Augustana College's production of subUrbia features one of the most (if not the most) layered and fascinating sets I've yet seen on a local stage, as Adam Parboosingh's scenic design manages to give us both a brick storefront - including parking spaces, cement parking bumps, scaffolding, a dumpster, and even a period-appropriate, mid-'90s pay phone - and the fully stocked interior of a convenience store at the same time. Consequently, Parboosingh's set rendered Friday's performance interesting well before the play even started, offering much to take in visually while we waited for the proverbial curtain to rise.
While I've loved every children's production I've reviewed at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, How I Became a Pirate marks the first in which I wish I had the soundtrack to enjoy with my partner's nine-year old daughter Madison on our way to and from school each day. With music and lyrics by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman (both of whom also wrote the musical's book), the songs are worth revisiting for their singable melodies and enjoyable styles, particularly the calypso numbers and a speedy, staccato, complexly rhymed nod to Gilbert & Sullivan's "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General." After Saturday's performance of the show, in fact, Madison and I were singing lyrics from several of the songs on our car ride home, which I hope suggests how fun and memorable they are.
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.
Scott Community College's Blue Sky Merchants is an interesting idea that doesn't reach its potential, mainly due to its absence of subtlety. Local playwright and actor John R. Turner's play about a man (simply named Deskman, and played by Turner) who listens to, and then green-lights or rejects, ideas for television shows could be a poignant commentary on modern society's tastes in entertainment. Yet while Turner has a laudable knack for dialogue, Thursday's production left me with too-little question as to his intended message, mainly because his Deskman character clearly states the author's intent, rather than allowing the audience to decipher it.
Before the production officially begins and without uttering a single word, Gini Atwell effectively sets the tone for the Prenzie Players' Antigone. On Friday evening, during the ad-libbed pre-show that's a staple of Prenzie productions, Atwell sat at the front of the stage, half-cradling her knees while wearing a far-off look in her eyes and a deep sadness on her face, as though lost in thought on woeful memories or circumstances.
Billed as "the funniest and most tuneful Church Basement Ladies yet," A Mighty Fortress Is Our Basement had me laughing more than I expected to during Friday night's performance. Having had a too-hearty helping of the first two Lutheran-themed kitchen musicals, I couldn't help but have low expectations for the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's production of this fourth show in the series. Yet while this sequel still falls into some of the expected traps, it also had enough humor - and one especially entertaining song - to keep me amused.
Five months after its first staging of the bawdy Broadway musical Avenue Q, the District Theatre has brought back its prurient puppets for another round, and with the replacements of just two cast members and minor reworkings made by director Marc Ciemiewicz, this return performance is still enough improved (from an already laudable production) to make the show worth seeing again, if not for the first time.
Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Blues for an Alabama Sky manages to be an adjective I've come to love regarding theatrical productions: surprising. Playwright Pearl Cleage takes her story in directions I did not expect from the outset of Saturday's performance, as her play moves from the plight of a recently out-of-work singer in Harlem to a study of societal views on homosexuality and abortion in 1930. I had no idea that was the direction the plot would take, but I was grateful for it, as the proceedings kept me on my mental toes, and continually interested in what was going to happen next.
Playwright Lee Blessing's A Walk in the Woods successfully re-creates a sense of the Reagan-era Cold War conflict between the United States and the then-Soviet Union ... at least according to an older friend of mine who also attended Friday's performance of New Ground Theatre's production. However, my theatre-going companion also agreed with me that the play is reminiscent of the film My Dinner with Andre, famed for simply being a conversation between two people in one setting. And Blessing's story is just that - a series of discussions between a U.S. and Russian diplomat sitting, or sometimes standing near, a park bench. For two hours.
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