Directed by David Sullivan and played out against Eric Levenson’s suitably spare and grubby setting, the Gloucester Stage production crackles even when the play is telegraphing or confusing. Pemberton presents a hail-fellow opportunist who assures Ken, in his bubbly accented English, that in nearby Atlantic City prostitution and gambling go together “like peanut butter/jelly.” And his childlike cantering through the televised races is goofy enough that you wince to see him humiliated by his own greed. Jared O’Brien is a tightly wound Wallace who follows the ponies with a jerky, almost incantatory grace. James William Ijames makes palpable Ken’s urgent concerns and literal sensibility — if not his volatility when crossed. And as the cashier, Jacqui Parker delivers knife-sharp nonchalance on a platter. These guys are lucky she’s behind a glass barrier.
Related:
Dream team, Free fisticuffs, Thank You For Smoking, More 
- Dream team
The fairies are creeping on their bellies along the carpet of the Wang Theatre rehearsal-hall floor.
- Free fisticuffs
After last year’s Hamlet , Commonwealth Shakespeare Company artistic director Steven Maler decided he wanted a play “with life and character and vitality to it — an upbeat type of spirit” for this year’s offering of free Shakespeare on Boston Common.
- Thank You For Smoking
As Nick Naylor, chief lobbyist for Big Tobacco, Aaron Eckhart tempers his gleefully loathsome persona from Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men with a seductively serpentine charm and wit.
- A Good Woman
The past catches up with an ageing seductress in Mike Barker’s flaccid version of Lady Windermere’s Fan , Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners.
- An awkward adaptation
Times change, but the frailties of the human heart . . . not so much. That overworked muscle can be haplessly generous or slammed-door shut. Nathaniel Hawthorne's mid-19th century novel The Scarlet Letter still stands as a perceptive examination of the eternal internal battle between love and hate.
- I is another
Lothar Berfelde was born both a generation too late and a generation too early, growing up as he did in Berlin when the Nazis were coming to power in the '30s.
- Balloon moon
Sometimes less is more when imagination rules.
- Kosher comic
Judy Gold sashays into a press conference with a white apron over her jeans and a tray of rugelach in her hand.
- Rabbit forming
For further indication of the darkening zeitgeist, consider the personae of imaginary rabbits.
- History tour
Whitewash has floated like a soap scum on the bloodbath of America’s past as told in the history books.
- Not about heroes
Guns and cocoa butter are the subjects of George Bernard Shaw’s 1894 Arms and the Man , the first of the great Irish contrarian’s “Plays Pleasant.”
- Less
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Theater
, Entertainment, Sports, Horse Racing, More
, Entertainment, Sports, Horse Racing, Performing Arts, Theater, Theatrical Plays, Michael Imperioli, Eric Levenson, Jacqui Parker, Less
