Single White Fringe Geek

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Fringe 2008 Top 10 - #10 - Youth Performance Company/Young

Youth Performance Company - The Boyshow

"It's here! YPC's 'coming of age' trilogy is complete! 'Goddess Mense,' 'The Talk' and, now, 'The Boy Show,' a no-holds-barred exposé of growing up male. Warning: No snips, snails or puppy dog tails."

and

Young Artists Council - Reefer Madness: The Musical

"A musical based on the 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film of the same name. A tongue-in-cheek comedy about the perils of drugs, sex and general moral turpitude."

I kind of held off mentioning this double feature because last year I mentioned YPC's Boyshow as one of my Top 10 in the context of the TV show I host, and then it promptly dropped off the schedule. Not wanting to jinx it two years running, I thought I'd bide my time.

It seems like it's actually coming off this time around, however.

Plus, Youth Performance Company's offshoot for the older young artists (hmmm, older young artists? Anyway...) the Young Artists Council it also hitting the Fringe this year with the musical version of Reefer Madness, so it looks like they're trying to make up for lost time. (Also, a friend of mine's in the Reefer cast, so that's added reason to recommend it, and try to get my butt over to the Bryant Lake Bowl to see it)

I missed YPC's bit hit Fringe show about menstruation (no, really). I did catch "The Talk" during it's Bryant Lake Bowl run outside the Fringe and was impressed. But then I'm always impressed with the quality of the productions that Youth Performance Company presents, so another good show from them is no surprise.

Yes, the boys in the publicity photo look a little bored, but I'm pretty sure the audience won't be. No preview video clips to present to you, but knowing the company, I'm really confident about the product.

Either one alone, or a double feature of both, would be a good example of the kind of thing the Teen Fringe does best. So add them to your schedule.

Also, keep an eye on the Youth Performance Company theater offerings year round - their website is www.youthperformanceco.com

Both

Very Highly Recommended.

Locations, dates and show times, and ticket info on both shows can be found here and here

Fringe 2008 Top 10 - # 9 - Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw

"...a dark, brooding, blood-thirsty monstrosity known only as a dancer!"

Dance of the Whisky Faerie

"Uncorked and mischievous, the Whisky Faerie captures a wandering storyteller. Together they dance, soliloquize and spar through bizarre Celtic tales. Will he get his whisky or will she keep her freedom?

Join husband and wife team Joseph Scrimshaw ("King of Comedy" -MN Monthly) and Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw ("lanky livewire" -mnartists.org) for a dance & storytelling exploration of Celtic myths - fun, quirky, and comic, with a few insights along the way. And in the end, who does end up with the whisky?"

And she's also involved in

DRP Dance - Modern Muses

Passion, conflict, hope and knowledge. A fusion of life's desires.

"Modern Muses interconnects life's desires through the movement of modern dance with four women performing the roles of the Muse of Passion, Muse of Conflict, Muse of Hope and Muse of Knowledge. The Muse characters thread as individuals and fuse as a whole representing the emotions and challenges presented in everyday life choices."

Now I suppose I could have just slipped Sara in under the general Scrimshaw umbrella, but though she's also got a sense of humor like her generally wackier husband, Sara's primary mode of expression is dance (often amusing dance, but still a different kind of comedy than that based more on words). So I figured she merited special mention. First, it's her own show (though performed and created in tandem with Joseph Scrimshaw). Also, just like most years in the Fringe, she's doing double duty, as part of the dancing company of DRP Dance - which I saw a couple of previews for last year and was really bummed to have missed.

There are video previews for both Whisky Faerie and Modern Muses on the Fringe's YouTube page full of clips of the two Fringe-For-All showcases. Check them out here and here.

Whisky Faerie looks like a great merging of the strengths of one of the Fringe's favorite artistic odd couples - though I hope it's not a reflection of their marriage, where Sara withholds alcohol and then kicks Joseph around a lot. (However, it would make parties at their home really interesting for guests.)

Modern Muses strikes me as another sampling of what DRP's Artistic Director/Choreographer Danielle Robinson-Prater does best, create visually beautiful stage pictures full of movement - in unison, in opposition, in waves of overlapping repetition. It's the kind of thing I find almost impossible to recount afterward, but it has its own subconscious logic to it that's extremely satisfying to watch. Like good music, it sort of washes over you, submerging you in its world. It's lovely stuff.

More information for Fringe and beyond at http://josephscrimshaw.com/

Both shows come

Very Highly Recommended

Location, dates and show times, and ticket info for the two shows available here and here

Hey, Where'd The Fringe Blog Go?

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Do You Have A Show In The Fringe This Year?

The short answer - Yes.

The slightly longer answer - Not a month ago.

Or, what I like to call the start of the Bronze Bitch/Dog Blog

My friend Marc Halsey got one of the lucky ping pong balls in the Minnesota Fringe Festival lottery this year. He was planning to finish a new script and have his company, the newly named Magicword Theater, produce it this year. Then he got a job out in LA on the writing staff of a TV show.

We'd been trading emails and text messages earlier in the week, with him floating the idea of producing a couple of my short scripts in the slot, since it had become clear to him he wasn't going to finish his own script in the timeframe he wanted. Settling into a new life out west was gobbling up a lot of time, and probably would for a while.

Friday May 16th - mid-afternoon - the phone rings. Marc says if I want to take over the producing reins under the Magicword banner to get a Fringe show up on the boards this year, he's happy to hand it to me. Beyond long-distance moral support, his involvement was going to be minimal. So I had to decide if I could take it on.

Time? Money? Both tight, but possible.

Since I'm trying to finish rewrites on another script right now, which goes into rehearsals literally the day after the Fringe closes, the key was to get a team together that I could provide the infrastructure for and then set loose. Tempting as sitting in on rehearsals would be, those scripts weren't changing, so I'd withdraw, let the director and actors go to work, and get myself to work on the script that *was* still changing. Before a directors and actors would be set loose on that one, too.

How's it going so far?

Right now I'm waiting for an actor to call me back so we can confer about his schedule conflicts and, if it works, actor one of three is decided. Then two more welcome phone calls to the director's other choices. Then the five phone calls to the actors who didn't make the cut. At the callback rate currently taking place, this is gonna take all weekend.

Rewrites? Yeah, those are still screaming in the back of my skull at the moment. Or maybe they've given up on me paying attention and decided to take a nap. We'll see when I try to jumpstart it all again this weekend.

So why is it called the Bronze Bitch/Dog Blog?

The titles of the two scripts being done in the Fringe slot by Magicword are

The Bronze Bitch Flies At Noon

and

Dog Tag

More on them in just a bit. Right now, it's time for me to saunter off to day job #2 for the day.

And then some grocery shopping. And dinner. And bills.

47 days and counting...

Ah, the glamor of show business, eh?

Rarig Center - U of M campus
Arena Stage
Minnesota Fringe Festival
Friday 8/1 at 7pm
Saturday 8/2 at 10pm
Wednesday 8/6 at 10pm
Thursday 8/7 at 5:30pm
Saturday 8/9 at 8:30pm

This blog can now also be found on Twin Cities Daily Planet

About the rating system...

The Minnesota Fringe Festival website has pretty much always had a five star rating system for audience members that want to post reviews, but just what the differences were was always fluid, varying from person to person, quality in art always being relative.

A couple of years back, a group from out of town had in their press a notice from the Fringe in Indianapolis (the Indy Fringe). They also use the five star system, but they slapped some handy modifiers on it, so I borrowed them...

5 stars - Life-Altering Experience

4 stars - Excellent

3 stars - Good Job

2 stars - Not Bad, Needs Some Work

1 star - Life's Too Short

0 stars - Run For It

I added a few intermediate categories of my own for things that fall in between those absolutes

1-1/2 stars - Life's Still Too Short

2-1/2 stars - Not Bad, Still Needs Some Work

3-1/2 stars - Good Job Plus

4-1/2 stars - Damn Near Perfect

Since no one sets out to do a bad show, it's rare that I dole out anything under 3 stars, but it happens. I also don't hand out the 5 star ratings lightly, but thankfully I'm inspired more often on that end of the scale by the things I see at the Fringe.

Normally anything 3 stars, I'll tag as Recommended

3-1/2 or 4 stars, Highly Recommended.

4-1/2 or 5 stars, Very Highly Recommended.

Generally, that's the lay of the land. You can leaf through some reviews from past years if you want to poke around and scope out some of my biases.

This blog can now also be found on Twin Cities Daily Planet

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Our story thus far...

Back in 2003, the folks at the Minnesota Fringe Festival said, "Hey, would you like to write a blog for us?"

I said, "Sure. What's a blog?"

And that's how it started. I'd nursed a growing Fringe addiction for the past several years, and the prospect of being to see as many shows as I wanted, for free, all in exchange for some typing, seemed too good to be true.

I was supposed to give the blog a name, and being horrible when cornered about titles, I settled on "Single White Fringe Geek."

That same year, my mom's annual pilgrimage from the east to the midwest had her landing in town just as the Fringe was heading into its final weekend. Mom's a big theater buff, too. She'd never been to the Fringe. So I saved some of the shows I was most looking forward to, in order to share them with her. She took to the Fringe enthusiastically, and became something of a guest reviewer on the blog. Now she specifically arranges her visit to come at Fringe time, to catch the opening weekend.

And the blog morphed into "Single White Fringe Geek (and Mom)"

So, essentially, Mom is my gimmick. Often, people don't care whether I'm coming or not. They want to make sure Mom is attending.

2004, the blog was not my only tie to the Fringe. A cycle of short scripts I'd written, under the title of "Dandelion Snow" was being produced, at the same time I was helping as a co-producer on a two-part Fringe showcase of short scripts by other writers called "Fast Fringe." There is such a thing as too much multi-tasking.

So in 2005, I was back to spectating full-time with Mom. The other writing that year, for Thirst Theater, was un-Fringe related.

2006, I was writing a new script that went into rehearsal right after the Fringe out at Allegheny College, "But Not For Love."

And last year, the first part of my year was consumed by a workshop of another new script, funded by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, "Love's Prick" - a modern day riff on Shakespeare's romantic comedy "As You Like It." By the time the Fringe arrived in 2007, watching other people's art for a while was a welcome relief (bridge collapse or no bridge collapse)

Now, here we are again.

Something I invented to help me wrap my arms around the Fringe in my first year blogging was a little exercise I like to call...

If You Put A Gun To My Head...

or, if I could only see 10 Fringe shows, what would they be and why?

After all, I can't write about all 150-plus shows in the Festival, much as I often try.

Each year, I clear the slate and choose a different set of ten.

That of course has expanded into a second tier of ten as well (If You Removed That Gun From My Head... ), giving the last couple of years a list of shows 11 to 20.

And with five years of Fringe blogging behind me, and a penchant for many artists to return year after year - as long as the ping pong balls are kind, that means I've got a growing list of things that are worth your time which I'll toss out as options. Newbies and returning favorites.

That should keep me scribbling for a while.

Oh, and contrary to rumor, I do not like everything. Really.

This blog can now also be found on Twin Cities Daily Planet

Monday, May 26, 2008

Writing Group - Playwrights and Actors Wanted

On a completely different kind of recruiting note...

I'm part of a writing group that's been ongoing now for a number of years. And we've gotten to a place where we need some new blood. We also can always use actors who like new plays who would like to come in and help us read. So I thought this might be a place to put the word out.

It's pretty informal. We meet every other Tuesday night, 7pm in one another's homes. There are snacks involved, but nothing elaborate.

We meet to read whatever anyone's working on at the moment. Could be scenes, could be an act, could be an entire draft. We also have the host of the week throw out a writing challenge, just in case people want to sharpen their teeth (or pencils, or keyboards?) on something random, or use it to help jumpstart them past writer's block. We invite actor friends in to help us read (hence the call for actors as well as writers). All are welcome to offer constructive feedback - it's neither supposed to be a lovefest nor a feeding frenzy. We're here to get better, but also to support one another. The idea is to get better collectively, rather than at one another's expense. It's not a place for fragile egos or manufactured personal drama (drama on the page only, please). We've been through those phases and would like to avoid them in the future.

Things are going pretty well with the group, but a number of members are involved in their own major projects right now (everything from freelancing to self-producing to running their own theater companies) and so the ranks of regular attendees have been getting a bit thin. It's always best if we have a regular core of six or seven to keep the material flowing and the feedback varied.

When we last went hunting for new members, we codified some rules of the road we thought were important that could help us communicate who we were to potential joiners. That'd be the following...

Tuesday Group Manifesto

Six Things We Consider Important About The Group and How It Runs

-Tuesday Group will invite actors to attend meetings and read most roles. Matthew will be the point dude for inviting actors, but all members should feel free to invite actors if they want someone specific to read.

-Tuesday Group is and will remain a group of playwrights. While the focus is on writing plays, members may bring any work that can be performed. Long pieces of prose are not appropriate.

-Tuesday Group members will aim to bring work to every meeting they can attend. Group members who are not pursuing individual projects will do a homework exercise, designed by the host of the next meeting. Group members are, however, not to waste any time beating themselves up if they cannot always meet this goal.

-Tuesday Group will hold to the Roundtable guidelines for feedback, by beginning the discussion with positive remarks and moving on to offer constructive, specific criticism.

-Tuesday Group will recruit new members on a mentor system. If you have a candidate for a new group member, after ascertaining the candidate's interest, check in with the group about the person. If the group agrees, bring the new person to a meeting and be willing to serve as their guide.

-Tuesday Group is about supporting each other in our growth as writers. We want to be, and recruit, writers who can learn from each other's work, and who do work that is inspiring.

Discussed and Adopted September 2005
(up for review and revision as needed)

We break for the summer because most of us are involved in the Fringe Festival in one manner or another. We do have one last meeting this Tuesday 5/27 before the break, so if you're reading this prior to that and would be curious to sit in, let me know.

My spam filter's kind of wonky, so it might be a good idea to send to

mail@matthewaeverett.com

and copy to

browder268@yahoo.com

just to be safe.

After the summer break, we start right up again in September, so if you're interested, I can keep you posted on how that calendar shapes up. Just gives us a bit of a breather to recover from the Fringe, but then we're back at it.

Like I said, interested writers and actors alike are welcome to respond.

The idea is to get regular attendees cranking out new work and being willing to take and offer feedback.

Needed - 3 Male Actors for Fringe double bill

So, I just recently put on my Fringe producer hat, taking on the heavy lifting for the Fringe slot for my friend Marc Halsey's Magicword Theater for this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival, as of Friday a week ago.

We'll be doing a double bill of short plays

The Bronze Bitch Flies At Noon, written by me

and

Dog Tag, written by me with my friend Anne Bertram (Theatre Unbound's Managing Director)

William Leaf, who's collaborated with me on a number of projects before as actor or director, is going to be director on the project.

We're looking for 3 male actors to play all the roles in both plays.

In Bronze Bitch, two of the actors need to be college age, or be able to reasonably pass for guys on the eve of their college graduation. Other than that, age doesn't matter much, but that part's key.

Both plays have GLBT content, if that's an issue for anyone.

Also, in Bronze Bitch, the two college guys have to take off their shirts and there's some touching and kissing involved so... you know, be forewarned. It's a romantic comedy, they get romantic as well as funny.

The third character in Bronze Bitch is a security guard passing through at inopportune times.

In the second piece, two of the actors will play estranged lovers, the third will play their dog (the dog speaks English, but only the audience can understand what he's saying)

The two lovers in the first piece may not necessarily also be the lovers in the second. We're looking to get a trio of actors we can mix and match between the two plays.

Synopses...
THE BRONZE BITCH FLIES AT NOON
Jonathan's parents gave him a hundred dollar bill to go get something he wants as a graduation present. What he wants is to lose his virginity before he graduates. And he wants to lose it with David, the frat boy he shares a lab station with in chemistry class. On the night before graduation, alone in the chemistry lab, the young men strike a bargain. Following through may be more complicated than either of them imagined.

DOG TAG
Ed is out walking his dog Percy, when he runs into ex-lover Paul. Percy may prove an effective go-between for a reconciliation, or the two men may still end up going home alone. A play of second chances, some taken, some not.

OUR CURRENT EXTREMELY BRIEF FRINGE PUBLICITY BLURB
"Six condoms. You're an optimist." If a $100 bill can bring a nerd and a frat boy together, can it last longer than the sex? If a dog can talk, can he reunite two estranged lovers?

The first two parts of Bronze Bitch can be viewed on line here...

http://www.matthewaeverett.com/scenes/detail.php?sceneID=18

and here

http://www.matthewaeverett.com/scenes/detail.php?sceneID=61

The first part of Dog Tag is here...

http://www.matthewaeverett.com/scenes/detail.php?sceneID=168

If you want to read the whole script, I can make that happen, just drop me a note. Since my spam filter is selectively wonky, you might want to send a message to both

mail@matthewaeverett.com

and copy to

browder268@yahoo.com

Since we're getting started later than most shows, we wanted to just beat the bushes and see if we could find people who aren't already otherwise engaged and interested in doing Fringe, and these scripts. The director will have the final say, I'm just on a scouting mission. We will likely arrange some kind of audition situation where he can meet with and read people if need be, but we're still conferring on that. If we find people whose work we know and like, that may not be necessary. In any case, we'll be fair to all involved. We want to have as pleasant a process as possible - drama onstage only, not off.

If you want to send resume and headshot and the like electronically, feel free, the emails are there.

Our Fringe slot performs in the Arena space at the Rarig Center

Friday 8/1 at 7pm, Saturday 8/2 at 10pm, Wednesday 8/6 at 10pm, Thursday 8/7 at 5:30pm, Saturday 8/9 at 8:30pm

Thanks to George Bush (I know, I know, weird, huh?) my economic stimulation will be used as a stipend to make sure everyone gets paid, whether the production makes a cent or not. Obviously, we'd like profits to share among the group as well, so we'll work on marketing the heck out of the thing.

But first, we need something to market. Hence the call for actors.

Drop me an email and we'll take it from there.

Thanks.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Fringe Archive - 2003 - Life of a Blogger (and Mom)...

I didn't even know what a blog was when then Executive Director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival Leah Cooper and her trusty web guru Matthew Foster asked if I would do one. The enticement was, of course, to see as many Fringe shows as I wanted to for free, as long as I wrote about them, and the festival. Having been an increasingly addicted Fringe junkie in the early years of the 21st century, this seemed like a dream job.

And then I learned that Mom's annual summer visit was going to coincide with the end of the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival, and I knew Mom loved theater as much as I. Why not introduce her to the Fringe?

And so our unofficial blog team and family Fringing tradition began...

Theater of the Evil Penis vs. Theater of the Happy Vagina

Theater of Me

Fringe Tips 1

Fringe Tips 2

Fringe Tips 3

Fringing With Mom

Opening Night - Oh, The Publicity!

Heard Offstage

Racial and Gender Confusion

Tip The Fringe

Community

The Must Avoid List

The Mad Dash

Best of the Fest - an overview of the highlights of the 32 shows I saw

Top 3 From Mom and Me

Fringe Achive - 2003 - My (very first) pre-Fringe Top 10

As a first time online babbler about all things Fringe, I needed to figure out a way to get my arms around the more than 150 shows that made up the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival. This was such an attempt, and it turned into a bit of a tradition, that grew over time.

If You Put A Gun To My Head...

...or if I was only allowed to see 10 Fringe shows, what would they be, and why?

(and so my pre-Fringe Top 10 was born...)

The full rundown on all that first 10, including...

1. Baseball, Dogs and Motorcycles - Kevin Kling

2. Staggering Toward America - Rip Rekke

3. Voice In Head - The Theatrical Music Company

4. Gilgamesh Iowa - The Ethereal Mutt, Limited

5. The Hobbit - Rhino Productions

6. I Hate This - Bad Epitaph Theater Company

7. Sock Puppet Serenade - Hunter Marionettes

8. Beauty and the Beast - Ballet of the Dolls

9. One Man Hamlet - Theater Inconnu

10. Industrials - Ministry of Cultural Warfare

In addition, I tried out a little series called Friendly Persuasion, in which I talked about other shows who people I knew where participating in, including...

Six Steps - Brent Doyle

Tell Me On A Sunday - Patty Nieman

Buy Me A Mockingbird - Tod Petersen

If You Don't Really Want To Know - Then Don't Ask Me - Kim Hines

Mrs. Cowbeach's Profession - Stuart Holland

3 Way - Filthy Whore Productions

Five Women On A Hill In Spain - Outward Spiral Theatre Company

Cafe Delphi - Nimbus

The Sugardaddy Project - 2 Desperate Chicks

Spring Awakening - Virginia L. Anderson

Marlene Dietrich and Edith Piaf: The Kamikaze and the Chameleon - Kirsten Frantzich and Josette Antomarchi

Fringe Archive - 2003 - 5 Stars - Life-Altering Experience

Productions in the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival that I rated...

5 Stars - Life-Altering Experience

Baseball, Dogs & Motorcycles - Kevin Kling

Beauty and the Beast - Ballet of the Dolls

Exposure - (the group that became) Live Action Set

Gilgamesh, Iowa - The Ethereal Mutt, Limited - I loved this show so much I went back and saw it a total of three times, resulting in posts like the review (previous link) and Bowling For Gilgamesh, and Nighttime in Gilgamesh - Far and away my very favorite of the festival, and one of Mom's, too

Industrials - Ministry of Cultural Warfare

Look Ma, No Pants - The Scrimshaw Brothers

One Man Hamlet - Theater Inconnu

Sock Puppet Serenade - Kurt Hunter Marionettes

Staggering Toward America - Rik Reppe

War Golems - Fifty Foot Penguin

Fringe Archive - 2003 - 4-1/2 Stars - Damn Near Perfect

Productions in the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival that I rated...

4-1/2 Stars - Damn Near Perfect

Book of Names

I Hate This - Bad Epitaph Theater

Fringe Archive - 2003 - 4 Stars - Excellent

Productions in the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival that I rated...

4 Stars - Excellent

The Art of Ruth Draper - Kathleen Douglass

Emily Dickinson: My Letter to the World - Elizabeth Dickinson

The Hobbit - Rhino Productions

The Love Talker - Theatre Unbound

Marlene Dietrich & Edith Paif - The Kamikaze and The Chameleon - Kirsten Frantzich and Josette Antomarchi

Medea - Eyewitness Theatre Company

Oil On Canvas - 15 Head

Selling Blood - Eyewitness Theatre Company

Teechers - Shortened Coffin Productions

Fringe Archive - 2003 - 3-1/2 Stars - Good Job Plus

Productions in the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival that I rated...

3-1/2 Stars - Good Job Plus

James Berry, The Reluctant Hangman - Topsy-Turvy Theater

Fringe Archive - 2003 - 3 Stars - Good Job

Productions in the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival that I rated...

3 Stars - Good Job

Apologetic Killer

Buy Me A Mockingbird - Tod Petersen

Captain and the Dog-Faced Boy - John Middleton

Five Women On A Hill In Spain - Outward Spiral

Six Steps - Illusion Theater

Spring Awakening - Virginia L. Anderson

Tell Me On A Sunday - Patty Nieman

3 Way - Filthy Whore Productions

Voice In Head - The Theatrical Music Company

Wind-up Toys - Threepenny Productions

Fringe Archive - 2003 - 0 Stars to 2-1/2 Stars - Run For It to Not Bad, Still Needs Some Work

Productions in the 2003 Minnesota Fringe Festival that I rated...

0 stars - Run For It

1 Star - Life's Too Short

1-1/2 Stars - Life's Still Too Short

2 Stars - Not Bad, Needs Some Work

2-1/2 Stars - Not Bad, Still Needs Some Work

uh... none...

Phew.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Review - Romeo and Juliet - Four Humors - 4-1/2 stars

“Death is my son-in-law”

Early last week a friend asked me, “What’s the deal with Shakespeare? Why do theater people love Shakespeare? With all the plays, old and new, that are floating around out there, why Shakespeare?”

Only half-kidding, I replied, “Because he’s been dead so long, you can do whatever you want to his plays, and you don’t have to pay him.”

That is, of course, only half of it. The guy wrote, or rewrote, good stories, with meaty characters, and some amazing poetry, some of the best in the English language. Directors want to tackle those stories, designers want to recreate those worlds, and actors want to inhabit those roles and get them on their resumes. I’m just as guilty as anyone of being a Shakespeare junkie sometimes. It’s canon. It’s familiar.

Sometimes too familiar. That’s why early last week, my friend and I sat and watched five theater companies knock the stuffing out of “Romeo and Juliet” for a fundraiser for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Each company took an act and turned it inside out, and the audience lapped it up - a combination of getting the inside jokes and a good old-fashioned burning in effigy. All this, right on the heels of yet another production of “Romeo and Juliet” which 3am Productions staged.

And now, Four Humors.

Much has been made of the concept - “forget that they die at the end, we all know they die at the end.” Honestly, I didn’t get it, until I saw the Four Humors production of “Romeo and Juliet” directed by Jason Ballweber. They mean, “Don’t take it all so damn seriously.” Rather than do what was done earlier in the week, laughing *at* Romeo and Juliet, Four Humors is doing the harder thing, laughing *with* them. Four Humors is striking at the heart of why most productions of the play “Romeo and Juliet” drive me crazy, and it was something I wasn’t entirely clear on until now. Though I love the poetry of the script, the characters and the story drove me nuts because everyone seemed like a gibbering moron to me. Siskel and Ebert used to describe “Romeo and Juliet” as the quintessential “idiot plot” - the kind of plot where the whole thing would fall apart like a house of cards if everyone involved wasn’t a complete and utter idiot. It’s classic “Plot Convenience Playhouse,” full of simple mistakes and stunningly boneheaded moves. But the reason most productions of “Romeo and Juliet” don’t work - actors are playing the poetry, rather than just being the characters. Theaters are staging a sweeping, epic tragedy - playing the end at the beginning. It’s only a tragedy if we first get to see what’s being lost - something sweet and funny and beautiful. Someone lifting up their boot to show they’ve crushed a butterfly isn’t half as affecting as having seen the butterfly take flight before its untimely end. Four Humors’ production of “Romeo and Juliet” wisely allows the lovers to take flight before the boot comes down. Heartache is only heartache because something so good is ripped away from you.

The other smart thing Four Humors does is invite the audience in on the action. No, not the dreaded audience participation. More like audience engagement. Lines are not just directed between the characters. Often the actors turn to the audience and address them. Occasionally, the actors move into the seats, or even try to hide in the crowd. We are all the citizens of fair Verona. It’s not “Watch us do ‘Romeo and Juliet’” but rather “Join us in this story we’re telling.” The only place the production stumbles for me is in the second half, when the story retreats from the audience in this regard. Maybe the production feels it has the audience fully reeled in already, or maybe it doesn’t want to throw the unraveling fortunes of the characters in the spectators’ face. Either way, I missed that connection so present in the early going.

This feeling of community in the first half is reinforced by the Irish folky style of the band. Brant Miller, one of the Four Humors founders, jams with some singularly good musicians (one wasn’t present the night I saw it so I’ll name them all for safety’s sake - Scott Lund, Andrew Lynch, and Andy Spansler). Lively, loud, boisterous, often incomprehensible to my non-Irish ears, I didn’t mind. They were a hell of a lot of fun. They acted as de facto ushers, guiding the crowd from the lobby into the theater at the start and after intermission, and kept the spirit of the parties of the play alive both on and offstage. (Side note - More unlikely than three doses of “Romeo and Juliet” in less than a month, the use of Snoop Dogg’s song “Gin and Juice” in two productions running across town from one another at the same time. See Walking Shadows’ “The American Pilot.” No, seriously, see that show, too.)

Another big plus, no sword fights. Most of the scrapping onstage is physical in nature, with the occasional dagger thrown in for deadly measure. The opening clash of Montague and Capulet servants, friends and relatives is hilariously hurried off, out into the lobby where the audience just gets to hear metal clanking against metal beyond the curtain while the cast ohs and ahs about it. The refreshing lack of fight choreography - capital F, capital C - is an enormous relief.

Set? No worries, designer Sam Johns ingeniously paints suburban house silhouettes in bright childish colors on plastic sheeting and then hoists them into the air on strings at either end of the playing space - one side Capulet, one side Montague. Every now and again, roll on a screen door frame, or lower a flower box from the rafters for Friar Laurence. At the end, the houses themselves are lowered, falling into misshapen blobs and making a suitably creepy graveyard setting. Great, scrappy solution to multiple locations without getting bogged down in scene change hell.

So, as it should, stripped of all the usual distractions, it all comes down to the words and performances. Any “Romeo and Juliet” rises and falls on its title characters, and Four Humors has a great pair of actors. Jason Bohon as Romeo and Elise Langer as Juliet are just... well, real people. You believe they’re feeling the things they’re talking about. There is no better example than the balcony scene (I know, the dreaded balcony scene). Rather than reverently caressing each and every syllable of the text, Langer and Bohon say the words the way two people giddy with love would. The words tumble out of their mouths. The competing trains of thought ricochet back and forth, and their conversation - both talking to themselves and each other - reflects this dizzying swirl of emotion. They respect us enough to figure we can keep up and parse out the meaning, since they so clearly know it, rather than spoon-feeding us each phrase and idea. Bohon’s Romeo goes from being a guy drunk on the drama of unrequited love to actually reveling in the real thing when Langer’s Juliet returns his affection. They’re not just cute (in a good way) with each other, they’re a lot of fun to watch engaging the other actors in the ensemble as well.

If there’s another big “oh no, here it comes” moment in “Romeo and Juliet,” it’s that friggin’ “Queen Mab” speech. Here again, the production pulls it off by engaging the audience rather than just showing off for it. In fact, Colin Waitt’s Mercutio, normally a character that grabs much of act one and walks off with it, I actually found myself wanting more, not less, of. Always a good thing.

Speaking of scene stealers, Kimberly Richardson and her exaggerated costume of sagging breasts as the Nurse adds another colorful character to her expanding rogues gallery of loons.

Women abound in this “Romeo and Juliet.” There’s a nice streak of cross-gender casting going on - from larger key roles like the hot-headed Tybalt (Katie Jorgenson) and wingman (er, wing person) Benvolio (Sara Richardson), to supporting roles like the Apothecary (Kate Dorrough), Assistant to the Prince (Haley Honeman), and the theater world’s worst message courier Friar John (Maria Effertz).

After three years of large ensemble productions, the Four Humors crew has a pretty deep bench as far as the acting company is concerned. In addition to strong first-time Humorists like Dan Peltzman as Friar Laurence, Jeff Broitman as Lord Capulet, Jean Salo as Lady Capulet, Ryan Lear as Paris, Craig Anderson as Lord Montague, and Mark Rehani as the Nurse’s right hand Peter, this production boasts repeat Four Humors performers in supporting roles like Lady Montague (Rachel Petrie), the Prince (Jim McDoniel), and no less than three of the Artistic Directors of the company (Brant Miller, Nick Ryan, and Matt Spring) joining Mike Rylander as dueling servants of the warring houses of Capulet and Montague. It’s fun to go to a production like this and see that every role, regardless of size, has a solid performer taking it on and giving it real dimension.

Honestly, before I went, much as I admire Four Humors, I was afraid this was going to be one “Romeo and Juliet” too many for me. Now, I’m exceedingly glad I went anyway. It was so good, it’s probably the last “Romeo and Juliet” I’ll ever need to see (that is, until some other talented group of artists proves me wrong. After Four Humors’ “Romeo and Juliet,” for a change, I’m actually looking forward to that.)

Very Highly Recommended.

Four Humors’ production of “Romeo and Juliet” has one week of performances left at Bedlam Theater (1501 South 6th Street on the West Bank in Minneapolis). There’s a special Monday night Pay What You Can performance on 5/12 at 8pm. Then they wrap up the run with four weekend performances - Thursday and Friday at 8pm, 5/15 and 5/16, and 2pm and 8pm performances to close things off on Saturday 5/17. Tickets are $15, or $10 for students, seniors and Fringe button holders. For reservations and further information (and a video trailer) visit www.fourhumorstheater.com or www.bedlamtheatre.org

Friday, May 09, 2008

Review - Long Day's Journey Into Night - TRP - 5 stars

“In a real home, no one is ever lonely.”

You think you know a play, and then you see a really good production of it and realize that you didn’t know the play as well as you thought you did. That pleasant surprise was at the center of my experience watching Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” at the Theatre In The Round Players.

Because O’Neill is one of the fathers of modern American drama, and a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, it’s tempting to think that people just tackle “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” for the same reason people climb a mountain, because it’s there. But there’s a reason it’s so seductive. It’s still a damn fine piece of theater over fifty years after it was originally written. Director Lynn Musgrave and her cast reminded me just how fine.

First up, I’d forgotten how funny the thing was. One doesn’t think of O’Neill as having much of a sense of humor. It’s been so long since I’d read the play or seen a production of it that I’d completely forgotten about the character of the family maid, Cathleen (the only one of several discussed servants we ever get to see). Cathleen provides very welcome comic relief throughout, and Rachel Finch takes full advantage of her limited stage time, making quite an amusing impression. You’d be tempted to call her a scene-stealer, but the other four characters and actors on display are too formidable to permit such theft.

I’d also forgotten that it’s not a tragedy about a family that hates each other. It’s a tragedy because they love each other, and still can’t save each other. Mother and wife Mary Tyrone (Maggie Bearmon Pistner) is spiraling back down into the morphine addiction her husband and grown sons hoped she’d beaten. But there’s a time in the opening act when we see the woman she once was, and is struggling to hang onto, however tenuously. Pistner helps the audience see the playful, if nervous, woman she longs to be – the place in the family structure she holds, and the damage it does to the family when she unravels. It is because we get to see how deeply the men in Mary’s life love her that we realize how painful it is to watch the drugs take her slowly away from them.

Mary’s woes are tied to the fate of her youngest son Edmund (Wade A. Vaughan). Edmund’s birth was the catalyst for Mary’s addiction – a doctor ill-advisedly prescribed morphine for her after a difficult pregnancy. Now a young man, Edmund’s health is failing, and watching her child suffer is more than Mary can bear. Like his mother, Edmund pretends that everything is fine. But the impending prognosis from the doctor hangs over this long day for the Tyrones. Their worst fear whispered amongst themselves, consumption, is confirmed. (I had to look it up – consumption is tuberculosis. Edmund had TB in 1912, over 30 years before any cure had come along. The best you could do was send someone to a sanitorium for rest and hope their health improved. Sometimes it did. Often, it didn’t.) Vaughan plays the contradictions in Edmund well. He’s not a weakling. His health just won’t support the life to which he’d become accustomed. He’s as addicted to adventure as his mother is to drugs. He’s closest to Mary, and tries mightily to reach her before she’s too far gone.

The family patriarch James Tyrone (Rob Frankel) has his own, more socially accepted, addictions. He’s obsessed with status, and stability. Unfortunately, the way he’s chosen to pursue them, he’s liable to end up with neither. He abandoned a possible career of note as a Shakespearean actor for the easier road of landing a key role and playing it over and over again, year after year. The crowd-pleaser keeps his family fed, and allows him to indulge in land speculation, but there’s a hint of sadness at the other acting life he left behind. And the obsession with buying land, not always wisely, has shoved other things like a real family homestead, and reliable health care, aside. These off-kilter priorities have the whole family paying the price. Frankel plays Tyrone as a believable combination of defensiveness and contrition. He understands his responsibility for some of the mess they’re in, but he also refuses to shoulder the whole load. Good intentions on his part, and the need for other family members to have personal responsibility for themselves, is the combination Tyrone hopes in vain will balance the scales and reverse their declining fortunes.

With less stage time than the other Tyrones, but no less impressive, Tom Sonnek brings a depth I’ve rarely seen to the role of Jamie. Older brother and bad influence for Edmund, a disappointment and embarrassment to his parents, Jamie could come off as the sort of annoying young man who never bothered to grow up. But in Sonnek’s hands, Jamie is something more. Just like any of the other Tyrones, even when he’s offstage, you feel his presence in the family dynamic, and how it affects the way the others interact. Here, Jamie is fully aware of his own faults, and owns up to them, which is why he’s more than willing to point out his father’s. Jamie never got out from under his father’s shadow, and family safety net means he never has to take full responsibility for his own life. But the reason Sonnek’s Jamie fights so vigorously with his father is because he loves the family, and wants them all to find a way to save it. Often Sonnek is most powerful when he doesn’t have any lines at all. He never draws focus away from the central player in any scene, but if you catch him out of the corner of your eye, the play of emotions across his face, particularly when he’s watching someone he loves in pain, is heartbreaking. Like those around him with more lines, Sonnek creates a full human being that leaves an indelible mark.

Director Musgrave (with dramaturgical assistance from cast member Pistner, stage manager Harold Edwards and costume designer Dwight Larsen) has created a lean and effective version of the script. Even with an hour shaved off the potential running time, the production still clocks in at three and a half hours, with two intermissions for you to re-caffeinate (I did). But the length of time we spend with the Tyron family feels right – not rushed, but also not overly long. There is no repetition here. Even when the family revisits the same grievances they have with one another, the ground has shifted beneath them in the intervening time. The clashes have more depth, more urgency, both for them and for the audience, for we’ve gotten to know the characters, and their patterns, better. You never feel like anyone’s marking time, or repeating themselves. Even the quiet moments are charged because no one ever forgets what’s at stake – the family’s survival.

Though the production is primarily a vehicle for words and performance, a special nod must be made to the lighting design by A. Camille Holthaus. Unassuming much of the time, the lighting delivers when it really counts. Light and darkness become characters themselves as the day wears on and the family pulls in different directions. The moments just before the end of each act are quite lovely – amber light catching a character in solitary reflection – a snapshot of what’s gone before and what’s to come.

If you’ve never spent that long day with the Tyrones, Theater In The Round Players’ production is a first-rate introduction. If it’s been a while since you’ve visited them, this is a perfect excuse to get reacquainted.

Very Highly Recommended.

Due to an illness in the cast, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” had to push back their opening a week, so there’s a shorter run than the usual for Theater In The Round Players. “Long Day’s Journey…” only has two more weekends, this one and next, closing on May 18, 2008. Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 2pm. Theater In The Round is located at 245 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis. Tickets are $20 (discounts are available for students and seniors on Fridays and Sundays). For reservations, call 612-333-3010. For further information, visit www.theatreintheround.org

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Review - The American Pilot - Walking Shadow - 4 stars

“He brings in money, this one. Almost as good as having a cow.”

Worst. Deus Ex Machina. Ever.

I’ve been rolling Walking Shadow’s production of “The American Pilot” around in my head for days now. That’s a good thing.

I hate the last thirty seconds of the production. But I’m supposed to.

Do I agree with the strategy of collectively slapping the audience across the face and then shoving them out the door? Not entirely.

“The American Pilot” by Scottish playwright David Greig is a really fine play, until it ends. Given all that had gone before, and the solid production Walking Shadow gives this play, I expected more. At the end. Up until then, I haven’t a quarrel with it. Grieg’s play, as directed by Amy Rummenie, is full of engaging characters, both likeable and unlikable, and brimming with colorful dialogue, by turns comic and poetic.

It’s not as if the ending comes as an enormous surprise. When a play begins with an injured Air Force officer being held captive in a barn somewhere in the hinterlands of a vaguely eastern European country, an audience member would be correct in assuming, “Well, this is all going to end in tears.”

The genius of the play, and this production, is for whom you end up shedding those tears. One would naturally assume that all our sympathies would be with the downed pilot, injured and far from home. He’s one of us. As portrayed by Joseph Bombard, the Pilot is a genial sort. He’s aware of the danger of his situation, particularly since he doesn’t speak the language of the locals and thus finds it very difficult to communicate. But it doesn’t keep him from enjoying the music on his iPod, or relishing and being thankful for the food which is brought to him. He’s not above asking for help, and he’s not above using threats. But you can tell most of his instincts are basically benign. He doesn’t mean anyone any harm, he just wants to go home.

But the pilot isn’t the main character here. He’s a catalyst through which the audience comes to know a small cross-section of the community in which he finds himself an unwilling and unwelcome guest. The Farmer (Peter Ooley), his practical wife Sarah (Amanda Wisner), and headstrong daughter Evie (Liana Simonds) are all drawn to the pilot. Ooley’s Farmer is the most conflicted of the three. Mostly he just wants the pilot off of his land and out of his life. He knows the presence of the pilot will bring them nothing but unwanted attention. Still, he can’t help wanting to protect the foreigner. Wisner’s depiction of the farmer’s wife is the most grounded of the characters. She loves her family and her life, and looks on dreams of something bigger and better as dangerous distractions. Simonds gives Evie an exuberance and sense of importance that her later actions bear out. Evie turns into a possible solution that no one was expecting.

Looking on the American pilot as more of a commodity or bargaining chip are the Trader (Sam Landman), the Captain (Robert Gardner), and his Translator (Matthew Vire).

The Trader knows people in high and low places and is always working those connections to make the maximum profit from a situation. The American pilot presents a host of opportunities. Even though Landman’s performance makes it clear you can’t trust the guy, you also can’t help liking him. He’s not all bad. Violence isn’t his preferred method of winning the game, though he’s not above using it.

The Captain is the leader of a local rebel group engaging the current government in civil war. He and his translator are the enforcers and de facto rulers of the territory, as far as the local inhabitants are concerned. People have good reason to fear the Captain, and Gardner’s combination of charm and menace in the role are well-balanced. This is a man who is weary of fighting, or even being in charge, and yet he sees no other way.

Vire’s translator has more of a young man’s fire and cynicism. When an American missile years ago landed on a wedding celebration, the Captain’s daughter was killed – a young woman who meant a great deal to the Captain and his translator alike. A young woman who also bears more than a passing resemblance to Evie.

The trick here is an oldie but a goodie. Everyone speaks English, fully understood by the audience, but the locals can’t understand the pilot, and he can’t understand them. What this does is not only spare us outrageous accents or subtitles, it also cannily allows the audience to get to know and like these characters in a way that a language barrier wouldn’t have allowed. These people living in a foreign land are just like us, the play is saying. The trick works. Watching this group of people and their predicament, as they struggle to figure out what the best thing to do is for all involved, you can’t help but be drawn in – and laugh, and be moved.

So when three soldiers arrive (J.F. Dauer, Brian Hesser, and Mark Benzel), brace yourself.

This play isn’t a simple indictment of the military or the use of force. The pilot isn’t simply a person. He’s the personification of a country, our country. The way we see our country, the way others see it, it’s all focused on this one man. But here’s where Grieg’s play isn’t telling us anything we don’t already know. America the beautiful, the clumsy, the giant, the well-meaning, the rash. We get it. I’d be willing to wager that the vast majority of people who step inside a theater to see a play like “The American Pilot” will have no trouble embracing its characters or its politics. If you’re preaching to the choir, then preach, for God’s sake, and everybody else’s. If you have our hearts, our full attention and our sympathy, do something with it. The play tantalizingly dangles several possible ways out of the mess. I’m not arguing for a happy ending. I’m not arguing for a play that does my thinking for me. I’m arguing for a play that doesn’t just reiterate an unpleasant truth for me, but instead goes one step further. Because a play that just leaves me in despair isn’t catalyzing the change I think it wants to see in the world. This production is made by people who are capable of delivering the message. This playwright is capable of stating the message. He just didn’t.

The final destination may not be what I’d hoped for, but the journey getting there, right down to that bitter end, is a really enjoyable ride. Though the ending breaks my heart and leaves me more than a little angry, the production is still…

Highly Recommended.

Walking Shadow Theatre Company’s production of “The American Pilot” performs through May 24, 2008 at the Theatre Garage (711 West Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, at the intersection of Lyndale and Franklin Avenues). Performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30pm, Sundays at 3pm, with a special pay what you can night on Monday, May 12th at 7:30pm. Reservations and more information can be found at www.walkingshadowcompany.org, or by calling 612-375-0300.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Review – BFA 2008 – Final Productions - 4-1/2 stars (4 of 4)

“I wish I took more pictures.”

SNAPSHOTS

This year’s collection of completely random scene work had a great hook, something which also gave the performance its own peculiar structure and place in the larger framework of these final projects. The actors were asked to choose some text – be it song, poem, letter, speech or scene – which they wanted to serve as a snapshot of their work as part of the larger portrait or performance “yearbook” of the class as a whole. In many cases, it was a way to offer up a completely different side of their performing chops that weren’t on display in their roles in the three new plays, and they all took full advantage of it.

Nicole Rodenburg, a comic neurotic mess of a character in "The End," here takes on the regal bearing of Hermione in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale,” on trial for her life for adultery and treason, facing down the man she loves who no longer trusts her. Kelsey Olson, a mousy character in pursuit of a famous childhood friend gone missing in “When I Was A Ghost,” walked out and blew the roof off the place with an aria from Handel’s opera “Rinaldo.”

Joseph Newton and Allison Snow, such a cute awkward couple in “Be Here Now,” become a lecherous fraud and the woman trying to lure him into showing his true colors in a scene from Moliere’s “Tartuffe.” Rolando Martinez, the lovelorn empathic superhero in “The End,” takes on the role of murderous Richard III, in his early days of villainy as the deformed Richard of Gloucester in Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, part 3.”

A trio who all played more reserved characters in “When I Was A Ghost” all get to open up in a big way – Christine Weber belts out the song “Meadowlark” from “The Baker’s Wife;” Daniel Jiminez threads together three of Shakespeare’s sonnets into an ode to the pleasures and pitfalls of love; and Sam Bardwell gets to rip into a rousing speech to the troops before battle from “Henry V.”

Two of the sister characters from “Be Here Now” also get to tackle larger than life roles from the Bard – Alia Attallah slips into the skin of Cleopatra (of “Antony and…” fame), and Kate Durand shows us the unraveling mind of Lady Macbeth. Duncan Frost, a damaged soldier who knows the score in “Be Here Now,” breathes life into poor clueless Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” – a sweet guy who doesn’t know his own strength, for which everyone else around him always seems to pay the price.

Ladies who either did or didn’t get a turn to sing in their new play roles got to switch places. Whitney Hudson sets aside her killer singing voice, so fully on display in “When I Was A Ghost,” to interpret two letters of love – one from Beethoven to an unknown paramour, the other from an Elvis fan to her well-known beloved. On the other side, Ashley Marie Peterson, a reserved, non-singing superhero in “The End,” got to open up in song about her bewildering but nonetheless intense love for “Taylor, the Latte Boy.” And Courtney Roche, agent to the music stars in “…Ghost,” here gets to sing a little song herself about the comedic perils of dating men from “Baltimore.” And yet another person with a musical number in “…Ghost,” Grant Heuke, this time got to go the Arthur Miller drama route, as a damaged soldier from a different era, Chris Keller from “All My Sons.”

A couple of performances even got me interested in plays that hadn’t been on my radar. Hugh Kennedy, who I liked very much as Patrick the castoff fiancé and sustainable architecture geek in “Be Here Now,” took on the title role of the Shakespeare’s beleaguered “Richard II,” looking on very hard times indeed, and losing his faith in his hopes to prevail – all of which got me very curious about the rest of that script. And Grant Chapman, no longer in superhero drag from “The End,” was so heartbreaking in the grip of unrequited love as Housman in “The Invention of Love,” I was actually compelled to go out and buy myself a copy of Tom Stoppard’s script. I don’t remember the last time that happened.

Before a rousing chorus of the bittersweet anthem “(I Wish I Could Go) Back To College” from the naughty puppet musical “Avenue Q” by the whole gang, Christopher Peltier and Elizabeth Stahlman reminded me again how much I love David Hare’s play “Racing Demon.” The collision of devotion to a religious calling and the needs of the heart and the flesh is expertly examined in a scene of a man and a woman headed toward some kind of break – a breakthrough, a breakdown, a break-up. Great stuff, and again, a very different sort of couple than the college kids on the verge of graduation, and perhaps a break-up of their own, which Peltier and Stahlman played in “The End.”

The other thing I really was drawn to, apart from the sense of cohesiveness about the whole affair, was the support that all the members of the ensemble lent to each other’s scenes on a regular basis. Rather than let Lady Macbeth or Lenny or Richard III or Chris Keller or Cleopatra or Housman or Hermione or Richard II wander about by themselves, pretending to talk to or be observed by people the audience couldn’t see, cobbling together a monologue out of something that was meant to be a scene with several characters, everyone pitched in and fleshed out those smaller roles around the edges. The person being spotlighted wasn’t alone. They had context. They had partners. If a person needed a hand, that hand was there. One gets the sense that all these actors really enjoy working together, and will miss being a part of a regular ensemble. Just another thing that made “Snapshots” a fitting send-off, and a great companion piece to the three new plays.

Highly Recommended

“Snapshots” plays only one more time, on Saturday night, April 26,
2008 at 7:30pm. Tickets are free, but you should call for a reservation at the Guthrie box office - 612-377-2224. Performance is in the Dowling Studio on the 9th floor of the new Guthrie theater complex at 818 South 2nd Street in Minneapolis.

Review – BFA 2008 – Final Productions - 4-1/2 stars (3 of 4)

“I’ll be your tree. You can be my bush.”
“Watch your mouth.”

WHEN I WAS A GHOST

Of the three new plays being performed in repertory, “When I Was A Ghost” is the weakest as a script. The performances are all still really solid, so for that reason it’s still worth seeing. The script itself is an interesting experiment in structure that allows for a lot of intriguing breakout moments for each of the actors involved. But all the pieces, written by Deborah Stein in collaboration with the ensemble, and abetted by director Lear Debessonet and dramaturgs Lauren Ignaut and Carla Steen, don’t ultimately add up to a satisfying whole.

The conceit is that there are six strangers, all stranded in an airport lounge in Iceland, each connected in some way to a singer who has mysteriously disappeared. The play returns a number of times to the opening sequence of the people, waiting in their own isolation. Each time it returns, the audience has learned a little more in the intervening time about one or more of the characters, and can look at them with new eyes. Other scenes are seen from more than one angle, through a different character’s perspective each time, each time with a different impact.

Abby Banaby (Whitney Hudson, in possession of a rafter-shaking set of pipes) is all too-willing to put her music career in the hands of opportunistic agent Sam Sames (Courtney Roche), and ditch her reluctant singing partner Davis Truck (Daniel Jimenez) in the process. Just as quickly as Abby enjoys her rise to fame and its perks, she flames out and flakes out, and vanishes. A childhood friend Dash (Kelsey Olson) embarks on a journey to seek Abby out, wherever she may be. A blue-collar worker Dotie (Sam Bardwell) is inspired by Abby’s voice to try and push his own young daughter into the spotlight as a way of trying to improve the family’s fortunes. A devoted fan Lou (Grant Heuke) channels his idol’s talent in a big musical number. Meanwhile the airline ticket agent Dasha (Christine Weber) harbors either secrets or delusions about her own past as everything from figure skater to secret agent.

There’s a great moment at the beginning when ordinary sounds – a computer keyboard, a phone, someone eating yogurt, another person tapping absently on a guitar case – all blend into a rhythmic force that drives the play into its world of music. The play could have used more smooth transitions like that. Things like the James Bond and VH-1 Behind The Music parodies and the lonely fan’s big musical number were fun, but as seeming non sequiturs they didn’t always add to the audience’s understanding of who these people were, or why they cared, or why should we. There are the bones of an interesting idea lurking in “When I Was A Ghost.” It just doesn’t seem fully formed yet. Still, it’s…

Recommended

“When I Was A Ghost” has only three more performances before it closes this weekend - Thursday, April 24 at 7:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday, April 26 and 27 at 1pm (but I believe Sunday’s performance may already be sold out). The plays are paired up in different combinations on Thursday through Saturday, and all three play on Sunday. Tickets are $10, or $7 for students and seniors. Reservations and more information at www.guthrietheater.com or by calling 612-377-2224. Performances are in the Dowling Studio on the 9th floor of the new Guthrie theater complex at 818 South 2nd Street in Minneapolis.

Review – BFA 2008 – Final Productions - 4-1/2 stars (2 of 4)

“This isn’t the last time we’re all going to see each other. Right?”

THE END

A group of college friends gather one last time on the eve of graduation to participate in a shared ritual. The fantasy series of books they all grew up reading has just published its final volume. So, per the tradition that has bonded them through their college years, they dress up as their favorite character, wait in line all night to get a copy of the book, and then trek to a family cabin to hole up and read it to one another. The problem is, the book’s author has warned the public that one of the characters will meet with tragedy. None of the friends is prepared to witness the death of their superhero alter ego. The prospect of fictional death fills many of them with foreboding about their own fates.

Playwright Sheri Wilner takes what could have been either maudlin or melodramatic, or just a Harry Potter rip-off, and instead gives us “The End.” “The End” is a nice balance of reality and fantasy. It isn’t overly sentimental nor is it all gloom and doom. Director Jackson Gay and the ensemble of actors get the tone just right. Something momentous is about to happen to all these people, but it’s not the end of the world. The end of “a” world perhaps. But life will continue. By the end, the audience gets a clear picture of all of these characters individually, and as a group. They definitely have the skills needed to face life, with or without each other. Something will be lost, but the world of possibilities before them isn’t so scary. Of course they have to face the loss, and the fear, to get to that place. And it’s a lot of fun to watch them grapple with it, on the page and off.

I sort of wish the program had everyone’s superhero names as well because they were a lot of fun, and I neglected to jot them down. Wilner’s book within a play is a theatrical device that she uses very well. This is augmented by the fact that each of the ensemble clue the audience in on their particular superhero’s backstory as each of them writes to the author of the book to make the case for their alter ego’s survival. These individual spotlight meditations, which the play drops in and out of at decidedly comic moments, also reveal a great deal about the character of the college students themselves, and their fears about the future. As each person unfolds before us, the group dynamic the play returns to becomes richer and fuller. It’s a deceptively simple structure, and could have been over or underdone. But they all got it just right.

Franklin (Grant Chapman), a dancer in female superhero drag, lives boldly, like his alter ego, a young woman who can control the elements of nature. He refuses to let anyone deter him from his dreams, including his parents. Because of this he hounds his friend Maddy (Ashley Marie Peterson), since she gave up studying dance to focus on medicine. Maddy is coming to grips with the fact that she’s just not talented enough, and trying to find something else she cares about. She doesn’t appreciate being accused of selling out, or abandoning her dream. Edie (Nicole Rodenburg) is a bundle of nerves about change approaching on all fronts way too fast for her liking. Felix (Rolando Martinez) secretly hates the damn books and wishes it all were over, except for the fact that this bizarre book group helps him stay close to someone he cares deeply about – someone who is dating someone else, and has no clue about the depth of his real feelings. The irony of the fact that his superhero is empathic and can read minds isn’t lost on poor Felix. Maria (Elizabeth Stahlmann) is worried over impending surgery, due to be performed right after graduation. The surgery can insure her health, but may cost her the one thing she values most, her singing voice. Maria’s boyfriend Jack (Christopher Peltier) wishes he could stop time like his superhero doppelganger – “one foot out the door in the real world, one foot still in the dorm room, in shoes I didn’t have to pay for.” He worries that his current level of popularity can’t last, that he’ll be easily forgotten, that he won’t be enough of a man for his girlfriend, whose life and possibilities seem so much larger than his own. So he brings the beer. “They always miss the person who brings the beer.”

“The End” could have been just a story about a bunch of privileged white kids and wannabe artists who don’t know how good they have it. If it had been, it would have worked my last nerve. But it turns out these nearly college graduates know exactly how good they have it. They know how tenuous it all is. The fact that they do appreciate it, that they don’t take it for granted, is one of the play’s main charms. Their biggest fear isn’t selfish. Their biggest fear is that they’ll lose each other. They know this fear is very likely to be realized. They wonder what they’ll do without the emotional safety net that each of them provided for and received from the others. For anyone who’s lost a friend to distance or time or neglect, the moment these characters are grappling with is extremely poignant, even if they are grappling with it in capes and spandex. This, of course, is the other main charm of the play – the fact that it refuses to take itself too seriously. But it always laughs with, never at, its characters.

The performances are all deeply felt, and completely disarming. You can’t help liking these characters, and these actors. To use the word adorable in describing this play sounds dismissive, but it’s meant as a compliment. You just want to take the whole production and give it a hug. Then, of course, you sit down, and discover the production has placed a whoopee cushion on your seat. Best not to take anything, including your role as an audience member, too seriously.

Very Highly Recommended

“The End” has only three more performances before it closes this weekend - Friday, April 25 at 7:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday, April
26 and 27 at 1pm (but I believe Sunday’s performance may already be sold out). The plays are paired up in different combinations on Thursday through Saturday, and all three play on Sunday. Tickets are $10, or $7 for students and seniors. Reservations and more information at www.guthrietheater.com or by calling 612-377-2224. Performances are in the Dowling Studio on the 9th floor of the new Guthrie theater complex at 818 South 2nd Street in Minneapolis.

Review – BFA 2008 – Final Productions - 4-1/2 stars (1 of 4)

(Every now and again I lift my moratorium on writing about shows at the Guthrie – because, honestly, they don’t need any help from me. The reasons for lifting it vary, but most often it’s because I think there’s a production of real merit going on that, for whatever reason, folks may be overlooking. And while there’s a big spectacle production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” going on on the thrust stage, and a great co-production with Penumbra Theatre on the proscenium of August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” [more on that last one later], there’s also a series of new plays going on upstairs in the Dowling Studio that are closing this weekend, and I wanted to give them a nudge, because two of them are quite good indeed, and deserve bigger crowds.)

“Where are you? What time is it?”

BE HERE NOW

Tweaking Chekhov is dangerous business. Not long ago, we just had an entire month of the Russian playwright in a variety of permutations at the Bryant Lake Bowl under the banner of a Twin Cities Chekhov Festival to bear that out. For those who love Chekhov, you will be measured under the looming shadow of the great master. For those who hate Chekhov, they wish you’d all stop whining and get over it. But I love both Chekhov and Carson Kreitzer’s work as a playwright, so I had high hopes for her modern day riff on “Three Sisters” entitled “Be Here Now.” I wasn’t disappointed.

Yes, there are three sisters – Liv (Kate Durand), Shel (Alia Attallah), and Izzy (Allison Snow). Yes, they once lived in the big city, and now live somewhere not so big. Yes, they long for travel, and long for change. Yes, there are soldiers involved, though this one – Jim (Duncan Frost) - is shipping off to Iraq. Yes, there is unrequited love, and infidelity (though, refreshingly, it is emotional rather than sexual, at least at first).

But here’s the big difference. These are women of the 21st century. They have options, and they take them. They have choices, and they make them. Izzy wants to sate her desire for far-off places. So she pawns her late mother’s necklace, given to her for her 18th birthday, and hops a plane to New Zealand. Shel is bored by her fiancé Patrick (Hugh Kennedy), so she strikes up conversation, and extended email correspondence, with soldier Jim. Liv is tired of being the surrogate parent for her younger sisters in the aftermath of their parents’ death many years before. She’s tired of living in the family home as if it’s a museum and not really hers. So she puts her own needs first and ends up doing a lot more than just redecorating.

“Be Here Now” is also just as much about the men, even if it is always somehow in relation to these three women. Patrick isn’t without his charms and his passions, something Liv is quick to notice when Shel casts him aside. The war changes Jim – and the man who comes home promises a very different life, and challenges, for Shel. Izzy learns a lot about just taking a breath and appreciating where you are, as well as where you’re headed, from a zen surfer dude named Steve – who bears a striking resemblance to the lovelorn skateboard boy Zeke who Izzy left behind (not surprising, since both are played by Joseph Newton). Relationships get tangled and untangled. Family gets expanded and redefined. So does home.

Benjamin McGovern’s direction keeps things flowing smoothly despite multiple plot lines, locations and time shifts. The actors are all in tune with each other and their characters and are a joy to watch in action. The set design of rolling flats and highly mobile furniture by Randy Farris is fluid and multifaceted, and in its own way, a seventh actor in the production. The liberal use of music throughout, as part of Montana Johnson’s sound design, is a great reinforcer of mood and tempo. Craig Gottschalk’s lighting design is full of vibrant color and shadow, and gorgeous. Cana Potter’s costumes strike just the right note of individuality for each character, and evolve as they do. Also, a nod must be given to stage manager Adam Ehret and assistants Caitlin Milligan Sheaffer and Stacy Davis Spensley, for making sure all these balls stay in the air so effortlessly.

“Be Here Now” is so full of beautiful moments – solo, duo, and ensemble; spoken and unspoken – it’s a wonder that they’re all packed into a single act. It’s a lovely script, lovingly executed. It’s a great piece of theater.

Very Highly Recommended

“Be Here Now” has only three more performances before it closes this weekend - Thursday and Friday, April 24 and 25 at 7:30pm, and Sunday, April 27 at 1pm (but I believe Sunday’s performance may already be sold out). The plays are paired up in different combinations on Thursday through Saturday, and all three play on Sunday. Tickets are $10, or $7 for students and seniors (a steal, really, at twice that). Reservations and more information at www.guthrietheater.com or by calling 612-377-2224. Performances are in the Dowling Studio on the 9th floor of the new Guthrie theater complex at 818 South 2nd Street in Minneapolis.

Seriously, don’t miss this one.