Theater Review - Wonder of the World

It's not often that I'll go check out a show that I haven't at least HEARD of, but I headed up to New Hampshire with my pal Glen, at his suggestion to see Wonder of the World put on by the Milford Area Players. The only prior research I did was to see that it was about Niagara Falls and Sarah Jessica Parker had been in it.

I'd been in this theater before, and I love the space - big and open, not really a bad seat in the house. With open seating, Glen and I sat down in the second row on the stage right side with a great view.

The normal show announcements about keeping your cell phone off and the use of strobe lights was presented in a short film, which was pretty cute, albeit a little long. The trouble came in though, when the show started and they couldn't turn the film off. It even restarted at one point. From the photos in the lobby, it looked like the screen was supposed to be used for scenery or something during at least the first act but with the movie messing up like that, perhaps they didn't chance it because the screen stayed blank.

Briefly, the show is about a woman, Cass, who has discovered a secret about her husband that causes her to leave him and head out to fulfill all the dreams she has written down in a little notebook. Along the way, she meets Lois, an alcoholic who has been abandoned by her husband and who is determined to commit suicide by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel (that'll show him!). And, of course, they get into shenanigans along the way.

The sets were pretty great, the crew changing from a bedroom to a bus to another bedroom, although slow at times. There were some moments with Cass' husband in between scenes to distract us from the movement. I liked the costumes, which were pretty regular for most of the characters, but the three waitresses (all played by Laurie Rorosian, along with 3 OTHER characters) had great outfits that she was able to change between quickly. The use of a whirling strobe light to depict a helicopter was a good idea, but I thought the gunshot was a little too loud given the volume of the rest of the show. The most interesting set piece was the last scene when we find Cass and Lois together in a barrel getting ready to go over the falls. Using a rope/pulley system (that took a long time to get into) crew members were able to pull the barrel in between corners of the stage to give it a real random feeling. It was a really fantastic idea and worked great! The only thing that might have made it better was if there was some type of covering or fabric that the barrel could have fit through that would spread out over the stage to serve as the water, making the barrel stick out of the "water" to give us the full effect. Granted, I am not a set person, so this might not have even been an option...just something I thought about.

I really enjoyed the acting in this. Shawna O'Brian's Cass was bubbly and energetic, and her lines seemed completely natural and spontaneous and I believed every second of her performance, though my friend noticed she had some eye contact issues in the first act. The shining star was Mari Keegan as Lois who couldn't have played a lonely, sarcastic alcoholic any better. Kur Bergeron's Kip Harris was very whiny and pathetic, which was funny, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to sympathize with him or be irritated by him, because I started to do the latter the longer the show went on. Maria Berry and Vick Bennison as the private investigators were cute and funny, and I could see them as an old married couple easily. The character of Captain Mike (Craig Ciampa) was pretty much the "straight man" of the show, as his character was the only one without really serious issues. A straightforward role played well, although it was a shame the way he died. Finally, the multitude of characters played by Torosian were all great, though I'm not sure that the audience got the triplet reference towards the end.

Overall, this was a really amusing show. It wasn't laugh-out-loud funny until the end of the first act when we find out why Cass left Kip, but even when I wasn't laughing out loud, I was on the inside. A super cute production of a show that I've never heard of another group doing - great job!