Word: riverboat
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Director Kaile Shilling locates the play on a riverboat in Dixie. Despite this revision, she chooses to preserve the original text, with all its context, save one or two lines adapted to read "The South" instead of "Messina." This leads to baffling conundrums: where do you find the balconies and gardens on a riverboat? Why are war-weary veterans holidaying on the water with the governor of Messina? What kind of steamer comes complete with a crypt? This hare-brained Steamboat Willie hybrid smacks of direction for direction's sake...
...conservative marriage ethic, but this is not enough to justify the change of scene. Perhaps there is an obscure reference to the Southern psyche--but to the uninitiated the production seems to revolve around the one minor actor, Joshua Bloom, who speaks with a Southern accent. A riverboat does not lend itself to the action: the gulling scenes are harder to stage, and the space confuses the audience. What is outside and what is inside? Shilling's adaptation causes these confusions. And for all her pains, there are no startling revelations: if it ain't broke...
...meet with widespread hostility in a town still traumatized by the massive layoffs during the early 1980s at the John Deere Dubuque Works and the now defunct Dubuque Packing Co. Though unemployment stands below the national average and tourism has nearly doubled in the past year thanks to riverboat gambling, few Dubuquers feel secure. "People believe the pie is shrinking, and they are not in the mood to share their piece," says Giunta...
...courts are jam-packed," says Mayor Sidney Barthelemy. "The police no longer have time to handle the minor calls. They're out on major crimes. To say the economy has had a devastating effect on the city is to put it mildly." Tourism and the promise of revenues from riverboat gambling offer some hope. But the specter of a Duke governorship chills many business leaders, who think tourists will stop coming and companies will leave the state if he is elected...
TRAVEL Take a chance! Bring riverboat gambling to town...