11
Apr
2016
One of the great things about living in the Quad Cities area is that there is a variety of theatre to suit almost everyone’s taste. At one end of the spectrum are theatre companies that mostly offer edgy, thought-provoking material, and at the other are venues that generally deliver more lighthearted, uncomplicated fare – plays such as the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's romantic comedy Amy’s Wish, whose opening-night performance on April 7 was a true crowd-pleaser.
A poorly written script isn't enough to derail the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Down to Earth. While I've never before thought "Too much exposition!" as much as I did during Thursday's performance, I still enjoyed director Joe DePauw's presentation of playwright Bettye Knapp's weak "comedy fantasy" about angels coming to Earth.
As much as I love theatre-in-the-round, I recognize that not all plays work in a 360-degree environment. Take, for instance, Noises Off, the current offering at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre. A farcical comedy about the staging of a play (within the play) titled Nothing On, the show's second act offers, essentially, a view of the first act's goings-on seen from backstage, and the production's set is typically turned 180 degrees during the intermission to allow for that behind-the-scenes look. Consequently, prior to Thursday's performance at the Barn, I was baffled as to how director Jalayne Riewerts would pull off, in the round, this production of author Michael Frayn's farce. She does it, it turns out, by not staging the piece in the round.
As suggested by the title, the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's current offering, Sex Please, We're 60, involves men and women of a certain age and their libidos, but thankfully it maintains a modicum of decency by placing the "action" off stage. The piece also features many clichéd jokes and absurd situations, but while I cringed at the images conjured by the title, it's when the work is at its (relatively) raunchiest that the play and the cast work best.
The audience at the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Saturday-night performance of Christmas Belles - 
David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for drama, one year after winning a Best Actress Tony Award for Sex & the City star Cynthia Nixon. A movie adaptation is currently being filmed, starring Academy Award winners Nicole Kidman and Dianne Wiest.
To my recollection, I haven't yet been formally introduced to frequent Richmond Hill Barn Theatre performer Jackie Skiles, who plays the lead in the venue's current mystery/comedy Busybody. But it's nice to know that we have something in common. In Skiles' program biography, she lists Lavinia Hubbard in 2005's Another Part of the Forest as her favorite Richmond Hill role to date. That was my favorite Skiles role, too. Until now.
