WHEN WE DEAD AWAKEN -- Commonweal Theatre

by Henrik Ibsen
Three Act play
directed by: Lisa Weaver
cast: Patrick Bailey, Amanda Davis, Joe Schermann, Mike Long, Christine Winkler, Katie Woodzick
sets: Kit Mayer
costumes: Janice Martin
lights: Jack Hamilton

An artitist, sculptor, feels as though he has awakened from the dead and is able create art again when he renews a relationship with his former model.

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I liked the script, the story, which was not one that I was familiar with. It spoke well to the artist, though perhaps it wouldn't reach the average theatre-goer.

The set was quite nice and crossed over from functional realistic to representational nicely.

Costumes were beautiful and set the the tone for the era of the show.

Unfortunately, despite these positives, the directing and acting brought this show down to the level of "competent community theatre."

While I quite like Patrick Bailey as a performer, his obvious British accent was quite glaring set against the very American accents of the rest of the cast and in this play set in Norway. It jarred me initially, but I was able to over-look it later.

Amanda Davis, as the female lead, acted so modern ... 21st Century modern, which went against the look for the rest of the show. She appeared to be a typical teen today -- trying new things and bored with her stuffy, ol' husband, and while the script may well have suggested this, if it's going to be set in the 1800's, she needs to find the way to portray that. Instead she just acted like a modern girl wearing an old fashioned dress.

Christine Winkler as the sculptor's former model was just...well...odd. She acted half dead the entire time, and I never once saw anything about her that would make me believe that the sculptor ever saw her as perfection and would be willing to cast off his current young wife to rekindle a relationship with this dead spirit.

Katie Woodzick had only one line in the entire play (the last line) and not a single person in the theatre understood it. In the discussion after the show, she was asked what she said (turns out it was a Latin phrase, but no one understood even that much).

Mike Long, as the bear hunter, looked good for the part (thanks, in large part to the costume), but was never quite threatening enough. To be the polar opposite of Bailey's character he needed to be much more of a physically threatening presence on the stage, and that just never came through. A deep baritone voice and a slight swagger were not enough to convince me that he might take Davis, sexually, on the mountain side.

And while I make these comments as faults of the performers, I do believe that the director is largely responsible, especially in a company which makes claims at being professional. The director should have defined the era in which the play was set an seen to it that Davis was acting within that period. The director should have seen the need to make the bear hunter and the sculptor as opposite as possible and done whatever possible to make that happen.

Characters as representational are okay, but if, even after the play, we can not understand what a character was representing (Woodzick), then the director missed the mark.

I think that this could have been a really wonderful production and could have shown that Ibsen is so much more than A Doll's House and Hedda Gabler, but instead it served only to show that the Commonweal is getting stale.

I think that Commonweal Theatre truly needs to take a serious look at it's company and shake things up a bit. I don't enjoy going there to see shows any more. The acting and directing is all much the same and I know what kind of performances I'll see, and it isn't great.

CINDERELLA -- Ballet

Page Theater -- Saint Mary's University
Produced by the Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts at the Valencia Arts Center
Guest Artist: Richard Isaacs as The Prince
student, Alyssa Schneider as Cinderella
Artistic Director: Tammy Schmidt Perry

The Classical ballet featuring music by Prokofiev.

This was a very nice staging of the ballet. Tammy Schmidt-Perry added her own mark by giving some of the Fairies and Corps new choreography to go along with some of the original staging.

Richard Isaacs showed why he is a professional, as his leaps and turns were so much smoother and higher than any of the students. Miss Schneider did a fine job of holding her own alongside a professional and through such an intense performance schedule (Schneider, only 15, was on stage dancing most of the show, with numerous solos and Pas de Deux).

A very good show.

{My three children were in the show, two as Trolls and one as a Dragonfly.}

VARIETY SHOW

Rushford-Peterson High School

Last night was the third annual variety show hosted by the R-P Drama Club. These kids do a pretty good job getting together and getting something done.

The show itself was "okay." As expected, it featured a lot of piano recital pieces, a couple of speeches from speech team members, and a baton-twirling exhibition from the little kids. The theme around the show was a mystery which the Drama Club put together. It was a neat idea, well performed, but not necessarily well thought out.

A pleasant evening, though not exceptional in any way.