It’s a father-and-son team, Eddie and Sam Sisson, played by the remarkable Francis Guinan and firecracker Patrick Andrews, who eek out a living by doing two-bit scams on whoever happens by. Their various victims are played by Joe Minoso and Karen Janes Woditsch, who are excellent in every character they inhabit, with Woditsch showing particular range
When you mount a National Tour of a show such as Les Miserables with some fresh new elements and orchestrations, you best not alienate those of us who adore the original show. Thankfully, Cameron Mackintosh’s 2011 National Tour keeps the essence of show that has pleased over 60 million people from 42 countries and in 21 languages over a 25 year span! This National Tour, now at the Cadillac Palace Theatre until February 27, has a few new twists, some new rich orchestrations with ample use of video projections in key scenes.
This American drama, like almost any modern American drama, is about a dysfunctional family. The two brothers hate each other. Neither one of them is particularly well-liked by the mother – and, really, who could blame her? One is a dentist who just walked out on his oncogenic wife and 16-year old daughter, Roann (Allison Torem); and the other is a middle-aged, unemployed divorcée. Not exactly a mother’s dream come true.
Filled with rich Irish humor and desperate remembrances of their long past teenage trauma involving romance and sex. We meet Breda (Kate Buddeke) the former sexy one; Clara (Laurie Larson), the former jilted one; and Ada (Kirsten Fitzgerald) the never-been-kissed youngest sister. The three are caught in a cycle that has them reliving, over and over, those traumatic events from their teen years in and around the Electric Ballroom.
As much as Don Bender (Volpone) and his wily servant Mosca (Eric Damon Smith) tried to lead the way, the two scoundrel’s adventures to con the greedy and gullible men to Volpone’s apparent ‘dead bed’ so he can ‘name’ one (or all) as his sole heir – the satire fizzles. Over the top acting and uneven pacing dilute the humor.
The first question to ask, I think, with this sort of production is: does it succeed at what it set out to do? Which is to say, is it kid-friendly, is it succinct, is it a good introduction to Shakespeare. And I think the answer is yes. It’s engaging, it’s fast- paced, and it’s fun. The fight-scenes are well-choreographed, well-executed, and something kids (everybody, really) will definitely enjoy.
In a riveting 95 minutes, larger-than-life dilemmas face the three main characters: going public with Hawa’s story may help stop the killing but it may also get her killed; Carlos worries about his personal well being if the government or the rebels find out he is speaking to a journalist. Maryka risks her life to get the story that can save lives.
Told by three actors each wonderfully recalling their story despite almost no character interaction, playwright Rogers weaves a tale that takes a good deal of work on the audience’s part since the early scenes are filled with anecdotal tidbits by the three storytellers that seems to move around in time and place. But if you keep tune-in, Madagascar eventually pays off.
Neil LaBute’s latest, Reasons to be Pretty, now in a strong staging at Profiles Theatre in a Chicago premiere, is a departure from the downer works LaBute has penned recently. This work is hopeful as it becomes a moral awakening for Greg (Darrell W. Cox), the lead character and narrator. Reasons looks at how 21st Century language doesn’t seem to allow us to communicate our true feeling, often getting us into trouble when we use a term that we find expressive but others find that term/word offensive. Misinterpretation of words and phrases plays large in LaBute’s working class, blue collar relationship drama.
Puccini is in fine form here, with gorgeous melodies (including one Andrew Lloyd Weber quoted in his Phantom of the Opera) and luscious orchestration, which are most deftly executed by their performers, both in the pit and on stage. There never was, and probably never will be, a sour note in this production.