Action Movie: The Play
Defiant Theater

A few minor cuts aside, Joe Foust and Richard Ragsdale's oft-revived parody of blockbuster films is being restaged in a form that most resembles 1999's Action Movie: The Play--The Director's Cut.


4/5/04 - 6/13/04


"ACTION MOVIE: THE PLAY, Defiant Theatre, at the Chopin Theatre.

"A few minor cuts aside, Joe Foust and Richard Ragsdale's oft-revived parody of blockbuster films is being restaged in a form that most resembles 1999's Action Movie: The Play--The Director's Cut. But the reflexive slant of action movies diminishes the comic effect of the story: a bunch of misfits band together to stop a diabolical madman from destroying the earth with a charmed paperweight. The production gets by instead on its dismantling of the genre and its virtuosic displays of stunts and fight choreography. But pacing remains a problem: even after two revisions and a quasi sequel, Action Movie: The Play is too methodical given its sources. There's a decided lack of momentum during the hour of exposition it takes to introduce all the characters. And even the best-executed stunts--a chain saw battle on the roofs of two speeding cars and an homage to the ladder sequence in Jackie Chan's First Strike--can't hold a candle to the show's breathtakingly boisterous opening-credits sequence. Ingratiating performances by some of the original cast members--especially Jennifer Gehr, gleefully profane as a police sergeant--justify the price of admission. Still, this is an oddly disjointed staging technically unsuited to the Chopin space." - Nick Green, Chicago Reader 4/23/04

Author
Joe Foust, Richard Ragsdale

Director
Joe Foust, Richard Ragsdale

Performers
Andrew Amani, Kevin Asselin, Mac Brandt, Michele Dimaso, Kurt Ehrmann, Jennifer Gehr, Christopher Johnson, Nick Lewis, Rick Lokett, John Maclay, Gregor Mortis, Samuel Munoz, Kevin Murphy, Derrick Nelson, Erica Peregrine, Lisa Rothschiller, Will Schutz, Noah Simon, Justine Turner

Production
Jason Lubow, Martin mcClendon, Richy Norwood, Amy Frangquist, Gregor Mortis, Kate Marie Stone, Joe Foust Geoff Coates, G Warren Stiles, Seth Bockley, Alana Parvey, Andrew Mott, Kirk Anderson, Arlo Bryan Guthrie, Prank

Tags: Theater, American, 2004