I took a little trip over to Next Act Theatre's Off-Broadway Theatre (located on the second floor of the white building across from the Milwaukee Public Market on Water Street) to get a glimpse into "Paradise" last night.

Next Act Theatre has a built its reputation on producing plays that get people talking and thinking, and I would agree that "Paradise" was successful in that role. In fact, I was still thinking about the play when I read the in the newspaper this morning about four back-to-back explosions that went off at two, crowed marketplaces in Baghdad on Monday. I have gotten to the point where I have started to almost block this kind of news out, but today I actually paused to consider all the people whose lives must have been changed forever because of those explosions.

Of course, if you live in the Middle East in the midst of where the fighting is happening, it is impossible to block it out. The play clearly demonstrates that the closer the characters got to the fighting, the more personally involved they became, and the more impossible it became to choose peace. The play did a good job of making the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more real to me and brought me more understanding of how people's minds are closed through their painful life experiences. Hope is gradually worn away, hate takes over, and people turn their sorrow into actions which cause more sorrow. Add money and family honor into the mix, and peace becomes a lost cause. The question is how this trend can be reversed.

"Paradise" is a dream, as well as an opportunity to see a play that will set your wheels turning. It runs until Feb. 25 at the Off-Broadway Theatre.

I went to the see "The Giver" at First Stage Children's Theater with a young friend of mine, and we both enjoyed the play immensely.

In the play, 12-year-old Jonas is selected to be his community's next "Receiver of Memories" and his position is to retain the collective memories of the community so that no one else has to.  "Has to?" you ask. Yes, our memories bring us joy, but they also bring us pain and sorrow.  In Jonas's futuristic community, no one but Jonas, and the elder who passes down the memories to him, "The Giver," need be burdened with the weight of unpleasant memories. Jonas is selected for this honored position because he possesses two important qualities: courage and the capacity to see beyond.

Jonas's community has embraced "sameness"-- they all wear the same color (grey), they have no hills, no snow, no pain, no thing that makes life difficult. People are also protected from their own choices- all important decisions are made for them. Nice, however, they also do not see colors, do not know the warmth of the sun, do not know the satisfaction of making a good decision and do not know what it is like to feel love. "The Giver" powerfully exemplifies the point that hills and valleys make our lives difficult but also give them meaning -- a pretty important point to get.

I visited the library to find the book by Lois Lowry on which the play was based, but found the shelf empty. They had already all been borrowed by other playgoers to be sure. I put my name on the list. This one is good enough to wait for and has enough going on to make me want to experience it twice.

There is still time to see "The Giver" as the play runs until Feb. 25 at the Todd Wehr Theater at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts -- or to see it again. Note that "The Giver" is recommended for children age 10 and older, and that children under age 3 are not permitted in the theater.