"The Book of Will" by Theatre Pro Rata at the Crane Theater

We all just take for granted that Shakespeare's 30+ plays have always been available - to put on a play, to read in school, to make a parody of. But it turns out that like many playwrights from centuries past, his plays might have been lost to us forever. A theater world without Shakespeare is unimaginable, and we have his good friends and actors in his company to thank for it. And we have this season's most produced playwright Lauren Gunderson to thank for giving us this story, and Theatre Pro Rata for bringing us the regional premiere of The Book of Will. It's a compelling and dynamic tale about 17th century publishing, as shocking as that may sound, and Pro Rata gives it fine treatment, with a great cast and simple yet effective design. See it the Crane Theater through October 11, and find out how Shakespeare's First Folio came to be.

"Lettice and Lovage" at Theatre in the Round

The play Lettice and Lovage by British playwright Peter Shaffer was basically written as a showcase for Dame Maggie Smith, and she fittingly won a Tony for it in 1990. It's a very funny and very British play and has two great roles for women over 50, and a real live cat on stage, all great things. The one challenging thing is that it's a three-act two-intermission play, a rarity these days, but as long as you're aware going into it that you'll be sitting in the theater for three and a half hours or more, it's a lot of fun. Theatre in the Round is staging it in their 73rd season, dedicating the production to #TCTheater actor Maggie Bearmon Pistner who starred in their 2001 production and passed away in 2023. They've cast a couple of great actors as this buddy comedy duo, so take a nap or have a coffee before the show, get up to get a snack at intermission, and settle in for an entertaining evening (or afternoon if you're a morning person like me). Lettice and Lovage continues through April 27.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2022: "The Hysterical Woman"

Day: 6

Show: 19

Title: The Hysterical Woman

Category: COMEDY / DRAMA / HISTORICAL CONTENT / LGBTQIA+ CONTENT / POLITICAL CONTENT

By: Fortune's Fool Theatre

Created by: Ariel Pinkerton

Location: Rarig Center Xperimental

Summary: A collection of new and classic stories, news pieces, and poems around the idea of the historical and continuing diagnosis/accusation of "hysteria" in women.

Highlights: This powerful and moving collection includes pieces written by cast members, female writers like Mary Oliver and Emily Dickenson, and moments in history. Performed by a five-person ensemble (Ariel Pinkerton, Linda Sue Anderson, Rachel Flynn, Destiny Davison, and Andrew Troth), each piece is a little story unto itself, some funny, some tragic, all relatable. Stories about women at the doctor's office, or a conversation with her partner, or with a coworker. And when the interaction goes well and the woman is listened to and heard, the cast interrupts with "this never happens" and provides informative background about gaslighting, sexual harassment, or medical misdiagnoses. Which is funny because it's true, and we begin to expect it. Particularly impactful is the reading of Anita Hill's testimony at the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and a mash up of the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" with Britney Spears's recent testimony to end her conservatorship. The staging (direction by Nicole Wilder) makes good use of the Xperimental space, and the individual pieces flow smoothly from one to the next, comprising a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This piece illustrates the fact that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We still call women "hysterical" when we don't like what they're saying or doing, if not in so many words. 

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Orlando" by Theatre Pro Rata at the Crane Theater

Although based on a 1928 Virginia Woolf novel and adapted into a play around the turn of this century by Sarah Ruhl, Orlando speaks very much to this time, with its exploration of gender fluidity, and it's skewering of societal norms around gender identity and gender roles. Written in a modern narrative style, with the ensemble taking turns describing the story as it plays out, there's a playfulness to it despite the seriousness of the ideas presented. Theatre Pro Rata has assembled an excellent cast and team to bring the complex, modern, insightful story to life at the Crane Theater (through March 27, click here for info and tickets).

"And Then There Were None" at Theater in the Round

And Then There Were None is the best-selling novel by one of the world's most popular mystery writers, Agatha Christie. If one can overlook the horribly offensive original title and the song from which it came (which, to be honest, I'm not sure one can), it's a suspenseful and gripping tale of the most deadly game of Survivor. Christie herself adapted the story into a stage play, even changing the ending. I'd never seen or read it, and I love a good mystery play, so I found Theatre in the Round's production to be an entertaining and surprising afternoon at the theater.

"Knight of the Burning Pestle" by Theatre Pro Rata at Dreamland Arts

Sunday was a day of comedy for me. First I saw one of the most beloved comedies of American theater - The Odd Couple - in an excellent production at Lyric Arts. Then I traveled from the 1960s back to the 1600s with Theatre Pro Rata's Knight of the Burning Pestle, the first parody in English theater. This play-within-a-play is a spoof of theater itself, and the cast has great fun with it. And while I didn't always understand the specifics of what was going on (I sometimes have a hard time with Shakespearean era language), that didn't seem to matter. The enjoyment comes in watching the delightfully campy performances of the eight-person cast as they poke gentle fun at the thing we all love best -theater.

"Dead Man's Cell Phone" at Theatre in the Round

Cell phones have become such an important part of our lives. Many of us (myself included) feel out of place if we don't have our phone in our hands or on our person, and when you look around any public space (airport, waiting room, or theater) you see people engrossed in their phones. Dead Man's Cell Phone (written by Sarah Ruhl who also penned the delightful In the Next Room) is about what happens when a woman becomes obsessed, not with her own phone, but someone else's. Now playing at the oldest theater in Minneapolis (aka Theatre in the Round), it's an odd, quirky, funny, absurd little play.

Jean is sitting in a cafe minding her own business when she hears a cell phone that won't stop ringing. She asks the phone's owner to please answer it, but when he doesn't respond, she answers it for him. Only then does she realize that the reason he isn't answering his phone is because he's dead. So begin's Jean's journey as she feels obliged to continue to answer this man's phone and speak to his friends, family, and business associates. She meets his mistress, his wife, his mother, and his brother, and helps them grieve their loss (although none of them seems that upset) as she finds out more about this man Gordon. When she eventually discovers the shady details of his business, she's in too deep to escape unscathed.

Colleen Somerville Leeman is a great choice for the lead role of Jean. She's just so personable and relatable that you can't help but go along with her as she take us on this strange journey. Charles Numrich brings the dead man alive as we find out just what kind of person he was. Andrew Troth provides contrast to that character as the brother who's always been in his shadow, in a sweet romance with Jean. Adding humor are Jan Arford as Gordon's self-centered mother and Anna Olson as his wife, with a couple of delightfully silly turns as a drunk and a figure skater.

It's always fun to see theater in Theatre in the Round because it is quite literally in the round. The audience surrounds the stage on all sides, providing many different perspectives of the show, which can be a challenge in staging. But in this show, as others I've seen, I never felt like I was at the wrong angle. The stage is bare, with a few set pieces brought on and off during scene changes, including a round table that can be cleverly separated into four pieces and put together in different ways to represent various tables (set design by Sadie Ward). During those scene changes (which are a bit long at times), light bulbs in greenish cubes provide a soft otherwordly glow (lighting design by Courtney Schmitz).

Dead Man's Cell Phone is fantastical and a bit absurd, but speaks to real-world issues of love, loss, and human connection. Turn your phone off for a few hours and check it out at Theatre in the Round, playing weekends through April 13.