This is a REALLY hard review to write. In fact, I wasn’t going to write a review at all, but then Jill asked about it and opined that if I didn’t review it, that would be really weird.

So…on to the review.

Onstage Atlanta’s production of M*A*S*H went up on Thursday night, and runs through October 1, on Thursday & Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons.

The show is funny, and I enjoyed watching it. The set was interesting, and most of the acting was pretty good.

But there were a few weaknesses.

First, there were some surprising logistical problems, especially since the theater is professional. On opening night, there were no programs, for example, and a conversation with the woman running the concession stand revealled that they had very little water left. Since there were maybe 30 people in the audience and most of them had purchased wine, I’m having trouble coming up with a theory other than weak organizational skills.

Second, the acting was on the uneven side, and one of the casting decisions was just odd. Most of the principal roles were good, although several people clearly dropped or flubbed lines.

The odd casting decision was having the role of HoJon (?–wish I could check the name in the program) played by a white actor. The character plays the "houseboy" who cleans up after, and mixes drinks for, Hawkeye, Trapper, and Duke, and is later drafted into the military.

I think the actor tried really hard not to play the role as a goofy asian stereotype, but in a comic role of this type, he faced a serious challenge. The way it landed for me was almost as if the actor had been in blackface, only instead, it was heavy and strange eye makeup.

That was my biggest "Toto, I don’t think we’re in Washington DC anymore" moment.

The other thing are smaller, and I imagine that most of them will work themselves out over the course of the run — voiceovers and lines being lost during audience reaction, blocking that inadvertantly blinds the audience with a powerful desklamp, preventing them from watching the action stage right (the light was on and in my eyes for at least 10 minutes), and a ‘not quite jelled’ feeling with the cast chemistry.

The last thing, and this is obviously my own bias, is that I’m tired of seeing Jill in tiny roles that don’t showcase what she can do. There wasn’t a more appropriate role for her in this production — I think "Hot Lips" was appropriately cast older than Jill, and older than she can probably play convincingly — yet.

Jill did everything she could with Scorch, as she did with her prisoner characters in Far Away and her various roles in Wit. But I really want the world to see her in juicier roles, like Narissa.