Theater In Review

By Times staff, correspondents

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 2, 2000

Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Jobsite Theater at Off Center Theater, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. If you understand that a raucously funny comedy can have the title Accidental Death of an Anarchist, there is definitely hope for you. As presented by the Jobsite Theater, Anarchist is like being locked in a phone booth with all four of the Marx Brothers, circa Duck Soup (a movie that is good practice for this Dario Fo play) and a tank of nitrous oxide. The wordplay is bombastic, wildly funny and yet only slightly removed from reality. As the character called "The Fool" leads on a number of comic opera policemen and a journalist, we are given the comforting distance of this being a play about Italian politics, not our own. David M. Jenkins, a source of raw id on the hoof in Jobsite's recent True West, works the same premise here as The Fool. His direction gives him a bit more room to bluster than he actually needs; this play doesn't need to be this noisy and fast. There are barely moments to catch your breath, and the acoustics in the Off Center make people talking at the same time an ambient roar of human voices with little to separate them. But there is no denying the strength of Jenkins' performance and direction. -- PETER SMITH

Collected Stories by Donald Margulies, Asolo Theatre Company, Sarasota. -- At what point does literary homage turn into appropriation? The relationship between mentor and disciple -- celebrated writer Ruth Steiner (Isa Thomas) and her worshipful protege, Lisa Morrison (Rebecca Baldwin), respectively -- shifts over time in this popular play by Donald Margulies, whose Dinner with Friends won this year's Pulitzer Prize for drama. The bookish name dropping is impressively well-informed, ranging from Saul Bellow to Jane Smiley to Delmore Schwartz, Michiko Kakutani to Grand Street. -- JOHN FLEMING

Nunsense, Show Palace Dinner Theatre, Hudson. This 15-year-old musical is so popular that most people have either seen it or performed in it and could write their own review. Even so, we flock back to laugh at the old jokes, gasp at new ones and enjoy the fresh spin the actors put on this worldwide favorite. Nunsense tells about the Little Sisters of Hoboken doing a talent show to raise money to bury their four sisters poisoned by soup made by convent chef Sister Julia (Child of God). It's part variety show, part story and a whole lot of mugging and audience involvement. Start with the cast, five talented theater veterans, add a live, two-piece combo, toss in a house crew decked out as monks and nuns, and it's well nigh impossible not to get into the spirit. Nunsense is squeaky-clean, but the bygone cultural references in many of the jokes may sail right over the heads of anyone who hasn't been watching TV and movies for the past 20 years. Still, the humor is enough to keep anyone 9 to 90 entertained, and the cast's forays into the audience keep everyone engaged in this clever and sometimes corny show. -- BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN

Three Days of Rain, Asolo Theatre Company, Sarasota. -- At the Center of Richard Greenberg's puzzle play is "one of the great private residences of the last half-century." It's Janeway House, a lunar-looking structure on Long Island. When a photo of the house appeared in Life magazine in 1963, it put the architectural firm that designed it on the map. Now the three children of the firm's founders prepare to receive their legacy, but first they have some truth telling to get off their chests. Three Days of Rain is not a great play, but it is a fully imagined portrait of a recognizable set of characters that manages to suggest quite a lot going on beneath their surface glibness. -- JOHN FLEMING

Travels with My Aunt, Gorilla Theatre, Tampa. When you are promised a play based on a work by Graham Greene, you expect intrigue, dark men and darkness of spirit. In this case, you would be only partly right. For Tampa's Gorilla Theatre is presenting Travels With My Aunt, as sweetly bizarre an entertainment as you will run into, featuring as delightful a gang of human Muppets as you'll find anywhere. Kim Crow plays Aunt Augusta with a sheer joy in life. For Aunt Augusta, dreams are as real as brushing your teeth. There are spies and questions and music and grand romantic gestures everywhere for those awake enough to notice, and she is determined to waken her nephew Henry. As played by Steven Clark Pachosa, Henry is not as boring as he seems to think he is. His ancestry is a little startling, and he is quite taken with his Aunt Augusta, but he sees something in her that a truly boring person wouldn't recognize. David O'Hara's direction is the equal of other great comedy directors. He delivers the jokes on a pillow of pleasure, and his pleasure is infectious. -- PETER SMITH