"Suite Surrender" Gets More Than Three Stars

The service is first class in this amusing hotel farce in which two pretentious divas are booked into the same suite. It has all the gasping, door slamming and misdirection you'd expect in this classic comedic genre, populated by stereotypes so exaggerated that the roles almost play themselves.

Tania Joy (as Claudia McFadden) and Jennifer McHugh (Athena Sinclair) are the two leading ladies who create fantastic caricatures of 1940's era USO songstresses, delivering complete performances of music, movement, multiple costume changes and sneering dialogue.

Gabor Mark (Bernard S. Dunlap) portrayed a heel-clicking yet beleaguered hotel manager with an amazing repertoire of attitudes and affects as he exchanged lines with his VIP guests and his fumbling, ingratiating staff.

Casting by Director Julie Price was superb, as the supporting actors all turned in boisterous, over-the-top, physical performances in parts that were nearly impossible to overact.

Suite Surrender is an excellent choice for the Elgin Art Showcase with its high ceilings and grand piano, set up with vases, velvet, and vintage decor that perfectly evoked the extravagance of a bygone era. Though the script may not break any new creative ground, its familiar trajectory is punctuated by a clever plot twist. No spoilers here!

Cross your fingers for another wardrobe malfunction — it's just the sort of unscripted element that perfects a comedy like this, in the hands of such skilled actors.

The show continues through February 9th at the Elgin Art Showcase, 164 Division Street, Eighth Floor, in downtown Elgin. Shows are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm. For reservations or more information, call (847) 741-0532, email tickets@inil.com or go to elgin-theatre.org.

At Grandmother's House with Elgin Theatre Company

Just like Italian food, Over the River and Through the Woods is savory and easy to swallow. The two-act play written by Joseph DiPietro and performed by the Elgin Theatre Company opened Friday night at the Elgin Art Showcase in downtown Elgin.

The grandparent-grandchild relationship is the lens through which this plays looks at life's priorities. For the older generation, it's faith, family and food. "Tengo familia" ("I have a family") is the cherished tenet of two sets of grandparents, whose grandson's career ambitions are threatening to take him thousands of miles away.

Though the thermostat is always set too high in Grandma's house, the characters are comfortable — with themselves and each other — and the situations seem familiar. The cast seasoned their portrayals of Italian-Americans from New Jersey with subtle accents, manners and costume to make them very believable and likeable.

Tom Ochociniski and Linda Sak play Frank and Aida Gianelli, whose kitchen is always open and table always has room for one more. Richard Johnson plays Nunzio Cristano and Arlene Arnone plays Emma, who tries to fix her grandson up with a nice local girl Caitlin, played by Jess Smith. The scenes flow like a sketch comedy with plenty of laughs.

Grandson Nick Cristano, played by Matt Hellyer, is at the center of the plot tension. On one side, he's the reason for his grandparents' fear of detachment; on the other side, he's the object of Caitlin's fear of attachment.

This family's style is more words than action, and the cast wasted no time delivering the next line. True to her character, not even a broken wrist could stop Arnone as Emma from talking with her hands.

With highly effective lighting and sound by Andrew Murschel and excellent casting and coaching by Director Richard Pahl, this production was like a fine lasagna: a little cheesy, just enough meat, and definitely warm and satisfying.

Enjoy a little theatrical comfort food! Over the River and Through the Woods runs for three weekends, through February 24th. Shows are at 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays and 2pm on Sundays. For tickets and complete information, go to elgin-theatre.org or call (847) 741-0532.

Elgin Theatre Portrays War ... and "Piece"

The memories of women who survived the Vietnam War are brought vividly to life in Shirley Lauro's 1991 play A Piece of my Heart suggested by the book by Keith Walker, performed by Elgin Theatre Company Saturday night at the Elgin Art Showcase.

Written in documentary fashion, consisting of scenic vignettes divided up by monologues and music, Piece is a scrapbook of situations experienced by a collage of characters that suggest the range of capacities in which women served in the war: nurses, relief workers, entertainers and soldiers. Every woman had a distinct personal story, and many volunteered as a means of escaping the social constraints of pre-feminist, mid-century America. Once they arrive "in country," however, the alternating horror and monotony of daily experience drives them to escape to booze, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

Rather than develop each individual character in the cast of seven, the play often uses them interchangeably to stand in for generic people and voices of The War. In fact, the only male role is simply that of "The American Men," played by Mark Brewer. As "Leann" (Angel Novie) puts it when she arrives in Vietnam, "I'm not special. Everybody's here."

During the long first act, the characters become exhausted by the relentless assault on their senses, their ethics and their identities, and feel their humanity slipping away as routinely as the soldiers lose their limbs. When they escape the war to return home in Act Two, they find themselves wounded, once again in a country that seems entirely foreign to them.

A great script becomes an amazing production when the set, the action, and the sound and lighting tell the story as eloquently as the words. Superb interpretation by director Madeline Franklin presents the non-linear material as it should be envisioned: with an abstract set, symbolic costumes and minimal props.

In roles that border on "performance art," the cast gave inspired performances, shifting smoothly in and out of multiple characterizations, going from panic to intoxication, breaking into song, resetting the stage, never missing a cue or an entrance. Libby Einterz ("Martha") and Elizabeth Dawson ("Whitney") rose above the script in delivering key lines that may have been overwritten but were not overacted.

Kiara Wolfe ("Sissy"), Jamie McCalister ("MaryJo") and Marixa Ford ("Steele") added to the excellent talent that keeps Elgin Theatre Company still fresh after more than fifty-five seasons on stage. A Piece of my Heart closes with three more shows, Feb. 16th and 17th at 8 p.m. and Feb. 18th at 2 p.m. at the Elgin Art Showcase, 164 Division Street in downtown Elgin. For more information, go to www.elgin-theatre.org.

Elgin Theatre Company and "Screwing Around with Shakespeare" at the Elgin Fringe Festival

The extensive talents of Elgin Theatre Company never cease to amaze us with their audacious variety of material in all sorts of genres. Donna Latham's original trio of sketches called "Screwing Around with Shakespeare" is a comedic cocktail of two main ingredients — Shakespeare and "screwing around" — and this mix is heavy on the latter.

Guy Moore as Romeo (left) and Henry Honshul as Ralphie in Elgin Theatre Company's
"Screwing Around with Shakespeare" at Elgin Fringe Festival

A cast of five handles all the roles that make up vignettes borrowed from Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, but these scenes aren't quite as the Bard wrote them. Not a contemporary resetting either, the scenes are a time warp of characters and dialog from different centuries, in full period costume and wigs, acting alongside a sign language interpreter.

It's campy as hell, and the over-the-top sendups of classic roles are full of youthful exuberance. The slapstick energy is infectious and the script is so full of pop culture references and contemporary urban street slang (CUSS) that it sounds like it was written five minutes ago. The cast cannot help but indulge themselves a bit.

A little knowledge of Shakespeare goes a long way in "Screwing Around," and if you listen carefully you'll find something to giggle about in almost every line.

This show wraps with a finale on Sunday, September 17th at 1:30pm at the Elgin Art Showcase.

Elgin Theatre Company at Elgin Fringe Festival

Three stages of couples' conversation were explored in a series of sketches written by Carl Heitler, and performed by a versatile cast from Elgin Theatre Company, Friday at Imago Creative Studios.

A first date between two mature singles, comfortable with their own identities, highlights the wondrous and comical asymmetry of first impressions. A second vignette portrays a young married couple seeking equilibrium in their relationship by attempting to measure its temperature with a magazine survey.

The final sketch imagines the waiting room where you go after you die, where two strangers try to make sense of their past and present situations. Have a tissue ready when they experience one last chance to say goodbye with the words "Don't forget to write."

The minimally staged three-part suite entitled "Reflections and Perspectives" puts communication front and center but begs the question, "At what point do two reciprocal monologues become a dialogue?"

Performances repeat Saturday, Sept. 17th at 1:30 pm and Sunday, Sept. 18th at 3 pm.