Broadway Play Publishing. He is also co-author of a book about corporate Intranets for Microsoft Press. Click here to go back to the top. They talk to one another as if through the television set they are constantly watching, each misreading whatever the other has said. Two unacknowledged guests, a Witch and a Beast, gradually insinuate themselves into the tight emotional world Jeff and Joan have constructed.
Fantasy intrudes and takes over and finally it is reality that seems to be the intruder.
Matthew Maguire has directed 70 Scenes of Halloween with a deft hand, keeping up a brisk pace and seldom letting what should be sharply ridiculous descend into the merely frivolous. He wisely never wanders far from the concrete naturalism of the play's surface, although he manages to invest most of the scenes with a proper aura of surrealism. Christopher McCann plays Jeff with an oddly graceful klutziness appropriate to a man who's teetering on the edge of a frighteningly dull insanity but keeps himself from falling by a self-regarding sense of humor. Frederikke Meister portrays Joan's never-ending boredom with a fervor that makes ennui seem almost attractive. As the Witch, Caroline McGee, her hair permanently electroshocked, conveys a caged intelligence and a sexuality all the more tangible for the way it is gently mocked.