12
Sep
2016
Spoiler alert: Deathtrap, now running at the the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, is awesome. In fact, since I started reviewing a little less than a year ago, this was certainly the most enjoyable night of theatre I've yet had.
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.
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.
On at least three occasions during Thursday's preview performance, Quad City Music Guild's Young Frankenstein achieved a transcendent silliness - the kind you get with stunning regularity in Mel Brooks' film-spoof inspiration. If you include everything said and done by Nate Karstens' hunchback Igor, it was more like 203 occasions, but in the spirit of this tasty musical confection, let's save the sweetest for dessert.
The last time I watched Nancy Teerlinck perform, earlier this year, she offered a moving portrayal of a matriarch making tough, emotional decisions in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Moving. Yet as much as I liked her in that role, I think she's even better when she's playing ... well, a bitch ... such as the one she portrays in Playcrafters' current offering, The Christmas Express. Teerlinck's Hilda, who runs the play's Holly Railway Station, is an acerbic, crotchety, sarcastic, bitchy delight, and I think I now love the performer, and want to see this side of her comicality a lot more often.
There's a lovely sincerity to the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's production of Bernard Slade's Moving, and Saturday's performance possessed such realism - with notable acting from every member of director Bryan Woods' cast - that I had to wonder how such an impressively produced piece could feel so mismatched with its script.
On Thursday, I attended the Timber Lake Playhouse musical The Spitfire Grill, and caught another presentation of the piece - this time at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre - the very next night. I'm actually somewhat disappointed that no additional area venues staged the show over the weekend, because even after two outstanding Spitfire Grills in a row, I would've happily made time for more.
Director Emmalee Moffitt's Richmond Hill Barn Theatre production of Independence may be the first work I've seen in which the pacing is a problem because it's too fast. It struck me, while watching Thursday night's performance, that a lot of tension was lost due to the lack of awkward silences during verbal spats; Moffitt doesn't allow several scenes to breathe, particularly whenever the play's matriarch and her eldest daughter argue, and so they wind up playing like ordinary family squabbles, rather than the uncomfortable, dysfunctional altercations playwright Lee Blessing intended.
The audience at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Saturday-night performance of Christmas Belles - 
