accomplished
trillian_stars says I need to see more theatre because there are lots of plays worse than Our Town and I should be able to speak with more authority on the subject. So we've seen a lot of plays lately. A week or so ago we saw The Lieutennant of Inshmore, at Plays and Players, which was a bloody black comedy (seven gallons of blood, to be exact, get spilled, dribbled, disgorged and splattered across the stage which, at plays end is a quarter inch deep in it and actors are falling all over the place) with shooting and decapitations and the chopping of bodies into little bits. It's hard to believe, but it was funny. We laughed the whole time. Even while heads were getting sawed off. Then we saw Sarah Kane's Blasted which wasn't funny but had cannibalism and murder and all sorts of horrid things going on. And then, to lighten things up, this friday we went to see The Crucible which had Susan Giddings in it (You can read about the first time I saw Sue Giddings here). Playing at the Tripac in Pottstown (I'd link to their website but it opens up a popup). It's a remarkable play about the Salem Witch Trials, tragically topical over and over again. I went with
trillian_stars plus Dr. and Col. Stars, we arrived very early and went out to a ritzy Mexican restaurant first. An hour later the play was mere minutes from starting and the only hint our food had given of arriving was when the waitress came out about forty minutes prior to say that they were out of spinach for my mushroom & spinach chimichanga but they'd still fix it up nice. As the clock ticked away the final seconds, Trillian and I sprinted to the theater and Dr. and Col. Stars remained to pay the bill and box up the dinner, should it ever arrive. Trillian mentioned to the box office that her parents would be arriving shortly and they were so horrified not only did they hold the curtain, but they sent someone running down to the restaurant to bring back the parents and take care of the food. We were seated in the long narrow theater, staged with a chicken-wire enclosed set and seats on both sides. The energy was frenetic with much shouting and running around and daemon possession and people getting thrown with great force into the chicken wire which bent and flapped like an amazing rubber skin and kept us from being rained with actors.Remarkably, at intermission someone from the theater rushed up to us and said that not only had they had our food boxed by the restaurant, they had kept it warm for us upstairs in their conference room and they'd extend the intermission a little so we could eat. Bottled water, utensils, a private dining space -- it was really the most wonderful dinner I could imagine, all crammed into 16 minutes.
The production was dotted with music by the Dead Kennedys and Siouxsie and the Banshees (I kid you not) and some excellent performances.
The show ended with five spine chilling and exquisitely staged hangings and afterwards we traipsed off to the cast party to chat with Susan, and found that two of the cast members, both with leading parts, had been replaced six days ago. I was stunned. Prodigious amounts of blocking and lines -- a staggering achievement.
We've seen a lot of plays lately, but this, because of the kindness of strangers, is the one I'll remember.
Seen anything good lately? What's your favorite play?
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