Day: January 18, 2025

A Taste of Things to Come is a Bit Undercooked at Lyric Arts in Anoka

Bridget Benson, Lydia Rose Prior, Siri Ashley Wright, Natosha Guldan Photo by Molly Weibel

For those who enjoyed I Am Betty at The History Theatre the last two years, which is basically anyone who saw it, Lyric Arts has what plays as the public’s version of that story. A Taste of Things to Come wants to tell us about the lives of the woman who gathered together and cooked from the Betty Crocker Cookbook rather than those who created it. The problem is that A Taste of Things to Come has nothing new to say and isn’t worthy of being talked about as a companion piece to History Theatre’s smash hit. It’s wants to be a Steel Magnolias/Savannah Sipping Society type story and Act I set in 1957 does seem to have something to say about the four woman whose story it is as well about their roles in society at that point in history. There is character details, humor, some surprises, and some drama. Act II leaps forward ten years to 1967 and seems to have nothing to say and nowhere to go. The big reveals in terms of the women’s lives are delivered as if even the characters know none of it means anything. The concept of the show by Hollye Levin along with the musical numbers being done in the style of the 50’s and 60’s had a lot of promise and some of the songs are actually very fun, but the book of the show written by Debra Barsha and Levin wastes a promising concept. We learn more about every theme this show tries to drag out in the second act in a more effective and powerful way in the play Glory, now playing at Theatre in the Round.

Look, there are things to like here, the cast is good, they can’t help that the script has nothing new to say or a fresh way to present it. I actually quite liked maybe every song in the first Act, but really only cared for the final song in the second act. I wish the program listed the songs so I could reflect on them a little more, but it doesn’t. In the performance I saw the understudy Raquel Ponce performed the role of Agnes, I always am in awe of understudies who go on, particularly in the first week of a run. I know they don’t get anywhere near the rehearsal time as the primary cast and Ponce does a nice job. My favorite performer overall was Natosha Guldan who plays Joan. They all had strengths and weaknesses but Guldan was the one who really stood out particularly in her handling of the changes in the character over the 10 years. Bridget Benson played Dottie, the conservative of the group, she’s also the one who struggles with her diet. Benson does everything you can do with the chubby uptight comic relief stereotype, she hits the jokes as well as anyone can. It’s just that the character is so derivative that it’s hard to do anything new when the writing is so uninventive. Lydia Rose Prior plays Connie who in 1957 is days away from her due date of her first child. It’s around this pregnancy that the only interesting plot development occurs. I felt at times that Prior’s voice was the strongest, but she was also victim to one the most off key moments in the show when she sang in duet with Ponce. I’m not sure who was off, but the combination was discordant. Aside from that one moment I felt the cast was the shows strengths, but a good cast can only do so much with this material.

Another strength was the costume designs by Sarah Christenson, they had a great period look to them and contributed to making Guldan’s Joan transformation so effective between the acts. Another strength was also a weakness at the same time and that was the scenic design by Curtis Phillips. It was cute and effective while also being illogical. In the first act we are in Joan’s kitchen and the women have gathered for their weekly cooking club. The set looks very retro modern, the baffling thing is there is a refrigerator, oven, Countertops, but no stovetop, even though theoretically one of the characters boils water for the Jello salad. I noted it and thought that’s weird not to have added that. In Act II, again in Joan’s kitchen, which granted has been remodeled, we now have a stovetop on the counter thats been shifted slightly in the remodel, but is essentially the same counter. Why? But the bafflement in regards to the set doesn’t end there. When we entered the theater after stretching our legs during intermission, a couch, chair and rug had been added. After about five more minutes of no activity on stage, when everyone has come back into the theater and the house lights have been dimmed, then the stage hands come out and move the kitchen set a round while we sit watching them. They move the back side portions of the set half offstage leaving the wall portion with the oven in it half onstage and half off. It felt to us in the audience that the stage hands had forgotten to make all the changes during intermission and then they couldn’t quite get the set all the way off stage. Looking back it seemed to foreshadow the second act as being half assed in general. Now with the back of the set moved away the curtain drops and we get to see the band and they have 60’s style Laugh-In flowers around them, which was a neat touch. But these oddities just added to the sense of an aimless production. The Director is Laura Tahja Johnson whose work I have admired in the past and I know I will again, but I think the material let her down as it did the cast.

A Taste of Things to Come runs through February 9th at Lyric Arts in Anoka. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.lyricarts.org/taste-of-things

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Glory Skates its Way into the Hearts of the Audience at Theatre in the Round

Brynn Kelly, Gabrielle Johnson, Josie Ramler, and Kelly Solberg Photo by Tom Taintor

Theatre in the Round glides into 2025 with a season appropriate production that centers around of all things, Hockey! The feel good play of the year, it plays like a really good sports movie, with a lot of humor and moments that deal with real world issues as well. Inspired by the true story of Canada’s Preston Rivulettes, it tells the story of a Canadian women’s hockey team in the 1930’s. Opening in 1933 during the great depression and ending just after the declaration of War between Germany and Poland in 1939. Aside from thrilling to the rise of a team you come to vocally root for, the play also delves into societal issues like equality and anti-semitism among others. Those moments play powerfully but do not darken the overall feel of the show, which is inspirational. It feels like the perfect balance of getting swept up in cheering your team, hopefully to victory, personal drama, and wonderfully executed humor. A cast that felt like a team rather than a group of actors. Everyone in the play and every aspect of it from the game choreography to the set design works to create something unlike anything I’ve seen on stage before. I mean have you seen hockey games played in a theater, in the round before? I sure hadn’t, and I’m so glad I did.

The team consists of four characters, 2 pairs of sisters. Hilda and Nellie Ranscombe played by Brynn Kelly and Gabrielle Johnson, and Marm and Helen Schmuck played by Kelly Solberg and Josie Ramler. Kelly plays Hilda, who is the driving force behind the creation of the team and its star player with a drive and single minded focus that sells the audience on the team essentially being willed into existence by her alone. Johnson as her sister is terrified of the puck, but as Goalie she manages most of the time not to throw up over it. Her storyline is the polar opposite of her sisters in terms of subtlety, whereas Kelly sells her character to us with vocal passion and energy, Johnson’s role calls for her to underplay her passion and barely more than hint at a love that dare not speak its name. Ramler’s Helen is less single minded and deals with being torn between the team and other desires like being a mother. She has a great scene where she takes offense at the game announcer when he makes a comment about her femininity, the way she proves she’s a woman is a laugh out loud moment. Hilda pushes for women in hockey because it’s all she wants to do, for Helen it is more about Equality and not having her gender define what she can and cannot do whether it be playing hockey or marrying outside her jewish faith. Solberg as her sister Marm identifies more strongly with her faith and in one of the plays most dramatic moments confronts the anti-semitism she feels. It’s this moment that explains her rough playing in a game as a deeply felt injury crying out to be seen and felt. Solberg plays the moment so raw and brutally that it lands like a body check to the boards.

The show is so much about these teammates that it’s tempting not to mention the two men in the cast, and if they were any less perfect in their roles I’d probably leave it there. But Daniel Stock as their reluctant coach perfectly modulates that journey from not caring to deeply caring about this team. It’s humorous when he doesn’t want to be there and then emotionally satisfying when he does begin to actually care and want them to succeed. Glory is very much A League of Their Own on ice and Stock has the Tom Hanks role, but he does his own thing with it and it’s so integrated into the whole that it’s hard not to feel as though the team isn’t complete without him. The final performer is Ron Lamprecht who is perfect as the Announcer for all of the hockey games. Lamprecht sounds exactly like an announcer and it adds a sense of reality to the games as well as helping us to fill in the action on the rink. That action is choreographed by Antonia Perez and it mixes simulated hockey play with dance in a way that shouldn’t work, but really does. It doesn’t feel like the performers have all of the moves down 100% but that kind of adds to the charm a little bit. Perez’s highlights are the more obvious dance moves and the fights that breakout. I loved the simplicity of the set design by Keven Lock and his assistant Essel Beidler, the painted on ice rink complete with blade marks in the ice was a great touch. Director Sean Dooley has found a way to make a theater in the round staging of ice hockey games work, it’s something I couldn’t quite imagine before I went. He has some nice touches for the in the round staging, including some front row patrons in section B who are the unfortunate witnesses to Nellie’s losing battle with her nerves early in her hockey career. Another nice touch is that the show opens with the women changing after their final Softball game of the season. They strip out of their uniforms to their modest undergarments and then into street clothes. This has the effect of acknowledging their gender up front, that they are women, they have all the soft parts and then we see them as successful hockey players. It isn’t salaciously done, it’s there to illustrate Helen’s point, that they can be women and athletes, and neither diminishes the other.

I’m not a hockey fan, never played it outside of with friends at the park so that isn’t a requirement in any way to enjoy the show. But it is a great hook for hockey fans who maybe are not theatergoers usually. If I loved it, and I did, hockey fans will get as much if not more out of it I’m sure. So if you got Hockey fans in your life make sure to take them to see Glory during its run, they will thank you. Glory runs through February 9th at theatre in the Round. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.theatreintheround.org/glory/

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