A small town Community Theater in Illinois puts on Romeo & Juliet with their own middle-aged members as those doomed crazy kids and finds the experience transforming/life-affirming, especially so for one grieving family coming apart after the loss of a teenage son. The sister self-destructively ‘acting out,’ Dad giving in to a mid-life crisis, Mom holding things together by tuning out. Bet you’re looking for the Emergency Exit right about now. Yes? Hard to blame you, but wait; the darn thing grows on you. Or does if you can get past some mighty large scale acting (big enough to reach the back of the house) and a lot of convenient parallels between Shakespeare’s plot and off-stage life. Keith Kupferer, the bearish construction worker with a mid-life crisis, is literally pulled off the street to join the amateur theatricals, some with professional backgrounds which explains the deep-dish acting workshop lessons we’re put thru. Not technique, BTW, mostly trust issues fit for 2024. With his job in abeyance after recent meltdowns, Kupferer finds the stage routine & rituals far more helpful than the psychologist sessions he shares with his daughter (seriously overplayed by real-life daughter Katherine), on the verge of getting kicked out of school. By the time the show opens, Mom’s finagled a real auditorium for them at her high school, various misunderstandings and cast changes have led Dad into debuting as Romeo against the troop’s most seasoned player (a delightful fifty-something Dolly De Leon as Juliet). The whole improbable thing rather touching by the end. And you’ll wonder if the amateurish vibe from co-directors Kelly O'Sullivan & Alex Thompson has helped rather than hurt things.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Grace Kelly’s playwright uncle George Kelly wrote the mother of all amateur theater plays in THE TORCH BEARERS, filmed as DOUBTING THOMAS/’35 by Will Rogers. A more recent look at these groups, Alan Ayckbourn’s marvelous/wicked A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL/'89, didn’t survive Michael Winner’s direction even with Jeremy Irons & Anthony Hopkins. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/doubting-thomas-1935.html
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