Closing Night At Alchemist: Here's What Didn't Happen

For the purposes of opening this blog entry, I will lie and say that there are only two reasons why Homo sapiens sapiens decided to start doing art. One reason is that the world is just too confusing. So we need to make it seem more understandable and we bottle it up behind a frame in a more simplistic form and pretend that it's reality. Y'know . . . like why we invented science and religion and reality TV and that sort of thing. The other reason we make art is because the world simply is not cool enough. And since the world has failed to meet our expectations for being as cool as we want it to be, we reframe it to make it look cooler. Our question marks start wearing sunglasses--that sort of thing. 

But it's that second reason that's sometimes a problem . . . that reason that reality isn't meeting our expectations. That's kind of the problem with art. Being a reality in and unto itself, art doesn't always meet our expectations either. And my big problem with that is that I don't always realize that I have exepecttons going into a theatre. Take Alchemist's Closing Night for example. 

The show just opened last night. The show's website has all kinds of things mentioned on it . . . there's a WHOLE lot of information on that page--much more than is usually presented by a theatre company about a show it is staging. But there are some fairly basic things that aren't mentioned there. Like who wrote the play. And who is acting in it. 

The basic info on the show mentions that it is a game and the game takes place in the Alchemist Theatre . . . which is also the setting of the play. So in Closing Night--the Alchemist Theatre plays the role of the Alchemist Theatre.  Only--the Alchemist Theatre that the Alchemist Theatre is portraying for Closing Night is a stylish mutation of it--one with catacombs and ghosts and spectral activity and clues and secret doors and things. 

I'd emailed the Alchemist's Aaron Kopec to ask him who else was in the show and he said: 

"We've got Michael Keily, Libby Amato, Anna Figlesthaler, Liz Whitord, Greg Ryan, Chris Goode, Sammich Dittloff, Erin Eggers, Carol Alt, Laura Holterman and Kristopher Puddicomb." This is a really cool cast. Keily and a few others join some really talented and captivating Alchemist regulars in what ends up being a really nice mix.

But what I didn't realize until I sat down to write the review was that  . . . a part of me had evidently had expectations regarding the cast. I was given a cast list with no character names. So a part of me evidently thought that if the Alchemist Theatre was playing the role of a mutated and amplified Alchemist Theatre, then all of the actors would be playing amplified deviations of themselves as well. Michael Keily would play . . . Michael Keily. Libby Amato would play Libby Amato and so on . . . only in the strangely mutated and amplified world of Closing Night with ghosts and dramatic ambitions and homicidal activity and that sort of thing. 

I evidently expected that when the show started, we would walk through into a world where we didn't know what to expect. Some of what we'd see would be real. Some of what we would see would be amplified for the sake of the show. People would be having normal conversations that flowed in and out of scripted ones that were really all for the benefit of a murder mystery game with Alchemist actors . . . or maybe not. Maybe there really would be something sinister going on and Closing Night would be used as a front for something far more sinister by one or all of the members of the cast and/or crew. Are we seeing a show or are we seeing something that may in some way be "real?" It's the type of thing that could be a lot of fun to watch and I'm sure it'd be a lot of fun for the cast to play with as well. It'd make for an interesting dynamic. It's weird that I had such a heavily-rendered expectation for this show without realizing it . . . 

Suffice it to say, my expectations as outlined in the above paragraph were not met. So even though I didn't realize I had really, really specific expectations of Closing Night, I did. And as a result, I was quite disappointed with the script. But not the show, which I actually quite liked. (Did I mention that this is a great cast?) More on that and a few other things in a couple of days when my concise review of the show appears in the next print edition of the Shepherd-Express. 

The Alchemist Theatre's production of Closing Night runs through November 2nd. For ticket reservations, visit the Alchemist Theatre online.