11
Aug
2014
For me, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Bootleggers' show is a bi-annual delight. It's a treat to see the men and women who serve our salads, drinks, and desserts all year - and who perform for a few minutes prior to each production - get their own show. This is their chance to shine and, while Blame It On the Movies isn't quite as fun, overall, as past Bootlegger revues, its cast proves that they deserve more time in the spotlight.
If you're planning to see Quad City Music Guild's Oklahoma!, I'd recommend getting to the theatre at least 10 minutes before the presentation begins. Those buying - or hoping to buy - tickets at the door should certainly arrive earlier than that; Friday's opening-night performance was already nearly sold out, and I imagine word-of-mouth will make the musical's second weekend equally jam-packed. But 10 minutes seems like an appropriate amount of time to take in this production's absolute beauty of a set, and besides, you might find yourself forgetting about the set once the cast shows up and gives you even more wonderful things to look at.
The Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's Alice in Wonderland is one of those productions that must be accepted for what it is. In this case, it's Lewis Carroll's classic story adapted for the stage by director Kristin Katsu and the company of Showboat interns, along with a few of this summer's cast members. In truth, much of the show plays like it was written by high school students (as it was), particularly the early scene in which the cast gathers on stage and shares their hurts, frustrations, and dreams. The teen-centric concerns involving acceptance and the hopes of making a difference in the world came off a bit pretentious during Friday's performance, leaving me thinking, "Ah, youth." However, these young actors delivered their sentiments with such earnest sincerity that the play is rendered more tolerable through their joy and excitement in sharing their creation.
If the Timber Lake Playhouse's production of Les Misérables is the only experience some theatre-goers will have with Alain Boublil's and Claude-Michel Schönberg's much-loved musical, I think that would be more than okay. Director Matthew Teague Miller and his cast and crew not only do justice to the material, but present it in a memorable way that, for me, actually improves on the long-running Broadway version. This is an exceptional production, boasting fantastic performances and exquisite imagery.
The District Theatre's Monty Python's Spamalot seems like an amateur talent show, particularly due to the limitations of the company's new performance space in Rock Island's former Grape Life venue. (The new locale is so small, it redefines "intimate theatre" in the Quad Cities.) Yet while the limited movement due to the lack of stage space creates an amateurish feel, I'm happy to say that much of the rest of Friday's production emphasized talent. If it was an intentional decision to present the material as a novice attempt to recreate Monty Python's (arguably) best-loved film, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, it was a smart one on director Tristan Tapscott's part. Space doesn't allow for a big production, so Tapscott embraces the limitations of the new stage area, and it works.
Maybe you'll need to have seen a lot of stage farces, or feel like you've seen every stage farce, to appreciate what writer/director Jim Hessleman is doing in the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's world-premiere presentation Love, Lies, & the Lottery. Because this isn't just, as its title implies, a traditional, door-slamming slapstick, despite the numerous doors to be slammed. (Or rather, here, gently closed.) This energetic, sometimes hilarious, incredibly busy production is more accurately a comedic greatest-hits package, and one boasting a larger number of familiar genre conceits than you would've thought squeezable into two hours of stage time. You could teach a semester on Intro to Modern Farce using Hesselman's play as your textbook and still not cover everything in time for the final.
Every so often, Genesius Guild's end-of-summer comedy isn't the traditionally silly, over-the-top production that mostly forsakes a story-driven plot. Such is the case with this year's comedic romp Plutus. During Saturday's take on Aristophanes' original text, I found myself as interested in the outcomes of the characters as I did in director/adapter Don Wooten's mockery of local icons and current events. Sometimes more so.
Wonderful Town is one of the few musicals whose soundtracks I love without ever having seen the stage version. That is, until Thursday night's performance at the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre, and what I saw lived up to the high expectations created by listening to the rich, often humorous songs by composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
There were moments during Friday's performance of the Prenzie Players' Doctor Faustus in which I was creeped out, but with a fascination that had me begging for more. Director Jake Walker, sound designer Elizabeth Spoerl, and lighting designer Tyson Danner create effectively ominous scenes, particularly those involving chanting or whispering from behind the black curtains surrounding the audience, or red light pouring forth from an opening in that cloth wall. Chills ran up my spine, goosebumps rose along my legs and arms, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up multiple times - all signs of a thrilling production.
