Number 56: Big White Sale Issue
by Carl F. Gauze
Ok, so if this warming deal eradicates snow, there’s not much to measure the seasons anymore except length of the day. Right now I get in when it’s sort of light and go home when it’s sort of dim. I think I’m not smelling the roses, but the lemon tree smells nice. When I see a lot of motorcycles, I know spring will be here. When the Christmas trees go up, it’s fall. Easy.
Merry Wives of Windsor
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jim Helsinger
Starring Anne Hering, Suzanne O’Donnell, Dan McCleary
Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival, Orlando FL
Some men are just natural overachievers. Short on cash, roguish Sir John Falstaff (McCleary) decides to simultaneously seduce two wealthy yet happily married women. His big mistake was using a form love letter, and when the women compared notes they decide he’s a buffoon (true) and deserves whatever he gets (true again). As the torture beggins, Mistress Margaret Page (Herring) and her doting husband George (Patrick Flick) work to marry their very marketable daughter Anne (Beth Brown) while Mistress Alice Ford (O’Donnell) puts up with her naturally jealous husband Frank (Philip Nolan). As they wreak havoc on his person and pride, they involve husbands, servants, and anyone else who wander on stage. Poor Falstaff, he just wanted to clean out their wallets and bring them permanent Elizabethan disgrace.
With the complete “A” list of OSF actors, Merry Wives gets a laugh from every joke that could possibly connect with a modern audience. Both Hering and O’Donnell were delightful as they poured torture upon torture on the man. Tim Williams as Dr Caius gives one of the finest French fop performances he’s ever done, and Phillip Nolan battles Brad De Planche for most the overwrought self gnawing award in the show. Best of all, McCleary’s rotund Falstaff never seems particularly upset, as if he’s already in on the jokes played upon his oddly grey head.
Like all of Shakespearian comedies, the plot depends on amazing coincidence, mistaken identity and a general air headed approach to reality. Fortunately, OSF safely ignores these technical points and plays up the innuendo and potty jokes, giving us all the needed releases of laughing at what we’d prefer to find funny than having to over intellectualize what we had to study in school. Remeber, the word “urinal” IS pretty funny sounding.
For more information on UCF-Shakespeare, visit
http://www.shakespearefest.org
Guys and Dolls
By Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows, and Jo Swerling
Directed by David Gerrard
Starring Kyle Harden, Courtney Winstead, Rod Cathey and Betsy Bauer
Starlight Theater, Orlando, FL
Everyone believes that marriage will change the other party from a semi-civilized compromise to the man or woman of their dreams. In reality, whatever is wrong at the start will only get worse, and this show advises you take wedding vows with a grain of salt. Nathan Detroit (Cathey) engaged Miss Adelaide (Bauer) 14 years ago, and now she’s getting antsy, particularly since she told her mom they were married with 5 kids and Nathan assistant managed at the A&P. Really, she’s a dance hall floozy and he runs a floating craps game taking a cut to cover his tailoring bills. Neither is exactly middle class boring, and both seem resigned to the eternal flame of dating yet never sharing a tax accountant. The switch occurs when pressing business forces them into a BB gun wedding – Nathan planned a big game with some tough guy high rollers, but the fuzz (James Stevens) clamps down making back rooms and funeral parlors are hard to find. A thousand in cash would solve the problem, and Nate bets Sky Masterson (Harden) that he can’t get Bible thumping Sara Brown (Winstead) to Havana for dinner. Sky’s pretty smooth, and not only does he get her there, he pours demon rum into her, awakening her suppressed desires to find a man and make him into something he doesn’t want to be. Will Nate make the game happen, or will Big Jule (Jason Goodson) take his 50 g’s to Disneyland?
“Guys and Dolls” plays out in a cartoon Damon Runyon world of colorful buildings and even more colorful men’s wear. There’s some good singing here, with Ms. Winstead showing a strong alto and a stronger tremolo. Mr. Nicely Nicely (Dustin Cunningham) did beautiful job on “Sit Down, your Rockin’ The Boat”, while Sky and Sara clean up on “I’ll Know” and the first act punch out “I’ve Never Been in Love.” The other big number “Luck Be A Lady” went very well, but I was let down by Adelaide’s vocalizing. I understand the role calls for an adenoidal tone, but I found her strident and fully agreed with Nate delaying vows until she completed her voice changing years.
There are three driving tension in “Guys and Dolls” – Will the crap game happen, will Adelaide get Nate, and will Sky and Sara resolve their mismatched romance? None of these story threads felt compelling, and it seemed as if the cast had already read the script and knew the answer. Of course, we know they know, but I would hope they could act like they didn’t know. There’s entertainment in the sets and singing, but the acting is spotty and you never really care what happens to these people’s love lives or their gambling debts.
For more information on Starlight Theater, please visit http://www.starlightorlando.com/
A Body of Water
By Lee Blessing
Directed by Chris Jorie
Orlando Theater Project at The Rep in Orlando Fla.
Sometimes a senior moment stretches into a life time. Moss Sibley (Jim Howard) and his wife Avis (Christine Decker) wake up every morning with a complete mental reboot. Sleep wipes out any short term memories and most long term ones. They don’t know who they are, where they are, or why, although they can still do crossword puzzles and make a decent latte. The only clue to reality lies with the woman who claims to be their daughter Wren (Laura Anne Hodos.) She keeps them well dressed and plays horrid mind games with them every morning. Is she torturing them, or just trying to raise enough anger to keep them alive? The audience remains as confused as the Sibleys as author Lee Blessing dribbles out the facts and red herrings parsimoniously, but the clues are all there – take everything at face value and apply the simplest possible answer to every question.
Howard and Decker make a fine older couple, even with their disabling memory problems. He’s gracious, loving and infused with a glowing humor. Decker is bit harsher, but more driven to find an answer, even going so far as to discretely flash hubby in hopes of oxygenating an ember of remembrance. His memory doesn’t take, but everything else seems connected. Hodos’ daughter Wren feels ambiguous. You sometimes feel she’s faking something, or really out to harm, but in the end she feels like a loving daughter doing the best anyone could under the circumstances.
This creepy thriller is in its fourth version, and perhaps Blessing plans to rewrite it for every production. The audience often as not said “What the heck just happened?” I felt Wren really had found a strategy that kept her parents alive and happy for at least half a day, every day. Other offered conflicting interpretations in the noisy post show bustle, and I can’t say any of those interpretations were any more right or wrong than mine. Perhaps Moss and Avis HAD found happiness – pleasant surroundings, reasonable health, and the ability to never ever carry yesterday’s pains into tomorrow.
For more information on Orlando Theater Project, please visit http://www.otp.cc
Sylvia
By A. R. Gurney
Directed by Kevin Bee
Theater Downtown, Orlando FL
You have to give the Theater Downtown crew marks for consistency. They’ve kept the same line up for ever revival of the popular A. R Gurney’s “Sylvia.” The plot never changes – Greg (David Bass) and Kate (Lori MacCaskill) find the nest empty, and take off on separate trajectories. She’s teaching again, and he’s adopted a proxy girl friend, the mixed breed canine Sylvia (Jennifer Gannon). At first Kate’s objections revolves around shedding and chewing and fleas, but eventually she sees the light – Greg’s fallen out of love with his her and would rather spend time with Sylvia. Sylvia mimes the perfect girl friend evolution, from admiring worshipper to demanding queen bee. The show down arrives, Sylvia gets the boot, but in a little post show wrap up we find Kate relenting and the trio lived happily ever after.
While Bass and MacCaskill kept up their energy, it’s Gannon’s bouncy performance as the vamping hound that makes this show interesting. With its loose moralizing about midlife crises and recasting one’s relations after losing the biological imperative of mate, breed, and propagate, Sylvia could easily slide into the maudlin. It avoids that, emphasizing the comic over the emotional. Utility outfielder Aaron Babcock gives a mixed performance as all the external advisors to Greg and Kate. His fellow dog lover persona works well enough, but his choppy deliver as Kate’s old friend and Leslie the ambiguous Marriage Counselor make him seem uncomfortable in the baggy dress drag roles.
Talking animals are an age old conceit, often offering advice to a protagonist beyond their potential education and experience. Gurney keeps Sylvia completely self interested and focused on the moment, with only occasional flashes of perceiving future time. This keeps the story sweet with out the syrup, and never makes you feel weird about suspending your disbelief. Now, if they would just rotate the actors ever so often…
For more information, please visit http://www.theatredowntown.net
Babes in Arms
Book by John Guare
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Directed by Steve MacKinnon
Staring Kyle Harden, Lisa Kerstin, Meghan Fenner
Starlight Theater, Orlando FL
You have to love the earnestness of the 1930’s American musical theater. Communism and capitalism, race and sex, all examined under a microscope suitable for medieval theologian, and then spun into a fluff musical with dancing vaudeville kids and a French aviation hero. The recently revived Starlight and director MacKinnon do there level best to turn this incoherent script into an evening entertianment suitable for the prime rib and Death by Chocolate cake set, succeeding on some level and failing on others.
The story line is full of hole, but that should never impede a classic musical. The children of fading vaudevillians fend for themselves as the folks raise one last tour before the vaudeville houses turned to strip shows for guys in trench coats. The sheriff (James Stevens) gives the vagrant kids 24 hours to turn themselves in for the work farm. The idea “Let’s put on a show” float to the top, so Val (Harden) and Marshall (Adam Del Medico) hook up with new comer Billie (Kerstin) to shake some moola out of local racist Lee Calhoun (James Rinaldi). Lee lives on Long Island and maintains an authentic 1840 cotton plantation on The Sound. He’s down with the show until he finds out actual Negros (Jason Goodson and St. Clair DuBerry) will appear. Then it’s off to the work farm for everyone, including the sheriff’s daughter Dolores (Alejandra Martinez) until famous French aviator Flambeau (Dustin Cunningham) crashes in the wings and rescues everyone.
Well. Given that story, a few good songs might wash the Script by Focus Group taste out of your mouth. There’s a take away hit “The Lady is a Tramp” sung by Billie in a pleasant contralto, and a decent tap number “Light on our feet” by Jason Goodson and St. Clair Duberry as Irvinf and Ivor. “I Wish I Were in Love Again” is a tap number that only gets half spoken and not really danced. The highlight was “Way Out West” by Baby Rose (Fenner), a hysterical send up of the Gene Autry cowboy sound so popular in mid century.
Overall, we endure a weak script with a few good songs, executed with uneven singing skills. The premise was tortured, and a few good songs like “My Funny Valentine” and “Johnny One Note” just never connected. The acting fell back to stereotype often as not, and I hoped more than once the Sheriff would issue a citation for overacting. These Babes have yet to grow up.
For more information on Starlight Theater, please visit http://www.starlightorlando.com/
The Caretaker
By Harold Pinter
Directed by Bobby Bell
Mad Cow Theater, Orlando Fl
I stayed awake through the whole play. I participated in the Talkback Session. I discussed the story and symbolism with the director, a man who holds a degree in Brecht and competent socialist views. I still haven’t a CLUE as to what happened.
On a cramped yet seed set, mildly addled Aston (Stephen Lima) enters with his newest friend, the down and out bum Davies (Alan Sincic). Davies “got the bullet” as his last dead end job, and has little choice on sleeping arrangements. Aston digs a second bed out from under his spare kitchen sink, scrapes the mold of the sheets, and pushes this mystical story in motion. Like all good street people, Davies agrees with everything and everybody, exudes bravura when safe, and folds like a limp noodle when anything looks cross-eyed at him. Occasionally, Aston’s menacing brother Mick (Patrick Braillard) appears, alternately terrorizing Davies and asking his advice on life matters and interior design. There a lot of big talk under this dripping roof, but not much action. Even the cigarette lights refuse to light. Confused? It’s Pinter. Nod knowingly and change the subject.
Several interpretations were tossed around post-show: Each actor is taking care of something – the house, his brother, or Davies. We all need to take care of something to be human. Aston and Mick are the same person. Davies hallucinates the show. The annoying drip into the on stage bucket is controlled by the sound guy. The pipes in the wall represent a prison, or veins in your head, or the plumbing from a Monty Python animation. All are right. All are wrong. All are sort of fun to toss around. Mr. Bell plausibly denies that he has any special insight. I agree.
“The Caretaker” drains the watcher. By the first intermission, you still have no idea where this might go, and by the bows all the thoughts that appear in your mind are proven wrong. Like Godot, you should see this just for bragging rights, but this is no date night show. Grab the rest of the audience and retire to a local bar, and talk deep words about the show. That’s your payoff.
For more information on Mad Cow, please visit http://www.madcowtheatre.com
Crime and Punishment
By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Adapted by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus
Directed by Jim Helsinger
Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival, Orlando FL
There’s nothing quite like that wonderfully depressed feeling that comes from sitting through a really good Russian novel. Alcoholism, winter, poverty, madness and a brutal police system are the critical elements of the sort of misery that only a Russian could love. Raskolnikov (Tim Williams) drops out of law school to starve and freeze in late czarist St Petersburg. With no connections, no skills, and a radical list in his view point, he relies on an elderly pawn broker (Beth Brown) to survive. Mom sent him a slug of cash, but he gave that to neighbor Sonia (Brown again) to bury her dad, who scrupulously drank away what ever money he could find. Raskolnikov has an interesting theory – certain extraordinary people are permitted to step across societal bounds in order to further mankind’s best interests by murdering at will. Police inspector Petrovich (Dan McCleary) finds this interesting, and uses it to solve the brutal axe murder of the pawn broker and her sister. I won’t be spilling any beans by mentioning that Raskolnikov did it, because this isn’t a murder mystery. It’s a study of madness and desperation, and as good an introduction to the pre-revolutionary mindset.
The set is sparse and menacing with scrims and lighting taking us though this almost cubist telling of the story. Mysterious writing appears and disappears, crazy doors allow Petrovich and Sonia access to Raskolnikov’s world, and there are no surprises, only continued layers of What and Why. Williams combines innocence and a cocksure conviction he’s right and invincible, and I’ve never seen him lit so well. Beth Brown’s Sonia seems impossibly plain to work as a prostitute, but you can only sell what God gave you. Cleary’s Colombo-like inspector simultaneously seems friendly and menacing, and draws Raskolnikov into revealing thoughts one should never tell to the police. That’s the weird thing about Russian thinking – wild ideas a repressed mercilessly, and the wildest ideas seem to spring full grown from the soils and permafrost. I suspect that more than a few of us might end up with addresses somewhere east of Novsibrinsk.
For more information on UCF-Shakespeare, visit
http://www.shakespearefest.org
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare
Directed by John DiDonna
Starring Eric Young-Anzalone, Leilani Wolfgramm
Valencia Community College, Orlando FL
Opening “Romeo and Juliet” right after Valentines Day doesn’t really make it any cheerier. You’ll recall there’s a blood feud ongoing between the Montagues and the Capulets. I admit no more than 3 weeks formal training in Latin, but I’m pretty sure that those names translate as “Fevered Mound” and “Little Head”. What better names for a pair of 14 year olds in lust? Little Romeo (Young-Anzalone) can handle a sword pretty well (due to the excellent fight choreography by William Warriner.) Young Juliet (Wolfgramm) seems a bit bitchy, so if this tragedy was to end differently, the difference may well be a mere few years delay of certain Shakespearian death. Our plot finds Romeo sneaking into the opposing camp’s big dance, where he falls for Juliet on first sight. She’s game, so Romeo ditches the never remembered Rosaline (Kate McBryde). On to the whirlwind romance, and an hour after the totally irresponsible Friar Laurence (John Minioble) marries them, Romeo succeeds in stabbing his buddy Mercutio (Josh Geoghagan) AND Tybalt Capulet (Freddy Ruiz). Kids those days… Well, we get banishment, tears and more sword fighting, so only a few of the remaining deaths are gratuitous. Just one in Verona seems to have any sense of balance, the Prince (Valensky Sylvain), but he only drops in to straighten out the mess others make.
The spectacle angle of the show is quite impressive, with a full castle upstage, excellent floor painting down stage, and flimsy Globe theater style boxes around the audience folding chairs. Elizabethan dancing and vigorous sword play pepper the show, but the generally wooden reading of lines dampens this productions impact. The show was cast with a combination of students and local stalwarts, and much of the dialog felt like a recitation. No one drop words, but no one really nailed the emotion either. I did like Geoghagan as Mercutio and Jenifer Catalano as Benvolio, and the best work came form Janet Raskin’s Nurse.
The main advice to carry home from this stock Shakespear piece is “Don’t rush into marriage,” particularly if there’s social baggage attached. Date for a while, or you may live the lines I saw once under the picture of a bathing beauty – “Somewhere there’s some guy who’s sick of her crap.” Don’t let it be you.
For more information on Valencia Character Company, please visit http://valenciacc.edu/theater/
Brighton Beach Memoirs
By Neil Simon
Directed by Fran Hilgenberg
Starring Alex Salup, Monica Travers, Francie Moon
Theater Downtown, Orlando FL
Judaism and Country Music perform best when they deal with misery. There’s enough material here for a whole Hank Snow album – it’s 1937 and daddy Jack (David Strauss) lost his part time job, Auntie Blanche (Travers) lost her husband and eye sight, cousin Nora (Jenna Troum) wants to blow off high school and dance on Broadway, and when brother Stan (Brendan Malafronte) isn’t being fired, he’s getting his butt kicked at the poker game over at Florsheim’s shipping dock. Oh, yeah, the other cousin Laurie (Lauren Dixon) might have a heart murmur, or might just be trapped in Blanche’s memory of her deceased hubby. The only positive prognosis applies to 15 year old Eugene (Salup). He’s got a future – pitching for the Yankees, writing for a big magazine, and best of all, he might get a look at Nora’s coochie if he plays his cards right. Hard bitten mother Kate (Moon) takes every bit of responsibility, and even though times are tough, she makes sure only the tough survive. That’s the essential story Neil Simon reconstructs from his Brooklyn boyhood. With more guilt in the air than at the Nixon White House, Eugene avoids liver while learning the fine points of whacking off from his brother. It’s the complete Jewish experience – masturbation and liver.
Salup’s Eugene narrates while pulling off more smart-ass remarks than even an Irish kid could attempt. His comic timing saves him, and this kid could get an opening gig at any Catskills resort, assuming they still have those comedian incubators in our charming century. Mr. Strauss seems unreasonably young as the father with a weak heart, but Ms. Dixon seems like she might really have a heart problem. All the real drama flows from Travers and Moon, sisters with a simmering anger that dates back to the Russian revolution. One assumed more responsibility than she ought, and the other won’t accept reality or much associated with it.
Everyone grow up in tough times, even it they live in Windermere and have pop star parents. Simon simply reflects his own version of a harsh reality, emphasizing the funny. “Brighton” feels like a parody of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, and you expect Buck Owens to sing a Klezmer version of “Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me”. Come to think of it, that might make a hit.
For more information, please visit http://www.theatredowntown.net
The Marriage of Figaro
By Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Directed by Frank McClain
Starring Daniel A Reyes, Courtney Moors, Terrance Alfero, Michael Croker
UCF Conservatory Theater, Orlando FL
Sometimes all you want for entertainment is a good farce with a clash of manners, slamming doors, sexual innuendo, and mistaken identity. This is one of the originals, written in 1778 and banned by the soon-to-be beheaded King of France. You may be more familiar with it as the grand opera written by Mozart, but that adaptation didn’t occur until 8 years later, and it had much better music.
The clever and conniving servant Figaro (Reyes) is about to marry the attractive Suzanne (Moors). As a wedding gift their boss Count Almaviva (Croker) has graciously given the couple a bed and an apartment immediately next to his own. Not only is this convenient for Figaro’s duties, but for the Count’s attempts to seduce Suzanne. When Figaro hears of this, he enlists Suzanna, the Countess Almaviva (Madison Stratton), and horny page Cherubino (Alfero) to outmaneuver the count, and humiliate him publicly to boot. They spend over 2 hours cross-dressing, deceiving and jumping out of windows. Should be a riot, right? I wish it were.
There are two parts to this comedy – the inversion of the 18th century social status quo, and the building confusion and outrageous situation the Count and Figaro generate. The social structure comedy lacks resonance with today’s egalitarian audience, but the business of the audience knowing all the facts while the actors figure them out is brillaint written. Unfortunate, most of the comedy seems to be a few milliseconds late, and dozens of laugh lines fail to connect. Perhaps it’s the sheer body of material in Beauchamp’s work – everyone seemed working hard to get there lines out, but having done so, they didn’t deliver the timing. Alfero’s Cherubino got most of his jokes to work with his deviant Hervé Villechaize delivery, as did some of the minor roles such as Peter the gardener (Jaime Vela) and Countess Almaviva. It’s not that Reyes and Moors didn’t get a few laughs, but there were more misses than connections, and Croker’s Count never displayed the confusion he should have.
Hopefully this show will tighten up as the cast becomes more comfortable with the material. The planned and thwarted seductions are hilarious, the staging clever and well adapted to UCF’s main stage, but we need to see tighter timing.
For more information on UCF Conservatory Theatre, visit
Tuesdays with Morrie
By Jeffery Hatcher and Mitch Albom
Directed by Jim Howard
Orlando Theater Project at The Rep, Orlando FL
Sorrow indicates you need to change internally. Anger indicates someone else needs to change. And theater requires conflict. Those are the three points to consider when contemplating this rather sweet piece on resumed friendship and mortality. Mitch (Richard Width) majored in psych and hanging out during his halcyon college years. His favorite professor Morrie Schwartz (Michael Edwards) made him swear to keep in touch, but the death of Mitch’s uncle cut that short as he chose success over reconciling the death. Nearly 2 decades pass and Morrie’s case of Lou Gehrig’s Disease gets him some press, which draws Mitch back to his old friend. Out of guilt more than desire Mitch agrees to visit every Tuesday till Morrie passes. They talk endlessly of humanity and the meaning of life, and pull every tear possible out of the snuffling audience.
Both Width and Edwards are completely believable. Width is the ultimate narcissist, worrying about up and coming competition the indignity of a middle aged sports caster begging a quote from a 19 year old jock showering up after the big game. Morrie feel like those ever-so-rare professors who engage and enthuse students and create a genuine love of whatever topic they offer to a reluctant student body. Together they hold the audience captive, and when Morrie dances off to back lit heaven, you almost want to go with him.
What this story lacks is any real sense of anger – anger at death, anger at a life mis-spent, anger at the world for making us alternately ecstatic and miserable. Morrie lives in that final peaceful state of accepting death. He’s happy for what he had, and happy for what little he can still experience. Mitch enjoys success and is barley aware of his uncle haunting that career. When he switches alliance from ESPN to Morrie, the switch feels painless, with no real “Want was I thinking?” moment. Thus, we spend our time with two gentle men making what they can out of Morrie’s last few weeks. Even the divine keeps His distance as Morrie comments “I used to be agnostic, but now I’m not so sure.” What we never see, and what this piece begs for is some futile roar of “WHY?” We know there is no answer, but the question must still be asked. Tuesdays is a beautifully directed, acted and lit, but there’s a significant hole in the text, and that trades the cathartic for the maudlin.
For more information on Orlando Theater Project, please visit http://www.otp.cc
Seven Guitars
By August Wilson
Directed by Rus Blackwell
Peoples Theatre, Orlando FL
What I like best about August Wilson is his fearless examination of black stereotypes- taking the cardboard figures and inflating them with a life that verifies the old saying: “Stereotypes work because there’s always a grain of truth in them.” Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton (Contona Thomas) has a bad case of pomade in his hair and a big hit on the radio. He got a flat fee for recording, and now Savoy Records wants to exploit him again. He smells cash, and asks his old girlfriend Vera (Marci Stringer) to join him in Chicago, but she’s gun-shy, as he ran off with another woman once before. His backup band is skeptical as well, with Canewell (Barry White) reluctant to suffer the abuse of the white recording industry and Red Carter (Randall Jackson) finding steady work and steady women right here in Pittsburgh. When their manager gets arrested for selling fake insurance, Floyd pulls a little robbery so he can get his guitar out of hock. He survives the robbery only to fall victim to overly religious Hedley (Dennis Neal), who sees the money as a gift from God, and long overdue at that.
When the speechifying runs long, you have a nice set to look at – a full two-story brick building dominates the set, and a number of stunt chickens give their all for the dramatic action. I only see two real guitars on stage, but there are seven people, each representing a path to tolerate the oppression. Vera exudes motherliness and good cooking, while landlady Louise (Avis Marie Barnes) turns to alcohol and independence. When hot pants Ruby (Trenell Mooring) show up, we get a look at the sex-for-a-living option. Hedley’s a mystic, believing himself the uncrowned king of Ethiopia, while Red and Canewell slide by on pride and rascality. Sadly, the one with real talent and a real option out is Barton, and his own ambitions ultimately outfox him. What’s the take away? My feeling is the tall nail gets hit hardest, so stay where you are and get along quietly. How sad…
For more information, please visithttp://www.peoplestheatre.org
