Everyone loves “holiday fluff,” right? You know – that oddly concocted mixture that your crazy aunt brings for the holidays each year combining Cool Whip, pistachio pudding, marshmallows, crushed pineapple, and walnuts (or not), with cherries on top? Admit it. It’s the perfect little taste of sweetness on a plate otherwise full of more savory dishes.
The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse is now serving its own version of holiday fluff. No, not on the buffet menu, but rather in the form of its musical Holly Jolly Christmas, which isn't really a musical so much as a musical revue. There's no real story or character development. You won’t see the duality of man in an Ebenezer Scrooge figure or an “If only I would have …” scenario played out by a George Bailey type. In fact, you won’t see anything remotely resembling a plot. What you will find is a Branson-style revue that utilizes the talents of an extremely gifted cast in spite of Ty Stover's exceptionally weak script.
Let's say you're a young, male biology professor who has landed a job at a small New England college. After a faculty party and lots of drinking, you and your wife are invited for a nightcap at the home of a middle-aged history professor whose sexually charged spouse happens to be the college president's daughter. It's 2 a.m., the liquor keeps coming, and your hosts start to argue. Do you stay? Of course you do. What could go wrong?!
Our audience hadn't even realized the play had started.
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.
At a time when current events make the world seem very dark and sick, the holidays remind us to reminisce with old friends, break out the carols, and bake a batch of Grandma's legendary cookies. One recipe to such a cruel world can be found in the District Theatre's current production Big Rock Candy Christmas. A sequel to last year's Big Rock Candy Mountain, this Christmas-flavored chapter brings back the same characters from the original with a new mission, new music, and even a few new faces.
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.
The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's production of Boeing-Boeing is a colorful rendition of French playwright Marc Camoletti's classic farce - and that's just the set and costumes. Scenic designer Susan Holgersson's and costume designer Gregory Hiatt's combined use of bright primary and secondary colors is stunning, with Holgersson's seven-door set providing delight even before the opening of this comedy's proverbial curtain.
With its ornate ceiling and fascinating, borderline-gaudy hanging light fixtures in the District Theatre's new home in the former Rock Island Argus building, A Few Good Men seems an appropriate inaugural production, in that the space looks like a courtroom - at least while you're looking up. Following the company's sometimes uncomfortable (for patrons) stint in its previous, rather cramped venue, this open area with the ceiling rising two stories above the floor is a much welcome relief, allowing director Lora Adams' staging of Aaron Sorkin's courtroom drama to breathe in ways that, for the District Theatre, it otherwise couldn't have.
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.
Thursday's preview performance of the District Theatre's High Fidelity was, during its first act, a painful experience ... because by intermission, my facial muscles actually hurt from smiling so much. While this musical - composed by Tom Kitt and Amanda Green, with a book by David Lindsay-Abaire - is, in itself, a lot of fun, director James Fairchild and his cast rocked the hell out of it, presenting its story of a record-store owner's most recent breakup (in a long line of them) with infectious energy.
