Block Nine

I've got to give love to the Elephant Theater company and its subsidiaries. The cast and crew are so dedicated to the craft and aim to impact their audience every time. This in part because the audience could very well be planted with famous producers and directors. I've seen a few shows here - my neighbor is a company member - and have yet to be disappointed. Block Nine, written by Tom Stanczyk, pays homage to film-noir with his 30's gangster script, fraught with love scenes and themes. The clever part of the whole idea is that he has it acted by an all male cast. But wait. There's also an all female cast. I thought this was a really interesting way to present his work ignoring the gratuitous gayness imbedded just because. He had a female direct the "dames" and a male direct the "fellas". It was fascinating to see how the same script was interpreted ever so slightly and played out in such different ways. For the most part both shows - yes it was a 2 night commitment to view it this way - were brilliantly acted. There were some real stand outs in each performance. Unfortunately for the writer, the men accentuated how lousy the script really is. Fortunately for the rest of us, the women are so outstanding that the audience doesn't notice.