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The Ruling Class
Reviewed by Al Bresloff
January 24, 2006
Backstage Theatre Company in association with DCA Theaters has taken on a very ambitious production of Peter Barne's black comedy- "The Ruling Class" at the Storefront Theatre located at 66 E. Randolph ( Gallery 37). This play is about a family of wealth and the power struggle to keep what they feel is theirs when it appears it will fall into the hands of a member of the family who is mad! This is a very long ( roughly 2 1/2 hours) with a lot of yelling and more than needed "mad" scenes by Jack, the 14th Earl of Gurney, the supposed hero of the story ( a very energetic performance by Stephen Dunn). While the story line is that Jack has been away thinking he is Jesus Christ, his father kills himself ( we are never sure if by choice or by accident, as he likes to play with nooses to calm himself when under stress- ooop!). It turns out that in his will the estate is given to his son rather than to his half brother, Sir Charles Gurney ( David Elliott) and his wife and son. Sir Charles wants Jack committed, but in order to make sure he gets the run of the estate, he devises a plan to have Jack marry and have a son, who then would be the owner should Jack be put away and thus, Sir Charles would get to run the estate while Jack is away.
That's the plan- if this sounds wordy to you, wait until you see this show. If they were to shave off a half hour of dialog it wouldn't hurt! The set for this production ( designed by Sean Sullivan) is massive, but probably one of the best I have seen in a low budget storefront theater. The only problem is that it is noisy and cumbersome to make the scene changes and often a distraction for the audience. As I said earlier, this is a major undertaking for a small company and under the direction of Brandon Bruce they do keep it flowing. There are some funny moments as characters break out in song and dance, puppet characters appear
and during a seduction scene onstage, there is a small shadow-box show of a woman ( which took away from the action on stage). Katherine Keberlein ( Grace Shelly, the bride for Jack to have the son) is delightful in her strip scene on the wedding night ( there is some brief nudity), Meredith Siemsen is a fine Lady Claire Gurney, Sir Charles' wife and Will Schutz handles the Bishop Lampton quite nicely. I was a little concerned about Eric Paskey and Dinsdale ( Jack's cousin) as he seemed to be quite the chipmunk as he pranced around the stage. I guess he interpreted his character as an English- nerd-for, but he is young and I am sure he will get better. Jack does appear to get better- he decides he is not Jesus Christ, but instead becomes Jack The Ripper leading to a death ( or more). This is a very contrived script. By the way, I should mention that Ron Kuzava plays the butler/manservant, Tucker and he is the supposed comic relief. He does the best he can with the script he was given.
"The Ruling Class" will run thru February 18th with performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.-There is a special performance on February 14th, Valentines Day at 7:30 ( I am not sure why).
Tickets are $20 and available at the box office, by phone at 312-742-TIXS(8497) or online at www.dcatheater.org. I guess this is one that you'll have to decide for yourself.
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