An Evening At The Theatre, "Sixty Miles To Silver Lake"

Last night Crystal and I attended Theatre Alliance's staged reading of Sixty Miles To Silver Lake. Ken, who played the father Ky, had alerted me to some of dialogue so I could prepare Crystal.

The material was very mature, allowing both uprorious laughter and some scratchy, ewww moments. The real power of the show is in the lighting and scenic transitions. Although Jamie Lawson read the stage directions, much was lost as just a staged reading.

Ken always does an outstanding job and this reading was no different. Spencer Absher, who played Ky's son, Denny, also did a great job.

I'd love to see this as a full production.

A Night At The Theatre

A friend of mine recently became a Pure Romance consultant and invited me to her "trial run" party. I was all excited about attending, until I realized her party was the same night as Theatre Alliance's staged reading of God of Carnage.

When I first learned of the cast I was very worried. With Ken Ashford as Michael and Neil Shepherd as Allan, I knew the guys would be great. What really concerned me were the ladies; Steffanie Vaughan was playing Veronica and Sherri Masters was playing Annette. I've seen several of these ladies' shows and I've never been impressed with their acting. Still, I figured working with Ken and Neil would help raise Steffanie's and Sherri's performances.

Within the first 5 minutes I realized it was going to be a very long night. I quickly glanced at the "program" and inwardly groaned to learn there was no intermission. I was stuck.

I never got the sense that Steffanie had read the script, at all, until that very night. She had no characterization and simply read Veronica's lines. She was absolutely terrible; the weakest link in a role that won Marcia Gay Harden a Tony.

Sheri didn't fare much better. Instead of acting, she frequently swung her head which resulted in her hair being tossed around. This made her appear childishly petulant. The fact that she couldn't maintain eye contact, instead looking over the head of her scene partner as if there was an invisible someone (Harvey, maybe?) standing behind them, was extremely distracting. I won't even mention the lame vomiting scene.

Neil was the strongest in this ensemble. Having seen the show on Broadway, I always thought Veronica was the central voice. Not so in this show. Neil made Allan the strongest and most believable voice.

Walking to my car after the show was over I silently berated myself. I had traded fun discussions of adult toys and flavored lubes for an hour and a half of drek.