Theater Review

ENGL 103

Dr. Roessler

Down Past Passyunk. A. Zell Williams

Directed by Matt Pfeiffer

Interact theatre co.

Adrienne Theater, April 27, 2014.

The last play of Down Past Passyunk was played on April 27, and this is the play I saw. The play was started at 2 p.m. and I leave dorm at 1.20 p.m. The theater is located on 2030 Samson Street, and it’s called Adrienne Theater. I went there with my friends who are in the same English class as me. Since we do not know where exactly the theater is, so we went there by taxi. The Adrienne Theater is not a really large theater; in fact, it is a small and old theater. I feel a little disappointed when I first arrived; I expect the theater to be a better looking place. The theater smells really wearied when we first get there, its smells like it’s not very clean and old. The street where the theater is located is desolately, even though its somewhere nears the center city. The theater where the show was played is very crowded, and the seats are not assigned, they are first come first served, however some of them are reserved. There still is something good about the theater; it has good speakers and lamplight, the stage design is also good. For the stage design, almost the whole stage is design into the inside of the sandwich restaurant, which is owned by Mr. Grillo, he is an immigrant. The inside of the restaurant have a table which located in the center of the stage, this table is those kind of table a bar would have, instead of having a bartender serving inside, the boss of this restaurant who is Mr. Grillo also serve as a cook. The stage design changed three times, the original one is decorated with the Italy flag, the second one is decorate with the American flag, and the third stage is like a classic coffee shop. There is a hall way at the stage left, there is where the actors enter and leave. In front of the restaurant, at the stage front, this would be the outside of the restaurant.

The play Down Past Passyunk is a show about Mr. Grillo love America so much and he does not serve people who doesn’t speaks English, because of this, his restaurant don’t have much business, so his daughter Sophia try so hard to convince him to be less aggressive. Sophia was in loved with the local police who are already married. And actors actually did the cooking during the play. But Mr. Grillo doesn’t listen to his daughter and he redecorates his restaurant into an “Americano” restaurant, and Sophia is really angry about this. Moreover, there is one night there is a gunfight cross street, Mr. Grillo could have call the police but he did not, because he think the restaurant cross street is stand on the way of his business. Sophia feels really angry and she left, but she got shot and she’s dead. The last person she called was the police, but the police doesn’t pick up because Sophia told him to cherish his family. When Mr. Grillo find out about this he gets angry and stab the police, so the police shot Mr. Grillo on his leg and kills himself. In the play, Mr. Grillo gets better and tried to accepted people who does not speaks English, Mr. Grillo closed the restaurant and after several years, the neighborhood become diversified and the restaurant then becomes a coffee shop. But in the text of Down Past Passyunk, Mr. Grillo does not change his mind because of Sophia’s death.

In addition, overall I enjoyed this show, even though the theater is really bad, but equipment and the actors fill a post with credit. This show should be more interesting for elder, because 90% of the audience were elder. As a teenager, I might not have the ability to appreciate the show and feel passion about it, but after the show is over, more than a half of audience stood up and applause. So I believe, this is a very good show. For me personally, I would suggest international audience to find some information about the show, because the actors sometime speak fast and there are some dialogues are hard to catch.