K2: A REVIEW BY GERALD CLOUGH

K2-- B++

The Centennial Community Theater is an enthusiastic and talented group of people of varying backgrounds and ages who bring some sorely needed culture to Albany County on a regular basis. One might be surprised at some of the higher level credentials that a number of the members of the troupe bring to the table in that intimate theater attached to the Trading Post Restaurant and Bar out there on Route 130-- 27 miles from Laramie, Wyoming.

K2 is a play written in the early 80s by Patrick Meyers and it has a heavy 70s feel to it and that's generally a good thing; it's about two men stuck somewhere pretty high up on K2, one of the most forbidding mountains in the world. From the opening moments where the characters wake up to find out just how bad their situation is (tens of thousands of feet up in the air) the play's viewer gets the idea that this is a pretty bad situation.

A play of this sorts is a daring high wire act itself-- the sort of things the Centennial Community Theater likes to do for the one acts, while performing standard classics the remainder of the season. Two men on a small stage without the benefits of the special effects and set design that this play is usually produced with and it worked very well.

Both Howard and Jay were extremely effective and believeable in their roles-- no small feat for community theater actors. The climbing was done very well too.

Both actors probably could have gotten away with tones more hushed, perhaps mic'd. That is something for the Community Theater to work on-- as the physical size of the theater itself is small and the actors could probably be mic'd and sound levels kept appropriate. Maybe not though. And they likely would have been yelling through wind and snow so maybe the voice tones were appropriate.

As Harold sits dying-- freezing to death and having other problems, he drifts in and out of reality-- ruminating on the nature of creation and God-- eventually reaching a fairly interesting epiphany toward the end.

The story is a captivating one and one that requires maturity and skill to bring to an audience; Director Natalie Dollison and her actors Rick Howard and Jay Shoegren did it very well-- very believeable; it seemed to me like the two guys up there on the mountain facing near certain death had known each other and relied on each other for a long time before the curtain came up.

I'm not sure I liked the mountain so much-- the main reason being that so much of the back stage area was visible through a screen that it made the suspension of disbelief a bit difficult but no big deal. I would've liked some different sounds than that of the rocks hitting the bare wooden stage during the staged avalanche-- but, hey, this is Centennial Community Theater, not off-Broadway. All in all, a solid production.

The Centennial Community Theater will be producing Larry Shue's The Foreigner in early June; I recommend checking it out as the early word coming out of Centennial is that Shue's play is a high quality work and I hear the troupe is working very hard to deliver a high quality production. Give the Trading Post a call out there in Centennial at 307-721-5074 for more info regarding dates and such.