2008 Woodie Awards
An Evening of Insanity and Blasphemy at Valley
Valley Collegiate Players brings some of Valley's brightest stars to stage.
The Valley Star Staff
Issue date: 5/4/05 Section: Valley Life
- Page 1 of 1
Ever have one of those dreams when you're in class, there's a test you didn't know about and it's on a subject you've never heard of?
And you're naked?
That's the metaphorical setting of Christopher Durang's brilliant "The Actor's Nightmare," one of the author's two hilarious one-act plays coming to the Horseshoe Theatre the next two weekends for the Valley Collegiate Players' annual spring fundraiser.
This being an actor's nightmare, however, the protagonist (an accountant) finds himself suddenly playing the lead in a show that seems at one moment to be "Hamlet," at another to be Noël Coward's "Private Lives" and after blinking, Samuel Beckett's "Endgame." Among others.
Theatre enthusiasts may get more of the in-jokes than the uninitiated, but the plight is universal enough for everyone to be amused - and unsettled.
In the other piece, the infamous "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You," a slightly batty, somewhat sadistic nun lectures the audience on the decline of Western civilization.
It's a comedy.
Director (and Fine Arts Commissioner-elect) Hallie Baran said of the play's more controversial elements involving Catholic doctrine, "I'm Anglican - Catholic-lite, as they say, Catholic without the guilt. It just seems like there's more serious issues at hand than pre-marital sex."
"Sister Mary" recently had a high-profile Showtime television production starring Diane Keaton as the malevolent penguin herself. Despite that less-than-sparkling display, the play remains uproarious - although devout Catholics may need to wash out their ears with soap afterward. Durang's vision of the domineering nun is more ruler-on-wrist than Sally Field.
"Three weeks into rehearsal," said Baran, "the pope died." It has yet to be proved, however, that their production caused John Paul II's passing.
Both plays, major hits in the early 1980s, reflect Durang's dark, absurd and brainy sensibility (the Yale alum was a classmate and collaborator of Sigourney Weaver). "Sister Mary" may have a few dated moments, but the main character remains as iconic, bizarrely funny and frightening as ever.
"[The] beliefs, [the] dogma hasn't changed. It's relative to today's issues," said Baran.
Three guesses what Benedict XVI would say.
And you're naked?
That's the metaphorical setting of Christopher Durang's brilliant "The Actor's Nightmare," one of the author's two hilarious one-act plays coming to the Horseshoe Theatre the next two weekends for the Valley Collegiate Players' annual spring fundraiser.
This being an actor's nightmare, however, the protagonist (an accountant) finds himself suddenly playing the lead in a show that seems at one moment to be "Hamlet," at another to be Noël Coward's "Private Lives" and after blinking, Samuel Beckett's "Endgame." Among others.
Theatre enthusiasts may get more of the in-jokes than the uninitiated, but the plight is universal enough for everyone to be amused - and unsettled.
In the other piece, the infamous "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You," a slightly batty, somewhat sadistic nun lectures the audience on the decline of Western civilization.
It's a comedy.
Director (and Fine Arts Commissioner-elect) Hallie Baran said of the play's more controversial elements involving Catholic doctrine, "I'm Anglican - Catholic-lite, as they say, Catholic without the guilt. It just seems like there's more serious issues at hand than pre-marital sex."
"Sister Mary" recently had a high-profile Showtime television production starring Diane Keaton as the malevolent penguin herself. Despite that less-than-sparkling display, the play remains uproarious - although devout Catholics may need to wash out their ears with soap afterward. Durang's vision of the domineering nun is more ruler-on-wrist than Sally Field.
"Three weeks into rehearsal," said Baran, "the pope died." It has yet to be proved, however, that their production caused John Paul II's passing.
Both plays, major hits in the early 1980s, reflect Durang's dark, absurd and brainy sensibility (the Yale alum was a classmate and collaborator of Sigourney Weaver). "Sister Mary" may have a few dated moments, but the main character remains as iconic, bizarrely funny and frightening as ever.
"[The] beliefs, [the] dogma hasn't changed. It's relative to today's issues," said Baran.
Three guesses what Benedict XVI would say.
