Laura: Last weekend we saw the 21st Century Theatre world premiere production of !Corked in Falls Church, Virginia.

Mike: !Corked is a comedy written by Scot Walker. It’s the story of trying to figure out who murdered Milton Bradley, the gamemeister. He tried to catch a champagne cork in his mouth and he died it because it was poisoned. So you have to figure out who dunnit.

Laura: This show had a lot of potential to be really funny, well paced, with a lot of quips and things like that. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to our expectations of the show.

Mike: We didn’t know what to expect from this show. Scot Walker has written other plays over the years. We haven’t seen any of those either so we had no idea what to expect. Unfortunately we were disappointed by this show.

Laura: The set was very well done. There was one set, it took place in the living room area of an old Irish castle. There were a couple hidden entrances that were utilized during the show. And so it was very detailed.

Mike: There were seven characters in this show. The role of Alan Baker was played by Michael Young. He did a good job with his part. I really enjoyed watching him with his little mannerisms of being a boxer. He would flip over the painting of himself and always box himself on the chin. That was kind of a cute little mannerism. He also had some slapstick points such as his attempt at mouth to mouth resuscitation of Milton Bradley. He did that really funny by leaning over a good two feet away from his mouth and blowing as if that would help Milton out. That was pretty funny. He had a good time with the parts he was doing.

Laura: Another actress was Monique Gaw. She played the part of Nancy Baker. She did well. She was a very good doctor. She was good at trying to resuscitate poor Milton Bradley. I enjoyed her performance also.

Mike: There was one character in the show whose occupation was that of a tour guide for the city of Falls Church, Virginia. Unfortunately they had a really bad scene where they had to talk about why she hated being a tour guide operator. Everybody in the audience was familiar with traffic in the area and the headaches that are involved with being a tour guide. So the example she gives I was ready for it to be something like, “If I have to deal with beltway traffic one more time.” Or, “if I have to deal with route 29 traffic.” I was expecting something about Falls Church because she had made such a big point that a Falls Church tour guide was what her job was. She goes into this really long, crude, bad story about an experience of being a tour guide. It just really soured that whole scene. There really wasn’t a need for that. It wasn’t a funny story. It really hurt the entire show.

Laura: !Corked is playing through July 30th at the James Lee Community Center in Falls Church, Virginia. They do not have a website so to find out a schedule of shows, go to ShowBizRadio.net.

Mike: And now, on with the show.