Mae West and the Trial of Sex Provides a History Lesson for the Future at the Crane Theater

Mae West and the Trial of Sex chronicles the legal battle between Mae West and the powers of censorship in the early part of the 20th century. Nearly 100 years ago the theater community of New York City and by extension the country was dealt a legal blow that amounted to censorship. Today the theater community is under attack again. Like that trial so many years ago, what is said to be the cause for these actions and what the true result of the them being taken are completely different. It all amounts to the same thing, silencing the voices of the minority. The Sex trial

prosecuted West, her producers and cast for performing a work that could contribute to the correuption of minors and others it was really about preventing another show being produced by West called The Drag. The Drag featured a cast of twenty female impersonators which William Randolph Hearst, the basis for Citizen Kane, wanted to crush due to it’s portrayal of homosexuality and cross dressing. I wish I could say it never ceases to amaze me how little we have progressed, or perhaps have regressed compared to 100 years ago. The result led to what amounted to a legal ban on the portrayal of queer characters in theater until the late 1960’s.

John Heimbuch’s new play drawn from the historical records shows the absurdity and injustice that abounds when powerful rich white people decide they want something. Laws no longer matter, rules are rewritten, the “haves” get what they want and the “have-nots” lose the last thing they have, their voice. The story is told by an exceptional group of seven performers, most of whom must play more than a half a dozen roles each. They are led by Emily A. Grodzik who plays Mae West very effectively, we get a glimpse of the real West at the close of the show so those who are not familiar with the stars work can see how well Grodzik captures her. I can’t honestly say that any member of the ensemble is better than any of the others, they all find a unique voice for each of their characters, some are brief one or two lines bits that create laughs, others are more rounded out, but all are exactly what they need to be in any given moment. So rather than single any out let me just list the entire brilliant ensemble. Jack Bechard, Neal Beckman, Kelsey Laurel Cramer, Kayla Dvorak Feld, Samuel Osborne-Huerta, and Joe Swanson.

The show is directed by The Stages of MN favorite Allison Vincent. The story flashes between scenes and settings so quickly, it would create deadly long scene changes were Vincent to have gone the realistic route. Instead, the play is staged with a wink to the audience acknowledging that this is a play and so characters wheel set pieces in to center stage from the side where they sit until needed, costume changes are made in split seconds in view of the audience. This contributes to the humor at times but most importantly keeps the show clipping along. The production team including Sarah Bahr as Set Designer, Mandi Johnson as Costume Designer, Tony Stoeri as Lighting Designer, Thomas Speltz as Composer and Sound Designer, and Bobbie Smith as Props Designer all contribute to creating this theatrical world.

Mae West and the Trial of Sex is another show that retells the past through the lens of the present. Something I expect the current Administration to outlaw shortly. It’s a cautionary tale, but one told with a lot of humor. Mae West and the Trial of Sex from Walking Shadow Theatre Company runs through 6/22/25 at the Crane Theater in Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://walkingshadow.org/mae-west-and-the-trial-of-sex/

Now more than ever in the wake of the most recent election and the hailstorm of stupidity and hate it has unleashed, theater companies need you and we need them. Buy tickets to shows, go out and support work that reflects diversity and inclusiveness. Donate to your favorite theater companies, don’t wait until they are on the brink of shutting down. We all need to stand up and fight for our theaters whose funding is under attack for promoting inclusion, equality and diversity. In short, theaters are being threatened for sharing stories that reflect our countries cultural and racial diversity.

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Significant Other Speaks Truth through humor at Lyric Arts in Anoka

Emily Hensley, Eva Gemlo, Lyreshia Ghostlon-Green, and Noah Hynick Photo by Molly Weibel

Significant Other by Joshua Harmon is a play I saw performed in my first year as a Theater Blogger. That is to say I remember seeing it, remember thinking it was funny, but that’s about it. As I watched it play out at Lyric Arts the structure of the show came back to me but not the details. So the jokes felt fresh and no ones performance was competing against a previous interpretation. Lyric Arts leading man and 2024 Twin Cities Theater Blogger Award Winner for Favorite Emerging Artist, Noah Hynick, absolutely owns the role of Jordan. A late 20’s gay man living in New York City who is feeling more and more alone as his circle of friends begin to get married and have families. This is not an unusual situation in any circle of friends, and while the play really only explores it from Jordan’s perspective, there is frequently a reverse feeling for those who have paired off, they can also miss hanging out with friends who are unattached. When you have kids it can be even more of an adjustment, the difference being that instead of living in that state 24/7, it really only draws your attention occasionally, when you hear about some exciting night out. My point is that Harmon’s script will ring true whether your the last one standing single or were the first to pair off, we can all relate to some degree. It would be interesting to see Harmon write a follow up in say 20 years as the characters become empty nesters, which is accompanied by some similar feelings I can assure you.

Hynick gives a hilariously neurotic performance as Jordan, but he grounds it in an emotional rawness that connects with the audience. We laugh at him, with him, and out of our own recognition of that awkward uncertainty that most humans struggle with at some points. Whether he’s sweetly bending the ear of his Grandmother Helene or his best friend Laura, every moment feels grounded in character. Helene is played wonderfully by Miriam Monasch. The role is so well written to begin with, where we witness Jordan having a variation on the same conversation each week with his Grandma. The humor of which is matched with a feelings of genuine love that comes from those moments with our childhood heroes, which is what Grandparents are in many ways. The loom large in our childhood memories, making us the center of their worlds for these brief moments. Their weekly walk down memory lane of the picture of Jordan that is still her favorite and the stories that go along with it. There is so much truth in those scenes, the humor of repeating the same thing over and over but at the center, the sense that it’s really about the love between them. The entire cast is great but I do want to quickly acknowledge the other stand out in the cast which is Eva Gemlo as Laura. Jordan and Laura have an arguement towards the end of the show and Gemlo brings it all to that scene. Yes this is Jordan’s story, but she makes him and the audience acknowledge that everything isn’t about him. It’s one of the scenes that really raises this script to the next level, we understand what Jordan is feeling, but just because it’s his story doesn’t mean the world in which it takes place revolves around him. Gemlo’s Laura, doesn’t choose to just humor the protagonist, she stands up for her right to have her wedding be about her. I think it will be telling how each audience member responds to that scene, I think the narcissists in the audience will side with Jordan. But I’d also be curious to see if there are divides along generational lines as well. Everything Jordan is feeling is valid, but there is a time and place for sharing those feelings, and sometimes we just need to keep them to ourselves in the moment, recognize that a painful day for us, is one of the most important and special days of another persons life, and allow them to enjoy that time.

This production is directed by Max Wojtanowicz with care. He allows his actors to find their characters and trusts that the humor will work all the better for it. Michaela Lochen’s set design is very interesting, we have window frames along the back wall giving us a feel of NYC neighborhood streets. When the characters look at a painting or a picture on the wall they look out at the audience but along the back wall of the stage we get a visualization of what they are looking at. Lucas Granholm has some very effective lighting cues. I especially liked when Jordan keeps opening his computer to see the photo of a man he has a crush on, as he lifts the screen of his laptop open Granholm has a light come up on another area of the stage and we see the character there posed like the photo he’s looking at.

Significant Other is an insightful and very funny play that will delight mature audiences. This is not a play for anyone under say 16 years of age, and frankly I don’t think many under the age of 20 will have much of a chance of understanding it’s subtler truths. It’s also a really brave choice for Lyric Arts to produce and I hope audiences will reward the risk by embracing it and telling their friends to go see it. Significant Other runs through June 22nd at Lyric Arts in Anoka. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.lyricarts.org/significant-other

No Sisters Completes a Unique and Rewarding Theatrical Experience

**Marci Lucht, Derek “Duck” Washington** Photo by Alex Wohlhueter

No Sisters is a companion play to Chekhov’s Three Sisters written by Aaron Posner. It is designed to be performed simultaneously in separate spaces in the same facility as Seven of the Actors in Three Sisters also play their characters in No Sisters. It’s amazing how precisely they are timed so that they reach the end of each act at the same time, they reach intermission at the same time and they finish at exactly the same time. The setting for No Sisters is listed as an existential greenroom and I don’t think I could say it any better. The seven characters that carry between the two plays are Andrei, the brother of the three sisters; his wife Natasha; Baron, who is in love with the youngest sister Irina; Vasily Solyony, Baron’s best friend who is very strange and also in love with Irina; Alexey Fedotik, a young soldier who also loves Irina; Fydor Kulygin, who is married to the middle sister Masha; and Anfisa, the elderly Nanny who has worked for Andrei’s family for 30 years. The Actors play the roles straight in Three Sisters but in No Sisters, while they do stay in character, they are also aware that they are in a play. It’s all fairly meta, slightly participatory, very funny, but also provides a deeper insight into some major characters and other lesser ones. Posner’s play also makes room for a more positive outlook on life. The character Alexey Fedotik rejects the opinions of his elders and espouses his belief that people are capable of change. Played by Jonathan Edwards who so joyfully delivers a speech with shining optimism that he got a rare mid-scene applause from the audience.

As with Three sisters, probably because it’s the same actors, there isn’t a weak performance in the entire cast. As noted in my Three Sisters review Duck Washington and Sean Dillon are great as Andrei and Baron. Here they get to add greater depth to their characters and fill in motivations and backstory. Jeremy Motz gets to really go full scary about to go postal with the character of Vasily Solyony, he not only addresses the audience directly but actually criticizes and shows distain for us. As they used to say in the early days of 20th Century Russia, “that’s so Vasily of him”. Motz is funny, but also intense and truly a little scary, it’s a great performance driven by an underlying current of volatility. Meri Golden plays the elderly Nanny Anfisa, and she gets to do so much more than we see in Three Sisters. We get greater insight into her relationship with Andrei and we even get to see her face her younger self via a video with May Heinecke playing a young Anfisa. There is a wonderful lesson contained in that video scene, one that contains as an important a message as Edwards’ speech as Alexey. The two performers that already had nice juicy roles in Three Sisters get the opportunity to clarify and deepen their characters. They are Marci Lucht as Natasha and Matt Wall as Fyodor Kulygin. As much as I enjoyed Lucht’s performance in Three Sisters, this one tops it. At times she is a complete bitch and then at others she becomes so incredibly emotionally open and vulnerable, it’s a revelation. Wall’s character in Three Sisters is pitiable, but in No Sisters the character is revealed to have more intelligence, and depth. While in the other play he is amusingly boring, in this play he is genuinely fascinating.

If you can only see one, see Three Sisters. And if you do want to see both, which I highly recommend, I encourage you to see Three Sisters first for the most rewarding experience. But book early, because of the space available in the theater lobby, there are not as many tickets to No Sisters. In fact some performances have already sold out. I went into No Sisters expecting it to be good, how could it not with this cast, but was also prepared for a decent sized dip in quality between the plays. And there is no denying that Three Sisters is the better individual play. For one thing it can stand on it’s own better than No Sisters could. But while Posner’s play is not the Masterpiece that Chekhov’s is, it is very good, very very good. Smartly it isn’t trying to do what Chekhov’s play is doing, it’s something entirely new that comments on the original play, in fact could not exist without it, but does so in a fresh and non traditional way. Julie K. Phillips’ direction is as perfect for this play as Carin Bratlie Wethern’s was for Three Sisters.

This is the sort of theatrical situation that doesn’t happen very often and so it’s important to jump on it while you can. Three Sisters and No Sisters runs through May 24th at the Crane Theater in North Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.theatreprorata.org/2025-season

Three Sisters, Tremendously Entertaining First Night of a Very Unique Two Night Theatrical Event

Nissa Nordland and Sam Landman Photo by Alex Wohlhueter

Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov the famed Russian playwright, not to be confused with the character Pavel Chekov, most recently played by Anton Yelchin in the Star Trek franchise, is one of those plays I’ve been waiting eagerly to see. In today’s world of diminishing audiences the classics can feel like a tough sell. It’s dark days and people want to be entertained, they hear Chekhov and think Russian play almost a 125 years old, it’s got to be good for you and boring as hell. Well it turns out it’s entertaining as hell, laugh out loud funny, and honestly probably not all that good for you. At least not if you’re experiencing any sort of existential dread. My approach to life is more along the lines of the character in the play Fydor Kulygin, I just try and be happy, accept the bad things but focus on the good. So I nod knowingly at the philosophical masturbation engaged in by most of the characters and laugh wholeheartedly at the moments when their basic humanity shines through, whether it be their annoyance with each other as everyone is with the character of Natasha or the romantic yearnings of Masha and Alexander. One can’t help but wonder at realities tendency to imitate art, if there is in fact a reality, which Dr. Chebutykin has come to believe there isn’t

I know I’m throwing around a lot of names you don’t know, but this is a Russian play told in four acts. To try and get into a plot synopsis of any depth would equate to the review equivalent of War and Peace. Magnificent, but something neither of us have the time or patience for I’m sure. So I’d rather use whatever goodwill you bring to this review and share the experience with you rather than the plot. First off let me assure you that you can see Three Sisters on it’s own and leave the theater completely satisfied, in fact more than satisfied as my plus one for the evening, my son Alexander said, “That might be the best thing I’ve seen”. Thing of course being live theater performance. While I can’t make that claim, it is, as Dr. Chebutykin might say, really fucking good. What is unique about this production from Theatre Pro Rata is that while one audience is in the main stage at the Crane Theater enjoying Three Sisters another audience is in the lobby of the theater seeing a play by Aaron Posner titled No Sisters. The plays are designed so that actors from one play can exit a scene in one space in time to make their entrance in the other. The intermissions are even timed so that as the lights dimmed on Act II and we began to clap we could hear the the audience in the lobby doing the same. I’ll be seeing No Sisters on Saturday evening and while I was already looking forward to it, now, having seen Three Sisters, Saturday night feels like Christmas morning, it can’t get her soon enough. This is the sort of theatrical situation that doesn’t happen very often and so it’s important to jump on it while you can. I believe some performances are already close to or have sold out and since it requires two nights to get the full effect, you’ll want to make plans now.

This is the part of the review where I single out a couple of my favorite performances and also if necessary comment on some less effective ones. The problem with this, formula if you will, is it doesn’t make allowances for cases like this, where everyone in the play is so good you don’t know who to single out. That’s fine if it’s a cast of four or five but this show has fourteen actors. Even if I eliminate the the four that have fairly smallish roles that still leaves ten, far too many to cover in depth. And so let me say this, Nissa Nordland, Sam Landman, and Duck Washignton are already on my must see list, and they earn their spot on that list again without a doubt. Trust me they’re brilliant, moving on, Sean Dillon, whom I always erroneously just associate with Improv, is sincere and creates an extremely funny and likable character. Kayla Hambek and Brettina Davis who play the other two sisters along with Nordland are excellent. Davis as the youngest sister conveys the most optimistic outlook at the opening, making her coming to an understanding of reality all the more heartbreaking. Hambek’s finest moment is her silent indignation at her sister-in-law’s lack of compassion. David Coral, gives a very good performance as the Dr. especially well done was his drunk scene. Jeremy Motz, gives a wonderfully weird performance as Vasily Solyony who is a very odd soldier. Marci Lucht plays a character no one really seems to like, but she does it in such a hysterically funny way, that while we dislike her character we love every moment she’s on stage. Matt Wall plays Fyodor Kulygin, the ever optimist, he conveys the characters tedium in a way that allows us to laugh at him with the other characters without actually being tedious to us, and in fact gaining our sympathy. The cast is rounded out nicely by Jonathan Edwards, Phi Hamens Nelson, Meri Golden, and Margaux Daniel, their roles are fairly small here but I assume I’ll have more to say about them after Saturday’s performance of No Sisters.

So what puts this play in the running for “That might be the best thing I’ve seen” status? Well certainly it begins with Chekhov’s play. Wikipedia lists the play as a drama, but the Directors note in the program says that Chekhov insisted Three Sisters was a comedy. It’s so funny it’s hard to see how anyone could think otherwise. But that’s what makes Carin Bratlie Wethern’s direction so sublime. This could be directed and performed in a very serious manner, Wethern’s decision to honor Chekhov’s intentions makes for a richer theatrical experience. There are still lost dreams and the unhappiness of day to day life that many of the characters espouse, but they do it in a way that also reflects our own sense of sarcasm and defiance. Wethern understands that getting a laugh doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice ideas or emotional depth. It’s through humor that most of us learn to deal with the unpleasantness of life. She has also wisely put together a cast who know comedy and that the best comedy comes from character and the ways in which people respond to each other. I know this is already getting long and you are scanning ahead to see if you want to stop reading yet or not, but I have to mention a couple of the technical crew just briefly. MJ Leffler’s set design is really well imagined, I loved the windows that exist in space allowing us to see out into the garden through nonexistent walls. Also the Lighting and Sound Designers, Emmet Kowler and Jacob M. Davis if only so I can acknowledge the very effective work that occurs during intermission, look to the ceiling when you go and you’ll see what I mean.

Three Sisters and No Sisters runs through May 24th at the Crane Theater in North Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.theatreprorata.org/2025-season

The Nacirema Society is a Comedy Powered by a Powerhouse Cast at the Guthrie Theater

Dedra D. Woods, Joy Dolo, Nubia Monks, Greta Oglesby, & Regina Marie Williams Photo by Dan Norman

The Nacirema Society is a play about differences, differences between generations and class, between the educated and undereducated, and between those who serve and those who are served. But above all of those it is a comedy that is meant to entertain us, which it does in no uncertain terms. Featuring a wonderfully detailed set design by Takeshi Kata and gorgeous costumes designed by Trevor Bowen, which you can get some sense of in the photo above. But as wonderful as the show is visually and technically, it’s the performances of this marvelous cast that I relished the most. The cast is stacked with powerhouses that get to play light comedy, showing us how great actors bring strong characterizations to every role. This is a play that would work wonderfully with very broad characterizations, but it becomes so much better when you have actors of this calibre who bring fully dimensional characters to bear upon the material.

The Nacirema Society is a social tradition of the affluent and wealthy black families in Montgomery Alabama. It’s 1964 and they are celebrating their 100th anniversary, and the matriarch’s of the Dunbar and Green families are organizing the event which will feature their Grandchildren Gracie and Bobby, whom they hope will marry. Gracie and Bobby don’t love each other but think of each other almost as siblings. Bobby is in love with someone else, but his Grandmother Catherine threatens to cut him off, if he doesn’t do as she wishes. Gracie’s grandmother Grace, expects her to go to the college that women in their family have always gone to, but she wants to go to New York to become a writer. I think from that description you probably think you know what kind of play this is and where things will go. Well, you’re probably wrong. Did I mention the Blackmail scheme, the girl who thinks she’s been thrown over for her rich rival, the long hushed up family secret, and the reporter from the New York Times who is staying in the Dunbar’s house to do a story on the Nacirema Society. The matriarchs try to keep up appearances and keep the skeletons in the closet, while the young people try and follow their hearts. It begins very straightforwardly and then the situation becomes more and more loaded, each scene adds another complication, another ball to try and keep in the air.

Greta Oglesby plays Grace Dunbar as refined and completely unflappable, she never loses her composure, especially when she pretends she has. It’s a skillful and beautifully controlled performance, she appears to be completely devoted to tradition and propriety, but she is also a realist and when she’s most despised by a character who has every right to despise her, she shows that she values more than just her good family name, she wants things a certain way but accepts that the world is changing and she will bend with it. Regina Marie Williams plays Catherine Green, it was such a change from the usually powerful and commanding characters she usually plays. It’s so fun to see her play the one one who gets flustered and faints. Aimee K. Bryant plays Alpha Campbell Jackson, the daughter of the Dunbar’s former maid and mother of Lillie, who is the girl Bobby loves. Bryant is terrific in the role and gets a particularly memorable moment when she gets to tell Grace what she thinks of her and her whole family. The entire cast is great but those three are the the engine behind the whole show and they couldn’t be stronger. What’s so wonderful about this show are is that all the roles are filled with great performers, many favorites including Joy Dolo, Nubia Monks, and Darrick Mosley just to name a few.

The Nacirema Society runs through May 25th at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.guthrietheater.org/shows-and-tickets/2024-2025-season/the-nacirema-society/

Scarecrow on Fire is a Charmingly Askew Take on the Further Adventures of the Characters of Oz

Dan Chouinard, Kevin Kling, Simone Perrin, and Stephen Yoakam Photo by Lauren B Photography

I didn’t expect when I headed to the Center for Performing Arts in South Minneapolis for Illusion Theater’s production of Scarecrow on Fire to find quite such a confluence of my personal interests. The play written by Kevin Kling is performed as an old time radio show, faithful readers will know of my love for this genre by my frequent praise of shows from The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society. The show features musical performances from the House of Mercy Band, which are often accompanied projected on the back of the stage clips from silent film versions of The Wizard of Oz, silent film is another passion of mine. The play itself begins in the land of Oz and is narrated by the Scarecrow played by the playwright Kevin Kling. After receiving a troubling response from a Crow, the Scarecrow sneaks a look into the Wicked Witches crystal ball and sees a vision of Dorothy seeming distressed and saying the phrase Scarecrow on Fire! The Scarecrow gathers the Tin Man and the Lion and they agree to use the ruby slippers, which are a doorway to Kansas to journey from Oz and find and help Dorothy. In Kansas, the trio all arrive separately and have their own odd adventures in the mysterious land of Kansas.

There isn’t anything that doesn’t work in this production, the live music performances from House of Mercy Band are terrific beginning with a terrific version of “If I Only Had a Brain“. But to forewarn you, almost all of the rest of the music and songs do not come from the famous 1939 film. That isn’t a bad thing, I just don’t want to leave you with the wrong impression. The play is however filled with little Easter eggs and winks to our collective cultural consciousness of the film. It’s part absurdist fish out of water tale and part exploration of the mind itself. Much like Dorothy’s experience in the film, where everything could be explained by her mind taking parts of her reality and molding them into a fever dream fantasy. The script is smart, funny, and knows its audience has this shared knowledge of The Wizard of Oz, which we do, it’s like it’s part of our genetic makeup. Though I wonder now, if I’m among the last generations that will contain that film within our DNA.

Along with Kling as the Scarecrow the cast contains Dan Chouinard as The Tin Man, Stephen Yoakam as the Lion, and as Dorothy Gale, Simone Perrin, who wonderfully sings a couple of songs during the show with a real 1930’s feel to her style. Both Chouinard and Yoakam along with their primary roles fill in as other side characters as needed. All four members of the cast are excellent vocal performers perfectly suited to the requirements to play multiple characters within a scene. Yoakam particularly has fun conversing with himself, swapping hats as he changes his voice as a visual gag for us, the studio audience. Along with the House of Mercy Band, Chouinard tinkles the piano keys occasionally and other background music is performed by Cellist Michelle Kinney. There is so much happening in the intimate black box theater space that you sort of forget it is being performed as a radio play. I don’t think anything would be gained and a lot might be lost if this were performed as a fully mounted stage play. This is the ideal format for this story it’s such an original and delightful piece that is built upon all of these artifacts from years gone by.

Scarecrow on Fire runs through May 4th at Center for Performing Arts in South Minneapolis as part of Illusion Theater’s 50th Anniversary season. For more information, to purchase tickets or to make a donation to Illusion Theater go to https://www.illusiontheater.org/scarecrow-on-fire

Spellbound Launches World Premiere From Threshold Theater at the Phoenix Theater

Zakary Thomas Morton and Leor Benjamin Photo by Nick Mrozek

Threshold Theater, a company dedicated to telling stories by and about the LGBTQ+ community launched the world premiere of Matthew A. Everett’s new play Spellbound at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown tonight. It’s an incisive work that begins with a high concept comedic idea and then uses it to explore the issue of consent in a whole new way. Grounded by strong performances and skillfully directed by Denzel Belin, this is a new work that has a lot to say and does it in a fresh and exciting way. It addresses outmoded perspectives by coming at them via a non traditional route. Allowing us to process something we know in a new way, reinforcing our collective values and allowing us to clear our minds of any lingering traces about consent and gender. We don’t need reminding of what is right and what is wrong, but we need to fully understand that those distinctions apply in every circumstance. This play imagines something that we assume can’t really happen, but treats it seriously and explores the ramifications that this fantasy would have on real people and relationships. It also acknowledges the darkness and selfishness that exists in everyone without excusing it.

The plot sets up what could have been a funny Three’s Company episode, if there was magic in that show. Micah and Auggie are best friends. Micah is gay, Auggie is straight, married to Sarah, who is pregnant with their first child. Jeffrey is Micah’s second best friend, he is gay and grieving the loss of his Grandmother, who was a witch. Jeffrey has made a potion from his Grandmothers grimoire (spell book) which he gives to Micah to give to Auggie, that he says will make is tongue turn colors. Micah thinks it will be funny to tease Auggie about his strange colored tongue and is assured it will only last for 24 hours. It’s really a love potion that has made Auggie fall in love with Micah, laughs do occur, but I assure you hilarity does not ensue. It becomes a race against time for Jeffrey and Sarah with the help of a metaphysical supply store owner to create an antidote before anyone does something they will forever regret.

Zakary Morton plays Micah and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say his performance affected every molecule in my body. Morton has you liking Micah from the first scene, he plays the opening with the beats of a sitcom, but if you really watch and listen to what he is saying, he genuinely is concerned over what has happened, and feels guilty for his part in it. He thought he was playing a harmless prank on his best friend, now if he stops holding Auggie’s hand for a moment, Auggie will start to cry. As the play progresses Morton, above everyone else in the cast, breathes a sense of reality into every line of dialogues. We feel his guilt, we feel his affection, we feel his fear and his pain and we believe every moment. At the end, he’s left devastated but we are given hope that everyone will heal and who knows what will happen, but the romantic in me wants to believe that Micah and Duncan, played very sweetly and with perceptive understanding by Xae Copeland, will get together. Auggie is played by Leor Benjamin who finds just the right moments to make eyes at Micah, or put a head on his shoulder for comic emphasis, but his truest moments are when he’s teaching Micah how to play a song his written for him on his guitar. And when Morton sings that song for Duncan, your heart heals a little bit. Keira Kowal Jett is good as Sarah, but she does play her a little too collected and controlled, she’s good at being the voice of reason, but I’d like her to have gone a little bigger when confronting Jeffrey, I’d like to see her lose it occasionally, then pull herself back together to accomplish what needs to be done. David Schlosser as Jeffrey is a piece of work, he perfectly captures that guy who doesn’t have many friends because he’s basically missing that part of a human being that gets it.

There are nice touches sprinkled throughout the production, in the opening scenes we have Auggie unable to not hold hands with Micah, we transition to flashback scenes of Auggie and Sarah with the transition occurring by Micah handing Auggie’s hand off to Sarah and then back again when we come back to the present. It’s a very cinematic transition and a nice detail. The set and prop designs by Jenna Mady are effective, giving us the bed that Micah and Auggie will have to share while they wait for the Supply shop to open in the morning. and the Supply shop portion of the stage is nicely detailed. The lighting design by Jack Hinz solidly assists with scene changes by shifting the focus to different areas of the stage, at times blacking out the rest while at others allowing us to see how the characters who are not the focus, here as well Morton shines in his performance.

Spellbound runs through May 3rd at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.thresholdtheatermpls.com/#/