Midnight Company
Now Playing The Company Past Productions News Contact Us

SPIRITS TO ENFORCE

by Mickle Maher
May, 2024
Kranzberg Black Box

Lucy Cashion is a fan of Mickle Maher.  And I'm a fan of Lucy’s.

Lucy saw Maher's show THE STRANGER in 2010 in New York, and immediately became a fan of Maher's work.  (Prior to that, Midnight had produced Maher's THE HUNCHBACK VARIATIONS and subsequently his Faust script and IT IS MAGIC.)  When Lucy saw one of Midnight's several productions of HUNCHBACK, she proclaimed a desire to direct one of his scripts for us.  And, then,she took the lead in making that happen. We met, and she said she wanted to direct his SPIRITS TO ENFORCE. Without much thought, I immediately agreed.  I knew SPIRITS, and I knew how challenging a show it was.  But I was a fan of Lucy’s, and having seen most of her ERA and SATE shows, knew if anyone could make this crazy thing happen, it was her.

With a cast of 12, and an impossible array of intersecting storylines and hundreds of random script cues, we dove in. The less said about the rehearsal period, the better.  Know it was a day-by-day line-by-line cue through a script where every word was spoken into the telephone.  The cast and Lucy's small crew worked diligently to bring this thing under control. It took every minute (and more) but we got there.  And it was worth the trip.

Audiences reacted strongly (it can safely be said they'd never seen anything like it.)  And critics agreed. Raves, in all directions.  Check out the reviews below for a sampling.

Joe Hanrahan


Broadway World

LUCY CASHION TO DIRECT THE MIDNIGHT COMPANY’S PRODUCTION OF SPIRITS TO ENFORCE.

The Midnight Company, in a collaboration with St. Louis University’s Lucy Cashion, is producing Mickle Maher’s SPIRITS TO ENFORCE. This is the fourth Maher play that Midnight Company has produced. Maher is the founder of Chicago’s Theatre Oobleck and has authored more than 10 plays. Cashion will direct. She and Midnight Company’s founder and artistic director Joe Hanrahan recently sat down with Broadway World to discuss their production of SPIRITS TO ENFORCE.

Cashion said, “I really wanted to direct a play by this playwright.” She shared that she had seen Maher’s play THE STRANGERER in New York City in 2011. It was an entry in the New York International Fringe Festival that was picked up by one of the Off-Broadway companies for an extended run. Cashion shared that she really appreciated how interesting the language was and the unique way it represented politics. “As the artistic director of ERA, we produce devised plays, adaptations, and new commissions but our mission doesn’t include producing plays that are sitting on the shelf,” Cashion said.

Cashion reached out to Hanrahan because they are the only company in town that has produced Maher’s works and saw a potential for collaboration. Hanrahan reminded her that she had seen their production of Maher’s THE HUNCHBACK VARIATIONS. Cashion interjected, “I love that play!”

Hanrahan mentioned that he is attracted to Maher’s plays because of his language and conceptual work. “He takes on ideas that you wouldn’t expect,” and he continued, “I’m grateful that we have someone talented like Lucy who can interpret the work.” Hanrahan shared that he has seen shows that Cashion has directed for ERA and other companies. “Her shows are always events,” he gushed.

SPIRITS TO ENFORCE is inspired by Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST. In the play a group of 12 ‘superheroes’ named The Fathom City Enforcers, inhabit the island Sycorax. Each of the 12 have some vague powers with varying degrees of impressiveness. They are raising money and selling tickets for their fictitious production of THE TEMPEST. Cashion says, “The show is experimental. It is about processing trauma through art.” She continued, “All 12 of the characters were spirits on the island when Prospero was shipwrecked during THE TEMPEST, and now they are doing a reenactment.” She shared that she is really attracted to scripts that recontextualize by taking characters and reframing their relationship to a play. In this play the characters are experiencing divine inspiration to produce the play and ‘superhero’ is a euphemism for artist.

Cashion shared that she likes to have an idea of how to rehearse a play when she starts the process as the director. She said, “when we did the first read through for this play, I heard a lot that I hadn’t considered before.” Following the read-through, she met with the actors to discuss logistics and expectations. She shared that SPIRITS TO ENFORCE is very orchestral with many lines that overlap. She blocked the movements in the show within two weeks and asked her cast to be off book (have their lines memorized) by an earlier than usual date when rehearsing a play. She said, “this is not how I would normally direct a play.” Hanrahan shared that audiences will want to see this play because it is smart and intriguing. He said, “This script is entertaining, full of comic book lore, chorale arrangements, and text from Shakespeare’s masterpiece THE TEMPEST.” Hanrahan calls SPIRITS TO ENFORCE an utterly unique theatrical trip.

In addition to producing, Hanrahan will be acting in the ensemble as one of the twelve superheroes. He will be joined by Ashwini Arora, Kayla Bush, Cassidy Flynn, Alicen Moser, Joe Taylor, Will Bonfiglio, Miranda Jagels Felix, Celeste Gardner, Spencer Lawton, Ross Rubright, and Rachel Tibbets.


St Louis Post-Dispatch

IN MIDNIGHT COMPANY’S “SPIRITS TO ENFORCE” FUNDAISING GETS POETIC

by Rosalind Early / May, 2024

The superheroes in Fathom Town have just vanquished the evil Professor Cannibal and put himin prison. So now they’re holding a fundraiser in their submarine headquarters. Are they getting money for new super suits? Maybe they want to update their weapons or renovate their humble headquarters? Nope, none of that.

They’re fundraising to put on William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” And things are not goingwell. No one in town seems interested in helping them realize their thespian dreams.After explaining why she’s calling, one character says into the phone, “I’m sorry Mr. Duchessois, please, are you laughing at how much fun it would be to give a thousand dollars or — or — why are you laughing?”

This play is called “Spirits to Enforce.” While fundraising, the Enforcers describe and share lines from “The Tempest.” But all 12 of them are on the phone asking for donations for most of the play.

Talking on the phone instead of to one another “was challenging, something to get used to,”says Joe Hanrahan, artistic director for Midnight Company. In this show he plays the Untangleror Wayne Simon, a superhero who can solve puzzles and untangle complex knots. One issue with all the characters being on the phone is that, since they aren’t in conversation with one another, cues are random. Plus, the actors have to imagine what the person on the other end of the line is saying and not get distracted by a co-star’s conversation.

“For my character, most of the time, I’m not liking what (the townspeople) are saying,” Hanrahan says. “They don’t understand. They don’t care. They don’t appreciate the Enforcers.”The Enforcers are a ragtag team, to say the least. Many of them have superpowers with questionable utility. There’s the Bad Map, whose superpower is that she trips over things and doesn’t know what she’s going to do next (and neither do evildoers). The Pleaser is great at pleasant conversation and lures bad guys into a chat with his good humor. The Snow Heavy Branch is another superhero, whose name is also part of a haiku and a “paradox of teetering tranquility.” As his alter ego Brad Allen, he steers an unpopular gondola where the seats were precariously balanced and tourists often fall from them into the Fathom Town canals. “It’s a comedy,” says Hanrahan. “But I think there’s some pathos, some poignancy. They struggle with their status as superheroes and as hopeful artists. They’re both challenging professions.”

The cast also includes Rachel Tibbetts, artistic director for Slightly Askew Theater Ensemble, as well as actors from previous Midnight Company productions including Ashwina Arora, Will Bonfiglio, Cassidy Flynn and Alicen Moser. Lucy Cashion, associate professor of theater at St. Louis University and founder of Equally Represented Arts theater company, directs.

But what does “The Tempest” really have to do with fundraising or superheroes? Well, early on in the play the audience learns that these superheroes are actually the spirits from “The Tempest.” For those who need a quick primer on the Shakespearean play, “The Tempest” is about Prospero, the Duke of Milan who is exiled by his usurper brother to a lonely island in the middle of the ocean. He brings with him his daughter, Miranda.

On the island is one inhabitant, the monstrous Caliban, and spirits, chief among them Ariel. Using magic, Prospero enslaves Caliban and controls Ariel and the other spirits. That’s how he and his daughter are able to live on the island for 12 years. Then Prospero’s brother, along with several others, gets shipwrecked on the island, and action unfolds that allows Propsero to return to Milan and Ariel to be freed. Now Ariel and the other spirits are part of Fathom Town, and they protect it from Professor Cannibal, aka the monstrous Caliban.

Hanrahan thinks people will appreciate the language of the play. Playwright Mickle Maher “is just so smart and so facile with words. It’s more like chamber music than a play,” Hanrahan says.

Midnight Company has staged other plays from Maher, founder of Theater Oobleck in Chicago. Back in 2001, Hanrahan’s former partner at Midnight Company, David Wassilak, discovered Maher when he saw “Hunchback Variations” in Chicago. That play is a panel discussion with Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, and composer Ludwig van Beethoven. They are working together to create a mysterious sound for Anton Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch called “Hunchback Variations” “cerebral, comic and just plain weird,” back in 2002 when Midnight first staged it, and the same could be said about “Spirits to Enforce.”

“(The language) draws you in because the script is a combination of poetry, Shakespeare,
mythical monsters, telemarketing banalities, and some comic book lingo as they talk about their battles with Professor Cannibal,” Hanrahan says. “Audiences will be amazed, like at tennis, the way the language piles up and moves on.”


SPIRITS TO ENFORCE

Jacob Juntunen / May, 2024

Mickle Maher is a regular writer and collaborator at Theatre Oobleck in Chicago, a company whose motto is: “No director. New works. Free if you're broke. Thirty-five years.” They are well worth checking out, as is Maher’s other work, particularly his “Jim Lehrer Plays.”

Midnight Company’s production of “Spirits to Enforce” is like a piece of contemporary music, with patterns, themes, dissonance, and harmony. Does it have a plot? Sort of. The play follows a group of superheroes who are telemarketing in order to raise funds to produce Shakespeare’s play, “The Tempest.” They are on phones the whole time, time jumps back and forth, and identities are confused between secret, superhero, and Shakespearean.

The production is tight, like a great orchestra led by a wonderful conductor. The entire ensemble is so synched that when time jumps and they all drop objects, they hit the floor with a single sound. The difficult steamroller pace of the play is wonderfully handled by the cast, barreling along at breakneck speed so that the play’s 80 minutes feels like 30. This is a true ensemble piece, and it is hard to pick anyone out except for Rachel Tibbets and Cassidy Flynn who are notable because they are the only characters who really have scenes that the play slows down for. Both bring humor and pathos to those moments.

Cashion’s precise direction leads to moments of hilarious controlled chaos, such as the comically long phone cords that get tangled everywhere as ensemble members move around in a modern dance of threads. Her set, a long table with actors set facing the audience, is simultaneously reminiscent of a classic painting and a telemarketing office, the perfect pairing for this play. Costumes by Liz Henning and Eric Widner demarcate each character while simultenousely creating a unified look to the superheroes. Jayson Lawshee’s lighting design and music by Joey Taylor complete the meticulous production.

People who would like this show are folks who like absurdist theatre, Shakespeare jokes, and
intricacy of production.


Broadway World

James Lindhorst / May, 2024

Two unbounded and wildly energized imaginations exploded on the Kranzberg stage last night in a play called Spirits to Enforce. The Midnight Company’s latest production brings together the gifts of playwright Mickle Maher (of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck) and director Lucy Cashion (of St. Louis University). This is very much a “When Worlds Collide” sort of evening. Now, we’re all familiar with the concept of co-existent multiple universes. Physicists have found hints of them in the mathematical bowels of quantum physics. But such universes are unaware of one another.

Maher’s play concerns three conceptual worlds:
1. the world of Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest
2. a world of comic-book super-heroes, and
3. the real world where a small theater company struggles to mount a production of The Tempest.

In this play these worlds come hurtling towards one another—and “POW!”, “BOOM!”, “KABLAM!”! The result is a veritable hail-storm of verbal shrapnel, with shreds and shards of Shakespeare, frenzied fund-raising fragments, and a sprightly sprinkle of super-powers. It’s a shimmering kaleidoscope (or better, “collide-o-scope”) of overlapping dialogues.

Prospero, after Act Five, has returned to Milan. The spirits whom he had used to enforce his rule on his island, have accompanied him to “Fathom Town”. Of course they have super-powers. (Just look what Ariel could do!) They are now the Fathom Town Enforcers, with names like “The Untangler”, “The Memory Lass”, “The Intoxicator”, etc. Their super-powers are vaguely related to their character’s function in The Tempest. They have recently triumphed over the evil Professor Cannibal. But now we see them in a “boiler-room”—a call-center where they’re manning phones in a fund-raising/ticketsales effort for their production of Shakespeare’s play.

Maher puts them in a submarine (!?), which is hardly indicated in this production. And one minor character keeps lamenting that “his gondola is not a popular gondola”. Milan is a solidly land-locked city. Why “Fathom Town”? Why gondolas? Are we somehow in watery Venice?

Well, never mind that. There is a very long table, facing the audience. The table isloaded with telephones, papers and notes, drinks, personal junk. On the wall behind are various graffiti, abstruse equations. Eleven of the cast are seated at the table making calls. The twelfth member, musician Joey Taylor, sits in an upstage corner. As well as keyboard he also plays the role of the gondolier. His super-hero name is “The Snow Heavy Branch”. (Go figger: it’s haiku.)

Throughout most of the evening the stage full of characters are all talking at once. We, the audience, are assaulted with this wave of talk. How to take it all in? Characters rise onto the table, crawl under it, pace around the room, get tangled in the miles of phone cords—and talk, talk, talk! Once or twice there is a moment of – oh, blessed silence! Then, perhaps, Miranda and Ferdinand have a brief duolog. Ahhh! But the barrage resumes. Sometimes it’s like a handful of the most impenetrable passages of James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness—overlaid onto each other. It’s brilliant, it’s fascinating, but it’s difficult to detect any story line at all. How in the world did the actors learn such random-seeming lines? How do they hear their cues in all that cross-talk? Cues? What cues? Almost nothing leads logically to anything else. But there is a universal deep commitment on the part of the actors, and there is that amazing precise discipline and coordination which is a Lucy Cashion hallmark. The cast consists of Miranda Jagels Felix, Rachel Tibbets, Joe Hanrahan, Celeste Gardner, Alicen Moser, Cassidy Flynn, Kayla Bush, Will Bonfiglio, Spencer Lawton, Russ Rubright, Ash Arora, and the above-mentioned Mr. Taylor. It’s an intensely “ensemble” piece, but let me praise a few who did especially fine work: Will Bonfiglio (Ariel) brings a sweet innocence to the role. Alicen Moser makes a forceful and assertive Prospero. Ross Rubright (Antonio) simply commands our attention at every word. Joe Hanrahan’s strong suit is story-telling; yet here, as just an ensemble member, he gives us a fine, crabby Caliban.

Costumes are by Liz Henning and Eric Widner, Lighting by Jayson Lawshee, and music by Joey Taylor. Mickle Maher’s Spirits to Enforce will leave you exhausted and confused—but there were squeals and shrieks of laughter from the audience. It is indeed “experimental theater”.

 


Riverfront Times

The Midnight Company's Spirits to Enforce Offers Otherworldly Fun

by Tina Farmer / May 10, 2024

After producing several successful theatrical cabarets this spring, the Midnight Company turns its attention to the stage with an impressive production of Mickle Maher’s Spirits to Enforce. The clever script deftly re-imagines the otherworldly spirits released at the end of The Tempest as modern day superheroes on an unusual mission. Smart casting, and a clear vision with choreographic staging by Lucy Cashion, keeps the audience laughing throughout the quick moving mixed worlds comedy.

Having defeating the notorious villain Dr. Cannibal, the superheroes of Fathom Town turn their attention to a new challenge — a production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Naturally, the production requires money to succeed, and the play opens on the superheroes’ assumed everyday personas conducting a fundraising phone bank from their submarine headquarters deep in the bay. They aren’t bringing much in and decide that they will reveal their superhero identities to the donors for a contribution of $50 or more, all while continuing to rehearse and prepare for the big show. Despite not raising much money, opening night arrives and the house is full but their audience is the escaped Dr. Cannibal and his villainous cronies! Can the superheroes win over this critical audience and once again save the town?

The majority of the play is delivered over phone lines as the characters keep the citizens updated on the production’s progress while soliciting donations. This device is played for comic and sympathetic impact, and it’s surprisingly effective; anyone who’s participated in a fundraising drive will relate to the desperation and humor. With all characters often speaking at the same time about similar matters, the room is filled with a cacophony of rising and falling voices and movement, resulting in moments of discord and harmony. Cashion’s sharp direction, the expert cast’s perfectly synchronized performances and Merkle’s malleable script come together to create a modern theatrical symphony that’s chaos perfected. 

The show is a true ensemble piece where each performer plays three characters: their everyday persona, their superhero and their character in The Tempest. With the exception of Will Bonfiglio’s maestro-like Ariel, the superheroes feature unique and quirky powers, from the easy to grasp abilities of Rachel Tibbetts’ Memory Lass, Alicen Moser’s The Page, Ash Arora’s The Ocean and Cassidy Flynn’s The Tune; to the logical but odd Spencer Lawton’s The Intoxicator, Joe Hanrahan’s The Untangler and Miranda Jagels Felix’s The Silhouette; to the more offbeat abilities of Celeste Gardner’s Fragrance Fellow, Kayla Bush’s The Bad Map, Ross Rubright’s The Pleaser and Joey Taylor’s leitmotif of The Snow Heavy Branch. Every performer has at least one standout moment, but the real joy is the way they work together to create a masterful and wholly satisfying comedy.

Spirits to Enforce is a captivating dive into a Shakespearean multiverse filled with inventive and unusual yet thoroughly compelling superheroes. Shakespeare purists may be a bit puzzled by the plays quirky, whimsical approach, but the mashup of literary and comic sensibilities really entertains.

 


KDHX

"Spirits to Enforce" is frenzied fun

by James Lindhorst / May, 2024

The Midnight Company opened Mickle Maher’s "Spirits to Enforce" at the Kranzberg Black Box Theater over this past weekend. In "Spirits to Enforce" a dozen superheroes with secret identities desperately attempt to raise money using a minimally effective telemarketing scheme. The audience is plopped smack in the middle of their raucous phone bank as each makes outbound phone calls using a secret pseudonym to conceal their superhero identity. But, when desperate times call for desperate measures, the members of "The Fathom Town Enforcers" begin to reveal their superhero identities as they beg for cash.

Maher’s "Spirits to Enforce" recontextualizes the characters from Shakespeare’s "The Tempest" to create a kooky risible comedy. His absurd writing has characters talking over one another in short snippets from each of their phone conversations. The entire script, except for about two dozen lines, consists exclusively of one-sided phone conversations where complete sentences are a rarity. It is a complex wordy script, filled with rapid babble that requires the audience to piece together the story.

Director Lucy Cashion immediately immerses her audience into the world of "The Fathom Town Enforcers." As the audience traverses the hall into the theater, they’re met by an eerie and silent dimly lit set illuminated by Jason Lawshee’s occult lighting design and Joey Taylor’s Batcave-like mood music to create an unexpected entrance for her actors. Once the lead enforcer takes his seat on the phone bank the action ensues as quickly as the New York Stock Exhange floor when the opening bell rings. For the next 80-minutes, the superheroes attempt to raise capital with the urgency of a distressed stock exchange floor trader during a market crash.

Cashion’s choreographed blocking creates frenzied and highly amusing movement. The task-oriented characters frantically move about the performance space dodging one another and the hazards they create for each other with vintage coiled phone cords that get stretched across the stage. The phone bank table is littered with props that get knocked about as actors climb on, over and under the table. Cashion’s manic blocking is acrobatic, balletic, energetic, and comical.

Cashion collaborated with each of her twelve actors to profile, develop, and create quirky and eccentric characters. Each member of this magnificent cast handled the rapid-fire drivel with ease while incorporating the unique physical idiosyncrasies, tics, and habits of their wacky characters. The accomplished actors portraying the Fathom Town Enforcers included Ash Aroura, Will Bonfiglio, Kayla Bush, Miranda Jagels Felix, Cassidy Flynn, Celeste Gardner, Joe Hanrahan, Spencer Lawton, Alicen Moser, Ross Rubright, Rachel Tibbets, and Joey Taylor.

Costume designers Liz Henning and Eric Widner added to the peculiarity of the characters with their whimsical costume creations. Flynn’s red striped military jacket, Hanrahan’s Indiana Jones inspired hat and jacket, and Gardner’s floral adorned sweater all added to the levity and the comic book feel of the production.

The Midnight Company’s "Spirits to Enforce" is a magnificent collaboration between director, actors, and designers to create an outlandish fantasy world.



Two On the Aisle

"Spirits to Enforce" at The Midnight Company

by Gerry Kowarsky / May, 2024

Spirits to Enforce is delightful script with a madcap premise. The play by Mickel Maher is receiving a brilliant production from The Midnight Company.

At the outset the characters are sitting at a long table behind a battery of telephones. Their ordinary looks are deceiving. They are a band of superheroes, the Fathom Town Enforcers, who have just defeated their archenemy, Dr. Cannibal. Now they are placing calls from their headquarters in a submarine to raise the money for their next project: staging a revival of The Tempest

To encourage donations, the Enforcers are offering a unique premium. They are revealing their secret identities to anyone who gives a minimum of $50. The Enforcers’ powers are unique, too. For example:

  • The Pleaser uses pleasant conversation to persuade criminals to give themselves up
  • The Silhouette can control the hand shadows she casts
  • The Page has read everything that has ever been written and is being written
  • Memory Lass draws out the good in evildoers they have forgotten themselves
  • The Ocean is literally the ocean


The Enforcers’ interest in The Tempest is explained by their origin story, which is revealed early in the play. They are the spirits Prospero freed at the end of Shakespeare’s play. Maher’s title comes from the epilogue of The Tempest, where Prospero says he no longer has “Spirits to enforce, art to enchant.”

Except in one place, the characters speak all their lines into their phones. As might be expected at a phone bank, much of the dialogue is spoken at the same time. The script indicates where the second of two overlapping speeches should begin, but when blocks of text are to be spoken together, the script says they “should be arranged by the actors/director to suit their pleasure.” Little other guidance is provided.

The Midnight Company’s production is filled with elaborate, inventive, and intricately coordinated activity. The splendid performances always seem spontaneous, but they mesh perfectly. The ensemble performs like a team of superheroes.

The atmosphere for the production is greatly enhanced by Jayson Lawshee’s lighting, Joey Taylor’s music, and Liz Henning and Eric Widner’s costumes. The stage manager is Jimmy Bernatowicz, assisted by Morgan Schindler.

The minimal program says nothing about how the production was put together, but I’m sure its theatrical richness was achieved collectively. Collaboration is key in the work of the director, Lucy Cashion, as is regarding all artists taking part in a project as equally essential to it. The process Cashion led in Spirits to Enforce produced a wealth of marvelous ideas.

 


Snoop's Theatre Thoughts

Cleverly Staged “Spirits to Enforce” is a Tempest of Fun from The Midnight Company

by Michelle Kenyon ("Snoop") / May 25, 2024

Do you like Shakespeare and superheroes? Do you also like offbeat comedy with memorable character?  Well, if you answered “yes” to all of those questions, The Midnight Company has the show for you. Mickle Maher’s Spirits to Enforce is a hilarious, characterful mashup of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and a host of comic book tropes all put together in a cleverly staged, terrifically cast, and thoroughly entertaining production that packs a lot of energy and laughs into its relatively short running time.

The basic premise here is that a superhero group is raising money to put on a play. The Fathom Town Enforcers have just vanquished their arch enemy, Professor Cannibal, who has been jailed, and the town is, at last, at peace. At least, that’s what the Enforcers think. Now, in their underwater submarine base, they sit at a long table at old school landline phones, complete with long, tangly cords, calling up potential donors to fund their production of The Tempest. Their appeals seem to fall on skeptical ears, and they resort to tactics such as revealing their secret identities as an incentive to contribute. They also start rehearsals and the tensions and struggles among the group become obvious, as Emory Lawson/Ariel (Will Bonfiglio)–who may actually be the “real” Ariel of Tempest fame – struggles to figure out how to successfully play himself, Randall James/The Tune (Cassidy Flynn) becomes frustrated that his crush and romantic interest in the play (she’s Miranda to his Ferdinand), Susan Tanner/Memory Lass (Rachel Tibbetts) has memory powers but can’t seem to remember his real name. Meanwhile, Donna Blake/The Bad Map (Kayla Bush) keeps getting lost, Donna Adams/The Silhouette (Miranda Jagels Felix) deals with her living hand shadows getting out of hand, while the rest of cast all have their own unique problems contributing to difficulty in mounting the production, as well as continued trouble with the phone calls and their callers’ concern that Professor Cannibal may be on the loose once again. 

The cast also features Joe Hanrahan as Wayne Simon/The Untangler, Celeste Gardner as Oliver Kendall/Fragrance Fellow, Spencer Lawton as Dale Clark/the Intoxicator, Ross Rubright as Craig Cale/The Pleaser, Ash Arora as Rebecca Lloyd/The Ocean, Joey Taylor as Brad Allen/The Snow Heavy Branch (who is also the show’s musician), and Alicen Moser as Cecily Gray/The Page, who plays Prospero in The Tempest. The whole cast is cohesive and energetic, with strong comic timing and appropriately quirky characters and angsty moments as the story builds to a fun conclusion. It’s difficult to single out individual cast members, because everyone is strong, lending much character and enthusiasm to the proceedings that can get a little overly talky at times, but still hold the audience’s attention and provide for a witty, goofy, and literate production full of memorable performances and moments.

The staging is inventive and engaging despite the fact that the cast members spend most of their time seated at a long table. There’s enough “business” for them to do, as well as some creative staging that highlights their tight quarters and those ever-present tangly phone cords that keeps the interest going. The costume design by Liz Henning and Eric Widner is marvelous, as well, suiting the offbeat superhero characters with the right amount of style and quirky charm. Jayson Lawshee’s lighting also contributes well to the overall atmosphere and growing air of urgency as the story unfolds, and Taylor’s music adds a memorable soundtrack to the proceedings.

If you like offbeat superhero stories (think Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, among others) and Shakespeare, Spirits to Enforce should be right up your alley. It’s a fun, character-driven piece highlighted by excellent performances and fun visuals. It’s another quirky success from The Midnight Company.

 



Home Now Playing The Company Past Productions News Contact Us

Revised: October, 2007
Copyright © The Midnight Company