lakecountryplayhouse.net
It’s the 25th of December. There’s a song from another time that mentions “scary ghost stories” on Christmas. Evidently it’s an old tradition on Christmas Eve that no one seems to maintain anymore. It’s too bad we’re not as much of a storytelling culture anymore. There’s a kind of purity in a tale told simply--even if it ends up involving a severed head or a dead cat. What I’m referring to is Emily Schwartz’ The Dastardly Ficus and Other Comedic Tales of Woe and Misery. The play written by a Chicago-based playwright is, as I understand it, a program of four stories involving a pair of sisters who are reclusive and rather strange. They are morbid, little comedies featuring odd behaviors and strange situations. They exist in their own kind of reality. Each story has roughly the same plot structure which will likely seem very familiar to anyone who has watched...say...coyote and roadrunner cartoons as a kid. It’s strange, strange stuff.
While there are no plans to stage the play in Milwaukee (that I am aware of) it WILL be produced by the Lake Country Playhouse in Hartland next month. Breanne Brennan and Sandra Baker Renick star as the sisters in question with Timothy Ecklor playing a visiting gentleman by the unlikely name of Mr. Alister Clock. Carl Liden directs.
The Dastardly Ficus and Other Comedic Tales of Woe and Misery runs Jan. 9 - 25 at the Lake Country Playhouse in Hartland. For more information, click here.
