"Hurricane Diane" by Rough Magic Performance Company at the Center for Performing Arts

This morning when I went for a run, the sun was an unnatural bright pink, a color I'd never seen from the sun before, due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. While it was a stunning display, it was also disturbing. This poor air quality from far away fires happens occasionally in the border state of Minnesota, but it seems to be happening much more often this year, and in places much farther away. Arizona is currently experiencing record heat, and devastating natural disasters like tornadoes and hurricanes seem to be increasing every year. In playwright Madeleine George's play Hurrican Diane (which premiered in 2017 and played Off-Broadway in 2019), the god of wine, vegetation, and fertility, known as Dionysus or Bacchus, witnesses this growing crisis and steps in to attempt to remedy it. How does he do so? By posing as a lesbian landscaper and seducing four suburban New Jersey women to become acolytes. It's a very funny play, well executed by the all-star cast and creative team at Rough Magic Performance Company, but that doesn't make its lesson any less dire. In fact, the audience being seduced by the laughter and ridiculous situations makes the stark reality that human choices and actions are making the planet more and more unlivable for humans even more shocking. Don't miss this beautifully done regional premiere of the timely, hilarious, and terrifying play Hurricane Diane (continuing at Center for Performing Arts through July 30).

"Norma Jeane Baker of Troy" by Rough Magic Performance Company at the Mill City Farmers Market

Rough Magic Performance Company has made a name for themselves at Minnesota Fringe Festival with their short, modern, and feminist adaptations of Shakespeare. But now they're moving beyond that by performing a new play outside of the Fringe. And literally outside* (thanks, covid), in the gorgeous space used by the Mill City Farmers Market, between the Guthrie Theater and the Mill City Museum. Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is a retelling of the legend of Helen of Troy, aka the face that launched a thousand ships, superimposed with the story of Norma Jeane Baker, aka Marilyn Monroe. The play examines parallels between the two women and attempts to look beyond their status as icons of female beauty to the truth behind the image. It's a fascinating play, beautifully produced, with a lot packed into the one-hour runtime. Even though I've been to a handful of outdoor plays and musicals this year and last, for some reason this really felt like my first return to theater as we once knew it. Maybe because I held an actual physical program in my hands, maybe because the stage and audience setup felt familiar, maybe because of the complex nature of the play. But for perhaps the first time in 16 months, I left feeling that familiar sort of theater daze, having just traveled to another world for a time, and not quite ready to settle back into this one.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Measure4Measure"

Day: 2

Show: 6

Title: Measure4Measure

Category: COMEDY / DRAMA / PHYSICAL THEATER / LITERARY ADAPTATION / LGBTQ+ CONTENT / POLITICAL CONTENT / RELIGIOUS CONTENT / SHAKESPEARIAN ELEMENTS

By: Rough Magic Performance Company

Directed by: Sarah Agnew

Location: Southern Theater

Summary: An adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, the original #MeToo play.

Highlights: The last time I saw Measure for Measure, I found it a bit long (as I often do with Shakespeare's plays), but this one-hour version (adapted by Catherine Johnson Justice and directed by Sarah Agnew) felt just right. I didn't miss a thing in the story of the woman who is told by a powerful man that the only way she could save her condemned brother is to sleep with him. Cries of "who would believe me if I told" sound all too familiar to us today. A record scratch and the repetition of important lines really drives this point home. An excellent all female cast (Alayne Hopkins, Ashawnti Sakina Ford, Catherine Johnson Justice, and Mo Perry, with Elise Langer and Taj Ruler bringing the funny) plays all of the characters and really brings this story to vibrant life. If you like your Shakespeare short, succinct, funny, relevant, engaging, and feminist, don't miss this Measure4Measure.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Fringe Festival 2017: "Much Ado About Nothing (as told by Dogberry and Verges)"

Day: 6

Show: 25

Title: Much Ado About Nothing (as told by Dogberry and Verges)

Category: Comedy

By: Rough Magic Performance Company

Written by: William Shakespeare (mostly)

Location: Jungle Theatre

Summary: A funny and clever and very meta adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing featuring an all female cast and creative team.

Highlights: Catherine Johnson Justice adapted and Sarah Agnew directs this perfectly delightful Shakespeare adaptation that starts with a couple of stagehands (Taj Ruler and Sara Richardson) wondering what to do when the actors don't show up. This is one show you'll want to show up early for as the comedy starts before the pre-show announcement. The stagehands soon take things into their own hands and tell the story on their own, with the help of actors Alayne Hopkins, Catherine Johnson Justice, Elise Langer, and Kirby Bennett, and a couple of puppets. The star-crossed love stories of Hero and Claudio, and Beatrice and Benedick, are clear and concise in the less than an hour time limit, while the occasional breaks out of the play within a play add interest and fun to the proceedings, and this cast is full of comedians with perfect timing and hilarious comic choices. After seeing this and the lovely Twelfth Night adaptation What You Will, I'm beginning to think Shakespeare should always be 60 minutes long.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Fringe Festival: "What You Will" and "Twelfth Night"

Day: 9

Show: 33 and 36

Title: What You Will and Twelfth Night

Category: Comedy

By: Renegade Play-Reading Company and Rough Magic Performance Company

Adapted by: Catherine Johnson Justice

Location: Rarig Center Thrust

Summary: Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night split into two shows, one focusing on the separated and disguised twins Viola and Sebastian, the other on the supporting characters.

Highlights: I was thinking this would be a Hamlet/Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead kind of pairing, but rather it's really just Shakespeare's original, only split in two by subject matter. It's a fun idea, and well executed by director Terry Hempleman (who also appears as the Duke in one of the two shows) and the excellent large cast. I saw What You Will first, which tells of the shenanigans of the members of the lady Olivia's (Alayne Hopkins) household, including a delightfully dopey Sam Bardwell as Sir Andrew, the always entertaining E.J. Subkoviak as Sir Toby, a mischievous Katie Kaufman as Maria, and Sasha Andreev with some strong monologues as Malvolio, going from proud to ridiculous to pitiable. The second hour tells the main story of Twelfth Night, with Catherine Johnson Justice and Clarence Wethern as the twins getting mixed up in the wooing of Olivia by the Duke. The two stories are tied together by Emily Zimmer's ukulele-playing fool. It's a clever idea and a fun way to view Shakespeare in a new way, performed by great actors.