There's no globe like a 'Snowglobe' for local playwright

IT'S PROBABLY not a good idea to expect a drawing-room comedy from playwright Nicholas Wardigo any time soon.

"I see a lot of theater and, quite frankly, I'm tired of seeing theater set in living rooms and restaurants," said the Ardmore-based Wardigo during a recent phone chat. "When I write, I try to set things in more interesting settings."

"More interesting settings?" Wardigo, 43, is obviously a master of understatement. His newest piece, which has its world premiere Thursday at the Shubin Theatre in Queen Village, is set inside a snow globe large enough to accommodate two women.

According to Wardigo, the comedy is "about two women who inhabit a snow globe, and their efforts to describe the world around them, their place in it and themselves."

So, how does one conjure a play set inside one of those ubiquitous tchotchkes?

"I'm not exactly sure how it happened," admitted the Carnegie Mellon University grad. "I just thought of a snow globe and the theatrical possibilities of that.

"A snow globe is something you look into, so it's kind of a tiny theater. So I thought, what would happen if I blew it up and inhabited it with people?"

On a bigger-picture scale, "Snowglobe" addresses the eternal science-versus-religion debate.

"The theological/scientific aspect occurred later, but it shouldn't be too much of a surprise, because I have [the characters] trying to figure out what's going on around them. And I think it came out of a lot of my own questions about reality and humanity and that sort of thing."

It sounds heavy, and maybe even ponderous, but, Wardigo advised, that is neither the case nor his intent.

"Having a working knowledge of both science and religion, I know where the weak points in the arguments are, and that's where I sort of go for the attacks in this play," he said, adding he doesn't want to "give the impression this is 90 minutes of discourse. It is a funny play. It's a play about two women, and their arguments are about themselves and how they relate to each other. And the audience member can extrapolate that into the larger world.

"It's their interpretation of what is going on around them, and how they define themselves. Hopefully, there's comedy in that absurdity. I'm not trying to find an answer, I'm just trying to make people look at their own ideas."

When contemplating "We Will Rock You," the musical built around a slew of tunes from the catalog of the English glam-rock outfit Queen, my initial impulse was to refer to the show as "We Will Schlock You." But upon further review, that would probably be too harsh by about a half.

Sure, British comedy titan Ben Elton's book about the ever-popular dystopian future and its abhorrence of anything creative or organic is more bloated and silly than pointed and provocative. Furthermore, it fetishizes classic rock to an absurd degree.

And yes, Queen conjured more than a few schlocky songs during its run as a global chart-topper (the quartet's salad days lasted from the mid-'70s to the mid-'80s; lead singer-composer Freddie Mercury died in 1991). But the show, which runs through Sunday at the Academy of Music, is not without merit.

There is some pretty strong staging (including an especially impressive video component), and the eight-piece band nails the score. The cast members appear to have the good sense not to take themselves or the play too seriously. And there are some strong performances, by, among others, the male and female leads, Brian Justin Crum and Ruby Lewis.

Crum ably handles the bewilderment and goofiness of Galileo Figaro (get it?), a character who dreams of rock and pop lyrics from the late-20th and early-21st centuries, but has no idea of their origins or meanings. Lewis, who plays Scaramouche (get it?), is a supercharged sprite of a lass with a voice that often sounds as if she is channeling Ethel Merman.

Jacqueline B. Arnold likewise scores as the intimidating, planet-dominating Killer Queen (get it?) whose hairdo suggests some major Patti LaBelle envy.

But whether or not "Rock You" is worth the time and expense boils down solely to how one feels about the Queen canon. If you are a fan, then go and enjoy. But if you either don't like the band's music, or don't think much about it one way or the other, then stay home.