The Night Season. An ensemble play I would describe as more about loneliness than love, The Night Season is an experiential success insofar as it offers the same disappointment of loneliness by not only conveying loneliness’s disappointment through its characters but also by leaving its audience disappointed at its end—all this despite its sentimental conclusion in which many characters actually find love.
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With six roles and three actors, a lot no doubt rides on the actors’ performative skills. The first act felt rocky, in that I found it difficult to identify the “real” characters behind their attitudes: Ned is high-strung and rambles; Nan is quiet and brooding; and Pip is chummy and smiling. And while the conflict eventually brings out other depths in Nan and Pip, it felt a little too late for me to care; and Ned was never clarified, or redeemed for that matter, for me.
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This funny show is pure whimsical fantasy played out with innate sweetness with a pleasant lighthearted touch. Elwood is a lovable guy who was smart and now wants to be pleasant. His simple credo is infectious. It is so refreshing to see strong dramatic actors like Timothy Edward Kane, Karen Janes Woditsch, Jacqueline Williams, and A.C. Smith perform comedy. Their timing rendered many laughs.
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At she bonds with Einstein, Harding segways from Einstein’s work to his personal life. She speaks about a child he had in 1902 who was never spoken again after 1904. Here playwright St. Germain fictionalizes about what happened to the baby and what Harding’s connection is to that happening. Einstein’s reaction to that baby, now a grown women, and to that women’s child, a genius savant makes for a compelling story.
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Unfortunately, with the exception of Sophie Kaegi, none of the cast can sing. That spells trouble for a musical! With 19 songs in a 100 minute one act, Little Miss Sunshine’s songs sounded like someone scratching their fin
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What makes this biomusical work so well is the combination of terrific period dance numbers depicting traditional vaudeville, ragtime, and roaring twenties dances with outstanding performances by the two Josephine Bakers. We see Joan Ruffin, as the older Josephine as she narrates the Baker story deftly until she ‘becomes’ her. But the real star is Aerial Williams as the younger Josephine. Aerial is a true beauty, a fabulous dancer/singer and an exquisite actor. She has a terrific stage presence that becomes electrifying. She has charm to spare yet is tough as need be. Aerial Williams gives a star-studded performance here.
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Wikipedia would have us believe Things to Ruin is “A rock concert about young people hell bent on destruction and creation,” but it’s unlikely Wikipedia saw the production I did. For me, at its worst Things to Ruin is about a group of former high school theatre nerds (I use the term affectionately), now grown into struggling actors and wayward young adults, who hang around a bar exorcising the ghosts of their Emo years while bemoaning the failures of their present. At its best, the show sometimes manages to transcend the hallmark sound of musical theatre, relay a sentiment not entirely infantile, and actually land in genre (though typically it does not stray far from the roots of Rock). At its best, Things to Ruin is very good; at its worst, it’s mawkishly sentimental. The good news: it’s more often at its best.
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Furiously independent, she is irritated that her lover and fellow war journalist dotes over her. McGuire is traffic as she fights her wounds and always seems to have a glimpse of her desire to get back to photo the horrors of war. Her wounds and his emotional breakdown from one too many war horrors forced James (Robert Tobin) to return home to write puff-pieces.
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The stand-out performances, I noted, were experienced Trap-Dôrsists Halie Ecker, Marzena Bukowska, and Kelsey Rhiann Shipley: their presence had that sine qua non quality—in their physical movements; the credulity in their eyes; and, most especially, the expressive skill of their voices that transcended the “poetry” of the poetry to communicate its meaning clearly (cf. a coherent Shakespearian actress).
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Objects In The Mirror is his best to date!. This work is based on the true experiences of Shedrick Yarkpai, an actor living in Australia and a former immigrant from West Africa. Charles Smith met Shedrick Yarkpai when he played in Smith’s Free Men of Color in Adelaide, Australia. The actor and the playwright became friends and, over time, Shedrick Yarkpai told Smith his story of his more than ten year journey from war-torn Liberia as well as migrant camps in Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire to Australia.
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