"The Importance of Being Earnest" at Lakeshore Players Theatre

The subtitle A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is the perfect description of Oscar Wilde's most popular play The Importance of Being Earnest. It is so silly, so full of comedy zingers and ridiculous characters, so biting in its mockery of proper late 19th Century British society. Lakeshore Players Theatre's new production, directed by #TCTheater veteran actor and director Craig Johnson, is running for only two weekends, and it's perfectly delightful. Head to downtown White Bear Lake by March 22 to catch this frothy, yummy, and hilarious classic comedy.

"Legacy of Light" at Theatre in the Round

A historical fiction rom com featuring female scientists? Sign me up! Playwright Karen Zacarías' Legacy of Light, now on stage at Theatre in the Round, is just my kind of play. It has a little of everything - comedy, romance, history, philosophy, poetry, science, fantasy, love, grief. The true story of 18th Century French mathematician and physicist Émilie du Châtelet is told alongside of the story of a fictional modern female scientist, the two stories speaking to each other in expected ways. A smart and funny play about smart, funny, strong women, their ambitions and accomplishments, as well as the obstacles they face because of their sex, is just what we need right now. See this lovely production at Theatre in the Round weekends through March 16.

"The Government Inspector" at Theatre in the Round

Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of the brilliantly ridiculous Russian satirical comedy The Government Inspector premiered at the Guthrie in 2008, featuring his usual dry wit and clever humor, and starring a bunch of beloved Guthrie actors and one Broadway star. I don't remember too much about it, other than the hilarity, and that yes, Hunter Foster (aka Seymour) did sing. While perhaps some of the jokes don't land as well in 2019, the idea of a narcissistic, greedy, corrupt politician finally getting what's coming to him is particularly appealing at this moment in time. Theatre in the Round's production, which closes this weekend, brings all the absurdity to life in a very entertaining way, with almost constant laughter from the nearly sold-out crowd.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018: "Proof! An Alien Abduction Pop Musical"

Day: 7

Show: 27

Title: Proof! An Alien Abduction Pop Musical

Category: Comedy / Musical Theater / Original Music

By: Sister Shakes

Written by: Anna Olson and Mark Schirmacher

Location: Augsburg Studio

Summary: The title says it all: it's a musical about a woman abducted by aliens.

Highlights: This show has been selling out the small studio space, and it must be because it's fun and well-done. Admittedly the 10pm timeslot didn't allow me to be as engaged as I'd like to be (note to self: don't see 10pm shows), but what I managed to catch was quite enjoyable. A talented four-person cast (playwright Anna Olson, Bill Williamson, Don Maloney, and Tynelle Marschall), fun poppy songs (by Mark Schirmacher), and an amusing plot about an alien sent to harvest a human soul who falls in love with said soul, and then they end up saving the world (or something). Just one show left on the last day of the fest, so plan accordingly if you want to catch this funny, poppy, clever show (with aliens!)

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Fringe Festival 2016: "It Always Rained in Paris"

Day: 9

Show: 40

Title: It Always Rained in Paris

Category: Drama

By: Theatre Corrobora

Written by: Hailey Colwell

Location: Phoenix Theater

Summary: A woman on the verge of divorcing her French husband invites the girl she nannied for 15 years ago in Paris to come to America to be a nanny for her children.

Highlights: Playwright Hailey Colwell was inspired to write this play after spending the last year working as a nanny in a wealthy neighborhood in Paris. I don't know how a 20-something writes so well about the feelings of nostalgia and regret that come with a few more years of life experience. This is a story tinged with nostalgia, as Ellie (Anna Olson) remembers her year in Paris, where she met her husband Nic (Bill Williamson). After realizing they love the idea of each other and the time they spent together in Paris more than the person they each have become, they're in the process of divorcing. Ellie invites the now grown-up Michele (Dani Pazurek) to America look after her children Gabriele (Louisa Schirmacher) and Bastien (Huxley Westemeier) in hopes that the connection to Paris will somehow help. In a way it does, as Ellie confronts her reasons for being so obsessed with Paris, yet never wanting to go back, and finally begins to get unstuck. The cast beautifully brings this story and these very human characters to life, and live music by John Hilsen on keyboard perfectly sets the tone of nostalgic melancholy.

"The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" at Theatre in the Round

Muriel Spark's 1961 novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has been ranked among the best English-language novels of the 20th century. In the late '60s it was turned into a play and movie (the latter starring Dame Maggie Smith as the title character, for which she won an Oscar). Theatre in the Round is presenting the play as part of their 63rd season (they're the oldest theater in Minneapolis, by the way). It's a fascinating look at a complicated woman, but in the end, I wasn't quite sure what to think about her.

Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher at a private girls' school in Scotland in the '30s (an accent that the large cast accomplishes with varying degrees of success). But not just any teacher, she's a special teacher with her own ideas of what should be taught and how it should be taught. She focuses less on the prescribed curriculum and more on imbuing "her" girls with a sense of confidence and independence. She takes them on outings to museums, theaters, and the countryside, and favors telling romanticized stories from her past over teaching them history from books. But it's not all as rosy as it sounds. She also uses her students as pawns in her romantic entanglements with two fellow teachers, one a married man. As the girls progress through school, they remain under Miss Brodie's influence, for better or worse. She has left her mark on all of them, and some of them will pay the price.

I had a had time with the character of Miss Brodie; I wasn't sure if I was supposed to like her or not. In the end I decided I didn't like her. She talks a lot about educating her girls and forming them into the best they can be, but mostly what I saw was a woman reliving her youth through these vulnerable girls, regaling them with thrilling stories of her past, convincing them to do things like fight for a cause that maybe wasn't theirs, or "pose" for an artist, knowing full well what that would lead to. Several of the girls were bullying another girl, a fact she either was ignorant to or didn't care about. She gained their trust, brought them along on fun outings, treated them as confidantes, but wasn't there for them when they truly needed her. It seemed like a lot of talk that covered a lack of any real feeling for these young women.

Miss Jean Brodie (Anna Olson) with her girls

The young actors playing these young women influenced by Miss Brodie range in age from 14 to 23, and all are wonderfully real and in the moment. McKinnley Aitchison is a standout as Sandy, the one Miss Brodie singles out as her chief confidante, and believably portrays her transformation from teacher's pet to disillusioned young woman. As Jean Brodie, Anna Olson effectively conveys the complexities of the character. Maybe headmistress Miss MacKay was supposed to be the bad guy, but in the form of Mary Kay Fortier Spalding, I found her to be sympathetic and reasonable.

It's always fascinating to see how Theater in the Round deals with the "problem" of a 360 degree stage, and as per usual, it leads to some creative and well thought-out staging, in this case by director Dann Peterson on a set designed by John A. Woskoff. The teacher's desk and students' benches take up half of the stage, with the art studio a tiny but well-used raised space on the side, while other scenes take place in the open area.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie continues weekends through February 1.

"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.