Review of my mom's play
Thought I'd post this review of the play my mom just opened, "King 'o the Moon". I'll be going home to see the show in a couple of weeks.
Also, apparently the money that was raised for the Omaha Playhouse in my dad's memory is the most money the Playhouse has ever received in honor of one person. I don't know what the total is, but I guess more keeps coming in.
I am proud.
Reivew: Sequel at Playhouse a winner
BY JOHN KEENAN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
On the eve of the first moon landing, a family struggles with several life-changing events in Tom Dudzick's "King O' the Moon," given a lustrous production by director Judith K. Hart at the Omaha Community Playhouse.
The sequel to Dudzick's "Over the Tavern," which won a Theater Arts Guild Award for best comedy when it was produced by the Playhouse in 2004, returns to the squabbling but loving Pazinski family.
But where "Tavern" was set in the late 1950s, "King O' the Moon" is set in 1969, a turbulent year in a much more turbulent decade. "Tavern," which Hart also directed, looked behind the veneer of 1950s nostalgia, but in "Moon," the biggest issue of the late 1960s - Vietnam - is front and center.
Tough brother Eddie (Andrew McCreevy) is now a Marine, about to leave for Vietnam and married to Maureen (Jane Noseworthy), who is pregnant. Thoughtful brother Rudy (Stephen Shelton) is playing hooky from the seminary, where he is studying to be a priest, to march in peace protests. Daughter Annie (Nora Vetter) is a wife whose husband is conspicuously absent, and the youngest brother, mentally-handicapped Georgie (Geoffrey Steinblock), is searching for a religious medal given to him by Sister Clarissa, the formidable nun from the first play.
Holding the family and the play together is matriarch Ellen (Judy Radcliff), now a widow, running the tavern with the help of old friend Walter (Russell Martin). Radcliff, who reprises the role she played in "Tavern," is a marvelous comic actress, consistently winning laughs with her delivery and the character's sly wit.
McCreevy is another standout as Eddie, whose bluster hides an unease about what he may be about to face overseas. Noseworthy, meanwhile, has terrific chemistry with almost every other person on stage, and draws her share of laughs as the formerly "fast" Irish Catholic girl who is now a part of the Pazinski family. Her regrets over an old school friend who was killed in Vietnam make for the evening's biggest laugh.
Vetter is always great, and though her character isn't as showy as Eddie or Maureen, she brings real power to the conflicted Annie, who must throw off a lifetime's way of thinking if she wants to achieve happiness. Vetter is especially good on stage with Noseworthy - Annie's disdain for the blithely unconcerned Maureen is palpable.
Hart, who directed "Tavern," brings all this together with a sure hand. As always, the Playhouse's set, lights and technical work is superlative - Steven Wheeldon's setting and lighting deserve particular mention - but it is Hart who wrangles the large, talented cast into a cohesive comic whole.
The Pazinskis really come to life in this show, which will make you laugh while touching you. Like the moon landing the characters await throughout the show, it's a rousing success.
Also, apparently the money that was raised for the Omaha Playhouse in my dad's memory is the most money the Playhouse has ever received in honor of one person. I don't know what the total is, but I guess more keeps coming in.
I am proud.
Reivew: Sequel at Playhouse a winner
BY JOHN KEENAN
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
On the eve of the first moon landing, a family struggles with several life-changing events in Tom Dudzick's "King O' the Moon," given a lustrous production by director Judith K. Hart at the Omaha Community Playhouse.
The sequel to Dudzick's "Over the Tavern," which won a Theater Arts Guild Award for best comedy when it was produced by the Playhouse in 2004, returns to the squabbling but loving Pazinski family.
But where "Tavern" was set in the late 1950s, "King O' the Moon" is set in 1969, a turbulent year in a much more turbulent decade. "Tavern," which Hart also directed, looked behind the veneer of 1950s nostalgia, but in "Moon," the biggest issue of the late 1960s - Vietnam - is front and center.
Tough brother Eddie (Andrew McCreevy) is now a Marine, about to leave for Vietnam and married to Maureen (Jane Noseworthy), who is pregnant. Thoughtful brother Rudy (Stephen Shelton) is playing hooky from the seminary, where he is studying to be a priest, to march in peace protests. Daughter Annie (Nora Vetter) is a wife whose husband is conspicuously absent, and the youngest brother, mentally-handicapped Georgie (Geoffrey Steinblock), is searching for a religious medal given to him by Sister Clarissa, the formidable nun from the first play.
Holding the family and the play together is matriarch Ellen (Judy Radcliff), now a widow, running the tavern with the help of old friend Walter (Russell Martin). Radcliff, who reprises the role she played in "Tavern," is a marvelous comic actress, consistently winning laughs with her delivery and the character's sly wit.
McCreevy is another standout as Eddie, whose bluster hides an unease about what he may be about to face overseas. Noseworthy, meanwhile, has terrific chemistry with almost every other person on stage, and draws her share of laughs as the formerly "fast" Irish Catholic girl who is now a part of the Pazinski family. Her regrets over an old school friend who was killed in Vietnam make for the evening's biggest laugh.
Vetter is always great, and though her character isn't as showy as Eddie or Maureen, she brings real power to the conflicted Annie, who must throw off a lifetime's way of thinking if she wants to achieve happiness. Vetter is especially good on stage with Noseworthy - Annie's disdain for the blithely unconcerned Maureen is palpable.
Hart, who directed "Tavern," brings all this together with a sure hand. As always, the Playhouse's set, lights and technical work is superlative - Steven Wheeldon's setting and lighting deserve particular mention - but it is Hart who wrangles the large, talented cast into a cohesive comic whole.
The Pazinskis really come to life in this show, which will make you laugh while touching you. Like the moon landing the characters await throughout the show, it's a rousing success.