goestoshow

I went into this play knowing nothing about it other than the title, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I enjoyed it, though I think the running time of 1:20 was a bit long and it could have done without a couple of the digressions (but I have a general bias towards hour long plays). There’s a lot to this play including lots of use of multimedia, lots of little skits to punch up the somewhat dreary main storyline, a fun premise, and great stage design.

Which I feel leaves the story feeling a bit scattered and unfocused. It got where it was going, and had plenty of laughs and intense moments on the way there, but I just felt it meandered a bit too much in getting there. The acting was all well done, the subject was a great dichotomy between funny premise/sad execution, but something I can’t put my finger on keeps me from recommending this play too strongly.

Possibly a part of it is that while there are three actors in it, most scenes are done as if it were a one man play, with the other actors either off-stage, frozen on-stage, or doing something quietly around the stage while someone monologues. I suspect the play is designed to scale down to fewer actors. I have to admit I’m not very fond of one-man plays in general (I like the dynamics of 2+ people on stage better), so maybe that’s part of it.

Tags: ***, A. David Levine, Jessica Huras, Mikaela Dyke, Mitchell Cushman, Parent Productions, Sebastian Heins