The basic plot of 39 Steps follows the 1935 Hitchcock film: bored London Bachelor Richard Hannay (Ted Deasy) meets stunning Annabella Schmidt (Claire Brownell) who is murdered before his eyes, but not before she has told him of her work as a counter espionage agent and given him tantalizing clues to halt the spies. Accused of her murder, he flees to Scotland to uncover the spy ring and thwart them.
What a discovery, what a gem! Music Director Paul Freeman has put together a excellent mixture of the old traditional and new contemporary scores and a new voice in chamber music – the Harlem Quartet. This made for a marvelous evening of music.
Plays in which the focus is on the mood and emotion rather than the story and characters can be a difficult endeavor. The Ghost Sonata is by no means an easy play because the story is near impossible to follow, with only tid-bits becoming slightly understandable. The play itself was revolutionary because it was one of the first chamber plays, meant to be done in a small space with few actors and few sets, but it comes across as a confusing meditation on class, society, and human nature
Unfortunately, Kristian O’Hare’s play is a dud. The Gay American is an uneven hybrid that tries to be a farce and a docudrama but only delivers a series of short scenes that only succeeds as an offensive, foul-mouthed insult to gay men.
Last August, I saw Ka-Tet Theatre’s production of Road and I liked the work from those Purdue grads. Their new show is a fine production of Steven Gridley’s Sun, Stand Thou Still.
I must state up front that I was never a fan of the Rolling Stones so a play with music like Signal Ensemble’s Aftermath has a tough time getting me to like it. Actually, the audience, made up of many old rockers, at the performance I attended seemed to love this show
From the beginning Stanley (in a believable ultra-intense magnificent performance by Matt Hawkins) is less than pleased to have this woman in his home, and even more distracted by what he feels is her “belle of the ball” act, which ultimately results in a major confrontation. As Williams himself remarks, “the play is about the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society.”
This story touches on interesting themes of samaritanism. Who is helping who and what is their motive? The author Jeremy Menekseoglu closely ties sexuality and the desire for Mr. Suit to help others as every patient is female and in the end we see it is Mr. Suit who is looking to be saved and loved. In each encounter with the wrong girl we see Mr. Suit struggle with his own internal manipulation to justify his actions.
By simply presenting facts and making all of the characters human and flawed, playwright Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Good Negro succeeds as a piece of entertaining theatre about the civil rights movement, without resorting to propaganda or pursuing a political agenda.
The creative artists at Lifeline Theatre present another wildly engaging adaptation of a novel. This time adapter Robert Kauzlaric and director Paul S. Holmquist have chosen the 1996 urban fantasy novel (and TV mini-series) by British novelist Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere.