Showing posts with label Jennifer Childs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jennifer Childs. Show all posts

Saturday, April 20, 2024

DTC's 44th Season Closer, "The Flatlanders," Certainly Doesn't Fall Flat

By Mike Logothetis
Theater reviewer Mike Logothetis grew up in North Wilmington, performing in school and local theater productions. He lives in Newark, but you can find him wherever the arts are good.

Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) closes its 44th season with the touching and funny play The Flatlanders by Bruce Graham. DTC has partnered with 1812 Productions to present this new composition about what it takes to keep the flame alive when everything else is, quite literally, falling apart.
The Flatlanders now playing at DTC.
Photo by Matt Urban, NĂ¼POINT Marketing.

The show is a World Premiere for playwright Graham, who won the Rosenthal Prize for his play Coyote on a Fence, two Barrymore Awards for Something Intangible and Any Given Monday, and the Joseph Jefferson Award for The Outgoing Tide. He has received grants from the Pew Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation plus was a past winner of the Princess Grace Foundation Statuette.

“We couldn’t be more excited to bring our audiences another world premiere production,” says Matt Silva, Executive and Artistic Director of DTC. “New work is important. So is laughter.”

And there is plenty of laughter – smart, corny, and edgy – to be found in The Flatlanders.

Travelers Ronnie (Jennifer Childs) and Michael (Scott Greer) must break into a remote cabin in the Poconos during a blizzard to ride out the storm. The two “flatlanders” from Philadelphia are in a committed 14-year relationship which is about to become wedded bliss (maybe?) in a day’s time. While taking stock of what the cabin can provide them, the couple also takes stock of their relationship.

Childs, the producing artistic director of 1812 Productions, and Greer are partners on stage and off. Besides both performers having celebrated solo careers, the couple has performed and created works together at 1812 Productions, Arden Theatre Company, Cape May Stage, and many more.

That deep personal connection is shown in the way the actors interact on stage. Timing and side glances and sighs and exasperations all feel very real to the audience. There are “no bars” or “hotspots” at the cabin so this typical modern couple must converse without modern distractions. The only outside voice is from DJ Skip on WJUL, whose bad jokes and anachronistic playlist constantly add a bit of humor to the situation.

But the lead characters provide plenty of great jokes and physical gags themselves. From Ronnie making one-point lists – plus the ever-growing IOU list to reimburse the owners of the cabin – to Michael gradually revealing his kinks (with help from a prop box), there’s always something happening on stage holding your attention.

The soon-to-be newlyweds discuss past successes, current failures, and future desires. Their banter ebbs and flows from normal, banal topics to conquering personal fears to upending societal norms. It’s a contemporary play and the topics are relevant but delivered with biting wit.

The main theme of the show can be summarized by a burst of dialog when Ronnie posits that maybe being married instead of just being together will lead to boredom. She says she knows what buttons to push now. Michael counters that they’ll find “new buttons to push” and they will be better for the growth. As he puts it, they are already feeling “the seven-year itch times two” but he is happy. No need to radically change what they’re doing now…maybe just tweak a few things here and there.

Michael’s statement “All of this will clear up and we’ll be fine” takes on a double meaning when considering the storm swirling outside and the reckoning happening inside the cabin – i.e., there will be resolution.

The production is directed by multi-time Barrymore Award winner Matt Pfieffer, whose work has appeared at Arden Theatre Company, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Theatre Exile, People’s Light, and many others. The three scenes are nicely segmented and compartmentalized. Pfieffer keeps the movement and dialog moving, but not so fast as to miss the point.

The performance schedule of The Flatlanders is: Wednesdays (2:00pm), Thursdays (7:00pm), Fridays (8:00pm), Saturdays (2:00 & 8:00pm), and Sundays (2:00pm) through May 5. Tickets start at $32 while discounts are available for students, groups, and military members/veterans. The show runs approximately 80 minutes with no intermission. 

There will be pre-show Viewpoints on Wednesdays at 1:15pm during the run, plus talkbacks after Thursday performances. The April 27 2:00pm performance includes American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation. 

Call 302.594.1100 or visit DelawareTheatre.org to purchase tickets or for performance information. Delaware Theatre Company is located at 200 Water Street in Wilmington.

Don’t be a “DQ” and make plans to catch this show!

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Celebrating "Noises" Produced by Delaware Theatre Company

By Mike Logothetis
Theater reviewer Mike Logothetis grew up in North Wilmington, performing in school and local theater productions. He lives in Newark, but you can find him wherever the arts are good.
Noises Off at Delaware Theatre Company.
Photo by Matt Urban.

Delaware Theatre Company (DTC) opens its 2023-2024 season with the zany British comedy Noises Off. Nominated for multiple Tony and Drama Desk Awards including Best Play, the show lampoons the life behind the scenes of a theater production during its 10-week run. 

Creator Michael Frayn wrote his “farce from behind” as a one-act play before it was commissioned as a full-length version. Obviously, the laughs were extended across the current three-act production.

Each of the three acts of Noises Off contains a performance of the first act of a fictional sex farce (Nothing On), which is ridiculous in its premise. The audience experiences insider viewings of this “play within a play” at three distinct times: Act I is a technical rehearsal; Act II is during a matinĂ©e one month into the run; and Act III happens near the end of the production tour. 

But the twist in this tale is that the viewpoint changes from the front of the house to the back (Act I to Act II) before reverting to the front again (Act III). If that sounds confusing, it makes more sense to the audience than to the characters on stage. Those poor souls have no clue what is happening — except spinning comedic gold!

The ability to experience the front and the back of things is due to the brilliant work of Colin McIlvaine. His wonderful set demonstrates why he is a Barrymore-nominated scenic designer. The bilevel, multi-door set works (and “doesn’t work”) in clever ways, including rotating 180 degrees so the audience catches the action behind the (stage) action.

In Act I, Nothing On actors Belinda (Karen Peakes), Brooke (Elise Hudson), Dotty (Grace Gonglewski), Freddie (Ian Merrill Peakes), Garry (Justin Jain), and Selsdon (Anthony Lawton) cannot seem to follow cues, remember lines, or hit their marks during a tech rehearsal from Hell which makes director Lloyd (David Bardeen) more fraught by the moment. Bardeen is wonderful in slowly swallowing his building rage and providing notes to his troupe as they flub scene after scene. Assistant Stage Manager Poppy (Bi Jean Ngo) must obediently clean up the messes and do Lloyd’s bidding to keep things rolling. The overworked Stage Manager Tim (Brenson Thomas) does everything from fixing sets to running surreptitious errands to making PA announcements to performing understudy duties.

All the characters have their personality flaws up front for all to see — on stage and backstage. Garry can’t state anything definitively; Freddie falls to pieces when things get hairy; Brooke sticks to the script too closely; and Selsdon is a hard-of-hearing alcoholic with a penchant for forgetting his closing line. Speaking of mangling dialog, Dotty’s character changes a somewhat standard line so badly over the course of the show, it ends up as: “It’s good I can’t see far with this leg.”

Most theater productions have their share of infighting and clandestine romances. Acts II and III reveal souring relationships between the Nothing On cast plus the set and props failing. In Act II, the audience sees how the fallout of numerous romances and off-stage problems affect the action on both sides of the stage. 

While the actors remain determined to cover up the mounting chaos during Act III, it’s not long before the players must invent some hysterical ad-libs to reach a new ending. Let’s hope Noises Off director Jennifer Childs didn’t have to deal with Lloyd’s problems while wrangling her actors.

The show is somewhat dated, but still timeless in its cleverness and originality. The dialog is tight and the physical comedy will draw plenty of chuckles. Who knew that looking for a lost contact lens could bring down the house? Sometimes things get a little confusing, but stick with it and it’ll start to clear up. Come to DTC for a hearty laugh at the theater and maybe score a plate of sardines!

The performance schedule of Noises Off is Wednesdays (2:00pm), Thursdays (7:00pm), Fridays (8:00pm), Saturdays (2:00 & 8:00PM except September 23 for Opening Night – 8:00pm only), and Sundays (2:00pm) through October 8. 

Tickets start at $32, and discounts are available for students, groups, and military members/veterans. The show is roughly 2.5 hours long with one 15-minute intermission plus an entertaining pause between Acts II and III. 

There will be pre-show Viewpoints on Wednesdays at 1:15pm during the run plus talkbacks after Thursday performances. Call 302.594.1100 or visit DelawareTheatre.org to purchase tickets or for performance information. Delaware Theatre Company is located at 200 Water Street in Wilmington.