen 40 productions at Mt. Carroll's Timber Lake Playhouse, and somehow, during all those visits, I had never been there when it rained. Yet rain it did on Thursday, and it rained hard, and I couldn't imagine more fitting weather for the venue's opening-night performance of An Inspector Calls, an eerie, succulent psycho-drama (with laughs) that made the literal storm clouds a spectacular match for the figurative ones on-stage.
Based on the justly celebrated 1974 nonfiction by Studs Terkel, the musical Working is a two-act series of vignettes on the joys and frustrations of professional life, and the search for satisfaction in even the most mundane of careers. It's somewhat ironic, then, that in the Timber Lake Playhouse's current, wholly engaging, superbly performed production of the show, the most effective segment in it concerns a man who actually doesn't work for a living.
After an extended silent-movie montage - one featuring clips from F.W. Murnau's horror classic Nosferatu - and the appearance of the show's title, the Timber Lake Playhouse's Sunset Boulevard opens with screenwriter Joe Gillis (Brandon Ford) at the bottom of a swimming pool. Granted, the water, like that montage, is a multimedia projection, and Gillis is standing (and singing) rather than floating face-down. But the Act I prelude is still enough like the opening to Billy Wilder's beloved Hollywood noir that fans of the Sunset Boulevard movie will likely smile in recognition and appreciation, and we're returned to this scene of a future crime at the start of the musical's second act.
As the title character in the Timber Lake Playhouse's Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Chris Froseth is a spectacularly confident dork. With his slender frame, curly mop of brown hair, and iconic horn-rimmed glasses, he nails the physicality to perfection, and his cascading drawl and thrilling rock vocals are oftentimes uncannily similar to Holly's. Yet what's even more impressive is how completely the actor seems to capture the singer/songwriter's gawky yet fantastically determined spirit.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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