Items filtered by date: November 2007

Who remembers the 1960s TV show “Hazel”? It may not be as easily recollected as such classics as “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, “The Andy Griffith Show” or “I Love Lucy”, but for those who loved 1960s sitcoms back in the day or have been introduced to them thanks to networks like ME TV, it would be hard to forget Hazel, the lovable, take-charge maid played by Shirley Booth, who treasured nothing more than taking care of the Baxter family. Now, some fifty or so years later Drury Lane Theatre presents the World Premiere “Hazel: A Musical Maid in America” as an ode to the silver age of television. 

Directed and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse, “Hazel” brings a new adventure to the dutiful maid and Baxter family. When Dorothy Baxter wants to go back to work much to husband George Baxter’s lack of support, enter Hazel who is hired to maintain the family’s home and take care of young Harold Baxter. A story in itself as Dorothy tries to take on the world of interior design with a corporate gig and wonders if she still has what it takes to succeed, the plot takes a twist when Harold believes he has captured a photo of a U.F.O. It doesn’t take much for word to get out of his spaceship sighting and for the Air Force to get involved. Kind of out there but remember we are talking about an era where U.F.O. scares were not so uncommon and TV was getting blitzed by series that included space ships and aliens. So the tie in actually makes sense. 

The evolution of Hazel continues. What began as a single-panel cartoon in the Saturday Evening Post back in 1943, was then brought to life in 1961 as a popular sitcom that went on to span five seasons. Hazel was not only known for keeping a spot-free home, but it was her big heart and droll sense of humor that made her one of TV’s most beloved heroines of the early to mid-1960s. In “Hazel: A Musical Maid for America” Klea Blackhurst admirably takes on the role as the tough as nails housekeeper, injecting just the right dose of humor and no-nonsense into her character while offering a dynamic vocal range in many of the show’s numbers. 

Both Ken Clark and Summer Naomi Smart are finely cast as George and Dorothy Baxter and are highly convincing as the 1960s married couple, gelling well with each other. Each also displays a finely tuned vocal presence of their own with Smart really lighting up the stage in her back to work number “Sheer Perfection”. The cast is well rounded and provides outstanding contributions from Ed Kross as Hazel’s love interest Bonkers Johnson, Casey Lyons as Harold Baxter and a strong ensemble that is highlighted by Bill Bannon and Meghan Murphy.

Boasting a very impressive, ever-changing set that really enhances the 1960s essence, “Hazel” is an entertaining spectacle as much as it is a fun, light-hearted comedy that gets its digs in at the male narrow-mindedness of the era and delves into the accepting of those for who they are. With plenty of energetic musical number laced with humor and wit, we are presented with a well-rounded comedy that comes with a nice measure of nostalgia.  

“Hazel: A Musical Maid in America”, a presentation full of clean humor (pun intended), a fun story and enjoyable big show numbers, is being performed at Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook through May 20th. For tickets and/or more show information, visit www.DruryLaneTheatre.com.     

How much do we reveal about ourselves to others? In a masterful new Steppenwolf production, title character Mary Page Marlowe gives the short answer: Only what we know.  

It may sound like an unpromising premise, but in recounting the life of ostensibly ordinary Mary Page Marlowe, a CPA from Dayton, playwright Tracy Lett’s shows his Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning chops, with a script that achingly reveals the human condition.

Through a dozen vignettes, one of six actresses plays Mary Page Marlowe at various stages. The first is in a restaurant, where Mary Page tells her kids that mom and dad are splitting. She gazes across the audience, asking loudly with her eyes, “How did I get here?”

Mary Page appears in every scene that follows, and the play challenges the audience to flash back and flash forward with her in time. We see her years before in a tryst with her boss; and years later in session with her therapist. Action jumps ahead to her deathbed, then back to her parents’ home in the 1940s, when she was just a baby.

From this we weave together the narrative of Mary Page Marlowe’s life: an alcoholic daughter of an alcoholic mother, her son who battles addiction, her family suffering the life of quiet desperation typical of many under the repressive social expectations of the 1950s and 1960s.

Mary Page Marlowe displaces her unhappiness in drinking and love affairs. A DUI near-fatal accident sends her to jail, and ends her second marriage. Hitting the wall, she finally comes to terms with her drinking and her life. Marrying successfully, she is eventually widowed. Alone on her death bed, Mary Beth Marlow confesses to her medical attendant she is ready to go, and has come to terms with her life.

All that is easier said than done on stage, and the audience may struggle at times to follow the characters’ progress in this play which yearns to be a movie. It is clear why director Anna Shapiro, who is also artistic director, postponed a sabbatical just to work on this production, which rivals film in its creative presentation.

Co-starring in all this is the set (Todd Rosenthall) and Lighting (Marcus Doshi), which moves from scene to scene by sliding in rooms, and dropping in translucent partitions that shape-shift through projection and backlight. The effect is truly cinematic, with scenes dissolving, like artfully edited film. Letts may be showing the influence of Hollywood, having watched his masterworks August: Osage County (Meryl Streep and Sam Shepard) and Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey) transfer from stage to screen.

The structure relegates the 21-member cast to largely extended cameo roles, but these carefully chosen performers really deliver. Along with the title actresses, two standouts were Stephen Cefalu, Jr. (Ed Marlowe), the very picture of a post-World War II young father; and Kirsten Fitzgerald (Shrink), who knows how to project her lines, and commands the stage.

Six actors portray Mary Page Marlowe:  Blair Brown (Mary at ages 59, 63 and 69); Carrie Coon (Mary at ages 27 and 36); Laura T. Fisher (Mary at age 50); Caroline Heffernan (Mary at age 12); Annie Munch (Mary at age 19); Rebecca Spence (Mary at ages 40 and 44), along with three live infants who intended to rotate in the role. (It was unclear in a recent matinee if a real baby made the curtain time. Other ensemble members Ian Barford (Ray) and Alan Wilder (Andy), Amanda Drinkall (Roberta Marlowe), Jack Edwards (Louis Gilbert), Tess Frazer (Lorna), Keith Gallagher (Ben), Sandra Marquez (Nurse), Ariana Venturi (Connie), Madeline Weinstein (Wendy Gilbert) and Gary Wilmes (Dan).

Mary Page Marlowe can be seen as a coming of age story, starring a Baby Boomer everywoman. Letts has also broken new ground, here, not just in the cinematic style of this play, but in examining to what extent we can reveal in our new relationships a life’s worth of baggage collected along the way.

In what may be the most revealing scene, the widowed Mary Beth Marlowe (Blair Brown) strikes up a conversation with a dry cleaning clerk Keith Gallagher as Ben) about restoring an old quilt – a conversation riddled with yearning, about nothing, and everything. Just like the play.

I've never been much of a magic fan. I'm always nervous for the magician just in case his trick doesn't work. But in Fooling Buddha, David Kovac seemingly does the impossible. Not only are his magic tricks top notch, he actually made me an unafraid appreciator of magic shows AND Buddhist philosophy while making me laugh at the same time. 

Kovac tells the story on how he grew up in Milwaukee during the 1970's raised by hippie parents who were Buddhists and forward thinkers way before their time.  Sent to a catholic school as a child to learn about African studies from Jewish teachers and being a nerd who loves magic at that time couldn't have been easy, but Kovac sure makes it funny. 

Kovac is a brilliant monologist though who has somehow managed to use his talent and love of magic to write a delightful one-man play full of memorable Buddhist quotes and koans (puzzles). Playing all the roles including his own mother, father and baby sister sitting around the dinner table, the bully who picked on him relentlessly and the magic shop owner to whom became a huge source of inspiration, the audience is never confused about which character is speaking.  Kovac’s delivery of beautiful Buddhist sayings like "A Miracle is a Tragedy with a Happy Ending" flow smoothly and segue so magically into each new story, pardon the pun, the 90-minute show with no intermission moves so quickly it left the heartily laughing audience visibly wanting more.  

Kovac’s conveyance of his one-man show is so quick and flawless, it left me struggling to mentally take notes in order to remember all the included wonderful bits of ancient knowledge. I guess I'm not the only one because David notes that Buddhism is known as the philosophy with 80,000 sayings and he proves that every time he is taught by his parents with another great, peaceful yet realistic Buddhist saying handy for almost every situation or problem that arose in his young life.  

The set he uses is beautifully and colorfully designed. A pleasure to watch, the set is full of secret doors and realistic windows that unfold to reveal new rooms. It is a lovely set made with great detail to the period and set with soft cozy lighting.   

I can't stress enough what a great writer David Kovac is and the intermingling of magic and Buddhism works perfectly to demonstrate the magic that is inherently implied in Buddhist philosophy. Kovac’s jokes and autobiography are finely told, and combined with his captivating illusions, Fooling Buddha provides a wonderful night of highly intelligent and uplifting storytelling. 

Kovac tells the audience he wants them to leave feeling like winners, like a magician who has just successfully shown spectators an illusion and received their applause. One of the most beautiful sayings in the show does just that in one beautiful line when he says, "There are billions of massive stars blazing across the night sky and inside you is the very same energy that lights the world." 

Highly Recommended.

Fooling Buddha is being performed at First Folio Theatre inside the enchanting Mayslake Peabody Estate in Oakbrook through April 24th.  For tickets or more information on the show, visit www.firstfolio.org.

Ravinia has announced that the most honored female country performer of all time, Dolly Parton, will bring her first major U.S. and Canadian tour in 25 years to the festival at 7:30 p.m. on August 7. “We’re so excited to get out there and see the fans again,” the legend says. “I’m really looking forward to singing songs the fans have not heard in a while, as well as the hits, while premiering a few new ones off Pure & Simple.”

An internationally renowned superstar, Parton penned such enduring, classic songs as “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” and the mega-hit “I Will Always Love You.” Over her career, she has created 25 RIAA-certified gold, platinum, or multiplatinum records and 41 top-10 country albums; earned 7 Grammy Awards, 10 Country Music Association Awards, 5 Academy of Country Music Awards, and 3 American Music Awards; and she is one of only five female artists to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award.

Donors to the not-for-profit Ravinia Festival at the Friend level and above can make early ticket requests for this concert from now through Friday, April 1. Tickets for this concert and the rest of Ravinia’s 2016 lineup go on sale to the public at 5 a.m. on April 26, exclusively at Ravinia.org.

ABOUT RAVINIA

Ravinia, located right outside Chicago, is North America’s oldest and most diverse music festival, presenting over 140 different events every summer, including the annual residency of the nation’s finest orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. As a nonprofit organization, Ravinia provides arts programs for over 75,000 people in underserved communities in Cook and Lake Counties through its REACH*TEACH*PLAY education programs. Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute is a summer music conservatory that awards 60–70 fully paid fellowships each year to the most talented young professional musicians from around the world to work with an esteemed faculty and the headliners who frequent the festival. For information, visit Ravinia.org.

There is an expectation when one sees a play that they will be taken on a journey. Audiences want to get lost in a story line, lose all sense of time enjoy the escapism. When an audience is reminded that they are watching a play, however, and that play goes on seemingly for ages, it ceases to become escapism and becomes a classroom lecture. “Arcadia” is just such a play. Written by Tom Stoppard, it is not an easy play to describe in brief. It confusedly intertwines the past and present with multiple story lines following intellectual theories that verge on the point of being arrogant and difficult to grasp in a play like setting.

The play bounces between the early 1800's and the present day in a stately manor in England. At the core of play, the present day is trying to uncover what took place at the manor in the 1800's. In the past, a gifted 13-year-old girl, Thomasina, delves into deep theoretical analysis of higher mathematics and physics, jotting down her theories and equations, unknowingly for the future to see. Paralleling that story line is her tutor, Septimus, who cheats with the wife of a visiting poet while pinning for the master of the manor’s wife, and who was somehow-possibly-connected to the famous Romantic poet, Byron. Flash forward to the present day where an academic hopes to uncover if the tutor, Septimus, might have had some involvement with the death of that visiting poet, and that his possible connection to Byron might mean that Byron was involved in this death as well. But wait! There’s more! Paralleling that story line in the present day, one of the family members of the estate combs through old hunting logs and notes to see that the young girl, Thomasina might have been a genius on the brink of an intellectual breakthrough, and seeks to dive deeply into her notes to potentially uncover her genius and the work during her young and short life.

Underneath all of these story lines is the running theme of “Arcadia,” named for a pair of 17th century paintings that picture shepherds around a tomb with the words “Et in Arcadia ego” on it. The incorrect Latin phrase translates to “Here I am in Arcadia” but it’s more accurate translation is “Even in Arcadia, here I am” the “I” being death. Stoppard is quoted by his biographer as saying he “wanted the presence of death in the title.” Spoiler alert, death does happen and is one of the core subplots, a sort of “who-done-it,” but it is just another element to this complicated play. Another reach for the “intellectual stimulation.”

Cliff notes would have a tough time summarizing this play. The play has witty, smart, and biting dialogue, well delivered by an articulate and charismatic cast. But look away, or miss a line and you might miss an introduction to a key character, or their relation to the other characters, or their purpose of being in the play at all. If not for the clothing change and syntax you might get lost in which time period you are in. The audience is obligated to follow along with every line and process all the information rapidly in order to keep pace with this play. With a run time of 2 hour 55 minute and only a brief 15 minute intermission that is a tall order for an audience, and even tougher story to convey for the actors. But the new multi-million dollar Writer’s Theater wants just that, for the audience and actors to meet as one, to journey together and become fully immersed with the story. The immaculate theater is nestled in the cozy tree lined streets of downtown Glencoe, and will be a wonderful location for future high-quality theatrical productions on the North Shore.

Overall, “Arcadia” would be better as a novel, where a reader can pause to examine the characters, read internal monologues and gain an understanding of the characters’ motivations and thoughts. It would be easier to follow the time changes and carefully consider the many complex theories being presented and explored. I think the length of such a book would rival a Tolstoy novel, though nothing would be lost to the wings. A play that requires such rapt and intense concentration from an audience for such a long duration makes it unapproachable to someone looking to get lost in a story. Watching “Arcadia” audiences do get lost, but for all the wrong reasons. “Arcadia” runs through May 1st. Tickets are available at http://www.writerstheatre.org.

Some people can only see what's right in front of them. Abe Koogler explores this theme in his play "Kill Floor" making its Midwestern debut at American Theater Company. The slaughterhouse is a setting once familiarized by Upton Sinclair in his novel "The Jungle." Koogler is updating this disturbing classic for our modern era. While we'd like to think we've evolved since 1906, perhaps we haven't. Maybe because we can't see the inside of a slaughterhouse, we don't think about how horrible factory farming really is. 

"Kill Floor" tells the story of Andy (Audrey Francis) who has been recently released from prison. Rick (Eric Slater) is a foreman at the slaughterhouse and gives Andy a job after taking pity on her. A flirtation develops despite that Eric is married, and it's suggested that Andy won't be promoted off the kill floor unless she sleeps with him. B, or Brendan (Sol Patches) is Andy's fifteen year old son who lives with foster parents. B struggles with a closeted homosexual crush, and the reality that most people ignore what makes them uncomfortable. B is also a vegan, making even it harder for Andy to reconnect with him. 

Under the direction of Jonathan Berry, this ensemble cast is killing it. Audrey Francis delivers a heartbreaking performance as a woman trying to reclaim her life. She falters naturally between assertiveness and crushing trauma. There's an emotional honesty in her performance that makes for a rare theater experience. Eric Slater and Sol Patches make for an excellent supporting cast. 

Koogler's play makes some intriguing points without browbeating the audience with his message. Particularly the comparison between mass incarceration and meat processing. In a way, we're all like the cattle - blindly following one another through winding tunnels, unsure of what's ahead. There's a certain degree of understanding he expects from his viewers. The script strays away from melodrama, leaving some stories untold and ideas unfinished. What's more human than that? 

Through May 1st at American Theater Company. 1909 W Byron Street. 773-409-4125

Cole Theatre’s adventurous production of The Bachelors takes an unsparing look deep into the male psyche. It is not always easy to watch. 

It’s amazing how well playwright Caroline McGraw manages to capture the flavor of men’s behavior when they are away from women. (Was she hiding behind a couch?) Whatever the answer, this rising writer is as much the star in a challenging theatrical event that should not be missed. (It runs through April 10.)

The Bachelors plot carries little action in the conventional sense: three 30-something men are still living a frat style life, long past the period of respectability. The play reveals one of them has used a date rape drug to prey on a young woman, who is gagged and naked in an attic room - a shocking turn of events.

As the play opens, Laurie (Shane Kenyon in a very strong performance), returns from a Vegas business trip to find Kevlar (Nicholas Bailey) dead drunk on the floor, the house trashed. Laurie helps Kevlar sober up, when Henry, the third roommate, arrives. 

As Henry appears (Boyd Harris excels as this menacing sociopath) we sense something is amiss. And these presentiments of danger unfold in the action. Henry is perturbed that Laurie has returned early, and that he has sobered up Kevlar. Henry has also drugged Kevlar, so he won’t learn about the woman in the attic, either. 

Laurie’s early return throws a wrench in Henry’s nefarious plans. Laurie is intent on rescuing the woman in the attic. A brawl follows, and Henry beats up Laurie. 

We should recognize these men as archetypes: Henry, alpha male with a cruel streak, is a biochemist; Laurie, feminist-male, is perpetually carrying the torch of unrequited love, and has just been fired from his sales job. 

The third, Kevlar, is a narcissistic wastrel. His current emotional trauma kicks off the play: he can’t understand why his long-time love left him after getting a terminal ovarian cancer diagnosis. The audience knows why: she doesn’t want to spend her remaining time with a guy like him, who could never commit, and provides little support.    

McGraw’s portrait of these males reveals the toxic mix of their personalities. What shows isn’t pretty, and there is little to redeem the characters. Like fruit too long on the branch, they have gone from ripe, to fetid. As the play closes, a foreboding wind blows open the apartment door - hinting at a dark destiny. 

The play is directed by Erica Weiss, and she has handled a difficult work well. McGraw's script has the characters shift from language that is realistic and natural, to soliloquoies that border on magic realism. One, a description of his lost love and the perfect girl, by Henry reels in the audience as they, and his roommates, realize this was someone who never existed. It's poetic. 

In another long interlude Henry performs a dance that mimes the strutting (and aggravating) a male displaying his dominance among men. It seemed over-long, but perhaps that was the point. 

The set is well-conceived, a kind of mindless squalor, with stairs suggesting those upper reaches that we don't want to see. 

The cast's Boyd Harris is Cole Theatre's artistic director. The Bachelors runs through April 10 at Greenhouse Theatre Center. 

Imagine walking through an art gallery, where each piece of art brings up different emotions and makes you think of a different story. Now let each story come to life through intensely raw and emotional songs and you get 35MM A Musical Exhibition, playing at the Circle Theatre through April 10th.  

The intimate space of the Circle Theatre is set up as part stage and part art gallery. Entering the theater, the audience was milling about, enjoying their wine and the photographs on display. As they take their seats, and after a quick introduction by one of the cast members, the show opens and we are taken through the musical exhibition. Unlike most major production musicals, 35MM does not have a narrative. The show is entirely comprised of songs – 22 of them to be exact, each corresponding to a photograph by Matthew Murphy displayed in a prominent position on stage. There are 5 actors who play all the roles and they are supported by a small orchestra, creating a show that almost feels too big for the small space.

Without a clear narrative or any dialog, this musical can feel disjointed as it moves from song to song, story to story, and even the character’s roles continue to shift which can be confusing. However, aside from the fragmented flow of the show, it was a very strong production. The music and lyrics, written by Ryan Scott Oliver, were powerful and sometimes reminiscent of rock musicals such as Spring Awakening or spoken word performance art. While the intensity was unwavering, each song had its own style befitting of the story it told, keeping things exciting.

All of the actors in the show were singing powerhouses and collectively they created raw and moving moments that took your breath away. They sung with such passion and emotion, there were times when the tears welling in their eyes were clearly visible, causing the same reaction in the audience. The most outstanding piece of the show was “Leave Luanne”, telling the sad story of domestic abuse. The intensity of the music and the passion coming through the voices was palpable in the room and at the formidable conclusion of the song the audience erupted in applause. 

Cameron Turner choreographed and directed this production beautifully. The choreography was clean and creative. It took into account the intimate space of the production and the fact that the actors were singers first. The movements seemed to flow with the music perfectly, punctuating moments in the songs and creating nice visual effects. In keeping with the gallery setting, the costumes were normal everyday clothes one would wear for a night at a small art gallery.

The immediate response to this show may be mixed. Audiences will be moved by the honest intensity of the songs that make up this show, but may also be perplexed by the lack of a clear story line. However, a shift in perspective to consider this show as a stroll through a photography gallery where each image comes to life and tells its story through music, allows the beauty and power of this show to shine through.

It is not often that small musical productions pack a punch as big as this show does, so if you are a fan of less mainstream rock musicals get your tickets now to check out 35MM before April 10th . 

After a successful run last winter, Hershey Felder will be returning to reprise his role as Irving Berlin in "Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin". Bringing his one man show back to the Royal George Theatre beginning on April 9th, Felder's wonderful production will returning for just one month. Posted below is our previous review of "Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin", which gives one an idea of what a unique and heartfelt experience it really is. This is warm, funny and educational production that should not be missed.

"Hershy Felder as Irving Berlin"

Royal George Theatre

April 9th - May 8th

HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN - THE UNMITIGATED KING OF ONE PERSON SHOWS

“Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music. Emotionally, he honestly absorbs the vibrations emanating from the people, manners and life of his time and, in turn, gives these impressions back to the world—simplified, clarified and glorified.” - Jerome Kern

There are shows that make one proud to be an American, proud to be Jewish and proud to be of immigrant descent and Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin currently performed at Royal George Theatre is one show that does all three. 

Felder proves yet again that he is a consummate master of the one person show. While his bio/docu/musicals about famous composers, from his George Gershwin Alone, to Fryderyk Chopin, to Ludwig van Beethoven, to Maestro Leonard Bernstein thrilled Chicago and LA audiences and critics alike, this production and his  portrayal of Irving Berlin is quite simply the icing on the cake of his career.

Irving Berlin, whose real name was Israel Isidore Baline and whose musical background included that his father was a cantor (singer for the Temple), was only eleven years old when he left his house to find work as a singing waiter because "there were too many mouths to feed" even with his pennies earned as a paperboy.

Although Berlin's first hits were more comical and vaudevillian like “Marie from Sunny Italy”, and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, to grab people's attention, it was the grief over the tragic death of his first wife that he credits with teaching him how to write a real song.

Like a chapter from a sad Lifetime movie, Berlin married his adorable twenty-year-old sweetheart took her to fashionable Havana for their honeymoon and five months later she died from typhoid fever she contracted on their week-long stay. 

Later he married socialite Ellin MacKay the daughter of the richest man in the United States, and wrote his classic, timeless love song, “Always”, about his pure joy at finding her. They were married for 62 years, and ironically her father disowned Ellin and Berlin for years for marrying a Jewish immigrant songwriter - until right after the stock market crash in which Mr. MacKay lost his entire fortune but Berlin wisely having purchased the publishing rights to ALL of his songs kept his finances relatively intact during the depression.

Everything went wrong,
And the whole day long
I'd feel so blue.
For the longest while
I'd forget to smile,
Then I met you.
Now that my blue days have passed,
Now that I've found you at last -

I'll be loving you always
With a love that's true always.

Days may not be fair always,
That's when I’ll be there always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But always.

Berlin’s songs include, “Blue Skies”, (composed for his daughter), “Heat Wave”, “How Deep is the Ocean”, “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, “Steppin’ Out with My Baby”, “What’ll I Do”, and the scores of “Annie Get Your Gun”, “Holiday Inn”, “Easter Parade,” and many more. We also learn that Berlin wrote “White Christmas” years after his son Irving Jr. was tragically found dead on Christmas morning at just three-weeks-old. In all, Irving Berlin composed 232 top-ten hits and 25 number one songs, and over 1500 published songs including one of his biggest hits, “God Bless America”.

I really loved the set which consisted of a lovely Christmas tree and piano with windows that opened onto a wonderful video presentation of the actual people, Berlin, his wives, etc as he tells a story about each. My only note for Felder is that he reconsiders having an intermission in any show he directs or stars in that is longer than 90 minutes as this one was. The audience was rapt the entire time but I felt the break in the middle would have allowed them to enjoy the show even more as a whole evening of entertainment with time to absorb and refresh between the two acts.

The artistic team for Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin is outstanding and led by Director Trevor Hay. Scenic Design is by Hershey Felder and Trevor Hay, Sound Design is by Erik Carstensen, Lighting Design is by Richard Norwood and Video Design is by Andrew Wilder. The Scenic Decoration is by Meghan Maiya.

“Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin” is a rich and fully enjoyable experience that is playing at The Royal George theatre through December 6^th. For more show information, visit www.theroyalgeorgetheatre.com. 

Blind dates can be interesting enough but add in a few surprises and things can get pretty uncomfortable in a hurry. In Recent Tragic Events we meet a couple, Waverly and Andrew, who gets together for a date on the recommendation of mutual friends and as the night progresses they have more in common than they could have possibly thought. 

The date starts precariously. It's the day after the September 11th attacks and Waverly's twin sister has not been heard from. Waverly is somewhat certain that her sister would not have been at the World Trade Center during the attacks but still has a bit of doubt. Andrew, who manages a book store at the airport, is awkward and shy but quickly notices that Waverly has the exact same books as him when picking her up and their admiration for the same authors quickly creates a bond between the two. With Waverly upset about her sister's status the two decide to stay indoors to hand out and order pizza. It's not long after that down-the-hall neighbor Ron intrudes on the date. Ron is a happy-go-lucky musician who doesn’t seem to take too much in life very seriously. The three of them tune in and out of news broadcasts covering the attack, but try to keep things light-hearted though a heavy cloud overshadows their evening. Soon Ron’s married girlfriend joins the group hair disheveled and clad only in an oversized t-shirt and panties. She doesn’t speak, only nodding and making slight sounds in agreement or disagreement. 

The intrigue begins when Andrew tells Waverly that he had met her sister just two weeks prior at a bar. Recollecting his encounter, he tells Waverly and Ron that she had been discussing a position for a company located in the World Trade Center. Of course, that naturally amplifies Waverly’s worst fears. 

Recent Tragic Events is full of funny dialogue and subtle mannerisms, especially once Ron enters the scene, played hysterically by Maximillian Lupine who can induce laughter with the slightest of looks or gestures. Though Lupine gets most of the big laughs, Rachel Christianson is also hilarious – not so much as Ron’s girlfriend Nancy, but as Andrew’s favorite author, Waverly’s grandmother Joyce Carol Oates, who is portrayed by a sock puppet on her hand. Oates even knocks down a few beers with the gang during her visit if you can imagine a sock puppet chugging during a drinking game. Naturally when Joyce Carol Oates needs to use the bathroom, Nancy shows her the way, waits for her before returning together. Matthew Nerber also puts forth a humorous performance as the dweeby bookworm Andrew along with Laura Berber Taylor who displays a fine emotional range.   

The story is well-balanced with both the humor of the gang interacting (often awkwardly)and the drama that a tragedy more personal than expected may have taken place. Once really gets to like the characters, probably because there is a lot of truth in them. The question of free will is challenged, pondering if we really do make our own choices even when we think we do. This is brought to the surface in many ways not only with parallels to the September 11th attacks but even in the actors reading from a script after the “stage manager” alerts the crowd that the story could go in different ways by changing lines every time a chime is heard. Ron and Joyce Carol Oates also have a heated exchange on the subject. 

Recent Tragic Events is worth checking out. It is a show that will make you think past the many good laughs it offers. The characters work well together thanks to a well-assembled cast and solid scripting while the story keeps your attention, though it seems to run a bit longer than it should, quickly changing tone and opting to linger rather than closing on a prior opportune moment or two. 

Recent Tragic Events is being performed at Athenaeum Theatre through April 10th. For tickets and/or more show information visit www.athenaeumtheatre.org .