By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
From left, Susan Arnold, Gretchen Wirges and India Osborne help create the audio magic at Scoundrel & Scamp.
Be honest now, how many times have you ever thought of Shakespeare's three witches along with the Three Little Pigs in the same sentence?
Fanciful playwright Mickle Maher (“A Happiness That Morning Is”) has proudly claimed that space with his humorously chaotic “It Is Magic,” a sort of fever dream in a backstage setting using psychological stage tricks as the MacGuffin that animates conflicted motivations in a community theater company whose desire to perform often exceeds its ability to do so.
If you count yourself among the proud cohort that has seen “Waiting For Guffman” at least three times, you will thoroughly enjoy “It Is Magic,” now streaming online through Oct. 3 in an audio production by the Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre.
Here in the midst of the COVID pandemic, S&S has opened the first play of its 2020-21 season online by simply recording the actors' voices performing Maher's script, with Bryan Rafael Falcon directing. With Maher's words doing double duty to convey all of the acting, the effect is like old time radio theater.
Falcon makes the innovative production feel a little more vintage by posting on the video screen black & white photos of the cast while the audio plays.
The dialogue creates a wild and crazy atmosphere with little need for reality. Maher has made the plot deliberately confusing to accelerate the fun – which this cast gleefully energizes with enthusiasm and a shameless love for exaggerated expression.
Sharing as the cast in this true ensemble effort are Susan Arnold, India Osborne, Gretchen Wirges, Lance Guzman and John Keeney.
The 90-minute production is set in the basement of a theater building where an audition is being held as, upstairs, a play opens in the main performance space.
Don't bother trying to carefully follow the plot. The real fun is in all the inside theater talk, the cuts and quips about a stage life that feels more like an addiction – no one is getting paid and no one would dream of leaving.
My favorite bit of logic reminds the actors who don't get cast in a role that now they can become a part of the audience, which is always the most important part of every play.
All these actors agree “capturing the magic” is essential. But a few believe some words are more magical than others. Or maybe it's not the words, but the actor that has the magic.
As with all art, everything is so subjective. Is the artistic director always fair, or is the artistic director playing favorites? And how does a person get to be one of the artistic director's favorites, anyway?
There's a lot of business about how everyone is supposed to say “the Scottish play” instead of the actual title of the Bard's kilted classic. Centuries-old backstage lore holds it is bad luck to say the title out loud. Hard core true believers insist you can't even say the name of the lead character in the Scottish play.
There are also some keen insights into the theater lifestyle, as well, such as observations on the artificial nature of the audition itself. How can the actor create real magic in the artificial audition process?
Is it real magic without also having the actual play? Does that mean the audition should be more magical than the play itself?
There's lots of other stuff like that to be questioned, as well.
"Is Magic” can be streamed any time between now and Oct. 3 via Scoundrel & Scamp online. Tickets are $11. For reservations and further information, call 448-3300 or visit scoundrelandscamp.org
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