10
Oct
2016
The awe and mystery behind the technical workings of the brain are topics that have been explored for ages, and in 1966, author Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon was published, his brain-y themes diving deep into our fundamental humanity and the costs of scientific ventures versus their rewards. Having read and enjoyed the novel in high school, I re-read it before seeing the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's and playwright David Rogers' stage adaptation, and am happy to say that director Dana Moss-Peterson and his cast provided an evening of thought-provoking theatre with relatable characters – one that was true to the book and, for me, just as moving.
I sat through Thursday's The Boys Next Door at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre fascinated and perplexed by the mixture of emotions I felt. Author Tom Griffin's play about four men with various degrees of mental illness living together in a group home is a comedy, for sure. But director John VanDeWoestyne and his cast presented it in such a way that I wanted to "Ha!" and "Aw-w-w!" simultaneously during almost every moment. The piece is both funny and deeply touching, and much of the credit for that goes to the perfectly cast actors playing the titular "boys." While it took time for a couple of them to win me over, by intermission, each one had me convinced that he shouldn't have been cast any other way.
Three days after seeing A Nice Family Gathering at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre, I was still trying to understand the inclusion of the word "nice" in playwright Phil Olson's title. This isn't a feel-good, fuzzy-holiday-feelings sort of Thanksgiving play that would render the title appropriate, if clichéd. Nor is it an over-the-top, crass, outrageous comedy that makes the use of the word ironic. (Nor, for the record, is it a play about a family with the last name Nice.) I'm guessing, however, that an over-the-top, crass, outrageous comedy was Olson's intent, given that the content of his play kind of approaches shocking, though barely.
By the time the titular character entered the play, I'd resigned myself to having to endure two more hours of few-and-far-between laughs during Friday's performance of The Nerd, while also fighting off a sleepiness fostered by the unusually high temperature in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre. However, appearing in only his third stage role, Jordan L. Smith woke me up and held my attention with his annoyingly nasally delivery of playwright Larry Shue's monologues. The best reason to see The Nerd, it turns out, is the nerd himself.
On Thursday night, the cast of the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Escanaba in da Moonlight brought me to a place I'd yet to arrive at in all of the theatre I've seen in the area: I experienced a fit of tear-filled giggles so strong, so overwhelming, that I missed several lines of dialogue.
