Patrick Brassell is the author of five published novels and five produced plays. He has directed, produced, and designed sound for about fifty theater productions, and he has acted on rare occasion. He sang with a number of unsuccessful bar bands, wrote a comprehensive blog about the history of the Academy Awards, and wishes he were young enough to audition for American Idol. In the meantime, he has a day job in the financial industry, and lives in the Portland neighborhood of Cedar Mill.
The specificity of the Cuban immigrant experience is discarded in favor of a Survivor-style fight among the passengers to see who will control the boat's destiny.
There are some dark laughs along the way, and some gross-out moments, but the action feels realistic, as if these four people were being besieged on all sides, and the stress was taking a toll on each of them in a different way.
Middletown is a frustrating play to describe because I want to tell you everything that made me love it, and yet I don't want to tell you anything about it.
There's so much plot crammed into the show, and so many songs (many of them performance pieces that have little to do with story or character), that it hurtles by too quickly for us to get to know the people we're watching.
the playwright has written the characters in a very even-handed way; at no time is either Mike or Margie completely right or completely wrong; we see them both as people trying to do the right thing, yet also trying to hold on to what they already have.
The waltz begins its hurdy-gurdy rhythm and suddenly we're transported to the carousel through dance, music, movement, and the above-mentioned scenic effects.
The lines aren't ancient at all; the dialogue makes perfect sense, the jokes become hilarious, and the physical comedy is as well-played as a Three Stooges routine.
Their new production of The Music Man isn't flashy and doesn't do anything radical with Meredith Willson's book and score, and that's the best decision they could have made.
Under the able direction of Doren Elias, the actors all get the period feeling just right, and the wealthy family feels like a wealthy family - all upper-crust manners and comfortable ease with the fancy trimmings.
Once the actors start doing their version of Romeo and Juliet the adrenaline kicks in, and all three performers are willing to do just about anything for a laugh.
McDonagh's plays are like sitcoms with the anger boiling underneath; they're like Cheers if the characters had all been wasted alcoholics, or the 'Eunice' sketches from The Carol Burnett Show with the wackiness dialed way down.
It is possible to do a rock show about an era that predates rock - think of Spring Awakening, Evita, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson - but these fellows don't seem to know what rock has to do with Lizzie Borden.
John Millington Synge's 1907 play is about Christy, a young man who shows up in an Irish village and announces that he has killed his father with a blow to the head.
To Herzog's credit, the answers aren't easy, and Emma spends the play struggling to decide how she feels about her grandfather's actions, taking input from everyone around her while trying to figure out how best to honor his legacy - even as she's still unsure what that legacy actually is.