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Acting Resonates in Regional Premiere of "Boom Town"
By Mark Lowry/ Excerpted from The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram 08/30/01 ©2001 Theatre Quorum delivers a beautifully acted production of a 1998 play by screen actor Jeff Daniels. About his writing, actor Jeff Daniels - best known for such films as Terms of Endearment and 101 Dalmatians - says he writes plays about "people living right next door." In a regional premiere of his 1998 play Boom Town, Theatre Quorum offers exquisite proof of that statement. Sure, Daniels' Midwest characters are people who could be squabbling in a neighboring house, but without the three actors who so convincingly breathe life into them, the heart-arresting impact wouldn't be felt so strongly. Angela (Andi Allen) and Stu (Carl Savering) are a married couple on the brink of financial disaster. A city council motion would approve or prevent a trailer park's move nearby. If approved, it would help the couple's failing store tremendously, but approval is unlikely unless the successful Frank (Pat Watson) can persuade the council otherwise. Correctly suspecting that Angela and Frank are having an affair, Stu decides to use the knowledge to gain leverage over Frank, who has a family. The question is, who's outscheming whom? ...As the most unsuspectingly manipulative of the plot, Allen makes the triumvirate of exciting performers complete. Her performance is so close to home that she's not merely someone next door, she exists very close, within your family. The script's only disappointment is that the ending is a little too easy, but the ride on the way there is so intense that it doesn't matter. Class War: Boom Town rivets with its understated stew of working-class sex and hunger By Jimmy Fowler / excerpted from The Dallas Observer 08/30/01 ©2001 I'm not just speaking for myself when I call Saturday night's sold-out performance of Boom Town in the Mesquite Arts Center's Black Box breathtaking, and I'm being literal. There were moments, especially during the second act of Theatre Quorum's exquisitely understated production, when you could sense the audience was almost frightened to make a sound as it waited for an actor to deliver the next line...Much of the impact of Theatre Quorum's Boom Town lies in its perfectly targeted casting. Each of the actors onstage here walks, talks and looks exactly the type the playwright envisioned for his characters. I don't think I've ever seen Andi Allen in a dramatic role before, and she's terrific. There's nary a whiff of white-trash caricature surrounding her disappointed schemer, just tired, mascaraed eyes framed by blowsy dyed-blond hair and the occasional weak smile when she thinks fortunes may turn her way...Thanks to Theatre Quorum, Boom Town is a place where cuckoldry and debt are perfectly justified triggers for homicidal rage. Actors mine the depths of adultery, extortion in Quorum's "Boom Town" By Tom Sime / excerpted from The Dallas Morning News 08/24/01 ©2001 Carl Savering, Andi Allen and Pat Watson delivered painfully real betrayal with dead-on performances Thursday in Theatre Quorum's Boom Town at the Mesquite Arts Center. ...The drama, which Theatre Quorum previewed Thursday and will open Friday at the Mesquite Arts Center, offers a steamy slice of guilty tension, pulled taut in real time. Intermission serves as the discreet blackout when the adulterous coupling takes place. As the second act begins, the lovers emerge to find that her husband has been listening to their every word and deed...The performances are strong; all three actors are in top form. Director Cynthia Hestand has found a good balance of malaise, mordant humor and guts-in-knots tension. The seething rage endured by the betrayed and the grimly erotic mood of secrecy shared by adulterers are provided for in Mr. Daniels' script... |