Word: comical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Archconservative Pontiac Dealer Evan Mecham needed five tries to become Governor of Arizona. Now, just ten months after taking his oath, the grandfatherly Mormon is under siege. He has been ridiculed in the comic strip Doonesbury, faces a formidable recall campaign, and is the target of a grand jury investigation that could lead to impeachment...
...actor on stage is Martha Moore, who brings an appropriately strung-out wiltedness to the role of Veta Louise. Jason Tomarken also deserves mention for an uneven but amusingly arrogant performance as Dr. Sanderson. Tomarken is tall and skinny and uses his body very well on stage to achieve comic effects, especially when he leans over to peer over the over the top of his glasses. Donal Logue hammed up his role as a muscular hospital attendant and also raised some welcome chuckles. Frankly the characters in this play are so goofy already that the funniest performances result from hamming...
...protecting a tradition like the Head of the Charles? The only "problem" is that the MDC either sends 30 patrolman to control a crowd of 200,000, as it did two years ago, or announces the end of fun and sends a battalion of 300 police dressed like comic book heroes, as it did this year...
This season, which ended last week, was typically eclectic. Among the offerings were a musical setting of Mordecai Richler's brash comic novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Composer Salzman's Stauf, an anagrammatical updating of the Faust legend co-written by Michael Sahl. The highlights, though, were The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a moving minimalist meditation by British Composer Michael Nyman based on a case history in Neurologist Oliver Sacks' best seller, and Harry Partch's 1959 Revelation in the Courthouse Park, a quirky blending of Euripides and Elvis Presley, scored for an unorthodox...
...strongest performance of Gamma Rays, perhaps because it provides comic relief from the plot's general despondency comes from Anna MacGregor, who plays Janice, Tillie's competitor in the school science fair. When Janice tells the audience about her brilliant achievement--reconstructing the anatomy of a dead cat--it is truly hilarious. With her New York accent and her nerdish look, MacGregor realizes the full potential of her part...