This year's festival confirmed that regardless of a script's quality, the play will look great on stages at Actors Theatre of Louisville. And none of these plays was a total loss. Quake had some great lines, including a grizzled veteran of the urban convenience store wars. But these shows operated on the surface, barely developing the characters, barely scratching their emotions. Jane Martin's Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage felt like a soulless attempt to prove theater could be as gory and violent as the movies.
Theater has so much more to offer.
Actors can transport us to other worlds while performing mere feet from our seats. The proximity of the artists deepens the impact of the humor, joy and pathos. There were some great moments at this year's Humana, like when Rosemary Prinz as the mother in Wonderful World recalled a romantic rendezvous from long ago. The packed Pamela Brown Auditorium was dead quiet as hundreds of patrons hung on her every word. Realizing the grip she had on us was so cool.