Theater Review - The Big Blue River - Mariah Theatre - Shockingly Hopeful - 4.5 stars

Not only am I grateful I went to see Patrick Coyle’s new play The Big Blue River, the inaugural offering of his new Mariah Theatre Company, I’m also very glad I stayed for the audience talkback afterward (which is not a sentiment often expressed about audience talkbacks after a show).  

“I think writing’s kept me alive.”

One of the audience members said they found it “shockingly hopeful,” which is a very apt description of this unusual script.  They further elaborated that, given the subject matter, they were prepared for it to end up being very dark, “and I don’t mind dark, I’m Irish.”  (Knowing laughter rippled through several segments of the audience.) “But by intermission, I knew all the characters were going to be all right.  They all seemed to be doing the right things to come out on the other side of what they were going through - they were talking, they were writing, they were expressing themselves through art.”  And I found that fascinating because I had the exact opposite experience.  

“I blamed myself. It’s what we do, the people that are left behind.”

I went into intermission for The Big Blue River having no idea where the plot was going or how it was going to end (and that’s not a bad thing, I love that, it happens so rarely anymore), and I was not sure that anyone was going to be all right.  It turns out I needn’t have been as worried as I was, and that other audience member had the correct instinct to suspect that things were somehow going to be OK, as improbable as it might seem.  And that’s not a spoiler.  Because everyone in this play is at least two or three different people, and any one of them could take a wrong turn and one of their other personas could still pull things together.

“Freud said that the Irish are impervious to therapy.”

Our main character is Laura Grace (Gini Adams), a therapist who probably shouldn’t be a therapist.  We learn later that she probably went into the profession for the wrong reasons.  Though she may have had a good run for a couple of decades in this job, she’s not feeling like she’s doing herself or her patients much good lately.  Also, her impending 50th birthday is weighing on her like a ton of bricks. (Again, as we’ll discover later, that birthday has additional significance in her personal history. Laura is a woman of many secrets.)  

“I say the same thing over and over, like a zombie therapist.”

Just that little bit there about the birthday is an example of the craftsmanship going on in Coyle’s script.  There are no wasted details.  Everything pays off, either in the moment or later when you aren’t expecting it, often both.  Even the opening lines of the play, where Laura is recording flippant case notes about family therapy with a mother and daughter, has echoes in the closing moments.  The Big Blue River is a meaty play with a lot of humor and heartache that it seems the actors all had a great time digging into.  The audience is also along for the ride.

“I’m unfinished.  So are you.”
“We all are.”

Laura doesn’t have much of a life.  We only see her in her office, and at a local wine bar where she drinks (a lot) while typing a screenplay of her own within the play we’re watching.  Laura has become more than a bit obsessed with a client, Frank Dolan (Jim Cunningham), who just walked off his job one day and jumped in the big blue river of the title to finally see what was around the bend which he’d never thought to explore before.  After losing his job, he then pretended to go to work for three months rather than tell his wife.  Frank’s therapy is reluctant and legally required so the push and pull between him and Laura isn’t your usual therapist/client relationship.  Laura starts imagining scenarios in her screenplay in which she is Frank’s wife.  She also imagines the daughter they have together, named Teagan (Sulia Rose Altenberg).  We see scenes of this life she creates on her laptop come to life onstage in an imaginary kitchen. The sympathetic waiter Donald (Derek Long) at the wine bar becomes her often enthusiastic audience, reading the pages she shares with him.

“So you prefer the company of women.  That just means you have taste.”
“I like women.  I loved Phillip.”

All of this is wildly unprofessional and a violation of patient privacy but Laura just can’t help herself.  She doesn’t have a life so she’s creating one - and she’s starting to get the two very messed up in her head.  In the imaginary life, Laura’s character starts having an affair with a younger man named Tanner (Matt Wall), inspired by the most mundane of encounters with one of Donald’s fellow waiters at the bar.  The alcohol isn’t helping.  Neither are her own unresolved personal issues.  It’s quite a stew, and of course inevitably the stew boils over.

“People crack.  Life’s hard.”

Patrick Coyle, directing his own script, has assembled a solid cast who all deliver on a tricky, and unexpectedly very funny, bit of storytelling.  The lines between fantasy and reality in The Big Blue River are really murky.  That’s not a bad thing, and it appears to be a very deliberate strategy on the part of the production.  The reality of Laura’s imagined life with Frank isn’t undercut by the design.  The set designed by Vanessa Miles for the kitchen isn’t any less real than Laura’s therapy office.  The costumes designed by Lin Mathison are just as everyday normal on the bodies of the Dolan family in Laura’s screenplay as they are when Frank visits Laura’s office for a therapy appointment.  The lighting designed by Jeff Sherman, and the props he’s assembled for all the locations in the play, are just as grounded in reality both in and out of Laura’s head.  

“There were no mistakes made in the creation of you.”

The only signifiers that we’re moving from reality to fantasy and back again are some changes in the landscape of Katherine Horowitz’s sound design, Russel Holsapple’s music, and the change in projections on a screen that fills the space between the office in the real world and the kitchen in the fake one.  Projections reinforce the photographic reality of our world, and then dissolve into surreal black and white paintings approximately reality when we dip into Laura’s screenplay.  But again, I think we’re supposed to be a little disoriented and confused - because Laura is.  

“She says she wants it to just be us - monotonous.”
“Monogamous?”
“That, too.”

A few times we go completely off the deep-end, into a sitcom reality complete with laugh track, or a Pirandello style discussion between the characters of Laura’s screenplay outside of their plot, or a moody black and white film (shot by cinematographer Greg Stiever), even an onstage parody of arthouse films full of long silences and meaningful looks.  But most of the time, Laura’s imagined world is unnervingly real.  

“No one ever seems to get better.”

And it only gets weirder when you sit and think about it later.  For instance, almost none of what we learn about Frank in the play, outside of his therapy sessions, is real - he spends the bulk of the play being presented to us in the context of Laura’s imagined life with him.  And the daughter Teagan?  Doesn’t exist at all.  We never see her in real life.  She is mentioned but never realized.  How’s that for an acting challenge?  Yes, you’re a character, Sulia, but you’re not a real person in this play.

“Your secrets are safe with me.  I have many.”

The script’s relationship to queerness is a strange one, in both levels of reality.  While I’m happy to see the inclusion of characters that allow the play to escape being completely heteronormative, the way the play utilizes them is odd.  There’s even a scene in the play that calls Donald out for a being a cliche, the sassy gay friend, who moonlights as a drag queen with an act inspired by Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” (from, gulp, almost 40 years ago now - I grew up with that song).  There’s also a lot of real estate in the play, both in the real world and the unreal one, devoted to justifying how Frank was spotted in a drag bar wearing an earring but we swear, really and truly, he’s not gay.  The imaginary daughter Teagan has an also imaginary but unseen transgender male partner who remains completely offstage even in the fake reality.  And Frank tells Teagan a (completely imaginary?) story about a childhood friend who was gay and hung himself.   Don’t get me wrong, the heterosexuals in this play are pretty messed up and have suicidal tendencies (and histories), too.  But it’s hard to know what to do with that assortment of representation.  It’s a bit too “self-loathing Tennessee Williams” for my taste.  However, it’s also not the point or the main focus of the play, so it’s a side issue, even though it’s one to which the play keeps returning.

“Please tell me you haven’t blamed yourself for this all these years.”
“Not all the years.”

The Big Blue River is about the power and the danger of imagination, the salvation and the treacherousness of storytelling, and the seductive strategy of solving other people’s problems rather than facing your own.  It’s alternately hilarious and serious, and often quite moving (even if some of the things tugging at your heart strings are a couple of extra levels removed from reality than a play would normally be).  

“I get so lost in my project it scares me.”

Does Laura deserve a happy ending?  Maybe not.  But that’s probably why her last name is Grace.  If anyone needs a little unearned forgiveness, it’s Laura. (Probably best not to get me started on the level of forgiveness I think the rest of us could use right now.)

“Why are we here?”
“To thank her, for existing.”

Mariah Theatre Company’s world premiere production of The Big Blue River runs through March 27, 2022 at the North Garden Theater (929 Seventh Street West in St. Paul, MN).  Be aware, all showtimes are at 7pm (not 7:30 or 8).  

The venue’s policy is that all attendees are vaccinated against COVID-19, but they don’t have anyone checking that - they just ask for cooperation in the online ticketing process and leave it at that.  Half the audience I attended with wasn’t masked (I still do mask up, but that’s partly because one of my jobs is working at a theater that was shut down for a year and has had to cancel performances and whole productions since because of the virus so, I’m trying to mitigate risk to myself and others - while dealing with hundreds of strangers every day.  Your mileage may vary.)

That’s another way of saying, I don’t leave the house to see a lot of theater right now.  I chose to go see The Big Blue River.  You should, too.

4.5 stars - Very Highly Recommended



[Photo: Derek Long as Donald and Gini Adams as Laura in Patrick Coyle's "The Big Blue River." Photography by Keith Bridges]

My play "Leave" - The Audience Completes The Production

(photo by George M. Calger)

When my first play was produced in Minneapolis, the whole family flew out from the east coast to see it. As we sat waiting for the show to start, my dad noticed I had a weird look on my face.

"What's the matter, son?"
"I'm just looking at the audience. I don't recognize most of these people. I don't know them."
"Son, that's a good thing."

When a good friend and his daughter came to see the opening night of my current play "Leave," he looked around and asked me,

"So who are all these people? Do you know them?"
"No, except for you, an actress friend, and the theater critic here tonight, I don't know a soul."

My friend got an enormous grin on his face and jabbed me in the ribs, "That's fantastic, man!"

The play "Leave" has a cast of five. But the production actually has a cast of seven. The design elements (set by Erica Zaffarano, costumes by Marcia Svaleson, lights by Grant Merges, and sound by Kevin Springer) have a personality all their own, inform the actors and help create a world around them - guided, as the actors were, by the director Matt Greseth. So they all count as cast member number six. But the all-important final cast member didn't show up until opening night. The audience.

Because we don't know if we're doing our job properly if there isn't someone out there responding. A production without an audience is just a bunch of people standing around talking to themselves. A story needs a storyteller, but it also needs someone to hear the story. Stories are told to be shared. If a theater production is a living, breathing thing, the audience is oxygen. Cast member number seven. And the last member of the cast so far has been very good, and giving, to us.

Every audience is different, of course. The first night was a more quiet, contemplative bunch. The second night was a bunch of people more in a mood to laugh, both approrpriately and nervously (both of which were a lot of fun to hear). The third night was our biggest crowd yet and they seemed to feed each other as much as the actors. 30, 40, 60, the numbers keep growing, which is nice to see. Word of mouth and a couple of reviews will hopefully keep that trend going.

It's an atypical audience set-up for that performance space. Instead of being down in the auditorium (you know, where the theater seats are), chairs have been arranged on three sides of the playing space, up on stage. The first night, the first person in the door actually went out to the regular seats until they were redirected. No, really, this isn't special VIP seating up on stage, you're all supposed to be up here with the actors. And you're all going to see each other across the playing space.

At first I wondered about the configuration, until the director explained at first rehearsal, "I don't want a proscenium between the audience and this story. We want it to be an intimate experience. No fourth wall." Oh, I get it. Makes perfect sense. (Playwrights can be slow sometimes, what can I say? We write the big picture, but we don't always see the big picture.)

Though my friends (particularly those in my writing group) are already very familiar with my stories and the reasons I'm telling them, I have to admit it's always nice to see at least one or two familiar faces in the crowd each night. Opening, it was a writer and an actress who have been through the development of this script and many others with me. Nice to share the finished product. Theater being a teeny tiny world, the actress also knew several members of the company, so that made it doubly fun for her.

"It's such a sensual production. I don't remember the last time I saw a production this sensual."
"Well, yeah, in writing group reading the script, we're a little more restrained."

Second night, two more dear writer friends came out. Again, the script wasn't a total surprise to them, so when the performances elicited a meaningful "hmmm" of acknowledgement of a particular moment out of them, I counted that as a big victory for the cast. One friend runs a theater company and she was so impressed with the sound design, I made sure to introduce her to Kevin, our designer.

Another delightful surprise was the director of the previous incarnation of "Leave," Justin Latt, showing up unannounced. From Bismarck. He just really wanted to see the characters and the story again. What an amazing guy.

Also, a number of the actors who auditioned but weren't cast have been coming to see the show, alone or with their significant others, which makes me happy. We did our job right in auditions. They know we want to work with them, the right role just hasn't come along yet. And apparently they still want to work with us, and see how that thing they auditioned for turned out in the end. They often make some of the most engaged audience members. A nodding head, a body bent forward in rapt attention, a big bright infectious smile. Me, I start already wondering where we could use them in the next script.

Pay-what-you-can Monday nights are fun because that's when most of the cast's theater friends in other shows can come and see them. It's a boisterous kind of energy. Plus, this Monday was Valentine's Day. At intermission a friend of mine was already congratulating me, saying what a romantic show it was, perfect for Valentine's Day.

"You think it's romantic now, wait til you see act two."

A bunch of friends from my second day job at the Guthrie box office came to see the show that night, too. It was great to share it with all of them.

"Now you know what I'm doing when I'm not working at the box office."
"And sometimes even when you are working at the box office," one of them rightfully teased me.

In my defense, we can sometimes spend large stretches of time waiting for the phone to ring or for the next person to walk up the counter. So I make use of the time, and the Guthrie is fostering still more new theater.

My cover frequently gets blown - the writer in the house. I try to sit in the audience, unknown, so I can take in the audience response without them looking over their shoulder thinking, "Uh oh, the guy who wrote it is right over there." But just like I'm overhearing their conversations without even trying to eavesdrop, they're hearing my friends talking to me, so they quickly figure it out. This results in some interesting exchanges...

I try to never sit in the front row. During rehearsal, it was useful, just to have a body there, for the actors to remember how close the audience was going to be to the action, what the sightlines were like, etc. Since I was there all the time, I became kind of like furniture. I ceased to freak them out. I don't know why, but I think in performance it would just be weird to see me up there now. First of all, I can see just fine a row or two back, I'm not missing anything. Second, I've had my time in the front row. Third, like I said before, I'm trying to keep a low profile. But I want to be sure that front row is filled with other people, so I try to encourage it.

A group of men in the front row ahead of us on the second night seemed from their conversation to be ex-military. Throughout the play, there were moments they wiped their eyes. At the end of the evening, a friend of mine tapped me on the shoulder to disengage me from a conversation. Someone wanted to talk to me. I turned around and it was one of the ex-military group. His eyes were red. He smiled. He extended his hand.

"Thank you."

Damn. These moments always throw me. But I've learned the best thing to do, when you and an audience member are both overwhelmed, is to respond in kind.

I took his hand and smiled. I think I nodded, maybe even bowed slightly. Audience members who connect with the work that personally always humble the hell out of me.

"Thank you. For coming."

Show days always find me giddy and distracted. And it's mostly about one question...

What's the seventh cast member going to look like tonight?

"Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, runs at the Sabes Jewish Community Center on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 17 through 19; (there's a talkback with gay vet Jesse Berglund after the show on Friday 2/18); Monday (pay what you can), February 21; and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 24 through 26. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

My play "Leave" - The Unrelenting Power of a Mother's Love

(photo by George M. Galger)

I was at the Fringe Lottery last week, rather than at the first night of tech for my play "Leave," and yet, the play followed me there.

Of course, this was partly due to the fact I was carrying a stack of postcards with me and handing them out, and leaving a stash in the two places one can put cards on display for people to take at the Bryant Lake Bowl.

But when a fellow Fringer flipped over the card and read the cast list, he said, "Tina Sigel is wonderful."

Believe me, I know.

The wonderful and terrifying thing about good actors is, you can't relax. Good actors make a better playwright. One, because you live in fear of wasting their time by not writing a good role for them to dig into. Two, because they can do anything, so you have no limits on where you can go with a character.

The character of Anne, mother of Seth the Marine in "Leave," is a relatively new creation. She only came along in the previous draft, which means she's only been walking and talking and telling me who she is since 2008. Seth and his civilian husband Nicholas have been my regular companions since 1997. They still surprise me, but I know most of their tricks already. I knew when we dove into this new, expanded version of the script, that Anne would be key. How she grew would influence the direction of the show.

The danger was that she just turn into some kind of sounding board, listening to the problems of the other characters like a good mother would, and not having any stakes of her own in the story.

I had a friend of mine who is the mother of a Marine say, "Well, she wouldn't do that." And I allowed that kind of thing to hang me up for a while. Until I remembered that I wasn't writing a character based on my friend, I was writing someone diametrically opposed to the views of my friend. Marines have all kinds of mothers. Anne is just a different variety.

She's proud of her son. She supports her son. She writes him daily. And more importantly she makes it possible for her son's husband to write him daily as well, by copying over his letters in a woman's handwriting. So it looks like he has a girlfriend back home, rather than a boyfriend.

But she hates his job.

Maybe she'd hate it less if the military wasn't using the "don't ask, don't tell" policy to make his life harder, to force him to lie, to cut him off from the love and support he needs most.

But she'd probably hate it anyway.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is just a convenient springboard for her to argue that the Marines aren't good enough to require him to risk his life and possibly die if they won't treat him as a complete human being.

"You're embracing fighting as a way of life."
"I'm not picking a fight. I'm offering to be the one who fights if fighting needs to be done."
"And I'm proud of you for stepping up."
"You just don't want me to actually do it."
"Well, no."

There used to be a scene in the middle of the play where Anne sets Seth's friend and fellow Marine Jonas up as a guest in her house. Jonas has accompanied Seth home on leave. Anne puts him in Seth's old room. Jonas is also gay, but his parents don't accept him the way Anne and her husband accept Seth. Anne becomes something of a surrogate mother to Jonas, and that scene is where it starts.

In script discussions, the director Matt Greseth latched onto a line of Nicholas' in another scene later in the play, "This isn't your first leave."

"What were the other leaves like? Is it possible we could go back in time once or twice, to see Seth before the war and the lies and the secrets started to grind him down? When he was all fired up and excited to become a Marine and serve his country. For instance, what if, when Anne is settling Jonas into Seth's old room, it prompts a memory for Anne of her own son, before he went off to boot camp? Maybe she's even packing Seth's duffel bag as she's helping unpack Jonas' duffel bag."

Damn. That's a great idea.

Well, I quickly found out that Marines don't pack for basic training. The Marines give them everything, rebuilding them from scratch. They just need a driver's license and social security card for ID, banking information so they can get paid, and the clothes on their back. But the idea stuck.

I started calling the scene "2 Marines" for short. On paper, it looked really good. Anne would be the pivot, shifting back and forth in time, from the present with Jonas, to the past with Seth.

But of course, you need an actress who can actually do that without giving herself and the audience emotional whiplash. Someone who can make those transitions smooth and seamless. The other two actors and the director have a lot to do with it, too, but if Anne doesn't work, the scene doesn't work.

Tina makes Anne work. She, like everyone else in this cast, is a joy to watch creating a character in a scene.

Because all I'm providing are words. They're an outline. I can't magically create an emotional connection. That's where actors come in, guided by a director.

The first time I watched Tina as Anne, and Ryan Henderson (as Seth) and James Doyle (as Jonas) dig into the "2 Marines" scene with director Matt Greseth, I knew we were gonna be just fine. "There's a show in that script after all," I thought. You're never sure until you see it start to appear.

This used to be the first scene of the second act, but as I worked on the script in those early days of rehearsal, I realized "2 Marines" was actually the end of the first act.

It's quiet. It's not a literal cliffhanger. To be honest, I was a little worried at first that shifting the act break was the wrong decision.

But as I was watching a week or so later in rehearsal, I found myself writing this note during that sequence...

"Holy s***, this scene..."

After our new last scene in act one had once again wrecked me before we took a break in rehearsal a few days before tech, I turned to the director and said, "Thank you for making me rewrite this scene."

Anne is trying to help a young man in the present feel at home in a strange place, and feel better about himself in general. All this reminds her of the time she tried to persuade her boy not to go to boot camp, to understand his decision if she couldn't change his mind, and to worry about what this was going to do to him, to their family, to his husband.

And the audience knows from the opening scene at a graveyard that somebody is in the ground.

It's probably one of these two Marines.

And you start to feel like, either way it goes, it's going to hurt like hell.

Hurt Anne. Hurt the audience.

And that's when you know you've got them.

When they sort of know how the story ends, but they have to really know how the story ends.

Come back for Act Two.

And see this mother really kick into high gear.

"Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, runs at the Sabes Jewish Community Center on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 17 through 19; (there's a talkback with gay vet Jesse Berglund after the show on Friday 2/18); Monday (pay what you can), February 21; and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 24 through 26. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

Happy Valentine's Day - I Hope You Like Guys In Their Underwear

(photo by George M. Calger)

Some of my single friends figure that if, like me, they have no one to make out with on Valentine's Day, the next best thing is to come to see my play "Leave" and and watch four other guys make out with each other. Sounds like a reasonable back-up plan.

"I'm not gonna say I love you, 'cause that'd be stupid, right?"
"I don't know. I've fallen in love a lot faster for a lot less. So no, it's not stupid. But we don't have to put a label on it. We can just be, for right now, whatever you need."

Because "Leave" is, on its most basic level, a love story.

About two guys who have been together since they were young, and are struggling to stay together and remain faithful despite all the walls "don't ask, don't tell" throws up between them.

About a guy just figuring out who he is, and a guy who thought he had everything figured out so love couldn't sneak up and surprise him anymore.

About a mother's love for her son, and the lengths to which she'll go to support and protect him.

About love between friends that gets complicated, but ultimately saves them.

About men who love their country, even when their country refuses to love them back.

"Kiss me like you mean it."

I was emailing back and forth with a friend planning to come see the show who was part one of the very first readings of script way back when, telling him the script was very different now...

"...and the cast is just great"
"And as handsome as they come," he replied. "I hope you have added a nice shirtless love scene for us."
"There are, in fact, several. Enjoy!"

As the audience was coming back from intermission, one of the company member ushers told the returning patrons...

"I hope you like guys in their underwear."

"Is there anything they can do to take Nicholas away from you? I don't think so. That guy is welded to you. He will stand by you when everyone else melts away, no matter what they throw at him. You know that, right?"

After one of the "guys in their boxer briefs" scenes in act two, a guy near me was heard to say, "Yummy." Before his friend elbowed him in the side.

Act One includes
- Two guys trying to write love letters to each other in code
- A guy stripping out of his army uniform (aka - guys in their boxer briefs, a prologue)
- Two guys facing off against each other outside the communal showers wearing nothing but towels
- One man resisting temptation while another gives in
- An ethereal three-way in which one man allows another man to touch him, while visualizing the image of his husband who can't be with him
- A transatlantic phone call filled with so much longing and unspoken emotion the two sides of the conversation nearly break down in the weighted silences
- One guy seducing another with words and an ungloved hand on his face
- Two guys on a walk holding hands trying to get through discussion of possible death in the line of duty with a kiss or two and some gentle touches
- An overheated reunion after months apart, featuring what someone in rehearsal called "the kiss above all other kisses, right out of The Princess Bride."
- And enough motherly hugs and reassuring touches to break the resolve of the most hardened stoic


"All this nobility is making my teeth hurt."

Act Two includes
- Guys in their boxer briefs, #1 - in which the stability and intimacy of the relationship help ground a character being dogged by unpleasant memories of war
- A scene in which a guy is comically seduced into his first kiss, and quickly goes back for more
- A post-traumatic stress disorder incident that ends in a hug that makes the guy look like he might drown on dry land if he let go.
- Guys in their boxer briefs, #2 - sexy times, with artful lighting, and a fair helping of comedy
- A non-declaration of love and negotiation of hand-holding in public that is cuter than either of the men involved would like to admit
- Another non-declaration of love that, thanks to our brilliant lighting designer, looks very much like two guys walking off into the sunset together

"Please stop touching my face."
"If you were touching him, he'd wipe your tears."
"If I was touching him, I wouldn't be crying."
"Yeah. You would."

Hanging out after rehearsal one day, an actor was talking about what a challenge the role was, all the things he didn't have in common with his character. One that surprised me was

"I've never loved anyone with all my heart."

My knee-jerk reaction was, of course, a joke, "Yeah, but you do know these guys are fictional, right?"

But then I thought about it, and I have to admit, this script brings those kind of guys out of the woodwork. People I've never met. Couples who have clearly gone the distance, or are going to go the distance. They need their date plays, too.

They exist, those couples.

I'm not making up as much as I think I am.

It's good to be reminded.

My own Valentine's Day present, a friend flying up from Texas to see the show, is gonna be a little delayed. He doesn't get here til the weekend.

Meantime, I can't think of a better way to enjoy Valentine's Day (and not let it get me down), than to watch a play where love triumphs over most, if not all. And the actors are so committed to the reality of the story and the characters that it doesn't feel like it came from words on a piece of paper anymore.

Most of the plays I write, in one way or another, are love stories.

This is one of my best.

In addition to tonight's Valentine's Day (pay what you can) performance at 7:30pm, "Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, runs at the Sabes Jewish Community Center on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 17 through 19; Monday (pay what you can), February 21; and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, February 24 through 26. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

My play "Leave" - First Impressions...

(photo by George M. Calger)

Before the one of the runthroughs the other night, one of the actors wandered by wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. I did a doubletake until I realized, "oh yeah, that's his first costume."

For which the actor could not resist teasing me, "Yeah, the first time the audience sees me, I'm wearing a towel and have to say the word 'faggot.' Great first impression, thanks a lot."

A couple of weeks back, when they first started stringing the scenes together in sequence, I watched the top of the show, thinking about first impressions, and scribbled in my notes, "Wow, I'm really flouting audience expectations the first three scenes of the play."

We don't really get to a "normal" scene, where two people are having a conversation with each other, until the fourth scene in.

The first scene, two people are standing by what they make clear to us is a grave. We don't know their names. We don't know their relationship to each other. We don't know their relationship to the person in the ground, other than it's clear they wish he wasn't down there.

Then one actor leaves and the one who remains turns and begins speaking to the audience.

(Hello, everyone. Not only are you right on top of the action, but there will be no fourth wall sometimes.)

The one actor finishes speaking and leaves.

The other actor returns, this time dressed for desert duty in the army. He carries a box. He sets it down, he opens it up. He strips - boots, pants, T-shirt - stopping only for a moment when it comes time to remove his dog tags. He stands there in his boxer briefs and looks at them. Then he dumps them in the box, closes the box, and carries it away.

(A wordless evocation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - did he leave voluntarily? was he dishonorably discharged? We don't know. He hasn't said a word, we still don't know his name.)

(Will the audience also think this is all the skin they're gonna get? Fear not, more to come. We wouldn't cheat you like that, I swear. But seriously, enjoy the view.)

The actor who spoke to the audience returns, this time in non-funeral clothes.

She sets herself up on a chair in the middle of the stage.

In front of and behind her at opposing entrances on the diagonal, two new actors appear and sit down. They then all proceed to not quite talk to each other, conversing through a screen of coded words in their letters. But we start to get an idea of the memory of who they are vs. who they're pretending to be.

Then that scene clears out and two people finally start talking face to face.

And telling jokes, so we know it's OK to laugh.

It's nervewracking to be a playwright sometimes. Those first 10 minutes or so will be one of them.

The play in general is going to be more a play the audience pays attention to than vocally engages. There will be laughs, but there will also be fights and tears.

Coughing will make me nervous, though you can hardly avoid coughing this time of year.

I have to remind myself that quiet means they're paying attention.

And laughs (and sniffles) mean we got 'em.

It all starts tonight.

The world premiere of this newly expanded and updated version of "Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, runs February 11 to 26, at the Sabes Jewish Community Center. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

All the theater I'm missing...

...or at least a goodly chunk of it.

photo from Maximum Verbosity's Penner vs. The Hydra

The wonderful thing about Minneapolis theater is that there are always so many productions going on at once. The horrible thing about Minneapolis theater is that there are always so many damn shows going on at once.

I've already missed all kinds of theater in January because I was in rehearsals (and heavy-duty rewrite mode) on my play
Leave, which opens this Friday (tomorrow).

The one I probably hated missing the most was Torch Theater's
Glengarry Glen Ross, which got my friend Patrick Coyle back on stage after several years of writing and directing film (if you haven't seen "
Into Temptation" by the way, you need to Netflix that thing right now).

Since, even if you love me like my mother does, you won't be sitting in on every performance of
Leave like I will, I just wanted you to know that you have some amazing options here in February.

The thing that's killing me most right now, it's closing weekend of
Penner vs. Hydra from Maximum Verbosity over at the People's Center. Smart romantic comedy with a mythological twist - very much worth a visit before they draw the curtain.

Starting public performances along with Leave this week are

The new vampire play Drakul from Walking Shadow - absolutely killer cast, no pun intended.

Ten Thousand Things' production of
Doubt with the amazing Sally Wingert and Regina Marie Williams, just to name two in that wonderful cast. Here's
a review if you don't believe me.

Ring Round The Moon at Theatre In The Round Players - directed by my friend (and former Minnesota Fringe Festival Executive Director and current Program Director of the Minnesota Theater Alliance Leah Cooper), and featuring theater pal Bryan Grosso, who was so great in my little play,
Two Left Feet, as well as Nicholas Leeman, Linda Sue Anderson, Maggie Bearmon Pistner, and Muriel J. Bonertz (and that's just the people whose work I already know and like. There's more. Geez.)

Penumbra Theatre is trotting out the latest of their fantastic August Wilson play cycle, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

History Theatre's Adrift on the Mississippi, directed by the wonderful Mr. James A. Williams.

And Nimbus is presenting Jean Genet's The Balcony, with a bunch of folks I know like Ariel Pinkerton, Jesse Corder, and Paul Rutledge (who was so good in the Project 515 piece I worked on with the Flowershop Project)

And then all the other great and/or interesting things that are continuing that I wanted to see but haven't yet (with two exceptions), such as...

Our Town at Yellow Tree Theater

Helen from 20% Theatre Company (closing this weekend)

Little Eyes from Workhaus Collective

The Winter's Tale at the Guthrie

Shirley Valentine at the Jungle

Bill W. and Dr. Bob at Illusion

The Marvelous Wonderettes at Plymouth Playhouse

Jesus Christ Superstar at Chanhassen

Also, if you're looking for theater for kids, there's

Mean at Youth Performance Company

Babe, The Sheep Pig at Children's Theatre

Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963 at SteppingStone

If You Give A Moose A Muffin at Stages (closing this weekend)

Plus, back on the adult side, there's always something going on at HUGE Theater, the Bryant Lake Bowl, and the Brave New Workshop

And, people, that's just the stuff I know about. I'm sure there's more.

Though I'll be a little depressed when my show closes at the end of February, I can take solace in the fact that there's plenty of other theater waiting to fill the void. Til then, back to the JCC for me...

This is the moment I start to wonder if anyone's gonna show up to my play. (Calm your nerves, playwright, and pimp the show...)

The world premiere of this newly expanded and updated version of "Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, opens this Friday at the Sabes Jewish Community Center. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

My play "Leave" - Things That Make It Real

photo by George M. Calger

Seeing the set for my play for the first time always blows my mind.

This world inside my head that I scribbled down on paper suddenly gets extremely real. Even if, as with this play "Leave," the setting is more metaphorical than literal.

Same thing happens when people say the lines for the first time.

And when they start moving around saying the lines for the first time.

And when they set their scripts aside and slowly start assimilating all the lines into their brains and making the words seem like no one wrote them at all.

The director mentioned that an American flag would be painted over the platform that we'd been working on in rehearsal.

I was thinking, "Oh, a flag as part of some desert tableau or something."

No, not just the entire platform, but the entire floor of the playing space, is painted as one large, billowing, slightly tattered American flag.

Wow.

It sort of hails you when you first walk in and see it, "This is America. This is what America does to its gay and lesbian military personnel. This is what happens in America."

And the platform, formerly just a basic 4 by 8 platform up on legs, is now covered, top and sides right down to the floor.

For certain scenes, in a certain light, it looks like a coffin.

With an American flag draped over it.

Damn.

"Remember, it's not actually an American flag."
"Yeah, but we're still walking on it."
"I think it's not so much the walking on it, as the gay sex happening on it."
"I think the kind of people that might be offended by this, aren't going to be the people coming to see the show anyway."
"Well, it may deter audience members from stretching their legs out into the playing space."
"It just makes the play seem twice as edgy as it actually is."

Across the back wall are three evenly spaced white bolts of fabric that hang down from high above the audience, down to the floor.

The lighting designer occasionally hits two of them with red and blue light. Red, white, and blue.

The sound designer has taking traditional tunes like taps, and "America The Beautiful" and elongated them out into haunting, sometimes dissonant, compositions.

The two actor Marines have gotten their hair cut now.

"The haircut makes me walk differently. You don't see a lot of guys with this haircut walking around slumped forward with stooped shoulders. It's 'shoulders back, chest out, head held high.'"

The first time the actor playing the Marine's mother saw her acting partner, she looked like she might cry. Heck, I almost cried. "My boy's going off to boot camp. My boy's going off to war." It gives a strange new electric current of urgency to the scenes where she's trying to get him not to go, not to subject himself to "don't ask, don't tell," not to go back for another tour of duty.

We took pictures of Seth the Marine and Nicholas his civilian husband during rehearsals a week ago to help fill their photo album. That prop is used way too close to the audience not to be real. Now we have pictures of Seth with hair in a book, and a Seth with very little hair in reality.

When the stage manager took the pictures to get developed, the dear old lady at the photo counter told her, "You have very handsome sons."

(Who are very affectionate with each other. She either didn't look at the photos too closely, or felt it impolite to mention it.)

All the chairs are arranged on three sides of the playing space.

They just need an audience.

The world premiere of this newly expanded and updated version of "Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, opens this Friday at the Sabes Jewish Community Center. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

My play "Leave" - "Just take me however you need to."

(Leave logo by Justin S. Latt)

I'm spoiled.

The actors in my play "Leave" are game for anything.

(I orignally wrote "my actors." It's weird how proprietary you get. I wonder if they think of me as "our playwright.")

Game for Anything - Exhibit #1 - The kissing.

Because they're not all gay in this cast. In fact, it's actually half and half. OK, that makes it sound like they're all bisexual. What I mean is, two are openly straight and two are openly gay. Actually, both the major couples are split right down the middle. But you wouldn't know it. These guys are so committed to the realism of these characters, it sort of breaks my heart.

Right up front the director told them he wasn't worried about the intimacy. He wasn't going to push it. It happens when it happens. We were all for it just evolving naturally. Now, if we got to tech week or something and they still hadn't touched each other, then he'd have to force the issue, but other than that he was leaving it up to them.

First rehearsal on our feet, a straight actor approaches his gay counterpart at the end of a break and just says the best thing to do is to dive right in. We're only going to get used to it if we do it and it's no big deal. The other straight actor just let it be known, "I have very few boundaries, so don't be afraid to approach me." (Which is useful, because that guy is tall, and can be more than a little intimidating til you get to know him.) Conveniently, the two gay actors took turns being sick and shaking off colds the first week, so everybody had some time to get to know each other, and wait til they were germ-free.

The touching started right away. Awkward, at first, like the first time you start touching anybody. Hand on the shoulder, the small of the back. A hug here. Hand-holding that has actually never lost its sweetness. You know things have progressed to the next comfort level when they start placing a hand on the back of one another's necks, or touch someone's face, or run a hand through their hair. They're ridiculously comfortable with one another now. Right before or after a scene, it's like sports teams, bucking each other up - "Here we go" or "OK, buddy. No worries, we'll get it next time" or "Great job! That was amazing." And its almost never verbal, it's how they physically interact.

You can write about writing the script, or you can actually write the script. In this process, the latter was more important. Hence the blogging silence these last several weeks. But I've been taking notes like crazy at every rehearsal, learning from what the actors do with the script, learning from what the director says about the script, learning from how they pick it all apart and put it back together. It's like a master class, and even though it's my script that's the subject matter, they help me see it with fresh eyes. They all make me a better storyteller.

And tucked away in my notes somewhere is the phrase

"the first kiss"

All downhill from there.

It's the tenderness and playfulness they have with each other, the bedrock of the relationship always showing through, that regularly takes my breath away. Watching them sometimes, you'd think they'd known each other forever, and not just a couple of weeks.

There's a big homecoming scene, the Marines coming back on leave. The one Marine Seth and his civilian husband Nicholas haven't seen each other in months. Communication has been coded and strained. When they finally see each other, well... The one actor told the other actor before they arrived at rehearsing that scene, "Just take me however you need to."

Of course, there's the tension release of humor right in the middle of it. While Seth and Nicholas start making up for lost time, their two friends Tyson and Jonas are stuck looking on, not having been introduced to each other. After it looks like Seth and Nicholas aren't coming up for air any time soon, Tyson decides he should probably introduce himself to Jonas. Apparently our Tyson is a bit mischievous. He decided he'd let the kissing go on for a while and see how long they could get away with it. His fellow actors, very committed to the scene. (Basically, we're not stopping til we get our cue, and that's in your hands, buddy.) Knowing that, he will be milking that comedic pause for all its worth with the audience.

You know how when you're really going at it kissing someone and you take a break for a second, you can see it on your face and the other person's face? The area around your mouth gets all red? That's what's going on in that moment. First time I saw that in rehearsal I thought to myself, "Damn. That's acting."

The actors playing Tyson and Jonas were debating the merits of tongue recently. I don't know where they came down on that issue, because honestly every time I'm close enough to look, I'm a little embarrassed. I mean, they're my characters, I wrote the thing, but there are moments that are so personal, I don't feel like I should be watching.

"Tongue? Really?"
"Well, c'mon. The audience is really close. And you know if we were sitting that close to the action, we'd be looking for tongue. Be honest."

And you'd think you'd know which actor would be on which side of that discussion, but you'd be wrong.

One of the straight actors has a girlfriend, the other is engaged to be married.

"It's a good thing I'm comfortable in my sexuality, or I'd be coming offstage sort of bewildered. 'Wow, kissing this guy is actually kind of fun. What does that mean?!'"

How does girlfriend/fiancee feel about this?

"If it ever gets weird, just remind her that the other guy is only renting out your lips for a limited time and express purpose, she on the other hand has ownership rights."

It's not all about the kissing, it's really not. But it's a part of the whole picture. I make it a point to try and thank all the actors every rehearsal, even if only in passing. It's hard to adequately convey in words what it means to be able to see this, actual relationships between gay men on stage. Not wise-cracking sidekicks or people dying of AIDS but just gay men living their lives. Struggling, yes, but the way everyone else does, not just because they're gay.

The director was talking about the big fight scene between Nicholas and Seth, and the power of watching it. Just two guys, an unpainted platform and a bunch of words. No lights or costumes or props yet. No audience but us. "Even though there's a brick wall between you two (metaphorically speaking), you can still sense the love the two of you have for each other. It's like it's coming off of you in waves."

Gay men don't get to see that very often in popular culture. Certainly more now that we used to by a mile, but it's still a 90 percent vs. 10 percent kind of thing. The world is largely straight. Entertainment is largely straight. Doesn't mean we don't appreciate it. But when you see yourself reflecting back to you from the stage or a TV or movie screen, it means something. Maybe you only know that if you don't have it on a regular basis. It's easy to take for granted if it's always there. It wasn't always there for me. It still isn't. It's why I write the stories I write.

But writing them doesn't get them in front of people. Producers and directors and actors do. I'm just drawing the blueprint. They're building the house and inviting people in.

Sometimes there are things actors aren't willing to do. And you have to respect that. Hopefully, if it's an issue, you don't have to cast them. Hopefully, if they know up front, they save themselves and everyone else the time and just don't audition. Not every role is right for every actor, and vice versa. You do the things you're comfortable with, you do the things you feel you need to, and the rest, you take a pass.

We were lucky in auditions and callbacks. We had a bunch of great people show up, and they were all aware of what they were signing up for. Sign up they did.

But I am amazed, and grateful, on a daily basis, that these guys are as committed to this story and these characters as they are.

They're building a hell of a house. You should come visit.

The world premiere of this newly expanded and updated version of "Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, opens this Friday at the Sabes Jewish Community Center. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

Leave - No, It's Not About Pedophilia

photo by George M. Calger

This is a challenge of a slightly nebulous title. Sometimes it's a little too open to interpretation.

My play "Leave" - about the emotional fallout of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the US military that was recently (finally) repealed - has a one word title that could be a noun or a verb or a command or all three, and could have to do with any number of things.

So advertising can get a bit dicey sometimes.

The one-act version back in 2008, the advertising featured just the word, in a fairly distressed looking font, and a couple of dog tags. The military subject matter was pretty clear.

The previous marketing image for this production had a couple of guys with short hair, wrapped up in an American flag. So, again, the military aspect was inferred if not explicit. (It's still on all the postcards we have floating around.)

Naturally, the company wanted to use an image with actual cast members in it when it came time for the big marketing push after rehearsals began.

And given the natural beauty and attractiveness of the guys in our cast, it's a no-brainer to want to couple them up in a shot in order to draw the attention of potential gay audience members.

You can see the image here.

Neither of the guys had short hair, but they weren't playing the military characters, so why would they? One was former Army, so he was dressed up in desert camouflage gear and they had a rifle between them.

Trouble was, when you make the image black and white, the camo element isn't obvious anymore. The rifle is down low in the shot so it can be a little hard to make out.

The two guys are embracing, but given the subject matter of the play, they look a little distant and angsty.

And the one actor is shorter than the other, perhaps looks a little younger, too.

So somebody, seeing the poster, asked if it was about pedophilia.

Hoo boy.

No.

Since they're not in an unconditionally loving embrace, and the title is "Leave," I also started to wonder if people would think it was about spousal abuse, too.

Bottom line, though, it's a poster with two attractive guys with their arms around each other. For some people, that's all they need to know.

Come for the cute. Stay for the story.

Whatever gets the meat in the seats, as they say.

And I do like the poster. I'm just wondering if my title is a little too withholding for its own good sometimes.

The world premiere of this newly expanded and updated version of "Leave," from Urbran Samurai Productions and yours truly, opens this Friday at the Sabes Jewish Community Center. You can find all the pertinent information you might need at urbansamurai.org

If you see me there, even if I look a little nervous, come on over and say hello.

Bowling and Running and Writing (Not Necessarily In That Order)

The 2010 Minnesota Fringe Festival is history.

I saw a show in every slot again this year, including the encore. 56 performances, 53 shows (Three I went back for a second look, one of those I even had a very odd cameo appearance in). 29 reviews down, 24 to go.

The day after the Fringe, an epic Fringe Decompression podcast with Josh Humphreys and Nick Decker for Twin Cities Theater Connection, which should be posting in the near future.

Back at the day jobs, a lot of catching up to do.

And of course there's a play to write (the first of a couple, actually, which is nice)

Tomorrow, I head down to Winona with two vanloads of teammates for the Ragnar Relay's Great River Run. It's a 24 hour run from Winona, up along the Mississippi River on the Wisconsin side, and back into Minnesota around Stillwater, running on back to Minneapolis. 192 miles. 12 runners, doing three legs of the relay each. I'm the 6th runner on my team, last in my van (Van 1)to go, handing off to the 2nd half of the team in Van 2 when I'm done. We got a late start time for our team (2pm), so I won't be starting my first leg til around 6pm. 8.3 miles. Then I've got a breather til around 3:30 in the morning Friday/Saturday, when I run another 7.1 miles. Then my last leg will hit around 11:15 in the morning Saturday, only 3.5 miles. That one's rated "Moderate," my first two are both rated "Very Hard" (gulp). 18.9 miles total. Needless to say, I scheduled myself off from pretty much everything on Sunday.

And because that's not quite enough to completely derail the blogging for a few days, how about we throw in a bowling night fundraiser for my new artistic home, Urban Samurai Productions?

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

8pm to closing time

$10 to bowl all night (it includes the shoe and ball rental)

Park Tavern Bowling and Entertainment Center
3401 Louisiana Ave S
St. Louis Park, MN

You can get your tickets online or at the door.

Also, they're raffling off three monster prize packages - $10 per raffle ticket, or you can get 3 for $25. Here, too, you can order raffle tix online now, or grab yourself some the night of the event. Better yet, why not do both?

The prizes...

Grand Prize - Ultimate Jackpot Getaway
A Weekend Stay at Mystic Lake Resort & Casino
Gift card for your choice of activity at Mystic Lake
Centerspace Pilates Gift Certificate
Urban Samurai Season 2011 Tickets (includes a new full-length version of my play "Leave")
Gift Basket from Caldrea
Bottle of Wine from Wine Time
Guthrie Theater Tickets


2nd Place - Theater Lover's Package
Urban Samurai Season 2011 Tickets
Theatre Unbound Tickets
Theatre Pro Rata Tickets
Crave Restaurant Gift Certificate


3rd Place - Comedy Lover's Package
Urban Samurai Season 2011 Tickets
Comedy Sportz Tickets
Brave New Workshop Tickets
Chipotle Restaurant Gift Card


So, you know, bowl, win stuff, support live theater, everybody feels good.


The Samurai website says...

"Urban Samurai Productions is celebrating Season 2010 by knocking down pins! Everyone's invited to the Park Tavern to join us for unlimited bowling, raffles, games, karaoke, and general merriment. Whether you're the King Pin or Gutterball Grand Poobah, it's sure to be a smashing good time, all supporting theater with Urban Samurai!

Bowling on the lanes with karaoke! A raffle with FABULOUS prizes and bowling challenges for awards! HILARIOUS entertainment! Drinks and food available in the restaurant and bar for purchase. Because this is a grown up event, Park Tavern requests that all guests be 21 or older.

What if you can't make it? It can't be true! Well, life happens, (sigh). But don't fret. You can still share in the fun by entering the raffle for fabulous prizes, or making a tax deductible donation to Urban Samurai. That way, you can be a part of making future productions possible."


And the day after all that, I turn 46.

Yikes. Where'd that year go?

Interregnum 2009-2010 - Blog of the Time Between - Leave

Yup, the gay Marine play is back. And I have an artistic home. Weird. So, we begin the march toward my first production with Urban Samurai Productions, a new full-length version of "Leave, or The Surface of the World," which kicks off their 2011 season next February...

7/29/10 Taking The Rules For Granted
Urban Samurai blog version

7/17/10 A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words
Urban Samurai blog version

7/16/10 Incubator - Leave - A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

6/23/10 This Is How Plays Don't Get Written
Urban Samurai blog version

6/17/10 The Beginning Is The End, The End Is The Beginning
Urban Samurai blog version

6/3/10 What's A Minnesota Playwright Doing In Omaha?
Urban Samurai blog version

4/29/10 Ice Cream
Urban Samurai blog version

4/22/10 The Gay Thing
Urban Samurai blog version

4/16/10 Structure
Urban Samurai blog version

4/8/10 Plotting It Out
Urban Samurai blog version

4/5/10 New Season, New Play - Kicking Off Urban Samurai's Season 2011
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

4/1/10 Picking A Play Apart
Urban Samurai blog version

3/25/10 Impending Hard Drive Failure
Urban Samurai blog version

3/11/10 Bright Ideas
Urban Samurai blog version

3/11/10 The Accidental Board Member
Urban Samurai blog version