Review: The Retreat from Moscow

<center>The Retreat from Moscow
by William Nicholson
Independent Players
Directed by Larry Boller
featuring Marge Uhlarik-Boller, Jim Quan and David Smith

September 26 - October 11
Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00
Sunday, October 5 at 3:00

Elgin Arts Showcase
164 Division Street
Elgin, IL 60120

Tickets: $15 Adult, $12 Senior, $10 Student, $5 Children (12 & under)
(although, to me, if you bring a child to this you're a crazy person.)
I'm in a show running the same time as this, so I saw a final dress.
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Ok... you've seen The Odd Couple at Wheaton Drama and you need another theatre fix. Go see The Retreat from Moscow at Independent Players. Meek Edward grows a backbone and leaves his abrasive wife Alice for another woman, leaving their son Jamie caught in the middle of the domestic warzone. The plot is basically soap opera -- but the writing reveals nuances of character that make it infuriatingly murky as to who is to blame for the situation; the answer being (as it often is in life) "everybody and nobody". Everybody who behaves badly has some justification for feeling the way they do, if not for the way they handle it.

Working with the limited lighting available in a rental space for quick scene changes, Larry Boller keeps the play humming briskly along. His deft work brings out the best in his three actors.

David Smith as Jamie has the least showy of the three parts. He is very good as the appalled son who just wants everyone to get along civilly if they can't love each other.

Jim Quan (whom I've seen in many shows over the past fifteen years) does his best work as a man whose fascination with Napoleon's army's retreat from Moscow mirrors his own retreat from an unbearable marriage, made possible by his attachment to a woman (never seen) who is just as controlling as his wife -- all decisions he announces start with "Angela thinks..."

Marge Uhlarik-Boller is riveting in the showiest part, a woman whose flamboyance and energy when young have turned into a middle-aged neediness and overbearance. Alice can see that her confrontational style does nothing but drive Edward further inside himself - but she can't control it.

So if love theatre and you're tired of big musicals done badly, you have the option to see a night of really terrific acting on a local staqe. Take up the option.