Playwright Priest blog moving to new cyber-address!

This week I moved all my reviews on this blog to my new Playwright Priest blog location:

www.playwrightpriest.wordpress.com

I'll keep this blog up until all the currently reviewed productions have closed. You can also read those reviews, and all subsequent reviews and promos at the new location.

REVIEW: Evergreen Players' 'Black Comedy'

JR Cody Schuyler, Patrick Collins and Rebecca Gholson in Evergreen Players' production of  Black Comedy. Photo Credit: Sandra Abel

Where were you when the lights went ON?

If you're lucky, you were at Center/Stage Theatre, where Evergreen Players' hilarious production of Black Comedy is currently the second most enjoyable thing to do in the dark. But hurry over, because the show closes April 7.

In Peter Shaffer's quick and clever farce, the comic conceit is that when the audience is in darkness, the actors talk and move about onstage as if they are fully lit. But when the stage lights come on, they behave as if a power outage has plunged them into total darkness. The resulting bumping, stumbling and groping of seemingly sightless characters creates comic opportunities that never grow tiresome, even after 90 minutes of mirthful mayhem.

Shaffer is best known for his brilliant dramas exploring the ages-old conflict between edgy youth and middle age stagnation, between genius and mediocrity, and the tensions between wild, untamed and passionate self-expression, and civilizing, individuality-crushing order. His two best-known works are Equus and Amadeus.

Black Comedy is nothing at all like those plays. It feels like an early work, in which he explored the structural complexities of farce, much like Shakespeare did with Comedy of Errors. This is often a necessary step for gifted playwrights as they develop their own uniquely personal themes and voice.

An unscrupulous sculptor (JR Cody Schuyler) lies and steals in order to impress his future father-in-law (John Meredith) and a rich art buyer. His annoying but wealthy fiancee (Rebecca Gholson) goes along with it, but the entire universe, including a power outage, two neighbors, one who is attracted to the sculptor and the owner of the purloined property (Patrick Collins), and the other a Baptist matron who is a secret lush (Carol Meredith), along with his scary and unpredictable ex-girlfriend (Andrea Rabold), make his ill-gotten success nearly impossible. The harder he tries to save the salvage doomed situation, the funnier things become for the audience.

There are an awful lot of trips to the bar, as if everyone feels a need to get drunk just because there's no electricity, but it's really just an excuse to keep the actors moving around. The scenes involving the sculptor rearranging, removing and replacing furniture in the dark, and sometimes right out from under the others, is the absolute highlight of a show that is filled with show-stopping comic moments.

Truth will out, and the sculptor's deceit will literally "come to light," but because the characters are mostly motivated by self-interest and aren't truly sympathetic, attractive or virtuous, a traditional "happy" ending isn't required. Justice prevails.

Under the imaginative and skilled direction of Kathleen Davis, the cast gets an amazing workout, with nearly non-stop broad physical comedy hijinks and lightning quick dialogue. I was gasping for breath just watching them. Or maybe it was because I was laughing so hard. Either way, both actors and audience are fully exercised by this hilarious slapstick farce.

Evergreen Players' production of Black Comedy plays at Center/Stage theatre, 27608 Fireweed Drive, Evergreen, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., through April 7. For information, call 303-674-4934 or visit www.evergreenplayers.org. 

PROMO: 'Jack and the Beanstalk' at Colorado ACTS

Jack and the Beanstalk

          Adapted by Phyllis McCallum


The story of Jack and the Beanstalk needs  no introduction, but this Version of the familiar folk tale introduces an assortment of characters guaranteed to delight the youngsters in your audience.   Jack’s father has been kidnapped by the terrible giant who lives in the clouds. To save his family from starvation, Jack must sell their beloved cow, Buttercup; but ends up trading for a handful of beans.  The beans are magic, of course…and sprout into a beanstalk which reaches into the sky.  With the help of his good fairy,  Frippery, Jack saves his father and destroys the evil giant.

March 30, 7 pm

March 31, 2 pm and 7 pm

Tickets $3.00, $15.00 family limit, children under 5 are free

Performing in our new theater space- 9460 W 58th (Ralston Road) in Arvada

Call 303-456-6772 for more information, or check our website

www.coloradoacts.org

REVIEW: BDT'S 'The Drowsy Chaperone'

Alicia Dunfee is The Drowsy Chaperone.
Photo Credit: Glenn Ross Photography

Boulder's Dinner Theatre's fun-loving, light-hearted, slap-happy production of The Drowsy Chaperone is simply perfect. The actors seem to have been born to play these delightful roles, their voices are outstanding, the dancing is spot-on, both the comic timing and the multiple scene changes are fast and precise, the costumes are gorgeous and the live music gives the whole production a gratifyingly full sound. Paired with a delicious meal, going to the BDT is currently the best ticket in town.

I've always thought of The Drowsy Chaperone as "idiot proof," a show that any reasonably organized high school or community theatre could hope to pull off with minimal resources and immature talent, and still entertain its audiences. But in the hands of these consummate professionals, under the brilliant direction of Michael J. Duran (who is also a hoot in a supporting role), the bar for excellence has been raised right through the roof, and BDT has very high ceilings.


Winner of five Tony Awards, The Drowsy Chaperone is a hilarious "show within a show," as the troubled and sympathetically reclusive Man in Chair (Brian Norber) listens to an old 1920's Broadway soundtrack, bringing it to life in his imagination, and eventually interacting with the silly, dated, escapist musical.

It's about a Broadway star (Katie Ulrich) who wants to give up fame (but not fortune) to marry a handsome millionaire (Brian Jackson). A "drowsy" (meaning "tipsy") chaperone (Alicia Dunfee) makes a half-hearted attempt to keep them from seeing each other on their wedding day, which leads to several preposterous misunderstandings. A host of supporting characters include a scatterbrained widow (Cindy Lawrence) and her Underling (Bob Hoppe), a Broadway producer (Scott Beyette) who insists that the show must go on, two comical "gangsters" who spout criminally bad puns (Duran, Wayne Kennedy), a bleached blonde chorus girl (Joanie Brosseau), the tap-happy best man (Matthew D. Peters), and an outrageously over-the-top would-be Lothario (Seth Saikowski).

It's an easy, breezy ride all the way through, despite some exasperating interruptions from Man in Chair's "real life." The comical complications are easily straightened out in time for the requisite happy ending and blockbuster finale.

The genius of the show, which has a book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, with music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, is in the multiple layers given to seemingly two-dimensional characters, and how the show's sensibilities are interpreted and given a modern context by the deeply complex and barely-coping Man in Chair. His comments about the show's supposed "history" reveal quite a bit about himself and the world we live in, and you can't blame him for wanting to shut out the real world and escape into a simpler, happier time, even if it was all just make believe in the first place.

Brian Norber as Man in Chair in Boulder's Dinner Theatre's superior
production of The Drowsy Chaperone. Photo Credit: Glenn Ross Photography

But what makes the BDT's version so much better than others'? I've thought a lot about it, and have a theory. Yes, the cast and production team are superior, plus most of them have worked together for years, some for more than a decade. They know their chops, and how to best present a musical in that space. They could do this kind of material in their sleep, but have chosen to go into it fully energized and committed. Each person seems to know their essential part in the whole, and works together to create a seamless, polished work of living art. That alone makes going to the BDT an inspirational experience. But there's something about THIS show that takes the audience further into a once-in-a-lifetime experience of joy.

I'm going to hazard a guess on the finishing touch that takes this production of The Drowsy Chaperone to a transcendent level. This is pure speculation on my part, but I suspect that director Michael J. Duran, rather than just staging a show and getting the pieces to work together, as less experienced directors might do, required an extra layer of character analysis for the roles, which gives the show a deeper, even more exciting level of complexity.

It appeared to me as I breathlessly watched this deceptively goofy musical unfold, that the BDT actors, aware of their own public personas as performers, then fully explored their alter egos, the "characters" of the fictitious actors who originally were cast in the supposed 1920s musical, and also worked together in numerous Broadway productions. These "core" characters, were then cast as the kind of "stock characters" that were the basis of their respective careers, which they had played so many times they knew them through and through. And then the whole thing is interpreted and filtered through the modern and wounded imagination of the Man in Chair.

Wow. That's a lot more than most dinner theatre audiences expect, and many I'm sure have a delightful time without going that far. But it's there for those of us who love to dig deeper, and find themselves going over a frilly, frothy show like this in our minds two weeks later and still feeling inspired.

Who knows? Maybe I'm just another Man in Chair musing through an inspiring musical production, reading things into it for my own enjoyment. If that's true, don't burst my bubble. Just go to Boulder's Dinner Theatre and see The Drowsy Chaperone for yourself.

The Drowsy Chaperone plays at Boulder's Dinner Theatre through May 13. Tickets start at $35. Call 303-449-6000 or go to www.bouldersdinnertheatre.com for reservations and information.