The show takes place where so many dreams begin: Mom’s basement. Recent high school grad Denny (Lucas Wells) is resisting all demands to get a job, instead scheming for stardom. His big break appears to be an upcoming local contest with a recording contract as the prize, but since singing groups are the trend, he needs help from reluctant Eugene (Mathew Schwartz) and goody-two-shoes Wally (Joe Lehman) to be saleable. The instant trio of “loser doozer” nerds, in need of sponsorship, reaches out to a local auto garage, which brings heartthrob mechanic/ringer Skip (Sam Perwin) and the boss’s daughter, Lois (Allison Hunt), into the story’s orbit. The introduction of A Girl means that only one type of plot can follow, and indeed, an early lopsided love pentagon gives way to a standard wrong-side-of-the-tracks tale of woe. If only the guys can reunite in time for the big contest, which the show never doubts they’ll win, despite their inexperience, insufficient rehearsal time, and incessant quibbling over who should have the most solos.

But this helium-filled placeholder of a plot is merely a delivery device for cheeky 1960s design and favorite doo-wop songs of the era, which ramp up the fun factor with lightness of their own. Brian Kessler’s huge set is not so much basement as lair, chock full of design details and miscellany that gets put to inventive use. Costumes by Corey Globke have a kind of Happy Days wholesomeness; the sense of Technicolor reverie is furthered by Reid G. Johnson’s abrupt light cues that snap into and out of each number. Music director and bandleader Daniel Feyer laces sugary upbeat drive through every song, whether in the guise of group practice or just the characters breaking into belted solo ballads.

The ensemble’s performance is similarly chipper, playing types as big and broad as a story this facile mandates. Although the gamboling energy suits the unpolished nature of a fledgling music group in progress, the show undermines its professionals by the same hand, forcing them to give amateur performances. A prime example is the choreography by Tyrick Wiltez Jones: during rehearsal numbers, the work overly concerns itself with creating, teaching, unifying, and biffing unimpressive dance moves, in contrast to an early off-the-cuff song that shows off the top-shelf playfulness and skill being otherwise withheld. Some of the production’s finest moments find the performers breaking through the confines to show their true skill, be it a quick dance flourish or a clear high note that shrugs off a deliberate adenoidal handicap. In this respect, Schwartz gives a standout turn; saddled with debilitating geekdom and stage fright, he comically winks at Eugene’s ineptitude, making the actor’s few shows of his true ability shine all the brighter. Hunt also shows surprising range, not only doubling as the nagging voice of Denny’s unseen mother, but also gently rebuffing the guys who don’t hold her romantic interest and growing into an unexpected buddy as well as patient teacher.

Ultimately, where Life Could Be a Dream fails to be compelling, it succeeds at being fun and lighthearted. Whether it earns its two-act structure, or two-hour running time, is doubtful, but this production’s two hours are hardly plodding when they’re filled with vigorous energy and music the viewer already knows and loves. Sometimes a show asks nothing more than to turn off one’s brain and hum along while a band of young dreamers gives it their all.

Life Could Be a Dream is no longer playing.
For the latest from Meadow Brook Theatre, click here.

The play is marked by an all-consuming energy and conviction, qualities that are endemic of adolescence, which explains the mini-gymatorium evoked by the painted floor of the Mix Studio Theatre stage. Indeed, protagonist Pookie (Luna Alexander) is a high school student, with a dream of making a movie. And not just any movie — an action movie, starring Pookie, in which she exacts explosive metaphorical revenge against a psychopathic baker. Deterrents like having no equipment, budget, staff, or experience and the threatened wrath of school administrators are no match for Pookie’s intensely concentrated zeal; instead, she channels her vision into other forms of expression, with catastrophic results that elevate her status to that of vigilante artist and legitimate outlaw.

She’s not alone in her pursuit, but rather gathers a little cadre along the way. First is maligned sidekick Dynamo (Chris Jakob), the loner misfit who wants companionship, or respect, or, better still, just to know what he wants. Next is highly suggestible lapdog Benny (Artun Kircali), whose only currency is his popularity, until he dedicates himself to being Pookie’s theatrical acolyte. Unwittingly joining the proceedings is defeated guidance counselor Larry (Dan Johnson), who has utterly run out of tactics and energy to deal with the hard-headedness and improper devotion that Pookie levels at him constantly. The final piece of the puzzle is the dark influence of bargaining adversary Greta (Emily Roll), whose skills are needed to pull off the final spectacular coup.

A steady stream of obstacles, internal and external, make this a pretty standard hero story, but it’s marked by idiosyncrasies and disproportionate excesses for which designer Keith Paul Medelis (and ensemble) has crafted an insane unrealistic world. From the archetypal extremes of the costume design and kitchen-sink properties, to the multimedia interstitials and ingeniously cheap special effects, to the laughable DIY choreography (as well as fight work by Steve Xander Carson) and infectiously punchy sound design (by Eben Mannes), the choices are as big as possible and note perfect. The sum total effect reflects some amalgamation of video game, comic book, and comic-book-movie influences, in the same sphere as Tank Girl or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The danger in combining so many screeching influences vying for attention is saturation. However, it’s clear here that the primary objective on every front is maximum comedy, and the show accordingly achieves a kind of clamoring harmony through its walls of laughter. Samuelson’s direction finds a light but gritty tone that ably serves the text, allowing Pookie’s dream to be taken seriously, while simultaneously mining humor from the subpar product of her vision. The entire ensemble contributes to a fine overall dynamic, but the standout is Alexander’s high-wire lead performance. From her exhausting pluck to her self-righteously lousy ideas to her supremely, wonderfully awful performance art, this Pookie is worthy of both affection and laughter — no small feat for a performer tasked with portraying an inexhaustible teenager convinced of her own genius.

As indicated by the title, there are suggested explosions in Pookie Goes Grenading. However, there are also lots and lots of donuts, and in this world, it may not be clear which is ultimately more dangerous. In all, the production is an absurdist triumph that is abundantly entertaining in its own right. The play treads a fine line concerning the reason for creating art and the realities of such expression, but there is no such conundrum in these 105 minutes — the simple journey of a kid-hero artist against all odds and the riotously bad portrayals of said “art” are awesome in equal measure.

Pookie Goes Grenading is no longer playing.

In a posh bedroom, an impulsive woman clad in only a slip (Jaclyn Strez) mercilessly berates a demure woman dressed as a maid (Molly McMahon). The melodramatics of the exchange could be mistaken for a soap opera, but for good reason, which the attentive viewer will begin to pick up from the first smooth instances of interjection and name correcting. Indeed, these are hardly line flubs, but rather carefully laid exposition: The two are sisters, both of them maids, engaging in a vindictive fantasy of the "I'll be her and you be me" variety while their mistress is out of the house.

And what a house it is. Designer Adam Crinson saturates the tastefully detailed set with color at its periphery, both juxtaposing and complementing the modified French provincial aesthetic. The foreground is subjected to regimented contrasts, piled-on patterns and extremes tied together by their dearth of pigment. As it turns out, most everything in this world is reduced to black and white, from Crinson's meticulous set dressing and properties, to Katie Casebolt's vastly symbolic costumes, to the mindsets of the sisters themselves. Because their identities as maids are no more material to them than the ceremonial games they play, the divide between authentic and artificial self further feeds into the polar dualities they allow to consume them: light and dark, master and servant, innocent and guilty, leader and follower, winner and loser, life and death.

The slow reveal of the play's conceit beneath the conceit is brilliantly served by Strez and McMahon. The former's flinty take on her unseen employer manages to be both despicable and strangely aspirational, while the latter's occasional defiant ad-lib hints at the pair's true dynamic and, more importantly, copacetic principles. As is prone to happen when one's time is not one's own, the ritual must be cut short in anticipation of the Madame's return. Yet even as the sisters tidy the ransacked room, lingering resentments hover and permeate the conversation, making clear a murky divide that exists between their violent imaginations and vengeful realities. As the sisters' cogent deliberations turn eerily toward enacting the mayhem of their game play, the power of opposing energies makes the developments believable, with tempestuous Strez's peaks and valleys volleying off McMahon's venomous suggestion and powerfully icy burn; it's a truly terrible partnership and a wanton pleasure to witness.

Another scenario is suddenly conjured by the long-awaited appearance of the employer, that effusively self-interested Madame (Meredith Gifford). Whether she is as bad as the sisters portray her or whether she is being seen through their lens is for the viewer to decide; in either case, this is a marvelous monster indeed. Between histrionic guilt, misplaced overcompensation, and hateful bemusement, her relatively brief appearance heaps context and empathy onto a heretofore-narrow worldview, but Gifford's finest contribution is the pure comic sharpness of her detestable privilege-blind superiority. Through her, the prospect of Madame's elimination can safely shift from a position of dread to delectable possibility.

Where the play succeeds is in making plain its many possible, fascinating, and intertwined facets of play-acting and reality, even as they continue to invert and gain complexity by turns. The more strenuous task is to keep the viewer invested in an ultimate purpose; otherwise, it's like being asked to feed Schrodinger's cat – faced with an indecipherable puzzle, it's too easy to simply pour out some kibble and wander away. Here, the play's steady modulation through late revelations and persistently added layers serve to make things less transparent, not more, threatening to disengage the viewer from an enigma that so thoroughly refuses to be known. Yet it's a relatively minor complaint in light of this show's extremely high degree of difficulty, translating to a gentle muddle of concluding beats that don't quite meet the promise of a tremendous existential foundation.

With a firm grasp on its dichotomies and an impressive ability to turn on a dime, "The Maids" delivers no shortage of intellectual rigor bolstered by riveting stakes. This production's strident tone, extravagant performances, and fundamental teamwork lay the groundwork for an insistent treatise on the roles we take on within our relationships, jobs, and society, as well as how we define them (and they us).

It takes a ruthless company to tackle such a cagey offering, but Magenta Giraffe has again proven its mettle for posing huge questions and running headlong at them.

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Whether this phenomenon crosses over to theater is the question posed by The AKT Theatre Project's production of the song cycle "35MM" (music and lyrics by Ryan Scott Oliver). With direction and choreography by Angie Kane Ferrante, the contemporary show explodes with technical prowess, insistent vigor, and overall luster, but makes little if any pretense of intent or purpose.

Oliver was inspired to create this work by the photography of Matthew Murphy. Specifically, 17 unrelated images beget 17 disparate tunes, performed here by the ensemble of Sebastian Adams, Marc Buchko, Jordan Fritz, Ian Hector, Gerald Hymer, Michelle King, Sarah Mikota, Katherine Nelson, and Morgan Neubacher. The simple thesis is laid out in the show's opening number, "Stop Time," whose staccato jumble of basic photography terms recurs at brief intervals throughout the single act. Mostly, though, the tunes simply run one into the other, transitioning in the blink of an eye into the next scenario and its unique assortment of characters.

The songs play out on a thrust stage that pulls together the akimbo seating arrangement of the cavernous Wyandotte Arts Center performance space. The set itself (designed by Ferrante and assistant director Jon Pigott, who are also credited with the overall show concept) is painted to evoke photographic film and further festooned with multiple prints of the photos that informed the work. These details are never referenced, instead leaving the stage to serve as a flexible canvas for the show's pulsing rock-musical feel, taking loads of inspiration from the likes of "Rent" and "Spring Awakening." Designer Harley Miah's veritable light show offers infinite permutations of bold, primary-colored looks cutting through hypoallergenic haze. Sound design (by Jim Zang and Bass Note Productions, mixed by Christine Elmore) is dependent entirely on microphone power, supplementing individual body mics with handheld ones and stands when the aesthetic calls for them. In fact, the notion of the stage picture may be the prevailing theme of the production. Take Ferrante's insistent choreography, for example, which easily taps into the power of collective group movement, with performers hitting their every turning and reaching and sinking mark without a hitch.

With the barest framework and no plot limitations, the tunes can and do ricochet through a blend of styles, gamely handled by the solid seven-piece band partly obscured behind the main stage. Some songs are third-person narratives, others soulful invocations to parties unseen, presented with solo and duet and group variety that staves off staleness. Generally, the songs seem to fall into two camps – generically emotive lyrics or flat-out storytelling – with rare shows of compromise. The challenge with such work is to tap into the character and passion beneath in order to find a point of connection, but not only is that not met here, it's so studiously ignored that the content of the songs feels like an afterthought at best. This may be due to lackluster music direction (Ferrante and Adriane Galea) or to insufficient rehearsal time with full sound and tech; if nothing else, the surprising frequency of swallowed or otherwise incomprehensible lyrics cannot be discounted. In the same vein, the show's most literal through line – the series of inspiring photographs – is given short shrift: The pictures are projected at enormous scale onto a far back wall, but are barely visible on the dark backdrop and could easily be missed altogether.

In all, "35MM" can boast flash in its prodigious design concept, as well as the clear proficiency to preserve harmony among its moving bodies, changing schemes, and quick cascade of lively songs. Yet by keeping the charged presentation representative instead of grounded, Ferrante is answering pictures with more pictures – the work is competent, but it may inspire the viewer to ponder whether theater as an art form can be sustained on technique alone.

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It starts with something innocuous: Earl (Harold Hogan), a celebrated architect, stares in the mirror, unable to remember the series of movements that will let him tie his necktie. His wife, Liz (Connie Cowper), downplays and masks the occurrence with panicked dismissals that are at least as telling as his confusion. Something is clearly wrong with Earl — even as he approaches the ultimate career milestone, a commissioned skyscraper design, his mind and memory are becoming increasingly unreliable, which is brought into stark relief by Burr Huntington’s instructively dissonant sound design. Together with slippery light cues by designer Thomas Schraeder, the concept patterns past and present stories at cross purposes with a deliberate randomness that conveys the confusion and helplessness of the encroaching malady with blatant efficacy. Rather than merely watch Earl deteriorate, the viewer is pointed directly through his obscured and distorted lens, a palpable force that proves to be the production’s greatest strength.

Yet even before the full truth and gravity of Earl’s diagnosis comes fully to light, repercussions begin to undulate through the family, shaping and upsetting the other stories in its orbit — specifically, those of his wife and their three collective children from previous marriages. Cowper brings sympathy and strength to Liz, who, having put in her time with an ailing spouse, understands her own shortcomings; together, she and Hogan radiate a certain kind of remorseful acceptance that cements their bond even as it threatens their partnership. The child closest to the action is Earl’s son and business associate, Caleb (Charlie Newhart), an image-conscious go-getter whose own rocky marriage takes a back seat to the empire he has helped his father build, and the success so close within his grasp. With the design’s gala unveiling drawing closer, the other children dutifully fly home to support and celebrate the achievement: Earl’s daughter (Jenaya Jones Reynolds), a daring journalist going through a rough patch, and Liz’s son (Stephen Brown), himself an architect, who used to work with Earl and Caleb but now identifies as the black sheep. Whereas Newhart brings intense humor to his character’s drive and high-strung outbursts, Reynolds and Brown follow a more treacherous path, carefully unraveling the hidden reasons why they avoid the family, and intrepidly exploring the prickly attachment that draws them helplessly back.

This is a highly educated, highly privileged, highly moneyed family, as reflected in the easy opulence of Judy Dery’s costume design and the clear architectural influences of Harry Wetzel’s custom-built natural wood setting. The world of the play informs this both by context and by engaging all its characters in high-level discourse, letting them agitate and profess all with a poet’s ear; although the phrasing is lovely, it also lends some interactions a too-perfect feel that approaches proselytizing. Thus, despite acute direction by Smith pushing the risky themes of legacy, duty, and self-denial, the reckonings of the second act still pale in comparison to the stark immersion of the first. Even as attentions are divided, secrets discovered, and repercussions looming, nothing seems as vital or affecting as Hogan’s quietly frantic concentration and resigned conviction; it’s a performance come by honestly, one that anchors the urgency of everything surrounding it, but at the same time overshadows it.

The play lays out an ambitious range of story arcs and relationships; impressively, by balling them up and releasing them all concurrently in a late mega-confrontation, it does so in under two hours. Ultimately, however, although A Thousand Circlets takes a valiant stab at the broad-based melodramas of a family affected by its patriarch’s disease, the production’s best material is also the script’s best. By ringing the knells of present and future deterioration, the show provides a fascinating, frightening window into the reality of irreversible decline, a dominant cause whose magnitude supersedes any of its far-reaching effects.

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For the latest from Detroit Repertory Theatre, click here.

The name on everyone’s lips is “Constance” (Cheryl Turski), an upstanding wife and mother unwittingly made the object of gossip by her philandering physician husband, John (Chip DuFord), and dear friend Marie-Louise (Leslie Ann Handelman). Not only does everyone in her family and social circle know about the ongoing infidelity, each has a distinct and justifiable opinion about the group’s collective shielding of the sunny, self-possessed, and none the wiser Constance. But a scenario that begins with philosophical rumination on whose business it is, and whether ignorance is bliss, gains comic potential with the fond return of a long-ago suitor (Stephen Blackwell). Here, in the flesh and quick to confess his unceasing love, is a tantalizing reminder that turnabout is fair play. In tension-rife interactions akin to balancing a hand over an open flame, it becomes increasingly, consistently clear that whatever she knows, by what means she discovers, or however she reacts, the ball is very much in Constance’s court.

The story of the wronged wife is an old one, but women of previous generations had little or no recourse. Thus, in the world of 1929 London, in which the play is set, such potential empowerment and options for self-actualization are nascent and pioneering ideas indeed. The setting is an important point of context, but also an opportunity for the design team to have a field day with period finery in the form of carefully piled-on patterns and detailing. Set designer Jen Price Fick sprawls the action across the trendy expanse of John and Constance’s massive parlor, whose conspicuously matchy blues are given as much attention as costume designer Liz Moore expends on a fastidiously accessorized drop-waist vintage paradise. The leisure and comfort that accompanies sticking with one’s husband is subtly reinforced by poured-in natural light (by Reid G. Johnson) that fades to dusk with glacial ease; in keeping with classy chamber selections blended with boozy jazz abandon (courtesy of sound designer Mike Duncan), strife never enters this sumptuous yet progressive picture. Against this backdrop, Turski brings clarity to Constance’s thoughtful philosophy and supreme pragmatism, expounding on what a wife owes to — and is owed by — her marriage, her provider, and herself with perfect diplomacy and control.

Yet even in the societal intrigue of this resonant political-parlor hybrid, there is plenty of messy comedy to be mined in these sloppy lives, and Sheridan finds the bulk of it in the space between spoken lines. Lavish attention has been paid to physicalizing anticipation and reaction, particularly in the peanut gallery of women closest to Constance: a peevishly righteous sister (Allison Schubert), an acrobatically excusing mother (Dominique Lowell), and a practical businesswoman with helping hand extended (Melynee Saunders Warren). In stark contrast to the ladies’ furtiveness is Blackwell’s hilariously agitated anti-stealth, the cherry atop a candid performance that excels in generating negative as well as positive chemistry. Similarly, when confronted, Handelman and DuFord degenerate into squirming fits of analytical spinelessness and convivial apoplexy that far outstrip their banally titillated concealment. Revolving exchanges and scenarios combine into a calliope of politeness, manners, and social comportment, with the occasional powder-keg catalyst offset by Turski, who sails above the fray in a performance befitting the rationality and strength of this fascinating character.

Condensing a three-act structure into two asymmetric halves, this Constant Wife doesn’t feel all of its 2 hours and 20 minutes. The production takes a conundrum very much of its time and uses outsider uncertainty to make it feel enduring, and nonverbal abundance to make it fly. Ultimately, however, this is a play that requires a champion at its center, and this show has found one in Turski, whose delivery of comeuppance comes with finesse and no shortage of satisfaction.

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For the latest from Meadow Brook Theatre, click here.

The play's protagonist is young Master Jeffrey Hatcher (Peter Prouty), possessed of grace and comportment far beyond his nearly 10 years, who in 1967 enrolled in Mrs. Mannerly's Manners Class, a 36-year institution in little Steubenville, Ohio, still personally taught by its founder (Jennifer Weil). So entrenched is Mrs. Helen Anderson Kirk in her subject matter, she readily answers to the name "Mrs. Mannerly," leading both by example and by countless teaching moments in her every interaction. Jeffrey's reasons for studying a subject at which he already excels are "personal and private," but begin to take shape in the form of his perfectionist tendencies and inner sanctimony when he outperforms his handful of classmates (Tracy L. Spada, who singlehandedly populates the rest of the ensemble).

As the course goes on and the class size dwindles, two parallel stories entwine and drive the narrative. The first is a small, intoxicating mystery: Jeffrey stumbles across a biographical clue about Mrs. Mannerly, and she indirectly denies his roundabout inquiries. However circumstantial, the idea that a teacher of politeness would lie outright is like catnip for a bookish, indoors-y boy who loves emulating TV and movie hero types, and he becomes obsessed with learning her secret. The second plot concerns the arbitrarily important goal of scoring a perfect 100 on Mrs. Mannerly's never-aced final exam, a purpose that the teacher and her sole remaining student sweetly team up to accomplish, setting the tiny stakes dually high for a last push at relevance in changing times.

Hatcher's script dabbles in references to Vietnam and counterculture as well as a liberal peppering of foul language, not only delivering sure signs that gentility is on the wane, but also providing a willing entry point for the production's warmly nostalgic bent. Yet the show isn't longing for this or any particular era (some plops of casual racism intended to show their own outmodedness certainly see to that), but for that universally elusive and alluring world of one's long-lost younger self. To this end, designer Dennis G. Crawley has delicately erected a classroom of memory, whose unforgettable scuffs and comically small chairs are vividly reincarnated, and the rest given over to blank playing space and weathered indistinctness. Costumes by Colleen Ryan-Peters also lean into the subtle faded-Polaroid aesthetic, as well as the increasingly alien notion of "school clothes," but does reserve a pop or two of bright, chuckling 1960s trendiness.

The play's conspicuous strictures – chiefly the shape-shifting ensemble of one and the generously portioned narration – are seized as opportunities, and in every case Gallinat turns them into clear advantages. Doubling as the adult and child iterations of Jeffrey, Prouty is a charismatic wonder, leaping in and out of explanatory passages, and beautifully contrasting the toadying precociousness (and boyish voice) of a little gentleman against the wiser storyteller's delight of sharing his recollections and insights. Tasked with cycling through characters in plain sight, Spada employs physical and vocal elocution to highlight the blunt edges of the lesser secondary players, splendidly maxing out their drolly pessimistic, coarsely unimpressed, and hygienically repugnant characterizations. Hand in hand with these artificial elements and fantastical narrative leaps, the lighting and sound designs (by Joel Klain and Julia Garlotte, respectively) are ready for anything, plunging into imagination and unreality with an energy befitting Hatcher's lively recreation.

In all, though, these are multifaceted performances that faithfully honor the spirit of the piece. Weil in particular serves up a didactic sternness becoming the Mrs. Mannerly persona, then pushes through those limitations with generous moments of bite and pizzazz. Hers is a complex and perplexing character, and together, Weil and Prouty more than earn the audience's fondness and investment into the beguilingly evolving mentor/mentee partnership, sharing discoveries and payoffs as they occur on both sides.

A darling exercise in comic memoir, this "Mrs. Mannerly" builds up a heap of goodwill through spirited storytelling and the wistful humor of hindsight, and just keeps building on the strength of an influential and increasingly evocative central relationship. The combination of fond yet mischievous design, vigorous yet tender performance, and warm yet agile direction results in a show poised to amuse, envelop, intrigue, and charm.

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For the latest from Tipping Point Theatre, click here.

It's going to be a huge night of prestige and fundraising clout for the Cleveland Opera Company, which has nabbed world-famous Italian tenor Tito Mirelli (Brian Sage) for his American debut, singing "Otello." And the gala is going to go perfectly, provided that every variable falls magically into place – details like the man of the hour showing up, or agreeing to attend rehearsal. Care and maintenance of the noted womanizer is entrusted to lowly Max (Sebastian Gerstner), whose prime directives are to keep the star out of trouble and to deliver him punctually to the stage door, or else face the rage of the explosively stressed Saunders (Paul Hopper).

If only poor Max had noticed the number of doors in designer Leo Babcock's luxe two-room hotel suite. There are no less than six doors visible in the lovely gilt-beige 1934 art deco setting, simply amber-lit by Daniel Walker, and all are oiled and optimized for frequent use – bad for Max and the gala, good for the audience.

Beginning with Tito's tardiness, and continuing with the unexpected wrinkle of his hot-blooded, accusatory wife (Angela Miller) tagging along, the misfortunes keep on coming. Throughout the first act, the extent of each crisis is directly proportional to the comic strength of the absurdly implausible material, allowing the frantic Gerstner and Hopper to shine as they endeavor to keep the stable of bigger, broader supporting characters blissfully uninformed. But considering the growing queue of women who want a piece of Tito, it's only a matter of time before a misunderstanding begets a crisis, which snowballs into a whoopsie overdose, which leaves Max and Saunders no choice but to enact a Hail-Mary switcheroo in order to keep the event afloat. (The plausibility of the substitution is foreshadowed in the establishing scenes, including an impromptu singing lesson that elegantly references The Encore's musical foundations.)

Fortunately for our heroes, the little substitution works; unfortunately for them, this means continuing to keep up the ruse, a prospect that becomes even more unfortunate when some parties are less dead to the world than previously thought. Yet even one real Tito and one impostor on the loose (both in blackface as Otello, a necessary evil for this level of deception) can hardly keep up with the clamor of hangers-on: the casting-couch costar (Tara Tomcsik-Husak), the high-status opera board president (Barbara Coven), the overstepping bellhop (Elliott Styles), and even Max's own true love (Thalia Schramm), a romantic naïf who wants to be swept off her feet before settling down. Needless to say, costume designer Sharon Larkey Urick's vision is working overtime with duplicate outfits, sophisticated black-tie ensembles, and skimpy underthings, as the characters' euphoric post-opera libidos and mistaken identities make for strange bedfellows indeed.

The result is mayhem of the finest order, a universally proficient show with generous portions of exceptional to boot. The wily Tomcsik-Husak strews the stage with devilishly rich innuendo, and later levels with Schramm in a rare scene of female complicity. Brutish baby Sage is also deserving of mention, especially his delightfully infectious reactions to bewildering second-act encounters. Above all, however, is Gerstner's extraordinary lead performance: The actor shows a unique gift for deadpan squareness that is equally as funny as his later fits of melodramatic apoplexy, not to mention above-and-beyond physical excesses that sing.

Skillful production and playful entertainment both, this "Lend Me a Tenor" has tricks up its sleeve that go beyond complex door-slamming precision and a flair for the histrionic. It stands to reason that plays that are evidently fun to perform are even more fun to watch, and judging by the energy ping-ponging through the house on opening night, Hissong and company (and, by extension, the viewer) have hit the fun jackpot.

Lend Me a Tenor is no longer playing.
For the latest from The Encore Musical Theatre Co., click here.

How do you solve a problem like King Edward II (Chris Jakob), the recently ascended English monarch who loves the unquestioned liberties of royalty almost as much as he hates the establishment or responsibility of any stripe? But while his chemical excesses are disruptive and his behavior blatantly hostile to his own stuffy court, the root of the problem appears to be the favors and confidence Edward bestows on his hardly secret male lover, Piers Gaveston (John Denyer). Whether homosexuality itself is the predominant strike against the king, or whether his reactionary boorish behavior or his problematic favoritism is what’s rankling the institution, is left blurred — attempted proclamations and policy meetings are inseparable from boundary-pushing scenes of revelry and heat (including frank displays of nudity and simulated sex). Edward’s story is one of blessed power and cursed duty, seen through the lens of insubordinate youth; for his part, Jakob acts the hell out of the role, ascribing breathless fullness to his every juvenile emotion.

Despite the liberal drinking, drug use, and corrosive profanity flung about, Sebacher’s adaptation is no free-for-all. There’s a balance here, particularly with respect to blending old and new language, that proves wonderfully instructive about social class and upbringing — gently revealing who’s capable of using loftier words and constructions, and how and whether they’re implemented. In practice, the device plays out in skittering atonal opposition, intentionally mirrored by Medelis’s production design, with interstitial music making similar record-skip jumps. One of the only elements remaining stately throughout is the setting, a candlelit great hall of sorts through which the players sweep in and out in dovetailed scenes. The look and sound of the production indulges in the finery befitting a king and his court, but the play also scratches and digs at what lies underneath.

And this is what makes Edward II a fascinating exercise, when all is said and done. For Edward and his consort, what lies underneath is proudly paraded debauchery, and a relationship borne out of romance, lust, benefit, or some combination therein; it’s raw, but also not terribly deep to delve. In contrast, Edward’s adversarial advisers — his resentful passed-over brother Kent (Artun Kircali), and his painted Queen Isabel (Andrew Papa) — display a level of political conniving as fathomless as it is unpredictably riveting. Kircali is admirably flustered through bouts of attempting to reason with his unreasonable brother; however, it’s Papa who walks away with his scenes, the very picture of restraint, whose diabolical cunning grows to near-mythical heights of dominance when surrounded by petulance and weakness. Together, the schemers conspire and motivate to restore level-headed rule to England, at whatever personal or political cost.

At a scant 70 minutes straight through, this Edward II doesn’t set out to be much of a history lesson. The production’s bullet points of plot don’t purport to recount King Edward II’s chronicled life or reign, even by Marlowe’s understanding, and leave emotional gaps in a salacious half-told love story. In all, the show’s best attribute is the dubiously motivated power grab that is copiously arranged and stunningly arrived at. This iteration of Edward proves too determinedly static to keep the helm of his own story; instead, he is swept up — along with the viewer — toward his own callously brutal fate.

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The play stays entirely within the confines of the WHET newsroom, the realm of anchors Gloria Day (Lauren Bickers) and Harry Herpst (David Herbst), station owner/manager Dean Davenport (Dave Davies), and a few new faces, namely inexperienced weather nitwit Jeanette Santino (Melissa Beckwith) and untested local celebrity athlete Sam Hall (Louie Krause). The atmosphere is sufficiently rinky-dink to begin with, but Bailey and McGettigan heighten the triviality with a loopy premise: the station promises to report only good news. The concept not only makes way for great ancillary content (no shortage here of local photo-op contests, baby animals of predictable cuteness, and radiantly worthless investigative series), but it also plants a real story seed, in Gloria’s understandable aspirations to do more serious work for bigger markets. Amid a handful of secondary workplace concerns, the main thrust of the plot becomes a thoughtful look at the push-pull of change versus constancy, outgrowing one’s professional home, and losing one of the family.

The little station that could is held together with tape and spit — probably literally — by its Doyle of all trades (Patrick O’Connor Cronin), the epicenter of surging misfortune and captain of wincing physical humor. Designer Katie Orwig’s endearing play-set studio prominently features a video screen backdrop, which adds frequent point-counterpoint hilarity in the form of Bailey’s masterfully funny graphics and shrewdly implemented video segments. By the same token, lights by Kevin Barron create a clear on-air/off-air divide that proves indispensible for the show’s multitudinous focal points and swift pacing. The affectation of professionalism is rendered complete by the costumes, which revel in familiar Everynews blandness courtesy of designer Kirstin L. Bianchi.

The script appears to draw no shortage of inspiration from The Mary Tyler Moore Show (TV news setting, ambitious female lead, gruffly vice-riddled boss…); happily, the sitcom elements and feel are well deployed here, and the comparisons largely favorable. What’s more, the comic writing is catapulted by comic performances, from Beckwith’s usurping sexy-baby idiocy, to Krause’s elephant-in-the-room shell shock, to Cronin’s propelling profanity, to Davies’s disproportionate stress. However, even among a strong team, Herbst’s luminous turn as the overreacting plastic nincompoop Harry stands out as a triumph of superior timing and sidesplitting spinouts. Bickers capably carries the straight-woman weight of the comparatively sane protagonist, interjecting her resolution with gentle inner discord. Critically, the grounding support of Gloria’s colleagues proves to be Bailey and McGettigan’s best move; by steeping the plot in conflict rather than blatant antagonism, the show finds an amicable tension that lends warm undertones to its ample goofy humor.

At a rushing 80 minutes with no intermission, and with many of the same faces, Action Sports News does feel markedly similar to one of Planet Ant’s late-night original comedies by its Home Team of improvisers. But most of the differences are cosmetic (a more polished design concept, longer running time), and the similarities are all strengths (predominating silliness, showcase of off-the-wall characters); what sets this apart as a mainstage show is its attention to theme and story as well as character and scenario. Ultimately, the production delivers a sweet and clever meditation on career ambition and workplace home, resting on the bedrock of raucous, lighthearted comedy for which these Planet Ant mainstays are renowned.

Action Sports News is no longer playing.
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