Humana Fest 35: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

If you live in Louisville, which you probably do if you're reading this, I'd like you to take a moment.  Put down the mouse. Take your finger off the scroll pad.  I'd like you to reach up and pat yourself on the shoulder.  Good girl/boy/neutral/questioning.  Be proud of yourself.  You live in a city that hosts one of the premier theater events in the country.  Not only do you live in a city that hosts the Humana Festival of New American Plays, but this city has hosted the HECK out of this festival for thirty-five years.

I have theater-nerd friends in other cities who got all twitterpated and jealous when they found out I was moving to Louisville.  "Oooooohhh... Louisville... Actors Theater... How sexy are YOU?!"  


The answer is Damn Sexy.  And so are you.  You live in Louisville, the home of the Humana Festival of New American Plays.

Roommate and I hit DEVIL AT NOON by Anne Washburn last night, and hot damn, kids, the game is on!  I love, love, loved it... although I can't really say that I understood all of it.  Some seriously brilliant acting-- perhaps the most authentic-feeling characters I've seen on Actors' stage since last year's PHOENIX.  Authentic-feeling in a very... inauthentic (?) world.  You know that character Zooey Deshanel (et al) plays in every single movie?  The young, quirky waif who brings chaos and joy to a downtrodden (usually older) man by being crazy-- perhaps even dangerously so-- and living close to the edge?  (There's a name for it, by the way, The Manic Pixie Dream Girl.)  Rebecca Hart's character is ever more endearing and memorable because by every rights she should have come off as a MPDG and not a real human being.  Real, of course, being a relative term.  All six actors put on a heck of a performance, but she's the one I'll really remember.

It's long.  Very long.  Maybe a little too long?  And (you'll understand this when you see it), I wish they'd had live foley artists.  I mean, if you're going to do THAT many sound effects, you should show us what the art looks like.

But seriously: good stuff.  I'd see it again even.  Go see it yourself.

Moon off.