It's nice to catch the occasional show at an out-of-the-way venue. Morningstar Productions is a name that isn't really well-known. Doesn't often come up in conversation in the mainstream of the theater community. But I'm really happy to have seen a show there this past weekend that I largely enjoyed. Alan Atwood's Captive is a contemporary crime drama set on Milwaukee's north side.
It's a little bit longer than it needs to be, but Atwood script manages to hold together some pretty compelling drama for much of the run of the performance. Somewhere relatively early on in the program, however, I ran into a plot point that seemed to be a bit of a distraction for me. Every now and again that there will be some aspect of a story that will become kind of a distraction from the main plot. Here it happened relatively early on with abowl of popcorn.
I'm not giving away too much by saying that at some point in the early part of the play, a handgun to find its way into the bottom of a bowl of popcorn. This is a light plastic bowl filled with very, very light popcorn.
Shortly after this happens, one of the characters picks up the bowl of popcorn without realizing that there is a gun in it. He doesn't flinch. He picks up a bowl of popcorn which is clearly much, much more happy than your average bowl of popcorn and he doesn't think anything of it. This seemed really, really implausible to me. Andissa my mind fixated on it. Ihate when that kind of a distraction gets in the way of an otherwise satisfying to the theater.
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Alan Atwood's Captive runs through June 21st at Eastbrook Church on 5353 North Green Bay Avenue. For ticket reservations, call 414-228-5220 ext. 385. A comprehensive review of the show runs in the next print edition of the Shepherd-Express.
