Running for one weekend only, UW-Milwaukee Lab/Works' production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of An Author kicked off a busy weekend of Milwaukee theater openings. Despite lots of competition, the show opened to a sell-out crowd in UWM's recently added Studio 508 performance space on the fifth floor of the Kenilworth Square East building.
Molded plastic seats were set up in a theater-in-the-round format in the snug, black box theater. The opening-night performance featured a brief introduction by the show's director, Jim Tasse.
Based on the American Repertory Theatre's 1997 production of Pirandello's postmodern classic, the script was a Robert Brustein adaptation further modified by UWM's Benjamin Wilson. The production re-casts Pirandello's acting company as a struggling group of professional theater types in Milwaukee accosted by a group of characters who long to be put onstage during a particularly bad rehearsal of a particularly bad script.
The characters are played with Southern accents, which gives the whole sordid tale a kind of white-trash, Jerry Springer feel that demystifies Pirandello's classic for modern audiences. As with any university production, the cast included a varied mix of talent and experience levels. Standout performances came from the Tom Sawyer-like Southern charm of Tommy Stevens in his role as the father, Callie Eberdt as his fiery stepdaughter and Sara Zientek as the frazzled theater company director who reluctantly agrees to tell their story.
UWM's next production is George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man at the Mainstage Theatre, Nov. 18 to 23.
