It’s only a 45-minute drive from Montclair, but this is a trip well worth the taking for those who are truly interested in theater and the evolution of exciting new talent in the state.
Not all stage pieces can be neatly categorized as comedy, drama, or musical. Such is the case with “Melissa Arctic,” the new production at Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, which is a mixture of all three. Craig Wright’s modern, if loose, re-working of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” (which he dubs “a play with songs”) may exist in a hybrid genre all its own, but one thing’s for certain: not since some of Michael Gennaro’s more inspired productions at Paper Mill years ago have New Jersey audiences been able to savor the type of exciting and brainy risk-taking that artistic director Aaron Posner is instilling at Two River.
Even when “Melissa Arctic” sputters in the second act, its conceit remains riveting; one is always able to see and appreciate adventurous creative minds at play. The temptation is to try to corral its spirit, to make it conform to established precepts and make it better, yet to do so would be to rob it of its very identity. It’s a tale, set in rural Minnesota, that deals with the visceral emotions of real people learning the strengths of love, jealousy, and ultimately – in Wright’s daring if not totally fulfilling coda – faith.
In prior directorial outings in his two seasons at Two River, Posner has shown that he has a strong sense of the homespun Americana values that we as a society are in dire need of being reminded of now. He has also given us the bloodiest “Macbeth” imaginable. While “Melissa Arctic” firmly spins in the former orbit, at one point in the first act Posner unabashedly turns things visceral and grisly, using whatever Shakespearean stage blood he has left over from the Scottish play. In essence, he and Wright introduce Thornton Wilder to Martin McDonagh, and, amazingly, make the preposterous marriage work.
– Reviewed by Stephen Wells
Photo: James Sugg and Isabel Wallace in “Melissa Arctic”
Im going to go out on a limb and say that musicals combining comedy and drama do not make a unique snowflake. And Risk taking? Why? Because of the risque “Minnesota residents dealing with love & faith?” Whoa.
I saw RENT last night at West Orange High School. Kids, playing the parts of cross dressers, AIDS victims, Junkies, and slum lords in front of their family, community, and faculty. That’s risk taking