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Peer Reviews Take
Me Out Entire contents are copyright © 2007, Craig Nolan Highley. All rights reserved.
Pandora Productions, Louisville's premiere GLBT theater company, strikes a home run with the baseball-themed production Take Me Out. Featuring an inventive lighting and set design, it's a well-acted and good-looking production that should please Pandora's target audience as well as the casual theater-goer. All is well for a major league baseball team at the start of the season, until their star player Darren makes a startling announcement to the press: he's gay. The impact on the team and Darren's personal life following that revelation is the basic framework for the rest of the play's engrossing if somewhat melodramatic plot. The script by Richard Greenberg is a mixed bag. A couple of unexpected twists occur in the plot, and there are several scenes and monologues that are brilliantly written. But unfortunately there are also a few stretches of rather awkward dialogue, and the narrative is not always presented in chronological order, which can be a bit jarring. But these are minor quibbles in an otherwise flawless production, directed with style by Michael J. Drury and performed with unabashed (and frequently unclothed) gusto by a game cast.
x In the two main roles of Darren and his supportive teammate Kippy, Brent Gettelfinger and Tim Kitchen both give surprisingly restrained performances that would almost seem bland if they weren't so real and believable. And that quiet intensity is what makes an explosive scene between them so jarring later in the play. But it is the performers in the secondary roles that are most memorable. J. Daniel Herring, acting for the first time in twenty years, delivers hysterical comic relief in an endearing performance as Darren's closeted but flamboyant accountant Mason. Darren's coming out gives Mason the courage to explore his own repressed sexuality which manifests itself in a sudden and almost obsessive interest in baseball. His monologue in the first act, in which he explains how baseball is a metaphor for living in a democratic society, is as brilliant as it is hilarious. Aurion Johnson is also outstanding as Davey, Darren's best friend and confidant. Davey's urging of Darren to be true to himself is what leads Darren to come out in the first place. This is a paradox, however, because Davey is deeply religious and Darren's newly exposed lifestyle puts the two at odds, leading to one of the several confrontations that make the play's third act so unexpectedly intense. But by far the best performance in the piece is Joseph Ian Hatfield as Shane, the illiterate bigot on the team. His character starts off comedic, and his racist and homophobic rants are so over-the-top as to seem harmless. But as the role develops, they become more and more unnerving until they lead to tragedy. Hatfield gives the character so much depth and pathos that he seems much more a victim than a villain, especially in a climactic confrontation with Darren and Kippy. One word of caution, however: the company posts warnings that the play contains full male nudity, and boy, they aren't kidding. Several scenes take place in the locker room and showers of the ball park, and every single member of the ball team bares all at some point. Mostly this works naturally with the play's plot, but there are a couple of scenes where it does prove to be a distraction. All in all, Take Me Out is an outstanding work of theater that manages to entertain while delivering its message of tolerance and hope. That it does so with style and flair and without being overly preachy is a credit to the production's cast and crew. Take Me Out Starring Tim Kitchen, Brent Gettelfinger, Joseph Ian Hatfield, Heyward Boyce, Hernando Castro, Oliver Coates, Brent Blood, Nathaniel Niemeyer, Aurion Johnson, J. Daniel Herring, Apollo Bacala. June 14-25, 2007 Posted June 15, 2007
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