LCT Reviews of The Y.E.S. Festival

This review has been reposted courtesy of the League of Cincinnati Theatres. For more LCT reviews click here to visit their reviews page.

NKU‘s biannual YES Festival opened with Colin Speer Crowley’s Encore, Encore, which details the early life and career of acerbic writer Dorothy Parker. The play centers on the duality of Parker’s early public life where she was a well- known writer, critic and member of the Algonquin Round Table (also dubbed “the Vicious Circle”) and her troubled personal life. She was married to WWI veteran, Edwin Parker who was suffering from what we today would call post-traumatic stress disorder. The staging is minimalist with a mostly bare stage and few props. Seven actors played five principal parts with two playing multiple characters. The overall production was mixed and had the feeling of a work in process. The story bounces around with a number of people, mostly from the Algonquin Club, flowing in and out which presents some difficulty following the story and keeping track of the characters. The play assumes that the audience is familiar with Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Club. Victoria Hawley does a fine job in the role of Dorothy Parker, as did Hunter Henrickson , who found layers and nuances to the role of Eddie Parker. I enjoyed members of the Ensemble as well. Chandler Taylor as Frank Crowinshield and Melissa Cathcart as Other Women had strong characterizations throughout. Encore, Encore was the most consistently written play of the Y.E.S. Festival, but is uneven and needs some pruning.

Victoria Hawley plays Dorothy Parker in ENCORE, ENCORE. Photo by Mikki Schaffner Photography.

What if 17th century playwright William Wycherley had been a Science Fiction writer? NKU’s YES Festival’s production of David L. William’s The Divine Visitor ponders this idea and plays like a cross between The Country Wife and Doctor Who. Act One of The Divine Visitor is written in the style of a mid-17th century Restoration Comedy, complete with a rake who has an outlandish plan in which to bed as many ladies as possible. The second act takes a hard turn into Sci-Fi. While the play has highly entertaining moments, the bi-polar nature of the play does not make for a satisfying whole. There are some excellent comic turns performed by Wes Carman as the lothario, Noah Berry as the co-conspirator, Jennifer Rhodenhiser as the jilted lover, Hallie Hargus as another jilted lover and McKynleigh Abraham. The set in the smaller Strauss Theater depicted a 17th Century inn with a rustic but seemingly authentic feel. The scenic designer was Bryce Liebers. Ronny Chamberlain’s costumes were exquisite for the women and appropriately drab for the middle class men. Overall, I recommend the play but I think the second act needs some work, although I do like the novel gimmick which Mr. Williams uses.

Hallie Hargus, Jennifer Rhodenhiser, and Wes Carman bring to life THE DIVINE VISITOR. Photo by Mikki Schaffner Photography.

The last production of the YES Festival was the murder mystery comedy, It’s a Grand Night For Murder. Nothing is harder to sit through than a murder mystery comedy that is neither mysterious nor funny. The play is predictable, cliché ridden, boorishly unfunny and sophomoric. I will credit most of the actors for giving it their best try. In the story, Phil (played by Rhys Boatwright) hires a man to kill his wife Sally (played by Emily Fry). The “contract killer” Ginger (played by Robert Macke), however, is actually a recently fired franchise restaurant manager who has never killed anyone and is a slightly wacky buffoon with a photographic memory. Enter Ramon who tries to seduce Phil but has a hidden agenda. As in any good mystery, most of the characters are not really what they seem to be. By play’s end, there are numerous dead bodies and numerous plot twists but amateur Agatha Christies should have little difficulty sorting out the labyrinth. The acting was a little uneven with some actors over-acting and bombastic while others were a little passive in their roles. The comic characters of a cockney plumber (with an incomprehensible accent) and a female cable installer do not work at all. Both characters received laughs from the audience but I felt the roles were to over the top. Kudos for Emily Fry, Rhys Boatwright, A. James Jones (as Ramon) and particularly Robert Macke, who had the most difficult role to play. The scenic design by Benjamin Adams was good with the first act in a diner and the second act set in a luxurious cottage.

For production information on THE DIVINE VISITOR, click here.
For production information on ENCORE, ENCORE, click here.
For production information on IT’S A GRAND NIGHT FOR MURDER, click here.