This is the last week to catch Theatre on Fire's production of Ethan Coen's Almost an Evening. (Add drinks before and dinner after, et voila! — a complete evening!)  Check it out — it's a fun production by a talented troupe.

This was my first foray into Charlestown, where the theatre is situated in a charming old firehouse, for culture (I did have an Argentine FB in Charlestown some years ago, so I am familiar with a bedroom there). 

Although the play itself is a little uneven, the troupe is delightful, and there are a few scenes throughout the show that make it well worth your while.  Not that the rest isn't, although a meta scene which forms a sort of coda to what comes before felt tacked-on (in the play's original Off-Broadway incarnation, the Times called this sketch, which "trails off into a self-conscious series of life-after-the-play-within-the-play scenes" "a tad moldy" — and, in truth, it does feel dated fresh out of the box).  

Especially coming after an audacious debate between "God Who Judges" and "God Who Loves" — which is, aside from the sauna scene with (OMFG) Jorge Martinez and Craig Houk, the highlight of the show — the "denouement" kinda drops like a lead balloon.  That's partially a flaw in the play itself (the Coens' film oeuvre is uneven in precisely the same way).  But the comic timing in the final scene was a little off, too.  Granted, there's more going on than in the scenes that come before, including some slapstick, if I recall.   

The play is less an earnest call to ontological inquiry than an arch observation of the absurdity of such inquiry in the end.  Houk's character in the second vignette is probably the most poignant for having gone through as close to a catharsis as any character in Almost an Evening does, and then having it mistaken for a crude gay come-on. (I know how it feels, believe me.) 

Some memorable performances (all Jorge Martinez has to do is sit there in nothing but a towel to be memorable — others had to work at it a bit), but the trophy goes to Jeff Gill in his turn as the fiery, profane "God Who Judges", who really makes An Evening complete. 

Get your tickets here, and be sure to drop a line and let us know what you thought of it!