Description: M. T. Pockets, the acting company, is the alternative to University theater and WV Public
Theatre. I don’t think they would mind being termed the "heavy" or most serious theater
in town. They are energetic, brave, experimental, and traditional, all at the same time, but
most of all, they are a huge talent. The company, now in their fourth season, warns at their
website: "Expect the unexpected." And they keep the promise by offering
Look Back
in Anger, the prototypical "angry young man" drama by John Osborne, on weekday
evenings the week after Thanksgiving. Like
Waiting for Godot earlier this year,
this isn’t your typical small-town offering. They perform at their own theater on Spruce
Street and at other venues, like WVU’s Mountainlair Blue Ballroom, and their email
announcements are helpful in addition to their website (listed in Overview) for anyone
who wants to keep track of where they’re playing next.
Speaking of their theater, I imagine they wouldn’t say "no" to a new one, but we’ve
grown accustomed to the large stark room above the pool hall. (It’s above a
pool hall at the back alley, but beneath Morgantown Florist at the Spruce Street
entrance.) The location is perfectly adequate, with air-conditioning and stepped-up
seating. The experimental space--call it theater in the making--seems more exciting to us
than other, more polished locations. Here, the suicidal teen in The Deer and the
Antelope Play seemed more lost. The women whose men were off to war in
Waiting for the Parade seemed more desperate, and all sexy characters seemed
more honest under low lights against dark walls and black curtains all around.
Acting and directing are always superb, and the company is growing. We’ve seen seven of
their productions, almost all of them with totally different casts, so we are aware of how
much talent has remained in this university town after graduation. They work in
conjunction with WVU Division of Theatre on some productions, but the ones we’ve
seen have been mostly more mature casts.
Teen suicide, the death of a woman coal miner, prejudice, and war--these are topics I’ve
seen M. T. Pockets handle with ease and with such talent that audiences were
mesmerized, not grumbling about the heaviness of the content--audiences at the
company’s theater are mostly mature. This doesn’t mean they don’t perform comedy just
as well, but a significant percentage of their selections are serious sociological or
intellectual drama--a welcome alternative when most theaters won’t take a chance on
anything but comedy.
Their location on Spruce or at the Mountainlair makes it possible for us to plan full
evenings out downtown amid a myriad interesting, unique restaurants, cafes, and pubs,
and for visitors staying at the Hotel Morgan (a Clarion) or at the new Radisson on the
Riverfront, walking to the theater is easy. For those driving to Morgantown, parking isn’t
difficult on side streets.
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