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By Kent Larsen
Slover's 'Joyful Noise' Plays Salt Lake City Also
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- LDS playwright Tim Slover's award-winning play
"Joyful Noise" is being presented in Salt Lake City this Christmas season.
The play was reviewed last week in the Salt Lake Tribune, which said it
"blends gentle humor with moments of pathos, and is underlaid with an
interesting (and topical) debate about conflicts that arise between
organized religion and artistic expression." Reviewer Baker adds that the
show is a "practical product for regional theater" with a connection to the
Holiday season that makes it appealing. As previously reported in Mormon
News, the play is also being produced in Atlanta.
While Baker says that the play shows "Tim Slover to be a clever and talented
playwright," she is not without some criticism. Baker says that the changes
experienced onstage by the characters need more justification, and finds the
moral changes experienced by some characters in the play's final minutes
"convenient" and says they "don't quite ring true." Baker also criticizes
this production, complaining that the thin-sounding recording used for the
chorus doesn't do justice to Handel's work.
Nevertheless, Baker recommends the play, and suggests that it is well suited
for regional theaters. She says the plays small cast and modest staging
requirements make it easy to put on, and "Add to that the fact that one of
the most enduringly popular pieces of classical music ever written is woven
into this play . . . and it's apparent that Slover has come up with a
marketable product."
"Joyful Noise" continues at the University of Utah's Simmons Pioneer
Memorial Theater through December 16th. It also continues in Atlanta's 14th
Street Playhouse through December 24th.
Source:
Slover's Clever 'Joyful Noise' Rates a Hallelujah or Two
Salt Lake Tribune 1Dec00 A2
By Celia R. Baker: Salt Lake Tribune
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