By Doug Day
Three dramas were performed locally in November. I met with Charles Brown at the Broken Tree Cafe on Main Street to learn about his experience being a guest artist for Bradley in the student directed production of the Pulitzer winning play, “Proof.”
Mr. Brown has acted in theaters around town and was very good as Jean Val Jean in Peoria Players excellent production of “Les Miserable” last year. He spoke highly of the student director, Danielle Dyksterhouse, as well as fellow cast members with special regard for Meghan Grott, the lead, who was very believable as the loyal, grieving daughter and mathematician who is haunted by the fear that her father’s madness may be hereditary. It is very rare for a student to direct as part of the main stage season in an academic department. This was a very successful experiment, and the Bradley department is congratulated for providing such a profound educational experience for Miss Dyksterhouse.
Cornstock produced Neil LaBute’s “The Shape of Things,” directed by Christopher Gray who stepped in at the last moment when the original director had to withdraw. It is a four character play and was well performed by the cast. Andrew Jon Rhodenbaugh and Rebekah Dentino were successful as the leads. The play is a modern take and reversal on G.B. Shaw’s “Pygmalion” absent the sweetness of that earlier work. I say “sweetness” because in Shaw’s play the clueless language professor falls in love with his subject. Not so in Mr. LaBute’s play which uses the deceit of Evelyn to manipulate Adam to remake him as her subject in her undergraduate performance art thesis. Miss Dentino as the sociopathic Evelyn plays the role with cool, but forceful detachment and is a model of ambition and intellectual myopia as she places her vapid “art” above her fellow creatures. The other three characters learn something of themselves in the course of the play, Evelyn…not so much and is summoned to the Dean’s office to “‘splain” herself, a reference to “I Love Lucy” at the end of the play.
Some may choose to see Evelyn as a fearless truth teller and those with such a bent would probably see the malevolent, twisted Teddy in Mark Medoff’s play, “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” the same way. I am not able to stretch that far. The 1974 play was produced in the Studio Theater at ICC for nine performances. Teddy is a Viet Nam War vet, disillusioned by his experience and has taken it on himself to be the self-appointed truth teller for those unfortunate enough to cross his path. He victimizes a group of people in a diner, and the charitable view is that they are left shaken but better as a result of this anti-hero’s behavior. My opinion is he is more “anti” than “hero” and needs to get into therapy ASAP. There are two ways of looking at illusions; in his play “The Wild Duck,” Ibsen suggests that, for some, illusions are all they have and therefore need some act of charity and understanding. Medoff takes the other view. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide where you come down on this.