The Cast
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Will Clinger (Jake) is pleased to be returning to Apple Tree Theatre, having played Richard in their 2001 production of Fuddy Meers. He recently appeared as Elbow in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's Measure for Measure and Leopold Bloom in Irish Repertory's world premiere of A Dublin Bloom, a stage adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses. Other Chicago credits include Eric LaRue at A Red Orchid Theater, How I Learned to Drive at the Illinois Theater Center, Hamlet! The Musical at Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the world premiere of John Guare's Moon Under Miami at the dearly departed Remains Theater. Will has spent two summers with the Peninsula Players in Door County, Wisconsin, where he appeared in six shows that included The Odd Couple, Into the Woods and the farce Soufflé Surprise. He is an alumnus of The Second City National Touring Company, former host of WTTW's Wild Chicago, and is one third of The Famous Brothers bluegrass band. His grandmother, Lella May, hailed from the County Tyrone, Ireland .
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John Hoogenakker (Charlie) is pleased to be making his Apple Tree Theatre debut in Stones In His Pockets. Most recently he played Paris in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Romeo and Juliet . Other Chicago Shakespeare Theater credits include Scarus in Anthony and Cleopatra, and Antipholus of Ephesus in TheBomb-itty of Errors (also at The Royal George). Some other Chicago credits include Killer Joe for Killer Joe Productions and the title role in Robyn Hood of Barnsdale Wood for Equity Library Theatre. Regional credits include Escape From Happiness, The Mill on the Floss, Richard III, Mary Stuart, The Foreigner, and Suburban Motel for Milwaukee Repertory Theater; Worksong: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright for Missouri Repertory Theater and the Arizona Theater Company; and Two Gentlemen of Verona and the title role in Hamlet for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Also a voice-over artist in Chicago, John is a proud graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University.
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Press
Pioneer Press feature
North Shore Magazine feature
Copley News Service review
Chicago Tribune review
Daily Herald review
Chicago Sun-Times review
Pioneer Press review
Chicagocritic.com reviews
Chicago Reader review
Chicago Tribune Top 10 for 2005
Pioneer Press Top of 2005 cast | press | photos | background | tickets
Highlights from the Pioneer Press feature by Myrna Petlicki
It takes a village to create a big-budget Hollywood film in "Stones in His Pockets."
Will Clinger and John Hoogennakker play many of the locals and out-of-towners working on that project in a rural part of County Kerry, Ireland, in the Apple Tree Theatre production of the award-winning two-person play.
As Jake and Charlie, two local extras, they tell the hilarious -- but sometimes sad -- story of how the movie making affects the town. Each actor becomes people in their story.
"Jake is a little world-weary," Clinger said. "He's been to the states for a couple years and that's jaded him a little bit. He's come back to his hometown,, and he's living on the dole with his mother and trying to find himself. But he's also got a wry sense of humor, and I think there is an optimist in there somewhere trying to get out."
"Charlie comes from Northern Ireland and had a video shop that's gone bust to a large corporate chain," Hoogennakker said. "When that happens, he's at the end of his chain. His girlfriend dumps him shortly after that and then ends up dating the manager of the new corporate chain. He sets out on a journey across the country to find himself. Charlie is trying to remain positive because if he doesn't he'll sink into despair as he has in the past."
Clinger's roles include one of the last surviving extras from "The Quiet Man," a woman in charge of keeping extras in line, and a film grip with a Cockney accent. "It's a cornucopia of characters," said Clinger, a respected theater actor best known as the former host of WTTW's "Wild Chicago."
Hoogennakker's other parts include the first assistant director from Dublin, the father of a young local who commits suicide, a monk and a glamorous movie star.
"The challenge of this play is that sometimes you go from one character who's having a normal conversation -- bingo! -- next thing you know you're in a highly emotionally charged state of another character," Clinger said.
Hoogennakker's biggest challenge is playing characters from different parts of Ireland. "They all have distinct accents," he said. To prepare, the actor has been listening to BBC Ulster radio broadcasts.
Director Steve Scott said, "What I like best as a director is the chance to work with actors on challenging stuff. And this kind of show is the most challenging thing an actor can do because you have to bring all these characters to life, but they can't be caricatures. They have to be real people."
Scott said of his two-man cast, "They're very disciplined and they're very imaginative. They bring a lot of ideas of their own to the table. It really is a collaboration in the best possible sense." cast | press | photos | background | tickets
Highlights from the North Shore Magazine feature by Penelope Mesic
Go to Apple Tree Theatre's STONES IN HIS POCKETS (and yo'd be crazy not to, since it's one of the most entertaining shows of the past decate) and you'll laugh, you'll cry, but mostly you'll watch dumbstruck as two hilariously resourceful actors burn a gigawatt of energy switching back and forth between 15 different roles - without a pause or a prop or a costume change.
Their lightning transformations tell the story of Jake and Charlie, two not-quite-down-and-outers who are working as extras in a remote Irish village where a Hollywood film is being made. Will Clinger plays Jake, John Hoogenakker plays Charlie, and together they take turns playing everyone else, including the sexy, skittish American film star Caroline Giovanni, her slapdash dialect coach, her boydyguard, a cockney crew member, a dim English director and his two assistants - one bossy, one snippy.
They also portray a rich assosrtment of locals, most of whom are Jake's second or third cousins, including teeage Sean, who has a drug problem, his shy friend Finn and ancient wee Mickey, who has bored pubfuls of locals for 40 years with his stories of being "the last surviving extra" from the filming of John Wayne's The Quiet Man.
Director Steve Scott is a veteran whose credits at the Goodman, where he is an artistic associate, and eelsewhere include everything from WIT and A CHRISTMAS CAROL to LOVE! VALOUR! COMPASSION! and DER FLEDERMAUS. But he admits that he looked at this script and thought, "I wonder how all this works?" Casting a show like this, he adds, is like brokering a marriage: "If there's no chemistry between the two men, it could be really painful. It moves so quickly, you need actors who can turn on a dime, and who can find the exact gesture that encapsulates each character, so the audience knows instantly who's speakin."
But the actors need more than flash; there's emotional depth to both central characters. They have seen their dreams fail. Charlie's video store was run out of business by a larger chain. After seeking his fortune in New York, Jake has returned broke and disillusioned. Nevertheless, they have both somehow retained a capacity for wonder and pleasure in life. "Despite the speed," Scott points out, "They need to be able to show such incredible joy and incredible sadness."
Luckily, the chemistry is there: Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker are old friends who have worked together before in MEASURE FOR MEASURE at Chicago Shakespeare. Both are athletes, up to the physical challenge of nonstop action. Glinger is a champion sailor whose 29-footer has been named Boat of the Year the past two years. Hoogenakker promoted his first major show fresh out of theater school by rollerblading around Chicago passing out handbills. Of the two, Clinger approaches this project with more apparent caution. "I was at Second City, and we were asked to do a lot of changes, but not in the same scene. Here you play two characters talking to each other and maybe even a third who interrupts. You have to switch between half a dozen dialects."
Hoogenakker, despite his youth, has uncommon experience in quick-change theater. In 1999, the year he graduated from DePaul's Theatre School, he won a role in a hip-hop version of Shakespeare called the BOMBITY OF ERRORS. A rhyming, slanging, slapstick, beat box and breakdance extravaganza that sold out for months, it featured four hyperkinetic young men playing 18 parts, an experience Hoogenakker calls "some of the most fun I've ever had."
Not only were actors litterally running offstage as one character and running back on as another, "The guys were so into hip-hop that a lot of the show was improvised." Both actors have the love of small towns and the countryside that give Jake and Charlie their sweetness, and are alive to the story's central dilemma.
While everyone in town is star-struck, movie-mad and wrapped in illusory dreams of wealth and fame, the real basis for happiness is the close-knit nature of the town, where everyone is related and knows everyone else's business. "My own ancestry is Dutch," says Hoogenakker. "My paternal side lived in a small town in Iowa - Pella, where the windows come from. The whole town back in Holland moved together, so they'd have a butcher, a tailor, dairy farmers - so the families have been together for generations. That rural closeness is so valuable."
Valuable, but in a modern world, vulnerable. The film being shot in meant to romanticize and celebrate the beauty of Irish country live, but it's also helping to destroy it. The pivotal moment comes when young Sean, surly and half drunk, tries to approach the film's star, Caroline Giavonni, and is thrown out of his favorite pub by her bodyguard. It's a final humiliation that leads to tragedy. Poignantly, we hear Sean and Finn at 12 years old, talking about their dreams, Sean fantasizing about beaing discovered, like "McCauley what's his name," Finn heitantly objectin, "My Da won't let me... he says people's heads is getting carried away." Jake and Charlie have much the same conversation, Charlie arguing that you can go to America and get rich, Jake protesting that for everyone who comes home a millionaire, "50 come back without an arse in their trousers."
"What I take away from this," says Hoogenakker soberly, "is that what we focus on damns us or saves us." In fact, small-town values win out. Without giving away too much, it's fair to say that a funeral is central to the story's conclusion and that there is a wordless agreement on the part of the extras that filming will not disrupt the ceremony, which everyone attends. "It's for the least of them they go," he adds. "This fallen spirit."
"The whole community realizes the good of what they have," says Steve Scott. "It's very moving."
And yet, what gives this wonderful work, written by the Irish actor Marie Jones (gerself familiar with movie sets, from acting in a number of productions including IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER with Daniel Day-Lewis) its dazzle is that irresistible Hollywood magic. As Hoogenakker says, half sheepishly, "I've heard that town where they filmed THE QUIET MAN is a tourist trap to this day. To be honest, when my wife and I are in Ireland, I'll probably go there."
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Highlights from the Copley News Service review by Dan Zeff
"Stones in His Pocket" starts out as a gimmick and ends up a superb blend of comedy, satire, and drama. The play, which was a hit in Ireland and England five years ago, had a recent modest run on Broadway. Hopefully, the show will do better in its local premiere at the Apple Tree Theatre. It deserves box office success. Artistic success is already in place.
The actors are on stage the entire evening. They slip into their various characters with a mere shift in body language and vocal pitch. At first, audiences may struggle to tune into the rapid shifts in characterizations and plug into the play's storyline. But the interest gradually escalates and the second act soars.
The cast at the Apple Tree consists of Will Clinger as Jake and John Hoogenakker as Charlie. Between the two of them, they impersonate more than a dozen men and women.
Clinger has the funniest and most poignant characters. They include the grizzled old Mickey, a local man whose claim to fame is that he is the last living extra from the John Wayne Irish film "The Quiet Man." Then there is the tragic Sean, a disturbed teenager who drowns himself (with stones in his
pockets) and provides a thread of poignancy in the otherwise comic play. Hoogenakker's prize characterizations include Caroline Giovanni, the movie's self-absorbed leading lady, Clem and Simon, the film's director and assistant director, and the temperamental Ashley, the daughter of a noted filmmaker.
The play is more than an exhibition of acting versatility. The story satirizes moviemaking, with its pretensions and affectations. On a more serious side, it explores the lure of Hollywood as a pipe dream factory of fame and riches for people who lead dead-end lives. The play also cleverly demonstrates how the modern Irish are trapped in caricature and stereotype, thanks in part to Hollywood. In addition, it portrays America as a lure for the Irish, a Promised Land that too often ends in disappointment.
In the second act the playwright gets into the meat of her story, examining the blighted lives of Charlie and Jake, two men with no skills and no future. They represent rural Ireland as a bleak place where despair rules. Ironically, the two lads see the movies as their ticket out of their grim existence. They will become filmmakers themselves, a ludicrous prospect but one that gives them temporary, if pathetic, hope.
"Stones in His Pockets" may have played better in Ireland and London, where topical references in the script would have resonated. A joke about the "Special Branch" might not connect with spectators this side of the Atlantic. But the show touches more than enough universal themes to sustain the interest of Apple Tree patrons.
The production, under Steve Scott's wry and fluent production, fits perfectly in the intimate Apple Tree playing area. The backdrop is a large painting of the rolling green Irish countryside. A row of shoes lines the back of the stage. The only major props are a couple of chairs. The locations are provided through the words of the author, whether it's the movie set, a church, or the local pub. It all flows easily from scene to scene, thanks to two actors and their total command of their roles.
The play runs 1 hour and 40 minutes, including an intermission. The London and New York productions both ran well over two hours. Either the Apple Tree cut the script or its version is performed with considerably more pace. Either way, the staging is tight and fluid, with no fat. The elements of tragedy (in the suicide) and broad comedy could have interfered with each other emotionally, but they are perfectly interwoven. Marie Jones has written a striking play, as much for its content as its dramaturgy, and the Apple Tree has done its part in bringing it all to vivid life.
The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars.
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Highlights from the Chicago Tribune review by Chris Jones
"Stones in His Pockets" is a droll, savvy and hugely enjoyable entertainment by the Irish playwright Marie Jones, now at Apple Tree Theatre. It is a play born of the bitterness of watching gobs of Americans tromping over the complex countryside like it's part of a Jameson's commercial, bemoaning anything (like job-creating factories) that spoils the picture-book vistas.
But Jones — whose play has been seen on Broadway — was smart enough to realize there's a paradox at play here. Grizzled denizens of the Auld Sod might not like all those condescending American tourists and cameras, but they sure like to spend their money. And when faced with an American celebrity, no creature is more impressed than a European.
Ergo, a world of mutual antipathy and dependence that here is mined deliciously by Jones for sharp and pointed comedy.
"Stones in His Pocket" follows the adventures of Jake and Charley, two lively Irish lads (played by Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker) who are serving as extra peasants — for 40 quid a day — on some big, American, period picture. The location shoot is headlined by one of those insufferably earnest and egotistical Hollywood stars. The kind who engages in some slumming seductions . Just for research purposes.
The gimmick here — and it's a corker — is that the same two actors play all the parts. Although anchored on Jake and Charley, between them, the pair account for the pompous British director, the harried assistants, the aforementioned star and the savvy old Irishman milking the shoot for all the juice he can drink. With virtually no set, the pair zip back and forth from one character to another with a quick toss of the head.
This terrific little show — a perfect match for Irish-loving Chicago — sure took its sweet time arriving. Michael Cullen of the Mercury Theatre held the rights for years. But for some reason, the production never panned out.
Cullen was talking about bringing actors from the New York production, but Steve Scott's production in Highland Park is a strictly Chicago-area affair. But Clinger and Hoogenakker do the work proud. And it's directed with just the right dram of zest and the right head of truth.
With all due respect to the reedy Clinger (who creates a deliciously confused and empathetic character), this is Hoogenakker's night. This young actor, hitherto best known for his work at the Chicago Shakespeare, offers a veritable cornucopia of clever and distinct characters, male and female. His seemingly endless enthusiasm is most affecting, and his craft is evident.
It's hard to imagine a show better suited for a commercial transfer downtown — it's cheap, funny, smart and no doubt enjoyed best of all on a gentle cloud of Guinness. After all, the Irish don't ever drink anything else.
Or do they now?
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Highlights from the Daily Herald review by Leah A. Zeldes
Like so many Irish plays, this 1996 dark comedy by Belfast playwright Marie Jones, winner of the London Evening Standard Theatre and Olivier awards, features dry and witty one-liners, down-and-out characters and many scenes set in a pub. The action revolves around Charlie Conlon and Jake Quinn, two 30-ish Irish extras hired by a Hollywood movie company filming in a picturesque but poor farming community in County Kerry.
The play's most unique and interesting feature is its presentation as a two-man show. Local actors Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker skillfully portray all the characters, slipping smoothly from one role to the next with only changes of cadence, posture and body language to mark the switch.
Clinger drops from the tall, dour Jake into Mickey, a local codger living on the glory of his long-ago experience as an extra in “The Quiet Man” with John Wayne. Hoogenakker transforms from engaging Charlie into the sexy Hollywood star Caroline Giovanni and the suave film director. Artfully directed by Steve Scott, they morph from harried film crew members into sad townspeople with aplomb and a keen use of accents.
The clever performances offer the main reason to see this intimate production.
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Highlights from the Chicago Sun-Times review by Hedy Weiss
It's the parade of shoes that is the subtle tipoff. As you take your seat for Apple Tree Theatre's production of "Stones in His Pockets," Irish playwright Marie Jones' tragicomedy of rural Irish life upended by the arrival of a Hollywood film shoot, you notice dozens of shoes neatly lined up along the back of the stage. They are never actually used. But they are a clever suggestion that this two-character play is actually designed to contain a cast of thousands -- or an imaginary glimpse of such.
Though written in 2000 -- by which time Ireland had long since transformed itself from an economic backwater to one of the most prosperous European Union nations -- Jones' play nevertheless pumps the usual cliches about her native land, from its liquid surplus (too much drink and too much rain), to its plague of unemployment, to its ubiquitous poetry, music and "Riverdance" stepping.
It is in just such a green and foggy County Kerry village that we find Jake Quinn (that most eccentric stringbean of an actor, Will Clinger) and Charlie Conlin (the small, fleet, gently brooding John Hoogenakker), two ne'er-do-wells briefly working as extras in a big-budget Hollywood film, "The Quiet Valley," a sort of sequel to John Ford's 1952 film classic "The Quiet Man."
And so, whether the whole story actually takes place or unspools only in these two men's vivid imaginations during the tedious hours of shooting, Jake and Charlie proceed to play both themselves and the many members of the cast, crew and extras pool.
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Highlights from the Pioneer Press review by Robert Loerzel
If two actors perform dozens of roles -- playing an entire Irish village -- wouldn't all of the blarney become a bit baffling?
One would think so. As Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker began performing the two-man show "Stones in His Pockets" Sunday at Apple Tree, at least one audience member (this one) was worried.
As these two fellows hopped about the stage, pretending to be all sorts of different people, would we get lost? Would we know who they were supposed to be?
Our fears quickly faded. Yes, there were a few moments now and then when the rapidly changing personas created some confusion. But it was always the sort of confusion that quickly passes for audience members willing to go with the flow.
The play, written by Marie Jones and directed here by Steve Scott, is a vehicle for actors to show off their abilities at transforming themselves through accents, expressions and postures.
And Clinger and Hoogenakker are more than up to the task, creating a number of memorable characters that you're glad to see return whenever they pop up during the course of the play.
Following the play is fairly easy because Clinger and Hoogenakker spend most of their time playing two particular extras, one of whom has written a movie script of his own. They shift positions on the stage to indicate when they're slipping into another role.
Clinger's particularly funny as the crusty old guy who claims to be the last living extra from "The Quiet Man." Hoogenakker prompts a lot of laughs whenever he morphs into the Hollywood starlet vainly trying to master the local accent.
Like most stories about Ireland, this one perpetuates many of the stereotypes about the Irish while simultaneously commenting on those stereotypes. The humor is irresistible, including a couple of the funniest routines seen on any local stage this year.
Just before intermission, one scene puts the audience in hysterics, but then the plot takes a sudden turn toward tragedy. The change in tone is abrupt -- but, ah, tragedies in real life are abrupt, too, aren't they?
In the end, though, this is a play filled with warm spirit and comedy. It's highly recommended just for the spectacle of seeing Clinger and Hoogenakker pull off this impressive feat of acting.
And you won't even need a program to follow who's who.
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Highlights from the Chicagocritic.com reviews by Tom Williams
Laughs galore as Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker play multiple roles ranging from two down and out Irish lads working as extras on an American film to a female film star and a pompous English director to an assortment of Irish villagers and film personal. The result is a master class on comic acting. Clinger and Hoogenakker were fantastic as they delivered the story with a near manic infectious energy. These two guys delivered the essence of the Irish wit and contradictory characteristics deftly written in Marie Jones' brilliant script.
The show engages us from the start as we quickly relate to Charlie Conlin (John Hoogenakker) and Jake Quinn (Will Clinger) as they sign on to be extras on an American film shot in a rural Country Kerry village. The pair get 40 quid a day plus 3 meals and they get to be close to Hollywood super-star Caroline Giovanni (played deliciously by Hoogenakker). Soon the two Irish mates get disillusioned with the nasty side of film making as we see the complicated story told through the dozens of characters played sharply by Clinger and Hoogenakker. They move back and forth between the characters almost instantly with a slight change of body language, vocal tones or accent or by putting on a cap or jacket to ease the transitions with such stellar craftsmanship that the audience has no problem following the story. This is an amazing acting achievement.
Clinger and Hoogenakker deliver the sharp wit, biting humor and canny satire inherent in Jones' writing together with sadness and despair of life in rural Ireland. I liked the satire of modern movie making as the play aptly blows open the movie myths that Europeans have toward American film stars.
Stones In His Pockets works so well due to sharp direction from Steve Scott , the brilliant script from Marie Jones and, of course, the amazing energy and skills of Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker. Kudos to Apple Tree Theate for selecting this terrific play. After its run in Highland Park, Stone In His Pockets needs to be moved to a downtown Chicago venue.
You don't have to be Irish to enjoy this show. You only have to a sense of humor and a penchant for a good story.
Not To Be Missed
Highlights from the Chicagocritic.com review by Nathan Dettman
Stones in his Pockets by Marie Jones is a tight-knit story told by two amazing actors, Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker. Set in a small village in Ireland, this play portrays the lives of small town people and their reactions to a new and powerful character in their lives. This play showed how different a place can be from its portrayal by a movie director. With its simplistic set and costumes the play rode greatly upon the performances of its two main characters. Every character portrayed by these two characters is equally entertaining and believable. I really enjoy plays set in places and contexts other than my own. I could really feel the ambiance of a small Irish town in the theatre as I sat back and enjoyed this beautiful piece of theatre. This play is a story about a small Irish town which is being used by a Hollywood movie crew to film a major motion picture. The difference between the people and the newcomers is most evident in an early scene between Jake (Will Clinger), and Charlie (John Hoogenakker). In this scene Hoogenakker is portraying the lead actress of the film and Clinger as his largest character Jake. The actress has taken a liking to Jake and asks him to read her lines on tape. She wants to use his accent to practice for her role even though Jake insists her accent would be a different dialect than his own. The actress can't understand because she is not aware of the reality of Ireland, only the base stereotype. Many of the Villagers including Jake and Charlie become extras in the movie and learn more and more about the differences between themselves and the visitors from Hollywood. Charlie, a dreamer has written a screenplay and believes the director will be interested. Jake does not find the visitors to be quit as useful as he learns more about the lead actress and their treatment of his fellow villagers.
This play is worth seeing purely based on the performances of its two actors. There was a point in the play where I had forgotten there were only two actors on stage. The actor's switches between characters were so smooth that each character truly had a life of its own. This play would be entertaining for all ages, but might be confusing for some children who are not used to multiple characters played by one actor.
If you want to see an excellent work of theatre Stones in his Pockets is a must see . Not a word or action was unnecessary in this award worthy play. In this play you will see a diva actress, a rusty old man and even some Irish dancing, all performed by just two formidable actors.
Highly Recommended
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Highlights from the Chicago Reader review by Kerry Reid
Marie Jones's Tony-nominated comedy about filming a historical epic in a small town in County Kerry doesn't provide mind-bending insights inot the colonizing effects of Hollywood culture. But it does provide a fabulous showcase for the two actors who play all the roles, primarily two beleaguered extras. But casting the remarkably adept duo of Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker, director Steve Scott brings out the best of Jones's acerbic wit and only accasionally edges toward the script's sentimental traps. This isn't a show of great depth, but its sometimes scathing critique of Americans' romaticized notions of rural Irish life offers plenty of pleasures, and Clinger and Hoogenakker perform with unfaltering gusto.
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Highlights from the Chicago Tribune Top 10 of 2005 by Chris Jones
"Stones in his Pocket" -- Apple Tree. This was a funny, shrewdly acted and thoroughly enjoyable production of Marie Jones' hit comedy about an American film crew cutting a broad swath through Irish culture. Like a fistful of dollars in an Irish pub, it disappeared far too fast.
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Highlights from the Pioneer Press Top of 2005 by Robert Loerzel
Best Actor: Honorable mention: Will Clinger and John Hoogenakker, Stones in his Pocket, Apple Tree...
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Photos
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Background
For Marie Jones, a native of Ireland and a former actress who has experienced both the pleasures and trials of working in movies on location in her home country, the influence of Hollywood on the Irish community is well understood to be not only destructive, but also frustrating. Professional actors in Ireland are often reduced to being extras, and the films made typically have wide-ranging repercussions that stay long after the film studios have left. Hollywood itself is often so preoccupied with its own false view of the country that it becomes indifferent to the reality it actually finds there. Drawing from such experiences, Jones uses Stones in His Pockets to explore and uncover such topics by giving a name and voice to those typically confined by the stereotyped portrait Hollywood puts forth.
The script itself, having two actors play all of fifteen-some odd characters, is the result of having to combine artistic creativity with the “economics of theatre,” as Jones puts it. In the past, Jones has often asked actors to double in roles in her plays because of a lack of financial support. As she states, “If you don't have financial support from the Government you have to get funding from other sources. One result is that you become more imaginative. [Nevertheless,] it's great for actors. It's a chance for them to flex their artistic muscles; and directors love it. It can be a bit of a nightmare because you have to create the environment out of nothing, but the imagination can be magnified by this simplicity.” cast | press | photos | background | tickets
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