If Appetite Theatre hopes to have any sort of viable future, the company needs to jettison its community-theater mentality and start picking better material. The troupe debuted last December with a middling production of “An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf.” Things have not improved with its current production of “Elton John’s Glasses,” David Farr’s tiresome 1997 British-set comedy about the reunion of two estranged brothers: one a housebound soccer fanatic, the other a second-rate-rock-band manager. The production, directed by Liz Warton, looks and feels cheap—and unnecessarily so. A word of advice to the company: there are several local designers who are sophisticated and daring—find them. As many burgeoning theater companies have shown in the past, you don’t need a lot of money to pull off a first-rate production. The show is not especially well cast, with the single exception of Dan Stransky as the leather-jacketed, spiky haired, rock ‘n’ roll brother. Stransky, who fares the best with his English accent, truly looks comfortable in the body of his character. He is a very charming and natural-seeming performer—and enough of a presence that he almost makes this show work, despite its flaws. The remaining five actors look lost by comparison. (Nina Metz)
Buggin’ Out: A Review of Bug at Steppenwolf Theatre The audience is the fly on the wall of a dingy Oklahoma hotel room where Agnes White is taking refuge from her recently released, abusive ex-husband Jerry.
