They just have someone back there with a curling iron.

Earlier today I took my mom to see "Cradle of Man" at Victory Gardens. We both agreed that the acting was top notch, and the script only good in Act Two. My mother was also impressed with the lovely hair on the entire female cast, and posited the existence of a backstage person dedicated entirely to touching it up between scenes.

My mom is so cute!

Friday was "Emma" at the Breadline. Smidge disappointed, I'm afraid. The first Reverie show I saw was enthralling- a French farce that should have been too wordy and too plotty and too silly to work at all, but was ceaselessly delightful and hilarious. This one was too long, and just couldn't keep things moving at a high froth. "Emma" used, I think, pretty much exclusively the original words from the book, and used multiple-character narration, which I like, but instead of just using the most delightful Austen passages, it relied on narration to move the plot along. Someone once said that narration should only be used if you don't need it. Still, there were some great funny moments before it overstayed its welcome, and Emma herself was all that you could have wanted. Looked a bit like Emma Thompson too, which is a plus.

Last week I also took in "Fighting Words" at the Viaduct. Go check out centerstage to see what I thought!