INSIDE OUT run dates: 4/10/2008 - 4/13/2008 My Verona Productions at the Village Theatre, Village of East Davenport ____________________________________________________________________________
Christian Krauspe’s INSIDE OUT, which premiered April 11, was described at an April 10 preview as a work in progress – and that is exactly what this show is. Billed as "a comedy about a comedy about the worst play ever written," the material definitely has the potential to earn its billing, and a number of fine performers help make it clear what this show will eventually have to offer.
Yet the opposite is also true.
The stunning array of talent in the cast of INSIDE OUT’s premiere makes it clear that the script still has a rewrite or two before it achieves its full promise. For example, when the likes of Jackie Madunic and Adam Lewis have roles that aren’t full-fledged and consistent, their roles likely need to be more fully defined. But for all this, INSIDE OUT still has plenty of enjoyable moments that will be especially appreciated by theater people – since of course there is nothing we enjoy more than a play about what we love most.
The cheeky premise of this new work is both straightforward and multi-layered. Commercial writer Brad (Lewis) has contracted to write a romantic comedy for the stage, and he is more than slightly over his head. His friend Liz Bruce (Liz J. Millea) has been drafted to help him finish the (mostly unwritten) script on time, and together they are creating what just might be the worst play ever written, which is also about the worst play ever written.
In Brad’s play, there is a small company rehearsing a new script still in the rewrite phase, and everyone involved (including, every so often, the playwright – acted with a lovely earnestness by Tristan Layne Tapscott) is convinced that their show, LOVE’S LAST GASP, is the infamous worst show ever.
Tapscott’s playwright, who is apparently in love with the leading lady, is one of the most fully developed characters in any of INSIDE OUT’s three layers. I also thoroughly seeing Tapscott’s work when his character steps in to play one of the roles he has written. Yet even with this, there is still an early scene where it seems that the playwright is, instead, in love with the leading man.
Lewis’ character is likewise maybe in love with his friend Liz, who maybe isn’t interested in him, and each of them may or may not want the script he’s writing to be a good one. The tangents they have about a supreme being seemed forced, but could make sense if the time that passes while Brad and Liz are writing were more clearly defined. Madunic’s Sarah, who has been cast as the dumbest and most inconsistent ingenue ever (and is wonderfully entertaining as the ditsy Caroline), is also never presented as a coherent character – but Madunic makes the most of small comic bits concerning hairpieces.
Bryan J. Tank and J.W. Hertner have things a little easier. Tank’s excellent Jack Love is a jerk – pure and simple – and his overt disdain for anyone who isn’t him proves to be totally consistent. Jack Love also plays a swashbuckling adventurer with an over-sized one-dimensional consistency that is right on target. Hertner, who is the stage manager of LOVE’S LAST GASP (and the stage-manager-turned actor who plays Bumbleward, a fawning lackey in the same show), makes the most of his clearly-defined roles.
Director Chris Walljasper has staged this work simply. The set for GASP is totally cheesy, complete with a rickety balcony that is maybe two inches off the stage and looks like a leftover from an early eighties production of PRIVATE LIVES. The floor-level setting for Brad and Liz’s writing sessions seems natural, and Walljasper uses other parts of the stage and floor well.
What also works for INSIDE OUT are its most comic elements. The campy, absolutely awful GASP is fun, and recurring jokes about sandwiches and insults and other playwrights provide some of the best laughs. Krauspe has the beginnings of what could be a fully entertaining comedy here, and I wish him well with subsequent rewrites.
In the mean time, theater folks – and anyone else who is interested in the processes involved in creating theater or in seeing it happen as it does – will enjoy seeing INSIDE OUT evolve.
