The Harrison Hilltop Theatre's opening-night production of True West, Sam Shepard's savage sibling-rivalry comedy, was an almost ridiculous amount of fun. Yet I'm hesitant about describing how much fun it was, because it's doubtful - if not impossible - that subsequent audiences will be witness to the astounding, downright magical blend of accident and inventive improvisation that accompanied Thursday's presentation. Unless, that is, actor Andrew Harvey is again able to pull off that bit with the spoon. And actor Eddie Staver III is again able to make the slice of bread stick to the wall. And the cuckoo clock is repaired.
Set in 17th Century France, Augustana College's production of the Molière comedy The Learned Ladies takes place in the salon of a Paris manor, and among the first things you notice about Adam Parboosingh's scenic design are the stacks of books standing five feet high from the floor. It's actually impossible not to notice them, as the (prop) books have been painted in a variety of bright colors that make them resemble oversize, rectangular Skittles, or perhaps the reading material for Belle's library in Disney's Beauty & the Beast. They're certainly eye-catching, but there's no way anyone could mistake them for, you know, real books, and The Learned Ladies itself turns out to be a lot like them - deliberately artificial, kind of amusing, and, unfortunately, pretty much divorced from real-world experience.
Friday's sensational opening-night presentation of Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash tribute currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, was the beneficiary of an awful lot of goodwill before the production even started, and very little of it actually had to do with Johnny Cash.
If you haven't yet attended a production of the show, Agatha Christie's murder mystery The Mousetrap - which has been running in London's West End for more than 56 years now - is definitely worth a look-see. Boasting ripe British caricatures and the author's signature brand of mordant wit, this clever, funny play is one of Christie's most enjoyably constructed contraptions.
The current production of the musical revue Songs for a New World features a winning, frequently exemplary quartet and some excellent design ... and, in all honesty, I doubt I'd have enjoyed this Green Room Theatre presentation nearly as much as I did had it actually been performed at the Green Room Theatre.
I love David Sedaris' writing, but on those rare occasions when I've heard the author read from his works on National Public Radio, I can only listen to him for a few minutes before feeling compelled to change the station. It's not that his high, reedy voice is unpleasant, exactly. But the caustic self-deprecation and derision that can make his stories so wickedly funny strike me as whiny and ungainly when Sedaris himself vocalizes them, and when he indulges in sentiment, his attempts at honest emotion ring hollow. (His "heartfelt" moments don't sound noticeably different from his sardonic diatribes.) This isn't a huge failing - Sedaris, after all, is a writer, not a performer - yet I still find that a little of him, vocally, goes a long way.
If you attend The Green Room's current production of Angels in America: Perestroika, I assume you know that you'll be entering playwright Tony Kushner's work halfway through, as part one of this two-part saga, Millennium Approaches, debuted at the Rock Island venue on Halloween. The back page of Perestroika's program provides a very bare-bones summary (or refresher) on what previously occurred in Kushner's epic exploration of the 1980s, but, I'll venture, your enjoyment of this second outing will be significantly enhanced by familiarity with the show - and not just familiarity with the Green Room's first installment.
A beautiful princess. A handsome prince. A wicked queen. And a friendly woodsman who, if he refuses to cut out his best friend's heart, will find himself turned into that most hideous of creatures: SpongeBob SquarePants.
Never having done one, I can only imagine the challenges and pressures inherent in performing a one-person play that lasts over an hour, and I'm betting those challenges and pressures exponentially increase when you're also the play's author and co-director. I therefore doff my cap to Adam Michael Lewis, whose solo vehicle Mono-Blogs: Suffering Fools - currently running at the Harrison Hilltop Theatre - is a 60-plus-minute verbal marathon of rants, diatribes, and (as crass-tastic auteur Kevin Smith happily calls them) dick and fart jokes that Lewis delivers with unwavering fierceness and intensity.
Playwright John Patrick Shanley's Danny & the Deep Blue Sea is an alternately romantic and volatile two-character drama that finds Roberta, a 31-year-old, jobless mother of a troubled teen, forging a fragile bond with Danny, a 29-year-old truck driver nicknamed "The Beast." And while watching the Curtainbox Theatre Company's current presentation of this 1984 offering, it probably won't take you long to realize that co-stars Kimberly Furness and Eddie Staver III aren't really acting in the production; they're dancing.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
On Stands Now
Tagged Content
Two Ways to Subscribe
1. Subscribe to free weekly e-mail content updates.
You'll get both the current official narrative challenge and What's Happenin' in the Quad Cities.
(Did you know we publish a new Real Astrology and RCR Crossword every week?)
2. Get 12 monthly issues mailed first class for $48
Get the printed Reader edition mailed to you (or anyone you want) first-class for 12 months for $48.
$24 goes to postage and handling, $24 goes to keeping the doors open!
Click this link to Subscribe now.
Theatre Calendars
Submit your event listings to calendar@rcreader.com