GHOSTLIGHT (2024)

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