photo credit: Whistler in the Dark

Trojan Women by Euripides,
Whistler in the Dark,
The Factory Theatre,
5/18/12-6/2/12, http://www.whistlerinthedark.com/productions/trojanwomenprod.html.

Reviewed by Anthony Geehan

(Boston, MA) The end of war is something that is looked on as a celebratory event. Images of servicemen returning home, country’s flags being raised, and a collective sigh of relief from the population are the usual symbols that are associated with victory. There is however always a losing side in a war who must deal with a devastated homeland, a shamed or exterminated army, and the loss of everything their civilization was or could ever be. Taking place between the events of the Homer’s famous poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, Euripides’ Trojan Women looks at the devastated remains of Troy after its famous fall at the hands of the Greek army and at the shamed women who are to be taken by the Greeks as a prize.

Trojan Women is a play mainly plotted around the Trojan Queen Hecuba (Rosalind Thomas-Clark) and a three piece chorus of women (Jen O’Connor, Adrienne Paquin, and Mara Radulovic) who watch what becomes of their land after it has been conquered by the Greeks. The conquest itself is divided into the stories of three different women. Cassandra (Aimee Rose Ranger) who has gone mad with grief over the fallen city and has a prophecy that foreshadows the events of The Odyssey, Andromache (Ranger) who is told her son Astyanax (Adam Figler) must die out of fear that he will attempt to avenge his father Hector and kick start a Trojan uprising when he grows up, and finally Helen (Ranger) who must stand trial before her husband Menelaus (Nathaniel Gundy) and Queen Hecuba for starting the war. During and between these women’s fates being determined, we find what the Greeks’ final plans are for Troy and receive the God’s perspective on the events that occurred..

Trojan Women is a play that is deeply infused with the theme of destruction. Everything from the set pieces to the audience seating is made of strewn about boxes, torn rags, and makeshift structures used to set the feeling of desolation. The costuming is mostly done in a haggard Gypsy style, with the woman wearing stitched together rag dresses with their living quarters depicted as a beat up tent. The three major set pieces of a destroyed Troy, the P.O.W. camp, and the Greek ships are all simply portrayed via bombed out sections of the theater and simple sound effects. The end result is a ghost town feeling well suited to both the play’s theme as well as The Factory Theatre’s motif.

Besides the minimal set dressing, the cast of Trojan Women is also extremely limited. Six actors portraying the twelve characters involved, which mostly falls on Ranger and Gundy to play everyone outside of Hecuba, the chorus, and Astyanax.  Both the actors show great versatility in the taking of these multiple roles and carry everyone they portray with the enthusiasm and unique personalities that each character deserves. It falls upon Clark to give the audience the dread and disheartenment that the play is based in. This she does with fantastic monologues setting her character in equal parts rage and sorrow for her fallen city, family, and life.

The play’s only true weak point would be in the text itself. If someone is not familiar with the Trojan War and the following events that occur in The Odyssey, then some of the foreshadowing and characterization can be lost. Trojan Woman however, is a play that is more about atmosphere than dialogue and Whistler in The Dark’s production of the classic play is one of the more desolate and desperate portrayal of a war torn civilization that can be seen in local theater. Fans of Greek mythology or anyone looking for a different experience as an audience member would be well advised to check it out.

http://dannybryck.com/

No Room For Wishing-one man documentary play by Danny Bryck
READING: May 27 @ 2pm at Wall Street to Main Street Festival, BRIK Gallery, 473 Main St, Catskill, NY
http://www.facebook.com/events/311862005560920/
READING (Excerpts): June 20 @ 7pm at Hall Space, 950 Dorchester Avenue, Boston, MA
MORE TO COME IN THE SUMMER & FALL, http://dannybryck.com/noroomforwishing/

Danny Bryck is an actor, writer and theatre artist hailing from Amherst, Massachusetts.

Since graduating summa cum laude from Boston University’s School of Theatre and studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Danny has been living and working in the Boston area. As an actor, he has worked in New England, New York and Spain. Boston theatre credits include RENT with New Repertory Theatre, The Nutcracker at Stoneham Theatre, Breaking the Code with Underground Railway Theater, Cymbeline with Actors’ Shakespeare Project, the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac in both English and Spanish with Apollinaire Theatre Company, The Real Inspector Hound with The Publick Theatre, The Corn is Green with The Huntington Theatre Company, The Donkey Show with American Repertory Theater, the title role in Romeo and Juliet with Shakespeare Now!, Carny Knowledge with Fort Point Theatre Channel, Animal Farm with New Repertory Theatre, and the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Blue Spruce Theatre, which earned him an IRNE nomination. Danny has also performed Off and Off-Off Broadway at New World Stages and with New Perspectives Theatre Company. He can be seen in a small handful of independent films including the Rasmussen Brothers’ Dark Feed, and on the daytime drama As the World Turns.

photo by Shannon Gmyrek

Danny is an Artistic Associate with Whistler in the Dark Theatre, where he has performed in A Number, Family Stories and the IRNE award-winning Tales from Ovid, Danny is also Whistler’s resident dialect coach, and has done dialect and vocal coaching for numerous other companies and colleges in Boston, as well as privately.

He has also taught courses in theatre, acting, improvisation, musical theatre, playwriting, dance, audition technique and performance poetry with The Huntington Theatre Company, Apollinaire Theatre Company, Company One, and numerous high schools and summer programs in Massachusetts and directed high school theatre productions in Boston and Western Mass.

Danny’s play Love in the Time of Time Travel, co-written with A. Vincent Ularich, was recently given a staged reading at OBERON, the second stage of the American Repertory Theatre. His writing has also been performed locally by ImprovBoston’s sketch comedy troupe, “The Ruckus,” and at GAN-e-meed Theatre Project’s “Not a Box” New Play Festival, and he has performed as a singer/songwriter and (occasionally) performance poet at venues around Massachusetts.

He recently finished performing in Troilus and Cressida with Actor’s Shakespeare Project, directed by Tina Packer, and is currently working on an original one-man documentary play about Occupy Boston entitled No Room for Wishing. (from Danny Bryck’s website)

John Ambrosino & Phil Tayler; photo credit: Mark S. Howard

Avenue Q, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, book by Jeff Whitty, Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 5/11/12-6/24/12,  https://lyricstage.com/main_stage/avenue_q/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) Comedy is a game of milliseconds.  The difference between a good laugh and a belly laugh is all in the timing.  If you don’t land the gag just right, the joke can fall flat.  Lyric Stage’s production of Avenue Q is very funny, but it could have been crack-a-rib hilarious.

The script and song are the closest you can come to a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.  Take the earnestness of Sesame Street, mash it with the slacker sensibilities of Friends and the crowd can’t help but laugh.  The script also achieves that rare feat of being breezy while delivering a great life lesson, in this case that most of us have to soldier on without a grand purpose.  Princeton (puppeteered by John Ambrosino) moves to Avenue Q after college; he’s hoping to find his life’s ambition, but he has an uneasy feeling about the future.  His life quickly intertwines with the lives of his neighbors, both human and puppet, including a budding love affair with an earnest teacher named Kate Monster (puppeteered by Erica Spyres).  Each character has his or her hang-ups, from a pair of roommates who can’t admit their love for one another to a building superintendent who tries to keep his dignity after life as a child star.  Their problems are handled tactlessly with wicked humor and un-P.C. song.

The cast-members of this production are all strong actors, but they can’t seem to use their talents to create a strong cast.  There’s a lack of cohesion that seems evident most during the songs.  Diction and volume often are a problem, and sometimes the audience has to strain to hear the joke.  Cast-member Davron S. Monroe’s voice is so strong that he seems compelled to tone it down to not leave the rest of the cast behind.  One wonders why director Spiro Veloudos didn’t mic the actors individually and then adjust their volumes accordingly.  Meanwhile, Phil Tayler swallows his beautiful voice to create a pitch-perfect impression of the Sesame Street character of Ernie for his puppet Nicky.  Tayler’s imitative voice style works best with the obscene Cookie Monster knock-off of Trekkie Monster, but the show might have been better served with less of a quiet Ernie and more of an audible Nicky.  When Tayler drops the swallowed vocal style for Nicky and harmonizes with other cast-members, he provides the best musical moments of the show.

There are other little moments of discomfort throughout the play that extend beyond the songs, including a newspaper accidentally dropped that both cast members reach for at the same time and a canopy that comes undone.  Most of the cast seems to be working hard and walking a tightrope, rather than listening to each other.  Erica Spyres, however, continues her strong work with Lyric with her take on Kate Monster; her comfort with the material is evident.  Kate Monster can believably go from cute to profane within the blink of an eye.

Despite the missed opportunities, this play is nearly 100 percent fun and well worth the price of admission.  (A flawed near-masterpiece is sometimes harder to cut slack for than a middling production.)  Really, how can you go wrong with song titles like “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” and “You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want (When You’re Making Love)”?  And then picture puppets singing it and you know why you’ve got to get your ass down to Avenue Q. 

The cast of T: An MBTA Musical (last year) Photo by Jeffrey Mosser.

Only June 8th & June 15th at Club Oberon:  http://www.cluboberon.com/events/t-mbta-musical

I hear they’re going fast!  They sold out last year with many more shows.  I’d get tickets now!

To read our articles go here:  Interview with composer Melissa Carubia, Last Year’s Review

Much Ado About Nothing…With A Twist

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) There’s a funny story the actor Charles Grodin shares about famed acting teacher Uta Hagen, where Hagen was dissecting the terribleness of a scene Grodin had just done.  She hated everything except for one moment when Grodin’s scene partner was slow to hand the actor a prop.  Because there was a delay, Grodin looked genuinely concerned, and that, Hagen announced, was true acting.

I’m not a big fan of the Method myself, but I’m starting to see her point, especially when it comes to Shakespeare.  Acting involves a weird combo of memorization and playful improvisation.  But when it comes to the Bard’s work, too many productions are populated with actors who know they are saying weighty words and making weighty gestures; every move is preordained and dripping with importance.  Such a style robs the lyrical and impish qualities of plays that once were performed for bawdy Elizabethans.

Luckily, there are productions like Bad Habit’s staging of Much Ado About Nothing to inject life into scripts that we have too long sanctified.  By using triple, quadruple and even quintuple casting, director Daniel Morris keeps his cast on its toes and endows them with irreverence for the material. Set loose, they forge a night of theater that brings out both the ping-pong quality of the wordplay and the deep despair of the monologues in this great play.

The plot is filled with human foibles and hubris that would seem more unrealistic if I didn’t just spend half an hour arguing with my fiancée about who gets to use the shower first: A group of soldiers returns to Messina from a military skirmish.  A duke’s evil half-brother wants revenge against the duke, a young soldier falls in love but is too tongue-tied to court his girl, and a pair of fools can’t stop arguing long enough to realize they are made for each other.  If you’ve seen your share of Shakespeare comedies, you know where this is heading.  The bad folks trick the good ones, the good idiotically believe the bad and a pair of silly people are duped into love.

Standard fare, but the production’s pace, thankfully, is anything but standard.  Watching the costume changes is like watching a magician’s show; even when you know the trick is coming, you can’t see how the cast pulls it off time and again  (kudos to designer Pamela DeGregorio).  And the cast, on the whole, make it look easy to expertly pull off multiple three-dimensional characters with ease.  Their combined efforts create an amazing synergy that causes ponderous pages of text to fly by as if the characters were bouncing on a trampoline.  While this crisp delivery augments the comedic timing, it also makes the moments of despair all the more compelling.  It’s easy to forget in the frothy script that a father must contemplate the sickening concept of death before dishonor for his only daughter; Sierra Kagen creates a show-stopping moment here with what could easily have been an SNL character with a scare wig.

Director Morris deserves credit for creating a mischievous vision of the Shakespearean mental landscape with the revolving characters and some wonderful nuanced touches.  He combines modern music and the music within the script to heighten the play’s overall effect; letting us in on the joke with the songs somehow making the action more believable.  One could watch this play several times and not catch all the crafty little bits, like the quiet strumming of Semisonic’s “Closing Time” during a drunken masquerade ball.  But Morris’s best touch might be to have all the cast and a mannequin play a wronged ingénue lover by the name of Hero, thus underlining the concept that the character is just a powerless MacGuffin sent to move the plot along.

Drop everything and go see this play before it closes.  Be irreverent with this cast and discover the true worth of this script.

photo credit: Lyric Stage of Boston

Episode 6: Geeks, Nerds & Artists Podcast: Spiro Veloudos, Artistic Director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston and director of current production of Avenue Q

http://www.lyricstage.com/

Avenue Q: May 11-June 24, 2012 (it is selling out presently)

Spiro Veloudos is the Producing Artistic Director of The Lyric Stage Company. and has been honored with numerous awards and honors including The Elliot Norton Award and The Independent Reviews of New England (IRNE) Award. He has been personally honored with the 2006 Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, Stage Source’s 2002 Theatre Hero Award and was cited as the city’s Best Artistic Director by Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston program in 1999.
He has directed over 90 productions in Massachusetts and throughout New England. He is proud to be a three-time winner of the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Director. He has also been honored five times as the Outstanding Director of a Musical by the Independent Reviewers of New England.

His directing credits include: Lyric Stage Company –Kiss Me, Kate,Grey Gardens, The Mystery of Irma Vep, Follies, The Importance of Being Earnest, Three Tall Women, Arms and the Man, Souvenir,1776, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia, Urinetown: the Musical(IRNE award for Best Musical Production and Direction), A Number, A Little Night Music,(IRNE award for Best Musical Production and Direction, 2004), Noises Off!, The Spitfire Grill, Book of Days, Side Show, Dirty Blonde, Side Man, No Way To Treat A Lady,(IRNE Award for Best Director of a Musical) The Curse of the Bambino, Glengarry Glen Ross (IRNE Award for Best Production ), Sunday in the Park with George (Best of Year mention: Boston Globe, Herald and Phoenix, The Elliot Norton Award and IRNE for Outstanding Musical Production and Direction), Assassins (Outstanding Production of 1998 and one of 5 most memorable productions in the last 15 years: Boston Globe), Lost in Yonkers and Never the Sinner: The Leopold and Loeb Story (Elliot Norton Award Outstanding Director, for both, along with Assassins), and Speed-the-Plow ( Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production);

Publick Theatre – Design for Living, A Midsummer Night’s Dream ( Boston Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Production and Direction), Quilters (The New England Theatre Conference’s Moss Hart Award), Anything Goes and Sweeney Todd (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction for both).

Other venues- The Philadelphia Story, A Christmas Carol, Macbeth Les Liaisons Dangereuse, Cabaret, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Cyrano De Bergerac. As an actor his favorite roles were, Big Daddy (Cat on a Hot tin Roof) Benedict (Much Ado About Nothing) Prospero (The Tempest) Garfinkle (Other Peoples Money)Cyrano (Cyrano De Bergerac) Guido Contini (Nine). He holds a BFA (cum Laude) in Acting /Directing from Emerson College. He has taken graduate level courses in financial management, marketing, entertainment law and negotiation through the Organization Development Project and the Achieving Excellence Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He proudly serves on the Board of the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund. He was recently included in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Hellenic American Business and Industry .He is a founding member and serves as the President for the Producers Association of New England Area Theatres, is on the Adjunct Faculty in Performing Arts at Emerson College and is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. (from Stage Source)

…And the winner is…Katie!
Here’s her story:  “I was waiting for the 66 in Allston, heading to Harvard Sq. My stop was one of the last in upper Allston so the buses were often full when they got to me and the bus driver would just pass me by. One day I happened to be the only one at my stop and prepared to wait awhile when an “out of service” bus comes by and stops. The driver asks me if I want to get in. It was a female driver so it seemed safe enough. Once I was on the bus though, it became clear that she did not know how to get to harvard square and needed me for directions! We made it to Harvard Square, she let me off, and I told her how to get into the Harvard Station.”

Congratulations!  You will receive an email on how to claim your tickets.  Thank you Katie, Jamie, and Phil for submitting your crazy experiences!

OF A SMALL THEATRE

CREATING NEW, CHALLENGING, AND EXCITING

PRODUCTIONS, WHERE RESOURCES AND INFORMATION WERE SCATTERED

A GROUP OF ARTISTS JOINED TOGETHER TO INCREASE COMMUNICATION BY FORMING

THE SMALL THEATRE ALLIANCE OF BOSTON

Interview with John Geoffrion by Becca Kidwell

Between 2009 and 2010, Meg Taintor, Daniel Morris, Nora Long, and other small theatre leaders joined together to form the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston share resources, information, ideas, and support each other.

To help the small theatre companies, the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston (STAB), conducts many events “that put people in touch with each other and allow for a free flowing exchange of ideas, social cohesion,and networking.  Last year, the focus was on larger-scale SmallTalks moderated panel discussions, this year we’re focusing on a series called Counterpart Conversations that brings in specific segments of the theatre community (i.e. marketing teams, artistic directors) for small-scale roundtable opportunities to share stories, ideas, challenges, solutions, etc.  We’ve also started a program called Alliance Night At The Theatre, in which participating member companies offer one night in their run aimed to draw Alliance members with ticket specials, and opportunities to mix and network with the staff and artists before and/or after the performance.”

They provide an “open mic” series that is a “series of short plays (or scenes from longer plays) are brought in, and anyone interested in reading can come and be assigned roles; attendees give input and advice for further development.”  Also, they distribute an e-newsletter amongst their members to share information about the Alliance’s committees and the announcements and achievements of the members.

In addition to events and information, membership fees help to cover the costs of the rental facility for their props library.  The library is ” a facility where Alliance members can donate props that other member companies can borrow.  The entire catalog is viewable on a secure page on our website, and props can be reserved online.”  This helps considerably with the limited budgets and personnel of these theatre.  Moreover, members provide cross-marketing by including “an insert in their programs with a list of other Alliance productions that are either currently running or opening soon.  We also use our Facebook page (over 800 fans) and Twitter feed to spread the work about our members’ shows and events.”

Since their formation, STAB has helped increase visibility of their member theatres and created a strong, collaborative community of small theatres in Boston.  “Any theatre company in the greater Boston area that self-identifies as ‘small,’ or any otherwise unaffiliated Boston area theatre artist…” can become a member of the Alliance.  They have “occasionally labored to nail down a specific definition of ‘small theatre’ – be it annual budget, audience size, lack of union affiliation or whatever – or even if ‘small’ is the best label to define what we are versus, say, Fringe, Underground, Start-up, etc., but for now [they're] leaving it open.”

With the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston’s network of artists, the small theatre community expanding and providing diverse, quality theatre that might not be seen elsewhere.  Their force for good provides development of emerging and established talent within a safe and supportive structure.  For information regarding membership or member companies productions go to:  http://www.smalltheatreallianceofboston.com/index.html.

]]> http://www.netheatregeek.com/2012/05/08/small-theatre-alliance-of-boston-a-force-for-good-theatre/feed/ 0 http://www.netheatregeek.com/2012/05/08/small-theatre-alliance-of-boston-a-force-for-good-theatre/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NewEnglandTheatreGeek/~3/QzhaLM0UHXY/ http://www.netheatregeek.com/2012/05/07/horrific-comfort-food-little-shop-of-horrors/#comments Tue, 08 May 2012 00:27:04 +0000 katelonberglew http://www.netheatregeek.com/?p=867 Continue reading →]]>

l. to r. Bill Mootos, Ceit McCaleb Zweil, Lovely Hoffman, and Jennifer Fogarty in Little Shop of Horrors. Photo by Andrew Brilliant / Brilliant Pictures.

Little Shop of Horrors, book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken, New Repertory Theatre, Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, 4/29/12-5/27/12, http://www.newrep.org/little_shop.php.

Reviewed by Kate Lonberg-Lew

(Watertown, MA) Sometimes you are having a bad day. Sometimes you are in such a bad mood that escapism is the only way to manage.  It was in such a state that I entered the New Rep’s production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Arsenal Center for the Arts. I tell you this so that you will know exactly how steep a hill the cast had to climb in order for me to emerge smiling; which I did.

The all-around strong cast was led by the Doo-Wop Chorus made up of Crystal (Lovely Hoffman), Ronnette (Ceit McCaleb), and Chiffon (Jennifer Fogarty). They are exactly what you expect and want from the trio: energetic, flirty, and pitch perfect.  Blake Pfell also shines, bringing the right mix of nerdy, boyish-charm to Seymour. In fact, these performances are so strong that other cast members fade into the background.

The set, primarily a downtown flower shop, was what you’d expect of a lower-budget production. It keeps with the slightly campy feel of the material. The lighting was also good, accentuating the right people without being intrusive.

The production is not without it’s shortcomings, however. Issues with the microphones started early on and persisted through the second act. Every so often someone’s mic would cut out for several seconds before returning. To be fair, the audience was warned that cell phones disrupted the mics, so perhaps we are to blame here.  There were also problems with sightlines. On occasion the audience could see things that they we not supposed to, unless of course, the victims of Audrey II were exiting out the back to rise to heaven and not merely crawling off stage.

Let’s leave these relatively minor issues aside and move on to the biggest one, the plot.

(Please read: Spoiler alert)

Just in case you aren’t familiar with the musical, it is about  Audrey II, an alien man-eating plant. The plant, raised from infancy by the bumbling Seymour, goes on to consume many of the inhabitants of Skid Row, with its sights set on world-wide consumption and domination. Audrey II plies Seymour with gifts of fame, riches, and the attentions of the girl he loves, Audrey. So far so good here, but as the story progresses, the plot begins to fall apart, motivations weaken to the point of disbelief, and events become less and less plausible.  A prime example of this is when, after being mortally wounded by Audrey II, Audrey convinces Seymour to feed her to the plant so that will always be together.  This was like watching Spiderman surrender Mary Jane to Doc. Octopus.

So, while enjoying Little Shop requires a suspension of disbelief of considerable proportions, the bottom line is this production is well worth the cost. It certainly managed to entertain even the grumpiest of its audience members, namely me.

As the culminating event in the College's year-long examination of the theme of violence, Assassins brims with a particularly urgent energy. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky for Boston University Photography © 2012 Boston University all rights reserved

Assassins, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman, Boston University Colllege of Fine Arts School of Theatre, Boston University Theatre, 4/4/12-4/10/12, http://www.bu.edu/cfa/2012/04/20/assassins/.

Reviewed by Craig Idlebrook

(Boston, MA) It’s nice for Stephen Sondheim and his partner John Weidman to clear up a few things for us about theater in their mishmash of a play, Assassins, playing at the Boston University Theatre.

They have proven a fundamental truth: You can populate your play with profoundly interesting characters, give them things to do that impact every theatergoer’s psyche and bestow wonderful music for them to sing as they do it, but if the script doesn’t allow them to interact in a meaningful way, it’s just an exercise in futility.  The playwrights prove this point despite the best efforts of a talented cast, who creates full-fledged and compelling characters. In fact, the cast and stellar set give us such high expectations that it makes the mind want to rebel at this idle script all the more.   The premise seems like a winner: line up every presidential assassin or would-be presidential assassin in U.S. history and let them tell their stories.  This group scarily argues all too persuasively that the American Dream cuts out many and that the only remedy is to kill a president.  The playwrights even make a good initial effort to create a ringleader in the very charismatic John Wilkes Booth (Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek), who with one bullet provided a new way for malcontents to make history.  But the fatal flaw in this play is Sondheim and Weidman provide little meaningful interaction between these very strong personalities, and the play ambles until it begins to feel like a high school reunion from hell.

At this point, the playwrights could have made some tough choices.  The play could have become a collection of monologues, with just one or two group numbers.   The solo stage-time given to Sameul Byck (Leo Stagg), who wanted to kill Nixon, shows how this path could have had such promise.  Many of these killers decide on their fatal course of action because they are so completely enveloped in their own worlds that their choices seem rational and inevitable.  Stagg does such a great job letting us into Byck’s desperation and love-hate relationship with celebrity that we almost buy into the killer’s view of the world.
Or the play could become a series of relationships between the assassins.  It wouldn’t have been so agonizing to realize that this was a missed opportunity if the playwrights didn’t give such great stage time between Ford’s would-be assassins, Sara Jane Moore (Melissa Carter) and “Squeaky” Fromme” (Casey Tucker).  The imagined interactions between these two are priceless, with the former acting out of a twisted “It’s-all-about-me” seventies ethos and the latter arguing she must kill because she believes she’s acting out the wishes of the Charles Manson.  The two, a housewife and a hippie, first clash and then bond in a touching way, and Carter and Tucker both succeed best among the cast in making their characters criminally insane and at the same time sympathetic.

But more often, the play devolves into something that’s a bit too clever to work.  For example, there’s a strange undercurrent of two other MCs to the show, including a sometimes-joyous, sometimes-reluctant Lee Harvey Oswald (Evan Gambardella).  An argument could be made this whole production is happening in Oswald’s head as he decides to kill JFK, but this is never made clear.  Instead, he competes with a demented Uncle Sam and Booth to be the focus of attention, and the audience gets all sorts of confused.

That being said, this play is good fun for history buffs and those whose tastes tend to the macabre.  The cast commits to the flawed script and the music is easy on the ear.  I just hope the Secret Service is taking notes instead of enjoying the local scenery in Latin America; if there’s one take-away from this play, it’s that it’s hard to stop the determined disenfranchised.