11
Jul
2016
You know those earworms you get when you can’t get a song out of your head no matter how you try? That happened to me several weeks ago after listening to the soundtrack from the Broadway hit Hamilton. My earworms were so intense that I had difficulty falling asleep, and I would elicit strange looks from people in the grocery aisles as I was unknowingly singing “My Shot” out loud. But the cure was found by my attending Quad City Music Guild’s Into the Woods on July 7, and this brilliant send-up, with its quirky, witty songs, wiped out my old earworms without creating new ones.
While waiting for the Prenzie Players' Thursday-night dress rehearsal of the William Shakespeare comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost to begin, I realized it had been a long time since I had seen one of the Bard of Avon’s plays performed live. I pondered whether I would be able to follow the plot and comprehend the dialogue. I worried that the show might be too stuffy for my unrefined sense of theatre. “Holy crap, I'm supposed to write a review – what if I don’t get it?” Yet as the show began, the Prenzies put my neuroses to rest very quickly.
I came across a quote this past week that read: "A true friend talks trash to your face and is fiercely loyal behind your back." While the sentiment came to my attention at a particularly poignant time for me personally, it also fits almost perfectly with the core theme in William Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, currently being presented by the Prenzie Players.
Before Saturday's opening-night presentation, executive director Doug Tschopp took the stage for Genesius Guild's traditional pre-show announcements and T-shirt giveaway, and kindly asked the crowd for continued financial support, especially given the organization's decreased support since 2008 from the State of Illinois. Not to make light of a very real monetary concern, but I wish power players from Nike had been there for Tschopp's request. Because after seeing Macbeth, they might've happily handed over a check, considering the motto for everyone involved in director Michael King's inspiriting production appeared to be the same: "Just do it."![Jake Walker, Andy Koski, Adam Lewis, and Nate Curlott in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged]](http://www.rcreader.com/sites/default/files/807_the_complete_works_of_williamshakespeare_abridged_theatre_review_mini_1.jpg "Jake Walker, Andy Koski, Adam Lewis, and Nate Curlott in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged]")
There are rough edges to the Prenzie Players' The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged], due to a lack of polish and predetermined staging, that make it seem like you're watching the entertainment at a frat party. This, however, is much of what makes the Prenzies' production so much fun; its frenetic, improvisational feel heightens the entertainment value. With director Catie Osborn's staging making it feel like we, the observers, were actually part of the production itself, Saturday's performance was so raucous that patrons felt free to interact with the actors - such as by offering humorous back-talk - in ways audiences normally wouldn't.
Many cast members in the Prenzie Players' current offering, Titus Andronicus, are at their best expressing physical and emotional pain. There's Aaron E. Sullivan's shift from utter despair to cackling insanity as the title character, Catie Osborn's post-rape brokenness as his daughter Lavinia, and Jessica White's shrieks as she watches her character's son slaughtered. The desperation is so penetrating in its realism and sincerity that I was often uncomfortable during Friday night's performance - which is to say that the production is shockingly effective at delivering the darkness of Shakespeare's work. I walked away in awe.
With the current Much Ado About Nothing, I've now attended 10 presentations by the classical-theatre troupe the Prenzie Players, and perhaps fittingly, it's maybe the most sheerly Prenzie Prenzie production I've yet seen.
The way I see it, the only real problem with the Prenzie Players (and it's more a problem for me than them) is that their performance standard is so consistently high that when they produce a show that satisfies even beyond that standard, you don't quite know how to describe it. Regarding the theatrical troupe's current production of The Taming of the Shrew, then, let me just state that it's the best time I've had at an area show in all of 2008. And, quite possibly, in all of 2007. And 2006. The invention and commitment and laugh-'til-you-cry hilarity of director Jeremy Mahr's presentation is truly staggering; it transports you to a state of complete happiness that you don't ever want to return from.
