As the Vicomte’s greatest challenge, and eventual undoing, Monette Magrath offers up an aura of inner strength and intense emotion which rounds the character out beyond the play’s definition.
Equally impressive was the furious monologue from Magrath, who expressed her character’s anger when finding out that her husband was involved in an affair.
Monette Magrath may look the part of a former cheerleader-turned-socialite wife in her pastel sheaths and white gloves. But with one determined thrust of her chin, Magrath conveys her character’s outrage at being asked to swallow lies.
This powerful, involving theatre piece is now being performed at the Laguna Playhouse, where an opening night audience rose in unison at its conclusion for an extended ovation. The company members each play as many as 14 different characters as they re-create the reaction of Laramie townspeople…regarding the crime. The fluid ease with which the actors slip out of one character and into another is highly impressive. …Magrath as the nervous lead writer on the project, as well as the one who found Shepard’s near lifeless form, completes the company.
Clearly a group of artists at the top of their respective games, telling a story they clearly need to tell. By any definition, this is very, very good theatre.
The audience was dazzled and invigorated. This production is stunning. The virtuoso actors flit from character to character, probing deeply, at the flick of a light cue. Monette Magrath shines as a buddy of Shepard who invents a public expression for her loyalty.
A poignant and intelligently conceived production, filled with intimacy and raw passion…These actors bring their own ideas and strengths to the work, and the results are sometimes spectacular. Monette Magrath, the only newcomer to the production…seems the equal of her peers.
Finely etched are Jamison Jones’ Chris and Monette Magrath’s Ann. Like Romeo and Juliet...giddy in their new romance, tentative in gaining family acceptance, Jones and Magrath steer their characters’ rocky course admirably.