The Cemetery Club: no fooling around at CTD

+++EXTENDED THROUGH SUNDAY MAY 17TH+++

There’s nothing funereal about Ivan Menchell’s The Cemetery Club, now on stage at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas–nothing slouchy about it, either. Director Susan Sargeant has a real talent for teasing out comic moments from deep within dramatic scenes and illuminating humorous elements within revelation of universal truth, with genuine flair. She fills a panoramic palette with Menchell’s two act script about three elderly but spirited Jewish widows, girlfriends, living in Queens, who find their lives defined by routine visits to their deceased husbands’ graves and strive to search for more out of life.

Doting Dowagers & Willing Object of Affection

Morbid? Not at all. Vivid, energized script meets its match with versatile, confident director and five grounded, diverse, professional performers for an evening of superbly delivered one-liners, amusing comic bickering, a little schmaltz, some hubba-hubba, a whole lotta love….

Menchell, a Yale School of Drama grad and recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship for playwriting, premiered the play at Yale Repertory Company and toured it to Broadway in 1990. In 1993, it found success as a genre movie directed by Bill Duke starring Ellen Burstyn, Olympia Dukakis, Diane Ladd, Danny Aiello and Lainie Kazan. It could be treated as dinner theatre fare along the lines of iconic TV series “Golden Girls”, but CTD’s director and cast never rely on stock shtick or milk the audience unduly for sympathetic response. They give it the full production treatment it deserves. Are you paying attention? Trust me. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry.

The powerhouse trio includes: Ouida White as vivacious, romantic hopeful Ida, Linda Comess as resigned, reluctant participant in drab widow’s weeds Doris and Nancy Sherrard, larger than life and chasing revenge for her deceased hubby’s infidelities, as wisecracking Lucille. At her first entrance upstage, Sherrard sweeps into the cozy living room set, decked out in a full-length mink,  fairly glowing with self-important outrage, and barks out “Sonofabitch!” A once in a lifetime scripted entrance moment with maximum impact. The fun cascades forth.

Rounding out the tidy female ensemble in Act II is Susan McMath Platt as “the other woman” Mildred. Platt is a formidable comic force in her own right, clad here head to toe in yards of shimmering silver lame and cackling a laugh only a hyena could adore. As the sole male character on stage, butcher Sam, widower suitor to Ida, UNT Theatre professor H. Francis Fuselier holds his own with the sharp-tongued bevy of feisty females and brings some tender yin energy to their overpowering yang ambience. A multiple Rabin winner, Fuselier touches the audience’s hearts with his simple, low-key portrayal exuding sincerity and hope. Again, director Sargeant expertly guides her seasoned cast to find the natural balance between comic and dramatic moments as relationships unfold and life’s surprises take all off guard. Pleasure to watch these pros at fine-tuned play.

Set, lighting, sound,  and props by Wade J. Giampa, Tristan Decker,  Lowell Sargeant and Tish Mussey provide the ideal atmosphere start to finish. What a team! Costumer Aaron Patrick Turner must have had more fun than everybody else combined in designing and assembling the quirky, unique costumes that do so much to help each actress explore the tiniest nuance of character. Job superbly done.

No surprise, The Cemetery Club is a solid hit with Dallas audiences. It has been extended through Sunday May 17th. No downer funerals, no lugubrious laments, no fooling.

Tickets: 214.828.0094 or www.contemporarytheatreofdallas.com

Review as posted on Lakewood-now.net

George Wada photo From left: Linda Comess, H Francis Fuselier (seated), Ouida White, Nancy Sherrard

Bunraku Bonanza at The Ochre House

Isn’t there a law of physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? I’m no science geek, but Matthew Posey’s Bunraku-based puppet comedy Coppertone II: The Pope of Chili Town uses this law to re-balance Dallas theatre’s humor quotient. Lately an unseemly number of self-indulgent, pompous, belabored “relationship dramas” about selfish, uninteresting, angst-consumed people have dominated the boards ad nauseam. From festival entries to full-length solo engagements. How refreshing to see a play that swings Dallas’ internal thespian pendulum back to an imaginary fantasy world peopled with ingeniously funny puppets for open-minded adults.

Coppertone II, himself

Bunraku. No, it’s not a new falafel pastry at Starbuck’s. Frequently associated with lovers’ suicide plays, “Bunraku” is often used among puppeteers to describe puppets that are manipulated in a way similar to those in traditional Japanese Bunraku theater, That means: human-sized with expressive, movable parts, (eyes, mouths, extremities) and up to three puppeteers on stage with each character, usually dressed in ninja-like black robes with faces shrouded. The main character in Posey’s production, Coppertone, has a particular movable ‘extremity’ that grows in such a manner to make many men green with envy and women laugh uncontrollably. That extremity may have not been envisioned in the 1870’s when the Bunraku puppet tradition got established in Osaka, Japan, but it elicits groans and whoops of delight from the audience at Coppertone II: The Pope of Chili Town.

This play’s action takes place in a bar run by jaded drug-peddling puppet Monte, played with Ted Danson as Cheers’Sam-like sarcastic wit by Xander Aulson. Monte engages the patrons or fights and makes up with his sleazy puppet wife Shinickwa (Walter Hardts) or coos with her over their ever present baby, who only says cuss words. Monte also croons a terribly funny rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” in Act II. Producer/director/playwright Matthew Posey plays the title puppet role of Coppertone, grumpy regular bar patron with unique growing appendage and a generally droll, dry reserve that contrasts with the wildly hyper-kinetic actions of the other characters. He sets off some of the high-jinks but seems almost oblivious, which makes his portrayal even funnier. The second woman puppet in the play is by far the most outrageous, x-rated and wildly funny character on stage, Topeka, an extroverted prostitute in love with Coppertone. The play’s most intense scenes focus on what Topeka has up her crotch (referred to much more profanely!) and how to remove said object; in Act I it’s a large slice of watermelon, Act II Monte and Shinickwa’s baby. Anastasia Munoz enlivens the Topeka puppet character with gusto and unabashed flair. She’s naughty; she’s garish; she makes a fabulously funny puppet.

Rounding out the cast are Trenton Stephenson as Coppertone’s pre-teen puppet son Spanky, who brings unending athleticism to the proceedings on a tricycle, and a voice-over that sounds like Paul Lynde by Ross Mackey as “the voice of Satan”. Coppertone makes a pact with this devil to save Monte’s bar and vanquish their arch-enemy Vladimir (also portrayed by Anastasia Munoz). The nature of the pact? See the show to learn its dire terms, appreciate its humor.

The puppets are decadently imaginative, the script clever if racy,  the pace furious and chaotic. Yes, it’s laced with raw language, stem to stern. If you’re easily offended, don’t go. According to  director Posey’s note, Coppertone II: The Pope of Chili Town “ is fashioned after the old “Punch and Judy Show”, only with teeth, that satirizes the importance of family values.” He might have added: and helps re-establish a certain irreverent, balance of hilarity to the Dallas theatrical scene. Ah, such relief!

Coppertone II: The Pope of Chili Town, by MATTHEW POSEY AND THE PIONEERS OF THE SUAVANTE-GARDE runs Wed.-Sat. at 8:15pm through May 9 at The Ochre House, 825 Exposition Ave. in Dallas. For tickets call 214-826-6273, or e-mail: matt@mysterionfilms.com

KDT TITUS: There will be Bard

Shakespeare. Still relevant? And how. When a Supreme Court justice weighs in about Master Will and makes the front page of the Wall Street Journal with his thoughts (April 18/19, 2009), The Avon Bard is definitely still relevant. Reflect upon the eerily modern themes of his Titus Andronicus, currently in performance at Dallas’ Kitchen Dog Theater. Inhale its relevance. But please don’t take it too seriously.

If William Shakespeare wrote Titus Andronicus, it first appeared between 1589 and 1592, a bit over four hundred years ago. Described by T. S. Eliot as the “worst play ever written”, it has confounded and puzzled critics, directors, producers, other playwrights and academics alike since its cloudy start. It’s just so darn relentlessly gruesome, even for violence-charged Elizabethan theatre. According to critic S. Clark Hulse “It (the play) has 14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism—-an average of 5.2 atrocities per act, or one for every 97 lines.” Barf bags could be handed out with programs. It wouldn’t seem ironic.

Where does a company go with such a Frankenstein of a play? We think we’re so far removed from the violence of tragic revenge with our sanitized Western culture, so why not set it in Iraq or Afghanistan, a modern staging? The insane invasion of Iraq resulted as a twisted sort of revenge justification for the 9-11 bombings of the World Trade Center; the conflict in Titus results from a private, murderous feud between the Roman general Titus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths. The Iraq invasion led to further atrocities, mass murder verging on genocide, Abu Ghraib, water boarding, rendition of many innocent people and detention at Guantanamo without defense, escalation of Al Qaeda adherents throughout the world and general destabilization in the Middle East. Similarly, Titus’ hasty violent actions and Tamora’s equally vengeful violent reactions create so much mayhem and destruction that very few of the play’s characters are left alive and/or whole by its conclusion. There’s one big difference. This play is funny. A modern staging would seem ill conceived, in poor taste.

Funny, you ask? That’s what makes it hard to stage. Kind of like Monty Python doing a slasher movie as a cartoon, Titus Andronicus is so overtly absurd with its non-ending gore and totally unreal situations it demands laughter. And yet it’s so overwhelmingly gruesome…. Clever folks at Kitchen Dog. Instead of giving the play a contemporary setting to match its modern adaptation by Lee Trull and Leah Spillman (which could have sent audience members retching to the bathroom or home to horrific CNN-like nightmares) they placed it in the long vanished Mayan metropolis of Tikal. This exotic setting heightens the fantastical aspect so the violence becomes just one wondrous element.

The audience enters the smaller studio space at Kitchen Dog, finding itself thrust deep into the dark, feral wilds of a S. American jungle, and sits all along one side of the space while buckets of stage blood spatter and assorted innards and severed hands spill across a multi-level thrust stage suggesting a Mayan temple. Meanwhile, original indigenous-themed accompaniment by international recording artist and SMU percussion professor Jamal Mohamed stirs up primal rhythms in a blood-curdling way no Elizabethan lute could ever aspire to. Evil lurks in abundance. At the play’s end, villain consort Aaron (Jamal Gibran Sterling) proclaims, “If one good Deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very Soul” as he is buried up to his neck alive, to die a slow, cruel death of thirst and starvation. The KDT jungle will hungrily welcome him home as one of its own.

Leading the stellar cast is company co-founder Joe Nemmers, who brings a gravity and surprising sensitivity to the title role, cause of so much destruction. At ease in Mayan loincloth and sporting a Mohawk-like wig that lends him an air of Mel Gibson in Braveheart, Nemmers masters the physical requirements of the role with naturalistic ferocity, while conveying Shakespeare’s soaring imagery with the soul-inspired clarity of a poet. It’s easy to sympathize with Nemmers’ Titus, hard as that may be to believe. Matching him slash for claw in ferocity and passion is company member Christine Vela as the villain goddess Tamora. Wild and conniving, lascivious, without conscience, she feigns sympathy with her subjects while plotting their deaths in a way that must have chilled the heart of ever-cognizant Queen Elizabeth I when she first saw the play produced. Vela enlivens her role as a “Wonder Woman of the Underworld” with reckless abandon, believable as a rabid wolverine that devours her own young. The supporting cast members, made up of regional professionals and SMU students, function as foils or objects for the two leads to battle over and destroy. Rukhmani Desai, as ill-fated Lavinia, comes closest to a real-life portrayal in her depiction of Titus’ daughter, a young woman raped and grotesquely brutalized. Rhonda Boutte as Titus’ relative Marcius gives moral compass and rational perspective to the horrors unfolding and pulls the audience back from blood-induced, numb stupor at the end with dignified, measured delivery. The only odd performance came from John Flores as Tamora’s King Saturninus; his vacillation between seriousness and buffoonery seemed disjointed, accentuated by a strange wig making him look like Moe of the Three Stooges, which fell off during his death scene. Lose the wig?

Was Shakespeare “ exploring the nature of a powerful empire…to see the human side of violence” as Titus director Christopher Carlos suggests? Was he portraying in code the resultant destruction of the soul of England through Catholic persecution at the hands of Elizabeth I’s unscrupulous henchman during the Reformation as British Shakespeare scholar Claire Asquith poses? Was he simply imitating the violent works of Roman playwright Seneca, contemporary to Shakespeare’s original setting of Titus? See Kitchen Dog Theatre’s production of Titus Andronicus for a bloody good time, at any rate.

TITUS ANDRONICUS, a Kitchen Dog Theater and Meadows School of the Arts production runs through Saturday, May 16 in the Black Box Theater at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) located at 3120 McKinney Avenue in Uptown.

For tickets: call the Kitchen Dog Theater box office at 214-953-1055;  buy online at www.kitchendogtheater.org

Five Tons & A Bird at the Greenzone

SEAGULL.

When all you really want is to give life the bird.

The play’s over! It’s over! ALL OVER! Well done, Mom. You totally fucked up my play. SATISFIED?— Alex      What are you so angry about? — Maria

Cast: The Seagull readings

Sans overpowering costumes. Sans rubber ferns. Sans foamcore scenery. Sans cheesy recordings of gunshots or train whistles.

Just raw emotion and the words to carry it. “Five tons of love.” Three takes.

Anton Chekhov (updated), Tennessee Williams (re-discovered), Emily Mann (unleashed).   You don’t write better than that. No, you don’t.

As expressed by: Heather Pratt, Josh Blann , Paul Taylor, Montgomery Sutton, Vince McGill , Emily Scott Banks Maryam Baig-Lush, Gregory Lush , T.A.Taylor, Kristin McCollum,  Parker Hornsby.

Sponsored by Project X at The Greenzone , 161 Riveredge Drive Dallas

No charge, donations gratefully accepted. Free wine.

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov : 8pm April 19 Oct. 1895: “I am writing it with considerable pleasure, though I sin frightfully against the conventions of the stage. It is a comedy with three female roles, six male roles, four acts, a landscape (a view of a lake), much conversation about literature, little action and five tons of love.”

The Notebook of Trigorin by Tennessee Williams. 8pm April 20

A Seagull in the Hamptons by Emily Mann. 8pm April 21 http://www.curtainup.com/seagullinthehamptonsnj.html

“As an actor, I try to choose something that I believe in, that isn’t a lie — something that is life-affirming, that is morally worthwhile, that is not mind-rotting or spiritually diminishing … This is how I contribute.”

--Kevin Kline

A totally downer life: WTT regional premiere

Based on a Totally True Story. High on style, shy on substance. There must be a discount on royalties for less than compelling plays about 20-something malcontents and their relationship challenges; why else would companies choose to produce them often? In its studio theatre space Water Tower Theatre presents a gay romance with attempts at dramatic overtones by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, of comic book and HBO series Big Love fame. WTT production values outpace this predictable script at every turn. Fast-paced direction can’t pull this one out, by the bootstraps or designer deck shoes. Aguirre-Sacasa has garnered a favorable rep in certain circles for his writing, including a GLAAD Media Award nomination and the prestigious Harvey Award (Best New Talent). His possibly autobiographical woe-is-us tale focuses on a gay, selfish, inconsiderate, 20-something screenwriter who suffers hideously from achieving success (poor baby) and soundly rebuffs those people in his life who might give a damn about him (who knows why?).

It is, like, a real downer.

Jared Eaton, Andrew Phifer

WTT’s clever staging (directed by James Paul Lemons) opens with film projection of The Flash cartoon footage, setting up potentially promising metaphorical comparisons between real life and fantasy. Where the writer hoped it would go? The multi-level, brightly lit, u-shaped set allows the contemporary story to zip along at hyper-caffeinated speed. Alas, the show tanks with every utterance from weasel-like main character Ethan (Andrew Phifer), lamenting about failed relationships, his successful career as a comic book writer (oh, the strain of it) and becoming an even more successful screenwriter (horrible, horrible). The most interesting characters crossing the stage are secondary: 1) a Hollywood producer with a heart-a-gold, designer handbag and oft-referenced never seen husband-business partner, played with saucy verve and perpetual LA euphoria by Mary Anna Austin. 2) Ethan’s sweet-natured father, divorcing and blazing new pathways to self-awareness, played by Barry Nash with natural charm and kind wit.

The plot? Ethan has to reveal his self-absorbed misery in play-by-play fashion–the first chance meeting with handsome, hunky boyfriend at a coffee house, the living together in bliss scene, the “why I can’t share myself with you” moment. He manages to drive off said lover Michael (surprise), written as little more than a compliant stereotype nice guy and played with resolutely wooden delivery by Beau Trujillo. Both actors are capable of believable, nuanced performance. I know they are; I’ve seen them do it. Not with this script. Jared Eaton rounds out the cast, filling in with several stock characters of a TV sitcom nature, and getting the most laughs. Displays an impressive set of pecs, too. The play concludes with a projected “screening” of the finale of Ethan’s labor of torture, his HBO script, as all characters join the audience to “watch it.” Best moment in the show.

Like cutesy gay-themed sitcoms? This play’s for you. Water Tower Theatre presents Based on a Totally True Story, a regional premiere in their Discover Series through May 3, 2009 with performances on Thursdays at 7:30 PM, Fridays & Saturdays at 8:00 PM, and Sundays at 2:00 PM in the Studio Theatre at the Addison Theatre Centre. Seating is general admission with no late seating. Tickets $20 Box office: 972.450.6232 or http://www.watertowertheatre.org

PHOTO: Jared Eaton, Andrew Phifer

Greek for Berliners: MBS Productions’ Oedipus Rex

It’s all Greek to me. Why is it that people are afraid of attending classical theatre — Shakespeare and the Greeks? Their plays offer some of the best writing, plots and characterizations ever seen on stage. Clear, logical, illuminating. Illustrating this is MBS Productions‘ current offering Oedipus Rex, a famous Greek play about a man who gets way too big for his britches with dire consequence. In an elegant, simple manner, Mark-Brian Sonna’s production sheds fresh insight into the ever-conflicted human condition and honors the tradition of one of the oldest and greatest plays ever produced. What’s so frightening about that?

Chorus by Bethany Hubbard

Good theatre doesn’t need a cast of thousands and a complicated set to make its point. In MBS Productions’ Oedipus Rex three Chorus members (who don’t sing harmony or wear sequined costumes) cover that required base for classical Greek Theatre and double in secondary roles, along with one member of the royal household. Anachronism adherents be damned, it may be traditional to cast a Chorus of twelve or fifteen to express various points of view and “witness” the play’s action in stylized enactment, but it’s overkill for today’s audience. We can think for ourselves, thank you. In addition, Greek theatre focuses more on character development than setting. Simplifying the set in the current production to an upstage curtain entranceway and a stage right altar to the gods allows the beauty of the language and the characters to hold deserved full focus.

What an emotional wallop this play delivers. Mark-Brian Sonna infuses the role of King Oedipus with dignity and regal bearing. He’s clearly a character used to making major decisions that affect the well being of many people. He doesn’t just act like a leader– he is one. Problem is he gets off on feeling omnipotent, and that offends the gods. He’s moved to a foreign land to avoid fulfilling a grisly prophecy (patricide and incest) and assumed a vacant kingship left open by a mysteriously murdered man and married the grieving widow. Problem solved, prophecy neatly side-stepped. Or is it?

As his wife and queen Jocasta, Alice Montgomery also exudes a regal bearing and a worldly-wise maturity. Her firm step and confident delivery tells that this woman has weathered many storms and has prevailed through her strong character and common sense. She creates a grounded mate for Oedipus who is prone to raging rants and mood swings. The four-person Chorus and minor character ensemble weaves effectively around the core couple almost like wraiths or spirits. Draped cloth covers heads and faces or falls back to reveal a character change when needed. As the truth reveals itself leading to suicide and self-mutilation, the chorus establishes the ambience and reflects response of the town’s inhabitants. Clear, logical, illuminating.

Directing the play as well as portraying Oedipus, Sonna incorporates appropriate stylized movement to balance the intellectual thought and emotionally charged expression of the work. Sometimes Greek theatre can seem so esoteric and discursive it’s hard to follow. Not here. MBS Productions uses a new, previously unproduced translation of the Sophocles play by Ian Johnston, which ideally suits Sonna’s movement-based directing style. The cast includes: Kevin Wickersham, Chris Hauge, Grisel Cambiasso and Joshua Scott Hancock. Each does an excellent job of bringing to life an aspect of this ancient great play in a way that allows it full resonance with a modern audience.

We’re all Berliners. We’re all just world citizens capable of being tripped up by fate and destiny,  like Oedipus.

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex by MBS Productions runs through April 25, 2009 at the Stone Cottage Theatre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison, TX 75001. Performances are Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 PM. Tickets range from $18 – $21. Tickets on the show’s website www.OedipusRex.org or call 214-477-4942. www.mbsproductions.net

Transcendence and Loss: Undermain’s Black Monk

“Those who warn against ecstasy are spellbound by modern society,” declares the Black Monk in Anton Chekhov’s novella of the same name. Functioning as metaphor for the pursuit of lofty goals and transcendent imagination, the character plays catalyst for debate between validation of a mystical existence v. common sense pursuit of tangible reality. When playwright David Rabe adapted the novella to the stage, (its premiere highlighted the Yale Repertory Theatre Company’s 2002-2003 season) he clearly had Chekhov’s lyrical musicality in mind and included description of several characters singing Angels Serenade by composer Gaetano Braga.

PHOTO by Brian Barnaud

It naturally followed that when Dallas-based Undermain Theatre selected Rabe’s adaptation of The Black Monk for inclusion in its 2008-2009 season, music would become a major part of the production. Resident Composer Bruce Dubose made sure that music is central to the ambience and sustained breathless quality of mystical doom that permeates Undermain’s production. Sorrowful and somber, the musical elements DuBose introduces enchant the audience with unworldly beauty. Pianist Ariana Cook, violinist Reynaldo Patino and vocal soloist Stefanie Tovar are crucial to the production’s success.

The play turns on a legend about a monk dressed in black that supposedly wandered a desert 1,000 years ago and caused simultaneous mirages of himself to appear in different countries all over the world. The crux of the legend is that 1,000 years after the day the monk walked, his mirage would return to earth and “reappear to men.” This apparition, played with unworldly restraint by Newton Pittman, reveals itself to the play’s main character, the overly intellectual Kovrin, and urges him to delve deeper into his mystical side. When he shares the unworldly experience with his pragmatic fiancée Tanya, concerns about his sanity alter their relationship and lead to the eventual downfall of all involved. Very Russian, very dark, very tragic.

It’s a testament to the collective artistic skills of Undermain’s cast and director Katherine Owens that the play remains dynamic and intriguing from start to finish, that the audience is not overwhelmed by the end of Act I. Undermain regularly takes on this sort of esoteric, ideological challenge and turns it into a vibrant creative endeavor. Directed to communicate the luxury-loving indolence of late 19th century Russian salon attendees, the play’s somber-attired actors gather for tea around a grand piano dressed with dimly lit candelabra. They sometimes chant, sometimes listen attentively to violin and piano duets or songs by Purcell, Glinka, and de Serasate as well as Braga’s Angels Serenade. It feels like time has spun backwards with the Black Monk’s exhortations.

The strident family drama emerges from within the dreamy musical setting. Patrician-featured, forthright Jonathan Brooks plays lead character Kovrin with relentless eloquence and veracity. Brooks as Kovrin puts up a valiant struggle; the audience hangs in with him throughout his tragic descent through delusional obsession and megalomania to his death. As his wife Tanya, Shannon Kearns-Simmons exhibits a natural bewilderment that logically moves from adoration to alienation to complete rejection of all that Kovrin becomes. Bruce DuBose as Tanya’s father, lord of the family orchard and arranger of her marriage to Kovrin, reveals a practical business side that launches into obsession as well, along with a profoundly devoted paternal aspect. All suffer loss, thanks to the downright creepy Black Monk’s intrusion, or Kovrin’s delusion about him. Over all the discordant grief, Stefanie Tovar’s liquid-toned voice and the piano and violin soar. The art of the imagination triumphs as Kovrin gasps his last breath in a moving, tightly woven synthesis of sound and soul ascendancy.

Undermain Theatre’s production of David Rabe’s The Black Monk runs through May 2, 2009. www.undermain.org

In photo, l to r: Jonathan Brooks, Stefanie Tovar, Shannon Kearns-Simmons, Bruce DuBose

True Magic, True West: Sundown Collaborative Theatre

Bad blood between brothers. Curdles like fresh rattlesnake venom poured into a vat of rancid wolf piss.

Alex Worthington, Cody Lucas

When Sam Shepard conjures up a slice of hyper-real filial discord in his internationally acclaimed 1980 play True West, that’s how it feels. As mounted by Denton’s Sundown Collaborative Theatre composed of entrepreneurial young artists hailing mostly from UNT’s undergraduate drama program, the play springs to life like a pissed off rattler striking unsuspecting prey. It’s cunning. It’s forceful. It’s lethal. Makes magic on stage.

True West examines explosive, unresolved issues between two brothers over several days and nights, punctuated by two brief scenes with a Hollywood movie agent and the brothers’ mother. Since its premiere at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre where Shepard was the resident playwright, its lead actors have included Tommy Lee Jones, Peter Boyle, Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, James Belushi, Gary Cole, Erik Estrada, and Dennis and Randy Quaid. In 2000, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly played the leads in a Broadway revival, switching parts every so often during the run. Both were nominated for Tony Awards along with the play and its director Matthew Warchus.

Sundown Collaborative Theatre actors and director have taken on an estimable task in light of such company. Meaty roles like brothers Lee and Austin offer challenges to seasoned professionals, much less college students. The play is a director’s dream or nightmare, depending. Sundown Collaborative’s Cody Lucas (Austin) and Alex Worthington (Lee), along with director Travis Stuebing, meet the challenge head-on. The daunting balancing act is to maintain the rhythmic flow of the play while exploring dark and light, introspective and extroverted, sane and not so aspects of both characters. Lucas’ Austin seems so safe, so sensible, so responsible, at first; the audience immediately identifies with him as “normal” as they consider the monster-like idiosyncrasies and ignorant, cruel bluster of Worthington’s Lee. Playwright Shepard won’t let the audience settle easily. Comprehending this, Director Stuebing helps his actors sustain the fine-tuned realism required to create believable multi-faceted roles while avoiding simplistic good v. evil stereotypes. They connect, inspire each other only as brothers can, and ultimately escalate conflict into non-resolvable chaos. The disgust and horror response Worthington’s Lee engenders initially is equally matched by the disgust and horror evoked by Lucas’ Austin as his true character and motivation manifest in Act II. Blood will tell, as the saying goes. Sophisticated work by these under age 25 actors, they honor the exceedingly complex text well. I’d love to see them recreate the roles together in a decade.

Puzzlingly, the pivotal scenes with secondary actors could be much more convincing. Neither Karen MacIntyre as Mom nor Sean Ball as Saul dig deep into their characters, hardly seem to belong in the same play as Lucas and Worthington. Their scenes are meant to be revelatory and catalytic. The portrayals seem superficial, as though as actors they don’t understand why Shepard wrote them into the play. It doesn’t impede the tour de force effect of the brothers’ portrayals but does slightly weaken the overall performance.

Hard to create a play’s reality in an echo-prone, low-ceiling meeting room, with limited entrance/exit and lighting options, where the audience sits on folding chairs and an occasional church pew with obstructed views of onstage action. Performance art can overcome many logistical obstacles if the creative impulse sends it there. Sundown Collaborative Theatre creates an awesome artistic reality within the limitations of its space. In 2003, Wilson Milam mounted a lavish and updated production (including 20 working toasters) at the Bristol Old Vic. No expense spared. The first three rows of seats were removed “for fear that the audience would be harmed and a Perspex shield was installed for safety reasons”, preparing for the final showdown. I doubt the Bristol Old Vic created any more believable reality, no expense spared, than Denton’s Sundown Collaborative Theatre does with its gutsy, actor-based sparse production. Savagery can be so simple, done right….

Gut-wrenching pain and resentment, soul-deep and gunny-sacked for years, pervade this play and drive its characters to sub-human acts of desperation. Support these folks at Sundown Collaborative Theatre. Donate time and money- free pizza coupons, intermission refreshments and certificates to local thrift stores. (They’ll destroy a lot of furniture before the run’s end.) It’s okay. Their art’s in the right place.

Sam Shepard’s True West plays through April 18 at Greenspace Arts Collective, 529 Malone St. in Denton TX. http://www.sundowntheatre.com Stay tuned for info. about their production of Shakespeare’s Othello opening May 14.

Carousel: Denton’s First Class Ride

Keith Warren (Billy), Sarah Geist (Julie)

Quick: what Broadway show did Time Magazine name as the “best musical of the 20th century” in its 1999 “Best of the Century” list and composer Richard Rodgers describe as his all-time favorite in his autobiography Musical Stages?

Carousel. Surprised? If you had the good fortune to attend Denton Community Theatre’s recent production at The Campus Theatre in downtown Denton, you‘d understand why. The music takes your breath away. How it’s naturally interwoven into the dialogue with a nod to classical opera recitative weaves an auditory magic unrivalled by many other musical theatre shows.

Carousel is truly all about the music. Director Sharon Veselic chose wisely to emphasize the music over plot and dialogue in her production, infusing this 1945 classic with a fresh vitality far beyond nostalgic re-tread. Instead of placing her orchestra conventionally in front of the proscenium arch at The Campus Theatre, in front of the singers, she placed an uncluttered full stage width thrust runway downstage where her lead singers performed the majority of Carousel’s solo tunes so close to the audience they seemed part of an intimate concert. The orchestra remained in full view of the audience, dimly lit, elevated centrally behind the runway. Full ensemble choral numbers and the balletic dancers used an upstage level behind and slightly above the orchestra and swept down side stairways to spill into the downstage space when crowd scenes required. Veselic’s production revealed excellent use of a large cast on three different levels, while the ever-visible musicians kept the audience aware of the work’s dream-like magical ambience and accompanied the singers so that their voices held full focus. Projections of night sky full of stars, realistic photos of a fishing village and fanciful watercolor renderings of fishing scenes rotated off a screen mounted far upstage, the closest thing to a “set” in this production. Marvelous and free-spirited, Philip Lamb’s artwork projections gave just enough suggestion of “place” to ground the action in a New England fishing village without interfering with movement or seeming trite; Brad Speck’s lighting design and special effects enhanced the romantic mood and sustained the dream world quality of the performance throughout. In front of this effective, inventive artistry, the singers opened their throats and poured forth Richard Rodgers’ beautiful score.

The word “community” when associated with theatre can convey a less than professional quality performance. Amateur wannabes, folks with real day jobs, just a social outlet. In this production’s case, it meant that a community of fine artists gathered together to create a stunning performance. Keith Warren as male lead Billy Bigelow (the gutter-born carnival worker trying desperately to transcend his seedy life through love) brought richly soaring depth and passionate expression to his solos. The emotional content—Billy’s conflicted soul and desire to “make good”—came through more clearly with each song’s passing. His rendition of “Soliloquy” at the end of Act 1 was so powerfully and evocatively sung it would not have surprised me had the audience demanded an encore. A lovely pairing with Sarah Geist as Billy’s suffering girlfriend/wife Julie Jordan, the two leads voices shone solo and blended superbly in duet performance. Erika Ostermiller and Shane Strawbridge as secondary leads Carrie and Mr. Snow provided comic contrast and vocal balance to the tragically dark emotions of the main leads. Their imaginative Act 1 duet “When the Children Are Asleep” was almost a showstopper and exuded playful warmth as well as showcased their respectively fine voices. Act 2’s “Ballet”, featuring Emily Staniszewski choreographed by Katherine Gentsch, matched the high caliber singing in its professionalism and innovative interpretation. Over forty people performed in this Carousel, leads to ensemble; tempos, harmony, stage movement, attitude and expression all worked smoothly in concert to create memorable stage pictures as well as sharp musical definition. Hardly a dry eye in the full house at show’s conclusion. One certainly doesn’t need to drive to Dallas performance halls to enjoy excellent musical theatre performance in this region.

The original production of Carousel opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, and ran for eight hundred ninety performances. It was considered innovative for its time, with its criminal anti-hero leading character, tragic plot and daring theme of spousal abuse. Based on Ferenc Molnar’s award-winning 19th century play set in Hungary, Lilliom, Rogers and Hammerstein lightened it up a bit for American audiences. In 1994 Carousel was revived as a joint production of The Royal National Theatre and Lincoln Center Theater, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, an interracial production featuring Michael Hayden. The revival won five Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical, best direction, best choreography. It won five Drama Desk Awards. Audra McDonald, in her first Broadway role, won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. McDonald and Hayden received the Theatre World Award. A Japanese tour was followed in 1996/1997 by a major US national tour.

When Love Really Hurts

Dont u luv me: DCT 2009

CJ is a dreamboat, the sort of high school senior many teen-aged girls would love to have for a boyfriend. Tall, handsome, great smile, expressive eyes with sexy, long lashes, charismatic and funny, a good athlete and student, excellent communicator—and most of all, totally devoted to his sophomore girlfriend Angela. A lucky girl, right? Forty percent of teen-aged girls report knowing someone their age that has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. CJ is an obsessive abuser. He doesn’t know how to stop. Angela is terrified he’ll kill himself if she tries to break up with him, even though he hits her regularly and forces inappropriate sexual contact. It’s heartbreaking to watch and part of a growing epidemic of violence that knows no boundaries of race, class, educational background or gender orientation. Welcome to love that really hurts.

Rated by TIME Magazine as one of the top five theaters in the nation performing for youth, Dallas Children’s Theatre presents the world premiere of Dont u luv me, by its resident award-winning playwright Linda Daugherty, author of national touring shows The Secret Life of Girls and EAT (It’s Not About Food). Part of the company’s “Young Adult Relevant Drama” program, the play deals with the subject of date violence, how to recognize it and how to choose healthy relationships.

Cast in the pivotal roles of CJ and Angela are two dedicated professional Dallas area actors—Montgomery Sutton and Lauren Rosen. Montgomery got his start in theater at age 3 on DCT’s stage, graduated from St. Mark’s School and recently returned to Dallas after earning his BA in theatre at NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts. Lauren is a dancer and actress studying for her BA at UNT. They create a believable, fully realized relationship. Lauren’s Angela at first is sweet and innocent, open and trusting. As Montgomery’s CJ shifts from playfully affectionate to demanding and tyrannical, Angela loses her friends, distances herself from her family and school activities to please CJ, and her inner light dims. She finds herself in a lonely, terrifying place and clearly reflects the numbing horror she must feel. Lauren makes the audience live the nightmare Angela experiences. Montgomery pleased audiences and critics alike a season ago as Romeo in Romeo & Juliet at Shakespeare Dallas. He brings the same intensity, nuance and physicality to his role as the conflicted, confused CJ. He does behave like a monster, but he also shows a vulnerability that makes his portrayal comprehensible. Director Nancy Schaeffer says, “Montgomery makes us care about CJ. We want the best for him too-but then we see the anger grow and take over his life and love.” There’s a fine line between creating too harsh extremes and sugarcoating a serious issue; director Schaeffer and her two leads confidently pull it off. From their initial cheery conversation when school starts to their escalating text messaging (shown projected on a screen upstage), CJ and Angela’s reality evolves naturally.

No holding back the stage violence in this play. Some families may hesitate to expose their teens to it, so up close and personal. Don’t be deterred. It’s well-rehearsed and choreographed precisely. No one is injured; no one gets out of control. And the point is properly made. Asked about the combat rehearsal process, Montgomery speaks from the heart: “The enacting of it is pretty tough because it’s very brutal, and to take it to a “real” place, even though it’s only fight choreography, is terrifying. The physical combat, itself, has had a very smooth evolution throughout the (rehearsal) process. We run the fight scenes before every show, and Lauren and I have a very strong trust that developed early on.” Without that trust, the play could never have the potent, positive impact it does.

The balance of the cast creates “normal” high school ambience, the background where the abusive relationship develops unchecked. Kelly Brooks as Angela’s best friend Jen cares about her friend but isn’t quite sure what to do to help. Dallas professional actor and producer Josh Blann plays Jen’s non-abusive boyfriend with an ease and affection that provides excellent contrast to the tightly wound CJ. Dancing at the prom, shopping, heading to class or reviewing prom photos on a cell phone (also projected on screen), the teen actors enliven Linda Daugherty’s hour-long script. Daugherty’s play does an excellent job of portraying the problem, and DCT’s cast efficiently executes an enjoyable and educational performance. Asked how she feels about Dont u luv me, Lauren Rosen exudes enthusiasm: “ It’s one thing to talk about these things, and a completely different thing to see it happening right in front of you. That’s why theater is such an important medium. It brings the issue to life and you get to see the consequences unfold right there. It can happen to you, your best friend or anyone. I think everyone should bring their kids, family, friends, everyone!”

Dont u luv me runs through April 26 at the Rosewood Center Studio Theater, 5938 Skillman Rd. in Dallas, Texas. Recommended for audiences age 13 and up. Performances are scheduled for Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 1:30pm and Sundays at 1:30pm and 4:30 pm. Tickets: 214-740-0051, or on-line: www.dct.org