Suburban Peepshow

Well...this show has closed, so it's a bit late in the game to be recommending anyone go and see it. Hopefully, it will make another appearance quite soon. Extension, he cried. Extension!

I've seen two of Jimmy Comtois' plays The Adventures of Nervous Boy and now Suburban Peepshow. I remember talking to him about this new production, and how he felt it was his lighter fare. The quirky, quick-and-dirty comedy to contrast the darker work of Nervous Boy.

What I found, instead, is that his voice is very much the same, and perhaps, a little more free, in Suburban Peepshow. Without any particular statement to make about alienation and Urban Ennui, he winds up writing a play full of alienation and ennui, which somehow manages to be hilarious and messy and intricate... without any strain or anxiety in the craft. It was very much like The Adventures of Nervous Boy, without being an repeat performacne, which is a very good thing.

I might add that Zack Calhoon was fabulous as Bill, and was new to the Nosedive crew. Great job on his part as well.

(Trailers, too, was very funny. Don't want to leave that out. Rebecca Comtois, the younger sibling, would make milk come out of my nose if she were at my lunch table. This young lady ain't half bad either.)

I'd also like to say a word about the direction (which will likely please Michael). Pete Boisvert has impressed the hell out of me with his creative use of limited spaces (he made the Red Room work with a fair amount of ingenuity and some really lovely staging) and does great work with actors, very clearly. The casts for both shows were not only funny, and inventive, but affecting and truthful in outlandish situations. That's, I'm sure, in no small part to his work.

So, bravo Nosedive and thanks for a fine time.