Review: THE UNAUTHORIZED SHAKESPEAREAN PARODY OF GHOSTBUSTER at Carrollwood Cultural Center

Hark, good gentles, and gather ye round—for what I witnessed upon the boards of the Carrollwood Cultural Center was no mere ghost story, but a revel in verse, a haunting in hexameter: Ministers of Grace, the unauthorized Shakespearean parody of Ghostbusters, penned by Jordan Monsell and debut directed by Neil Bleiweiss.

Imagine, if thou wilt, not great walls nor ghostly projections, but the power of verse, voice, and imagination with Jeffrey M. Lukas, Craig Ruska, Tyler Walker, Curtis Williams, Erin Ruska, Samantha Sacasa, Allan T. Anderson, and Mary Kay Cyrus.

With naught but black garb and white ruffles, the players conjured the whole of haunted New York transferred into England. The tale unfolded like a folio come alive, each actor sitting in a chair, their voices rising like a chorus of spirits, their delivery laced with mirth, mischief, and metered mayhem.

Sir Venkman (Lukas), a rogue most mirthful, did flirt and frolic with language and slime in equal measure, whilst Sir Spengler (Walker) spake with all the scholarly gravitas of a monk with a PhD. Sir Stantz (C. Ruska), earnest and full of wonder, bound like Puck through each ghostly encounter, his eyes alight with noble purpose. Sir Zeddemore’s (Williams) words strike with weight. In a company prone to flights of verbal fancy, Winston speaks with the voice of reason, the cadence of common sense cloaked in verse.

Enter Dana Barrett, (E. Ruska) the fair Lady Barrett, whose soul—so rich with reason and wit—becomes the battleground for possession most foul. From the grace of a cellist’s calm to the fiery torment of Zuul’s dominion, her transformation was wrought with depth and fire. A modern Ophelia, perhaps, but possessed not by madness born of heartbreak—but by a gatekeeper with a penchant for destruction. Her scenes with Sir Venkman danced betwixt comedy and calamity.

But lo! A shapeshifter amongst them, a marvel of transformation, leapt from role to role with unearthly ease. First, as Louis Tully, he played the lovelorn fool with a heart of gold and feet of clay. Then as Walter Peck. But it was as Slimer—O, wondrous Slimer!—that he (Anderson) summoned riotous laughter. His ghostly gluttony, all expressed in gesture, groan, and perfectly-timed absurdity, was a masterstroke of spectral comedy.

What light through yonder window breaks? ‘Tis Janine (Sacasa), the keeper of the calls, whose tongue spake in a most wondrous dialect: part fair Verona, part Queens. Her Shakespearean prose, dipped in the sass of New York, stole scenes with every word.

With visage unmoved and voice dry as dust, fair Cyrus did slay the house with but a glance—and, in measured tone, did utter “ What an ass.”

And what villain did our players face? None other than the fearsome Gozer—summoned as a custard entity. Despite the warning: “Ne’r cross the streams. Shall be ill-favored.”  They heeded not, and did the deed regardless.

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