15
Feb
2016
On a cold night indicative of February, weary of politicians and the weather, I escaped to Rock Island for the latest District Theatre offering Moon Over Buffalo. A Tony-nominated play that debuted on Broadway in 1995, author Ken Ludwig's farce is a comedy of silly, exaggerated humor, and probably not to every theatre-goer’s taste. But in my opinion, and judging by the belly laughs coming from Friday's opening-night audience, the humor as performed here clearly worked for a number of us.
"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of a man can invent." This Sherlock Holmes quote is a perfect description for the mystery play at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre - at least in terms of the lives of those on-stage. Just when you think things cannot get any crazier and the coincidences cannot get more coincidental, Ken Ludwig's script shows you otherwise. The Game's Afoot is a comedy with a mix of nutty characters and a whodunit theme, and while it was clear that the cast was still getting comfortable with each other and the script during Thursday's dress rehearsal, there were improvements in energy and confidence by the second act.
Several minutes into the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Lend Me a Tenor, I was concerned that I was in for two more hours of comedy that fell flat with forced funniness, rendering it unfunny, and jokes more worthy of groans than chuckles. But then John VanDeWoestyne's Tito, the titular tenor, and Diane Greenwood's Maria, Tito's wife, entered the stage, and brought with them the strong farcical performances that, until that point, were lacking in Saturday night's performance.
The Playcrafters Barn Theatre's take on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson adventure novel Treasure Island - adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig - certainly kicks off with a dynamic start. Director, lighting director, and set designer Jennifer Kingry's impressive recreation of a lightning storm is ominous and tense, as is the first scene aboard a pirate ship, and if the play's pirates portray any sense of threat, it is in these opening minutes, as they snarl at and descend upon a perceived traitor and treasure-map thief. The storm ends, however, as does the scene, and the rest of the play lacks the excitement set up at the start.
Attending the theatre is typically a form of escapism, a chance to get lost in the magic of the staging and performances. And then there's Moon Over Buffalo, one of those shows that doesn't just let you escape into it, but lets you in on the antics of what's going on off stage. It's a show about actors and their messed up, dramatic lives.
There are nights during the run of a happily manic, door-slamming farce when everything seems to go magically right: The actors hit their marks exactly on cue, the dialogue lands with almost inhuman accuracy, and the set's many doors open and shut with razor-sharp precision. The audience, meanwhile, barely has time in between laughs to catch its collective breath.
