MASTERFRINGE THEATRE

When Barnaby Hughes reviewed a previous Magnum Opus production of Surf Dogs Unite  for Stage and Cinema, he wrote that the show “will leave you doubled over with laughter.” Even knowing my own writers, I somewhat doubted that clichéd statement. But last night, I saw the players take  an actual awful screenplay about misfit high school teens bent on revenge,  The Yearbook, performing  it word-for-word in a campy but restrained manner, and I simply do not remember the last time I laughed to the point that oxygen seemed a precious resource.

Reading the character descriptions and scene settings as though they were literature is  the martini-sipping  Thurston Eberhard Hillsboro-Smythe, sitting stage right, clad in  smoking jacket, cravat, and  oversized spectacles. Although performing in the style of a sketch, the device–which includes acting out typos–never grows wearisome because it avoids the trap of Saturday Night Live-like repetition. Here, a story is being told (an eyeball-roll inducing story but a story nonetheless).  I kept thinking to myself, “This company deserves to have their own theater so they could create a repertory and bring in tourists forever.” I can’t rave enough. Well done, all.

photos by  Brandon Clark and  John Wuchte

The Yearbook
The Magnum Opus Players
produced by Brandon Clark
Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd.
Fri and Sat at 11pm through June 26, 2015
for tickets, call 323.380.0649
or  visit Hollywood Fringe
for future shows,
visit Magnum Opus Players