I forgot to think up a review on my way home last night. I was too busy thinking up the letter I was going to send to certain friends--scholar friends who've asked me to keep an eye out for that "special" show that would merit the depletion of rare babysitting and tuition resources, and non-scholar friends who don't "do" theatre and would like to know if I ever come across a "good" show.

Aside from these regular reviews, I've yet to actually suggest anything for them--so much pressure! If someone's going to see one play in a year--in a decade maybe--it's gonna have to be good. I don't want to get that wrong. And this time, I'm confident I won't. So here is the letter I'm sending to all of my friends. (No joke.)

Dear ______,

You wanted to know if I ever found "the" play in town, and I'm pleased to report that I did. "The Clean House" by Sarah Ruhl. It's at the Warehouse, and I think you need to see it. I promise you will be very sad if you don't. And I also promise you will be (forgive the cliche) moved if you do. Moved to laughter and tears.

It's about jokes--the search for the perfect joke in the world (in Portuguese). So it's wickedly funny.
It's about the finding of Besherets (Jewish soul mates). So it's deep and meaningful.
It's about cleaning (or not cleaning) your house. So it's terribly relevant.
It's also about ice cream, compassion, dirty socks, depression, glowworms and death.

In short, it's about our mixed up lives and the decisions we make every day to clean or not to clean, to love or not to love, and whether or not to LAUGH at all of it.

I have never cried so much at something so hilarious.

As Matilde (the Brazilian cleaning lady) says, "In order to tell a good joke, you have to believe that your problems are very small, and that the world is very big...If more women knew more jokes, there would be more justice in this world."

Such sentiments may feel like salt in the proverbial wound, since Lane's life (and house) are literally falling apart. And Virginia's never had a life to speak of. And Ana is staring at cancer. But Lynne Junker's Matilde is so comforting and refreshing that I wouldn't mind her cleaning up my falling-apart life either. In fact, I wouldn't mind having any of these characters over for a while--the acting is incredible!

Debra Capps and Elizabeth Finley are astonishingly perfect as the sisters Lane and Virginia. They both capture an ineffable air of superficiality, the Sarah Ruhl whimsy, and the surprising depth underneath the clean exteriors.

Anne Tromsness and Paul Savas are delicate and delicious as all manner of couples in love.

The sound design (for all you music heads out there) is the most exquisite I've heard in Greenville (kudos to Paul Savas and Justin Ames), the set (Shannon Roberts) both minimal and mod, and the directing (also, ahem, Shannon Roberts) insightful--just the right strain of humor and pathos for Ms. Ruhl.

And this Ms. Ruhl, playwright? She is the only playwright, living or dead, that has ever induced me to say, "Why do I bother writing plays? The woman's already done it!" And I can say it without bitterness or despair, because she does it so beautifully. The experience is slightly disorienting, dream-like, thoroughly modern (or rather "contemporary," as my scholar friends would be quick to point out) and unlike anything you've seen in theatre before.

Whether you're artsy or no, studying for your PhD in obscure poetry or stocking the shelves of our local drug store--if you've been waiting to see something spectacular, something unusual and beautiful and funny funny funny. Something important. If you've been holding out for the perfect show you won't regret, Sarah Ruhl's "The Clean House" at Warehouse Theatre is the one for you. Please don't miss it--or the best joke in the whole world.

Sincerely,
Stephanie Young

PS--and if you're short on funds (many of you are) and you happen to be young (21-39), snag some tickets on Young Professionals Night, September 2. They're only $15 and include a free tasty beverage!

--
Sarah Ruhl's "The Clean House," Directed by Shannon Roberts
Presented by The Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948. Through September 11. Tickets $25. Students $15.

It begins just like those stories your Southern granny used to tell you--soft, slow, and seemingly meandering--but don't let the quiet start fool you. Arlene Hutton's "See Rock City" at Centre Stage is one Appalachian tale that is sure to grab aholt to you.

Justin Walker (Raleigh) and Tara Sweeney (May) play newly weds just returned from honeymooning in the last days of WWII. They are both charming in their roles--sweet without being coy, and funny without being caricatures.

Not that there aren't some delicious stereotypes in the play, particularly the dueling mother-in-laws who sit on the front porch and pretend to be civil with each other. Mary Sparks Gray (Mrs. Brummett) and Kelly Wallace (Mrs. Gill) send sparks flying underneath their "friendly" conversation. But even these ladies know when to reign it in and give their women a heaping dose of humanity. Kudos to director Benjamin P. Robinson for handling his characters lightly and with insight, and to Lesley Preston for a lovely set.

The result is a play not unlike those tarty mother-in-laws: it wins you over with its sweet nostalgia and good feelings, while delivering a pretty mean ole punch. This isn't just a play about "the good old days." Yes, you will laugh, and you may cry (Walker offers up his most moving Greenville performance to date), but you will certainly be challenged by painfully relevant issues: the aftermath of war, gender roles, joblessness, sexism, the definition of family.

And that sweet, slow, meandering beginning? Every one of those rabbit trails tucks neatly--powerfully--back into the plot, and serves as a lesson in and of itself, a lesson to sit quietly and enjoy the rambling scenery, because everything, everything, is valuable in this mixed-up war-torn world.

--
Arlene Hutton's "See Rock City" Directed by Benjamin P. Robinson. Lights: Lee Hambly. Scene: Lesley Preston. Sound: Alex Brilliandt.
With Mary Sparks Gray (Mrs. Brummett), Tara Sweeney (May), Justin Walker (Raleigh), and Kelly Wallace (Mrs. Gill).

Presented by Centre Stage, 501 River Street, Greenville, SC (864) 233-6733. Through August 21. Tickets $25, with discounts for seniors and students.

Jennifer Goff of The Distracted Globe has set herself the arduous task of adapting Moliere's 1672 Les Femmes Savantes to New York, 1930. And she kept the convention of rhyming couplets.

In keeping with true review form, the next sentence should propose some sort of value judgment of the production. This is tricky. In complete honesty, I'll admit that I did not particularly enjoy the show. But then, in complete fairness, I'll tell you that I was the only person in the audience who didn't.

I have never (never!) heard an audience become so invested in a play. I am accustomed to The Excessively Loud Individual who annoys the rest of the patrons with his demonstrative responses. The Learned Ladies was my first experience with an entire audience hooting, howling, groaning, yelling at the characters (and at each other), clapping in the middle of scenes, and laughing with abandon.

Moliere's play lampoons hen-pecked husbands, domineering women, googily-eyed romantics, and those obnoxious fake intellectuals who say nothing of value (and write very very bad poetry). It's a fun story with our favorite caricatures, and the production serves up some beautiful acting. Stephen Boatright (straight-man Artie) and Kerrie Seymour (wife-from-Hades Phyllis) are entirely convincing; Cindy Mixon (the lusty Bessie) and Joel Perkin (the weak-kneed husband Chester) are literally a hoot. The staging is by turns corny and brilliant--the firing of the maid and the swooning over lousy poems are both crackling scenes that I would gladly re-watch.

So why didn't I enjoy the show? I didn't feel the production gave me liberty to do so. The play (remember) is composed entirely in rhyming couplets. Bad rhyming couplets. Really, intentionally bad rhyming couplets. The first ten minutes found the actors struggling against the language--trying to mask the galloping rhythm and obvious jangles. This straining set-up did not give me permission to groan at (what I perceived to be) the adaptation's gloriously self-conscious corniness. I was programmed to think--"Oh, what horrid greeting-card language. Let's cover that up."

Within this framework, the script worked best when its actors were able to completely overcome the clunky rhythm (in which task Seymour and Boatright excel) or occasionally when they could clue me in that they were going to ham-it-up on the obvious rhymes (Mixon and Perkin's domain). Given these two modes, the play seemed conflicted about itself--were these bad rhymes meant to be taken seriously? Or no? Or (given the audience's obvious delight) was I just one of those wretched Learned Ladies (shudder) who think too hard about everything? I don't know.

I do know that my fellow audience members had a lot more fun than I did, and I found myself wishing I could enter into their infectious glee. So. Here is my proposition of judgment: This disparity in our reactions says something very good about the production. If the entire audience has a middling-good experience, something is amiss; Theatre is supposed to be about heightened experience (be it positive or negative), and in this The Learned Ladies overwhelmingly succeeds. And given the ratio of ayes and nays (only 1 opposed and a nearly full house in stitches), it's a pretty safe bet that you'll do more than enjoy the show. You'll love it. And when you do, please hoot a little on my behalf.

--
Moliere's "The Learned Ladies," Adapted and Directed by Jennifer Goff
Presented by The Distracted Globe at Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948. Through August 7. Tickets $7.50.

I am a certifiably Bad Theatre Person. Before last night, I had refused to have anything to do with Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest--refused to read the script, endure the ubiquitous stagings, watch the film. Perhaps this is excusable? High school and undergraduate years proved to be one nearly-unending stream of badly acted Earnest scenes. I am happy to say--quick toss of the hair--that The Distracted Globe has cured me of such snobbery.

Director Jerrold Scott sets the play in the 1960s: high-fashion London. Expect delicious costumery and makeup, exquisite posturing, and music that kept several audience members singing along at intermission. Also expect some whiz-bang character actors.

Ryan Bradburn's Algernon and Roberta Barnes' Gwendolen are so flamboyant in their over-hyped (and over-sexed) 60s personae that it's hard to take your eyes off 'em. Their glorious poses and expressions are a treat. I could have wished for just a smidge more grounding in Algernon--he's already wickedly funny, but a tinge of emotional truth would have made him irresistible. Jared Johnson (playing the servants Lane and Merriman) also deserves quick props for drawing out the most laughs without even talking.

But most of all, there is The Lady Bracknell. And since I am speaking of the queen of snobbery, I will confess to a bit more snobbery of my own. I adore Anne Kelly Tromsness, believe her to be one of the most versatile actresses I've seen in my three years of Greenville theatre-ing. Even so, I had a moment of doubt--Tromsness as Bracknell? Eh. We'll see. (See? Snobbery. Snobbery-snobbery-snobbery.)

Well, phooey on snobbery--Tromsness has me in spades on this one. She is exact (and exacting) as the snotty London socialite, flowing through motions and inflections so precise that she is terrifying. You could bump into this Lady Bracknell on the street. (If she ever deigned to frequent your side of the street, that is.) Tromsness' baffling precision may well be one of the highlights of my theatre season--and at only $7.50 a ticket.

$7.50. Kudos to Distracted Globe for providing affordable theatre that does not affront the sensibilities of the snobs among us (namely, me). Snob though I may be, after last night, I will happily seek out another Earnest. I just hope it's as pretty as this one.

--
Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest," Directed by Jerrold Scott
Presented by The Distracted Globe at Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948. Through August 7. Tickets $7.50.

Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" is one of those Important Plays, works of art full of giddy genius, reckless jealousy, and the hard hard questions of life. Warehouse Theatre delivers a scintillating production, brimming with all of those things: storms and light, gaiety and ruin, and laughter! But there's also something else in there, something harder to stomach. A truly unsettling stroke of mediocrity.

Of course, it's much more fun to start with the genius. Mozart. Matt Creacy's composer is shockingly effervescent--he's exudes so much joie de vivre and juvenile delight that I found myself surprised to actually believe him. But, oh, did I ever believe and love him. Creacy is infectious and inspiring (even to someone inclined to discount the more, ahem, scatological shades of his humor). His love Constanze is equally buoyant--Tara Sweeney charms much more with her giddy, silly jokes than she does with her later (overwrought?) grief.

So this Mozart of the potty mouth enters the royal court in Vienna. It is a most gossipy, backstabbing city, as exquisitely portrayed by the Venticelli. Jared Johnson and Matt Reece deliver a hilariously stylized duo that commands any scene it enters. It's a good thing it never actually enters the court with Joseph II. Chris White's Emperor of Austria is not a man to be upstaged. White gives a delightful performance as the "benevolent" (and ultimately ignorant) head of state. The rest of the court is appropriately stodgy, especially Kelly Ward's deliciously mute wife-of-Salieri.

And Salieri. Salieri. Here is where we get hard to stomach. Salieri, as written by Shaffer, is larger than life. He's the villain to beat all villains--Vienna's musical man of the hour plots to ruin Mozart. He's big and full of raging thunder against God. Just not as played by Paul Savas. Savas opens the show with an alarmingly normal, chummy man. To be frank, I was affronted. I came to see a sneaky old man. I came to see thunder. I demand to see thunder. Which of course, should tell you that Savas (and director David Sims) understand something far more important about the script.

By resolutely denying Salieri's inherent melodrama, Savas creates a villain that is disconcertingly familiar. I found myself begging for more fireworks--not because fireworks are fun, but because this Salieri was too very like me, and I wanted an out. Give me a pompous, overwrought mediocrity. Let me say "tsk tsk tsk!" and leave it at that. Don't--don't--sit in my seat. Which is, of course, exactly what the self-proclaimed patron saint of mediocrity should do. Be normal.

Do not misunderstand. Savas does hit Salieri's breaking points beautifully. He just refuses to cave in to that alluring tug of melodrama, and I commend him for that, even though it stings. Especially because it stings.

"They are like having little children in the house. They want something so they just take it. Not a smidgen of manners. No conscience." This is Miss Daisy's summation of all "coloreds," including the chauffeur her son has just foisted upon her. But you know she's not prejudiced. What a hateful thing to say, that she might be prejudiced! It's Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy" at Centre Stage--the the hilarious and touching ride through Daisy's thirty-year relationship with her chauffeur.

The cast is uniformly funny. Rick Connor's perennially agitated Boolie, Clark Nesbitt's affable Hoke, and Shirley Sarlin's conflicted rich lady Daisy. They'll keep you in stitches as they pair up and square off over trifles (going 20mph under the speed limit? ambrosia? a can of salmon?) and not-so-trifles (the proper care of graves. Learning how to read. Lynchings.) As Daisy and Hoke bicker and poke their way to an unconfessed affection for each other, they don't miss a single exasperated joke, and neither does the audience.

My only quibble is this: perhaps we laugh too much. The most profound and important scene thematically (the "invitation" to the Martin Luther King, Jr. banquet) is played as coyly as a sketch on high school break-ups. Sure we laugh, but we lose the punch: The cowardice that Daisy still faces after all these years of friendship and bombings and lynchings. Hoke's bravery in standing up to her. The fact that things haven't changed all that much. Not then. Not now. We're still having these same awkward, side-stepping conversations. But the potential disturbances are glanced over, lost, and the story quickly slips back into its house robe. It's a robe we love, light and airy and comforting. But had the production seized on this little bit of darkness, "light" could have meant more than an absence of weight. It could have been a beacon.

Profundities aside, Chip Egan still directs a doodle of a bittersweet show, a family-friendly knock-out that will beguile the night and send you out refreshed. Don't miss it.

--
Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy" Directed by Chip Egan. Lights: Ron Pyle. Scene: David Hartmann. Sound: Wade Powell.
With Shirley Sarlin (Daisy), Clark Nesbitt (Hoke), and Rick Connor (Boolie).

Presented by Centre Stage, 501 River Street, Greenville, SC (864) 233-6733. Through June 26. Tickets $25, with discounts for seniors and students.

(Not a revu of Pintr's Dumb Waitr @ Brd & Baby Theatr)

1. U cn keep ur cellfon on 2 text n tweet.
2. Snappy produxon
3. By nu theatr n town!
4. U must admit, garage is perfct settng 4 Dumb Waitr.
5. Sum of best actng seen n upstate Chris White=most luvabl Gus Evr!
6. 2 mebe 3 shos left
7. Only $10!
8. 2 resurv tix: 864-640-2901

--
Harold Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter"
Presented by The Bird & Baby Theatre.
Through June 5
Tickets $10. Call 864.640.2901