5/1/2010
What a week! In some ways it's hard to believe that we've been in Minneapolis for only five days, but it also kind of feels like we've been here forever. The days are long becuase we're doing so much, but there are so many interesting things to see and experience that it makes the time fly. This trip has been well worth the long drive. The Twin Cities are beautiful and provide so much rich culture - it makes me wish we could stay another week to experience what the city has to offer aside from theater. But the theater alone has more than enough to keep us busy for this trip. We have so far seen eight shows at eight different theaters, and each has provided a distinct performance.
We began our trip with How to Talk Minnesotan at the Plymouth Playhouse and Women's Minyan at The Minnesota Jewish Theater Company. Both were enjoyable in their own ways - Minnesotan was certainly a cute way to pick up on some colloquialisms of the state, and Women's Minyan tackled many painful but relevant issues, which made for an emotional and thought-provoking night of theater.
The second day began with Queens of Burlesque at the History Theater, which was followed by a Q and A with the cast. That evening we attended Dead Man's Cell Phone at the Park Square theater, which was one of my favorites. The cast created such an awkward little world for this dark comedy which was surprising and smart.
Yesterday (day three) we saw Click Clack Moo at Stages, which was mostly enjoyable because of the young audience - it's nice to see kids so enthusiastic about theater. In the evening we attended Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Jungle Theater. This production was far and away my favorite so far. Although the production ran over three hours I was riveted the entire time. The actors paced the show beautifully and were gorgeously charismatic in their nastiness. Although the characters they portrayed were some of the most unpleasant we have seen, I thought they were also the most sympathetic because they were so well realized.
Today we saw M. Butterfly at the Guthrie Theater, which was visually stunning, although I was not thrilled with the alterations they made to the script. However, the production was still one of my favorites, largely due to a strong performance by Randy Reyes in the role of Song. Finally, tonight we saw The King and I at the Bloomington Civic Center, which I thought was overall lacking, despite some beautiful voices and an excellent play within a play.
We have one day left here in Minneapolis, with two shows to go. Despite how tiring it has been at times, this trip has been an amazing experience and I will be sad to see it end. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be here, and hope that I will be able to return someday!
Posted at 11:20 PM by Erin Carmody