27
Oct
2014
It was with eager anticipation that I sat down to watch Friday's performance of the QC Theatre Workshop's Bat Boy: The Musical, especially knowing that Calvin Vo would be portraying the title role.
I love Yasmina Reza's 'Art.' My infatuation with the playwright's script started four years ago when the piece was produced by the Curtainbox Theatre Company, and it brought me great delight to hear that the QC Theatre Workshop and director Tyson Danner planned to stage the play with the same cast that performed the material for the Curtainbox.
The approach that director Tyson Danner takes with the QC Theatre Workshop's True West frustrates me in that, with leading actors Jeremy Mahr and (Reader employee) Mike Schulz playing either Austin or Lee depending on the results of a flipped coin minutes before the metaphorical curtain rises, I want to see them in both roles. With the character assignments left to chance, however, it's possible to attend every performance of the play's run and not get an opportunity to see Schulz and Mahr ever swap characters. And in a way, that's too bad, as the performers were so remarkable in Friday's presentation that I imagine a switch would make a subsequent viewing all the more interesting.
What's perhaps most beautiful about the QC Theatre Workshop's Last Call: The Songs of Stephen Sondheim - aside from it showcasing music by, arguably, our greatest Broadway composer - is the way show creators Tyson Danner and (Reader employee) Mike Schulz weave a story through their revue, offering more than just an "in concert" experience. There's a natural progression throughout the piece, which they've set in a bar where individuals and couples gather to drink, socialize, long for love, or lament love lost. Rather than having a distinct plot and conflict, the production delivers a look at a typical bar evening in which the audience gets to eavesdrop on every table conversation and watch as people mingle, flirt, and attempt to repair relationships. And the flow of this slice of life as told through song is to be admired particularly because it lacks pretense and feels real.
There's a beautiful humanity in the QC Theatre Workshop's production of How I Learned to Drive, which presents playwright Paula Vogel's pedophilic tale with realistic characters rather than caricatures clearly defined as "good" and "evil."
Directed by David Bonde, the Curtainbox Theatre Company's Hedda Gabler starts off on a happy, frivolous tone. As George Tesman (Reader employee Mike Schulz) tells his Aunt Julie (Corinne Johnson) about the honeymoon from which he's just returned, they share smiles and hopeful, knowing glances. Yet several minutes into this, during Tuesday night's performance, I was a bit bored, wondering why the Curtainbox - which had consistently produced weighty, thoughtful material - was suddenly producing a script filled with such lighthearted but fundamentally pointless drivel.
The Prenzie Players' current production, Cyrano de Bergerac, is costumed in nothing but black and white. Yet that lack of visual variety counters the abundance of color in the performances of the cast, which add shades of nuance to what could be presented as cut-and-dried "good" and "bad" characters. The actors' portrayals make it possible for audiences to feel sorry for the villain, to fall for our hero's rival in love, and even, to some degree, to occasionally dislike the tale's namesake.
