Review - Red - Gremlin Theatre - Just All-Around Great Theater - 5 stars

It’s hard to know how best to praise Gremlin Theatre’s production of John Logan’s play RED, because it’s a winner from all angles. I could start by saying go for the performances from the two actors, Pearce Bunting and Ben Shaw, because they’re great. I could start by saying go for the direction by Ellen Fenster-Gharib, because she handles a tricky balancing act brilliantly. I could start by saying go for the script by Logan, which won the Tony Award for Best Play back in 2010, and I can totally see why (even though it had some really stiff competition that year, all of which I’ve seen productions of before, so RED’s been taking a while to catch up with me - my pick probably would have been Sarah Ruhl’s “In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)” but Donald Marguiles’ “Time Stands Still” is an equally impressive option, and though Geoffrey Nauffts’ “Next Fall” drives me crazy, even I have to admit it has its moments).

“I am here to stop your heart.”

RED is John Logan’s fictionalized version of the story behind artist Mark Rothko (Pearce Bunting)’s commission to create a series of murals to decorate the famed Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram Building on Park Avenue in New York back in the late 1950s. Logan creates an eager new assistant for Rothko, named Ken (Ben Shaw), who is partly an audience surrogate bringing us into the world of Rothko’s painting studio, giving Rothko a handy excuse (and captive audience of one) to expound on his process and the world in general. Since plays tend to revolve around conflict, you won’t be surprised to hear that the execution of the sprawling art project doesn’t exactly go as planned, or that Ken’s patience as an awestruck apprentice does eventually reach its limit.

“Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?”
“They’re just paintings.”

RED is that rare bird, a two-person play that’s actually good. Logan nimbly avoids the downfall of many a two-person play, where the hand of the author is all too evident, trying desperately to keep all other potential characters in the world off stage in a way that doesn’t quite make sense, and so all the seams are showing. Here, in RED, you understand why these are the only two people that exist in this room. The play, and this production, also do a great job of creating the sense of an outside world we never see.  There is life beyond that offstage door we hear slam shut, announcing someone’s arrival. We sense people on the other end of the phone calls made on the art studio’s yellow, paint-spattered (rotary) phone mounted on a pole by the hot plate where Rothko and Ken stir up pigment and eggs to create just the right shades of color. Rothko conjures a society full of artists, old and new, some of whom he respects or pities, some of whom he has no patience for. Even if this wasn’t based on a real person and things that actually happened, I’d still believe the storytellers because of how well the world is realized.

“This moment right now, and a little bit tomorrow.”

Pearce Bunting was a key part of the ensemble of the best play I saw last year (and the best play that’s been on the Guthrie Theater stage in ages), "Primary Trust," so I wasn’t at all surprised by how great he is in the role of the artist Mark Rothko.  Rothko can often be an insufferable son of a bitch, and he’s a terrible employer (pity poor Ken), but Bunting always manages to give him just enough of a sliver of humanity and vulnerability to keep us from declaring him a complete monster.  Rothko never pretends to be any nicer than he is, so it’s not as if he didn’t warn Ken, and the audience, from the moment the play starts that he’s going to be difficult to like. Art about artists is hard to pull off, but here the playwright and the actor make the notion of art specific to this man’s personality. Rothko’s artistic mission and sense of self are inseparable. So his art having meaning and value and staying power is vitally important to him as a person. That’s why he’s so intense and unforgiving - because he knows the art world is even more unforgiving, and he’s struggling to stay one step ahead of becoming irrelevant.

“When the blood dried, it got darker on the carpet.”

Since I still vividly remember the experience of watching Theatre Coup d’Etat’s "The Rogue Prince" back in 2019 and Orchard Theater Collective’s "Saint Joan" in 2020 (right before the pandemic shut everything down), I came to RED already clued in to Ben Shaw’s skills as both an actor (Prince) and director (Joan). The idea of Shaw in a two-person show with Bunting promised to be delightful, and Shaw’s take on Ken did not disappoint. Ken brings the outside world (and the changing times) into Rothko’s sanctuary, which is one of the reasons Rothko can get a bit prickly around his assistant. Ken also has artistic ambitions (and secrets) of his own, of course, but this is no tired “the student becomes the master” plotline. The play, the actors, and the director are all a lot subtler and cleverer than that. Sarah Bauer’s costumes for Ken help us to track the passage of time through his evolution and level of comfort in the studio and what clothes he chooses to work in.

“Sending a blind child into a room full of razor blades.”

Bauer’s additional work on props - from that rotary phone to Rothko’s phonograph and vinyl record collection and all those painting supplies - gives RED its grounding in a previous century and helps flesh out the details of Carl Schoenborn’s wonderfully cluttered and lived-in art studio set.  (And because apparently she doesn’t have enough to do on this production, Bauer is also the stage manager - phew!) Schoenborn also works his magic on the lights (I should expect this of his work by now, of course). There are uses of light and shadow both everyday (in the discussion of finding the right light in which to view a painting) and otherworldly (the play’s highly saturated and colorful final moments). Given how important music is to Rothko’s artistic process, Aaron Newman’s work on sound design is just as integral to this production.

“I was totally saturated.  It swallowed me.”

Ellen Fenster-Gharib’s work as director is key to making this whole evening cohere together.  All these talents need someone to look at the bigger picture and guide them and Fenster-Gharib serves this role perfectly. As my theatergoing companion pointed out, the director isn’t afraid to let the actors just be still or exist in moments of silence, or trust that even with their back to one side of the three-sided thrust house, an actor will be conveying what’s going on in the scene.  Fenster-Gharib knows she’s cast two actors who can act just as (or even more) effectively when turned away from an audience than a great many actors do when you can see their full faces. Just like the paintings Rothko seeks to create, Bunting and Shaw are in motion (and full of e-motion) the more you watch them, even when they’re standing or sitting still. 

“Most of painting is thinking.  10 percent is putting paint on canvas.  The rest is waiting.”

And there’s just something really thrilling about the theatricality built into this production of RED, where the two actors staring out through the invisible fourth wall at each side of the audience are looking intently at paintings we never see. Yet in the faces of these two actors, we can sense what those paintings are doing to the viewer. Also, the details of the work of creating art - sanding down the frame for an enormous canvas, stapling down the corners and sides of yet another large canvas, then hanging it up on a rolling wall and watching the two artists paint a base coat of red on that canvas, all in time to a piece of classical music that becomes by turns a competition and a dance. It’s the kind of experience only a live performance can offer. RED offers these kind of moments in scene after scene throughout the evening.

If you’re looking for a solid, well-executed piece of theater from top to bottom, RED at Gremlin is your ticket.

Gremlin Theatre’s production of John Logan’s play RED runs through Sunday, March 1, 2026 in their space at 550 Vandalia Street, Suite 177, St. Paul, MN 55114. Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are available through their website.

5 stars - Very Highly Recommended

(Photo (l to r): Pearce Bunting as Rothko and Ben Shaw as Ken in RED; photography by Allysa Kristine Photography)

 

 

Review - How To Catch Creation - TRP - Perfect Fit for the Moment Right Now - 4.5 stars

It’s a little eery how perfect Theatre in the Round Players’ production of Christina Anderson’s play “How To Catch Creation” is for this particular moment in the life of Minneapolis. Anderson’s play is full of humor and heart, telling the story of three pairs of seemingly random people who end up so tightly interconnected across generations (and even time) that they keep bouncing off each other in different combinations which reveal more about each of them with each passing scene.  The same could be said of the script itself, collectively adding up to so much more than any one of the interwoven plotlines on its own.  “How To Catch Creation” is about how people find a way to love and a way to dream, even in a world that seems hostile to both.

“I think I want to have a kid.”

Griffin (Duck Washington) wants to raise a child as a single man who’s rebuilt his life after being exonerated and released from prison, but not before being incarcerated for 25 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He is understandably skittish around the legal system after his earlier experiences with it but is trying to push through the red tape and expenses involved in the options of either adoption or surrogacy.  Griffin’s best friend and support system Tami (Tia Tanzer) is an art professor trying to reconnect with the inspirations that drove her own painting in the aftermath of an abusive relationship. 

“Our collective liberation can be achieved when we eradicate oppression against Black women.”

Stokes (Noah Branch) has been trying unsuccessfully to gain admittance to the art school where Tami teaches, but the acquisition of a box of used books all written by a noted black feminist author of the 1960s begins to redirect his creative impulses toward fiction.  Stokes’ partner Riley (Izzy Maxwell) tries running interference for her boyfriend with art school admissions, which may just be a convenient way to redirect her own divided focus between her computer science career and after hours musical impulses.

“My duties stop at any fluid exchange.”

Meanwhile, back in the 1960s, that black feminist author G.K. Marche (Mary Cannon) is on a creative hot streak conjuring one novel after another, but that doesn’t leave a lot of time to give her partner Natalie (Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green) the attention she needs.  Natalie’s loneliness leads to a connection with Thom (Abdoulie Ceesay) which has ripple effects that impact the lives of Griffin, Tami, Stokes and Riley in present day 2014 San Francisco.

“Did you tell him about your study abroad?”
“Yes, I told him I did time.”

To say any more would spoil the surprises of this play, of which there are many.  It’s a regular Dickensian puzzle box the way the whole thing ties together, and that’s a big part of the fun of this production, skillfully directed by Vanessa Brooke Agnes (with backup on intimacy direction from James Grace, who had a lot of ground to cover).  And, fair warning, let’s just say that this play was a lot queerer and messier than I was expecting when I took my seat (and I mean that as a compliment).

“She was filled with smoldering ash.”

Kejia Yu’s set design, Mark Kieffer’s lighting design, and Christy C. Johnson’s sound design all help the play to move swiftly from one short, snappy scene to the next, and Jacourtney Mountain-Bluhm’s costumes and Rachel Glotter Snitzer’s props help to ground us in what decade we’re in as the story moves back and forth in time.  The world created by this production team allows the talented ensemble of actors to move seamlessly from one encounter to the next, crossing paths on stage and even crossing timelines by sharing space together.  It’s the kind of trick that only live theater can pull off with this kind of impact on an audience.  (Kudos to stage manager Katie Dismang and her assistant Indigo Cabanela-Leiseth for keeping the whole thing running smoothly as the many different spinning plates that are the elements of this play I’m sure are no easy trick to keep aloft.)

“You rest your heart in the messiest rooms of the most troubled homes.”

My only quibbles with the play center on the desire to know just a little bit more about all the characters through their work.  We get just hints of G.K. Marche’s prose, and no reveal of the content of Stokes’ foray into fiction writing.  Similarly both Stokes’ and Tami’s finished paintings don’t get unveiled to the audience, even though there are a number of framed works of art hanging around the space which had the potential to give us a taste of their visual style (one painting is tagged as the work of Tami’s ex, but we don’t get a clear indication that any of the other paintings are part of the portfolio of Tami herself or Stokes).  We get a little more of Riley’s work creating beats, but that, too, could have further unfolded for us.  Art can tell you a lot about the artist character, whether it reinforces our understanding of who they are, or reveals a contrast or another side to them.  It also can be used to reinforce the larger themes of the play.

“What happens when your luck runs out?”

And though I like Griffin’s character a lot, I didn’t come away with a clear idea of what exactly he does for a living and how that is part of the legacy he wants to leave behind, having gotten a second chance at life. I’m a bit more torn on this count because one of the things I really like about the play is that it’s not spoon-feeding us chunks of clunky exposition.  We just learn about characters in conversation with one another, and we’re left to fill in some of the blanks ourselves, just like we do when we first meet and are getting to know any new person.  While we get a clear picture, with vivid examples, of just how Griffin’s encounters with the law when he was younger still cast a long shadow over his life and future plans in the present, I still found myself wanting just a little more information on what drives him and how he fills his days (apart from his quest for parenthood).

“You deserve to be left.  I needed to leave.”

All that, ultimately, is just me wanting more of these characters and their world, which is always a good place for a play to be leaving me (wanting more not less). That’s due not just to the strong script, but also the great performances from the whole cast who turned their characters into real, fully fleshed out human beings that I wanted to know better. I’m still so glad (and impressed) that TRP found this play and decided to take a chance on it.  It’s great to see new, entertaining work with something to say get a platform like this.  If you’re looking for a change of pace in your theater diet, give “How To Catch Creation” a try.  You won’t regret it.

“It’s a sheet to take notes in case I meet someone who has the answers.”

Theatre in the Round Players’ production of Christina Anderson’s “How To Catch Creation” runs through February 8, 2026 (Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 2:00pm) at TRP’s seven corners home at 245 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis.

4.5 stars - Very Highly Recommended

 

 

Review - Plano - Third Space Theater - A Wacky, Vaguely Menacing Rollercoaster of a Play - 5 stars

Sometimes it’s hard to write about the great ones.  Third Space Theater’s production of Will Arbery’s play “Plano” is so much fun I was actually giddy watching it.  “Plano” made me excited about the potential of theater to tackle big subjects with humor at high velocity.  The audience was laughing, a lot, and then got on their feet to applaud when it was over.  “Plano” is one of those plays that you’ll kick yourself for missing because everyone who sees it raves about it.  So don’t be left out, go catch the production while you’ve still got the chance.

“We’ll talk about it later.  It’s later.  Merry Christmas!”

What is “Plano” about?  Everything.  Also it’s about 90 minutes long.  It’s also about the absurdity of life, even though we have very little choice other than to keep living it, and perhaps try to be slightly less ridiculous in doing so if we can - though that is certainly easier said than done.

“Just don’t become a nun.”
“You’re too hot.”

Anne (Stephanie Kahle), Genevieve (Hannah Leatherbarrow), and Isabel (Mariabella Sorini) are sisters collectively trying to make their way through life in a small Texas town. The play begins with Anne sharing the good news that she’s fallen in love with a guy named John (actually Juan) (Samuel Osborne-Huerta), introduced him to the family, married him and given birth to their child together.  This is all in one conversation that keeps leapfrogging ahead in time on Genevieve’s front porch.  

“I don’t get it. You had sex with a manual laborer?”

In similar fashion, also in the same opening conversation, Genevieve’s husband Steve (Ben Qualley) shares the unfortunate news that Juan is gay and probably just using Anne to get a green card.  But then Steve also might be having an affair that will lead to the break up of his own marriage, so he hardly has room to criticize other people’s relationships.  Anne isn’t entirely surprised by the news, since Juan frequently leaves to go to Plano, Texas, a mysterious destination where all manner of things can happen. 

“There’s an intern, and our marriage won’t last the year.”

Also in this same conversation, Isabel announces that she won’t be completing her college education but instead is taking her religious convictions and desire to do good works to get out there in the world and start helping others, in Chicago. 

“Do you think the slugs might be some sort of spiritual metaphor?”

Oh, and did i forget to mention the faceless ghost (Michael Hundevad) who starts the evening hanging out on the porch during the pre-show acoustic guitar set by co-director Em Adam Rosenberg, and then keeps wandering off, then reappearing in unexpected places? 

“Now I’m looking at my garage where I still have all my ideas for songs.”

The sisters’ mother Mary (Jennifer D'Lynn) also makes a special guest appearance late in the action, just when you might have reached the conclusion that all the various permutations of different pairings and interactions onstage with the current ensemble couldn’t get any stranger.

“You’re so bad at conversation I want to strangle you.”

There are cowboys dancing together.  There’s an infestation of slugs.  There’s slow motion choreographed violence that gets progressively more absurd as the fight continues and ultimately devolves into a sort of family interpretative dance.  There’s people who are constantly not quite present.  There’s people who should go away but continue to haunt every corner of the house.  There’s people that disappear into or pop up out of crawl spaces.  And all the while this ensemble cast is latching onto the torrent of words that make up Arbery’s wild script and riding the thing like the wacky, vaguely menacing rollercoaster that it is.

“People sigh when your name comes up.  Your name has a smelly loneliness about it.”

“Plano” is about how people are essentially unknowable, whether we’re related to them by blood, love or the bonds of friendship. But life is other people, so we have to find a way to co-exist, and help get each other through the weird stuff.  The sisterly bond between Anne, Genevieve, and Isabel helps them get through a lot (even as men, and mothers, come and go).

“You’re just the ground we walk on to get where we’re going.”

The cast is fantastic. Co-directors Alex Church and Em Adam Rosenberg keep the pace of the comedy crackling along at a rapid clip, even as the plentiful laughs start mining darker subject matter. (This doesn’t come as a surprise because the three sisters - Kahle, Leatherbarrow and Sorini - were all part of the ensemble of Third Space Theater’s award-winning hit 2025 Fringe show “Breach” (another show that if you missed it, you’re kicking yourself right now). Sorini also co-wrote “Breach” with Church, while Rosenberg was another member of the “Breach” ensemble, and all five of them are the core company of Third Space. So they’ve got their style of collaborating down at this point already, and it shows with the results here in “Plano.”)  The comedy never goes completely black, though, always taking an unexpected pivot and rebounding into the light from any number of shadowy corners.  The underlying mood can get sad, but is always resilient.  Genevieve’s front porch is a strange and funny melancholy place to spend an hour and a half ping-ponging through the three sisters’ lives.

“A tiny world without end we keep in a box.”

Big shout-out needs to go to the design team as well.  Olivia von Edeskuty’s set design is a marvel.  Perhaps it’s a commentary on the sad economics of theater these days, but it’s rare to see a full-on set from a smaller theater company.  Here, though, we’ve got a full outer front porch, and inner porch leading to the front door of Genevieve’s home, plus a big red wooden fence on either side, and that aforementioned crawl space which gives the cast any number of ways to appear and disappear in ways that both do and don’t make logical sense, to keep everybody in the audience on their toes. And the cast really gives this set a workout, so kudos to set builders Roman Block, Elena Carlson, and Sydney Foss for making it such a sturdy base of operations. 

“The one who made us is coming back a stranger.”

The directors also make full use of the Alan Page Auditorium at Mixed Blood Theatre, which makes for a fun time in a world so broad and deep. All of that means that lighting designer Jackson Funke (assisted by Joshua Fisher) has a lot of ground to cover, and cover it he does, creating all kinds of different looks and spaces in this world as things seem to start out realistic and get progressively stranger.  Sam Faye King’s sound design adds the final layers of reality and unreality to this odd world the sisters live in. Olivia von Edeskuty is also the stage manager on the production (assisted by Aren Sondrol) and manages to keep this surreal family comedy/drama barreling along from start to finish with nary a hiccup in the process. No small feat.

“It’s later.”
“No it’s not, it’s still now.”

Third Space Theater is quickly becoming a company that regularly cranks out one unmissable production after another, which is a high but worthy bar for any group of artists to set for themselves.  They believe in the power of the shared experience of theater, and they’ll make you a believer, too.  Go see “Plano” and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Third Space Theater’s production of “Plano” runs through this Sunday January 18, 2026 at the Mixed Blood Theatre - Monday 1/12, Thursday 1/15, Friday 1/16, and Saturday 1/17 at 7:30pm, and Sunday 1/18 at 2pm.

5 Stars - Very Highly Recommended

(Photos: Top: Mother Mary (Jennifer D'Lynn) with daughters at her feet, (l-r) Genevieve (Hannah Leatherbarrow), Isabel (Mariabella Sorini) and Anne (Stephanie Kahle), in “Plano” from Third Space Theater

Middle: Dancing cowboys Juan (Samuel Osborne-Huerta), the Faceless Ghost (Michael Hundevad) and Steve (Ben Qualley) in “Plano” from Third Space Theater

Photos by Lydia Frank)

Review - Mistletoe and Mayhem - Just Us Theater - Like Last Christmas, But Without The Klingons - 4 stars

Watching “Mistletoe and Mayhem: The Hallmark Parody of the Season!” was a strangely familiar experience because it was again the Christmas season, with Just Us Theater, on the Phoenix Theater stage, doing a parody of a Hallmark Christmas movie, with the same director, eight of the same cast members (nine if you count a voice over artist who was physically in the cast last year), and even a lot of the same set design (though, to be fair, if you’ve seen one Christmas village, you’ve seen ‘em all).  So, it was sort of like watching last year’s Just Us Theater holiday offering, “I’ll Be Home for Kahless: The Hallmark Parody of the Season!” except without all the Klingons this time.  If you enjoyed “Kahless” last year but wondered why someone was getting their Star Trek tropes all over your Hallmark Christmas Movie tropes, then the straightforward Hallmark-only vibes this year may make for an even more enjoyable romantic comedy time at the theater.  If the Klingons were the big draw for you last year, then this Klingon-free Christmas tale may have a few too many Earthlings for you.  But give it a try anyway.  After all, the Hallmark parody element was half the fun last time, and that’s still very much present in this year’s outing.

“We must make her feel the full force of our unrelenting cheer!”

In fact, I’m referring back to last year’s review just to make sure I’m not spending this whole review just repeating myself.  Because many of the strengths of last year’s production pop up yet again.  Director Jami Newstrom is back, as is her production design, impressively preserved and recycled as the completely different Christmas village of Snowberry Falls, which celebrates the season a good ten months out of the year (taking only a brief break for the high heat of summer, then right back into it).  The townspeople are VERY into the lifestyle choice of holiday cheer, as they explain in song for the big opening musical number, topped off with an impressive extended high note from Christopher Harney as Mayor Kringle, belting it out like the guy wants a bigger part next year.  (And based on his zeal this year, he probably warrants one.)

“No, I don’t hate Christmas.  I just resent its optimism.”

All this relentless cheer is under investigation by Victoria Steele (Dawn Krosnowski), an executive from the big city visiting to quantify the elements of Snowberry Falls’ charms, to see if they might be replicated franchise style, like holiday amusement parks or tourist traps, around the whole country.  Of course, she’s staying at the cozy local inn under the watchful eye of proprietors Hank and Betty Evergreen (Tim Uren and Sarah Broude) and their handyman son Nick Evergreen (Samuel Poppen). That repeated family unit is expanded this year with the addition of Grandma Twinkles Evergreen (Lana Rosario), who expresses herself in malapropisms and random splicings of recognizable advertising campaigns, and moonlights as the town fortune teller.  

“Names are just hats for the soul.”

Jared Reise is once again stalking this story’s female exec, but this time as Chad, her inevitable metropolitan boyfriend who must now compete with the small town charms of Nick the handyman to be Victoria’s chosen suitor.  Mickaylee Shaughnessy does double duty as Marcy, Victoria’s snarky personal assistant, and Carol, vigilant guardian of the town’s Christmas event schedule (and Betty’s nemesis).  Samantha Fairchild Poppen joins the returning members of the ensemble as Joy, another Snowberry Falls townsperson, relentlessly cheerful, but who also continually thinks someone is calling for her when the word “joy” is used in conversation; she hopefully continues to appear, and then is repeatedly crestfallen when she realizes they weren’t thinking of her after all.

“That is horrifying, and oddly on brand.”

There’s almost a dozen less people involved in this Hallmark parody, but as you can see from the rundown it’s still a sizeable cast that more than fills the stage.  Lighting designer Andrew Vance and costume designer Heajo Raiter are both back again lending their talents to the affair as well.  To round things out, there’s voiceover work for unseen characters from Bridget Foy, Nathan Gerber (last year’s “stagehand” reluctantly drafted into the cast at the last minute), Jeff Neppl, and Laura Ann Whitehead; and Holly Ness manages all these many spinning plates as the stage manager of the production.

“It’s mostly chaos and baked goods.”

The primary difference from last year (other than the sci fi elements, of course) is that the script is more of an ensemble effort.  Director Jami Newstrom has also taken on the playwriting duties this year, with the nine person cast listed above as her collaborators - sort of like having a writers room full of comedians to punch up the jokes and keep them rolling, which they do.  There’s no narrator this year, which means there’s less distance from the characters and the story this time around, less outside the plot looking in, more of an opportunity to get lost in the story.

“There’s always a goat.”

You’d think that with a smaller cast size and less off-world elements to juggle, plus no narrator, there might be a bit more room for character development, but that doesn’t seem to be what the group-developed script is aiming at.  It’s very funny, but it often straddles the line between laughing WITH the characters and laughing AT them (having fun along with them vs. having fun at their expense, commenting on the action rather than fully being inside the action).  However, it’s a parody, so that comes with the territory.  It was just sometimes hard to know whether the production was treating the audience that way as well - “don’t get invested in this story, it’s a silly story, all these stories are silly, snap out of it.”

“My cookies tell the truth, much like my poetry.”

Since Just Us Theater keeps returning to this genre to generate new material, it seems this parody still comes from a place of love and appreciation, rather than contempt.  They’re poking fun, but it’s still an homage rather than a full-on satirical takedown.  Given all the mean-spiritedness permeating the world outside the theater walls these days, it’s nice to escape for an hour and a half or so to Snowberry Falls and have a laugh.  If you’re looking for a new holiday show to add some variety to the traditional fare, you should check out “Mistletoe and Mayhem.”

“Enough fake snow to clog a septic tank!”

Just Us Theater’s “Mistletoe and Mayhem: The Hallmark Parody of the Season!” is running through this Sunday, December 12, 2025 at the Phoenix Theater (2605 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN), with Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances at 7:30pm, and matinees on Saturday and Sunday at 2pm.  There’s a link for tickets at the Phoenix Theater website

4 stars - Highly Recommended


(Dawn Krosnowski as Victoria and Samuel Poppen as Nick in Just Us Theater’s production of “Mistletoe and Mayhem”; photo by Steve Aggergaard).

 

Review - The Murder on the Links - TRP - Another Agatha Christie Puzzle Box - 3 stars

Everybody seems to love a good murder mystery.  And every theater who puts one on stage, be it Theatre in the Round or the Guthrie, doesn’t have much of a problem selling tickets. I myself regularly devoured the works of Agatha Christie when I was younger and have quite a collection of her novels on my bookshelves.  “The Murder on the Links” was an older story I was less familiar with, though it features one of her beloved, quirky detectives on the case, Hercule Poirot. So if “Agatha Christie murder mystery with Hercule Poirot” is all you need to know that it’s the ticket for you, then you should get over to Theatre In The Round Players (TRP) and take in their production of Kate Danley’s adaptation of “The Murder On The Links.”  Nothing I say in the rest of this review should dissuade you.  If you need a little more information, then read on.

“I just adore crime.”

The pre-show announcement to the audience informed us the production of “Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links” is the world premiere of Danley’s adaptation (TRP also staged her adaptation of “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” just a couple of years back).  “Styles” was Poirot’s first appearance in a Christie novel, and “Links” is the follow-up.  The previous case (and play) are name-checked in the opening scene of this production but it’s a self-contained tale, so you don’t need prior exposure to any of these characters to follow this story.

“The fact that he was stabbed in the back points to this being a woman’s crime.”

And the story in “Murder on the Links” is a doozy, with so many twists and turns I honestly lost count (and also got a little confused, but Christie, Danley and this production pulled me back in and set me straight by the time it was over). Our narrator is Captain Arthur Hastings (Jake Leif) who serves as the trusty sidekick to detective Hercule Poirot (Ben Tallen) as well as our guide for the evening through the thorny plot.  Hastings and Poirot are summoned by an ominous letter to a small French town to assist a rich potential client with an unspecified problem that he fears may put him and his loved ones in danger.  However, this is set in 1920, and transportation then isn’t what it is now, so they unfortunately arrive just a bit too late - by the time they reach their destination, the man who wrote the letter is already dead, stabbed in the back out on a golf course (hence the title).  So the job changes instead to the pursuit of the man’s murderer.  And, as with most Agatha Christie mysteries, so it’s not really a spoiler, the corpse count doesn’t remain at just one.

“When you are dead, I can do as I please!”

Though murder is discussed, we do not witness one taking place in front of us, nor do we see a corpse.  The bodies in question are merely described to us.  Because, in Christie style, the point here isn’t the dead people, but the network of living people around them left behind, and affected by the events suddenly ripping their loved ones away from them.  This is also the cast of characters, of course, who make up our list of suspects.

“Sadly, with bleeding feet, love has come.”

Director Linda Paulsen has assembled quite the ensemble for this one (nearly 20 people) and uses them cleverly to populate this small town and make the world seem larger than just the detectives on the case and the suspicious people they interrogate.  There are numerous bits of side character work going on around the edges of the circular playing space, and the story in its center, from pre-show moments and throughout the evening, that add color to the human tapestry on display.  These sorts of clever touches extend to the design of the production as well.  The TRP space is stuffed full of set to the very edges on all sides, not an inch of space wasted by set designer Madeline Achen.  A tower on one side of the house and a room perched atop another of the four entrances have walls made of fabric, so when the illumination from lighting designer Mark Webb hits them one way, the walls appear solid, but if the light shifts, you can see through the walls to the space inside, where more action can take place in view of the audience.  And the parade of humanity wouldn’t be nearly as convincing if the actors, particularly the ones playing multiple roles, weren’t outfitted so ably by the work of costume designers Colleen O’Dell and Hunter Goldsmith.

“Your penetration is amazing, Hastings.”

Now, because this is Agatha Christie (and Hercule Poirot in particular), “The Murder on the Links” was always going to be a more cerebral affair than an action-oriented one.  The one drawback to this kind of detective story is that it’s so intellectual that it keeps much of the real human emotion involved in the situation at arm’s length.  This can make it hard to get invested in the story, apart from the intrinsic pleasure one gets from solving a complicated puzzle (which is still always a plus in a Christie mystery because the woman, and the adapter here, don’t leave any plot holes, all the many loose threads get tied up).  [Your mileage may vary: since my parents died, I find I’m less likely to enjoy death being treated as just another plot point in whatever media I’m consuming.  I think I expect more mess and emotion, and that’s not what a Christie murder mystery is hunting after.]

“We were quite the bachelor pair.”

Emotions themselves get swiftly pushed aside because we’ve got ground to cover plot-wise, and frankly the canvas is so crowded full of characters that it’s hard for anyone to get enough face time to make a real impression on the audience’s collective mind.  Part of the challenge of the production is just remembering who’s who.  We have the dead man’s widow Eloise (Megan Blakeley) and their adult son Jack (Bryce Bennyhoff) but they don’t get much time to grieve because they’ve either got to impart information or be moved around the plot’s chessboard by other characters who are talking about them in the context of the larger story.  There’s also the dead man’s potential mistress(?) Madame Daubreuil (Megan Rowe) and her mysterious and intense adult daughter Marthe (Paige Yanny). There are no less than four detectives on the case - in addition to Poirot and Hastings, there’s the local magistrate Hautet (Gerard Scheett) and a flamboyant, self-important French detective, tagged as Poirot’s nemesis, Giraud (James Ruth).  There’s also a plucky love interest for Hastings in the form of a young woman (Hannah Graff) who pops up in unexpected places to banter with him and then disappears, nicknamed Cinderella because he (and we) don’t find out her full identity until later in the action.  

“Without a doubt, it was the mafia!”

There’s more than one person with an assumed identity due to past misdeeds that required them to start a new life, and crimes in the past that resurface to mirror this case in the present.  There’s even a running joke about twins toward the very end of the proceedings that provides some much needed humor.  The parade of medical examiners, maids, mothers or nannies pushing baby carriages, waiters, vagrants, bakers, gardeners, general passersby, train porters, concierges, and waitresses is quite a feat of quick changes and multiple characters from the rest of the ensemble (Kiran Arquin, Chris Beason, Leo DeWolfe, Robin Gilmer, Brelee Harris, Cal Kathryn, Jeremy Lostetter, Stu Naber, Kristin Smith, and Carissa Wyant).  In addition, we have an assortment of accents from most members of the cast, some more successful than others.  There was also the unfortunate moment I got so confused that I thought a guy was trying to marry someone who was actually his half-sister (she wasn’t, but it took me a while to get myself out of that particular dead end path in the maze, because Christie can go to some dark, and darkly humorous, places sometimes, so it honestly didn’t seem like it was out of the question.)

“Crimes, though, are very much the same.”

The solution is a finely tuned series of events that make perfect sense when laid out by Poirot at the end of act two, but it will definitely keep you guessing.  It did me.  So if you’re looking for that kind of knotty plotting full of twists and turns and a satisfying resolution, “Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links” can give you your murder mystery fix for the holidays.  It’s also nice to see as one of several entries in this season’s lineup where TRP is giving audiences a chance to encounter new (and newish) plays and playwrights.

“I’m not your kind, and that brings trouble.”

Theatre in the Round Player (TRP)’s production of “Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links” runs through December 21, 2025 at their home in the Seven Corners neighborhood (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis), Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30pm; Sundays at 2:00pm.

3 Stars - Recommended

 

 

Review - Souvenir - Gremlin Theatre - “When A High Brow Meets A Low Brow…” - 4 stars

It isn’t easy playing the role of a terrible singer.  It also isn’t easy playing the role of a gifted piano player.  But Gremlin Theatre has the best actors for each task in their production of the charming comedy “Souvenir, a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins” by Stephen Temperley, directed with a delicate touch by Angela Timberman. A theater could go too hard on material like this, making the characters clowns or cartoons; a theater could also miss the comedy entirely if they lean too hard in the other direction.  Instead what we get, under director Timberman’s sure hand, is a story of two human beings who just want to make a little music, and to find an audience that appreciates their talents.  It is extremely funny, but also sweet in a way that tugs at your emotions now and again as well.  If you need a break from… well, everything these days, Gremlin Theatre has your ticket.

“I stepped from the wreckage a new woman!”

The terrible singer (a legendary one, really) is the Florence Foster Jenkins of the play’s subtitle, fearlessly portrayed by Cheryl Willis.  In order to be a convincing bad singer on stage, oddly enough you need to be a good singer to begin with - you need to know the right notes and the right rhythm in order to be able to reliably stay completely off key and out of step for an entire song in the most hilarious way possible.  Willis nails this in all of Jenkins’ rehearsals and performances throughout the play.

“What matters is what you hear in your head.”

Jenkins was a New York socialite in the 1930s and 1940s, known for her support of the classical music and opera scene, arranging concerts for others until friends urged her to put her own singing lessons to use and perform herself.  It was immediately apparent that the woman couldn’t sing, but what she lacked in accuracy, she made up for in commitment to being an entertainer.  Her audiences struggled mightily to contain their laughter and preserve Florence’s dignity.  But the train wreck nature of her performances quickly became the talk of the town and everyone wanted a ticket.  This lead to a record deal, and finally even a sold out concert to raise money for the troops in World War II at the famous Carnegie Hall.

“Am I crazy to keep writing songs no one wants to sing?”

Her young accompanist on the piano was Cosme McMoon, who had dreams of becoming a composer himself, portrayed by Jake Endres.  The conceit of the play is it’s November 1964, 20 years to the day since Florence died, and McMoon, now a pianist at a local jazz bar, is regaling the audience with tales of his 12 years working with Jenkins, on stage and off.  Though Jenkins’ singing offended his ears, Cosme was charmed by her determination and love of music, and he also needed to pay the rent.  What starts as a job quickly turns into an awkward but endearing friendship between the two.  

“I wondered what life had planned to temper his enthusiasm.”

Endres makes playing the piano and performing popular songs from the first half of the 20th century look effortless, which it is most definitely not.  And he does this while also playing the role of Cosme, both the young man working with Florence, and the older man looking back on those years with bewildered fondness.  This isn’t a romantic comedy.  The two characters are decades apart in age in the past, and it’s clearly implied a number of times that Cosme is gay, though that side of his life doesn’t appear on stage in this story.  The degree of difficulty, both musically and emotionally, for both performers is high but Endres and Willis pull it off in style.

“It seems to me that some notes are not quite… secure.”

Speaking of style, the production also looks fantastic.  Scenic and lighting designer (and Gremlin’s Technical Director) Carl Schoenborn, creates a world on Gremlin’s thrust stage that segues easily from jazz bar of the present to rehearsal room and concert halls of the past with a shift in the colorful and evocative lighting, and Florence’s comings and goings in and out of the dark as Cosme conjures her memory then returns to his present life without her.  The black and white checkered floor is complemented by the drape over the grand piano, and with little else but a chair, small table and phonograph cabinet, along with some bright red curtains draping the archway behind the stage, and stone vases on columns for flowers, this production and these two actors create entire worlds, and an unlikely partnership.

“After all, one is not a trombone.”

Florence was big on her costumes, flamboyant visual flourishes to go with each of her big musical numbers, and the production of “Souvenir” doesn’t disappoint in this department either. Rawl Blackett’s original costume design, and Sarah Bauer’s additional work on costumes as well as prop design, give Willis everything she needs for Florence’s unique style on stage and in real life.  Kudos to everyone (stage manager Maren Findlay, assistant stage manager AJ Jerome, with Blackett also pitching in on wardrobe duties) pulling off all the transitions and the multiple rapid costume changes they required.  C. Andrew Mayer’s sound design gives us a taste of what those audiences must have been like back then, both their applause and their laughter (with occasional heckling thrown in).

“All the mess and smells and joys of life.”

One might well wonder, how does a playwright get a full-length play out of something that seems a bit ridiculous. But “Souvenir” isn’t a one joke premise.  It’s an exploration of how two people can find and support one another, creating an artistic bond, as well as a study of someone who genuinely doesn’t hear the bad notes.  In her head, Florence sings like the angels she occasionally costumes herself as.  And since most of her concert appearances were for charities she believed in and supported personally from her own wealth (she didn’t need the money from a music career) and she supported Cosme’s work as a composer as well (though she couldn’t sing his work any better than the classics), she’s ultimately a benign figure with a good heart.

“Why can’t we live in the music forever?  Why can’t we go on and on?”

Florence and Cosme are both characters you can easily find yourself rooting for, despite the fact that Florence has no business singing in concert halls or having her voice preserved on vinyl records.  Given her music career happened nearly a hundred years ago now, and over seventy years after Florence’s death Meryl Streep was playing her in a movie version of her life, and here she is still fascinating audiences today, you gotta hand it to an unusual artist that has more staying power that a lot of other people of her time, or since.  As Florence herself once said, “People may say that I can’t sing, but no one can ever say that I didn’t sing.”

“Souvenir, a Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins” runs at the Gremlin Theatre (550 Vandalia Street in Saint Paul, MN) through Sunday, November 30, 2025 (Wednesday through Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 3pm; no performance on Thursday, November 27th, Thanksgiving).

4 Stars - Highly Recommended

[Photo (l to r) Jake Endres (Cosme McMoon) and Cheryl Willis (Florence Foster Jenkins) in Gremlin Theatre’s production of “Souvenir” - photo by Alyssa Kristine Photography]

 

 

Review - Pride and Prejudice - Theater in the Round Players - Jane Austen Dance Party - 4 stars

Theatre in the Round Players is kicking off their 74th season with a party for the whole audience.  TRP’s production of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” adapted by Kate Hamill and directed by Penelope Parsons-Lord, is full of music, dance and laughter, so if you’re looking for a fun time, this show is your ticket.  Hamill has been an adapting whirlwind of a playwright over the last decade or so and is one of the most produced playwrights in the country.  (The Guthrie has produced a couple of her other Austen adaptations in recent years: “Sense and Sensibility” [which I liked] and “Emma” [which I… didn’t]).  Going in, it was a coin flip whether I was going to enjoy myself at this re-telling of Austen’s best known (and oft-adapted) novel.  I should have had more faith in the basic plot of “Pride and Prejudice” to deliver, regardless of the trappings.  The production is well-executed and the cast is fully throwing themselves into romantic comedy vibes of it all.

“I just hate to think of her up there… in bed… alone.”

For the uninitiated (or if, like me, you sometimes can’t keep the plotlines of the different Austen novels straight): “Pride and Prejudice” is the tale of headstrong, intelligent Elizabeth (Lizzy) Bennet (Eva Gemlo) and her three sisters - her beautiful but shy elder sister Jane (Erika Sasseville), her severe and intense younger sister Mary (Stephanie Kahle), and her naive and flighty youngest sister Lydia (Maya Vagle).  Since there’s no brother to take over the estate from their good-natured father Mr. Bennet (Nick Menzhuber), their loud and slightly frantic mother Mrs. Bennet (Alison Anderson) is desperately trying to get her girls all married off to well-to-do bachelors to secure their futures in 19th century society, where a woman’s options were limited.

“The soundest nets will sometimes catch the smallest fish.”

Fortune seems to smile on them when Jane catches the eye of the new man of means about town Charles Bingley (Michael Hundevad) - though his sister Caroline (Sydney Payne) does her best to undermine the budding relationship.  Caroline seems to have an ally in Bingley’s awkward (but very rich) friend Mr. Darcy (Luke Langfeldt).  Darcy seems to continually cross paths (and butt heads) with Lizzy, and yet despite the friction, the two of them can’t seem to stay away from one another.  Further complicating matters are other potential suitors for Lizzy - the clergyman Mr. Collins (Davin Grindstaff ) (also a cousin to the Bennets, who is set to inherit the home they all live in when Mr. Bennet dies); and Mr. Wickham (Adam Rider), a soldier with a past tied to Mr. Darcy.  Also in the mix are Lizzy’s friend Charlotte (Reese Noelle Marcus) who is also in need of a husband, and Mr. Collins’ very self-important patroness Lady Catherine (Anna Olson) and her ghoulish constantly veiled daughter Ann (Mary Lofreddo), with actors Lizzie Esposito, Scott Hoffman, and Krista Weiss rounding out the large ensemble of players.

“I apologize for the chaos.  I wish I could say it was unusual.”

The first thing that catches your eye before the show even starts is how set designer Madison Bunnell has transformed the TRP space - climbing vines cover the two support columns in the house, hedges and bookshelves front several of the audience sections, and there are picture frames as well as chandeliers hanging in the air.  But this is one of those rare set designs that reveals more detail the more time you spend looking at it. For instance, the bookshelves - half of each bookshelf has straight, normal shelves, the other side has shelves that are titled up or down, sort of quirky and precarious-looking (half Darcy, half Bennet, if you will). These shelves are populated by some of prop designer Dominic Detwiler’s many props helping to give each room that appears a touch of period feel.  There are also some large frames fronting one audience section that are off-kilter - but moveable - and throughout the play some characters feel compelled to adjust them and straighten them up. The painting of the floor around the edges evokes flowing water, and the small circles which are part of the geometric pattern in the center of the floor have fields of stars in them.

“Reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful.”

There’s also a lot of furniture moving around and multiple high-speed scene changes happening as the story rapidly moves from one location to the next.  This is the place where Alita Robertson’s bright, colorful lighting design, and the music-stuffed sound design from Robert Hoffman and director Parsons-Lord keep the audience alert and engaged between scenes.  It can also be where a lot of the dance is thrown in as well (choreographed by Claire Achen).  Scene shifts can be where a lot of the air and momentum go out of a production, so keeping these transitions lively and engaging is smart.

“He did come in search of a wife, and I was there.”

Most of the acting ensemble is leaning hard into the comedy part of “romantic comedy” and that’s something that this stage adaptation encourages.  Part of Hamill’s appeal as an adapter is her ability to inject humor into almost any situation - whether it’s a good idea or not.  It can help make an old story more accessible to a modern audience, however there’s a difference between laughing with a character and laughing at them.  The play is sometimes winking so hard at the audience that I was afraid its metaphorical eyeball would fall out of its socket.  A tone like that can sometimes make it hard for me to fully engage with a story because the actors are being encouraged to draw attention to the fact that they’re telling a story rather than just living in the moment without commenting on it.  Also some running bits can undercut a character, like equating Bingley’s enthusiasm to that of a dog which eventually becomes a bunch of canine commands with a ball, like Sit, Stay or Speak.  It’s a joke, and it gets a laugh, but at the character’s expense - so it’s a bit harder to root for him and Jane to end up together, because he doesn’t seem like a real person with a brain in his head.  Again, not the actors’ fault, or even the director’s - the script is telling them to go there.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

At the end of the day, it’s still “Pride and Prejudice” and the story endures for a reason, because it works.  Lizzy and Darcy, Jane and Bingley, and the colorful cast of characters around them are fun to spend time with. There’s also real energy and joy in this production which make it an amusing watch, and the evening just sails right along.  TRP’s production of “Pride and Prejudice” is a solid piece of theater, with a large team of artists fiercely “committed to the bit,” as they say.  No snoozy period drama here, we get a Jane Austen dance party instead.

“Pride and Prejudice” plays at Theatre in the Round Players (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis, MN) through October 5, 2025.

4 stars - Highly Recommended