REVIEWS
‘Repairing a Nation’ mixes the political with the personal at Crossroads Theatre Company
"Berry’s robust performance and stagecraft were confirmed with a simple head nod during a family photo. This spoke volumes about the character and her environment. A humble action, it was still one of the best nuances this reviewer has seen by an actor"
JAY LUSTIG
Domingo gave Adelaide and Glo the best material in the play, and Berry makes the most of that gift, conjuring up two distinct, equally adorable personalities. Her Adelaide is a warm and funny woman with a love for her son that never waivers, even when he bristles, and an unshakable belief that a little magic can enter every life.
Glo, who knows exactly what she wants (including her "onliest" sister's clothes) and would never think of holding her tongue, inspires Berry to even greater heights. Her delivery of Glo's hilarious tirade against "the internets" and people too busy "texting and twitching" to communicate on a personal level is priceless.
Berry and McClendon are especially compelling at the play's cathartic close, so implausibly and deliciously set in a prime piece of Disney World.
But Aunt Glo is just getting warmed up. Berry’s tour de force performance as Aunt Glo shoots the show into a stratosphere of comic outrage as Aunt Glo expresses her views on “the gays,” all you can eat buffets, and most memorably, the death of communication in modern society, which she blames on “the internets.”
Berry, playing the sweet Adelaide and the feisty Aunt Glo, is a performing force to be reckoned with. Lively and vibrant despite what ails the character of Adelaide, Berry presents a simplistic woman that understands the ways of the world; a doting every mother type character that is reaching out to give and receive love to her relations even when the relationship is strained by time and distance. As the spitfire pistol Aunt Glo, she portrays the polar opposite in the cantankerous, boisterous and overall obnoxious character. The hysterics and theatrics that are raised to heightened stakes during the scene where as Aunt Glo Berry starts rifling through her late sister’s possessions are an absolute scream. But there are touching moments in her repertoire as well; the transitional shift between the two.
- April Forrer on: June 07, 2014
“The ease of “Trouble in Mind”
Completely capturing me from start to end, the show possesses the rare ability to balance humor, drama and intensity with actors able to switch from one to another in seconds. Lead Stephanie Berry is both light hearted and serious; able to convey a point of depth without sacrificing audience entertainment. And then there is her voice. My only distraction was the lingering hope that we would hear her sing more often in the show. ”