"Pendergrass Fortune" revived at Meadow Brook
Comments
Print This
Email This
Tweet This
Delicious
By JILLIAN NASSAR
Contributing Reporter
On Monday and Tuesday night, Meadow Brook Theatre welcomed the original comedy, “The Pendergrass Fortune or Liars and Moneygrubbers.”
The theatre’s intern run production brought about 40 people to the performance on Monday night, ranging from the ages of approximately eight to 80 years.
The play revolved around four actors who all think they are performing the same one man show but split up the roles and work together to perform.
With their extensive background in theatre, Jaime Kolacki, Brett Radke, Ryan Falcheck, and Savannah Lee starred in the play.
The play within a play started with each character opening with short monologues that produced many laughs in the audience, including jokes of narcissism, clumsiness, and music mishaps. The pattern of breaking the fourth wall was constant throughout the entire show.
Between characters breaking out of character to technical difficulties, not a minute went by where laughter did not fill the theatre.
“It was cute and witty,” said patron Liz Schoen.
Each of the four actors played multiple characters with each character having different walks, mannerisms, and, sometimes, voices.
“It was a chance to dissect a bunch of different roles,” said Falcheck, who is a recent OU grad.
Travis W. Walter, Meadow Brook Theatre’s artistic administrator, said he wrote the play back in 2003 and it debuted a year later on Meadow Brook’s stage.
Director Lauren Coleman, a performance intern at Meadow Brook Theatre, said he has known Walter for many years, and insisted on reviving the play.
She helped with the production when it first debuted years ago and when the opportunity came for her to direct a play, she decided on Walter’s. Coleman went through the script, found specific instructions, and visualized Walter’s words.
Walter said he enjoys testing his play out on different audience to get the largest variety of responses and describes his script as “a constant work in progress.” When rehearsing, a chain reaction of ideas would occur to help morph the play into what the audience saw on Monday night, Coleman said.
The cast rehearsed for two months for the two night affair.
“If a different director did it, it would look completely different,” said Coleman.
The character interaction rested upon their banter, quips, and comic timing that never went without a laugh in the audience.
“We mesh well offstage,” said Radke, who is a theatre major at Oakland. “Everyone’s so cool and fun to work with.”
All of the play’s roles demanded that the actors perfect the art of physical comedy that might have become a major obstacle.
“You act with your whole body,” said Falcheck.
“It had a great energy and it was fun to watch,” said Lauren Knox, freshman, theatre major.
No Comments
No comments yet.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.