Tad Chitwood and Laurene Scalf in rehearsal for Jordan Harrison's Futura. Photo courtesy of Theatre [502].
When Amy Attaway moved
back to Louisville from New York, she didn’t think she would stay. She wasn’t
sure she could be a real artist in Louisville or that there were people she
wanted to work with. Then she auditioned for the Necessary Theatre, a company
dedicated to rarely performed plays, and her feelings changed. She met Necessary’s
artistic director, Tad Chitwood; she met actress Laurene Scalf; she soon met
young artists like herself – Gil Reyes and Mike Brooks – artists she would soon
see as artistic collaborators, mentors and friends. Two years later, Amy found
herself directing Tad and Laurene in Impossible
Marriage. She began to see herself as a director.
“It was the
beginning of so many things,” Amy said. “Necessary gave me and Gil and Mike
some of our first really important artistic experiences after we moved back to
Louisville and helped us launch into the local theater scene in a really
meaningful way.”
Now, seven years
after Impossible Marriage, Tad,
Laurene and Amy are working together once again, this time for Amy’s company, Theatre [502]; and the relationship seems to have come full circle. They are working on
Jordan Harrison’s Futura, a thriller about
a dystopian future in which books and paper have been banned and two typographers
are trying to save the world. It is a play that speaks deeply to the mission of [502] and to all of the artists involved because it is about passion and teaching.
“I love this play,”
Amy says. “I think it’s brilliant, so timely, so smart and I think it addresses
issues that I find personally really moving. It has a finger on the pulse of the
whole zeitgeist right now.” That zeitgeist, according to Amy, is the advance of
the digital age, the age of Nooks, Kindles and iPhones. When Amy read it, she
immediately responded to its ideas and thought of Tad and Laurene.
“I thought, if I’m
going to do the play, I have to have Laurene, and I have to have Tad. When I
read this play, I heard their voices in my head.”
Tad and Laurene
were equally taken by the play, its courage at addressing the big ideas and the
way that it directly engages the issues of the digital age that we are facing
now.
“We’re moving into
an age where books, actual physical books, are becoming quaint,” says Tad. “The
transition from oral to written communication was traumatic and ultimately
great. Are we creating super literacy or super illiteracy?”
I sensed when talking
to Tad, Laurene and Amy that there is an anxiety about this kind of change, and
it is an anxiety especially potent for theater artists, who depend on passion
and love of language for their livelihood and for the future of their art. However, they are happy to go through the
process together. The play is not an easy one with its unusual form and subject
matter, but they have developed a deep trust. This trust allows them to push
new boundaries and keeps them honest.
“I know their
tricks,” Amy says. And they know hers.
In many ways, Tad
and Laurene are passing the theater torch on to the next generation of artists
– artists like Amy. The mission of Necessary flows on in the company like
Theatre [502]. Like the typographers in the play, they hold strong to their passion,
a passion for an art form whose future always seems so precarious.
As Amy says, “The
play is about time and it’s what you pass along to the younger generation. To
be working on that idea with Tad and Laurene is pretty exciting. Also, they
really get to fight – really smart intellectual fight – which is really fun to
watch.”
Futura
by Jordan Harrison
directed by Amy Attaway
June 1-9, 2012
Theatre [502]
Victor Jory Theatre at Actors Theatre of Louisville
This week Looking for Lilith celebrates their
10th Anniversary with two programs performing in repertory at The Bard’s Town: 10 Years: 7 Stories collects segments
from the seven original productions that have been developed throughout the
company’s history; while Becoming Mothers
seeks to add to that number with a staged reading of a new play about
motherhood.
The company’s mission draws
inspiration from the rabbinical myth of Lilith, the first woman created by God
and given equal importance to Adam. According to the myth, she was eventually
replaced by Eve, a new partner created for Adam and intended to be deliberately
subservient. As stated in the company’s mission statement: “Lilith's story
represents to us an instance where a strong woman's voice was quieted, and her
story lost.” In creating theatre that uncovers history largely forgotten,
Looking for Lilith brings forward women’s stories that have been lost, just as
Lilith was lost and rediscovered.
Recently we spoke with co-founder
and current Artistic Director Shannon Wooley about the company’s origins, its commitment
to education, and the creative process behind the unique Lilith vision.
Arts-Louisville: How was Looking for Lilith started? What was the
original inspiration?
Shannon Wooley: A vision from God in the
middle of the night – I know that makes me sound a little bit like a lunatic,
but I’m telling you, that’s how it happened. I got my B.F..A from Southern
Methodist University, which has a really cool theatre department, a
conservatory program for two years – very intense work, a lot of freedom given to
the students. While I was there I was a part of a project called 1968: Vietnam, which was interviews with
women about their experiences with the Vietnam war: military women, Vietnamese
women. Then we took the interviews and turned them into a performance piece.
It was the most amazing piece of theatre I had ever worked on. Then I graduated
and went out into the world and found that there really weren’t projects like
that to get involved in. That had been “university,” but now I was out in the
real world, with my resume and head shot – this was in Chicago. Then I was
invited to join a repertory theatre in Denver called Horse Chart Theatre, which
was all men. I was the only woman in the theatre, and we did a lot of David
Mamet, and I was pretty unhappy. So I literally woke up in the middle of the
night remembering the 1968: Vietnam
project and voice saying to me, “Why aren’t you doing that? You could be doing
that all the time!” So I called my dear friend Trina, who was living in Chile
at the time on a Fulbright scholarship, and I told her I had this idea: I want
to start this collective of women artists and we are going to create original
theatre based on interviews with women. We are going to choose periods in
history and interview from all perspectives and we are going to do devising and
then we are going to make them into plays. We moved to New York, because I
didn’t really know how to do this thing that I wanted to do. There was a
great program at NYU – a master's in educational theatre which differs from
theatre education – which is about teaching theatre in that it is about
devising theatre that educates. While working on that master's I met Jennifer
Thalman Kepler; and after graduating, Trina, Jennifer and I signed the
incorporation papers for Looking for Lilith. We created our first play within a
year.
A-L: The company was founded in New York City. When and
why did you move to Louisville?
SW: I think it was important that we began in
New York and learned to create and promote theatre where things are more…stringent. But New York is glutted with theatre. Not only were we one of
thousands of theatre companies, but we were one of hundreds of women’s theatre
companies. Every show we would create there we would tour to Louisville and
play to packed houses and people were thrilled to see original work like this.
Whereas in New York we were, just to be frank, spending thousands of dollars
to produce plays that our friends would come and see. After five years of that,
I remember the show was Class of ’70,
we had a very successful run in Louisville first and then took it to New York
and we said to ourselves, “Why aren’t we just doing this in Louisville all the
time?” So I came back in 2005 and Trina came back the following fall and we
have been using Louisville as our home base ever since. We still tour to other
places, even returning to New York with Fabric,
Flames & Fervor: Girls of the Triangle, but it has been much more
profitable for us financially and artistically to be here. Louisville has a
fantastic theatre community, and we certainly are not the only theatre company
producing original work. But here we occupy a very specific niche that people
get very excited about.
A-L: You have successfully produced scripts by other
writers, but this commitment to developing original material has largely defined
the company.
SW: That’s kind of our foundation. Usually
once a season we produce an already published work, and we’ve even done some
works by men, which has been fun. We did House
of Bernardo Alba last fall; and Frederico Garcia Lorca’s viewpoint of the
oppression that was going on in that family of women was profoundly touching, and
it definitely fit within the Looking for Lilith mission. He knew women and he
wrote pretty well for them.
A-L: The original pieces are designed to educate as
well as entertain. How important is the educational mission and how do you
continue to develop it?
SW: We have a Community Outreach Department that
does educational outreach from kindergarten through post-graduate level. We
have some projects at the adult level, particularly in Guatemala, so we try to
have our outreach accessible to children of all ages. About three years ago our
program really exploded when we were commissioned to create Choices: An Interactive Play on
Cyberbullying and Suicide, which is a theatre of the oppressed piece about
cyber-bullying. And in this piece the audience meets a 15-year-old girl named
Hannah who is progressively and viciously cyber-bullied through the computer,
through the phone, through IM (instant messaging), to the point where she
withdraws from everything in her life and she decides that the only way out is
to kill herself.... The play ends with her dumping a bottle of pills into her
hand. But with theatre of the oppressed work, you see a play that ends with
what Augusta Boal calls the “point of brutal rupture,” where things can’t get
any worse. But then you stop and the audience begins to work. One of the actors
begins to speak to the audience in the role of “The Joker” and asks the
audience: "Did the play have to end this way? Were there times that you wanted
to see the main character do or say something differently?" Usually they say
“Yes,” and then we start again from the beginning except. This time they are
invited to stop the protagonist at any point – they are only allowed to stop
the protagonist; if they could change the bully’s behavior it becomes beside
the point.
Jefferson County Public Schools got so excited
after the first show that they asked us to do it in every school, so we’ve been
performing Choices a lot and doing a
lot of educational work on the high school level, which has been fun and is
kind of new for us. We are also very active with the Kentucky Arts Council and
they subsidize in-school residencies, so we do get invited into the schools
fairly often on KAC grants. We love to work in social studies classes and have
the students look at a particular event in history and develop a process drama
about that event where the students are living out the roles of the people in
that history.
A-L: Yet Choices doesn’t really draw from history…
SW: No, it is very of the moment, and while
cyber-bullying certainly affects young women more than young men, it is definitely
not just a young woman’s issue. We frequently have young men in the audience
say, “No, she should be doing THIS…” and they are brought up onstage. We change
the name and do it as a boy. What’s interesting is that I think the young men
see different ways to deal with the conflict than the young women do, some
positive and some negative. It’s often, "She needs to find out who that is and
kick their ass after school!” – which allows us to make the point that Hannah
does not necessarily know who is bullying her on the computer and she might (inadvertently)
choose to brutalize the wrong person; and now she becomes the one who has committed
a crime.
A-L: You put so much energy into the outreach. What are
the challenges for LFL in maintaining its public profile in such an active
theatre community?
SW: I feel like what we do is so unique – just as
what Le Petomane or Pandora does is so unique – that we’re not going to lose
audience for Lilith plays because they are seeing other great plays in
Louisville. Because what we do is pretty different, so, no, I don’t really think
it is a challenge. I think that Louisville is unique in the support that the
independent theatre companies give to each other. I did not really have that
experience in New York. It’s more competitive. Here we share
more resources, and not just people and materials but resources of wisdom
as well, which I think is kind of unusual.
A-L: This retrospective of scenes from past LFL
productions is running in repertory with a staged reading of a new piece,
Becoming Mothers. What can you tell us about that?
SW: I would say a lot of the energy goes into
the outreach and a lot goes into the show creation. When we create something
new, like Becoming Mothers, which we
are unveiling as a reading this week, it is six months of research and
interviews and another six months of transcribing and playing with the
interviews and rehearsals and figuring out what’s theatrical and performative.
It’s interesting because in the end you do have the two-week run with eight performances, and there is so much work that goes into it. But I enjoy the
process of creating it as much as I do the sharing of it.
Looking for Lilith plays never die: they live
on and on. Part of that has to do with the specificity of the plays. What My Hands Have Touched deals with
the oral histories of women during World War II, and during Women’s History
Month the Blue Star Mothers might bring us in to do that show because it is
specific to their community. Same thing with Crossing Mountains, which is about the Hindman Settlement School.
We’ve been invited to come to Big Sandy Community College, which is about an
hour and a half from Hindman in the Cumberland Mountains. They keep being
reborn, and we sometimes recreate them to a certain degree to fit the community
that wants to see the work.
A-L: You spoke at the beginning about the creative
freedom you experienced in the educational environment of college. Do you feel
the educational foundation and collaborative process of Lilith capture any of
that energy?
SW: I think so. The seven excerpts have been
rehearsing separately, and last week we brought them together for the final
rehearsals. Suddenly the room was filled with all of the actors, directors and
designers who have worked on Lilith shows over the last 10 years. And people
started talking about how working for LFL is so unique – the creative freedom
and the nurturing and support that we have for one another – and that was so
touching to me because that IS what I always wanted to create. I don’t just
want to create exciting and dynamic plays; I want to create a community where
female and male artists are excited about exploring a topic through theatre.
Together we have created this fertile ground that is similar to what I felt at
SMU. So maybe you don’t have to leave college.
Shannon Wooley (right) in What My Hands Have Touched – Women of WW II. Photograph by Michael Taggart.
10 Years:7 Stories- May 31, June 2, 7, 9 at 7:30 pm • June 10 at 2 pm
Tickets $15, $10 students/seniors Becoming Mothers- June 1, 8, 10 at 7:30 pm • June 3 at 2 pm
Tickets $10, $7 students/seniors
Two-Show Pass: $23, $15 students/seniors
Birthday
Party!!!
Come
June 10 to see both shows and celebrate
our 10 years with a reception at 4:30 pm.
$30 (both shows & reception)
$25 (10 Years: 7 Stories & reception)
$20 (reception & Becoming Mothers)
$15 (reception only)
Love
them or hate them, the Alley Theater keeps chugging along and earning its
reputation as a venue for unusual and fringe productions you just don’t see
performed by other theater groups in the Louisville area. Whether it’s their
parodies such as Point Break Live! or
Star Wars in 60 Minutes or Less,
their off-the-wall originals like Inhuman:A
Festival of Undead Theater, or their licensed plays like Evil Dead: The Musical and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, you can
always count on something unusual, if not always top-quality.
So
it’s a bit of a surprise that for their latest opening we get the very
commercial and G-rated Gilligan’s Island:
The Musical. I admit that based on the title alone, my expectations were
not high. But I am pleased to say that this was a rewarding and fun little
change of pace for the company, and this reviewer is hoping that it’s a sign of
good things to come for the company.
Based
on the TV sitcom that ran from 1964 to 1967 and forever since in reruns, Gilligan’s Island: The Musical was
composed in the early nineties by the TV show’s creator Sherwood Schwartz,
along with his son Lloyd J. Schwartz, daughter Hope Juber and son-in-law (and Wings musician) Laurence Juber. It never
quite made it to Broadway, but it has been more and more popular with regional
groups throughout the 2000s (although to my knowledge, this is the first time
it’s been performed in the Louisville area).
It’s
an oddly structured show; the elder and younger Schwartz’s libretto has only
the scantest of plots, consisting mainly of brief skits that set up the musical
numbers. There is some silliness involving an alien visitor that seems to be
the only recurring theme throughout. But the best and most memorable scenes
seem to be the ones that stand alone.
The
Jubers’ songs are cute, if not particularly memorable; unfortunately, the
program doesn’t list the musical numbers and I can’t recall the title of a
single one. The best comes early in the show, a cute duet between Mr. and Mrs.
Howell. Plus, the TV show’s theme song is performed as the opening number,
which sets up the nostalgia of the piece quite nicely.
The
performances are a mixed bag; the actors are all quite talented but I think in
a few cases miscast. Of course, it’s up to the director and his performers to
decide to what extent a show like this should try to mimic the TV show it’s
based on. But it seems to me that at least some effort should be made to try to
emulate the iconic characters that every single person in the audience
remembers.
To
that end, the most successful performance in this production would have to be
Dana Hope as Mary Ann. She looks and sounds so much like Dawn Wells it’s kind
of uncanny; and while she is not a singer, she does manage to pull off her
musical numbers with a Rex Harrison style of speak-singing through the higher
notes.
Mera
Corlett is fun as Ginger, giving the spoiled movie star a sultriness that would
never have been dared in a sixties sitcom. Kenn Parks and Jenni Cochran are
adorable as Mr. and Mrs. Howell, although Parks’ Jim Backus impersonation tends
to come and go. Scott Goodman is quite good as the Professor, basically playing
the straight man to all the silliness going on around him; and Alan Canon’s brief
appearances as the Alien reminded me of another bit of classic TV: the Martians
in the seventies miniseries The Martian
Chronicles.
Aside
from his plus-sized appearance, balding, dark-haired, bearded Ray Robinson
looks and sounds nothing like blonde and clean-shaven Alan Hale Jr. in the role
of the Skipper. And while I’ve
seen Robinson give some great performances, he seems miscast here; he just
doesn’t seem to have the larger-than-life persona and booming voice the role
calls for.
Daniel
Land at first seems a good fit for the lead role of Gilligan; he is funny, and
a very talented physical actor and dancer. Unfortunately, the character voice
he chooses for Gilligan’s speaking voice is an absolutely terrible choice in
the musical numbers. Yes, it’s a comedy, and yes, it works when he’s not
singing; but this is a musical and the audience shouldn’t be forced to wince
like fingernails down a chalkboard every time the leading man sings! He may
want to revert to his real voice for the songs, is what I’m saying.
Tony
Smith’s directing and choreography is quite serviceable and the show moves
along nicely without any noticeable gaps or lulls, and his set design (with
Scott Davis and Kenn Parks) is a nicely detailed rendering of the island
setting, complete with opening and closing huts and a cave. All of this is nicely served by a warm
lighting and sound design by Jillian Spencer.
Over
all this is a fun show, and one not to be missed by fans nostalgic for those
seven stranded castaways and their ill-fated three-hour tour.
Gilligan’s Island: The Musical
Starring Alan Canon, Jenni Cochran, Mera Corlett, Dana Hope, Daniel Land, Scott
Goodman, Kenn Parks and Ray Robinson. May 25, 26, 31, and June 1, 2, 8, & 9, 2012 – All shows at 8pm
Tickets, Advance:
$18 • General Admission: Student, Senior, Military $16
Day of Show: $20 General Admission; Senior, Military: $18; Student: $10 with
valid current student ID at the box office Season ticket eligible * Group Rates available
The
Alley Theater
1205 East Washington Street, Suite 120
Louisville, KY 40206
Box Office Phone: 502-713-6178
In improvisational comedy, anything, in
theory, is possible: even such a contradiction as a clown with no sense of
humor. He appears in public at all times in full clown regalia, constantly
frustrated at the inevitable expectation that he will be inherently funny, when
he is, in fact, one of the most dour characters you will ever encounter. As an
image, it connects to the archetype of the sad and bitter clown; and as
embodied by Brian Hinds in service to The Louisville Improvisers on May 9, it
was a highly individual creation born entirely in the moment.
Of course that is not strictly true. Improv
actors train and “rehearse” their skills, albeit in a slightly different manner
than traditional scripted theatre. But still they work out. They have to think
fast and have their imaginations at the ready and their instincts sharpened and
in tune with their onstage partners. And despite the obviousness of the
previous observations, it is still a treat to witness the fluid dynamic in
action.
Chris Anger & Alec Volz.
Chris Anger and Alec Volz founded the company
more than 13 years ago, making it the oldest working improv group in town. And
when you see them onstage, there is no question of the easy shorthand that
passes between them as naturally as breathing. There have been other members
along the way, but the May show included recent additions Brian Hinds, who
created the humorless clown, and Jenni Cochran. Mr. Hinds is a veteran of
Kentucky Shakespeare, Stage One and, most recently, Walden Theatre, where Mr.
Volz is Associate Artistic Director. Ms. Cochran comes to Louisville by way of
St. Louis and, although relatively new to town, has already landed roles at The
Alley Theatre, including the production of Gilligan’s
island, The Musical that opened May 24.
Both more than held their own working with the well-worn duo of Anger
and Volz.
Jenni Cochran.
Aside from the aforementioned clown, the
“games” that evening included the quartet trading positions, tag-team style,
whenever one performer got a laugh from the appreciative audience. It seemed
something less of a challenge, since the laughs came frequently enough to
require the actors be fleet of foot to avoid tripping over one another, so
rapid were the exchanges. By the time they finished with a freewheeling
depiction of a day in the life of an audience member (selected, of course, at
random), they had worked up a good energy with the crowd and wisely left them
wanting more.
The Louisville Improvisers will be performing
at The Louisville Improv club at Fourth Street Live! the first Wednesday of
each month through the summer. The next show is June 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Sharon
Matisoff makes this statement with such unabashed enthusiasm that one could not
possibly doubt the earnestness of the claim. Having explored a range of
subjects throughout her history as an artist, from participants in renaissance
faires to young ballet students, and the inevitable recruiting of family
members, sometimes when they don’t particularly feel like being a subject, now
the driven painter turns her observant eye to other artists. In “Rites of
Passage: A Celebration of Louisville Artists,” a new exhibit about to open at
Kaviar Forge and Gallery, portraiture is the order of the day and the artist
working in the studio is the theme.
Ms.
Matisoff is an experienced portrait artist, and this particular adventure began
after gallery owner Craig Kaviar saw his own portrait in pastels and suggested
the artist use it as the jumping off point for a series. She set about pursuing
subjects, often with one artist suggesting another until she had accumulated a
host of local painters, sculptors, ceramicists and fibre artists. While the
task at first seemed daunting, Matisoff was given a warm reception from all the
artists she approached, a fact that underscores the communal thread that unites
all artists in society and provides something of a subtext for her work.
Self-portrait.
That
connectivity among creative individuals becomes an important aspect of the
straightforward compositions of the paintings. If there is a certain stolid
uniformity in the way the figures are placed, even when working, it seems by
design rather than any lack of ingenuity on the part of the artist. It is not characteristic
of her previous work, which charts a restless and perhaps even relentless
journey of exploration. When discussing her past work, the artist has stories
for every painting, one concerning the subject, and another that charts her
growth and self-examination.
Ed Hamilton, Pastel.
This
duality of purpose is here manifested explicitly in the decision to create for
each subject two separate images, one in oil and another in pastel: one
straightforward set-up in which the subject gazes directly at the viewer, and
one showing the craftsman at work. The latter are notable for the specificity
of gesture, the painter’s eye capturing the most evocative angle of the wrist
when Ed Hamilton grinds the surface of a small sculpture, or the concentration
displayed by the tongue embedded in Lucas Nelson Marvell’s cheek while he
fashions wood for a violin.
John Michael Carter at His Easel, Oil.
Some
of the compositions are more complex, such as when we see painter John Michael
Carter at work on a canvas, the work table including tubes of oil paint in the
foreground that usher us into the studio space and the depiction of other
Carter canvases in the background. The idea of portrait encompassing the studio
environment, including recreations of the subject’s work, reoccurs in the
series but is most prominent in this example.
Al Nelson, Oil.
Many
of the other paintings are more rooted to the physical human presence, and
there are instances wherein the depiction of the artist manages to express
something of the nature of their work. Sculptor Al Nelson seems to occupy space
with a statuesque quality befitting a stone carver, his rough-hewn visage
resting atop a monolithic torso: the man
as monument.
Dennis Schaffner, Oil.
Each
image makes for a satisfactory portrait on its own merits, but the series as a
whole touches upon more expansive themes of community and connectedness among
individuals with a shared passion for making art. In Dennis Shaffner’s oil
portrait, the artist appears to simply be holding one of his woven-vine
constructions between his two hands; yet the natural light striking the face
and the orb shaped piece not-quite-in-his-grasp are captured by Ms. Matisoff so
that the object of the artist’s attention takes on an otherworldly, almost
preternatural presence: the spark of
creativity made manifest in how one artist sees another. It connotes a
spiritual quality that, upon reflection, is present, if more subtly, in the
other pieces. This same glow can be seen in each artist’s eyes: the act of creation as one action combining the
tangible and ephemeral in equal measure.
Still,
the compositional formality is part and parcel of a classical approach to
portraiture that emphasizes psychological insight over dynamic visual
structures. In Matisoff’s previous series, the subjects afforded her the
opportunity to construct group compositions that overtly conjured up the
relationship between the members of a particular community: participants in a renaissance faire socially
bonded by an interest in a specific historical period; or the students who
embrace the discipline of dance at an early age, either engaged in the practice
of movement or at rest along the sidelines. Subtle relationships of human
experience expressed through the relationships of color, light and composition.
In
this new series, which the artist describes as “the most important group,
because it (art) is the most important aspect of myself,” there are no collectives,
no artists talking among themselves or working side by side, so that the relationships
must leap from canvas to canvas, linking each individual into the community
through repetitive composition and positioning; and the depiction of that
sacred act of creation that is shown in the “action” portraits: paint-filled brush
poised above a canvas, hands sunk into soft, slippery clay on the wheel,
fingers manipulating tools that dig and grind into more recalcitrant materials.
Ultimately, they work as pieces of the whole, the entire exhibit functioning as
one singular and glorious expression of community.
"Rites of Passage: A
Celebration of Louisville Artists"
This
fast and loose enterprise has been playing off and on at The Alley Theater for
several months now, always Fridays at 10 p.m. and always (almost) sold out. The
fact that it plays in a tight, 49-seat house in the bowels of The Pointe on
East Washington Street may account for that paucity of available seats, but it
may also have something to do with the fact that it is, quite simply, funny as
hell.
I
once saw it observed that if Woody Allen “shot” his films, then you might
describe the movies of Mel Brooks as having been “blown from a cannon,” and
something like that might also apply to this rambunctious staging. There is a clever
script from Scott Goodman that positions the material as homage to the original
three films (do I need to name them?) before the seemingly endless series of
updated editions that always include newly expurgated sections that tamper with
the sacred texts. Mr. Goodman and his collaborators have included in their show
satirical, yet assuredly disdainful, commentary on such changes as having
Greedo shoot first, but they wisely do not belabor the point.
The
game-for-anything cast brings a highly charged, go-for-broke improvisational
energy to their work that seems open to anything, yet their timing was expert.
Mr. Goodman himself leads the way, and he is matched beat-for-beat by Tony
King, each playing a variety of roles with a forceful commitment to the broad
and silly comedic style. In fact, one of the most enjoyable aspects is the fact
that Luke, Chewbacca, C-3PO, Lando Calrissian and others are played by
different people exchanging wigs and simple costume pieces as they rush between
scenes. It seems random and unexpected enough to suggest anarchy or, at the
very least, disorganization, but the truth is surely that the actors can only
rush pell-mell through the action with such enviable ferocity because there is
enough structure and foundation in the script and direction (by cast member
Chris Petty) to allow for it.
The
other members of the tight ensemble are Kenn Parks, playing Han Solo as another
entry in his Alley Theater gallery of rogues known for their foolhardy courage
and/or hubris. Mr. Parks has become this company’s go-to actor for parodying
that all-too-familiar macho swagger that runs rampant through late-21st Century American action films. Valerie Hopkins juggles Luke and Leia with
aplomb and sports a version of the infamous metal bikini (from The Return of
the Jedi, but if I have to tell you that, then maybe this is not the show for
you?) with enough va-voom to make the most of the moment. Director Petty rounds out the group in
yeoman fashion, with a particularly memorable rendition of Jabba the Hutt.
The
tone and energy remind me of Midnight Movies at The Vogue in the days of my
youth, and point to the young, ready-to-party audience that has developed with
some loyalty to The Alley. Shows
like this one – along with the recent mountings of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio scripts, Point Break Live! and The Matrix, A Parody, not to mention the
first Inhuman Festival of New American Undead Plays – have cultivated a
following from patrons who may not otherwise be regular theatre-goers, yet have
been known to make repeat visits to some of these offerings. It is a menu of often experimental
forays into self-referential American popular-culture, sometimes ragged around
the edges, but always feeding off the lack of uptown polish with a certain
pride and a sure understanding of the counter-culture core of its base.
Star Wars: The Original
Trilogy in 60 Minutes or Less!
May 18, 25, June 1 and 8th. All shows
begin at 10pm. Tickets are $10.00. Season Subscribers may use improv
tickets for this show!
Over at The Speed Museum, The Alley Theater has mounted a neat little
production of Barry Kornhauser’s This Is
Not A Pipe Dream. It is a show intended for clever children of a certain
age, but it offers pleasures with sufficient appeal for adults.
The subject is the early life of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte, a
scenario colorfully illustrating the connection with childhood experience and
the unfettered adult imagination that fueled the once controversial art
movement. Details of Magritte’s
youth are sketchily explored, but the playwright seems less interested in
traditional biography and more concerned with capturing some sense of how one
comes to be an artist.
The script makes unexpectedly logical connections between surrealism and
slapstick comedy, which director Dan Welch’s staging exploits for gentle
comedic effect. The four actors – dressed in dark suits and bowler hats meant to
call to mind “The Son of Man” – bound on to the stage like Keystone Kops and
proceed through a dizzying run of brief scenes that run the gamut from
knockabout farce to tender and introspective human moments. Chase Wolfe, George Bailey and
Deanna Gillespie ably portray multiple characters as well as young Rene and his
parents, while Megan Claire is the Interlocutor, a lively narrator in a
ringmaster’s costume.
They are joined by a slightly imperious onstage “Stage Manager”
embodied by Faith Hoover, and the five interact as an ensemble with good
efficiency and just enough depth of feeling among the silliness to connect to
the audience. There was also nice use of simple stage effects that mimic a magician’s
tricks, as well as a set design that features some beautiful Magritte-like
images painted by Bethan Kannapel. The whole thing could be folded up easily
enough for a traveling show except for the inclusion of some slides featuring
the great painters works that, in the Speed Museum auditorium, are amply
projected.
Lighting in the auditorium is not ideal for such a production, but,
besides the above-average projections, the choice of location lends obvious and
welcome opportunities to enlarge the context of the show. The program
highlights three surrealist works now on display in the Speed Galleries, and
admission to This Is Not A Pipe Dream
includes entry to the Museum, making this a unique and added value production.
It is a rare treat to have a piece of material that embraces the visual
arts in a theatrical context and does so with gentle whimsy and intelligence.
It is a brief run with performances scheduled at unusual times designed to
accommodate families and school groups.
This Is Not A Pipe Dream
May
18, 7PM; May 19, 11AM & 1:30PM; May 20, 1PM & 3:30PM; June 1, 7PM; June
2, 11AM & 1:30PM, June 3, 1PM & 3:30PM
Tickets
include FREE ADMISSION to the Speed Art Museum
Adults
$15, Children 12 & Under $10(Children's tickets may be purchased by clicking
"Select Discount Policy" in the ticketing window.)
Jones Hope Wooten (as the three playwrights who created The Dixie Swim Club are collectively
known) has rapidly become one of the most successful writing teams ever. Known
for their Futrelle Family Texas Trilogy (Dearly
Beloved, Christmas Belles and Southern Hospitality), along with The Hallelujah Girls and Til Beth Do Us Part, among others, they
have recently hit the eighteen hundred productions mark, with over twelve
thousand performances of their various plays. Their scripts are peopled with characters of the southern persuasion
and feature a down-home charm and humor that keeps audiences coming back for
more.
That is certainly true of The
Dixie Swim Club, presented here for a second run at Derby Dinner Playhouse.
It is the Playhouse’s most requested revival ever, and with good reason: it is
a simply wonderful play that is funny and poignant without becoming cloying.
While there is no shortage of laughs in the piece, it is arguably the most
serious-minded of all of Jones Hope Wooten’s plays, one that will put a lump in
your throat by the end.
It tells the story of five women who have been friends since their days
on their college swim team. They meet for a long weekend every August at a
secluded beach cottage in North Carolina to catch up, reminisce, gossip and
swim. All five women are distinct personalities, each one lovable in her own
way, and the play follows them over the course of four such weekends, over a
span of some thirty-three years. The show puts you through its paces of laughs
and heartbreak, in a manner reminiscent of both Steel Magnolias and Driving
Miss Daisy, but manages to adhere to a style all its own.
Great performances all around bring the show to vivid life, and that is
no small feat considering some of these characters could have become shrewish
and overbearing if overplayed. Rita Thomas, for example, makes you love her acid-tongued
and hard-drinking lawyer Dinah despite the character’s built-in brashness, and
she gets some of the shows biggest laughs. Jill Kelly similarly keeps you
rooting for her snobbish, privileged and entitled serial divorcee Lexie,
enough that you feel her pain in a heartbreaking second act reveal (although of
all the actresses, hers is the only Southern accent that feels a bit forced).
Tina Jo Wallace is hysterically funny as the much-put-upon Vernadette,
appearing in every scene with a new injury that emphasizes the constant parade
of bad luck that permeates her life. Michelle Johnson is sweet as the naïve and
slightly air-headed Jeri, a former nun who has had herself artificially
inseminated. And Janet Essenpreis is all business as Sheree, the group’s
health-conscious and obsessively organized de-facto leader.
The changing ages of the ladies over the course of the show is done in a
nicely muted way; no age makeup that I could see, just changes of wigs and
period-correct costumes (supplied by Jill Higginbotham and Sharon Murray
Harrah, respectively). The effect is a believable progression of time that
doesn’t detract from the performances and works beautifully.
Ron Breedlove’s lighting design nicely illuminates John Witzke’s set,
which does evoke a cottage by the ocean. I would like to have seen a bit more
variation from scene to scene in the design, to help indicate the passage of
time, but that’s a minor quibble in an otherwise solid production.
I am only familiar with a few of the Jones Hope Wooten plays, but I
think this one has become my favorite so far. It’s not hard to see why it’s
been revived by popular demand; I strongly recommend you see it before it’s
over.
But if you miss it this time, something tells me it will be back in a
year or so!
The Dixie Swim Club
Starring Janet Essenpreis,
Jill Kelly, Rita Thomas, Michelle Johnson, and Tina Jo Wallace.
The
Drowsy Chaperone, a musical within a comedy, received 13 Tony
nominations in 2006, including one for Best Musical. The crown jewel went to Jersey Boys, but The Drowsy Chaperone collected five Tony awards for its book,
musical score, costumes, set design and its feature actress. Needless to say,
this show has pedigree.
We are fortunate to have The As Yet Unnamed Theatre
Company bring this delightful and humorous musical to the stage. What’s even
more fortunate is to see on stage a group of actors who commit themselves to
their art with their hearts and souls, despite the company’s inability to
provide a fully realized set, colorful costumes or live music.
Knowing the cost of producing a show and the
challenges a company faces, I would normally overlook a production where
suggested items are used to create the illusion of time and space. I might do
the same for costumes and lights and even for pre-recorded music (although I
confess that musicals without a live orchestra don’t sit well with me). But due
to the fact that The Drowsy Chaperon
is about witnessing how a fictional original cast recording comes “alive on
stage” as we listen to the narration, motifs, explanations of each song and
the musical itself, it makes it almost impossible to overlook the fact that in
this particular production there isn’t really a majestic overture or a
breathtaking world appearing on stage as “the curtain rises.” (There is no
curtain in this theatre space, by the way.) In fact, these are the very elements
wherein this production falls short.
Which is not to say that this production isn’t entertaining.
For Gary Tipton as the Man in the Chair to carry the show and “invite" us into
his personal habitat, and for an hour and thirty minutes makes us feel
completely “at home,” is a task not every actor might be up to, but Mr. Tipton
is up to the challenge. And then there is the array of good singing voices
appearing on stage, from Rebecca Chaney as Janet Van De Graff and Aaron
Davenport as Robert Martin to Carrie Chastain in the title role and Kim Perry
as Trix, the Aviatrix. And let’s not forget the comedic timing of Kathy Todd
Chaney as Mrs. Tottendale, Shawwna Ashley Speth as Kitty, and both Brad Lambert
and Neil Brewer as Gangster #1 and Gangster #2, respectively.
But the evening truly belongs to two major players.
As mentioned before, Gary Tipton as the Man in the Chair carries the big
responsibility to deliver a history lesson about musical theatre, and he does
it in a stupendous manner. Then there is the appearance of Jeff Ketterman as
Aldolpho, the over-the-top, over-sexualized Latin lover, a character who has the
potential to become offensive to some audience members (me, for example). Yet it
is the most ridiculous and fun-to-watch stage personage I’ve seen in a long
time. Watching Mr. Ketterman’s physical performance and facial reactions is
priceless. It does, in fact, make you forget that some actors do not know how
to tap dance but instead pound the floor so hard you’re afraid they’re going to
dislocate their knees (yes, that’s how bad that tap duet is), and that some
minor players couldn’t deliver lines quickly enough or missed their cues,
causing a comedic timing issue in the process.
But even with all that, this production of The Drowsy Chaperone is a delight to
watch and something I highly recommend to families and every theatre lover. And
even as the Man in the Chair tells us that this show is silly and purely for
entertainment, there is in fact something to learn about musical theatre: that it
is a treat not easily accomplished through song and dance. Yet The Drowsy Chaperone makes it happen,
and the As Yet Unnamed Theatre Company brings it to life. And all because of
the willingness for the cast to commit 100% to the silliness, the over-the-top
style of acting, and a desire to make the magic happen. From physical gags, laugh-out-loud
jokes and dancing monkeys – yes, you need to see it to believe it, and then refrain
yourself from hurting yourself from laughter – to ridiculous lyrics, endearing
characters and unforgettable performances, the cast makes The Drowsy Chaperone the must-see musical of the month. Trust me;
I’m a musical theatre addict…and someone who studies them for a living.
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