Second Thought Theater's production of Summer Evening in Des Moines by Charles Mee is a series of vignettes depicting wo/man's search for meaning. Underscored with great music, the play asks the universal question: How do people connect? Vignettes take the audience on a tour of forms of escape people use to make their lives meaningful. Edgar (Tom Parr IV) the puppeter, manipulates his puppets, Charlie (Erik Archilla) and Mortimer (Joel McDonald), his alter egos, with some very funny shtick. (Here Mee pays homage to the famous ventriloquist of the 1940s, Edgar Bergen, and his outspoken puppets, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd). Mee also gives a nod to the Esther Williams films of the 1950s in a hilarious spoof of a synchronized water ballet. Suggestion: Lose the opening scream; it is ear-splitting and adds nothing to the plot.
This is an ensemble piece, and all ten actors do a splendid job in a fun show with lots of laughs. The talented cast also includes Chad Patrick Smith, Kathleen Hamm, Kyle Wallace, Bryan Pitts, Becca Shivers, Jim Kuenzer, and Kristin Mc Collum and includes some fine directing by Kelly Russell and David Stevens.
What a difference a year makes for Theater Quorum, as they totally redeem themselves with New Hope For The Dead by John Sayles, a 180 degree turn from the FIT 2004 disaster, Bedbound. TQ producer Carl Savering shows off his fine acting ability in a wonderfully understated performance instead of last year's lung power, proving that less is more. Pharoah (Savering) is a self-professed Egyptologist with a prior life in Egypt who works for free boxing popcorn in the basement of a run-down sports arena. Watch this and you may never eat popcorn again.
Amanda Wright lets us see she can get out of bed (Bedbound) and vent her rage at all the "assholes" who have ever done her wrong, which is all of them, as she laments her profession as a "card girl" between rounds of boxing matches in the arena upstairs. She does a great job, which could be even better by toning down her performance.
Special kudos to director Rhonda Boutte for her excellent staging. The final scene is really a surprise rib tickler.
