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Never After Happily, Attic Productions

 April 23-May 3, D. Geraldine Lawson Performing Arts Center, Fincastle, 7:30 pm, 90 minute run time, no intermission This is a very worthwhile play, and an able production: you should go see it! (Reasons below). Some notes on the script, written by Cindy Marcus, which was new to me -- This is a deceptively ambitious script, which requires the actors to master at least three things: comedy (some extremely funny lines in there), pathos (can they make us care?), and connection. In brief, the story is this: a writer has beef with the whole world of "fairytales" for having given her a false expectation of a happy ending. We only get a very brief glimpse of the writer's backstory (she was, in fact, lucky in love but then her love got sick... that's all I caught). The writer then undertakes to rewrite, or add "realistic" sequels to, several familiar fairy tales to demonstrate their lack of happy ending. There is a good deal of breaking the fourth wall and audience ...
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Romeo and Juliet, Roanoke College

  April 16-18, 7:30 pm, Crystal Lynn Van Hise Stage in Olin Hall, Roanoke College.      It’s hard to make Shakespeare fresh, but these intrepid students and their extremely talented director pulled it off beautifully.      Everyone knows the story, but director Nelson Barre draws us in by starting not with the famous prologue (“Two households, both alike in dignity…”) but first with the setting of the stage itself. A group of young actors convenes: they chat, they try on costumes, they goof around. Loud music gets them dancing and celebrating together. But they finally calm down, the lights dim… and then comes the much anticipated prologue.      The end shows a similar “undoing” as the actors remove their costumes and chat. By creating this “framing” for the play itself, Barre highlights the fact that it’s a play. Choices were made. We are watching. They are performing. There’s a certain distanc...
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