Theater Notes: Florida Repertory Theater has two must-sees
Florida Repertory Theater has every right to be bathing in glory. On their boards right now are two of the finest productions that have ever graced our theater season in Southwest Florida. I do not say that lightly.
Easily, the crowd pleasing Agatha Christie magical mystery, “The Mouse Trap,” is filling the seats with this longest running classic, and I’m sworn to secrecy to not tell you who done it. You will want to go with all of your friends. The uproarious standing ovation the afternoon I was there said it all.
What happens at that snowbound boarding house is spellbinding. It has a superb all-star cast including many Florida Repertory favorites like Brendan Powers and Kate Young. Courtney Feiman is back and Brian Hatch helps make it work, and does it ever work. As always, the production values truly make you believe this is Broadway. “The Mouse Trap” plays through Dec. 18.
But that’s only half of the triumph at Florida Repertory. In their art studio theater, they have produced a stunning Mark St. Germain play, “The Best of Enemies.”
The plot is totally gripping. The year is 1971. We are in Durham, North Carolina where there is a battle over Desegregating the Public Schools. On one side is a hate filled leader of the KKK organization and on the other a radical courageous black woman unafraid to speak up and set the fire raging.
Is that enough to draw you in? Everyone in that audience was made to take a stand. At the intermission, we were all slightly numb. But, eager to get back and see what could possibly come next. The play is staged with seats on long rows on either side of where all the action takes place. We see each other’s wet faces as tears came with the possibility of hope.
Four of the best actors anywhere, bring it all to life. Two of them are precious favorites at Florida Repertory. Rachel Burttram dazzled me, once again, the role she created with her magnificent subtle movements, facial expressions and words as the wife of the KKK brute. I can’t think of anyone else who could do what Graham Smith did as the KKK leader. The warrior woman was Mary E. Hodges up from New York with vast roles played in many major regional theaters.
The fourth provocateur in this production is Beethovan Oden an Equity actor with great credits. He plays the Community Organizer, Bill Riddick, who comes up with the crazy idea of having the two enemies co-chair a Charette where the community could come together to ask questions and take part in the solution that was dividing the town wider and wider.
I don’t know where you were during the years of Civil Rights. I was teaching at Queens College where the Civil Rights club, 500 students strong, asked me to be faculty advisor. They tutored, they marched, they wrote letters to the editor. Twelve of them went two summers in a row to Prince Edward Country, Virginia, to run summer schools where black schools had simply been closed. I went with students to Mississippi to help rebuild churches that had been fire bombed the summer before. This play told our story. It will tell yours, too. Go see it if there’s no other play you see all season!!
It may be difficult to get a ticket, but you need to try, and try damn hard. You will regret not seeing this masterpiece. But, you only have until Dec. 15.
For tickets to both plays, call (239) 332.4488 or go to floridarep.org. I am so proud of you, Florida Repertory.