[NEohioPAL] Review of "Durang, Durang" at Fine Arts Association

[Bob Abelman]

Fine Arts delivers 'Durang Durang,' an evening of short, superb satire

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 4/26/13

 

 

"Durang Durang," currently on stage at Willoughby's Fine Arts Association, lets those in the audience know from the get-go the kind of evening they are in for.  

 

Taking the stage as the house lights dim is Mrs. Sorken, a kindly albeit ditzy theater patron (played marvelously by Vonnie Pilarczyk), who offers an absurd, stream of consciousness treatise on the Theater.  It is a delightfully entertaining piece - particularly when Mrs. Sorken free-associates with the word "drama" and finds a bizarre and intriguing connection to the word "Dramamine." 

 

It is also, eventually, an exhausting piece - going on for longer than it should by harvesting all that is smart and deliciously silly about the subject until it lays fallow and, like a visiting relative, overstays its welcome.

 

Entertaining and exhausting.  Smart and silly.  This pretty much captures "Durang Durang," a collection of 6 short, satirical plays by Christopher Durang. 

 

This should come as no surprise for those who know the playwright's work, for most of Durang's full-length plays address the absurdities of life with a keen and clever wit that combines the acerbic with the asinine, and not always in proportion.  This is to be expected from a guy who, early in his career, wrote a Brecht-Weill parody called "Das Lusitania Songspiel" as well as sitcoms for Fox and the WB networks.

 

If you recognize the Fox TV reference but don't know who Brecht, Weill or Durang are, then chances are the evening's allusions to playwrights David Mamet and Nora Ephron, and its parodies of Tennessee Williams' "A Glass Menagerie" and Sam Shepard's "A Lie of the Mind," will be allusive as well.  Therein lies another signature of Durang's work - jokes grounded in insider wherewithal. 

 

Fear not, for director Ann Hedger has put together a production of "Durang Durang" that will appeal to theater aficionados as well as the third wheels invited to use their extra ticket. 

 

Hedger does this by gravitating toward the silly and casting her production with absolutely superb performers who are a pleasure to watch.

 

This is best demonstrated in "Nina in the Morning," a strange and very clever piece in which a preposterously narcissistic, wealthy woman's meaningless day is narrated aloud by her former chauffer while enacted as if it were profoundly significant.

 

The performances by Nancy Shimonek Brooks as Nina, Trey Gilpin as her three, progressively freaky children, Don Knepper as her stoic footman Foote, and Dan Bush (who is brilliant in the Sam Shepard parody) as the narrator are hilarious.  The comic timing and creative risk-taking in evidence in this piece makes you feel honored to bear witness and glad you came.   

 

The same can be said for "Wanda's Visit," about a married couple whose lives are thrown into an increasingly insane spin by a visit from an ex-girlfriend from hell.  Featuring Mary Britta Shirring as Marsha, Matthew Mortensen as Jim, and Caitlin Rose as the ex-girlfriend Wanda, this short play is a jewel.  It's light and silly premise grows dark and delightful as Rose finds all kinds of insanity that is both disturbing and an example of drop-dead comedic genius.

 

Kacey Shapiro, Maureen Tanner and Grace Mannarino are wonderful, as well, in the various roles they play across the 6 plays.

 

The only play that falls short of expectations is "For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls," Durang's distorted take on the damaged Wingfield family in "A Glass Menagerie."  Here, Laura is replaced by a pathetic hypochondriac named Lawrence (Nick Grimsic), the "gentleman caller" is a lesbian (Shannon Sidorick), and Tom (Matthew Mortensen) cruises movies for young sailors.  Although both Brooks, as Amanda, and Mortensen, as Tom, have the subtle touch required to make satire satisfying, Grimsic and Sidorick are in a different albeit hilarious play, so the pieces do not add up to a collective and comedic whole. 

 

Nonetheless, the evening is a good one.  

 

The strong performances and fast pace makes it easy to overlook the lack of production values save for Pauil Gatzke's effective lighting and Tom Linsenmeier's interesting segue music.   Durang's signature short-comings are also given scant attention as a result and his strengths, of which there are many, are on full display.    

 

17th Annual One Act Festival: "Durang Durang" continues through May 4 at the Fine Arts Association's Corning Auditorium in Willoughby.  For information or tickets, which are $20, call 440-951-7500 or visit www.fineartsassociation.org.

 


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