If there's anything you need to take away from this post it's this: Donnie Smith is awesome.
I was first introduced to his work through RMT's Small Engine Repair, produced by Corryn Cummins - an amazing actress and one of the people who introduced us to RMT to begin with. Small Engine Repair was so good, that it went on to win a plethora of awards, and Donnie's portrayal of Swaino was so good in it, that I've called him "Donnie Swaino" in my head for a long time. I still expect him to whip out some vanilla-scented moisturizer to rub it on his scalp.
Since, though, I hadn't seen Donnie in anything else. Instead, I've had fantastic conversations with him in his smoking spot right outside RMT's Theatre Theater, next to the homeless guy who struts and frets in a soliloquy for himself. I've learned about Donnie's interests, his career, and we've engaged in conversations about theatre marketing, promotion, and fundraising.
So HOUSE, brought to you by RMT's Off the Clock late night series, is the second time I've actually seen Donnie on the stage, and he is brilliant, playing a disturbed, conflicted man. This one-man, one-act show is a confession of sorts, in which Victor gets to tell us (literally, because he knows we're there; there is no fourth wall) what he thinks of his therapy group, his wife, his coworkers, his boss, his family, and even himself. He renders the performance with so much energy, anger, strength, aggression, and desperation tjat you'd imagine Victor to be a strong, confident man, when he is really a meak man, who's fallen prey to his destiny. A man who wants to break from the shadows, but is invisible and allows everyone in his life to walk all over him as he struggles to find the balance between fantasty and reality.
Victor is a shaken bottle, ready to pop the cork.
I was first introduced to his work through RMT's Small Engine Repair, produced by Corryn Cummins - an amazing actress and one of the people who introduced us to RMT to begin with. Small Engine Repair was so good, that it went on to win a plethora of awards, and Donnie's portrayal of Swaino was so good in it, that I've called him "Donnie Swaino" in my head for a long time. I still expect him to whip out some vanilla-scented moisturizer to rub it on his scalp.
Since, though, I hadn't seen Donnie in anything else. Instead, I've had fantastic conversations with him in his smoking spot right outside RMT's Theatre Theater, next to the homeless guy who struts and frets in a soliloquy for himself. I've learned about Donnie's interests, his career, and we've engaged in conversations about theatre marketing, promotion, and fundraising.
So HOUSE, brought to you by RMT's Off the Clock late night series, is the second time I've actually seen Donnie on the stage, and he is brilliant, playing a disturbed, conflicted man. This one-man, one-act show is a confession of sorts, in which Victor gets to tell us (literally, because he knows we're there; there is no fourth wall) what he thinks of his therapy group, his wife, his coworkers, his boss, his family, and even himself. He renders the performance with so much energy, anger, strength, aggression, and desperation tjat you'd imagine Victor to be a strong, confident man, when he is really a meak man, who's fallen prey to his destiny. A man who wants to break from the shadows, but is invisible and allows everyone in his life to walk all over him as he struggles to find the balance between fantasty and reality.
Victor is a shaken bottle, ready to pop the cork.
