|
||
|
Disclaimer:
The reviewers' opinions are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of TheatreLouisville.org. |
Peer Reviews Bunbury Theatre presents With plays by John Campbell Finnegan, Nancy Gall-Clayton, Reviewed by Cory Vaughn Entire contents are copyright © 2009 Cory Vaughn. All rights reserved.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen of Bunbury Theatre, Last Friday night was the first time I attended one of your shows, in this case The Honest Abe 23-Minute Play Festival, and I was quite pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. However, after the last play of the night, I was a bit fearful of writing this review, as you seem to equate critics with assassins and tried to exact poetic justice by shooting the only other critic present that night, although I am familiar with the questionable work of the schmuck in question and I concede she really is a Nazi Chick! And she had the nerve to fall asleep and snore through your show, no less! I would have tried to get her in the booth and shoot her as well. However, you do pose an interesting question when you have Matt Orme ask toward the end of the evening, "Is a review really a review, if nobody reads it?" In that spirit, I have decided to forego a traditional theatrical review in favor of a little experiment; an exercise; a journalistic etude, if you will. After all, is a review really a review, if it's submitted in epistolary form? I'm glad you chose to celebrate the bicentennial of Kentucky's favorite son by producing four short plays about him, rather than premiering one original full-length biodrama. Abe Lincoln truly was a larger-than-life character; too large, certainly, for only one play. So instead, you gave us four, each one enjoyable for a different reason, and each one celebrating a distinct aspect or theme of Lincoln's life, legacy, character or lore. Images of Mr. Lincoln, written by Nancy Gall-Clayton and directed by Anne-Marie Alexander, is a touching account of the largely unspoken friendship between Lincoln and his photographer, Matthew Brady. The back-stories of Abraham (well played by Mr. Orme in all of the plays in which Lincoln appears) and Mary Todd Lincoln (Pat Wetherton) are revealed through flashbacks and conversations with Brady (Paul Reynolds) as they sit for the historic photographs taken of them over the course of his Presidency. My only complaint about this play is directed to the stage management: the transitions into the flashback scenes take too long and interrupt the flow of the drama. Occasional Poisonings from the Kitchen, written by Adam Watson and directed by Juergen K. Tossmann, is a surreal and occasionally morbid tragicomedy which finds Lincoln and an insecure James Garfield (a very funny Dale Strange) as gatekeepers of a kind of Purgatory for Presidents who died or were killed while in office. As Lincoln and Garfield have a Pastry together — and that does not mean what you think — they ruminate on such themes as how little actually changed for African-Americans between Lincoln's time and Kennedy's, and how the relationship between a nation and its President mirrors the slave-master dynamic of pre-Lincoln America. This one takes its sweet time getting to the point, but when it does, it's a doozie! Schroedinger's Cat and Other Chaos Theories . . . Solitaire, written and directed by John Finnegan, does not feature Lincoln and takes place in Kennedy's time, but is really less about either President as it is about their respective assassins, and what would make two eccentric but otherwise harmless guys like Booth and Oswald want to murder Presidents. This is the first play of the evening, and audiences may be confused at first, as I was, about how this relates to the other plays or to Lincoln in general, but by the end of the evening, I felt you guys cleared that up for those who stuck with you long enough. And in the meantime, they should enjoy the excellent performances of Ted Lesley as Lee Harvey Oswald (he also plays Kennedy himself in Poisonings) and Meghan Winrich as a teenage girl who unexpectedly drops in on the book depository on that fateful November afternoon in 1963. Wilkes You Schmuck, written and directed by your Producing/Artistic Director Juergen K. Tossmann, bookends the evening and serves as linking material for the other plays in the guise of an intriguing backstage black comedy. The actors from Solitaire, Images, and Poisonings play themselves, more or less, backstage between shows plotting revenge on an actor-turned-critic who has offended them, the aforementioned Nazi Chick, who, out of my grudging respect for a fellow actor-turned-critic, will remain nameless. I felt that it worked in a satirical, self-referential sort of way, and made the interesting point that, in a way, every U.S. President has been assassinated, some of them victims of guns, some victims of public opinion turning against them. The audience at Friday night's show was distressingly small. I hope your phone rings off the hook from all of Louisville calling you at 502-585-5306 for tickets; this is definitely worth the $20 (or $17 for seniors or $15 for students). I wish you the best of luck with the remaining two weeks of your run at the historic Henry Clay Building, 604 S. Third Street at Chestnut. Keep up the good work! Sincerely, P.S. – Mr. Lesley, despite what the Nazi Chick and the other actors said, I thought you nailed the Kennedy accent. P.P.S. – Mr. Orme, I always thought you reminded me of someone!
The Honest Abe 23-Minute Play Festival Posted February 10, 2009
|
|