Sister Elizabeth Donderstock is a loyal member of the Squeamish Community of Cluster Haven and has been her entire life. Her job within the community is to make the cheeseballs Cluster Haven is so well-known for. However when Brother Nathaniel Brightbee shows up and makes a powerful impression on the Reverend Tollhouse, Sister Elizabeth realizes she is out of a job and out of appreciation from the people she has worked hardest to please. She runs away from Cluster Haven, befriends an Ukrainian immigrant dressed in a Mr. Peanut costume and then gets a job at a local diner. Meanwhile, back at Cluster Haven no-one can figure out how to make the cheeseballs and the community is about to go belly up because it can no longer support itself with the profits from selling the cheeseballs.
The Book of Liz was written by Amy and David Sedaris and it really is a very funny script. However, it is not an easy script! There are only four actors in the show, all of whom play multiple parts throughout. This is a tall order for some professional theaters to pull off, let alone a small community theater out in the western suburbs, but pull it off they did! I have mostly accolades for this production, and the one or two things I would like to see done differently are pretty minuscule.
The four actors in the show were fantastic. As I said, each of them had multiple parts to play and they all did a brilliant job of playing them. There are almost too many things I could say about each person and their characters, and there just isn’t enough time to do that, so please forgive me for picking out some of my favorite things.
Tim Lieske’s portrayal of the confident know-it-all Brother Nathaniel was a little understated, and I was momentarily worried for him in comparison to the other characters on stage, but when Lieske came out as Donny and then Visil we got a look at just how talented he is. Donny in particular had me snickering in minutes.
Maureen Morley was manic as Sister Constance Butterworth and almost sent my head spinning in her first scene. Then Morley came back out in the Mr. Peanut costume, and then in a fur coat, and then in a doctor’s lab coat, and each time she made me laugh a little louder.
Heidi Swarthout and Maureen Morley
Heidi Swarthout was Sister Elizabeth with the occasional appearance as Brother Hesikiah. She was innocent, yet determined to make something more of her life. The open contemplation on her face about her situation in every scene was marvelous, we were included in just about every thought Sister Elizabeth had.
Last, but not least, we had John Dryden. Again in the first scene I was concerned. Reverend Tollhouse seemed too over-the-top, too “put on”. Then Dryden came out as Yvone and I giggled a little. However, he just about stole the show as Duncan Trask. And here’s the thing that goes for every single actor in the production: one character for each of them may have started a little “iffy” for me, but when you saw the distinct characterizations of each part and how thoroughly each actor stayed in character in each scene you couldn’t help but be amazed at them. I never once was confused about who was playing what part. It wasn’t just a change in accent or a change of costume, it was a change in posture, in facial expressions, in body language. And honestly, while Dryden, Swarthout, Morley, and Lieske clearly worked hard and deserve all the applause they got, I gotta spend a moment here and congratulate Lori Holm and JP Quirk for their direction as well. Holm had a very clear vision and that was evident on the stage last night. It was a job very well done!
Tim Lieske, Heidi Swarthout, Maureen Morley, and John Dryden
So what were the minuscule things that I would want to change? Well, there are shoes involved again. One would think I have a shoe fetish, but I honestly don’t. Just for some reason shoes are one of the little details I tend to notice on stage! The shoes I noticed last night belonged to Heidi Swarthout. The Squeamish Community is very obviously based on the Amish, and the Amish call themselves “the Plain Folks”. Why? Because they don’t wear anything that is flashy or brings attention to themselves. Ms. Swarthout’s shoes were very cute and quite sexy, but not appropriate for the part she was playing. I kept waiting for the costume change in which they would suddenly make sense, but that never happened. And where I found them truly distracting was when she was playing Brother Hesikiah. A nice pair of black flats would suit much better.
This is the second show I’ve seen at the Albright Theatre Company and again it felt like there were too many blackouts. Now, obviously the actors in this show need time to change between scenes and get to new entrances, so I understand the need for the blackouts. However, it still made the show a little choppy and messed slightly with the pacing. Just as the audience was warming up to the comedy, we would get another blackout and have to start the whole “warming up” process again. The Albright Theatre may need to come up with some creative ways to deal with the blackouts in general. I suspect that the lack of space backstage, or the distance between entrance and exit points may be factors in all of this, and I’m not sure what to suggest to help them out, but there is definitely something that needs to be worked out a bit better.
Another thing I would like is a brief description of what we were about to see in the program. I had never seen this play before and had no idea what it was about, and it took me quite a while at the beginning to sort it out. I wasn’t sure if I was watching a Catholic monastical community or some sort of commune. I needed just a little more information on the setting and because I was spending so much time trying to figure it out I think I missed some of cleverness in the first few scenes. And that may also explain why the first few characters didn’t work as well for me, too.
The biggest thing that would improve this production, though, is a larger audience. Comedies don’t do as well when there are only 10 or 20 people in the audience, as there was last night. There weren’t enough people to feed off each other and let each other know that it was ok to laugh out loud. And when the audience is too small to join in, then the actors don’t get that audible feedback to tell them they are doing a great job and bump it up a notch. Now my first solution for this would be that all of you GET OUT TO BATAVIA AND SEE A GREAT COMEDY!! But should that fail, then my second solution would be to the Albright Theatre Company to seat its audience members closer together to make them feel as though they are in a larger crowd. Don’t let them spread so far apart that they feel like they are the only ones laughing.
This is a great comedy and deserves to be seen. Please go see it. It’s not a child-friendly show, so leave the kiddies with the sitter, but get out there for date night or whatever and be prepared to laugh.
The Book of Liz is presented by The Albright Theatre Company in downtown Batavia and runs through May 8, 2010. Tickets are $13 for adults and $10 for seniors and students. Box office information can be found here. $1 of every ticket sold will be donated to the Batavia Fireworks Fund.
Waiting For Sondheim 