Impromptu Review from the Audience (That's You!)

There are three weekends left to see Trickster! Get your tickets online or at The Greenhouse Box Office. Running time is 2 1/2 hours including intermission.

Here is a letter that one audience member, Dav Faust, wrote to her friend about Trickster that she shared with us as well...

The repertory theater group, Halcyon, augmented by several additional performers called artistic associates, is presenting a play of curious, apocalyptic inference at the Greenhouse Theater Center on Lincoln Avenue from January 6-30, 2011.

Written by Tony Adams, who also directed and did scenic design, The play, Trickster, managed to hold my interest throughout last night's performance due to careful writing consisting of heady conflict furthering the plot in just about every scene. The characters were interesting, clearly drawn, and each unique enough and sympathetic enough for audience to want emotional involvement with them. The actors who played the characters were a rather unique and somewhat wild bunch in their own right, so some of that audience interest was no doubt a charismatic attraction to the theater company players. The intimacy of community theater made it possible to observe closeup and without mikes, adding to audience emotional inclusion nicely.

The nudity and violence were not obsessive nor objectionable as they were necessary to the thematic material and tastefully choreographed so they were not in your face. The acting was experienced. The sets were cool and suggestive, adding to the mythological feeling. The staging and stage movement was smooth and flowing. Nothing stood out as glaring or wrong. However, I believe there could have been fewer scenes to effectively tell even such a horrific story about man's conflict with fellow man in an age of the fall of civilization. I also spotted not many but a few narrative descriptions of powerful incidents which should have been acted out. Good writing requires narration to be only informational and transitional while action should carry all the story which has emotional impact.

Though all the actors were above average, one particular supporting actor is worthy of special mention. Chistine Lin was, even in deep background, always contributing authentically without fail to the scene as a whole or even to the theme of the spotlighted actor. She was a miracle of concentration and actively in character in interesting and flowing detail at all times. In painting you look for the action of fringe elements to lead you back into the picture so that you are never lost in space or evicted from the experience of the art. That is exactly what this talented support actor did for this performance. One could almost ascertain what feeling one should have of present action on stage just by watching her. She was a gauge and a telltale reminder of what was happening just by her well-thought-out and well-rehearsed body language.

I do believe this play good enough to be worth the extra effort usually engaged in by professional playwrights, which is  to have their drafts read by another writer not so close to the writing. Most writers, even professionals, overwrite early drafts and don't see it. Paring the writing is as important as enriching it. I nevertheless recommend spending an evening and the small cost of the ticket for this intellectually worthwhile and thoroughly enjoyable entertainment but I also hope it finds its way to an editing session.