708. Theater Review - H2GT2G

Tonight's activity was a visit to the theater, in this case The Alley Theater, which isn't a theater at all but a performing troupe which uses space in the nearby group of buildings known as "The Pointe." The Pointe is located not far from my house in Butchertown in a collection of old industrial warehouses which have been converted for a variety of uses, including at least one large hall which serves as a makeshift theater. The buildings are located on East Washington Street, just east of the R. J. Corman RR line and west of Cabel Street. "The Ponte" name probably refers to the name of an old neighborhood just north of Butchertowm, no longer extant, which was washed away by the Great Flood of 1937.

Lynn Fischer and I attended a performance of "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" which originally aired on BBC Radio 4 in Great Britain the year I graduated from Durrett. The series of radios and books has something of a cult following and there was a time I was an unofficial member of that cult. There really isn't a guide, per se, but there are radio shows, books, and movies, and this play tonight, which internally refers to a book entitled The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, sometimes shortened, as I have in my title, to H2GT2G. My seven faithful readers will know that I am fond of the play-within-a-play genre and this is a perverted twist on that, being that the title is that of a fictional book within the play.

The play as performed covers the work as performed on the BBC network back in '78, telling the story of one Arthur Dent, portrayed tonight by Kent Carney, a veteran of several local productions. The narrator of the play is acted by Alan Canon, a Louisville native. He also plays several other roles, all speaking roles, as this is a play about a radio show.

Another actor playing several speaking roles is Tom Dunbar. His various voices add to the fun of the play, from that of one of the other-galactic leaders to the seemingly simple scientist/engineer who had the job of "creating the fjords of Norway" as one of his projects in the experiment known as Earth.

The "love interest" in the play is Trillian, acted by Kimberly Taylor-Peterson, a WKU grad in Theater and Music, who has been involved in various performing companies here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepost 606. Like the other actors, she covers several other roles in the play and other than Arthur Dent, Trillian, formerly Tricia McMillan, is the only other "earthling."

Another Louisvillian in the play is Scott Goodman, the love interest in the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox, to the abovementioned Trillian. His portrayal of a money-grubbing but somewhat shortsighted businessman is set-off by some extraordinary pants which no person should be caught dead in, onstage or off, something straight out of the late 1960s/early 1970s.

The title of the show refers to a book introduced to Mr. Dent by a alien who has inhabited the Earth for fifteen years in the person of Ford Prefect, named for a small car popular in Europe in the 1970s. Prefect is understatedly played, in the tradition of a good Britisher, by John Aurelius, who bears a striking resemblance to two friends of mine, Aaron Jent and Chris Payton. Aurelius (what a name!) is a recent U of L grad in music, and plays a recorder in different scenes of the play.

The play is directed by Dana Hope and the stage manager is Amelia C. Pantalos.

In the rear of the room, refreshments were available which included a nice Cabernet for me and a Chardonnay for Lynn. And popcorn.

This was a fun, lighthearted trip into the future and the past hitchhiking our way through the galaxy. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was written by Douglas Noel Adams. He died in 2001 at the age of 49.