JANUARY 19TH thru FEBRUARY 18TH, 2007
Fridays & Saturdays @ 8pm; Sundays @ 3pm & 7pm
(please note there is NO MATINEE on Sunday Jan 21st )

with:
Elizabeth Bennett, Britt Erickson, Emily Kosloski, Misi Lopez Lecube,
Nino Mancuso, Jeremy Maxwell, Aaron Moody, & Chris Shaw

set design: Mina Kinukawa	light design: Lisa D. Katz
costume design: Mindy Eshelman	sound design: Drew Dalzell
press rep: Joe Foster	production stage mgr: Catherine Galvan
produced by: Lauren Bass, Chris Fields, Jenn Heater

Chris Shaw and Nino Mancuso


Elizabeth Bennett and Chris Shaw


Misi Lopez Lecube and Emily Kosloski


Jeremy Maxwell and Aaron Moody





January 24, 2007

The title of Adam Bock's play doesn't make any obvious sense, which is perfect for this hourlong oddball relationship comedy. Like David Mamet, Bock crafts mannered dialogue that depends on the actors and directors--as well an astute audience--to fill in the gaps. Director Abigail Deser and the Echo Theater Company don't miss a beat. The ensemble blisters through a multitude of brief scenes, hitting all of Bock's best comic lines and adding several bits of visual humor.

Thursday launches into motion straight from actor Chris Shaw's admonishment to the audience to turn off cell phones and keep the "f-ing aisles clear for entrances and exits." The setup requires barely two minutes. Marcy (Elizabeth Bennett), a former TV star who has been in drug rehab more times than she can recall, returns to her small unnamed hometown to find a regular job. Marcy's return upsets Alison (Britt Erickson) because Alison's boyfriend, George (Nino Mancuso), formerly dated Marcy. Alison's friends Janet (Emily Kosloski) and Charlene (Misi L. Lecube) share her anger. Pete (Shaw), on the other hand, is happy to see Marcy but distracted because the man he dumped, Jimmy (Jeremy Maxwell), now has a thing for Alex (Aaron Moody).

The halting dialogue, mostly comprising witty insults and philosophical lectures, contains much repetition. Deser keeps the lines flowing and the tone somewhat cartoonish, which fits. The entire cast is solid, though the biggest laughs belong to Shaw, whose portrayal of Pete is so filled with rage and annoyance that he appears ready to drop from a heart attack. Bennett, as Marcy, is a nice counter to George, slowing down the action just enough to keep things in focus. The set, designed by Mina Kinukawa, consists primarily of various small staircases and levels, which the actors frequently walk up and down, adding to the play's manic quality. Thursday delivers a wealth of humor, along with a message about jealousy and happiness, and ends before it loses steam.

-Jeff Favre

 


***RECOMMENDED***

Fun, romantic humor even on a 'Thursday'

Echo Theater Co.'s hourlong one-act moves fast
through a flurry of soap-opera-style vignettes.

No one captures the comedy of romantic misconnection better than Chekhov, though Adam Bock puckishly updates the genre in "Thursday", a loony game of love and loss, now playing at the Zephyr Theatre, that's a delight to watch even as you're reminded of just how painful it can be to play.

Winningly staged by the Echo Theater Company under the direction of Abigail Deser, this hourlong one-act--a divertissement, really--shapes up onstage as a series of rapid entrances and exits.

A group of friends with urban style and small-town lives is thrown into a tizzy when Marcy (Elizabeth Bennett), a former television star, returns home after another Band-Aid patch of rehab. George (Nino Mancuso), her ex, doesn't mind helping her get back on her feet, though his new girlfriend, Alison (Britt Erikson), is livid about it, as her neurotic hair-twirling makes clear.

Paralleling this amorous mess is the ongoing soap opera involving George's gay brother, Pete (a somewhat over-animated Christopher Shaw), a stalking pain in the neck who refuses to let Jimmy (Jeremy Maxwell) move on even though he was the one who dumped him.

Rounding out the roundelay are Janet (Emily Kosloski) and Charlene (Misi L. Lecube), a lesbian odd couple whose nonstop chatter and coffee slurps slowly by surely drive them apart even as they try to rescue Alison and George from a similar fate.

A sneaky stylist, Bock enjoys taking insignificant character ticks and ritualizing them so they shed light on compulsive behavioral patterns. Everyone, in his or her own peculiarly annoying way, is trying to stave off loneliness. But if it's not so easy to "only connect", to borrow E.M. Forster's words, it's even harder to maintain our tenuous connections.

The actors who create the most vivid impressions are those who don't overplay their fidgety hands. Bennett is particularly amusing in her explanation of how she doesn't really have a drug problem.

Her rationalizations for her multiple prescriptions sound, in fact, uncannily like those made in the throes of that other, more universal addiction for which there's an endless supply of sappy songs, but still no cure.

-Charles McNulty

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