Always…Patsy Cline has a true story basis in an incident that found super-fan Louise Seger (the terrific Janelle Snow) introducing herself to Patsy in 1961 at a Huston honky-tonk. The two women instantly became friends and confidants.
McGhan’s polished script puts a face on the middle class working stiffs who spent 35 years as airplane mechanics with fishing the Minnesota River as their main personal escape and recreation. The attention to details of these avid fisherman by McGhan and director Drew Martin nicely utilizes Alan Donahue’s impressive wooden wharf/pier set where the folks meet to socialize while fishing.
Nothing gets resolved and we never know why anyone does what they do. Brunstetter’s attempt to show how ‘white trash’ military family’s live is offensive and implausible. This group never considered getting outside help to cope with their trauma. They just drift through life much as thus play drifts through two hours plus of our time.
The acting is superb; the Southern accents are real; and the directing (by Julieanne Ehre skillfully avoids the trapping of melodrama). The drama is rich in subtly and hidden angst that leads to rage. Williams’ poetic language plays nicely with his rich symbolism. The result of all these elements is a powerful, searing drama. A Tennessee Williams play is not to be missed.
A Catered Affair was based on the 1956 Bette Davis film and a Paddy Chayefsky TV play, is now a sort of chamber operetta filled extended recitative or singing dialogue that eventually breaks into a few actual songs then becomes a spoken dialogue drama that turns into an operetta again. One of the main problems with this structure is that the show is filled with actors who are not singers except Rebecca Finnegan. When you have loads of recitative early on sung so weakly as not to be understood, drowned out by a string quarter, the show doesn’t grab you.
Somehow the Joffrey dancers continue to get better and better each year, if that’s possible! Winter Fire is no exception with another amazing program that breaks new ground with two premieres for Chicago viewers; overflows with excitement and creativity; and feeds your soul with sumptuous beauty. If you can, do try to see this very special program.
…the actor who bravely tackles the role of the Price of Denmark, Hamlet must anchor the show. Jon Matteson sure was up to the task of rendering a tour de force performance as Hamlet. Matteson’s portrayal exuded the many moods of the Prince as he moves from charming to mad in a complex enigmatic performance
Adapter Joe Calarco dares to have a group of prep school boys, so filled with emotional and sexual tensions, that they use acting out Romeo & Juliet in a sheltered space on campus as a release of their bottled-up tensions.
One of the elements that makes Shakespeare’s R & J so enjoyable is the amazing articulate, fully invested acting by this talented cast
In this interesting drama, we learn much, mostly from flashbacks, of how this group of scientists traveled the world in pre-World War II days in search of both hardy and exotic plants as part of their attempt to produce hybrid wheat, corn, as well as fruits and vegetables, for the purpose of increasing food crop yields. This noble purpose had political as well as social consequences for the Communists Party’s survival in Russia.
It is important that classics like South Pacific be presented in their entirety with all the songs, all the underscoring and all reprises so as to let the next generation experience all the splendor of the original production. This show does that effectively. Granted contemporary theatre aficionados may question many of the story elements and persona of key characters but they will have no quibble with Rodgers and Hammerstein marvelous songs.