26
Jan
2015
The beauty of New Ground Theatre's comedy Things Being What They Are lies in how our hearts gradually soften for Michael Carron's crotchety, imposing Jack, a rudely forward character who pushes his presence onto his neighbor Bill (Matt Moody), and whom playwright Wendy MacLeod uses to explore themes of marriage and mortality.
New Ground Theatre's Clybourne Park, written by Bruce Norris as a sequel, of sorts, to Lorraine Hansberry's classic play A Raisin in the Sun, takes quite a bit of time to get rolling. But once it does, this exploration of racial tensions at different points in American history is wickedly hilarious. Director Chris Jansen effectively employs a slow, nearly dull pacing to build to a significant payoff, particularly in the second act, when the purposefully bland tone fits the play's scene of a neighborhood-association meeting. Following Friday's performance, I was amused at how, during the presentation, I went from being almost bored to laughing heartily.
If I were to detail the plot of playwright Matthew Lopez's The Whipping Man, it would sound like the outline of a soap opera, given that the twists seem so melodramatically shocking. However, the story doesn't play out that way, both because Lopez handles the revelations so well, and because New Ground Theatre presents this story of a Confederate soldier and two of his family's freed slaves with respect and sincerity.
A year-and-a-half after enjoying his performance in New Ground Theatre's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, I am glad to see David Turley on a Quad Cities stage again in the company's Next Fall. It was Turley's portrayals of John Hinckley in the Green Room Theatre's 2008 Assassins and William Barfee in the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's 2010 The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee that initially endeared me to his comedic deliveries. And I'm grateful to see him employ his skills as this new play's 40-year-old gay atheist Adam, a character performed with more subtlety than those aforementioned roles, but one that still employs Turley's amusing brand of dry, sarcastic, slightly dark humor.
While leaving Friday's performance of Other Desert Cities, a friend told me that he thought it was the best play he'd seen by New Ground Theatre, and I agreed that, if not the best, it is at least among the best productions by the local company. Director David Turley's staging of playwright Jon Robin Baitz's smart, realistic dialogue and intriguing storyline has a tremendous palpability to it, both in the family dynamics of those on-stage and in the tensions and emotions they feel.
Quad City Music Guild's Cabaret is at its most entertaining whenever Bryan Tank's Emcee graces the stage - "graces" being a somewhat incorrect term, as it's the actor's unflinching commitment to his character's blatantly sexual nature that's so engaging. With his impressive German accent and convincing characterization of unabashed debauchery, Tank punctuates the beguilement of his Emcee by way of sexual gestures that seemed to titillate Thursday's preview-performance audience, at least judging by the large amounts of laughter mixed with amused shock. (This was most notable during the threesome pelvic thrusts and other dance steps in Cabaret's "Two Ladies" number, one of several deliciously bawdy pieces choreographed by Emma Williams.)
The Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Death of a Salesman marks one of James Driscoll's most powerful, effective, fully realized performances to date, which is saying a lot given the actor's résumé, which includes roles such as Long John Silver in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Treasure Island and his multiple characters in last year's Anton in Show Business for New Ground Theatre. During Friday's presentation, I was awed by Driscoll's ability to shift from sanity to a mental confusion bordering on insanity as his Willy Loman transitioned from his vision of his past to a moment in the present. Driscoll accomplishes this both through physical gestures, such as rubbing his head as if sweating, and vocal inflection, as his voice becomes more frantic and emotional during his state of confusion.
Including pianist Craig Clough, there are five cast members in New Ground Theatre's Closer Than Ever, and at the show's opening-day matinée, that was one more person than the number of people who came to see it. This isn't the sort of thing I'd usually mention right off the bat, if at all, but I think it's an important point to make before proceeding, because while this vocally beautiful offering may be deficient in certain areas, the only thing Thursday's production was really lacking was an audience. And for this particular production, the absence of a crowd proved to be a considerable distraction.
During a recent post-show conversation, an actor friend and I agreed that perhaps the most exciting moments at any theatrical production are those few seconds before the production even starts, when the lights dim, cell phones (please God) are turned to silent or vibrate, and the venue becomes alive with possibility - with the awareness that, in this live art form, absolutely anything can happen.
