YOU GOT OLDER (Wilbury Theatre Group)

November 26, 2019December 3, 2019 michaelhobanLeave a comment

(Cast of Wilbury Group’s “You Got Older”)

by Tony Annicone

The New England Premiere of “You Got Older”, winner of the 2015 Obie Award for playwriting is the second Clare Barron play presented at the Wilbury Theatre Group. Told in a series of vignettes, Barron blends reality with the fantasies of the main character, Mae, who has returned home to care for her father who has just been diagnosed with cancer. Mae is recovering from a broken relationship, the loss of her job, a strange rash that won’t go away, and a recurring fantasy about a sexy blond Cowboy. Mae has two sisters and a brother who come visit their dad in the hospital. There’s also Mac, a male friend of her sister, Hannah. It seem like she has much in common with Mac, but in times of stress or anxiousness she escapes into a fantasy world of the handsome cowboy who takes her mind off the troubles that she is currently facing about the seriousness of her father’s illness. Mae and her siblings discuss trivial matters with each other in front of their sick father, and even some sex talk that is hilarious. The scenes with Mac and the cowboy bring some levity to the proceedings. Director Wendy Overly molds her seven member cast into these characters marvelously and makes us confront a dramatic part of our lives when dealing with a parent’s final illness. She brings out the best in each of her cast members.

WAITING FOR GODOT – Wilbury Theatre Group

October 8, 2019 michaelhobanLeave a comment

(Tom Gleadow and Richard Donelly in WAITING FOR GODOT at The Wilbury Theatre Group, Providence RI; photo by Erin X. Smithers)

Reviewed by Tony Annicone

Wilbury Theatre Group opens their ninth season with Samuel Beckett’s existential play “Waiting for Godot.” It first appeared on Broadway in April, 1956. It is about two tramps, Estragon and Vladimir and stars Richard Donelly as Gogo and Tom Gleadow as Didi. They sit waiting on a barren road for Godot. While they wait they run into three people as the two of them have long discussions with each other. They quarrel, make up, contemplate suicide, eat a carrot and gnaw on some chicken bones. One of the men that they meet is Pozzo. He is going to the market to sell his slave, Lucky. He converses with the two men while Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking. Director Fred Sullivan masterfully takes us on this comic but informative journey about the meaning of life and how we explore it, awaiting the outcome and hoping for something or someone who gives us this positive energy. Are we waiting for a lover, for God or the path our life will take? Beckett lets the audience members decide what they think the meaning of this play is, leaving it up to them to solve the pathway of their lives.

FUTURITY (Wilbury Theatre Group, Providence, RI)

December 10, 2018December 15, 2018 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Reviewed by Tony Annicone

The current show at Wilbury Theatre Group is the Rhode Island premiere of “Futurity”, an avant-garde-Americana musical by Cesar Alvarez and the Lisps. It mixes sci-fi with 19th Century Americana. The story follows the correspondence between Ada Lovelace, the real life daughter of Lord Byron, who was a poet and a mathematician, and Julian Munro, a completely fictional soldier during the American Civil War who served with the Ohio regiment.

HOW I LEARNED HOW TO DRIVE (Wilbury Theatre Group)

September 13, 2018September 24, 2018 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Reviewed by Tony Annicone

The current show at Wilbury Theatre Group is The Pulitzer Prize winning “How I Learned How to Drive” by Paula Vogel. The story revolves around a teenager’s driving lessons and still delivers an emotional punch this some twenty years later. “How I Learned How to Drive” traverses taboo territory with humor, heart and empathy. They sensitively establish the intense, if unhealthy rapport between a sympathetic pedophile and a niece who learns a lot more than she needs to know from him. This memory play contain the memories of the narrator, L’il Bit a grown woman looking back on her white-trash family and rural upbringing in Maryland in the 1960’s and 70’s.

THE CARETAKER (Wilbury Theatre Group, Providence, RI)

September 7, 2017September 19, 2017 michaelhobanLeave a comment

Reviewed by Tony Annicone

The Wilbury Theatre Group’s first show of their new season is “The Caretaker”, a play in three acts by Harold Pinter. When it premiered in 1964, “The Caretaker” changed the face of modern theatre. Into his derelict household shrine Ashton brings Davies, a tramp with pretensions. Even though he may seem to the world to be a pathetic old creature. All that is left of his past now is his existence in Sidcup of some papers, papers that will prove exactly who he is and enable him to start all over again.