26
Oct
2009
Scott Community College debuted its fall theatre offering(s) on Thursday, a pair of John Pielmeier one-acts under the blanket title Haunted Lives. And while I'd prefer this article not be read as a traditional review - because, for understandable reason, the production wasn't really in any kind of shape to be reviewed - I'll preface with perhaps the highest compliment I can give its participants: They made it through.
Maybe it's because co-founders Tristan Tapscott and Chris Walljasper are finally appearing in one of their venue's shows, or maybe because it's tough not to have fun when watching a dozen people in heavy eyeliner singing and dancing "The Time Warp." But whatever the reason, the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's joyous and fearless production of The Rocky Horror Show feels, to me, like the very first production that's truly the Harrison Hilltop's. Not the author's, not the performers', but the company's as a whole. And it's an inspiring sight to see.
Truth be told, playwright Adam Bock's Swimming in the Shallows - currently being produced by New Ground Theatre - is a bit of a mess. If, however, a show is fortunate enough to feature Pat Flaherty and Susan Perrin-Sallak as a bickering married couple, Eddie Staver III performing an underwater pas de deux in scuba gear, and a tuxedo-clad shark dancing the Macarena, it doesn't much matter if the script falls apart.
In the back of any Richmond Hill Barn Theatre program, you'll find a chronological listing of which shows have been produced at the theatre over its past 40 seasons. And while this catalog of titles is nothing if not varied, the assorted comedies, dramas, thrillers, and such do share a common link: Not one of these plays is one you'd feel compelled to attend with young kids in tow. (The Barn did house the holiday comedy The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in 2007, but that was a bonus offering added to the venue's annual six-show lineup and isn't mentioned in the program's inventory.)
Running a brisk 60 minutes, the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's presentation of Edward Albee's The Zoo Story is energetic and entertaining, and with James Bleecker and Steve Quartell portraying the two men in Albee's two-man tragicomedy, the production was all but guaranteed to be well-performed. And it is.
David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross is arguably, though not that arguably, the author's best-known, best-loved, and all-around best play. (Thanks to 1992's celebrated film version, I have friends - including friends who don't really like plays - who can quote entire scenes verbatim.) And it's no overstatement to say that the cast recruited for the Curtainbox Theatre Company's presentation of this exhilaratingly profane comedy is ridiculously gifted. At one point here, you'll find Michael Kennedy, Pat Flaherty, Eddie Staver III, Louis Hare, and Daniel D.P. Sheridan all sharing the Village Theatre stage, and that's before David Furness and Tristan Tapscott show up.
See How They Run, currently being staged at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, is described on the venue's Web site as "a classic farce of mistaken identity and slamming doors." But in actuality, only two parts of that three-part statement turn out to be accurate.
The Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's latest is Mid-Life! The Crisis Musical, and it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect given the title and exclamation point in the title: a cheeky, kind of forced, kind of obvious song-and-dance revue that pokes gentle fun at memory and hair loss, adulterous urges, prostate exams, and other "wacky" perils of aging.
As I never tire of telling people, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night ranks first on my list of all-time favorite plays, which puts me in league with, I'd imagine, several thousand others over the years. Widely considered the greatest work ever written by the author widely considered the greatest playwright our country has yet produced, O'Neill's autobiographical epic is nothing less than America's answer to King Lear - an incisive, harrowing, and altogether exhilarating study of family conducted with a microscope and a scalpel.
