Cotuit Center for the Arts Review Jesus Christ Superstar

Considering the climax of the story, no one could consider "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" to be a full-out comedy. But director Carol McManus and her bandage at Cotuit Center for the Arts have focused on the night sense of humour – "very blackness," McManus says – in Martin McDonagh's script to make the characters more sympathetic.

McManus had seen the play twice earlier and loved it, especially the language used and the characters' "very Irish" way of expressing themselves. Those productions, though, "emphasized the nighttime side of the relationship between mother and daughter, the bitterness" and so she had never idea of this dear-detest relationship in a small village in Ireland to exist "particularly humorous."

But as she and her actors started working on the scenes, they realized the potential for dark comedy in many of the scenes and agreed to try a somewhat dissimilar approach.

"The mother and daughter have their ups and downs and ins and outs, just at that place is also a esprit and a demand for each other that plays well when y'all make this lighter," McManus says in a phone interview. "If you continue information technology lighter, the audience is more than accepting of the character changes."

When the conclusion was fabricated, she told the actors, "Let's practise everything we can to lighten this up … so the audience cares nigh these people. When you get this stark darkness, (female parent) Magazine is so evil that you can't really care about them."

In the play, Maureen (played by Jane Geist Moore) is a manifestly and lonely adult female in her early 40s who lives with her manipulative, aging mother, Mag (Linda Monchik). Each is resentful and complaining, and potential suitor Pado's (Richard Martin) imminent departure for America brings their relationship to a crunch level. While McManus acknowledges the play'southward determination is "very dark," she considers the terrible things they say to each other to be more careless than hateful.

"You lot could be furious at a child, but information technology doesn't mean that you hate them, or that they are bad or yous are bad," she points out. Her view, she says, "is that there are no evil people in the play, that all the characters accept a reason to exist the way they are."

"The Dazzler Queen of Leenane" opened in London in 1996, where it was nominated for an Olivier Award. The 1998 Broadway production was nominated for six Tony Awards and won four.

*****

Alex Valentine has known the music from "Godspell" since babyhood because his mother would often sing "Day by Twenty-four hour period" for Easter Sunday services. The Broadway musical turned out to be the first show he performed in college, when in 1996 he was cast as Lamar, who sings "All Good Gifts."

Nearly xx years after, the Woods Pigsty Theater Company production of the parable-filled musical based on the life of Jesus is Valentine'southward tertiary fourth dimension in a "Godspell" cast – fourth if y'all count the Quincy production for which he understudied several roles merely never performed on phase.

He played Lamar at Bridgewater, Judas/John the Baptist in Fall River, just John the Baptist in Norton, and now he has the office of Jesus for the Woods Hole testify.

It's a prove he keeps coming back to in part for its score: "I love music and I dear musicals," he says. "I'chiliad a differently spiritually-minded person and when I find music that actually draws out your feelings, not only assistance yous have emotions, but help you admission things that you effort to proceed bottled upwards and what you really feel – I love it when that happens with music. And when it's spiritual, too," all the better.

With and so much feel with "Godspell," Valentine has been in a good position to run across the different ways this musical tin be staged. The Bridgewater testify used long benches and a flattened map of the Earth as a backdrop, for example, and a larger ensemble than is typically used. "Godspell" usually calls for a cast of 10, he notes, but the Norton testify had 33 actors, all costumed to correspond unlike ethnicities and countries. One of his master memories of the 2005 Fall River bear witness is the coincidence that several people he knew from loftier school were also in the cast and band.

Director Corinne Cameron staged "Godspell" at Mashpee High Schoolhouse in March, only while some of her student actors will appear on stage to sing one song, the residual of the cast is different. She also notes that at that place are different jokes and different scenarios in the Woods Hole bear witness.

One of the main similarities between all the productions mentioned, though, is that all the directors accept tried to build up a sense of community, even family, within the cast, Valentine says – an important factor for spreading the musical's message. The Woods Hole show has been the strongest for Valentine because he is acting with so many people he has worked with or known through Cape theaters.

He was drawn to audience in part because friend Katie Lynch Koglin is musical director, and he outset worked with castmate Rob Minshall 10 years ago in Falmouth Theatre Guild's "Beauty and the Beast." Back then, he notes, he met Minshall'due south 6-year-onetime daughter. Now teen girl Samantha is part of the "Godspell" cast, likewise.

"We're more than but a community, we're a family unit," he says. "And when yous're able to do a prove of this magnitude with people who you're close to, information technology brings up everybody'southward game."

Information technology'south been interesting, Valentine says, to have played both Jesus and betrayer Judas in the same show, merely information technology's not his only feel with those characters. "I've played Judas in 'Godspell' and 'Jesus Christ Superstar,'" he says, then jokes, "And so at present I have to audition for 'Jesus Christ Superstar' again so I tin can play Jesus in that."

Woods Hole Theater Visitor will nowadays "Godspell" at 8 p.grand. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, June 11-27 at Wood Hole Customs Hall, 68 Water St. The musical was conceived and originally directed by John-Michael Tebelak, with music and new lyrics past Stephen Schwartz. The testify is enhanced with ASL interpretation. Tickets: $18. Credit card reservations: www.woodsholetheater.org, or Ovationtix at 866-811-4111

For more theater news, bank check out Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll's web log at www.capecodonline.com/stagedoor and follow KathiSDCCT on Twitter.

What: "The Beauty Queen of Leenane"

Written by: Martin McDonagh

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and ii p.m. Sundays, June xi to 28

Where: Black Box Theater, Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Route 28

Tickets: $fifteen, $12 for members

Reservations: artsonthecape.org or 508-428-0669

If yous go

bradenyoutive.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/entertainment/local/2015/06/04/review-cotuit-gives-8216-beauty/34413960007/

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