Summer Blink |
Unlike last year’s lingering Indian summer, this autumn seems downright classical, so far, in its quintessential early chill. And appropriately enough, it is overwhelmingly classics and chills that will make up the greatest bounty of our theater scene this season.But first, if you’re still in denial about the passing of your high summer — and, perhaps, of your high adolescent youth — you might find some vicarious comfort in SUMMER BLINK, a new play by Todd Hunter that receives its world-premiere production from ROLLING DIE PRODUCTIONS AT THE PLAYERS’ RING (September 21 through October 4). Hunter’s play of “orange-hued memories and sweeping sensory overload” chronicles the titillating exploits of 18-year-old Mina as she navigates that timeless and epic pause, the summer after high school.
Also hearkening back to youth and a more innocent age this fall is PORTLAND STAGE COMPANY, with the nostalgic comedy OVER THE TAVERN (September 26 through October 22). It’s 1959, and the boisterous Polish-Catholic Pazinskis are trying for something like domestic serenity. Instead, they get the shenanigans and wisecracks of their 12-year-old son Rudy, whose youthful energy helps everyone remember that life is for going light.
At the other end of things, developmentally speaking, we have two jaded and aging actors, former lovers, who are nearing the autumns of their careers and lives. It’s Sondheim’s classic and gloriously witty musical, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, and it goes up in the capable hands of SEACOAST REPERTORY (September 15 through October 15). At once sentimental and wry, this one’s got some of the best lyrics in the American songbook.
Next to the charming urbanity of the theater world, Oklahoma City looks pretty skeevy, and particularly in the seedy motel setting of BUG, the season opener of MAD HORSE (October 26 through November 19). Its protagonist, a lonely, line-snorting divorcée, foresees no major dramatic repercussions in inviting an apparently harmless-looking homeless stranger back to her room for the night. She proves astigmatic, of course, in a play of pests and paranoia that the New York Times called “obscenely exciting.”
Pests, paranoia, and willful seediness are also slated to haunt the Presumpscot Grange Hall in a world premiere production by my favorite purveyors of B-grade horror, RUNNING OVER PRODUCTIONS. In WHARF RATS, a brand new script by thespian-of-many-hats Keith Anctil (October 27 through November 11), a sinister fog rolls into the waterfront, a crate of unknown cargo mysteriously vanishes, and bodies begin to pile up. Are the hard-drinking dock workers being offed by a supernatural killer, or something even creepier?
While we’re talking about the wild and the weird, consider USM’s season start: The Tony-winning EQUUS, a drama about the borders between what is “savage” and what is “civilized” (October 6 through 15). As various adults go about treating a teenage boy who has senselessly blinded six horses with a steel spike, Peter Schaffer’s script explores the philosophical breach between the individual and society.
Then there’s the season premiere of GOOD THEATER, which brazenly takes us all the way into the wilderness with INTO THE WOODS (October 19 through November 12). In this popular musical, Sondheim takes our standard fairy tale repertoire and goes Broadway on its ass.
