Jessie Jane Returns to the NAG for a 'Romp Through Hilarity'

Editor's note: Be sure to stick with Patch leading up to and through DJJD, which is Sept. 5-9. We'll have previews and loads of coverage during the big event. Be sure to bookmark our DJJD 2012 page to follow all the action.

The Northfield Arts Guild's sixth annual light-hearted, locally written musical about the fictional takes to the stage at 8 p.m., Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Saturday for Defeat of Jesse James Days.

Tickets are $10 each and are available online or at the offices of the , 304 S. Division St. The production will be held at the .

Playwright Brendon Etter shared the following with Patch about this year's "romp through hilarity."

"Jessie Jane's Jamboree VI: Oodles of Outrageous Overacting" continues in the same vein as the previous five installments. However, the production stands alone every year. You need not have seen any of the previous five plays. Each year is a different show even if the gist is the same. 

We find ourselves in a fictional Northfield of 1876 in the company of local businesswoman, Jessie Jane, who always finds her way into and out of dire situations.

This year, I explored tropes from soap operas, particularly the habitual use of characters that die, but then mysteriously reappear with byzantine explanations of their "death" and subsequent reappearance.

A romantic businessman seduces Jessie Jane's daughter with surprising speed - it is only an hour-long show - and then becomes a ruthless competitor of Jessie Jane's Saloon and Grubbery. A mysterious dead character becomes, somehow, not-dead and brings about the painfully melodramatic and absurd downfall of this rogue.

Dancers dance, singers sing, musicians music, puns are cracked and re-cracked. The bartender polishes the same glass the whole time, and kitchen implements play a surprisingly important role.

In the end, everyone lives weirdly ever after. Or do they?

Ah, just kidding. Of course they do. Or do they?

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