Director Paige Tufford leads an earnest cast - with “Eva’s” role very well substituted by stage manager Molly Sullivan (hardly noticeable book in hand) since actor Mikaela Orlowski was in a recent auto accident. (Mikaila hopes to be back onstage for the following performances, but if she’s not, Molly was a very able stand-in.)
An authentic looking office set filled the Black Box Stage, with a well engineered bathroom addition for the final scene (designer Ranae Selmeyer, assistant professor of scenic design at MSU.) In this realistic environment, the challenged empathy trainer (Anasti Her) patiently (?) dealt with the delightfully oblivious Boss, Doak Bloss, the weirdly troubled “Eva,” and the two good-ol-bros whose antics probably instigated the call for empathy training in the first place. (Trey Sylla and Zach Sherman)
Zach was particularly believable in his chauvinist pig role, and Trey was uniquely obnoxious as an unwelcome poet? Many absurdities piled up, involving an “Old Man” boyfriend, Nicholas Holzwart, Danni Bolt lurking in the bathroom and Sandy Callis on the recorded phone, as Anasti’s mother, offering another layer of plot absurdities.
Note that this is “adult” in some of its references and language and not for the Charlotte’s-Web crowd — but if you’ve always wanted to experience the FUN side of a toxic workplace, come on down to LCC’s Black Box. (park on Grand Avenue; the Black Box Stage door is on the south side of the Gannon Building, across from the park.)
This production had to cancel its first two performances due to the ice storm, but performed Friday and is set to go on Saturday night at 8pm and 2pm Sunday — with an ADDED 7PM SHOW SUNDAY which will be a pay-what-you-can, cash-only fundraiser to replace the opening night fundraiser for LCC theatre that got “iced out.”