{"id":245325,"date":"2012-08-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/ions-season-opener-thrills\/"},"modified":"2012-08-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T07:00:00","slug":"ions-season-opener-thrills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/ions-season-opener-thrills\/","title":{"rendered":"ion\u2019s season opener thrills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Mystery Plays\u201d<\/strong>
\nWhere: BLKBOX at ion theatre, 3704 Sixth Ave., Hillcrest<\/strong>
\nWhen: Through Sept. 15; Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 4 & 8 p.m.<\/strong>
\nInfo: 619-600-5020<\/strong>
\nWeb: iontheatre.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two suspenseful productions in \u2018The Mystery Plays\u2019 are perfectly directed and acted<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"ion\u2019s
(l to r ) Nick Kennedy and Gemma Grey start in ion\u2019s \u2018The Mystery Plays.\u2019 (Courtesy ion theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Por Charlene Baldridge | Cr\u00edtico de Teatro SDUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everyone loves a well-told thriller or two, especially if there are laughs to relieve the suspense and horror.<\/p>\n

Opening ion theatre company\u2019s seventh season, \u201cThe Mystery Plays\u201d is so delicious that the witness wishes the two tales therein would never end. But end they do, so dark and darkly funny, and so perfectly directed and acted that the real world the viewer must reenter seems comforting, yet bizarrely unreal. You\u2019ll want to return again and again to ion, savoring the inter-related stories and the amazing dream team ensemble comprising Sherri Allen, Benjamin Cole, Gemma Grey, Nick Kennedy, John Polak and Ethan Tapley.<\/p>\n

Written by award-winning playwright, comic book and television writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa \u2013 who is currently working on \u201cAmerican Psycho the Musical\u201d with Duncan Sheik \u2013 \u201cThe Mystery Plays\u201d borrows from the medieval mystery tradition and from the works of master storytellers Alfred Hitchcock, Franz Kafka and H.P. Lovecraft. Throw in influences from James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim as well.<\/p>\n

In the first play, titled \u201cThe Filmmaker\u2019s Mystery,\u201d a young screenwriter named Joe (Tapley) is seated on a train, traveling from New Haven to Newport News for a family holiday. Nathan (Cole) joins Joe and, in the process of coming onto him, reveals certain things about himself, including that he\u2019s a neurologist with an avid interest in an ancient Greek physician who dissected brains looking for the soul.<\/p>\n

Joe leaves the train at Wilmington. He knows not why. The train pulls out sans Joe and burns after leaving, incinerating every soul aboard. Visited repeatedly by Nathan\u2019s ghost, Joe is subject of a police investigation. He sets out to explore Nathan\u2019s life and the possible reasons for his own survival.<\/p>\n

In the second play, \u201cGhost Children,\u201d Joe\u2019s attorney, Abby (Grey), catches a plane from the East Coast to her home in Oregon, where she is called to testify before the parole board in behalf of her brother (the multifaceted Kennedy), who brutally slew their abusive parents and innocent younger sister 16 years before.<\/p>\n

With scenes then and now intercut, this tough play explores Abby\u2019s reluctance to forgive her brother. How could she? Would you? But it is much more complicated than that. Adding a bit of levity as the parole board\u2019s limo driver is Cole, whose character, a Medford bumpkin, is polar opposite to the sophisticated Nathan.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s extraordinary, in the course of one evening, to see this ensemble stretch to play numerous, complex roles without benefit of wigs or costume changes. With his commanding voice and authoritative diction, Polak proves invaluable as narrator, police investigator, mysterious man and general purveyor of possible horror and suspense.<\/p>\n

Grey plays Abby brilliantly, allowing us to glimpse the woman\u2019s wounds, self-recrimination and reluctance. Both Cole and Tapley are young actors to watch. And Allen and Kennedy are simply magnificent in all their quicksilver roles.<\/p>\n

Aguirre-Sacasa knows when tension needs relief through humor. Director Glenn Paris deftly integrates these places in the script. The playwright also provides poetry and leitmotifs that metaphorically link the two one-act plays, which are disparate in tone and type of horror. Both are supported by Brian Redfern\u2019s fluid scenic design, James Dirks\u2019 sound, Karin Filijan\u2019s lighting, Valerie Henderson\u2019s costumes and Claudio Raygoza\u2019s projections.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Mystery Plays\u201d Where: BLKBOX at ion theatre, 3704 Sixth Ave., Hillcrest When: Through Sept. 15; Thurs. and Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 4 & 8 p.m. Info: 619-600-5020 Web: iontheatre.com Two suspenseful productions in \u2018The Mystery Plays\u2019 are perfectly directed and acted By Charlene Baldridge | SDUN Theater Critic Everyone loves a well-told […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":245326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"ion\u2019s season opener thrills","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}