Mary’s Wondrous Body is billed as a dark comedy, the plot description reads like a comedy, it is not a comedy. I hate to disagree with the creators, there are definitely humorous moments and the situation devoid of the graphic details we are given certainly would support such an idea, but a comedy? No. So don’t book this for a laugh, you will better appreciate it’s intent if you go in knowing what to expect. What you get is a so bizarre it must be true type historical oddity told by an amazing cast. It’s dark, it’s difficult, there is some humor, but it’s intent is to shine a light on stories of the womb. Through this strange moment from the past, we are led to reflect on where we are in the world today in terms of reproductive rights. The more you understand about these dark ages of medicine as covered in this production, the more your reflect on the events of the last couple of years and you get a sense that the sun may be setting on the age of enlightenment, such as it is.

Written, produced and directed by Madeline Wall the production tells the story performance and song of Mary Toft who in 1726 after suffering a miscarriage stumped the the medical world by pretending to give birth to rabbits, or pieces of them at any rate. It was thought by some in the medical profession that it was the result of maternal impression which was the belief that the mother’s imagination could have a direct influence on how a baby formed in the womb. Yep, as I write, I hear how it sounds like a comedy. Mary’s mother-in-law Ann is the midwife and after the miscarriage she her daughter Mags, a neighbor who is in labor, and Mary all conspire to try and get some money from the nearby surgeon with the faked rabbit births. This is born not out of greed but a desire to eat and stay alive. Being in a family with the local midwife and living in a time before contraceptive products, much of these women’s lives revolve around having and raising children. And so we hear of miscarriages and infant deaths but they discuss these things matter of factly as women who deal with these things daily would. I repeat this is not a comedy. Wall’s script wisely doesn’t shy away from the graphic and earthy nature of their discussions. It is through these realities that the power of the play resides. In 1726, life was hard, particularly if you are a woman. Olive is faced with the fact that if her labor is quick and the baby is born that day that tomorrow she will need to be out working the fields. Mary and her family and friend actually think stuffing parts of dead rabbits inside of her in hopes of earning money from gullible physicians is a hardship worth going through with, because life is that hard in 1726. Dark comedy indeed.

Two performers don’t have very large parts, one is Nick Miller who has a couple of short scenes but is mostly there for musical accompaniment. The other is Caleb Wagner who plays Mary’s husband and has more scenes but isn’t given much to do. This is really the story of Mary, Ann, Mags and Olive and the show belongs to the actors playing those roles. All four are incredible, their voices in song power the way in which they move through the performance with commitment and purpose. Isabella Dunsieth is Mary who does the performance acrobatics of playing in character and then seamlessly coming in and out of something like a stand up comedy act, where she addresses the audience while holding a microphone. It’s a great technique to add a relatability to the performance and also to give us some much needed momentary distance from the hardness of the past. Sarah Broude is Ann, she plays her with a hardness that feels appropriate for the times, when being hard is how you kept yourself and your loved ones alive. Emily Rosenberg is Mags, they play the most sympathetic of the women, perhaps she is softer because she is younger. Rosenberg has been on my one to watch for awhile now and once again they reminded me why, towards the end of the show they have a moment of song that was beyond anything I’d seen or known they were capable of before. Laila Sahir plays Olive the neighbor who gets a brilliant little scene towards the end when she is faced with a little bit of survivors guilt when Mary returns from London and they have to address the rabbit in the room, that Olives child has lived whereas Mary’s died. Sahir plays that moment beautifully, for the first part of the scene her back was to me, when she turned around the power in the moment came flooding in with one look into her eyes.

In almost every respect this is an accomplished production, the cast is perfect and the script and musical moments are are powerful and beautiful. There are a couple of things that worked while also sort of not working. The space, when one performer was singing the acoustics were phenomenal, it was like hearing them all singing in the shower. But, when they were speaking and not facing towards you, a lot of the dialogue was lost, even more so when they were speaking over each other as they do at several points. The message and themes of the work are powerful, important, and relevant, but why on earth are you producing this at the holidays? This is a February show if ever I saw one. When I’m asked to recommend one show to someone this holiday season, as top notch as this production is, it isn’t going to be Mary’s Wondrous Body. This is the kind of show people should see, these are stories that need to be shared because they get us thinking about our world and what is happening around us. But it’s the time of year people want to see Christmas at the Local or one of the Christmas’s at Pemberley plays. I think the show will suffer unfairly from being released now, and maybe by hammering home the fact that it is not a comedy, I’ve contributed to that. But, I also want those who do attend to know what they are getting so they are in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. You should also be aware that the language is quite strong, it’s not an issue for most of us in this day and age but there are several uses of the “C” word for example, I think it’s effectively used, but for some that is one of the more offensive words in the english language and so better to know going in.

Mary’s Wonderous Body runs through December 18th at the Elision Playhouse for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://minnesotaplaylist.com/calendar/show/marys-wondrous-body

Don’t want to miss a single review from The Stages of MN? You can subscribe and have every post sent directly to your email. To Subscribe on your computer: from the home page on the right, enter your email address and click subscribe. On your mobile device scroll to the bottom of the page and do the same. Also you can follow me on Facebook, search @thestagesofmn and click follow and on Instagram thestagesofmn. I am also a member of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers, you can read roundups of shows by my colleagues and I on facebook @TwinCitiesTheaterBloggers. Follow that group, It’s a great way to see reviews for shows I don’t get to. We have some exciting things in the works for 2023 for the TCTB and our readers follows us to be the first to know about those happenings.

Nimbus Presents: A Count Up to Christmas is simply good old fashioned silly fun. A parody of the Hallmark Channel’s annual Countdown to Christmas campaign wherein they air 742 Christmas themed movies based on 4 not dissimilar plots, but featuring characters with completely different names, living in differently named but identical looking towns. Look, this isn’t the show to see if you can only see one Christmas show and finances are not a concern. But if you’re looking for a show to take the whole family to, that’s fun and won’t break the strained holiday budget, this one would be hard to beat. A target primed to be lampooned, Nimbus pokes fun at these films without being cruel. Playing with the tropes so that we knowingly laugh along, and you will laugh out loud throughout this clever little show.

The story centers around Caroline, a lesbian marketing person from the city, who two weeks before Christmas is fired from her job and dumped by her fiance. Her assumedly gay best friend swoops in to try and cheer her up sending her off to the small town of Wannacutatree for a week of relaxation. But it turns out that Wannacutatree is in the midst of its own crisis, the annual Christmas Festival on which the local businesses depend is drastically under attended due to lack of funds for advertising. Caroline who has never seen, let alone driven in snow, ends up with her car in the ditch. To the rescue is Deputy Sheriff Buck Sterling who gives her a lift into town and introduces her to award-winning Gingerbread Baker and Innkeeper Mavis. Buck is frequently and inexplicably accompanied by the ultra precocious Reggie, he’s eight, who is not his son but has assisted the deputy sheriff in solving several murders. Frequently and startlingly popping up is Mayor Chase Nulty who looks to Buck to help solve the city’s crisis. The town businesses, all of which seem to be owned by Charlene Larch are desperate to save the Christmas Festival. On Caroline’s first day in the town, she comes across the bookstore owned by Casey who shares her taste in authors. Will Casey help the town solve their marketing crisis? Will she fall in love with one of the townspeople? Will she learn to embrace peppermint spice and sprinkles? How old is Reggie? He’s eight, but for the rest of the questions you’ll have to see the show to find out. Though if you’ve ever seen one of those Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movies you can probably guess the answers.

The script for A Count Up to Christmas is by company co-founder Josh Cragun and is filled with inspired comedic ideas. One of which is the periodic commercial breaks in the play proper where we get commercials for upcoming movies including a Twin Peaks parody featuring the Yule Log lady. It’s a fun script with a lot of elements that work but several that fall flat, though, most of those those have potential. For example, the Mayor has a habit of startling the other characters by his sudden appearance, not a bad idea but it needs to be reworked for greater effect. Likewise, the Mayors almost sinister insistence jolliness & holiday cheer, it’s an idea that’s played with but probably should have been developed further or cut all together. More could also have been made of the Charlene Larch character who owns seemingly every business in town. Though in that instance it feels as if a tweak to the performances could have played that up better. Most of these are the types of things that you only really get a sense of once you see a show up and running. It would be great to see Cragun take another pass at the script for a future run. If he does so, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to add more Reggie, he’s eight, particularly in the final quarter of the play when he seems to more or less disappear.

Speaking of Reggie, he’s eight, but played by the cherubic adult Alex Stokes, who completely steals the show out from under the leads. In a play filled with laughs, the loudest are always due to the performance of Stokes whose line delivery and reactions are comedic gold. When you have a character as hilariously well-written as Reggie, he’s eight, you have to have an actor with Stoke’s comedic gifts to cash in on it. The wrong performer could easily squander the potential, it has to be a hard role to cast and find the perfect tone for, luckily they found Stokes as he nails it. The cast in general is fine, there were a couple who seemed to barely have their lines memorized, and as such had no time to actually develop a character, leaving us with someone more or less just speaking lines so that we have the necessary information. Annick Dall, as Casey the bookstore owner, however was more than fine giving the most natural and winning performance. She generates enough small town charm and wisdom to create enough chemistry for both her character and Tara Lucchino’s Caroline to make you feel all warm inside and happy as their relationship develops.

I suspect that Director Liz Neerland would have loved another week’s worth of rehearsal. There’s so much that works here that it’s a shame the show has to settle for being “very good” when it has the potential to be “great”. But sometimes that’s the nature of theatre, we do the best we can with the time and resources we have and Neerland has done just that. Kudos as well to Scenic Designer Gaea Dill-D’Ascoli, this is certainly the most elaborate set I’ve seen yet at the Crane theater. One half of the stage is an indoor set that doubles for bookstore and the Inn. The other half is the outdoors complete with Christmas tree lot and sledding hill. The Sound Design is by Jacob M. Davis and Lighting Design by Jon Kirchhofer help set the mood and the tone. I recommend getting to the theater a little early in order to enjoy the fun Christmas songs chosen to play before the show begins. Also, don’t forget to pick up a bingo card and crayon on your way into the theater if you play along you could win a prize!

Nimbus Presents: A Count Up to Christmas runs through December 18th at the crane theater in Northeast Minneapolis for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://nimbustheatre.com/productions/count-up-to-christmas. I know I pointed out some flaws above but to be honest that’s only because the show is already good and that’s a potential to be even better. I had a lot of fun with this show and laughed an awful lot, I think you will as well.

Don’t want to miss a single review from The Stages of MN? You can subscribe and have every post sent directly to your email. To Subscribe on your computer: from the home page on the right, enter your email address and click subscribe. On your mobile device scroll to the bottom of the page and do the same. Also you can follow me on Facebook, search @thestagesofmn and click follow and on Instagram thestagesofmn. I am also a member of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers, you can read roundups of shows by my colleagues and I on facebook @TwinCitiesTheaterBloggers. Follow that group, It’s a great way to see reviews for shows I don’t get to. We have some exciting things in the works for 2023 for the TCTB and our readers follows us to be the first to know about those happenings.