Reviews

  

                   Gainesville Sun Scene Magazine June 11, 1999

                   Hippodrome's 'Alien' is quirky and sweet

                                      By ARLINE GREER Special to The Sun

Stories of UFOs and visitors from other galaxies tend to conjure up images of weird characters and still weirder stage effects. Stuart Spencer's comedy "Resident Alien," while weird (in the most complimentary interpretation of that word) is altogether human, down to earth and likeable.

Hippodrome State Theatre director Mary Hausch has stayed with its everyday recognizable human components, allowing audiences to identify with its endearingly oddball characters. Nor does it hurt that every member of the six-person cast has a lock on the characters they play. Their ensemble acting is as good as it gets in the Hipp's long tradition of perfectly meshed ensembles.

Finally, a truly dysfunctional family that's truly funny! The playbill states that they live in a Wisconsin farmhouse, but you wouldn't know it from James Morgan's psychedelic set of sun, planets and earth enveloping the stage with a brilliant palette of colors, against which scattered props denote specific locations.

The family is composed of Michael, a divorced father and misplaced intellectual who, unaccountably, works at K-Mart. Priscilla is his sassy former wife. Ray, Priscilla's current husband, is an amiable dolt who runs her bar.

Billy, Michael and Priscilla's son, has been abducted by aliens, who, while making their getaway, mistakenly left behind one of their own. Add to the bunch a good-hearted sheriff who agrees to read "Anna Karenina" while he investigates Billy's disappearance.

The alien, played by multi-talented Kevin Blake, is an open-minded, ingenuous guy who manages to bring understanding to each troubled character. Although he is well acquainted with Beethoven and Kierkegaarde, he much prefers "Friends" and the Spice Girls. He understands Michael. He romances Priscilla. He gets drunk with Ray - and in one of the play's funniest scenes, he and Ray whoop it up in a duet to "Volare."

Blake, last seen as the psychopathic teen in "Like Totally Weird," is nothing short of perfection as the green man from outer space who teaches lessons of self-acceptance and the need to belong in this gently lunatic comedy.

George Tynan Crowley's Michael is amusing, bewildered and frustrated until that light bulb (blue, of course) goes off in his head.

As Priscilla, Caitlin Miller gives a punchy, determined performance right on target. Timothy Altmeyer all but steals the show as Ray, the dopey husband referred to by Michael as "the missing link." As the sheriff, Cameron Francis gives a low-key performance that's both funny and sympathetic.

Will Sexton plays Billy, the abducted son, who has several words of wisdom to offer to his sweetly dysfunctional family and to the alien who has taken up residence with them.

It doesn't require much mental effort to enjoy "Resident Alien." The comedy is a light, good-natured charmer, cool entertainment for a summer evening.
 
 

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Independent Florida Alligator, Detours Section, 6/10/99

Hippodrome’s Resident Alien Out Of This World
By Lana Swartz

 From it’s poorly punned title, “Resident Alien” sounds pretty cheesy.  It’s premise – small-town man fights skepticism when his son is abducted, while the alien left behind teaches everyone an important lesson – offers no futher hope.  Fortunately, the final show of the Hippodrome Theatre’s 1998 – 99 season, directed by Mary Hausch did not live up to my negative expectations.

 Far from campy, science-fiction humor, “Resident Alien” explores some fairly heavy questions.  When we impose all sorts of restrictions like race, gender, or even, as in this case planetary origin, how can we ever find someone to love?  Is home the place we were born, or where we bleong?  When something is simple, why do we try to make it difficult?  These deep themes are treated unpretentiously against the backdrop of a provincial but wacky Wisconsin town.

 James Morgan’s set, with it’s swirling colors and skewed lines, is reminiscent of a Dr. Suess illustration.  It is the perfect visual manifestation of the play.  Morgan presents a world where everything is almost realistic, but just a bit more colorful and slighty warped.

 Hausch has assembled an excellent cast.  Hippodrome newcomer Caitlin Miller dominates the stage, just as her character, Priscilla, dominates the males around her.  The audience is too busy laughing at her delivery of perfectly timed, flawlessly Wisconsinian lines to notice any lack of depth in her character development.

 Another standout performance comes from George Tynan Crowley as Michael, the intellectual snob stuck in a K-Mart clerk’s life.  In a role that could have easily gotten cliched, he manages to be interesting.

 Timothy Altmeyer, as a homophobic, macho bartender, is a bit overdone, but endearing.  Likewise charming, if overacted, is Kevin Blake’s warm-hearted alien busboy.  A quieter performance comes from Cameron Francis as Hank, the sheriff.  Understated and effective, he is the perfect foil to the more robust characters.

 “Resident Alien” is a pretty funny show.  There are a few cheap jokes that don’t quite make it, but by the start of the second act, the audience is beguiled enough to keep the laughs coming.  In an interview published in the Hippodrome’s newsletter, “Resident Alien” playwright Stuart Spencer said, “I just hope it leaves them thinking and laughing.” In a thoroughly entertaining and, yes, though-provoking production, Hausch and her cast accomplish just that.
 

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