Nancy Anderson is an important musical comedy leading lady who hasn't yet landed the role to establish her in the highest echelons. It's unlikely, however, that'll happen as a result of her stunning performance as Laura in The Pen, the second of the three one-person one-acts in the 2016 entry of the every-other-year Inner Voices series, at TBG Theatre.
In a wiser world, of course, catapulting Anderson where she's long deserved to be is just what would result. In the serious tuner with words by Dan Collins and music by Julianne Wick Davis, Laura, who's forty-ish, is just about to leave through her kitchen for her Milwaukee office work. As she reaches the door, she becomes uncertain that she's put keys in her commodious white leather bag. (Is the catchall something by Michael Kors that costume designer M. Meriwether Snipes found? From the looks of it, that could be.)
So Laura us suddenly searching frantically, while occasionally trying to remind herself to keep calm. She fails, because although she discovers the keys, she also finds a purple pen she's never seen before. Becoming even more raddled about an item that, for all she knows, could be carrying an infectious disease, she descends into an obsessive-compulsive fit that leads, among other things, to agitated concern about shutting off the oven.
In the course of her outbursts, she recalls that, when she was 4, her mother died, leaving her in the sole care of her beloved father. His death when she was older has left her permanently bereft. His loss seems to be her besetting problem.
As The Pen unfolds, the monolog demands heavy acting chops along with the demanding music that Davis has also orchestrated. Anderson, as anyone who has followed her career knows, is up to the challenge and beyond it. It may be that some audience members will start thinking of Patricia Neway singing the impassioned "To This We've Come" aria from Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul or the Francis Poulenc-Jean Cocteau La Voix Humaine.
Is The Pen on those levels? Maybe yes, maybe no, but while, under Margot Bordelon crafty direction, Anderson is suffering Laura's barely contained, profound despair, the operatic opus gives the impression of being mighty weighty.
Third on the Inner Voices bill, The Booty Call is also a special piece. Michael Thurber provides the music as well as, with director Saheem Ali, the words. He also plays Gabe, a musician with an at-home recording studio featuring a synthesizer.
What truly distinguishes Thurber's achievement in a week when Donald Trump's incriminating sex chat has monopolized the airwaves is the musical''s outpouring of a late twenty something songwriter who's examining his behavior during an unexpected period of erectile dysfunction.
Improvising several new tunes, he muses over his reluctance to return a phone call from someone called Sam whom he's only recently met but does want to see again. He's fearful, though, that after two recent bedtime incidents with other women, he might not, this time with Sam, be able "to get it up."
Using voice, synthesizer capabilities, bass and electric guitar, he ruminates over that humiliating inability to perform. Eventually, he realizes why his recent failed conquests felt wrong enough for him to experience "flaccidity." The realization is so honest--and so at odds with standard macho posturing--that Thurber, far from relaxing in a T-shirt, shorts and socks, should win over just about every audience he faces with his compulsively honest confession.
The smiling T. Oliver Reed plays an orderly at what must be an old folks home in the Ellen Fitzhugh (words)-Ted Shen (music) Just One "Q" curtain-raiser. This one is a much lighter offering that appealingly serves its evening-opener purpose.
The orderly sings about his continual exposure to a Scrabble game between residents Bertha and Julie Ann. The game is regularly interrupted by their bickering over a man apparently called Cotton Green. The Just One "Q" title refers to the Scrabble tile one of the fighting ladies pockets because it represent the word "queen." She insists she holds that status in the amusing musical sketch that, under Ali's guidance, Reid makes even more charming.
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Is it a trend? Will it pass? What trend? It's a trend to do with stand-up comedy and what could be called the comedy behind the comedy. It might also be described as the impetus behind something many stand-up comics have in common when they venture in laugh-getting careers: depression.
That's right. It's no news that many comics have turned to telling jokes as a handy defense against deep-seated despair. Until recently Richard Lewis was the only jester who regularly gave vent to his dark si
In a wiser world, of course, catapulting Anderson where she's long deserved to be is just what would result. In the serious tuner with words by Dan Collins and music by Julianne Wick Davis, Laura, who's forty-ish, is just about to leave through her kitchen for her Milwaukee office work. As she reaches the door, she becomes uncertain that she's put keys in her commodious white leather bag. (Is the catchall something by Michael Kors that costume designer M. Meriwether Snipes found? From the looks of it, that could be.)
So Laura us suddenly searching frantically, while occasionally trying to remind herself to keep calm. She fails, because although she discovers the keys, she also finds a purple pen she's never seen before. Becoming even more raddled about an item that, for all she knows, could be carrying an infectious disease, she descends into an obsessive-compulsive fit that leads, among other things, to agitated concern about shutting off the oven.
In the course of her outbursts, she recalls that, when she was 4, her mother died, leaving her in the sole care of her beloved father. His death when she was older has left her permanently bereft. His loss seems to be her besetting problem.
As The Pen unfolds, the monolog demands heavy acting chops along with the demanding music that Davis has also orchestrated. Anderson, as anyone who has followed her career knows, is up to the challenge and beyond it. It may be that some audience members will start thinking of Patricia Neway singing the impassioned "To This We've Come" aria from Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul or the Francis Poulenc-Jean Cocteau La Voix Humaine.
Is The Pen on those levels? Maybe yes, maybe no, but while, under Margot Bordelon crafty direction, Anderson is suffering Laura's barely contained, profound despair, the operatic opus gives the impression of being mighty weighty.
Third on the Inner Voices bill, The Booty Call is also a special piece. Michael Thurber provides the music as well as, with director Saheem Ali, the words. He also plays Gabe, a musician with an at-home recording studio featuring a synthesizer.
What truly distinguishes Thurber's achievement in a week when Donald Trump's incriminating sex chat has monopolized the airwaves is the musical''s outpouring of a late twenty something songwriter who's examining his behavior during an unexpected period of erectile dysfunction.
Improvising several new tunes, he muses over his reluctance to return a phone call from someone called Sam whom he's only recently met but does want to see again. He's fearful, though, that after two recent bedtime incidents with other women, he might not, this time with Sam, be able "to get it up."
Using voice, synthesizer capabilities, bass and electric guitar, he ruminates over that humiliating inability to perform. Eventually, he realizes why his recent failed conquests felt wrong enough for him to experience "flaccidity." The realization is so honest--and so at odds with standard macho posturing--that Thurber, far from relaxing in a T-shirt, shorts and socks, should win over just about every audience he faces with his compulsively honest confession.
The smiling T. Oliver Reed plays an orderly at what must be an old folks home in the Ellen Fitzhugh (words)-Ted Shen (music) Just One "Q" curtain-raiser. This one is a much lighter offering that appealingly serves its evening-opener purpose.
The orderly sings about his continual exposure to a Scrabble game between residents Bertha and Julie Ann. The game is regularly interrupted by their bickering over a man apparently called Cotton Green. The Just One "Q" title refers to the Scrabble tile one of the fighting ladies pockets because it represent the word "queen." She insists she holds that status in the amusing musical sketch that, under Ali's guidance, Reid makes even more charming.
******************
Is it a trend? Will it pass? What trend? It's a trend to do with stand-up comedy and what could be called the comedy behind the comedy. It might also be described as the impetus behind something many stand-up comics have in common when they venture in laugh-getting careers: depression.
That's right. It's no news that many comics have turned to telling jokes as a handy defense against deep-seated despair. Until recently Richard Lewis was the only jester who regularly gave vent to his dark si