It Came from Mars

One of my chief rewards after publishing a review is to finally read how other reviewers regarded the same production — although when I'm the odd one out, I get to pondering whether I had it wrong. A quiet house, an off night, I could have reviewed a bad egg. (Critics: they have doubts!) Given my cooler assessment in discord with the thrills over It Came from Mars, I was glad to have another stab at this co-production, now at the Williamston Theatre.

Was I mistaken? Yes, to a great extent. The play's second act, in which the War of the Worlds freakout premise is entirely contained, is practically perfect. Celebrated local playwright Joseph Zettelmaier allows his six characters to carry out hoped-for developments as well as taking the narrative in unexpected directions, all the while weaving together a formidable number of stories. Director Tony Caselli begins the act with tightly packed counterpoint dialogue layered over the infamous 1938 Orson Welles broadcast, masterfully allowing crucial words to be heard while rapidly registering six separate reactions, a clear demonstration to the audience that things are about to move very fast. The second time around, I connected more with the actors' changing energies — focused, distracted, diffuse — and was more easily swept up in the swift-moving flow.

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The Beaux' Stratagem

The program notes for The Beaux' Stratagem at the Hilberry describe the show as "a naughty farce that titillates without being vulgar," and this is true enough. As a late entry into the period of Restoration comedy, the more ribald and consequence-free plots of its predecessors give way to undercurrents of morality and honor. Put another way, as plays concerning hidden identities and highway robbery go, this one is awfully nice.

Originally written by George Farquhar, the version staged here is an adaptation begun by Thornton Wilder and later completed by Ken Ludwig, but the story remains essentially the same. The beaux in question are Aimwell (Christopher R. Ellis) and Archer (Jordan Whalen), who have a plan to supplement their dwindling funds: One of them will guile a rich woman into marrying him, and they will share the reward. Alternating who plays the gentleman and who plays the servant in their travels through England, they arrive in the country town of Lichfield. There, they both fall immediately in love and also attempt to thwart the town's criminal element; by the end, the bad guys are punished, everyone else is paired off happily, and fortunes are secured.

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Little Shop of Horrors

It doesn't take much to get me excited for Little Shop of Horrors. Infectiously catchy book and score by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, crazy sci-fi tale about ethical slippery slopes and the dangers of botany, Motown girl group–inspired trio as Greek chorus — is it all right if I bring my giant foam finger to wave? Yet for its clarity of vision as well as its pure excitement and fun, this production at the Performance Network stands out as a phenomenal theatrical experience.

The show is best known for the character of Audrey II, the strange and unusual plant that brings fame to a struggling Skid Row flower shop and to the young man who cultivates it, but at a steep price: the fresh human blood on which it feeds. Audiences are used to fantastic feats of puppetry making up Audrey II, often as big as a green Jabba the Hutt, backed by a very specific-sounding male voice over. To deviate from the long-accepted formula would require nothing short of awesomeness in execution to justify the choice, and this is just what director Carla Milarch has done. I won't spoil her extreme and provocative departure here other than to say it works without question, especially in the atmosphere of this production.

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Henrietta Hermaline's Fall from Great Heights

The severity of a blank stage sends a clear message to an audience: do not make assumptions. The Planet Ant late-night offering Henrietta Hermaline's Fall from Great Heights aims to keep the viewer guessing in just this way. In an abyss of black-painted walls and floor, a reality with so many incongruous elements lets the audience take nothing for granted and also insists that something must not be true — but just what that is remains withheld until the final moments.

Director Molly McMahon won this time slot for her work in the 2009 BoxFest showcase for women directors, which makes this scaled-back and female-centric piece seem rather fitting. The title character (Jill Dion) is a pathologically awkward, shy woman who finds little about herself interesting. She cannot believe any man would look twice at her, but one does, in the quite attractive form of Richard Prymus (Jonathan Davidson). He graciously indulges her desire to fly by taking her up in his small plane, and a romance of sorts is born. If this all sounds straightforward, consider the third character of Birdman (Richard Payton), the literally avian narrator. Do not make assumptions about a world in which a talking bird hails Henrietta Hermaline as his queen.

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Hurlyburly

When one attends a play with two intermissions, one expects a marathon. Yet through the superhuman efforts of its actors, the Who Wants Cake? production of David Rabe's Hurlyburly better approximates a three-hour sprint. Fueled by cocaine and self-importance, the characters spew paranoia and cerebral nonsense at each other, rarely managing to actually converse. Marijuana doesn't even slow them down, even though they smoke plenty. The dichotomy created by this cruelly vivid world is the fascination of the antihero: although I personally wouldn't want to interact with these people for any length of time, the remarkable performances behind the characters make them intriguing to study.

The play concerns 1980s Hollywood and a group of men somewhere in the process of being chewed up and spit out by the business. All the action takes place at the home of casting directors Eddie (Stephen Blackwell) and Mickey (Jon Ager), who, together with actor Phil (Joel Mitchell) and writer Artie (Charles Reynolds), form an alliance of superiority and derision sufficient to make the crass, disrespectful guys of Swingers look like Cub Scouts. Blackwell is paranoid and listless; Mitchell once again reinvents the lovable hateable; Reynolds tries achingly hard to fit in, even as he's belittled for his successes; and Ager's cool unflappability is his best work — at least that I've seen — to date. The men are at their peak in a long scene at the beginning of the second act, all playing off each other easily, so comfortably ingrained in their odious roles. Pitch-perfect direction by Joe Bailey generates masterful, layered beats that flow from hilarious group storytelling to tandem solitude.

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