Play 'Hope' ponders ‘How bad is bad?’ | Beowulf Alley Theatre Company

Play 'Hope' ponders ‘How bad is bad?’ | Beowulf Alley Theatre Company:

Play 'Hope' ponders ‘How bad is bad?’

Despite political jabs, real story is about love

Posted Jul 26, 2012, 8:13 am

By: Dave Irwin, TucsonSentinel.com

“Hope,” the latest in Beowulf Alley Theatre Company’s summer series, is ostensibly about a man considering becoming his party’s nominee for Congress. Locked in a hotel room, he reviews his life not to see if he is good enough for national leadership, but to assure the party and himself that he’s not irredeemably bad.

Director Michael Fenlason keeps the pace as fast as can be allowed in a narrative that constantly moves back and forth in time. He uses side entrances and lighting to suggest Joe’s dream states and introduce the skeletons rattling around inside his mind.

… “Hope” is worth the effort required to get to the theatre’s downtown location during the construction and experience it for oneself during its brief run.

Grace Fenlason/Beowulf Alley Theatre

Michael Gifford and Chezale Rodriquez in 'Hope.'

Read the entire review here: Play 'Hope' ponders ‘How bad is bad?’ | Beowulf Alley Theatre Company:

'Exorcism' offers brief, frank insight into Eugene O’Neill | Beowulf Alley Theatre Company

'Exorcism' offers brief, frank insight into Eugene O’Neill | Beowulf Alley Theatre Company:

'Exorcism' offers brief, frank insight into Eugene O’Neill

O’Neill fragment is with seeing—especially with student discounts

Jul 11, 2012, 5:51 pm

Dave Irwin

TucsonSentinel.com

Evan Engle as Ned, gives an idealized performance as O’Neill would probably like to have seen himself: square jawed, ruggedly handsome, too tough to die and too strong to be denied.

Ken Beider gives a heart wrenching performance as down-and-out Jimmy. Having recently returned to the stage after an eight-year absence (in Beowulf’s “Sins of the Mother”), Beider’s physicality embodies a man who is slowly collapsing in on himself, day by day, drink by drink.

 

Ken Beider and Evan Engle as pals in Exorcism

Grace Fenlason/Beowulf Alley Theatre

Read the entire review here: http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/arts/report/071112_oneill_exorcism_review/exorcism-offers-brief-frank-insight-into-eugene-oneill/

O'Neill's 'Exorcism' gives a glimpse at playwright's early, dark brilliance:

O'Neill's 'Exorcism' gives a glimpse at playwright's early, dark brilliance

By Kathleen Allen Kallen@azstarnet.com

A Eugene O'Neill play is never light fare, but it is almost always illuminating.

And Beowulf Alley Theatre is turning on the O'Neill road less taken over the next few weeks with its staging of "Exorcism."

The one-act, one of O'Neill's first plays, was discovered just last year, more than 90 years after the playwright penned it.

From left, David Swisher, Evan Engle, Michael Fenlason and Ken Beider are in the cast of Beowulf Alley's "Exorcism." The play was discovered just last year.

Maybe he wanted it lost - it's the story of his attempted suicide, and, like most of O'Neill's plays, it puts him and his family in a questionable light.

The play was produced in 1920, but shortly after that O'Neill was said to have destroyed all copies. Ostensibly, he did it to please his father.

It isn't quintessential O'Neill - look to "The Iceman Cometh" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" for that. But it is O'Neill, for goodness sake. A glimpse of his dark and stirring brilliance before it was in full bloom surely marks "Exorcism."

Performances are 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through July 13, with one matinee at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave. Tickets are $15, with discounts available.

Call 882-0555 for more information.