Post Script

There are a lot of disturbing elements of Jennifer Haley’s play, “The Nether,” onstage at 53212 Presents through March 21. The second production in The Constructivists’ season, it is part detective procedural and part dystopian nightmare about escapism, fantasy and morality. Its central question is whether it’s better to live in an ideal, virtual world where there are few consequences for one’s actions, or remain in a devastated “real” world where acting on your darkest impulses will undoubtedly hurt others.

Special Note:

I was deeply disappointed to hear yesterday that First Stage has made the difficult decision to suspend performances of “The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors” due to health concerns regarding the Coronavirus. I applaud the company’s leadership for making such a hard decision in the interest of the health of their performers and audiences, but I am personally heartbroken that more people will not see this amazing show. My thoughts are with all the artists who worked so hard to bring this amazing show to life onstage, and I truly hope it will have another run when conditions are different. It was my extreme pleasure to see this performance and for the record, I would like a cast album as soon as one becomes available.

My review is posted here.

A lot of comedies include a scene where an enormously pregnant woman and her partner are rushing to the hospital so she can give birth. There are far fewer stories about infertility and the complicated journey many couples embark on to either conceive or adopt a child of their own. But this is the material playwright Lisa Loomer chose to mine for comic possibilities in Expecting Isabel, onstage at the Bartell Theatre through March 21. Jeanne Leep directs the third show in Kathie Rasmussen Women’s Theatre’s season and finds a strange mix of broad comedy, absurdism and pathos in the story of married 30-somethings Miranda (Katie Augèr) and Nick (Anthony Leonard), who try just about everything to add a baby to their family.

We are all fascinated by monsters, both real and imagined. And while it’s easy to justify seeing the latest horror movie as harmless entertainment, laughing at ourselves after the jump-scares, it’s harder to justify the obsession we have with those who commit real atrocities — true crime perpetrators like Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gasey, or Ted Bundy.

Or William Reach.

Children’s Theater of Madison’s current production, Mockingbird, begins with the funeral of a teenage boy who was killed in a school shooting. As friends and family dressed in black flood the stage in Overture’s Playhouse, they speak about Devon in low tones, offering their condolences to the boy’s father.

But then Devon’s younger sister, Caitlin, rushes in. Dressed in purple — her favorite color — the 11-year-old pushes past people, running through the crowd and refusing to engage. She doesn’t want to talk about her big brother’s death. She doesn’t want a hug. She doesn’t want to behave the way her father asks, or to describe how she feels. She wants to go home and curl up on the couch with her favorite purple fuzzy blanket. The death of a sibling is hard enough for a young person to process, but for Caitlin it’s doubly difficult because she is on the autism spectrum and for her, Devon was a bridge to the rest of the world.

One year ago a group of like-minded theater friends gathered in a living room to talk about creating a new theater company in Madison. Now the seven actors, directors, designers and playwrights — known collectively as Guest House Theatre — are preparing for their sold-out season announcement party on March 7pm at the Goodman Community Center. At the event, complete with homemade snacks that each contain a story, the members will announce their first full season, which includes three productions and a new play reading.

Alice Walker’s groundbreaking novel The Color Purple has been adapted to many other media, garnering larger audiences with each incarnation. First, in the mid ’80s, it was translated from her Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning text to a Steven Spielberg film featuring Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg. Twenty years later, in 2005, it became a Tony Award-winning musical that ran on Broadway for three seasons. Then in 2015, a streamlined version of the show came back to Broadway — cutting out 30 minutes, some of the original songs and several plot points, to focus more on the main character’s journey. This minimalist approach earned another Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical.

In many ways Lauren Gunderson’s play, The Revolutionists, is a timely choice for Mercury Players Theatre. Onstage through Feb. 29 on the Evjue Stage at the Bartell, it is fundamentally a play about four women who feel powerless to create the societal change they are longing for, in the midst of incredible political upheaval. If the story was set in 2017, the women might have been wearing pussy hats.

But instead the story unfolds in 1793 in the midst of the French Revolution, where men and women were losing their heads by the guillotine simply for speaking their minds. Sensing that they are living in a pivotal time in history, three of the main characters — a writer, an assassin and a queen — all want to make sure their last acts resonate for generations, that they are remembered fairly and that their dramatic last words are quotable. Directed by the fearless Sean Langenecker, the production succeeds on a lot of levels, but can’t quite get past the tiresome “play about a playwright writing a play” trope that even the characters write off as a painful exercise. (Maybe it should have been a musical! But no one would come to see a musical about the French Revolution, amiright? Wink!)

It’s important to get a good night’s sleep before you go see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, running through February 23 at Skylight Music Theatre. Take some deep breaths as you take your seat and try to stay calm. After all, you’re all winners just for making it this far. There can only be one speller left standing and if it’s not you this year, well, maybe it’ll be next year. Or maybe you’ll realize that there are more important things than a shiny gold trophy and knowing the correct spelling of every exotic rodent in the dictionary.

The fact that my heart raced and my face flushed each time a new word was announced was due to my own spelling bee flashbacks (the word I eventually misspelled in fifth grade was “romanticism”). It was also a testament to how quickly and completely the audience is drawn into the drama surrounding a motley crew of teens, as they compete for the title of spelling bee champ. The fact that the entire opening night audience couldn’t stop laughing over the course of the two-hour show also speaks to the show’s silly, awkward appeal. Directed and choreographed with exceptional creativity and energy by Brian Cowing, this wacky combination of heartwarming musical, crass adolescent comedy and interactive improv show gets a perfect score from the judges.

Before the lights went down for Strollers Theatre’s current production of John Cariani’s uber popular Almost, Maine, I was distracted by the set. Two-thirds of the stage is dominated by huge wooden panels, and in front of each wall is a pile of what appears to be polyester fiberfill — the cottony stuffing that goes into pillows and stuffed animals. Judging from the old fashioned runner sleds nearby, it is a good guess that these lumpy white masses are supposed to fill in for snow, but they more closely resemble mounds of mashed potatoes.

And that’s a problem because Wisconsinites know snow — everyone in the audience had to step over snow banks to arrive at the theater that night. The unconvincing stage “snow” gives way to an “snowball” used in the first scene that looks like a rolled-up sock. Theater is all about suspending disbelief and entering an imaginary world, but in order to do that, a production has got to meet the audience halfway. And like a halfhearted window display leftover from Christmas, this one often does not.