by Warren Francke

I’m going to call 444.1000 and ask the daily’s circulation department to send me a different edition of the World-Herald. Mine didn’t carry any reviews of the three theater openings last weekend. I saw Eurydice on preview night at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and hoped somebody would explain Sarah Ruhl’s postmodern treatment to me. It doesn’t help that too much thinking about anything being “postmodern” risks a severe headache. Saw Unwrap Your Candy at the downtown digs of SkullDuggery Theatre Friday and hoped to read that I wasn’t the only one captivated by biggest hairy baby I’ve ever seen, thanks to a diapered Eric Green in Doug Wright’s Baby Talk. The candy-titled opening one-act wasn’t as much fun as the other four, and Green had great help from Angie Friedman as the baby’s mother and Chris Fowler as a narrator-doctor whose manner reminded of some early Michael Richards before he became Cosmo Kramer. Denise Chevalier was great in several roles. If you’ve never found the SkullDuggery niche on 19th Street, suffice it to say you don’t have to feed the parking meters in the evening and there’s always a nearby spot open. Check it out by Oct. 24, when Andrew McGreevy will move again. Getting back to Eurydice at UNO, the fact that it would take a semester-long seminar to understand everything Ruhl intended doesn’t mean it isn’t fascinating theater with appealing performances by Sarah Liken in the title role Joe Fogarty as her father. And Chad Cunningham makes a devilishly delightful Lord of the Underworld. I raved in advance about the Robbie Jones design but you’ll love the elevator to the nether region and the rain and the costumes worn by the talking stones. And maybe I wasn’t the only one who missed Shelterskelter XV on its opening weekend of original spooky stuff. You can read about West Side Story elsewhere in this Reader, and catch up with A Thousand Clowns here before it opens the following weekend at the Omaha Community Playhouse. Meanwhile, if you have the urge to pick up a few bucks performing, we promise more details later on an offer from Manya Nogg and associates with Theater to Go. They’ve been doing mystery theater at Rick’s on the river, but this involves their “edutainment” plan to present humorous speakers for many occasions. If you’ve got a talk that blends laughs and entertainment, stay tuned. Cold Cream looks at theater in the metro area. Email information to coldcream@thereader.com.

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