A Fly on the Wall

Went to see the breath taking production of "March On, Dream Normal" by Jeanette Scherrer Sunday night.

Running at the Paul E. Richards Theater in Silver Lake, this play -- set in a suburban home in St. Louis, Missouri -- looks at the trauma soldiers deal with upon returning home.

What is amazing about this show is how "natural" the acting is. It just seems so real.

And that makes the "imaginary" presence of a haunting Sergeant who looms over a soldier who has returned from Iraq to his parents' home that much creepier.

Also making an impact is that this theater has just 39 seats. Most of the seats face the living room. But a few are along the wall "in" the living room. That's where I sat. During a couple points in the show actress Marie Del Marco, playing Viola (the Mom), was less than six inches from me as she sat at the dining room table.

I wanted to poke her and tell her what a great job she was doing -- but that seemed a little too realistic.

Sitting as close as I was I observed some of the details that went into this production. For instance, the newspaper they were reading at the dining table really was the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Even the pizza box was from a St. Louis pizzeria.