WOBT: "Boeing-Boeing"

Last seen at the Wetumpka Depot ten years ago, Marc Camoletti's outrageous French farce Boeing-Boeing is currently entertaining audiences at the Way Off Broadway Theatre in Prattville. The English translation by Beverley Cross and Francis Evans is replete with clever dialogue, archetypal characters, comic-formulaic plot devices, and physical challenges that make for an engaging evening as director Melissa Strickland guides her ensemble of six actors for two-and-a-half hours through the play's three acts.

It's the 1960s, so Ms. Strickland shows us a very "mod" set with seven doors to accommodate the many quick escapes that farce requires, and creates a period atmosphere with a soundtrack from the '60s. And the costumes are both period-appropriate while deftly showing the characters' professions.

Here's the set-up: Bernard [Josh Carples] lives in an up to date Paris apartment, where his three "finances" -- each of them stewardesses for TWA, Alitalia, and Lufthansa airlines -- stay with him while they are in between flights; none of them knows about the others, and Bernard keeps them separate through his mathematical calculations of their individual schedules. -- As you might imagine, there will be complications for this Lothario. [Keep in mind that 21st Century communications didn't exist, so they relied on land-line telephones, etc.]

Each of the women has a distinct personality [matter of fact American Gloria: Ashlee Lassiter; lusty Italian Gabriella: Jordon Perry, strong-willed German Gretchen: Laela Bunn], challenging Bernard to shift gears with each one, and challenging his housekeeper Berthe [Janie Allred] to prepare meals to suit them, as well as to be complicit in Bernard's behavior and rescue him from impending disaster.

When Bernard's old naive friend Robert [Isaac Garrison] shows up out of the blue, Bernard invites him to stay while he gets settled in Paris. Though Robert is initially shocked, befuddled, and intrigued with Bernard's lifestyle, he eventually is seduced by the hedonistic arrangement.

No spoilers about the specific outcome [it's a comedy, so everyone's happy by the conclusion], but the fun of the production is in following the assorted plot twists, personality developments, broad physical humor, over-the-top national accents, and various meltdowns when situations get out of hand.

Wetumpka Depot: "Silent Sky"

Prolific author Lauren Gunderson has in several years had the distinction of being named "America's most produced living playwright". Her multi-award-winning scripts include Silent Sky which is on stage at the Wetumpka Depot for the next two weekends. Ms. Gunderson most often focuses on pioneering women in history, literature, and science who address the challenges they face in a male dominated world.

Sensitively directed by Kim Mason [one of the River Region's most accomplished thespians], Silent Sky is based on the true story of Henrietta Leavitt who, in the early 20th Century, left her home in Wisconsin to take a job at a Harvard University astronomy lab. Eager to get to work, she finds that all the women in the "harem" so employed merely record and catalogue the data that the men get credit for, and has no chance of actually engaging meaningfully in mapping the stars by using the telescope forbidden to them.

A tight ensemble of actors inhabit their roles with conviction, as Gunderson tracks Henrietta's audacious persistence in achieving new astronomical discoveries that changed the ways in which modern science views the cosmos, the earth, and the ways in which humankind exists in it.

Make no mistake, audiences are meant to be on Henrietta's side from the very beginning. In the role, Hillary Taylor is both a radical and a traditional homebody whose decision to leave Wisconsin is hard for her sister Margaret [Meagan Tuck] to understand and accept. And when she meets the other women at the lab -- brusque and rigid Annie [Tammy Arvidson] and compassionate Scottish Williamina [Layne Holley] -- she has colleagues who teach her the rules and later become complicit in her breaking them. 

Though she expected to meet and work hand in hand with the professor who heads the project, she is met by his assistant Peter [Ethan Montgomery], whose almost robotic pronouncements about the lab work and the distinctions between the roles of men and women cause Henrietta to do everything in her power to break the rules and get some credit.

Predictably, a romance begins between them [an invention of the playwright], and serves to humanize both of the characters. -- Mr. Montgomery's persistent stuttering evokes one of the most convincingly disarming proclamations of love: a credit to the playwright, the director, the acting partners in the scene.

The play delves into the discoveries of an emerging astronomical science, feminism and women's suffrage, the sacrifices people make for family and career, and the legacy of important figures in our history, and makes them resonate over time.

Played on a simple set with a stunning cyclorama backdrop, and clothed in period character driven costumes by Ryan Sozzi and wigs by Hannah Lunt, Silent Sky draws audiences into Henrietta's world and the human complications she maneuvers, making for a stunning evening at the Wetumpka Depot.

Millbrook: "The Curious Savage"

There's no love lost between eccentric widow Mrs. Savage [Michon R. Givens] and her three adult step-children [played by Eric Arvidson, Blair Berry, and Josh Register]. Now that she has inherited her late husband's $10-million, and is determined to help strangers fulfill their dreams and put the money to good use, the greedy step-children have her committed to a rest home called "The Cloisters" where they believe she will be under their control and can wrest the fortune for themselves. 

That's the set-up for John Patrick's 1950 comedy The Curious Savage now playing under A. John Collier's direction in Millbrook, and with three actors reprising roles from the 2016 production at Prattville's "Way Off Broadway Theatre".

But there's more: the residents of "The Cloisters" are a mixed bag of psychologically damaged misfits who are otherwise harmless and exhibit some of the best human traits: honesty, mutual support, acceptance of their own and other people's conditions, and an inherent goodness of nature. -- Actors RaeAnn Collier, Toshia Martin, Gage Parr, Katie Register, and Michael Snead exhibit distinct personalities that we are immediately drawn to, in part due to their realistic depictions, and who are clearly intended to contrast with the devious step-children.

Dr. Emmitt [Rodney Winter] and nurse Mrs. Willie [Bre Gentry], sympathetically care for the residents while trying to keep the peace within the Savage family.

There are plenty of comic moments amidst the family conflicts, delivered with assurance by the able cast. And though Patrick's old-fashioned storytelling includes lengthy exposition and methodical plot revelations that stretch the playing time to two-and-a-half hours [a quicker line delivery and more rapid pace could help], interest is sustained by the talents of the actors. -- Ms. Martin's lively and effervescent behavior gives welcome energy. And in the aforementioned reprised roles, Mr. Arvidson is thoroughly corrupt and frightening; Ms. Collier's litanies of the things her character "hates" are delivered with perfect detachment; and Ms. Givens takes he central role of Mrs. Savage to a mature level that puts attention on conflict and resolution while achieving our sympathies and support for her actions.  

No spoilers as to how it all turns out, but along the way audiences are challenged to figure out what is normal, the effects of trauma on individuals, that actions often do speak louder than words...good lessons for everyone.