The show does go on - Opal is back

Opal, played by Shelley Dowling, left, gets a mystic assist from best friend Rosie and a jar of pickle juice. Rosie is played by Karen Schumacher, both of whom have past Opal experience.

Photo by Chuck Vandenberg/PCC

FORT MADISON – It may have been delayed a little due to unforeseen circumstances, but the Old Fort Players 2024 excursion with Opal is something to see.
The show was canceled last weekend due to some last minute crew issues, but if Tuesday’s dress rehearsal was any indication, the show is something to see.
OFP brings back the affable Opal Kronkie, this time to pull the rug out from under an unscrupulous politician named after a vacuum cleaner….because he may just suck.
Hector Bissell prays on the innocence of voters, but at the urging of some close friends gathered at Opal’s home at the edge of the city, Opal may just put her name on a ballot to pull the plug on Bissell’s antics. But the seasoned politician has a few tricks of his own.
Opal is played once again by Shelley Dowling and is backed up by best friend Rosie Monefalco. The two are a couple of hens hanging out at Opal’s hoarder house with innocent, but hilarious takes on society, men, politics, and other “junk”.
Dowling is extremely comfortable as Kronkie, the professed collector of junk, including a dead chicken she collected from the highway near the dump. She has a nice rapport with the audience and is comfortable with the role.
Karen Schumaker brings her humor and presence to the stage again. She’s had recurring roles in the Opal franchise and is a veteran of the OFP. She’s a riot trying to usher Opal to the ballot box, all the while trying to hatch an egg in her cleavage.
This is very much the “Sanford and Son” of John Patrick’s imagination. Patrick is the playwright who came up with the Opal series. He’s created a good-natured woman who continues to fight back against the seedy nature of society in an innocent and down-to-earth fashion.
Other OFP stalwarts include Jim French, Ty Wayne Clute, Joe St. Clair, Jan Jud, and Joe Harmon, who brings his best Mario Bros’ “Luigi” to the role of Tony, the truck driver and ad hoc tv repairman. French plays another truck driver along with St. Clair and Brad Hart. Hart is playing in his first production as Ole Hansen. The truck drivers hang with Opal and Rosie and help her sniff out the corrupt nature of Bissell.
Aided by her new friends and old, Opal decides to fight back under the persuasion of others to run for office herself. Much to the surprise of the locals and to the mayoral candidate himself, Opal finds herself in the good graces of voters who, too, are tired of the political nonsense.
The path forward will keep the audience’s attention, but also erupting in laughter if not at the boisterous nature of Rosie, Harmon’s Italian accent will do the trick. A few changes of pace and quick turns brings the story full circle in the five scene, two-act performance.
Opal is a Diamond is the long-awaited sequel to Patrick’s Everybody Loves Opal. The play proceeds at hair-on-fire pace, many moments of laughter and reminders that we all are human in the social process.
Clute plays Bob Royce, Bissell’s speechwriter, who starts to get a feel for Opal and the muckraking style of his boss. Royce’s assistant is played by Cheryl Hardin, in her fourth stage appearance. The two turn their attentions from Bissell and toward each other as they play their parts in bringing the story to a close.
A special Thursday presentation has been added to the schedule after the first weekend of the production at Fort Madison’s Old Fort Players Playhouse downtown was shuttered. Then the schedule gets back to normal with Friday and Saturday evening shows starting at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s matinee is the wrap at 2 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance at https://oldfortplayers.com/.