A Night At The Theatre, "The Red Velvet Cake Wars"

It seems that since the success of The Dixie Swim Club, the playwrights continue to churn out play after play after play. Most of them I thought were just awful. The same old tired jokes from one script to the other. When I first read The Red Velvet Cake War, I actually laughed out loud. Granted it was only once or twice, but the other scripts garnered zero response. Yes, it's very light on plot, and some of the characters are superfluous. Still, I thought it better than most of their recent offerings.

Stan went with Chad and me to see The Book of Mormon. In exchange, he gave us comps to Red Velvet. (Thank goodness I didn't have to spend well-earned money!) During dinner Stan discussed the weaknesses within the script. Chad and I both read the script so we were well aware. Still, Stan is very good at casting excellent talent, which we knew would help the weak script.

As the house lights came up for intermission I sat in my seat absolutely dumbfounded. It wasn't just the script that was awful. The acting was awful! I was so disappointed that Stan had apparently directed his actors to overact! It was horrible! Every actor save one was a caricature. Peggy Kaan Dull's performance was the only honest portrayal. Not wanting to suffer through the second act, Chad and I left at intermission.

Stan loves to play up the laughs and goodness knows that the script did indeed need some help. But characters have to come from some real place in order to be believable. He directed the show as if it were a farce, which completely destroyed the collective talent of his cast. Pat Shumate and Karen Robertson were terrible and they are never terrible!