Marjorie Moore

When you haven’t seen a show in a while, do you sometimes wonder what attracts you to theatre? I do, regularly. I know, fundamentally, I’m happier when I persevere in getting out of my soft couch, but that’s a logical deduction from a memory. Yet, at most performances, I become amazed (again) by the magic of theatre. What’s surprising is the magnitude of the before and after feelings. It’s like forgetting what cherries taste like until this time of year. Unless you have season tickets to the Masquers, then you’ve not resolved this issue either. My job is to try to capture that great wonder into words, so that you too will get off your duff to see this performance.

Oh, for the good old days! It’s been some years since I’ve needed to see Masquers productions in rehearsal in order to meet the deadline for TPIT magazine. I’d forgotten how rehearsals change one’s perception of a play; although less tidy, in some ways they’re a much richer experience.

Other People’s Money, written in 1989 by Jerry Sterner, is directed by Robert Estes and plays until October 2. The show takes place in a small manufacturing town where New England Wire & Cable, a publicly traded firm, employs most of the town’s inhabitants.

Part of the job of a work of art is to startle the viewer, to jostle her/his expectations in some way—often, but not necessarily, unpleasantly—to do something new and fresh. Many people who write reviews, or those who burble about a performance just seen, convey their impressions of the work by detailing what happened, not how it made them feel—in other words, they diminish the power of the storyline to surprise the viewer. In my view, every creater should get her/his moment in the sun. For this reason before I see a new work, I usually shun speculation and limit myself to the first sentence and last paragraph of reviews and publicity announcements.

In spite of these habits it’s almost impossible to bring a truly open-minded perspective, so I had expectations for Kitchen Witches—what do you expect from a comedy whose playbill illustrates a chef wearing her mixing bowl with contents as a hat? Camp jokes?

Kitchen Witches, written by Caroline Smith and directed by Robert Taylor, concerns two friends who aren’t, anymore. These historically rancorous celebrity chefs (should that be chèves?) must work a televised show together.