Three Reviews: Islander, Laughing Troll Cafe, and On a First Name Basis
- Anthony Chase
- Apr 20
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 23
By Anthony Chase
Islander
Islander, the current offering at the Irish Classical Theatre Company uses two actors to populate the entire Scottish island of Kinnan. This is a fictional place, located in the real-life archipelago of the Outer Hebrides – a place most familiar to those who watch “Jeopardy” or do crossword puzzles. Here, the fairies and the Finfolk of Celtic folklore are real, but the locals are feeling increasing pressure to abandon their isolated home to relocate to the “Bigland,” or mainland of Scotland, where economic opportunities are real, but the spritely beings of Celtic mythology are decidedly fiction.
This intimate musical, conceived by Amy Draper with book by Stewart Melton, and music and lyrics by Finn Anderson follows Eilidh, played by Vanessa Vacanti, the last remaining teenager on the island, who encounters two beings from the outside: first, a beached baby whale; and second, a mysterious girl her own age named Arran, played by Kayla McSorley.
Skillfully directed and choreographed by Jessica Hillman-McCord, with music and vocal direction by Jay Teamer, and movement coaching by David Lendzian, the story is largely sung and meticulously staged. A great part of the thrill is derived from the use of a looping machine, on which Vacanti and McSorley record short bits of melody, rhythm, or sound that then replays in a “loop.” The two performers then sing, accompanied by the sound they have created. The recording device, which is connected to a long cable, is rolled around the stage in a kind of dance. All of this, including the initial recording, is accomplished before our very eyes, the result of looping coaching by Curtis Lovell. In this way, the story soars through Celtic rhythms and harmonies, and a kaleidoscope of movement. The effect is mesmerizing.
McSorley and Vacanti are called upon to portray a litany of characters. McSorley is especially vivid as a local radio DJ, a cetologist from the Bigland named Jenny, and as Eilidh’s mother, and grandmother.
Eilidh’s Mum has abandoned Kinnan to find better employment, leaving the girl with her wise and mischievous old gran, a woman whose sense of humor inspires her to tease her granddaughter by repeatedly pretending to be dead, a stunt that exasperates the girl. After Gran urges her to be more compassionate toward her new friend, and to embrace the myth of her heritage, Eilidh ventures, more willingly, into the adventure of this odd friendship.
With stage presence reminiscent of Romy Schneider (and thank you, I know my references are sometimes obscure) McSorley gives human dimension to a variety of characters. She fluctuates easily between the outrageousness of the Gran and the DJ, the no-nonsense pragmatism of Jenny, and the compelling vulnerability and passion of Arran. Vacanti gives the evening a secure anchor in her portrayal of spirited Eilidh, a girl who shoulders more worries than any teenager should. She also breathes full life into pregnant and apprehensive Breagha, and other islanders.
This is an evening in which every element is perfectly calibrated and integrated. The elegantly economical set by Hyla Stellhorn provides levels and a canopy of lamps; a harrowing scene at sea is amusingly punctuated by one of those lamps. Light by Jayson Clark does a yeoman’s job of shifting locations and tone. With all the pistons firing perfectly, the full impact is pure magic.
Islander runs through April 26 at the Irish Classical Theatre Company’s Andrews Theatre.
The Laughing Troll Café
Meanwhile, over at Buffalo United Artists, playwrights Drew Fornarola and Scott Elmegreen have devised a wicked little caprice called The Laughing Troll Cafe. Here, we meet “Joann,” regarded as the most successful children’s author of all time. Problems arise when her increasingly controversial tweets begin to distance her from her Gen Z audience. As the play begins, her most beloved characters (Harry, Hermione, and Ron) are convening in a North London coffee shop. They’ve invited their unwitting creator for what they plan to be an intervention, devised to preserve both Joann’s legacy and their own.
All of this might begin to sound familiar to you.
I was not a child when Harry Potter arrived on the cultural landscape. I have never read a Harry Potter book, nor seen any of the films, except in trailers and isolated scenes. I winced when the death of the great Richard Harris was announced with the headline, “Harry Potter Actor Dies,” a fate that, no doubt, also awaits Ian McKellen. Still, I am familiar with all the characters, and I am aware of the basic plots. The impact of the Harry Potter franchise is undeniable and inescapable. Therefore, I had no difficulty getting the jokes and following the trajectory of this mischievously Shavian play. At times the show evokes the fizzy, talk‑drunk energy of Don Juan in Hell or Shaw’s more argumentative scenes, where the real pleasure is simply listening to clever people spar.
In the best Shavian sense, the play is really a lively debate disguised as a comedy: the characters volley sharply written arguments about art, ownership, and gender identity, and the pleasure is in watching those ideas collide. Fornarola and Elmegreen are deft at threading serious questions through bright, fast dialogue; punchlines land without blunting the moral and political stakes, and you can feel the room lean in as the arguments become more pointed. This pleasure is heightened by having the arguments asserted by J.K. Rowling’s creations, now decidedly grown up and burdened with the baggage we associate with adulthood. Many a knowing laugh is inspired by hearing how the famed childhood experiences of these characters have shaped them as adults.
Director Mike Doben gives breathing room to the script’s talky exuberance, keeping the evening fleet and conversational rather than didactic. He shapes the actors’ interactions so that interruptions, overlaps, and silences all register as part of the argument. The coffee shop setting remains simple, but Doben uses the space cannily, shifting groupings and physical distance to mirror shifting alliances and fault lines in the conversation. At one point, the barista switches genders, a sly touch, whether it originates in Doben’s staging or in the script, that underscores the play’s fluid sense of identity.
The tone is certainly set with the gender uncertainty of casting Sandra Roberts as Harry, whose insecurities (and alcohol dependence) are a constant frustration to Sabrina Kahwaty Garcia's assertive and pragmatic Hermione. Roberts finds Harry's anxious charm and wounded pride with unerring instinct, locating a touching fragility beneath the jokes that makes the character's bluster genuinely moving. Garcia brings exhilarating authority to Hermione, the crisp focus, the moral clarity, the impeccable comic timing, and in the moments when the argument turns painful, a vulnerability that gives the debate its most human dimension. Meanwhile, Samuel Fesmire's Ron is a doper, living in his van, a gently baked chaos agent who nonetheless reveals flashes of emotional intelligence with such disarming ease that you may find yourself sometimes suspecting that he might be the wisest person in the room. These three are as charming as they are hilarious as they navigate the treacherous terrain of confronting "mother," as much like siblings as like friends, and their ensemble chemistry, three distinct, fully inhabited performances, gives the debate its warmth and sting.
Enter one of BUA’s most firmly established and deft comic actors, Caitlin Coleman, as Joann. She gives an unapologetically broad performance. Her compulsion to send out tweets, as well as other proclivities of the character, might remind you of another contemporary Frito‑colored villain more than any children’s book author. Coleman delights in her character’s dark corners and privileged outlooks, and she has a field day with Joann’s blithe certainty; every time the character thinks she is clarifying her position, Coleman finds a new way to make the room gasp and laugh at once. Under Doben’s direction, that broadness never tips into pure caricature; it stays just tethered enough to reality to make the play’s questions feel uncomfortably, deliciously current.
Playwrights Fornarola and Elmegreen are the authors of the off-Broadway hit, Straight, which was also produced at BUA before becoming a feature film in Mexico. Given that pedigree, we might expect that Laughing Troll Café is being groomed for a future life – maybe a stop in Chicago, maybe a trip to New York. It’s a natural fit for the Shaw Festival, though given another contemporary debate, this might not be the moment for the Canadian festival to embrace an American play, albeit a piece penned by members of the opposition.
For now, though, Buffalo gets the first crack at this sharp, sly debate‑comedy, delivered by a fearless cast in peak form. Treat yourself to an evening at Laughing Troll Café and enjoy the rare pleasure of laughing hard while your brain is happily, provocatively engaged.
The Laughing Troll Café runs through April 25 at Buffalo United Artists’ Compass Performing Arts Center.
On a First Name Basis
Late exposition is an old theatrical device and the hallmark of many a dramatic reversal. “By the way Oedipus, did anybody ever tell you that you were adopted?”
Norm Foster’s play, On a First Name Basis, which has been playing for several weeks at Desiderio’s Dinner Theatre in Cheektowaga, is entirely driven by the engine of gradual revelation.
The title refers to the fact that Miss Hopperstaad has been employed as a housekeeper to novelist David Kilbride for 33 years. She knows his every quirk and every intimate detail of his life; he doesn’t even know her first name.
And so, on this evening, when Miss Hopperstaad has already finished for the day and is more than ready to go home, David abruptly determines to correct this situation. The results will surprise him, because every assumption he has made is false.
Foster is Canada’s most produced playwright, a distinction that does not necessarily earn him accolades as one of the nation’s most innovative or bold. He produces beautifully constructed studies of ordinary people at emotionally charged moments of their lives. His safe and endearing comedies have made him an audience favorite and a perfect fit for Desiderio’s.
The fortunes of any character-driven show rise and fall on the casting, and on this occasion, director Jay Desiderio has filled the roles of this two-character play with two of Buffalo’s very best, Eileen Dugan and Peter Palmisano. These veteran actors plumb the virtues of Foster’s writing, his ability to set up and land jokes, his talent for dropping clues that only reveal their truths later, and the undercurrent of humanity that he lets flow beneath every revelation and turn in the story.
I say “story” rather than “plot” because this evening is not plot driven. Every important event has already occurred. The only action tonight involves drinking some very good wine, and talking. It is in the talking that Dugan and Palmisano showcase their craft, as well as Foster’s. They will speak of past events and their contrasting yet overlapping lives vividly and with humor.
Palmisano is a master of oh-my-gosh cluelessness, often positioning himself as the straight man setting up Miss Hopperstaad’s sardonic barbs and acidic observations – quips that Dugan masterfully makes more pointed as her character drinks.
It doesn’t take a psychic to predict where this conversation is going, but the inevitable conclusion is handled with charming finesse, providing a wonderfully uplifting finish.
On a First Name Basis runs through May 3 at Desiderio’s Dinner Theatre in Cheektowaga. Call 716-395-3207 for reservations.
