Last week I had the pleasure to see a friend of mine in Profiles Theatre’s production of Hellcab. The first thing I said to him about his performance was that it took til almost the end of the show for me to be any where close to certain as to which character he played.
However, there was just enough doubt in me that I leaned over to my friend (his wife) after the show and ask, “your husband was the blind man, right?” Typically I am pretty good at playing “spot my talented friend” be it on stage or on film… in this case, not realizing which one was my friend was a feat in itself.
If you don’t already know the general production of Hellcab, it is a slew of scenes of various people and their interactions with the cab driver (the main character who was on stage for the entirety of the production). However, instead of having a small slew of actors playing multiple roles, each individual role was cast with a different actor… making this the largest cast production of Hellcab (that I know of to date).
However, considering the concept of this anniversary season of Profiles Theatre is it really any surprise that they would go all out?
When walking into the theatre for your seats the first thing you notice is that there is a full-sized cab sitting in the middle of the stage. The roof was sawed off and both passenger seats were taken out… but for the most part the cab was all there and in reasonable working condition (well reasonable enough).
What do I mean?
Well the cabbie is able to turn left or right and you can see the tires actually turn. The cab’s headlights were working for some of the scenes set in the middle of the night. (Though being an engineer I am kind of curious if they were run from the cabbie in the scene or from a separate tech crew… I should probably ask my friend but I digress).
Since there are so many characters outside of the cab driver, I won’t be able to run through them all (mainly because I don’t remember who they were, or which actors / actresses played what)… so what I’ll do is just notate the highlights.