The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui Plays Like a Comicstrip Allegory for Authoritarianism Told Through the Lens of the Godfather

Gary Briggle and David Beukema Photo by Tony Nelson

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a 2½-hour play written in 1941 by Bertolt Brecht about the rise of Nazism, told through the lens of Chicago gangsters. Brecht. The rise of Nazism. Two and a half hours. Sounds like heavy stuff, right? Perfect material for a Sunday afternoon nap at the theater. But while the show deals with dark, all-too-topical themes, it’s entertaining as hell.

I’ll admit it, I’ve caught myself almost nodding off at more shows than I’d care to confess lately. Luckily, I’m the type who jolts himself awake the second his head tips forward, so I rarely miss anything. It’s never a reflection of the show, I’m just exhausted most of the time. Despite that tendency, I still refuse to give up my favorite seat: the front row. And I’m proud to say there wasn’t a single moment of head nodding during this performance. Partly because the room was a crisp (and probably only to me, comfortable) 65 degrees, but mostly because the show is completely engaging.

The play is an allegory for the rise of Adolf Hitler, reimagined through the story of Arturo Ui, a Chicago gangster who takes control of the cauliflower market and runs protection rackets on local grocers. The tone is distinct, a product of Brecht’s epic theatre philosophy. Brecht wanted audiences to remember they were watching a play, not reality, so actors occasionally break the fourth wall and address the audience directly. The makeup is stylized, almost a subtler Kabuki style, and the performances are broad without being cartoonish. Everything about it, from the make up to the costuming, evokes the visual world of the old Dick Tracy comicstrips. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s not strictly dramatic either, “entertaining” really is the best word for it.

The cast is terrific. David Beukema shines in multiple roles, starting as the announcer who humorously introduces the major players and later in a great scene as a washed up Shakespearian actor brought in to give Arturo tips on how to come off more polished to the everyman. Jim Ramlet is sympathetic as a politician seduced into corruption in a moment of weakness. E.J. Subkoviak stands out as Ernesto Roma, Ui’s right-hand man, exuding both dry humor and menace. But the undeniable star of the show is Gary Briggle as Arturo Ui. His performance feels like a cross between two Al Pacino roles from 1990, The Godfather Part III’s Michael Corleone and Dick Tracy’s Big Boy Caprice. Yet it’s entirely his own creation, filled with menace, manipulation, weariness, and a darkly comic edge. Briggle commands the stage with equal parts charm and danger.

Frank Theatre’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui runs through November 23 at the Ivy Building for the Arts in South Minneapolis. For more information and tickets, visit franktheatre.org.

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Skeleton Crew at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Jennifer Fouché, Darius Dotch, Stephanie Everett, and Mikell Sapp Photo by Dan Norman

* Disclaimer: On March 28th I suffered a rupture in my right bicep muscle, which has left me without the use of my right arm. I will endeavor to continue seeing and reviewing shows however the reality is that the reviews will need to be significantly shorter. For now I will attempt to provide you, faithful readers, with a few sentences that will make clear whether a show is worth your time and money. My apologies to all of the artists in front of the curtain as well as behind whose work I may not be able to comment on. Hopefully this will be a short-term accommodation, I will do everything in my power to get back to writing full reviews as soon as is humanly possible.

Under the direction of Austene Van, the hardest working woman in theater, Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew comes vividly to life on the Guthrie Theater’s McGuire Proscenium Stage. The play follows four characters at a Detroit, Michigan, Stamping Plant that is facing the possibility of shutdown. While the plot follows the tensions that surround who knows if the plant’s closing vs who doesn’t, and at times the characters try and make it into a workers vs management battle, but it’s really about the characters. Morisseau’s characters are richly drawn, no one can be reduced to a simple description like Foreman, thief, Shop Steward, single mother. No one ends up being defined by their first impression, no one is a hero nor villain, they’re all just individuals doing the best they can for themselves and each other. The undeniable authenticity of the characters comes from Morisseau’s well crafted script. The fact that we come to care strongly for all four characters is due to the remarkable talents of the four-person cast.

Faye, who seems to live in the break room, is played by Jennifer Fouché, she’s the Union rep who’s been at the plant for 29 years, at 30 years her retirement benefits are greatly increased. Darius Dotch, plays Reggie the Foreman under enormous pressure to keep productivity up and discover who’s been stealing materials from the factory. Stephanie Everett, plays Shanita a single woman who is the best on the assembly line and is also pregnant, she needs her job and her benefits. The final character Dez normally played by Mikell Sapp, was performed by the understudy Domino D’Lorion at the performance I attended. Dez is a young man who has dreams of opening his own auto shop and only six months away from having enough money saved. I won’t go into further details of their characters but to say that we care about all of them and that they defy any attempt to categorize or stereotype them. Fouché and Everett were brought in from out of town so they are both new to me as performers and are excellent in their roles. Both Dotch and Sapp are performers I’ve seen before and while I can’t comment on Sapp’s performance not having seen it, I’m familiar with his work and am confident it will be at the same high level as the rest of the cast. Dotch is the role I most identified with and he does an excellent job playing the reality of being the boss, but one who has come up with workers. He’s trying to serve the needs of two different groups that in some ways have opposing goals, Dotch skillfully finds the way to communicate that internal struggle and the stress it puts on the human being in that role. I do want to mention that I thought Domino D’Lorion’s performance as Dez was flawless with a winning combination of charm and toughness that served the character well.

The drama and humor is played out on a wonderfully detailed set designed by Regina Garcia. Built into the set are some tinted windows which when lights are shown through backstage allows the performers to be seen in silhouette dancing, which is used during the scene changes. It’s a neat effect, though I’m not entirely sure what it’s purpose is, I took it to represent the assembly line, the workers doing their choreographed moves down on the factory floor. I liked Samantha Fromm Haddow’s costumes as well, especially the one’s for Reggie several of which I wouldn’t mind having in my own closet. It’s a fantastic production that does what all great art does, help us see the world through eyes other than our own. It’s refreshing to see a drama that feels real, engaging, and doesn’t feature an antagonist. No one is the bad guy, no one is the savior, we are all just at the mercy of life, and it’s how we navigate it which decides whether we are victims or not. None of these characters are, they are all fighters, and working for the best possible outcome they can get from life.

Skeleton Crew runs through June 9th at the Guthrie Theater in Downtown Minneapolis for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.guthrietheater.org/shows-and-tickets/2023-2024-season/skeleton-crew/

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Apples in Winter Erases Theater and Creates a Reality at Gremlin Theatre

Angela Timberman Photo by Alyssa Kristine Photography.

A one handed play requires the very best performer to hold an audience’s attention for 90 minutes on their own. Gremlin Theatre is apparently aware of this and thus cast Angela Timberman who not only keeps our attention but keeps us utterly and completely enthralled. Apples in Winter by Jennifer Fawcett tells the story of Miriam who spends her time upon the stage making an apple pie. While preparing and baking the pie in full view of the audience she slowly reveals why she is making the pie. A slice of her apple pie is what her son has requested for his last meal before he is executed for a crime he committed 20 years ago. He was a drug addict, that isn’t an excuse for his actions, this story isn’t about him, it’s about Miriam. He has been incarcerated for 20 years for a crime he committed, what the play shows us is that his mother was essentially serving this sentence with him. It’s one of a parent’s worst nightmares, what do you do when your child has done something that many find unforgivable. We know how to grieve for the families of the victims, but how do we treat the family of the one who has killed someone else’s children? Fawcett’s play builds slowly and steadily from Miriam speaking to us about making pies to slowly revealing the details of where she is and why. It has been twenty years of routines and isolation and as her son approaches the end of his time, she is faced with losing her routines, and the toll his crimes have taken upon her.

Back to Angela Timberman, her performance as Miriam is like a masterclass in acting. Emotionally and technically flawless. There is a moment towards the end when Timberman feels sick and needs to sit down, but there are no chairs and so she finds herself on the floor. Let me be clear, I have seen Timberman perform multiple times, I know her on sight, and I know her to be an accomplished actor. In that moment when she sinks to the floor, I had to actually restrain myself from going to her and putting my arms around her. I wasn’t seeing Angela Timberman anymore, I was seeing Miriam. She is going through all the stages of someone who has loved someone with addiction issues goes through. She was trying to be the caregiver, she was blaming herself, and ultimately she was angry about the lies and deceit and pain she had been put through. And in that moment I wanted to go to her and tell her it wasn’t her fault and hold her for a moment, so she had a minute when she didn’t feel like she had to hold up the world on her own. The kicker is that on top of giving such a convincing and emotional performance, she made a pie, without a recipe! I can’t make a dish I’ve made dozens of times without referring to the recipe a couple of times, let alone monologue a script and give a performance so good that you make an experienced theatergoer forget they are in a theater watching a performance.

The production is well directed by Brian Balcom whose staging allows us to slowly get absorbed into the action, which is small and contained drawing us in. Later moments of explosive emotion are all the more powerful because we were initially drawn into the quiet matter of fact manner of the pie making. The set and lighting design by Carl Schoenborn looks like an institutional kitchen and it is lit that way which really help to remove any sense of theatricality and achieve a sense of realism, that causes reviewers to momentarily forget they are part of an audience. As do the costume and props designed by Sarah Bauer, who choses Timberman’s costume such that we immediately feel we know her type, she is every middle aged mother or young grandmother. Which is a reminder that these horrible things can happen to anyone, anyones child can become an addict. It also helps us to put ourselves in her place and empathize with the impossibility of her position. I also want to mention the sound design by Montana Johnson, which is minimal, but plays a very important role when it comes to Miriam’s recounting of the night her son committed the crime for which he has been condemned. It’s handled extremely effectively signifying the way the sound of rain plays a particularly vivid role in Miriam’s memory of the night, almost the way a smell will sometimes bring back a certain memory.

Apples in Winter runs through April 7th at the Gremlin Theater in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://gremlintheatre.org/apples-in-winter/

The Name Jar at Stages Theatre Company in Hopkins a Collaboration With Theater Mu

The Name Jar a 45 minute play is an adaptation of the book by Yangsook Choi by Susan H. Pak and Directed by Jake Sung-Guk Sullivan running at Stages Theatre Company through April 14th. The production is done in Collaboration with Theater Mu which is one of my favorite Theatre companies. One of the things I love about Theater Mu is that aside from always putting on quality productions I almost always learn something new about various Asian cultures. Sometimes it is as intricate as learning about a war I knew nothing about, other times as simple as how to pronounce a word. I love what the two companies have done with this production geared towards people age five and up; however, the up doesn’t mean 14 or 17 it means 101+. The message here is simple enough for school age children to understand but universal enough for anyone to learn from. It’s short, energetic, and yes geared towards children, but did I mention it’s short? Two hours of a showed geared towards five years old, without having a five year old with me would be rough. But I attended this on my own at 45 minutes I found if engaging and full of heart and I felt I gained knowledge and understanding.

The plot follows Unhei, a young girl who has just moved to the United states from Korea, as she attends her first day at school. None of the other children can pronounce her name and she starts to wonder if she should pick out an American name to go by at school. This is a difficult decision, in her family and indeed her culture, names are very important. It’s important to note that her classmates are not intentionally mean or tease her about her name. But, the enthusiastically grasp onto the idea of her picking a new name and create the name jar of the title into which they place suggestions of what she can call herself. We see how not Unhei feels different from the others and understand her natural instinct to try and change to fit in with her classmates. We also gain an understanding through her interactions with her Umma (Mom), Mr. Kim the Korean Grocery store owner, and her Halmoni (Grandma) about the ways in which a name differs in Korean culture from those of the average midwestern family. Director Sullivan does a great job keeping the play moving and of engaging the audience through some mild interaction. Encouraging the audience say Korean words and names along with the characters involves us in the story but also in the learning, we don’t simply let things wash over us we actively engage. Technically the show has subtle but effective use of projections, the scenic design by Sarah Brandner is versatile and well suited and more elaborate than I expected for the studio space. There’s also nice work done by Lighting Designer Alice Endo and Sound Designer Gretchen Katt in helping to create the locales and make for effective transitions.

The Name Jar is running through April 14th at Stages Theatre Company in Hopkins. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.stagestheatre.org/name-jar/

A Unique Assignment at History Theatre Humanizes the Past Forging a Greater Understanding of a Dark Period in Our History

Pearce Bunting, Kevin Fanshaw, James A. Williams Photo by Rick Spaulding

Presently we are faced with a great and grave racial problem in our country. It points deep in many directions. I feel that it is essential that we solve this problem, if America is to hold the place among nations that it deserves.
James Meredith in a letter to Lt. Gallagher from A Unique Assignment by Harrison David Rivers

The excerpt from the script of A Unique Assignment by Harrison David Rivers may or may not be based on a real letter, I suspect it is. If so, it was a letter written in either 1962 or 1963, but it feels like it could have been written today. One of the important things about History is to remind of where we were and how far we have come. Sometimes I despair at the state of our country and I wonder how we came to a place where ignorance is so prevalent. Then, I see a play like A Unique Assignment, and I realize we have always been in that place, we just cycle through periods when hatred and small mindedness are emboldened. A period of silent stupidity began to dawn in 1962 when, as noted in the Playbill, President John F. Kennedy had to mobilize: “31,000 American servicemen were required to quell the violence – the largest ever invocation of the Insurrection Act of 1807.” In 2021, at the urging of President Donald Trump, another insurrection completed the journey of the previous four years to a new era of open intolerance and ignorance. The play illuminates an event in history that I was shamefully under informed about, it also contributes to this writers growing perception of the what life was like for a fellow human of a different skin color just 60 years ago. Something I will never be able to fully comprehend, but must continue to strive to increase my understanding. With this work as with so many others before it, History Theatre continues to facilitate that growth through their powerful telling of the stories of those who lived through the dates and places that shaped our world.

The History Theatre’s new play tells the true story of Lt. Henry T. Gallagher who was in charge of security for James Meredith. Meredith was trying to exercise his constitutional right to enroll in and attend the University of Mississippi, his attempt to integrate the Ole Miss resulted in a riot and threats of violence against Meredith and the US Marshals assigned to protect him. The story is told in flashback by Gallagher at the age of 73 played by Pearce Bunting who shares the stage with Kevin Fanshaw playing Gallagher aged 23. James A. Williams plays James Meredith as well as other ensemble characters, the cast is rounded out by Kevin Brown Jr. who plays a multitude of characters. Bunting and Fanshaw do a nice job of creating connection between the versions of Gallagher separated by 50 years. Rivers script allows for moments of humor to create a connection between the character and the audience, he doesn’t shy away from having Gallagher detail his missteps, and even finds a little Minnesotan humor. Bunting is open and able to laugh at his younger self, Fanshaw gives us those moments in a way that allows us to laugh but also relate, which is key to our identifying with the character. Williams as James Meredith in contrast is given little in the way of humor, instead he has a wisdom and gravitas that puts his character at the moral center of the story. Gallagher becomes our stand in, an example of how a cross between how we hope we would respond and how we suspect we would, Meredith is our intellect and our ideals. Williams is excellent as Meredith, he portrays him with a calmness that signifies someone who knows what is right and has accepted the costs associated with doing it. Williams ensemble roles give him the chance at some moments of humor as well, he gets to do a little of everything and he does it all brilliantly. Kevin Brown Jr. plays a lot of different roles and proves a versatile actor, both with serious characters and the more comical. My favorite was his portrayal of a member of the Navy who’s basically kidnapped by Gallagher to help them find their way to the University of Mississippi.

The play is directed by Richard D. Thompson the new Artistic Director of History Theatre. Thompson knows that when you have a memory play with a cast of four, two of whom will be playing multiple characters, that realism takes a backseat to telling a story in a clear and understandable way. He keeps the set design by Ursula K. Bowden simple with angled black flats on which images can be projected to convey visual cues to locations and events. A few rectangular boxes can be shifted around to stand in for counters, desks, bunks, and jeeps. Thompson understands that when you have actors changing characters from one moment to the next that you need to let go of the idea of trying to create realism with sets and costumes, you focus on the story, the characterizations and let simple shapes and images stand in for concrete places and objects. If the play works, which this one most certainly does, less is more, we are happy to accept the same actor in multiple roles when lens we are seeing them through is one of minimalism and suggestion rather than attempted realism and intricate details. There were some nice lighting moments from Lighting Designer Kurt Jung, one involving photographers flashbulbs was a really effective touch.

A Unique Assignment runs through April 7th at History Theatre in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.historytheatre.com/2023-2024/unique-assignment

FETAL, a Brilliant Play That Traffics in Empathy From Frank Theatre

Carolyn Pool, Kate Beahen, Julia Valen, and Elena Yazzie Photo by Tony Nelson

FETAL the play by Trista Baldwin that had its world premiere last fall was such a hit that Frank Theatre is remounting it a mere three months after it closed. I wasn’t able to catch the initial run, m’colleague over at Cherry and Spoon had it on her list of the best plays in 2023, with that and after going gaga over Frank Theatre’s production of Ironbound in January, I was very excited to learn they were remounting FETAL and there was no chance I’d let it slip by a second time. The show runs through March 10th, but already has some sold out performances coming up, don’t let your chance to see this powerful and important work pass you by. Baldwin’s play is set in a clinic in Texas that provides legal abortions to women two days a week. We meet three woman that represent different points on the spectrum of age, situation, and believe systems. While each woman’s story is unique, these characters are not meant to represent all woman, but they are intended to give us a look into the complexities of the issues surrounding a woman’s right to choose and to have power over her body and health. FETAL is what I call an issue play, it’s goal isn’t to simply entertain you, it has a message it wants to relay to you. It’s also the best kind of issue play, it doesn’t simply preach at you, it isn’t trying to win you over with arguments and facts to its point of view. It’s doing what great art does, creates empathy, and it’s doing it in the most effective way there is by reducing it’s beliefs not to an argument, but to a person. If Baldwin simply had her characters tell you that a woman should have the right to say what happens with her body, she would fail in her goal. What she does, and it’s why the play succeeds, she shares her characters stories. It is through the personal that we gain understanding of others not through facts and figures, Data can open our eyes, but stories open our hearts. The other character in the play works at the clinic, she’s not a Nurse or a Doctor but there to do patient intake and go over the state required information that’s intended to scare people out of having an abortion. That’s her job function, but she’s really there to receive their stories, and carry them once they leave so they don’t have too.

The characters have names in the program but they are never used in the play, instead the three woman are given numbers to protect their identities. This may be to mirror the actual procedures on clinics in Texas or it could be to remove one layer between the characters and the audience. Without names they are even easier to see as yourself or others in your life. What has been used at times to stifle individuality in other real and artistic endeavors, here is used to turn the individual into anyone, it’s an effective reversal that like everything in this play works to connect us to the characters. The women are played by Elana Yazzie, Julia Valen, and Carolyn Pool, the clinic employee is played by Kate Beahen. Sometimes after a show on the car ride home we play a game called who was your favorite, sometimes it’s more of the, who gave the best performance variation. Tonight two responses came to mind. Firstly, no one was better than anyone else, they were all perfect for the role they were playing. The favorite? Well, that is about who you identify with the most and that will vary from audience member to audience member. Secondly, not only couldn’t you say anyone was better than the others, but when everyone is this good, and the story is so much about supporting each other, the thought of judging them against each other felt very wrong. They all made each other better, there was a sense that while the characters were supporting each other, so were the performers. It felt honest, it was simply woman supporting women in every way, beautiful.

A script that creates empathy in a way that will make audiences, who are on board with the playwrights beliefs, think about what they have seen. Many people seem to think that the two sides of this argument are people who don’t want women to have abortions and people who want women to have abortions, but that isn’t it at all. The two sides are those who want to control what other people do and those who think everyone has the right to decide for themselves. So those who want to control others and those who want the right to exercise the free will that God gave us. With a script this good and a cast so so so perfect and brilliant, it would be easy to wrap up this review and feel like I’d done my hobby. But I would be forgetting to acknowledge the incredible work of several other key players in this production. Wendy Knox who is becoming one of my favorite local Directors is batting a thousand. The way she utilizes the wonderful lighting design of Tony Stoeri to highlight each character when it is their turn to share their story. The way she has the characters interacting, with themselves arguing their emotions with their reason through the surrogate of Beahen’s character. The set design by Rick Polenek which turns the Frank Theatre’s Studio (basically their rehearsal space) into a very realistic waiting room of a clinic. The sound design by Dan Dukich is perfectly balanced, it doesn’t ever drown out the performers but also never fully lets us forget, that outside the building, are protesters spewing the hateful rhetoric that Jesus wants them to shout at women who are already having a very difficult time. Last, but not least is Kathy Kohl whose costumes fit these characters perfectly and I’m certain were of great use to the performers in finding their characters. Clothes give the audience an idea of who the characters are but they also help the actors to find who they are as well.

FETAL runs through March 10th at the Frank Theatre Studio for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://franktheatre.org/events/fetal-trista-baldwin/

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I am also a member of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers (TCTB), where you can read roundups of shows by my colleagues and I when you follow us on facebook @TwinCitiesTheaterBloggers. We also produce the podcast Twin Cities Theater Chat!! which you can access through this link or wherever you enjoy podcasts https://twincitiestheaterchat.buzzsprout.com/ . We post biweekly longer form episodes that will focus on interviews and discussions around theater topics. There is also shorter episodes in which we Bloggers tell you what we think you should get out and see as well as what we have on our schedules that we are most looking forward too.

Toil & Trouble a Millennial Retelling of the Scottish Play at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo

Olivia Kemp, Jason Ballweber, and Alex Galick Photo by Alex Clark

I’m not an expert of shakespeare but I am a fan so I try to and engage with his work whenever I can. I’m not a purist either, I love a good retelling or modern take, everything from Branagh’s Love’s Labours Lost to Strange Brew has a place in my film collection. Toil & Trouble by acclaimed playwright Lauren Gunderson is a modern riff on Macbeth set during the 2008 recession featuring thee thirtysomething friends who, inspired by a fortune cookie, conspire to take over a small island country off the coast of Chile. You know, instead of getting real jobs. Adam and Matt sit around their apartment as Adam comes up with one hairbrained idea after another for inventions to make money, while Matt shoots them down. Their friend Beth is a junior Sportscaster for Action 6 News whom they both “like” like. The characters have morals on par with the characters on Seinfeld, Adam hatches the plan, Matt follows along thanks to a fortune cookie message that says “Matt will be King hereafter”, and Beth is ruthless ambition incarnate. What starts as a strong comedic play about slacker roommates and the friend they both want to get with takes some very strange turns as it attempts to tell it’s story while loosely following some aspects of Shakespeare’s Scottish play. What is recognizable at the start as our world peopled by characters we can recognize, if not relate too, by the end has become a complete fantasy with the characters frequently interspersing their dialogue with snippets from Shakespeare. It’s an odd approach that doesn’t entirely add up to much and the fault dear readers is not with the production but in the script. I loved everything about the production, the performances, the design, but the sum of its parts left me wishing these elements were in service of a better script.

Jason Ballweber who usually is to be found behind the scenes plays Matt in a performance that goes a long way to making this near miss still worth checking out. His Matt and Alex Galick’s Adam end up complete opposites by the end of the play from where they started. As it opens, Ballweber plays Matt as the realistic, intelligent, and more mature seeming of the two, has an air of authority over the flighty Adam who thinks anything that Rhymes is an innovation. By the end he’s a pug snorting follower who passes out at the sight of hot sauce whereas Adam has become confident and holds the upper hand. Both actors handle the transition well and make the reversal seem plausible. Olivia Kemp plays Beth as someone who knows what they want and how to get it, masterfully playing off the men’s desire for her to manipulate them into doing exactly what she wants. Well directed by Brandon Raghu who along with Lighting Designer Alex Clark stages a dramatic looking play to be sure. I also enjoyed the set design by Sarah Brandner which has a depth that is well utilized particularly in a scene when Adam comes home late at night and leaves the refrigerator door open after heading to bed in the pitch black apartment.

Ultimately, I enjoyed much of the production but found the script absurd and out there but in an unfulfilling or engaging way. Gunderson’s idea of filling the final scene with Shakespearean dialogue is less effective that the modern rewordings or nods used earlier in the play. She needed to go one way or the other. The plot is insane but not in a ‘this is wild’ way, but more I can’t find any sort of grounding for this story so that it lands with some sort of impact. It’s a rare for a script by Gunderson not to work completely but this just comes up short. That said, there’s enough good stuff on offer with the play to make it a fun excursion to the theatre. Having a decent knowledge of Macbeth will increase your appreciation of the piece, some humor really does work only if you know the play. Also, it feels like my fellow bloggers and I have been saying this a lot lately but if your play can be done in 100 minutes or less, you don’t need an intermission. Toil & Trouble runs through March 3rd at Yellow Tree Theatre in Osseo, for more information and to purchase tickets go to https://yellowtreetheatre.com/toilandtrouble