After 12 years in the television-news business, I spent my first Election Day in more than a decade not covering the elections, but rather seeing a play about a bid for the presidency and the decision of whether to use personal attacks on opponents. And while watching the District Theatre's The Best Man, directed by Bryan Tank, I wondered if the point being made in this political morality play - that the business of politics is on a downward moral spiral - is one that needs to be made. Don't we, as a nation, already know that dirty politics are wrong, and doesn't this make the message of playwright Gore Vidal's 1960 work dated? A day later, though, I read an article about personal attacks and dishonesty continuing to be a part of political campaigns because these tactics work, and so Vidal's play, for better or worse, appears relevant after all.
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.
While I like David Turley's work as a director - with this year's Chicago at the District Theatre and Gypsy with Countryside Community Theatre among his most notable efforts - I'd like to see more of him on-stage. I was wowed by his John Hinckley Jr. in 2008's Assassins at the Green Room Theatre, tickled pink by his William Barfee in 2010's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Harrison Hilltop Theatre, and amusingly intrigued by his Vladimir in that venue's 2010 Waiting for Godot.
The Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Make Me a Cowboy will appeal to anyone who likes pure, wholesome, clean-humored comedy that's light on plot and heavy on friendly cowboys and public-domain cowboy-themed songs. While that "anyone" does not include me, I at least recognize the earnestness in playwright and director Don Bailey Bryant's effort to present a decent show, and Make Me a Cowboy certainly made for a good time for Friday's audience, many of whom sang along to a good number of ditties and seemed pleased with the production.
Sitting down for Thursday's performance of Frost/Nixon, the set for the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's production heightened my concerns that I would likely be bored during the show. Even before arriving at the theatre, I anticipated struggling to concentrate, knowing I'm not much interested in history. But adding the minimalist approach to the set, with three platforms embellished by a strip of black rising up their centers, my hopes that the visuals, at least, would offer some interest dwindled. (While the look of the set is creative, I'm just not into minimalism.) It didn't take long, though, for director Tristan Layne Tapscott's efforts to prove my worries unwarranted, and by the end of the play, I was actually thankful for the simple set, as it didn't at all distract from the players' performances.
In the years since she received a 1988 Academy Award for Moonstruck, Olympia Dukakis has appeared in more than four dozen feature films, television movies, and miniseries, and has continued to be a widely respected theatre actor and director. So it seems somehow prophetic that her illustrious career began, as she says during a recent phone interview, with a production that blended the stage and celluloid.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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