With an F and an R and an E and a D

Yesterday, I attended the closing performance of ONCE UPON A MATTRESS. I music-directed this production, and this was the last production I'll be involved with this year, and this decade. Quite a significant event. So I went back and compiled a list of theatrical statistics for myself from 2000-2009.

I was involved with 45 productions.
I acted in 38.
I understudied in 3, 2 of which I got to go on.
I directed 2. (Hopefully that number will be larger next decade.)
I music-directed 6 (in various capacities).
I did a particular show more than once 8 times.
I played the same role more than once 6 times.
The most number of productions I was involved with in a year is 7 (in 2007, 2008, and 2009).
The least number of productions I was involved with in a year (if you don't count the year 2001, which was zero) was in 2000, with just one.
I did at least 520 performances this decade. (It's significantly more than that - I was being conservative when I estimated.)
I performed with 17 different theater companies, 16 of which I hadn't performed with before, and 4 of which are Equity.

That's everything that was of interest to me that I can bore you with.

This past weekend, I went to see ARSENIC AND OLD LACE at Georgia Ensemble. Not bad - I'd give it a 3.75 out of 5. That show is frequently a community theatre cash cow, which made me so glad to see an Equity house doing it. It was definitely the most efficient Arsenic I've seen. Bob Farley, the show's director, cut quite a few lines here and there just to keep it moving, and also placed the intermission in a different spot. In the middle of a scene, actually. He also got rid of a scene break in Act 2, and just made it one big scene. I never understood why there was a scene break there anyway when the dialogue just picked up where it left off. My two favorite performances came from Rob Hardie as Teddy (GREAT energy, and let's face it, this is an easy role for him) and the always-reliable Charles Green as Dr. Einstein, who is Jonathan's (Robert Egizio) sidekick. Charles held his own with Mr. Egizio and even managed to upstage him sometimes.

A couple of performances I wasn't so keen on dragged my rating down a bit. The two old ladies were fine, but they didn't differentiate the roles. That's one of the faults of the script. It's so easy for Abby and Martha to be interchangeable, and that's exactly how they were in this production. There are subtle differences in the women, and if a director chooses to delve into that, they can be brought out more. I don't think Bob really did that. Just my opinion.

I wasn't a big fan of the performance from the actress who played Elaine. She seemed a bit phoney and "acty" - I couldn't really care for her that much. The guy who played Lieutenant Rooney was too nice, and not the hardass the character needed to be. John Ammerman as Mortimer probably would have made an excellent Mortimer 20-30 years ago, but here was kind of a sore thumb because of his age. I could tell he was a gifted actor, and it wasn't a bad performance per se, just a wrong performance (once again, in my opinion). He spent the whole show not walking, but doing this strange child-like skip, and it was the kind of corny over-the-top performance that the theatre-critic character he was playing would have panned. I also didn't see any differentiation between the calm Mortimer who has just made Elaine his fiance and is blissfully ignorant of his aunts' murderous tendencies, and the frantic Mortimer who is abruptly made aware of his aunts' secret. He seemed to be Frantic Mortimer the whole time. Ammerman is married to Kathleen McManus, a superb Atlanta actress/singer who would have fit right in as either Abby or Martha, and maybe would have given the role more texture than the script gives us. I wonder if she wasn't available, or wasn't interested.

All in all I'm glad I went. I don't get out to see skits at the skit-doin'-house these days as much as I'd like, and it's always nice to see a professional interpretation of an old chestnut like AaoL, even if I might disagree with some director/actor choices. No hard feelings meant to anyone who happens to read this. When I write my review for the theater reviewing website, I'll edit it to make it "nicer."