Review - Bull In A China Shop - Fortune’s Fool Theatre - Defenseless Against Its Many Charms - 5 stars

It’s hard to do a proper review of Fortune’s Fool Theatre’s current production of Bryna Turner’s play “Bull In A China Shop” because it feels like it was designed in a lab to be everything I want in a production of a new(ish, 2017) play, so I’m frankly defenseless against its many charms.

“At first it felt like I was dying, but I wouldn’t die.”
“How did you recover?”
“Slowly. And Lydia.”

It’s funny, it’s romantic, it clips along at a steady pace, it’s based on a true story from queer history I’d never heard before (and yet it’s not stuffy in the way many a historical play might be - in fact it’s so much fun that I had to remind myself that it wasn’t made up by the playwright but was something that actually happened). Most of all, it centers on a couple who met, fell in love, and then were together for the rest of their lives - with all the ups and downs that entails.

“Playwriting? That’s not really a field for a woman.”

It’s directed by Shanan Custer, who is a delight whether she’s writing, acting, improvising or directing a piece of theater.

“I miss it, the smell of your sheets.”

It features as the central couple Victoria Pyan as Mary Woolley and Ariel Pinkerton as Jeannette Marks, two actors who I could watch do pretty much anything, but put a juicy, romantic, funny play like Turner’s in their hands and just watch them cook on a whole other level.

“You can’t major in ‘horses,’ Welsh.”

The tag line for the publicity for the production is “They led a revolution in eduction.  They never hid their love.”  Woolley was president of Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts - a woman’s college in need of an infusion of new blood and new ideas, and over her nearly 40 years at the institution, she completely transformed it from a place where women went to become better marriage material to a place where women went to expand their minds, whether they ever bothered to get married or not.  Woolley’s partner in these efforts, and in life, Marks was a professor who inspired devotion in her students (perhaps at times a bit too much devotion?) and helped change and broaden the curriculum in the English department.

“You think Thoreau wasn’t writing self-important gibberish?”

Now you wouldn’t think that would be fertile territory for either comedy or romance or a fast-paced show with real emotional stakes, but you would be wrong.  “Bull In A China Shop” is all that and more.  And clocking in at under 90 minutes, not only doesn’t it overstay its welcome, it very much leaves you wanting more.

“Embarrassment - a social construct to restrict the wing span of the mind.”

Kyra Richardson, so great in Fortune’s Fool Theatre’s production of “Lincoln’s Children” just a couple of years ago, is even better here in the role of Pearl, one of Jeanette’s overly devoted students.  She gets a lot of great moments in this supporting role and makes the most of all of them.

“If you leave the rest of us behind, I’ll never forgive you.”

Rounding out the ensemble of five are Penelope Parsons-Lord as Dean Welsh, who brings a dose of reality from the outside world, and quite a bit of wry humor, to her support of Woolley steering the campus into the 20th century; and Bethani Talatala as Felicity, who is Jeanette’s housemate, and ends up awkwardly playing go-between when the main couple is scrapping over everything from women’s suffrage to extended foreign travel to romantic misadventures.

“Drink your water, take your aspirin, and grow up!”

It’s remarkable how, with just five people, the script and production populate an entire world.  Parsons-Lord also designed the lovely period costumes (who knew undoing a corset could be so… sexy?).  Pinkerton also designed the lighting.  Kevin Lock designed the clever set and props (an archway also becoming a jail cell was a simple but effective bit of theater magic, helping the play keep moving right along). Lock gets an assist on the design from Ash Aurig.  Custer gets an assist with the intimacy work from Callie Aho, and the production overall from the stage management of Sarah Schmitt.

“Why is this the first line in ‘Orlando’?”

Oh, and did I mention it’s free? (Thanks to a generous grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council.) (You can, of course, feel free to tip the theater on the way out or hit their website to make a donation, but they don’t want the price of a ticket to be a barrier to people seeing theater, so all you have to do is get yourself to the theater.  Reservations are recommended, however, because the Hive Collaborative venue is small, and the closing matinee performance is already close to selling out.)

“I will give you fully evolved human beings. If a man is interested in a headless woman, send him to France.”

I caught “Bull In A China Shop” in the middle of its run so we’re coming up on closing weekend, but there’s still three performances left, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September 25, 26 and 27, 2026 (Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm, Sunday at 2pm).  Performances are at the Hive Collaborative, 677 Hamline Avenue in Saint Paul. Reservations can be made through the Fortune’s Fool Theatre’s website.

“There’s a fan club, a secret society.  We’ve got a mascot and everything.”

If you enjoy good theater, you should see “Bull In A China Shop.”   It’s great stuff.

5 stars - Very Highly Recommended

 

(Photo, left to right, Victoria Pyan and Ariel Pinkerton in Fortune Fool Theatre's production of "Bull In A China Shop") 

 

Review - The Great Gatsby - TRP - Boats Against The Current - 4 stars

There’s a lot of talent on stage in Theatre in the Round Players’ production of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.”  The adaptation of this tragic love story by Simon Levy had its first production just down the street at the Guthrie Theater as the inaugural production for the big blue building by the river twenty years ago.  It was fascinating to see the same script on its feet again in the much more intimate arena setting at TRP.  It also made the strengths and weaknesses of the script a lot clearer in close up.  

“Trying to forget something very sad that happened to me long ago.”

“The Great Gatsby” is a classic American novel for a reason, so the story, and the language of the original, in the hands of these actors and this director and design team, still have many moments when they shine through, and even dazzle the audience.  But even all their talent can’t fully prop up the clunkier bits in this adaptation.  On balance, it’s a really strong piece of theater, so I still recommend seeing it. It’s just hard to capture the magic of “Gatsby” on the page and translate it fully - film and stage versions have been trying for years with mixed success.  But it’s such a good book that you can’t help but try. (The final line has haunted me ever since I first read the novel as a teenager.)

“The dearest heart of all.”

“The Great Gatsby” is told through the narration of Nick Carraway (Gavin Webb), a young man returning home from World War One too restless to stay at home in the midwest, so he strikes out for New York and connects with his cousin Daisy Buchanan (Nina Broberg) and her husband Tom (John Blocher), two rich careless people who shouldn’t have become parents.  Tom has a woman on the side, Myrtle Wilson (Sydney Lanning Payne), who he regularly parties with at an apartment he keeps for her in the city. Myrtle is also married, to the well-meaning but clueless owner of a gas station and car repair shop named George (Ian Fee). Tom and Myrtle aren’t shy about flaunting their affair, and their long-suffering spouses seem resigned to putting up with the disrespect. Nick is an awkward, uncomfortable witness to all of this. Meanwhile, Tom and Daisy’s friend Jordan Baker (Kendra Alaura), a female professional golfer, has her eye on Nick, and he’s happy to reciprocate her attentions.

“There’s the kind of man you want to take home to your mother and sister.”

Someone else with their eye on Nick, and all these goings on, is Jay Gatsby (Jake Leif), owner of the spacious estate just across the bay from Tom and Daisy’s home, and right next to the small rental cabin where Nick is staying. Gatsby invites Nick to one of his lavish parties (this is the jazz age, the roaring 20s after all) and the two men hit it off immediately as fellow veterans of the war. But in addition to his present day intense friendship with Nick, Jay Gatsby is also a past lover of Daisy’s (before he was off to the war, and she got married), and it’s a love he’d like to rekindle, with Nick’s help.

“So much more than anyone in the world ever had.”

Director Vanessa Brooke Agnes has assembled a solid cast and guides them skillfully through this thicket of interconnected relationships. (The ensemble also includes Abdoulie Ceesay, Joseph Dinh, Emily Elliot, Sandi Flahn, Casey Lomibao, and Lindsey Meath.) Set Designer Michael Haas (assisted by Veronica Rohde) and Prop Designer Roxanne Miller (assisted by Taylor Koehler) create the vivid world of a hundred years ago that these people live in. Costume Designer Emma Shook (assisted by Sarah Berg) gives the cast the colorful look they need for this period drama. Lighting Designer Chad Van Kekerix gives the audience both the sparkle of the chandelier center stage and the haunting green light pulsing at the end of Daisy’s dock on the water, as well as the shadows creeping in around the edges of everyone’s happiest moments, the unsettling glowing eyes in the billboard advertising an optometrist, and the piercing headlights of a car with reckless drivers behind the steering wheel. Sound Designer Tatum Evans helps make that car we never see all too real, in addition to populating all the parties with more people and music than you can normally conjure with a cast of just over a dozen people. This design team really boost the production to something that has the look and feel of the source material so kudos all around for creating this world for the cast and the audience. There’s even a live saxophone player (Maje Adams) up on a platform above the action on the side to send a jolt of sound through the proceedings at key moments. A quick nod should also be given to assistant director and dramaturg Alex Church, choreographer Colin Edwards, fight & intimacy director Madeline Achen, stage manager Briana K. Roesler and her assistant Thucydides Tempas, as they all had a lot to help the director wrangle on this crowded and impressive canvas.

“Where were the party people now?”

Despite the fact that each of the two acts of the evening clock in at well under an hour, 45 and 40 minutes respectively, the first act still feels like it’s taking the time it needs to introduce us to the characters and relationships that are central to the play, and gets you to care about Jay and Daisy’s reunion in particular. It’s the shorter second act where things kind of go off the rails.  Suddenly the script is barreling through moment after moment at a rapid clip that doesn’t really allow anything a chance to settle and catch its breath properly (including, sometimes, the audience). It begins to feel more like a soap opera or telenovela than a tragedy.  

“Daisy ought to have something in her life, don’t you think?”

Again, not the fault of the cast so much as it is the script they’re wrangling with. There’s some unnecessary repetition of plot beats, there are numerous supporting characters that don’t really seem to support the story or have a good reason for being there. And often, with some characters, there’s not a lot of nuance, we get the point the first time. Some of this may be that the adaptation hasn’t aged well (in a post-2020 world, for instance, a little of Tom’s white supremacist talking points from books he’s read goes a LONG way - we get it, Tom, you’re terrible, and you’re cheating on your wife besides, you don’t have to keep reminding us.). There’s also a lot to be said for the difference in the lives of the haves and have nots, the two worlds Nick and Jay are constantly straddling - how those with the least are often left to pay the cost of the misdeeds of those who always seem to have (and take) more than they need. The script could have spent just a bit more time on that. The production is so close to sticking the landing despite the script that I couldn’t help wishing that there were a few less side characters and a little more run time so the central characters and story threads had a bit more room to blossom and really make us feel the loss of the happy ending that gets snatched away from Jay and Daisy and Nick.

“I’m paralyzed with happiness.”

That said, it’s still a solid production with a talented cast and despite the sometimes wobbly adaptation, the underlying story still comes through strongly, so TRP’s production of “The Great Gatsby” is well worth your time to see it in all its 1920s glory.  “The Great Gatsby” plays at TRP through October 4th at 245 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis.  Tickets are available through TRP’s website.

4 Stars - Highly Recommended