Caught In The Act

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON- Not Your Mom's Musical Theatre

2012-01-20T14:10:00.004-05:00

In the few years it's been kicking around, BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON is not, by any classic definition, considered a "success" as a musical.

It opened on Broadway to largely positive reviews, then, three months later, died an ignominious death there, having both lost money and its audience, and was quickly shunted off to that mythical theatre junkyard where iconoclastic and quirky shows languish.

However, it didn't stay there long; interest in the show on a regional and community theatre level has reanimated it. According to Music Theatre International, which holds the licensing rights for the show, BBAJ is enjoying a thriving second life throughout the United States.

This demonstrates that there are times when "success" is defined less by box office earnings and locations, and more by a play's potential to engage, entertain, and even educate. BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON succeeds because of the latter.

It's easy to see why Not Your Mom's Musical Theater decided to break away from the small and intimate shows that they are (thus far) known for producing to take on a far more ambitious project in BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON; the show is a fun romp through the life of the seventh U. S. President, chronicling his involvement in volatile moments in the country's history, his rise to the role of embattled and contentious Chief Executive, and beyond.

Truly, what sets BBAJ apart is its premise: a historical figure who's also a rock star, and in that milieu, how he moves through a convoluted timeline that examines key moments in Andrew Jackson's life, in combination with elements that occur well past the times in which he lived.

Populate that life with the unlikely characters who make up Jackson's retinue- a self-mutilating emo wife, Native American slackers, hipster Cabinet members, pushy tourists, slutty cheerleaders, screaming queens, and the like- add blood, war, sex, death, intrigue, slapstick and R-rated language, and you've got the makings of a memorable stage work that adroitly steps outside of the structure of anything that's come before it, going on to break fresh ground in the quest for provocative theatre.

Wrap all of this with a highly-charged punk-rock score, and you've got a show that transgresses some of the must-dos of the traditional musical- one that steps outside the boundaries of what constitutes a viable theatrical work, skating up to the edge of disrespect with its satirical view of history, yet manages to soften its sharp edges with an enduring affection for its subject.

BBAJ is staffed with some stellar talent, all of whom do their best to ramp up the energy of BBAJ's plot. The always popular Dylan Gamblin as Jackson, and NYMMT's Artistic Director Jamie Feinberg as his wife Rachel, are joined by a host of equally fine actors, all of whom have done serious time on stages in and around New Hampshire, and whose credentials are impeccable.

Unfortunately, most of the cast's gifts are wasted with this show, and that's due to to director Marc Murai falling back on stage spectacle rather than taking his cast moment by moment through Jackson's life, and schooling them in the potential impact each moment must have in order to create a cohesive and engaging narrative.

BBAJ falls short because its cast is disengaged from the emotional investment of their respective characters; they enter and exit, and in between do little more than react to a constant barrage of onstage noise and fury. We end up not caring about them, or what they want, because they don't demonstrate what it is we should be caring about.

In addition to a cast that doesn't reach its full potential, BBAJ is plagued with a host of technical glitches- jittery graphics, bad microphone pickups, dodgy video links. Individually such problems are forgivable and expected, but as a whole they detract from the pleasure of watching the play, especially when they can't be fixed during the course of an intermissionless production.

As such, opening night was little more than a technical shakedown. Let's hope that the issues are dealt with, and subsequent nights free of distractions.

What audiences are sure to take away from BBAJ is its strongest and most positive aspect as a musical: how it neatly frames the arc of Andrew Jackson's life within a soupcon of juxtaposed moments that aren't supposed to be combined in the normal course of storytelling; clever references to life in America far outside of Jackson's lifespan season the narrative with a rich anachronistic flavor.

This, combined with intelligent, snarky musical numbers as brought by BBAJ's excellent band, keep the engagement level from flagging too badly. When there's fun to be had- and there's a lot of it- the actors do their level best to connect with their audience and fully realize the rich potential of BBAJ's comedic intervals, as well as the odd moments of pathos and conflict. They don't always hit the mark, but it's clear that they want to.

The play's book and its music will jar and provoke you, and even though this version of the play doesn't quite deliver, by the end of the evening you will certainly come away remembering that Andrew Jackson existed, as well as some of what drove him to his place in history.

Clearly, this isn't NYMMT's best effort, but in a time when far older, more established, and financially stable companies in the area coast along complacently with done-to-death offerings, it's encouraging to see a bunch of whippersnappers come together to pull off a production with far more complex production elements than they're used to dealing with in their short tenure here in the Granite State.

When the play closes, they'll have learned some valuable lessons about thinking outside the box, and the critical difference between theory and execution, and move forward better equipped to rise to the challenges of the shows they'll mount in the future.

Perhaps "success" for NYMMT, in the form of this incarnation of BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, is best demonstrated by the company's reach exceeding their grasp, yet not letting this show's deficiencies stopping them from reaching.

It's a ballsy thing to do, even at the best of times, and Not Your Mom's Musical Theater is to be commended for it. Better luck next time.

BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON runs through January 22 at the Amato Center in Milford. Please visit the NYMMT website for details.

Image: Not Your Mom's Musical Theatre

Finalists, NH Theatre Awards, 2011

2011-12-21T18:44:00.002-05:00

Caught In The Act! extends congratulations to the finalists for the 2011 NH Theatre Awards.

Click here to see the finalists in all categories.

A CHORUS LINE

2011-11-05T19:49:00.016-04:00

produced by StageCoach Productions

directed by Scott Severance

choreography by Kellie Haigh; musical direction by Judy Hayward

Actors of all stripes know full well that the stage draws them in ways they can't fully articulate to those who don't feel its pull. They alone hear its siren song as it beckons them, and enfolds them into its eternal embrace of light and shadow.

The desire to act, sing, or dance- to create- is an imperative woven into the very fiber of one's being, and often defies rational explanation. For many performers, there is a spark within them that drives them to do the thing that nurtures their heart and soul, and do it in the face of everything that says they can't, or shouldn't, because the alternative is unthinkable.

And that's pretty much the way the "theatre people" want it.

A CHORUS LINE is a shrewdly provocative dissertation of the process of putting together a show, and of the people who come together to be a part of that show; in the nearly forty years since it debuted on Broadway, A CHORUS LINE has become a quintessential staple in the performing arts landscape.

Assembled by the heavy hitters of the era- Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch among them- A CHORUS LINE remains one of the most storied productions in theatre history. After a record-breaking 15 years on Broadway, its enduring musical numbers and stunning choreography still have the power to move audiences to tears, and bring them to their feet.

Director Scott Severance understands the life of actors better than most; he is one, and so immersed is he in the mythos of theatre culture that it can't help but rub off.

Further, Severance is an accomplished storyteller in his own right, and he recognizes that every character in A CHORUS LINE is an amalgam of real people, each with an experience worth sharing; within each character lies a deeply personal history which compels them, bringing them from wherever they are in their present lives to this penultimate moment on one stage- a Broadway audition.

Using this imperative as his template, Severance finds ways to blend each character's personal backstory with the musical numbers, rather than letting the songs and choreography do the heavy lifting.

Severance distills the thesis of A CHORUS LINE to its essence, bringing to the surface the hopes, fears and flaws of a disparate group of ragtag performers, all of whom come at the audition process with their own ideas as to what being on stage is supposed to mean, and through the prism of their experiences, illuminating the very heart of what makes a Broadway performer.

As director, Severance pens an unabashed love letter to the theatre, charting both the sacred and the profane aspects of the craft with an enduring affection. Severance charges his cast to tell not only A CHORUS LINE's story with unvarnished honesty, but the stories of each and every person who toes that mythic line in the middle of an empty stage.

Through this intuitive process, the audience is treated to a host of characters in whom we are emotionally invested; we end up wanting what they want- that they will cross that line, and be warmed by the glow of the stage lights, forever. In this, Severance, and his cast, succeed beautifully.

There are far too many standout moments to list them all here, but here are a few to witness and savor: Katie Proulx owns the stage as Val, the once plain-Jane whose savvy investment in bodily augmentation endows her with a crackling, hilarious, razor-sharp sexuality. Paul Gauthier-Zayas is an exuberant, high-tension Richie, and Daniel Schwartzberg gives us a kinetic Mike, banging out one dance number after another with an energy that lights up every scene he's in, an energy that comes up and out from his very bones, so deep does his joy run at being what and where he is.

Bethany Cassidy shows us a poignantly adrift Cassie, seeking to rediscover her roots after years of straying away from her first love- the dance; Rachel Cerullo is an insouciant, self-effacing Diana, often putting herself between her fellow chorus members and what she perceives of as unfairness with the protective strength of a mother tiger; and Christopher Kosiavelon is Paul, a scarred veteran of the underbelly of show business, tracing a bittersweet emotional arc that, at its conclusion, will have you reaching for the Kleenex.

Dave Cote is A CHORUS LINE's emotional center as Zach, playing up the tough yet tender aspect of a director who knows full well what's at stake and how best to bring his vision into clarity. In so doing, Cote gives us a Zach who is the grounded rock upon which the actors are simultaneously broken and given shelter- a wonderfully complex performance that truly pulls this production together.

There are more exquisite moments interspersed throughout this show - but to give too much away is to sully the gift that this crew works so hard to present. Best to attend and get swept away.

Technical elements support well but in keeping with the tradition of the play are minimalistic and unobtrusive. Nothing gets in the way of what's happening onstage.

The physical space is almost bare, and as the evening progresses, the analogy is clear- like the naked stage, so, too, must the men and women whose careers are literally on the line bare themselves, stripping away the twin weights of ego and agenda, divesting themselves of their emotional baggage, until finally their very raison d'être is exposed and unencumbered, leaving them free to soar.

You'll hear the iconic songs- "I Hope I Get It", At The Ballet", What I Did For Love" and "One", and see some exhilarating, complicated dance routines; both Judy Hayward and Kellie Haigh rise to the challenge of embellishing the onstage action with excellent routines, finding ways to blend the elements of both music and dance into A CHORUS LINE's main story, giving it a deeper resonance.

Sure, not every voice is note-perfect, nor every dance step executed with finesse, but that's the charm of this play- it teaches us that in order to realize our dreams we must transcend the obstacles put before us, including our own inexperience and faults. Those with the desire to do what they were born to do will seize every chance they can to do it, until it's as close to perfect as they can make it, or until the effort of trying shatters them, leaving them spent, until they pick themselves up, marshal their resources, and start again.

Because that's all they know how to do.

It's rare- very rare- when a reviewer can see a show, and the worst he can say about it is that it only runs one weekend.

This is one of those shows. Go see it. It's more than a show; it's an experience, and it may well be one that won't come along again for a while. Bravo.

A CHORUS LINE runs November 4-6 at the Streeter Theatre, 14 Court Street, Nashua. See the StageCoach Productions website for details.

Image: StageCoach Productions

FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL

2011-10-22T15:14:00.008-04:00

directed by Brett Mallard

musical direction by Heather MacRobie

FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL is the latest in a long line of books, movies and stage works that have made the brave (some might say arrogant) attempt to re-engineer Mary Shelley's abiding Gothic masterpiece.

Based on a nightmare the author had in the summer of 1816, Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN became a novel that fused fiction, science, and horror in such an unprecedented manner that it created a groundswell, inspiring generations of writers and artists to remaster its compelling narrative- that of a brilliant student obsessed with cheating death, who defies both the odds and the natural laws which bind humanity to create life from inanimate matter, and who is ultimately consumed by the havoc wreaked by the unhallowed creature he unleashes upon the world through his profane experiments.

Most of the reincarnations of FRANKENSTEIN- be they literary, cinematic or theatrical- fall short, in that none of them quite match the lush, fascinating chronicle which drives the original novel. These retellings rely more on spectacle, or they borrow aspects from the original book and stray far from its plot, coming up with storylines even more implausible than the original.

FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL is an above-average recapitulation of the classic tale, but it's not without flaws. It's top-heavy, with a plethora of scenes which run together and truncate the play's through-line, and it falls back on contemporary recitative song-style to propel the action in ways that aren't always conducive to the overall effect the play has on its audience.

The musical's book skims over critical relationships between key characters, robbing the actors in those roles of the potential impact they might have had were the dynamics more fully realized.

The audience is unable to be as engaged by the story as they could be, due to the foreshortened series of scenes that play out in a rapid manner, and the occasional unevenness of the songs which detract from the cohesive details integral to this style of theatre.

Director Brett Mallard stages the play with adroit expertise, electing to block simply and effectively, keeping the number of actors onstage to a minimum- a wise choice, given the penury of space at this particular venue, and the deficiencies in both the book and libretto.

Mallard also charges his cast to play up the emotional underpinnings of FRANKENSTEIN'S mythic treatise, and though the play tends to hurry itself along, the director and his crew do succeed in creating some nice moments throughout.

There are 13 actors in the ensemble, but it seems like more; they play a wide variety of characters in about two dozen quickly-paced scenes. FRANKENSTEIN is a sung-through musical, with few spoken lines, relying heavily on the cast to narrate events by way of its many songs, and the actors, for the most part, rise to the challenge. Standouts include Shawn Koczarski (Victor Frankenstein), Stuart Harmon (The Creature), Ashley St. Martin (Elizabeth), Wayne Martin (Alphonse), and Dale Osborne (Caroline). The remainder of the cast supports with consistent strength.

Scenic elements are kept spare, with a representational, multilevel unit set framing the action. An introspective light plot combined with multimedia images enhances the constantly changing mood of the narrative. Costumes are well-executed, recalling the late 18th century. The score, as conducted by Heather MacRobie, is supportive, if a bit uneven in the brass section.

FRANKENSTEIN isn't a bad musical by any stretch of the imagination: however, its 90-minute running time means that certain key components of the story must be glossed over, or omitted altogether. Because of what the writers chose not to include, all productions will have to grapple with the choices made in the creation of this work, and seek out ways to sustain the work's viability.

However, FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL must be lauded for two elements- first, for its depiction of the Creature, which is a far cry from the lurid patchwork horror cobbled from parts of dead bodies that books and movies have visited upon the public's imagination for the past two centuries.

This Creature is no less daunting, but rather than being manifested as a hideous phantasm, he comes to us first as a mere mortal stripped of his humanity, then, in his resurrected form, taking us along on a journey of alienation and revenge as he seeks to restore some measure of the life he believes has been stolen from him.

Second, FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL boasts a denouement that's a keen example of how a simple choice in re-imagining a latter-day legend can transform a frankly staid theatrical work into one that's worthy of notice.

This version of FRANKENSTEIN follows a path which mirrors the original work, but then folds into its conclusion a gripping moment where both creator and creature come together to play out their lives- a poignant innovation that binds everything that precedes it into an emotionally-charged consummation of parallel destinies. As a plot device, it's elegant in its simplicity, and endows the entire play with a sense of meaning that, up to this moment, it lacks.

It's worth noting that the producing company is vacating its current home at the end of 2011; future seasons will be scaled down and dependent upon whatever space they're able to find.

FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL may well be one of the last fully-realized productions you will be able to see by this company for the foreseeable future; considering the play's limitations, the Majestic does a fine job with it, and you may want to consider catching it before both the show and the venue pass into memory.

FRANKENSTEIN: A NEW MUSICAL plays through October 30 at the Majestic Theatre. See their website for details.

Image: Majestic Theatre

ORSON'S SHADOW

2011-10-07T22:11:00.008-04:00

produced by Phylloxera Productions/The Players Ring

directed by Gary Locke

FIVE REASONS TO SEE THIS PLAY

THE STORY. Austin Pendleton's treatment of a real-life encounter between Orson Welles and Lawrence Olivier is a thoughtful, at times grim, commentary on what could have happened when two of the most talented luminaries of the stage in the latter half of the 20th century met and attempted to collaborate.

IN ORSON'S SHADOW, Welles and Olivier are reluctantly thrown together by a series of bad professional and personal choices which force their paths to cross; Welles, his career already in decline, is tasked with directing Olivier in a production of Ionesco's absurdist play RHINOCEROS.

As the title suggests, Welles is both being forced into the shadows, and simultaneously overshadowing everything he puts his hand to, by dint of his own erratic temperament and his insatiable need for everything to be of an impossibly high artistic caliber- a benchmark which, ironically, he himself can never reach, and one that ultimately proves to be his undoing.

Olivier, flush with success on both the stage and screen, is struggling with an eroding marriage to an emotionally insubstantial Vivian Leigh, whilst embroiled in an affair with actress Joan Plowright.

Further, it's possible that Olivier was a principle agent in Welles' ruination in, and subsequent expulsion from, Hollywood; while both men agree to be brought together on the project by critic Kenneth Tynan, to say that neither is a fan of the other would be an understatement.

Once they're unwillingly forced into harness to stage RHINOCEROS, their tense collusion and what unfolds thereafter is the spark that ignites this incandescent story, one that lights up The Players Ring stage with its conflicts as well as its possibilities.

THE ACTING. In a word, superb. It's tight, disciplined and engaging. There's no superfluous exposition nor wasted movement in the blocking by the six actors who bring the characters to life here. Part of it is due to an adept director, but credit must also be given to a troupe that's respectful of the script, and mindful of the space which they occupy.

The cast convinces in their manifestation of the characters by hooking on to small, yet impactful, aspects of who they're playing. Each actor captures the essence who these people are by finding small, understated mannerisms most reminiscent of them, bringing them into sharper relief and making them far more compelling than would be possible had the actors chosen to over-reach and thus eclipse these characters with broader interpretations.

Mitch Fortier (Kenneth Tynan), Todd Hunter (Welles), Christopher Savage (Olivier), Laurie Torosian (Joan Plowright) and Constance Witman (Vivian Leigh) each bring a singular pathos to the stage in the characters they portray. .

Each actor brings to the surface beings who are brilliant, impassioned, yet flawed; they have all allowed their better angels to be shouted down by the demons that beset them, and each has set themselves on paths where they ultimately smash up against one another, ricocheting time and again off the wreckage they have caused by their choices.

Whether it's Hunter and Savage butting heads as two of theatre's most vaunted supernumeraries, or Witman's fragile, ephemeral woman-child Leigh, fighting to hold on to a straying husband, or Fortier's crushingly insecure, solipsistic theatre critic Kenneth Tynan, or Torosian's poignant and dignified Plowright, confident in her abilities as an actress but self-effacing and cast into self-doubt as the mistress of one of the world's most famous actors- these actors are, in turn, masterful in the choices they execute.

Along with Glenn Provost providing comedic support as a game, energetic Irish jack-of-all-trades stagehand, you have a sterling assembly of actors who recognize the value of a good story,

Each actor shares unselfishly of his gifts, coming together with the other five to create a powerful ensemble, one that lifts that story it up to that place where it it can't help but pull the audience in, keeping them engaged for the duration, and, in the end, sending them away utterly absorbed by what they've seen. Well done.

The DIRECTING. Gary Locke makes it his business to know this play intimately, thoroughly, and it shows in his directing; he realizes that what resonates most is not only the story that gets unwound by the characters in the course of what they do and the quest for what they want, but the individual story that each character needs to tell, all of it neatly converging in what transpires onstage.

And, like the best directors, Locke is smart enough to get out of the way of a good story, taking on the role of facilitator and nurturing midwife, allowing the story to tell itself, shaping it carefully but not allowing his or anyone's ego to bowdlerize it, thus giving the tale a lustrous life all its own, and making it something worth paying attention to.

THE TECHNICAL STUFF. What the little of it there is in this production works to the show's advantage. The action takes place on two bare-bones stages; set pieces and props are spare, the light plot spartan and functional.

There are lovely and supportive incidences of music interspersed throughout. Because the audience is almost literally cheek by jowl with the onstage action, the overall technical elements are elegant and understated, folding themselves into the story and serving the play beautifully with their combined restraint.

The most elaborate aspect of ORSON'S SHADOW is the costume plot as executed by Barbara Newton; it's faithful to the early 1960s without being fussy, or with burdening the actors with a plethora of unnecessary changes. In all, the clothing reflects the character, stops there, and calls it good.

THE SPACE. The Players Ring is an intimate space, with roughly 400 square feet of stage and seating (for you non-math types, that's about 20 feet by 20 feet) cozily bundled together within the brick-and timber confines of a charming old building that was once the home of The Portsmouth Marine Railway Company.

The theatre resides next to a spot where vessels were once hauled by horses from the nearby Piscataqua River and dry-docked for inspection; it's a compact area, one that lends itself to forms of theatre which rely less on spectacle and more on their proximity to the audience.

There's no room for lavish sets, elaborate light plots, or other technical hugger-muggery; everything staged at TPR is scaled down and distilled to its essence, requiring that audience pay more attention to the craftsmanship within the plays being staged there, rather than sitting back and allowing the sound and fury of big-cast shows offered at larger venues to lull them into a false sense of having witnessed quality theatre.

And it works; judging from the amount of awards conferred by the local paper alone, The Players Ring has offered consistently good theatre as the host venue for a variety of companies for the past 20 years, and they show no signs of stopping.

Of the six in ORSON'S SHADOW, five of them are real people, and of that five, only one of them is still alive.

Should Dame Joan Plowright ever condescend to reveal what really happened in the winter of 1960 between Orson Welles, Lawrence Olivier, Vivian Leigh, Kenneth Tynan and herself, surely it would be a riveting story, and one for the ages.

Until then, ORSON'S SHADOW is a delicious substitute for the reality of that long-ago time.

ORSON'S SHADOW runs September 23- October 9, 2011 at The Players Ring. Please visit their website for details.

Publish Post

Image: The Players Ring

STEEL MAGNOLIAS

2011-08-26T16:30:00.007-04:00

produced by The Winnipesaukee Playhouse

directed by Patricia Runcie

Much has been written about STEEL MAGNOLIAS, and how it charts the course of six disparate women in their day-to-day lives in a small Louisiana town. The story of how they bond together through their personal journeys, through triumph, and tragedy, is no longer new- yet with each telling, the story of how these six women come together- and remain together- continues to resonate with an unalloyed freshness.

The Winni P's version of STEEL MAGNOLIAS is ably directed by Patricia Runcie; she brings a woman's sensibility to who these characters are, what they want, and where they're going. Outside of that, the characters are allowed to evolve according to the personalities of the women who play them, and they flourish under Runcie's understated influence.

Of the cast, all but newcomer to the Winni P stage Pat Langille embrace the Southern archetype; they're a bunch of boisterous, headstrong, animated belles, blithely bitchy in one moment, then tender and solicitous in the next.

As Truvy, Candace Clift provides a study in contrasts; owner of the beauty shop where these six women congregate, she's a loud, brash, fast-talking broad, keeping her ear to the ground and eager for gossip and scandal to spice up her days. Conversely, she knows when to shut up and listen when the situation calls for it, and Clift strikes a fine balance between these two aspects of Truvy.

Clift also deserves special mention; an accident two days before opening night forced her to negotiate the stage in a cast and with crutches; the manner in which Clift handles herself under these conditions made it seem that the handicap was written in. Well done.

Tonya Free gives us a nervy Annelle, Truvy's apprentice, new to town and laboring under a few burdensome secrets; she's fun to watch as she evolves from jittery young girl to a far calmer woman, finding herself through her faith and her friends. Claire Needham is Annelle's polar opposite as Shelby; she sets a laser-straight vision for what she wants and then goes and gets it, and Needham, too, shows great range as she traverses her own arc from headstrong young lady to established wife and mother.

Donna Goldfarb and Beverly Miller are as superbly matched as they were in GIGI, this time as Clairee and Ouiser; they're both a couple of wicked old hens who enjoy a good cackle at the expense of others. Goldfarb portrays Clairee as a bit of a genteel society dame, contrasted with Miller's grittier, more profane Ouiser, but together they are are the town's collective memory, and from this both have carved themselves permanent niches in the town's history-which is less important to them, it turns out, for the love they have for one another, and for the four younger women who come into their respective orbits.

Pat Langille plays M'Lynn as more reticent than her exuberant collleagues- she's as able to keep up with the cattiness and gossip, but overall more restrained in her personality. She's a quiet anchor for the crew, the eye of calm when all around her the storms of drama rage and whirl. It's a nice contrast, and one that goes well with what the rest of the cast brings to the stage.

Melissa Shakun's set is an endearingly cluttered, rag-tag affair, reflecting the enclosed porch aspect of Truvy's home business- the room is almost an afterthought, put together in rough-carpentry style and augmented by Truvy's enthusiastic decorating. Nothing matches and nothing's new or shiny, but instead of being sad and tatty, it's cozy, comfortable and welcoming, very much a home-away-from-home for Truvy's clientele.

Finally, I must take gentle exception to director Patricia Runcie's note in the program that insists that STEEL MAGNOLIAS needs to "transcend gender" and move beyond the sobriquet of a "chick play".

Since the play focuses on six women and how they move through each others' intertwined lives, I don't see how it does anything but limit itself to a gender-specific dynamic in ways both women and men would find most familiar, among them marriage, childbirth, family, and the community in which they live and serve.

What's wrong with that? Not a damn thing. Rather than embrace a faux political correctness by paying lip service to the sweeping inclusion of all gender identities, STEEL MAGNOLIAS celebrates the essentially straight woman, lifting her up by proudly illuminating that which straight women often aspire to: being a partner and helpmate to their husbands, a loving, nurturing mother to their children, and enriching the community by doing not what her gender role forces her to do, but that which she chooses to do.

That these women live out their lives in traditional ways doesn't make them victims. They all have their own singular power as women, and as friends, because they accept who they are in the present, embrace their past, and plan for a future that does not marginalize them in the roles they choose to take on. They have not "settled" so much as aspired to find that still, small place within themselves that is at peace with who they are - that place of contentment, where they can come to sit, look around, and take a measure of satisfaction that they are where they want to be.

They choose to do it in a way that includes those most near and dear to them, and this, perhaps, is STEEL MAGNOLIA's best lesson- to be true to yourself, and to surround yourself with those who are true to themselves, and who bring out the best in you.

If it takes a "chick play" to most effectively impart that lesson, then so be it. The six fine ladies in a Chinquapin Parish, Louisiana, beauty parlor are doing a damn fine job.

STEEL MAGNOLIAS runs through September 4, 2011 at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Please see their website for details.

GIGI

2011-08-04T22:00:00.003-04:00

presented by The Winnipesaukee Playhouse

directed by Neil Pankhurst

GIGI, the nearly-forgotten stage play by Anita Loos, treads a double-edged path: on its surface, it's a frothy parable about love, and the choices one makes whilst in love's thrall.

There's comedy, conflict and obstacles galore, but by and large all of those ensnared in love's wide-cast net are assured to find a way out of that which threatens to drag them down into despair's dark depths.

In the end, the story turns out well for all involved. N'est-ce pas?

The darker path that GIGI travels is the one that examines a far less palatable aspect of life for women of a certain age, and in a certain time. At the turn of the 20th century, there were more doors closed to women than were open.

Their choices were few: they could be wives and mothers, they could be maids, menials or shop girls... or, they could set their sights slightly higher, and become the mistresses to the elite men who controlled the destinies of the nations which they ruled as the captains of industry or inheritors of wealth.

Such is the case with GIGI; in 1951, Anita Loos adapted the work of French novelist and actress Colette and made it into a stage play- rather daring for that buttoned-down, repressive time in American history when sex was barely spoken of, let alone written about.

The play follows the life of a Gigi, a young girl in early 1900s Paris, who is being groomed by her grandmother and great-aunt for a life as a courtesan- which is a genteel way of saying that they intend to auction Gigi off to the highest- and richest- bidder, so that she may occupy his bed, for as long as he finds her palatable, and in the process gain a bit of material comfort as they assure Gig's place in society.

However, Gigi has a mind of her own. Fully cognizant of the ways of the world in which she moves, Gigi feels that she is worthy of- and therefore destined for- a better life, one that does not consist of aimlessly drifting from man to man and bed to bed, but a life of love, fulfillment, and honor- not just for herself, but for the man she will ultimately choose to spend her life with.

This belief, of course, puts her at cross-purposes with the two women who exert the most influence over her, and it is this intriguing conflict upon which the central plot of GIGI is hinged.

GIGI is a classic comedy of manners; as such, the comedy itself stems not merely what is said and done, but the manner and the circumstance in which it is said and done.

Director Neil Pankhurst has a good feel for the mannered comedy and the absurdity that comes of it. He has his actors range the stage in broad yet organic swoops and swirls, keeping the physical comedy light and nearly subliminal, yet not afraid to allow the actors the occasional broad gesture or expression to match the moment.

Pankhurst borrows liberally- and effectively- from the classics: there's a touch of Molière for the comedy, a bit of Jean Racine for the tragedy, and a smidge of Sartre-like philosophy to keep the action from collapsing into anarchy. And it works.

Pankhurst is rewarded in his efforts by a cast who hooks on to his concepts and brings them to life.

Candace Clift returns to the Winni P stage after two seasons away to occupy the daffy, not altogether graceful maid Sidonie, who pursues every available male as well as every unattended flute of champagne in her line of vision with equal ardor. John Piquado, a Winni P staple, is dry and droll as Victor, a butler in the home of Gigi's great-aunt Alicia.

Sasha Castroverde shines as the blowsy, boozy, chanteuse-in-perpetual-training Andree, Gigi's endearingly absentminded mother, and newcomer Jonathan Weber acquits himself with great zeal as Gaston "Tonton" Lachaille, a friend of the family whose friendship with Gigi blossoms into something deeper, causing Gaston to question his place in the world at large and, more importantly, Gigi's world.

The play is very nearly stolen by Donna Goldfarb and Beverly Miller, Gig's grandmother and great-aunt respectively. These two accomplished actresses play characters at the extreme ends of the socioeconomic spectrum: Goldfarb as Madame Alvaraz, the stern yet loving mother and grandmother, a dignified beauty consigned to a life of penury for not compromising herself to a life as the mistress to a series of uncaring men, yet determined to lift bher daughter and granddaughter above the lowly station she has been consigned to; and Miller as a faded grande coquette, years past her prime and entombed in an opulent mansion overstuffed with baubles that give her no comfort, trapped by her overwhelming dependence upon a way of life that she embraced without question, and which, in the twilight of her life, has left her bitter and wanting.

These two women are marvelous, by themselves as well as in in their relationships with the other actors. But it's when they come together that one bears witness to the courage of each woman's convictions, how they must throw in as reluctant allies when the future of their beloved Gigi is put into jeopardy, and the little morality tale that surfaces when each woman learns to listen not to the clamoring voices within their own heads, but the small, sweet voice of the young girl for whom they both want so much.

Brady Lynch is a fresh-faced, perky, yet self-possessed Gigi, a girl who is comfortable in her own skin, precociously aware of how the world around her works, and her place in it. As Gigi, Lynch is tasked with not only having to figure out what her character wants, but what those around her want, both for her and for themselves, and then having to find a way to emerge from a maelstrom of agendas with her integrity, her innocence- and her soul- intact.

She does; Lynch is energetic and engaging as she charts her course, and from start to finish, she's spot on as Gigi, despite manifesting a distracting tendency to over-articulate her hard consonants, resulting in a stentorian and clipped delivery at odds with her naturalistic presence. It's an unnecessary actor's trick, one that doesn't work for her, and one she would be well-advised to drop from her tool kit sooner rather than later.

David Towlun and Matt Guminski once more team up on scenic design- the resulting set and light plot is less elaborate than previous Winni P productions, but the overall effect is very pleasing as the action shuttles between two circa-1900 Parisian homes. Lesley Pankhurst outdoes herself with stunning period costumes, and Johanna Halperin rises to the challenge of furnishing both homes with beautifully detailed set pieces and accessories.

GIGI won't play at your emotions like a musical might, but then again, the Winni P has never tried to take the easy way out, and they certainly have their work cut out for them in the selling of the merits of this show.

However, if all you want is an easy time at the theatre- with or without a catalogue of catchy tunes- well, there's a plethora of "professional" pre-digested pablum on tap in any direction away from this company.

If you want to be engaged on an entirely different level, then the Winni P's GIGI is the play for you.

GIGI plays at The Winnipesaukee Playhouse through August 13. See their website for details.

Image: Amanda Cass

SO YOU WANT TO BE REVIEWED.......

2011-07-25T21:43:00.000-04:00

Looking for a reviewer from the big time to come see your show?

Terry Teachout says that it's easier than you think.

Read on:

http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/2011/07/tt_so_you_want_to_get_reviewed_8.html

SHIPWRECKED! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as told by himself)

2011-07-22T15:03:00.008-04:00

produced by The Winnipesaukee Playhouse

directed by Bryan Halperin

A man leaves behind nothing more than his name.... that, and the stories he's told. All else is dust.

- Louis de Rougemont

Rarely am I moved to be a part of a standing ovation; hell, I've been to shows where I only clapped so as not to earn the scorn of my fellow audience members.

Last night I not only stood, I applauded, loud and long, for the brilliant cast and crew that were responsible for the Winnipesaukee Playhouse's superb production of SHIPWRECKED!, playing now through July 30.

Director Bryan Halperin brings an unabashed love for stories that are tinged with a carnival flavor to his already well-stocked directorial toolbox; SHIPWRECKED! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as told by himself) is a little boy's dream come true- it's a three-ring circus of fantastically drawn characters, exotic locales, strange creatures and a host of hilarious, clownish antics by three prop-wielding actors of the highest caliber, set against a backdrop of various points of the globe, when the British Empire was at its zenith.

Halperin's intuitive and energetic blocking engages the audience from the beginning of this 90-minute, intermission-free romp, keeping the onstage action tightly reined in and moving along at a brisk yet unhurried pace. At times the audience is rapt with attention, other times hysterical with laughter, always enchanted as the story unfolds.

SHIPWRECKED! is Pulitzer-winning playwright (Dinner With Friends) Donald Margulies' tale of Louis de Rougemont, the eponymous mainstay of the play. Play-goers are treated to a riveting narration of de Rougemont's adventures, from his humble beginnings in working-class London to his meteoric rise to the toast of British high society, and everything in between.

The story incorporates phantasmagorical elements reminiscent of Disney and Monty Python, yet remains solidly grounded in reality as de Rougemont traverses the arc of his life. As to what those elements are, or how de Rougemont deals with them...well, that would be giving far too much away, and it's so much fun to be a part of the goings-on, you'll just have to go see for yourself.

The story of de Rougemont's travels is based upon the rather lurid reminiscences of a real person. Indeed, SHIPWRECKED! would be little more than a tall tale by a redoubtable and rather disreputable old character, were it not for the ingenuity and resourcefulness of its three-person cast- they throw themselves wholeheartedly into their characters, unafraid to take chances, stripped of ego and ready to make themselves not only part of the story, but the story itself.

Sasha Castroverde (Elvira in Winni P's production of BLITHE SPIRIT last summer) and Dan Lendzian (Don in this season's BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE) not only support beautifully as Players One and Two, they weave themselves inextricably into the fabric of de Rougemont's epic saga.

Castroverde and Lendzian take on a full panoply of characters, bringing them to life as de Rougemont invokes them- solicitous mothers, raffish sea captains, aborigines, faithful dogs, and even Queen Victoria are but a few of the men and women these two adept actors inhabit in the course of the play.

No one character is onstage for long, often coming and going within the space of a moment, but Castroverde and Lendzian endow all of them with a finely-tuned sense of purpose, worth watching in and of themselves but generous in sharing the stage with each of the actors as they inhabit the space, bringing a new level of respectability to the term "supporting actor".

The play's main character, of course, is Louis de Rougemont himself, the pivot point upon which this play turns, brilliantly portrayed by Richard Brundage.

Winni P audiences will remember Brundage's incandescent performance last year as Passepartout in AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, and will once again be thrilled to witness the amazing scope of this fine actor's ability to transform himself in the role of de Rougemont.

Unlike his 80 DAYS role, Brundage only inhabits the one character, but what a character it is.

Brundage takes us through de Rougemont's entire life, from his modest origins as the sickly, housebound child of an unremarkable immigrant family, to how fate led him from the banks of the Thames to mysterious ports of call as a seafarer and treasure hunter, caught up in the mysteries and the lore of strange, far-off places, to the foundering of his ship and the loss of its entire crew save himself and a faithful canine companion (hence the title of the play) and onward to even more fantastical adventures.

Not only does Brundage relate de Rougemont's tale, he becomes the character entirely, manifesting at turns the wan city boy, the eager, seagoing teenager, the man dealing with the challenges of life as a castaway, and the grizzled veteran learning to adjust to civilization thirty years after being away from it.

Brundage shows us the man that de Rougemont is destined to become, the man constantly looking over the horizon to the next adventure, the man totally enchanted by his own timeline of exploration, even while at odds with the very society that is determined to discredit him.

In de Rougemont, Brundage graces the stage with a creature who transforms into the very mythos he puts forth, becoming not only he who tells the tale, but the tale itself.

Yet, as de Rougemont, Brundage does not seek to lift himself above the circumstances in which he finds himself; it is de Rougemont's humanity, his gravitas, that Brundage manifests, and this is the most enduring, and most fascinating, aspect of this fine actor's craft that he shares.

Designers David Towlun and Matthew Guminski once again team up to bat one out of the park with a cozy, carnival-like setting, slightly tatty and careworn, reminiscent of a Victorian-era traveling medicine show, with warm, earthy canvas depictions of de Rougemont's adventures and a constantly shifting light plot that underscores the onstage action.A series of ingeniously simple shadow puppets by Andrew Finley complements the set and storyline.

And, of course, a Towlun/Guminski imaginarium would not be complete without a surprise or two built into it. Enjoy.

Trunks, props, musical instruments and other ephemera as provided by Johanna Halperin are integral to the evens which transpire, and Lesley Pankhurst rises to the occasion to costume the three actors in the myriad roles they play, convincing utterly with a scrap of cloth or a simple change of clothing.

SHIPWRECKED! boasts a superb story, populated by a first-rate cast and production team, coupled with exquisitely rendered scenic elements. It proves without question that the best stage works are not imited to densely-populated musicals, spectacles stuffed with special effects, or "name" plays done for the sake of bragging rights alone.

Leave those plays to companies who think they know better; in the meantime, the Winni P continues to get it right.

Get your tickets to SHIPWRECKED! while you can. This is one of the best shows the Winni P has done in its short but storied history, and that's going some.

SHIPWRECKED! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as told by himself) plays through July 30 at The Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Visit their website for more information.

Image: The Winnipesaukee Playhouse

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

2011-07-16T15:11:00.013-04:00

presented by the Milford Area Players

directed by Vick Bennison

YOU ONLY HURT THE ONES YOU LOVE.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is Tracy Letts’ bleakly humorous rumination on family dynamics, the staying power of regret, and the dubious art of facing an uncertain future while simultaneously coping with the dark past and stormy present.

It’s also a cheat of a play, stripped of originality. AUGUST isn’t much more than a mashup of ideas and plot lines borrowed liberally from dead writers- Faulkner, Hellman, O’Connor, Williams and Capote among them.

Letts also gleefully steals from those still among us- chiefly Albee and Mamet, to name but two.

These writers were- and are- at the forefront of illuminating such subjects as family dysfunction, addiction, sexual politics, betrayal, and every deviant peccadillo one could contain within the genteel fiction of polite society. Their plays, novels and essays are fearless examinations of shunned topics, written so thoroughly and so well that they continue to resonate.

Letts, in his overblown saga detailing the tribulations that rock the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, clambers unbidden onto the shoulders of giants. In so doing, he fast-tracks his own path to glory, shamelessly lifting his work to the level of the masterpieces of his literary forebears.

Despite its glaring insufficiencies, AUGUST succeeds because Letts has found a facile way to cobble together many of the disparate story elements of what powered the works of those of came before him, and to make theatre-goers respond on a visceral level.

Letts places over this soupçon of stolen ideas an obfuscating pall, locating the work in a part of the world few have cared to explore, thus neatly avoiding being labeled as derivative.

He then sets it all in motion, not merely pressing every emotional button on the human spectrum, but repeatedly smashing them with all of the force- and the grace- of a 20-lb sledgehammer.

AUGUST groans with the flabbiness of overwriting; there’s far too much going on, for far too long. The play clocks in at an astounding three and a half hours, including two intermissions.

One is subjected to a continuous assault on one’s sensibilities as the play lurches from a suicide and subsequent family gathering to a melee of hysterical finger-pointing and the revelation of one interesting plot twist, gradually winding down to a series of half-assed resolutions and textbook comeuppances.

The play’s length would be less of an issue if it were staged better. From the outset, an excruciatingly slow pace and a cast that’s put through its paces at half-speed hamstring AUGUST.

Director Vick Bennison neglects to build a cohesive rhythm into the story, trusting instead to let Letts’ bloated narrative style carry the day. As a result, the play is stilted and legato throughout, and the moments where it could be at its most powerful come off as forced and shrill.

Blocking is wooden and without regard for space; actors are oddly grouped in corners, or they come and go with little motivation, in one another’s way more often than not. A shame, since the beautiful multi-level unit set designed by Tom Morgan and Paul Meltzer is generous in its dimensions and interior appointments.

Lest one be tempted to dismiss this incarnation of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY as little more than a solipsistic exercise, let it be known that the production contains some true gems among the acting corps- their performances justify having to endure this top-heavy drama.

AUGUST belongs almost solely to two of its principal female characters. Barbara Webb as dyspeptic, pill-popping matriarch Violet Weston, and Mari Keegan as vitriolic daughter Barbara Weston Fordham, rule the play from beginning to end.

In terms of consistency of character, these two women own the stage. They’re energetic, charismatic and utterly convincing. The rest of the cast provides good moments here and there, but compared to these two, are just along for the ride.

Webb and Keegan turn in performances that are unsettling yet riveting, and whether doing battle with one another or other members of the extended Weston clan, are gratifyingly repugnant from initial rise to final blackout.

Webb and Keegan are superbly matched- both of them manifest prickly, vulgar, damaged women, all steel spine, sharp edges, and bitter vetch. Between them, they serve up an unparalleled buffet of bitchery, delivering profane diatribes to one another and any family member who crosses their paths.

Individually Violet and Barbara typify women who stagger through the detritus of their own lives, propelled by a perpetually stoked engine of rage, seeking catharsis by affixing blame, unable to move past their own inertia, crippled by the weight of the demons that beset them.

Together, they converge to become a malevolent force of nature, looking everywhere but within as they cast about for ways to slake their perpetual fury. They unleash their self-loathing onto the world around them, destroying everything in their path, leaving behind scorched earth and fresh scars on top of older wounds- scars that will never, ever heal.

It’s inevitable that the more Violet and Barbara abuse and disavow one another, the more fated they are to be thrown together- and they are, time and again. This is AUGUST’s best subplot, and it works well.

These two women are supremely nasty pieces of work, but it’s not their nastiness that defines them. Both actors traverse a full arc of complicated emotions, presenting two very real women who, in the end, are doing what they can to make it through the day, by any and every means available to them- even if that means hurting the ones whom they profess to love. It’s disturbing, honest work that these two actors do, and it pays off in full.

Southern NH staples Sheila Melanson, Len Deming, and Neil Blaiklock all support beautifully in their respective roles, and Larry Pizza is deliciously horrifying as a sleazy pedophile that sets his sights on his fiancee’s teenaged niece.

Don’t attend AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY because it’s a “name” play with the dubious pedigree of having a few awards backing it. If you do, you will come away disappointed; its accolades are smoke and mirrors, disguising its flaws.

While a certain amount of heavy lifting is required of the audience as well as the actors in their participation of a play, AUGUST asks for far too much, and it’s exhausting. Especially when the play turns out to be little more than an argument, full of sound and fury but lacking in substance- an argument carried on for far too long, and ending far past the point it should.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is chock-full of succulent story elements- black, stinging humor; regrets born of impetuous action, and the dread that consumes its characters as they wade through the wreckage of their lives toward a blighted future are but a few of the possibilities this play contains but keeps largely to itself.

Because too much is packed into it, the play can’t unfold, and it doesn’t have the power to take us down paths that are rich with emotional architecture, which it could if its scope were narrower and more finely focused.

Ultimately the play becomes falls victim to the hubris of the playwright, who has elected to hide his deficiencies behind an avalanche of inchoate concepts.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is a sterling example of the law of diminishing returns; it promises much, but ultimately, delivers far less. The theatre faithful deserve better.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY runs through July 24, 2011. Visit the MAP website for details.

Image: Flopping Aces

BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE

2011-06-26T18:32:00.015-04:00

produced by the Winnipesaukee Playhouse

directed by Bryan Halperin

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to (me) what it concedes to the butterflies.

- Charles Dickens, BLEAK HOUSE

On its surface, BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE is about transformation, and that which brings transformation about.

For most of us, it’s the obstacles and afflictions scattered throughout our lives that spur change. It’s how we deal with challenges that compel us to seek constant betterment, and to enjoy the freedoms that rise from those experiences.

Within those experiences, there’s the journey, and the host of lessons to be learned- first, to recognize the challenge, and from there embark upon a path of discovery, in order to get to that point where one finds what one needs to rise to the challenge, and move forward. Only when we’re allowed to encounter the whole of what is put in front of us can we take away the full measure of the experience itself, and thus transform.

In this regard, BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE falls short. Not the production- the play. More on that later.

BUTTERFLIES gives us Don, a would-be musician who’s saddled with a helicopter mother who won’t leave him alone as he tries to make a life for himself in a tiny New York apartment during the Summer of Love. Don, who is dealing with other significant disadvantages, has taken a flat next to the free-spirited, easy-breezy, ex-hippie, aspiring-actress Jill, who’s come to The Big Apple to get past a few demons of her own.

The two kids meet up after some desultory chit-chat through the paper-thin common wall separating their flats, and sparks fly. In the wake of their coupling, what transpires is a crazy seesaw of adventure with Dragon Mom as the fulcrum upon which everything tips.

Here’s the good: four adept actors under a savvy director, excellent production values, and a story which, while chock full of flaws, moves along with sustained energy and doesn’t stray too far from the plausible and into the improbable, all of which makes for an entertaining evening.

Director Bryan Halperin does BUTTERFLIES a service by not allowing either the actors or the story to become bogged down by a diaphanous plot. Halperin chooses the play’s moments wisely, keeping the action moving along and fleshing out some of its thinner areas.

Halperin’s direction is well matched by the actors who inhabit BUTTERFLIES’ characters. Dan Lendzian is a stolidly philosophical, yet optimistically dream-driven, Don, and Rebecca A. K. Turner portrays Jill as light and frothy, but not so disconnected as to be a mere airhead.

Donna Shilke turns in an enviable performance as Mrs. Baker, Don’s mother, who walks a fine line between formidable upscale suburban matron and a loving mother who only wants to protect the son she perceives of as helpless. Kevin Killavey supports well as the redoubtable Ralph, providing BUTTERFLIES with some nice comedic moments as he plots to get the beauteous Jill into a nude off-off Broadway production, and from there into his bed.

Designers Melissa Shakun and Matt Guminski combine their visual artistry to produce a roomy apartment decorated in luridly psychedelic pastels and day-glo colors. Props maven Johanna Halperin outfits the space nicely with shabby-chic junk-store finds. Lesley Halperin Pankhurst's costumes are perfect reproductions of the kicky styles of the late 1960s. Neil Pankhurst plumbs the sound vaults to provide the production with music poignantly reminiscent of the era.

Here’s the not so good: as was stated earlier, this production lacks substance, but that’s not because of any fault on the part of the actors, or the production staff. They’re aces. The fault lies in playwright Leonard Gersche’s facile writing and his insistence on not allowing either the characters or the story to fully form or actuate.

Gershe throws four unlikely people together, which would in and of itself be a fairly compelling way to provide a story with some interesting turns. He starts off well, providing his characters with interesting predicaments to overcome, and then he diffuses the play’s impact by rushing his characters toward hasty, predictable resolutions and a pat ending.

The play’s biggest drawback is not what happens, but how fast it happens. Events tumble one onto another in rapid succession, never fully forming, never completely resolving. As a result, the four characters in the play are denied the opportunity to fully experience the accidental convergence of their lives.

The play’s structure is such that events transpire too quickly, never allowing moments to spin out, and never rising to the level of anything other than a pedestrian story with an easily foreseen- if somewhat satisfying- conclusion.

Which begs the question: why do a play like BUTTERFLIES if its story is so flawed?

The answer: like their offerings of CLIFFHANGER and THEOPHILUS NORTH before it, the Winnipesaukee Playhouse doesn’t consider it an imperative to always provide its audience with plays that scream “substance”- however one might quantify that word.

The company recognizes the value inherent in the story that is found wanting, not for what it lacks, but for the flaws themselves, and where they take those who are involved in its telling.

That a company would deliberately take on such a deficient work as BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE, and transform its negatives into a compelling narrative using all they have at their disposal- director, actors, designers, and all- is a company worth patronizing.

Much like the humble caterpillar, handicapped by gravity and facing a host of challenges to make it to the chrysalis stage, so does this production manage to become a singular butterfly, free to become what it was meant to be.

A story is salvaged, and made better by the efforts of those who believe in it. Perhaps the lesson here is that belief, in and of itself, is enough to get you past some of the obstacles in your way.

This story, warts and all, as done by the talented folks in their little theatre on the big lake, is transformed, and ends up drawing you in. Well done, Winnipesaukee Playhouse.

BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE runs through July 2, 2011 at The Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Visit their website for details.

Image: Miranda Vasquez

SMUDGE

2011-06-23T17:20:00.006-04:00

produced by Ghostlight Theatre Company of New England

directed by Devon Scalisi

What is left for you to do when the thing you’re supposed to love unconditionally is… a thing?

The events in Rachel Axler’s smart, weirdly humorous SMUDGE detail the story of a young couple who find themselves having to cope with the bleak reality of Cassandra, their cruelly deformed baby girl. Cassie’s very existence shatters her parents’ preconceived notion of family, duty, and love, and changes everything about the world they think they occupy.

SMUDGE goes to places that many plays can’t, by dint of its unflinching examination of the dynamics that rise from having to deal with the unthinkable- a child who will never be normal, and the relationships that are defined by who that child is/is not, and can be/will never be.

Michael Zuccola is Nicholas, Colby’s husband and Cassie’s father. He’s a bit of- no, make that a lot of- a nerdy policy wonk, trapped in a soul-sucking, number-crunching, dead-end career at the census bureau.

Zuccola plays Nicholas as wimpy, shrinking, non-assertive- in short, about as stimulating as a shot of Novocain. A zero.   In terms of personality, Nicholas could be the flesh-and-blood model for Dilbert, that Sunday-comic apotheosis of the dweeberati whom millions of white-collar stiffs have publicly derided while they mumble “Shit! That’s ME!” to themselves.

But Nicholas’ saving grace is his unabashed, unapologetic love for his daughter, and for his wife; he’s gifted with being able to see past their flaws, be they physical or emotional, and in turn give of himself the love that both wife and child need. Even as he's consumed by the challenges that he faces in both his professional and personal life, Zuccola manifests the full arc of love brilliantly, lifting Nicholas up past the point of being merely pathetic, and endowing him with the simple nobility of a man who’s determined to do right by his child, his wife, and his life- no matter what.

As Colby, Nicholas’ wife and the mother of Cassie, Lauren Bambera embraces first the archetype and then surpasses it.   Bambera details a woman blissful in her pregnancy and then a woman who’s mired in dark places and dark choices once Cassie is born.

Bambera’s superb as she traverses Colby’s path of a mother whose hopes are blighted by the monstrous daughter she bears, and the choices she makes as she struggles to reconcile the stark new realities of her role as a parent and partner.

Unlike Nicholas, there's nothing noble in the choices that Colby makes; Bambera doesn’t try to hold up Colby as an example of motherhood, and instead allows Colby to retain both her integrity and her dignity a woman faced with the toughest of options. Because of Bambera’s choices, we get to see Colby work through all of what she needs to before she can fully step up to the responsibilities in front of her for the rest of her life.

Mark Morrison is dead-bang on as Pete, Nicholas’ older brother and- worse for Nicholas- his superior at work.

Like the succession of ties he wears throughout the play, Pete is loud, brash, and often ugly- yet possessed of a certain lurid charm that draws you in and keeps your attention.

In and of themselves these traits wouldn’t be enough to sustain a character for long without making him unlikable, but Morrison neatly avoids that by delving deeper into the character, going past one-dimensionality and into the place where a compassionate human being lives.

Morrison provides both Nicholas and Colby with an anchor of rationality, albeit a self-centered, offbeat one; roles like this are meat and drink to the accomplished Morrison, and he's a treat to watch as he adds his own unique blend of comedy and pathos to the play.

How does SMUDGE play out? Not as you think it might- the writing, acting, and Devon Scalisi’s intuitive directing style make for an absorbing 90 minutes, keeping the energy level up and the action interesting, even during the play’s many legato moments.

How Nicholas and Colby come to terms with Cassie, and their lives as a unique family unit, is well worth the intermissionless 90 minutes it takes until they do arrive at that place where regret and recrimination are done, and there is nothing left but to move forward, come what may.

Tom Morgan graces SMUDGE with an elegantly restrained set, and Ross Boyd’s soundscapes provide poignant interstices throughout the action.   Sound and visual effects also add to this production’s impact.

SMUDGE asks all the right questions: what really defines a monster, or a family, or hope? What does one do when one’s dreams crumble, and what is the right thing to do in the face of seemingly overwhelming adversity?

This production does answer those questions- not in ways you may like or find comforting, but you will take a measure in satisfaction in that every question that surfaces is answered honestly.

SMUDGE is currently being staged at the Salem Theatre Company in Salem, MA. The roles of Nicholas and Colby will alternate with Marc Pelletier and Anny Rosario throughout the play’s run, and the company has plans to bring the play to other locations, so check the company’s website for information as to time, place and cast before you go.

For my money, SMUDGE will shine no matter who’s up at bat, and Salem’s not so far to go to see this excellent play, brought to the stage by a top-notch cast and crew.

SMUDGE runs through July 9, 2011 at the Salem Theatre Company in Salem, MA. Visit the Ghostlight Theatre Company’ website for details.

Image: PVerslegers

ASSASSINS

2011-06-08T21:22:00.013-04:00

produced by the Acting Loft

directed by Chris Courage

Those of “a certain age” most likely remember where they were when JFK and Reagan were shot, or what was going on when Gerald Ford was targeted not once, but twice.

Still others may recall the failed assassination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt- an effort that ended in the death of a standing mayor rather than the intended target.

Indeed, everyone born prior to 2008 has the dubious honor of being in the world during an attempt- successful or otherwise- on the life of a U.S. President.

Much has been written in the aftermath of presidential assassinations, failed or otherwise, chronicling the lives of those whom ultimately made it their life’s work to kill an American head of state.

Who they were, how their lives came to intersect with that of the President whom they targeted, and the myriad theories as to why they may have felt that it was incumbent upon them to be that particular man’s killer- the list of published work on this particular subject is horrifyingly long,

These desperate quests for validation beg the question; why do those whose lives are sketched in the bleakest shades of misery, and whose acts cast them into the sordid pantheon of pathetic villainy, continue to fascinate, long years after the acts which gave rise to their notoriety have passed into history?

This is the central question which Stephen Sondhem and John Weidman choose to grapple with in their storied musical ASSASSINS, which won five Tonys out of the seven for which it was nominated.

All of which means that ASSASSINS is an important musical worthy of notice. Right?

Alas. As musical theatre, ASSASSINS is little more than a pastiche of disjointed vignettes, haphazardly fused to one another through the flow of time, the commonality of insanity, and, yes, the facile expertise of this work’s creators.

Each tawdry scenario details the sad lives of citizens so disenfranchised, so dispossessed, and so marginalized by the very society of which he or she labors to be a part, they are reduced to a triplicate of imperatives: kill a President. Become immortal. Become meaningful.

It’s not enough.

To be blunt, ASSASSINS is a freakin’ downer of a musical. Further, as part of the storied Sondheim oeuvre, it’s not even that GOOD of a downer musical.

Due to its glaring lack of conflict and resolution, ASSASSINS is the theatrical equivalent of an amuse-bouche; intriguing and palatable, but lacking the substance to sustain for more than a few fleeting moments, and too full of itself to rise far past being cloying and overdone.

But what sets ASSASSINS apart is in the sly, adept manner in which it presses all the right buttons; it appeals to the lowest common denominator in its loving examination of the lurid pathology of killers, the damage they inflict, and the miserable ends to which they come.

As a result, ASSASSINS scores high on the titillation meter, and it’s collected its fair share of prizes not merely because of its artistic merit, but because it dares to plumb the depths of the human condition. It chips away at the blackest veins of societal ore, seeking the most anomalous subgroup of humanity for the disaffected, bloodthirsty monsters that lie within, and then brings them up into the light, wriggling and screaming, for all to consume.

ASSASSINS succeeds because it gives us what we want in our secret hearts- to see the not only the grisly aftermath of madness, but to bear witness to the circumstances which led to the crimes themselves.

Sondheim’s done better than ASSASSINS; you want depressing characters with few (or no) redeeming features, no hope of getting past that which bedevils them, made palatable by a convoluted, barely plausible story line and a few tug-at-the-heartstrings musical numbers?

Fine. Stick to SWEENEY TODD. Or COMPANY. Or even, God help us, ANYONE CAN WHISTLE.

And yet….

There’s something about the way that director Chris Courage stages ASSASSINS, with his stalwart crew of fine actors, that makes The Acting Loft’s production transcend the hackneyed and the trite- something neither Sondheim nor his creative partner-in-crime John Weidman ultimately managed to achieve in the creation of this play.

While The Acting Loft’s version of ASSASSINS doesn’t shy away from a illuminating the grotesqueries that these people are perceived of as being, it does take the play a step further.

Thanks to a well-timed essay by one of the play's cast members, it's clear to this reviewer that ASSASSINS is also about connections, those tenuous, precious instances when we catch onto something ephemeral - a dream, a wish, an idea, or a social construct as prosaic as simple friendship- interweaving it into the fabric of our lives and making ourselves part of a larger whole.

The result: an empty shell of a play with a glittery exterior gets the heart and soul it needs to succeed, thanks solely to its gifted cast and crew.

ASSASSINS is populated by those who murdered Presidents, or who aspired to murder them; Czolgolz. Byck. Guiteau. Fromme. Oswald. Rather than allow history to do the heavy lifting and sketch out each of these historical archetypes in a dull regurgitation of historical one-dimensionality, director Chris Courage charges his cast to go deeper, to find the humanity in each of the characters, and then tasks them to find the threads that connect each of them another across the ages. In this, he, and they, succeed admirably.

The action takes place in a seedy carnival setting, where the assassins themselves interact with one another as well as their targets, with no regard to time, space, or even death. The setting could be heaven, hell, or someplace in between- we are not told.

The Proprietor (Matt Ryan) furnishes each killer with the engine of his destruction- a pistol- and then sets each in motion. As eras and Presidents come and go, he, in tandem with The Balladeer (Versee Damien Carter) acts as a hybrid Greek Chorus, exhorting the assassins to stop drifting, to seize the small, humble bits of the American Dream to which they are entitled, and to take their rightful places in the chancery of the diabolical, where ultimately they will be cloistered in dubious honor for eternity.

The cast of 19 is energetic, engaging, immersed in their characters and the places to which their actions and desires take them.

Standouts include Nathan Barnes as an unapologetic John Wilkes Booth; Barnes’ vulpine suavity punches up every scene he’s in, and provides a common reference point for each character’s raison d'être. Both his voice and his personality drip honey from a poisoned nest as he gleefully assists The Proprietor and The Balladeer in their mission to have each assassin fulfill his destiny, binding the scattered story lines together more than any other character.

Also of note are Broderick Lang as an unnervingly insouciant Sam Byck; Nick Gehling, who paints Lee Harvey Oswald in large, sympathetic strokes as an emotionally damaged, vulnerable man-child; Sue Bechard as an amusingly awkward Sara Jane Moore, and Katie Collins as an elegantly resolute, poignantly sympathetic Emma Goldman, herself not an assassin but whose quest for political enlightenment may have spurred one (Czolgosz) to action.

The musical numbers are expertly supported by a five-piece band led by Blake Leister, and the technical elements all blend well with the onstage action.

In sum, ASSASSINS’ book and music never fully answer the questions as to WHY these people felt so disconnected from their lives that they felt it necessary to kill a President- only that life painted each of them into a corner so thoroughly that murder was all that was left to them, and the only method by which they could once again connect with the world that they felt was slipping away from them.

But the Acting Loft’s very able cast and crew salvage this musical by going the extra step- asking the questions that remain, and then, in their own singular fashion, answering them as best they can.

Because they do, this musical is light-years better than it had a chance of being. Go and see if you connect with what The Acting Loft does with this show. I have every confidence that you will.

ASSASSINS plays through June 12 at The Acting Loft in Manchester. Please visit their website for details.

Image: FrigginRandom.com

OLEANNA

2011-05-26T11:27:00.013-04:00

produced by theatre.unmasked

directed by John Geoffrion

The argument to be made with theatre.unmasked’s production of OLEANNA isn't whether or not you should see it.

You should. It’s staged by a new theatre company, which is launching their inaugural season with a densely-layered, high-risk work by the master of disturbing drama, David Mamet.

While not a perfect production, it does engage, taking on as it does the darker aspects of relationships, and the lessons of how ephemeral power is, who has it, and the consequences of wielding it.

Because it’s Mamet, there’s going to be a bit of heavy lifting required to get your head around what’s going on in this play. It requires that you pay attention.

Along with the fact that this is a whippersnapper company's initial public offering, departing from the staid theatre fare that's generally served up in the greater Dover area, makes both the production, and the company bringing it to the stage, worthy of interest.

Why? Not merely for how OLEANNA blurs the lines between the larger ponderables of life, among them identity, authority and intimacy- though certainly that is enough of an engine to drive this play.

It's also because this production of OLEANNA goes deeper, darker. It unflinchingly goes to a place that explores how a man and woman are destroyed in methodical increments by perceptions- those they hold to be true, those they come to share, and those that shatter in the course of their meeting.

On its surface, OLEANNA charts the course of a college professor and a struggling student, thrown together by chance but kept fused within one another’s erratic orbits by their actions and reactions.

It’s clear from the onset who these characters are, but less clear what it is they want, the roles they play, and where their choices take them.

Director John Geoffrion elects to take a “tell, not show” stance; he presumes that the audience needs to be schooled while they’re watching, rather than focusing on the clarity of storytelling that evolves from the action and reaction of the two actors. Therefore, he concentrates on a deliberate style of blocking, rather than an organic one that springs naturally from the subtext within the play's main storyline.

This choice distracts from that which makes OLEANNA such a compelling part of the Mamet oeuvre- the nearly pitiless examination of the prism through which we observe our surroundings, how we quantify our value to the world through which we move, and how we deal with the fallout that comes from the choices we make.

Ultimately, OLEANNA is about power, sexual and social; how we get it, how we manifest it, the forms it takes, and what it costs. Geoffrion wants to rescue the play from itself, choosing a cerebral rather than visceral approach, and this diffuses the impact of the story.

Fortunately, Mamet’s writing, and this production's two accomplished actors, don’t allow the director to go too far down such an over-intellectual tangent, which prevents the play from lapsing into stodgy pedantry.

Actors Peter Josephson and Jess Emerson are engaging and energetic, moving the story forward as professor and student respectively.

Josephson’s especially strong and adept, dominating from his the opening line as a harried teacher thrust into the untenable position of getting his student to move past her collective neuroses and into a place where she can internalize that which he imparts as an educator. He is, at turns, misogynistic and nurturing, pompous and generous, blending together the best aspects of a teacher with the worst, creating a man of enormous complexity who is ultimately his own worst enemy while he labors to serve the ideals he cherishes.

Emerson, as the student, starts off tentatively at first, a character seemingly overwhelmed by a host of emotional obstacles and a crippling sense of worthlessness. She ramps up as the story moves along, manifesting a personality that moves beyond victimhood and into the territory of an avenging harpy, one who seeks vindication for the hurts she and her kind suffer, be they real or imagined. By play’s end, both actors are well matched.

Because there’s no intermission, the audience gets to bear witness to how these two actors grapple with the concept of how fragile gender identity and social constructs really are in an absorbing, well paced ninety minutes.

Josephson and Emerson both manifest people who are trapped within the stifling confines of the worlds they've constructed around them; so much so that each bumps up against the other again and again with the weight of their uneasy burdens as they seek to find common ground. Ultimately, as they stagger under the tonnage of their own skewed belief systems, there's no room for commonality, and both teacher and student remain polarized, constantly undone by the roles they’re either forced into, or just aren’t able to cast aside.

In the end, teacher and student are eclipsed, giving rise to the demons of one damaged human engaging in a battle to achieve dominion over another. It’s an epic struggle of classic proportions, and vintage Mamet; both actors manifest the playwright’s intent, and the conflict about which he writes, extremely well.

Who ultimately wins? You'll have to pony up the price of admission and decide that for yourself.

Jamie Clavet’s unit set, that of a generic professorial office, blends nicely with the brickwork of the Dover Mills where this production is staged. Lights are basic and low-key. Costumes are appropriate to the era. A minimalist soundscape made up of an interesting blend of percussion, synthesizer and vocals serves to underscore key transitions.

OLEANNA is a production with some flaws, none of which are fatal to the story being told or its impact. Full credit is to be given to this company for choosing a work with such a host of weighty themes, and in executing it well.

For its first time out of the gate, theatre.unmasked shows that it’s got game, and that it’s interested in providing entertainment of substance to a community clearly in need of it. For these reasons, let us do what we can to ensure that they enjoy a long run.

OLEANNA runs through June 4, 2011. Please see the theatre.unmasked website for details.

Image: Daniel Dupuis/courtesy of theatre.unmasked

Reviews: The Redoubtable Art of Quantifying The Performance

2011-04-17T19:28:00.019-04:00

Reviews:

The Redoubtable Art of Quantifying The Performance

Interestingly, I’ve received no less than three emails in the past couple months from people who either write theatre reviews, or who think they’d like to try their hand at it, asking me for my take on what it means to be a theatre critic.

I don’t pretend to be an authority on what constitutes the perfect review, nor do I feel I have any advice to offer on how to craft reviews that can’t be gotten from far more informed sources.

There are any number of critics out there who are light-years better than I could ever think of being, and I urge those who are interested in reviewing to do their utmost to learn from them, not me.

However, I absolutely love theatre, persist in writing about it, and, as a result of that, have been assigned a measure of credibility as a critic.

For the record, "critic", for good or ill, isn't an honorific I actively sought, but in the course of doing something I love, I’ve somehow attained it. Consequently, I can do no less than to step up, and not shirk the responsibility that comes with the title.

I’ve taken an older blog post and expanded on it in an attempt to make sense of what it is I do, and the mission that I undertake when I set out to quantify what a particular production means to me.

This isn’t a definitive treatise on the subject; it’s what I feel is right.

Make of it what you will.

* What is a review? What isn't a review?

A review is an evaluative discourse, analyzing and quantifying both the positive and negative aspects of a production, with the intent of imparting information as to its relative worth, and informing the production's potential audience of its entertainment value, written by one person with some measure of expertise in his or her chosen field.

It is not a bias-laden recapitulation of a show that glosses over salient points in order to skew the review in either a positive or negative direction, nor it is a bland regurgitation of the events that take place from curtain up to curtain down. Neither is it the fomentation of the author's agenda to either boost or pan a show predicated on his emotions or involvement.

At no time may a critic inject his personal opinion ("I liked/didn't like...") into the narrative of his review. That is not a review. That is an opinion. If you want to express an opinion, write a letter to the editor, or confine your writings to the op-ed section of your local media outlet.

Don’t worry; if you’re a good enough of a critic, you will stamp every review you write with your personal imprimatur. Your style will be evident, but if you do it right, it won’t unduly influence the critical body of your piece. You can inform without resorting to author intrusion. I promise.

* What's the differences between a review, audience feedback, and a "booster shot" (aka a mid-run press release or "bump")?

A review is an objective narrative. It consists of expository prose that seeks to inform a potential audience of a show's value in as unbiased a manner as possible, stripped of unnecessary emotion and free of personal agenda.

Audience feedback is how an audience member feels about a show they've seen, and reflects their personal perceptions of that show. Because it's personal, it's neither wrong nor right, whether that person manifests enthusiastic support, outright dislike, or anything in between.

A "booster shot" or "bump" is a mid-run press release. If your show runs more than one week, a "booster shot" takes the form of the production's salient information, and may include aspects of reviews or highlights from the first week of a run (photos, etc).

It's meant to act as reminder to the public that a show is still running, including in it those aspects of the show that market it favorably, and is published before the next part of the run, in order to maximize its effect on its target audience.

* When should (or shouldn't) a review be written?

A review should be written when its author has the best of intentions, and sets out to write the best review possible, in a manner that serves both the production and the community which may see it.

A review should not be written when the author is directly involved with the production, or seeks to impact the show in any way that shows his bias, pro or con.

* Who should (or should not) write a review?

Ostensibly, you'd want the best surgeon to perform your surgery; why not the best critic to review your show? Those that do it best, do it frequently, with consistency in both the content and character of their reviews.

In the best of all possible worlds, you draw from the talent pool that person who has a measure of experience in the field. The best reviewers come from any number of branches of knowledge. The common denominator is most often an ability to communicate well, coupled with years of immersion in, and the practice of, one or more disciplines within the theatrical milieu.

In short, critics know whereof they speak, and impart their knowledge in terms that are clear, concise, and comprehensive.

That being said, in the online universe in which we now live, it's more or less an egalitarian society; anyone is free to try their hand at reviewing a production, if they want to.

In so doing, those venturing into it would do well to keep this caveat in mind: what you say is going to impact someone else.

Should you intend to post your impressions of a show in a public forum, keep in mind that those whom you seek to review and/or inform may well manifest an opinion of that review, based on their own interpretation of what was written.

The potential critic had better be prepared to handle a wide array of reactions, be they good or bad. Mostly the bad; people tend not to respond to the favorable reviews, but they do sometimes come out swinging if they perceive of being cast in a bad light.

Who should NOT write a review? A review should not be written by anyone who is out to serve himself to the exception of the production, those involved in it, or the community that the production seeks to serve. A review should not be written by anyone who seeks to unfairly promote or pan a show based on his personal feelings for the show in question, or aspects of that show.

If you lack the ability to frame your review in a manner that adequately imparts information about the sum total of disparate elements that make up a production- if you cannot restrain yourself from injecting your personal feelings into your review- if you cannot dispassionately edit your review for content, ensuring that it is free of spelling or grammatical errors- you should not be writing reviews.

Well, you can write them, but you ought not publish them; nothing robs a critic of credibility faster than gushy, badly-spelled prose with the emotional gradient of a middle-school homework assignment thrown together at the last minute.

On a personal note, I draw assumptions of the reviewer's critical ability based on the form and structure of his review.

If your spelling, grammar and sentence structure sucks, I don't care if your points are valid. This isn't two old pals a-settin' on the po'ch and shootin' the breeze. A review is you attempting to impart information to those who don't know you and are only looking for the motivation to attend a show, or not.

Don't take the time to do it right, and you risk being dismissed, or worse, ridiculed; your efforts will be reduced to "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing", and rightly so. Sloppy writing is its own condemnation, and far too many people are guilty of it.

* What role do sites like this play when it comes to reviews?

I believe that sites like this should always welcome commentary in any form that promotes and celebrates anyone's passion in a positive way.

I believe that sites like this should always welcome critical analysis that is fair, balanced, unbiased, and which seek to inform and educate in as dispassionate and as objective a manner as possible.

I do not believe that internet sites such as this should be used as a device by which its members seek an "edge" or an advantage that sets a precedent which may diffuse the site's positive influence on the community it seeks to serve.

Nor do I believe sites like this should be used by the writer to gain some sort of half-assed validation for who he is, or what he writes.

If you write because you want to be loved, then limit the publishing of your reviews to your mommy's email inbox. She has to like you. No one else does, and believe me, if you write just to be loved, they never will.

* Other thoughts:

Everyone has the right to raise their voice in the manner that is best for them.

However, with the raising of one’s voice, no matter what form that voice takes, comes a measure of responsibility, and knowing that is just as important.

Say what you want. Write what you want. Post what, how, and where you want. But realize that all of your choices have consequences.

Be it an offhand remark or a full-blown review that provokes strong reaction, be willing to explain your actions when you're questioned, consent to the ramifications of your actions, or be prepared to be the target of questions and criticism that you'll have brought upon yourself.

* Finally:

I’ve been actively reviewing shows since about 2006, first for the NH Theatre Happenings website, then branching out on my own and publishing to my blog.

Since those first attempts some five years ago, I like to think I’ve improved at my avocation. I enjoy doing it, and I want to be as good at it as I can be.

In the course of finding my own voice, I’ve made bad choices in how I choose to critique shows, and the people who made them happen. Some of the mistakes I’ve made have cost me friendships, both real and potential, or changed the course of the paths I wanted to take, and not for the better.

There’s real power in being a critic- the best of them, those with the backing and influence of very large media empires, can alter the destiny of a show with what they choose to say about it.

While that doesn’t happen on the same level here in New Hampshire, I know full well that some of the articles I’ve written have hurt people, and may well have altered their own paths, insofar as they’ve been robbed of some or all of the joy of doing what THEY love. And I regret that.

If you take nothing else away from this article, take this: whatever you choose to say about a performance, or those who made it possible, make sure that you DO NO HARM.

NEVER set out to demean, diminish, or marginalize those who make theatre happen. There’s a peculiar alchemy that has to happen in order for theatre to exist at all, and a large part of that magic comes from those who pour their hearts and souls into the constellation of wonderful elements that fuse into one incredible event- a show,

No matter what you think, make it your mission to be as encouraging as possible, even when you have to point out that which may not work as well as you think it ought.

Consider it a challenge to find the words that gently inform your public of that which you feel isn’t right about a show without actively discouraging those who strove to make that very thing work. And then rise to that challenge.

Bear in mind that theatre isn’t a stand-alone entity; it’s made up of many special human beings who populate a given production for its brief life, and they’re almost always doing what they do with the best of intentions.

Give them the benefit of the doubt. You can be honest, but your honesty does not have to come at the cost of another’s bliss.

Each and every one of us longs to enter into that rarest of covenants- doing what nurtures one’s soul. It costs you nothing to ensure that each person you write about continues to have that opportunity, no matter what you think of his or her efforts.

We here in New Hampshire have had a lifelong love affair with theatre since time out of mind. If there must be critics- and it appears there must- then let us each do all that we can to make sure that that love affair continues.

Be as kind as you can in your quest to report the truth. You owe it to those who love theatre in their way, as you love theatre in yours. Without them, there is no reason for you, the critic, to exist at all.

The author Hilary “Zig” Ziglar said it best: “No one has ever erected a statue to a critic.”

That leaves only what you write to serve as your enduring legacy. Make it worth remembering.

-Michael J. Curtiss
April 17, 2011

Image: Kallenshaan Woods

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS

2011-04-16T09:29:00.006-04:00

presented by StageCoach Productions

directed by Paul Metzger

On its surface, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS is little more than your basic musical comedy, telling the story of what happens to a couple of career con men who are thrown together by chance, and who team up by choice, when the opportunity to make a quick and easy $50,000.00 falls into their laps.

On a deeper level, DRS is a quirky morality tale, and its message is this: when you set out to be make a career out of lying and cheating, eventually your choices come back to bite you in the ass, or consume you, or both.

Whether one is a master of the long con or a penny-ante swindler, the dubious art of fleecing one's fellow human beings essentially puts all of the grifters of the world on a level playing field.

It's not how much you get; it's the thrill of the getting, and the getting away with it. And in the getting, you stand to to gain a great deal- but only if you're willing to risk everything you have, first.

Eventually, you WILL get your comeuppance; it's just a question of how long you can stave it off. That, too, is part of the attraction.

StageCoach Productions' version of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS accepts the premise that wrongdoers get what's coming to them. But well before this show's big reveal, it tantalizes its audience with a plethora of interesting plot turns, so that from the onset right to the conclusion, we're never quite sure HOW the two principal criminals of the story get what they deserve.

Michael Coppola & Paul Lussier are deliciously dastardly as Lawrence and Freddy, two con men from different ends of the criminal spectrum, set at odds against one another yet forced to tag-team over something they both want- a woman, one who's gorgeous and happens to have an extra attractive feature: a big, fat bank account.

Bob Frasca and Rachel Cerullo bring a hysterical screwball sensitivity to their characters throughout. Think Inspector Clouseau meeting Eve Arden, add a spark of attraction between the two, and watch the fireworks.

Lynda Aramento and Jennifer Stanley are vivacious vamps in their respective roles as the heiresses whom Lawrence and Freddy set out to separate from their bankbooks.

The supporting cast is solid and production elements are consistent, serving the story well.

Paul Metzger's direction is spot on; Donna O'Bryant Metzger's choreography is fresh, inventive and makes excellent use of the space;Judy Hayward's music direction is tight and attentive; and the storyline and music engaging and interesting from beginning to end.

The action takes time to kick into gear, but is in full swing by Act 2. The show runs long , around 3 hours with intermission.

In all, DRS is a zany, slapstick, fourth wall-busting romp, driven by a sassy, sexy, sometimes vulgar script filled with plenty of twists, all guaranteed to keep you laughing.

A fine choice for StageCoach as it wraps up yet another innovative and entertaining season.

It's a dirty, rotten shame that more shows aren't like this one. Go see it.

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS runs April 15-17 at the Court Street Theatre in Nashua. More information and tickets can be found at the StageCoach Productions' website.

If My Avocation Were To Be A Movie.....

2011-03-27T22:24:00.000-04:00

... it'd be this one.

Kudos to the brilliant Kurt Bergeron. Thanks a million, Kurt. You made my day.

A NEW BRAIN

2011-03-19T00:11:00.014-04:00

presented by the New Thalian Players in partnership with Southern New Hampshire University

directed by Joel Mercier

A NEW BRAIN, by celebrated composer and lyricist William Finn (FALSETTOS, 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE) is an offbeat musical rendering about a songwriter who suffers a life-threatening brain ailment, and the events that take place when he contemplates undergoing surgery, as well as the impact his illness has on him, his career, and his loved ones.

It would be far too easy to hold A NEW BRAIN up as a metaphor for The New Thalian Players. Why? Because A NEW BRAIN is the perfect metaphor.

In the past few years of its storied tenure as one of southern NH's most dedicated, inventive companies, the New Thalians have grappled with their own challenges: the loss of their venue when Notre Dame College in Manchester closed its doors, searching for its niche as an independent, itinerant company; the vagaries of an uncertain economy, and the retirement of artistic director Beth Ann O’Hara, who for most of NTP’s existence was not only NTP’s heart and soul, but its brain as well. After being forced to cancel its last season, the future looked bleak for this once- popular company.

Happily, none of these challenges have proved fatal; a core of dedicated NTP alumni, as well as a refreshing mix of new blood, recently converged under a revamped board of directors to reboot this cherished community theatre franchise, with the help of a few kind folks at Southern New Hampshire University- just a little over a mile north of the New Thalians Players' original home.

After witnessing the opening night of A NEW BRAIN, this reviewer is happy to report that the patient is not only doing well, but thriving, and has all the indications of living a very long and happy life.

Director Joel Mercier is smart enough not to rein A NEW BRAIN in too tightly; indeed, he lets it run free to be what it needs to be, keeping enough focus not to allow it to become hollow and nonsensical. He passes on this refreshing freedom to his cast, allowing them to run the gamut from dead serious to side-splittingly funny in the choices they make to convey who their characters are and where they need to be. As a directorial gambit, it pays off.

Under Mercier’s steady hand, the NTP version of A NEW BRAIN is a high-powered, idiosyncratic creation that, while often silly, never once panders or stoops to artistic oddity, nor does it skirl off into inchoate nonsense. It’s an absorbing and engaging piece that commands the stage in its 2-hour running time, yet maintains discipline in the story it tells, and tells well.

The ensemble cast is stellar in every sense of the word. Accomplished stage veterans all, the ten performers in ANB come together and light up the stage with a mixture of personality coupled with pure talent.

Marc Willis anchors the show as Gordon, a TV children’s show composer stuck in a dead-end job, bedeviled by a demanding boss, and, as luck would have it, saddled with a brain condition called AVM, which, if left untreated, could kill him, or, if treated, could… well, kill him. Or worse.

Willis is at turns sweet and petulant, truculent and wistful as his character traverses the arc of discovering his illness to dealing with its final resolution. He’s captivating as a man grappling with what a life-threatening illness means for him, and wins the audience over with how he deals with it, and those in his life impacted by it.

Willis is supported by a host of excellent actors; A. Robert Dionne is the calm to Willis’ storm, the reasonable yin to Gordon’s emotional yang as his partner, Roger. NH stage favorite Jennifer Mallard brings hilarity and gravitas as a homeless woman looking for change- or is that Change?

Katie Proux crackles with a wise-ass, Parker Posey insouciance as “thin nurse” Nancy, counterpointed by Nathan Barnes as the hysterically effeminate, yet supremely compassionate “nice nurse” Richard. Sue Sartorelli is brassy, sassy, and takes no prisoners as Gordon’s formidable mother, Mimi; and Dave Cote punches through the angst of the play’s premise in loopy intervals as Mr. Bungee, Gordon’s pathologically self-absorbed boss and star of a popular kids’ TV show, dressed throughout as a giant frog.

Sue Schott, Eric Halter, and Michael Gallagan each rise to the occasion and generously frame the story as Gordon’s agent, his doctor and a minister respectively, adding their own unique imprimatur to the goings-on in and around Gordon’s life.

Scenic elements are kept modest; Kate Harper provides an iridescent city backdrop that’s complemented by Dave Nelson’s elegantly understated lights. Aaron Compagna provides another layer to the story with some impressive videos. Set pieces and props are wisely kept to a minimum and serve the action well.   Costumes by Betty Thomson and Janet Dare are appropriate to the setting.

A shout out to choreographer Beth Fenske and music director Michael Shaughnessy for scaling back on the spectacle that often seems to be the purview of musical theatre. Instead of filling spaces and moments with huge, intricate numbers, both Fenske and Shaughnessy make A NEW BRAIN all the better by exercising restraint. They do not rely on vocal or dancing calisthenics, but instead bring out the emotions within the piece, being mindful of what is still and small, rather than what is large and ostentatious. In doing so, they bring a special poignancy to this unique musical.

Sure, there’s a few glitches in the course of the evening; sometimes soloists have to work to be heard over the powerhouse ensemble of voices, and the energy flags here and there, but that’s more to do with a company finding its footing in an unfamiliar venue and getting used to its surroundings.

Because ANB is such a quirkily fascinating show and its cast is made up of some of the best talent in the state, the little errors here and there don’t hurt this show a bit; in fact, the mistakes are charming, reminding us that when we all falter when we make the decision to walk a path we haven't been down in some time.

Once thought to be in its autumn years as a viable theatre company, the New Thalian Players, in partnership with Southern New Hampshire University, have succeeded in resurrecting themselves, in the process entering into a vibrant new spring.

And, if A NEW BRAIN is any indication as to what NTP/SNHU might be planning down the road, then this will be the first of many such glorious seasons for them.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what they do next.

A NEW BRAIN runs March 18-20 at Robert Frost Hall on the Southern New Hampshire University Campus, Manchester. For more information, please visit the New Thalian Players’ website.

2011-03-14T18:04:00.002-04:00

This may well prove to be CAUGHT IN THE ACT's
new logo.

Mad props to Katherine Horrigan for the image.

Manchester: A Changing Of The Guard For Venerable NH Costume Company

2011-03-11T21:52:00.008-05:00

Manchester: A Changing Of The Guard For Venerable NH Costume Company

Mary Selvoski (left) of Mary's Closet fits actress Cathy McKay for an upcoming show.

Imminent Closing of "Mary's Closet" Would Leave Large Hole In The Fabric of the NH Theatre Community: Company Seeks Buyer

A recent spike in the rent on her space at 21 West Auburn Street in Manchester, along with other factors, have brought a longtime New Hampshire costumer to the reluctant conclusion that business conditions will not improve enough to to keep her company's doors open past 2011.

Mary's Closet, and specifically its founder Mary Selvoski, has long been known as a costume company legendary for its generosity to the dozens of theater organizations operating throughout the Granite State, often designing, building and furnishing costumes at a bare minimum of profit.

Mary herself has been costuming professionally for well over forty years, and in the intervening decades has seen the rise and fall of costume companies in and around New Hampshire, and the dedicated men and women who struggled to keep the niche market afloat fade into history.

However, as the economy continues to experience severe downturns and performing arts organizations tighten their belts in response, fewer are coming to Mary to take advantage of her decades of expertise, even at the low prices for which she is known.

These cost-cutting measures have taken their toll, and have affected Mary's Closet's own bottom line; in past years, Mary was able to bounce back, most often by working seven days a week to regain her client base.

This past year has been especially hard; not only is Mary supporting a number of employees (many of them family) and contending with the rising costs of doing business in a dwindling market, she has also been dogged with family health issues and the incontrovertible fact that she is longer as young and as energetic as she was when she first started out.

According to Mary, "It was not an easy decision and the family would like to continue, but not at this space. If by some miracle we downsize to 1000 sq ft and we find an affordable space there would be a chance that the kids would continue. We are on a month to month rental here until I can get rid of the inventory. I am definitely not going to sell by splitting up the inventory."

While Mary does not not have a target date for closing as of this writing, she would like to speak to people who would primarily be interested in purchasing her entire inventory, and is willing to discuss options.

Any person or organization interested in speaking to Mary, please contact her at costumes@maryscloset.net, or 603-533-0720.

Mary's Closet website

WMUR-TV's Chronicle segment on Mary's Closet

Images: Mary's Closet

The 2011 NEW ENGLAND REGIONAL FESTIVAL OF COMMUNITY THEATRE

2011-03-05T21:47:00.001-05:00

Awards results of the 2011 New England Regional Festival of Community Theatre are as follows:

* Stage Manager Award: Val Verge

ANIMAL FARM
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* Emerging Comedic Playwright: Bobby Keniston

THE FAG VARIATIONS
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* Excellence in Design & Execution: Wellesley Players

STEEL MAGNOLIAS
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* Outstanding Adaptation: Arlekin Players

THE BEAR
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* Outstanding Supporting Actor: Larry Pizza as Reverend Charles Watkins

6 NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT
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*Outstanding Supporting Actress: Judi Mitchell as Clover

ANIMAL FARM
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* Outstanding Supporting Actor: Mark Ferman as Boxer

ANIMAL FARM
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* Outstanding Supporting Actress: Maria Mendez Hendricks as Loretta

6 NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT
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* Outstanding Supporting Actress: Tracy Nygard as Truvy

STEEL MAGNOLIAS
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* Outstanding Actress: Alana Kumagalov as Elena Ivanova Popova

THE BEAR
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* Outstanding Actor: Gene Ravvin as Grigori Stepanovich Smirnov

THE BEAR
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* Outstanding Ensemble: Arlekin Players

THE BEAR
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Outstanding Direction: Igor Golyak
THE BEAR
_____

Outstanding Production (Alternate): M & M Productions

6 NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT

Outstanding Production: Arlekin Players

THE BEAR

Spotlight: A Conversation With Kevin Gardner

2011-02-18T15:01:00.006-05:00

Ed: This interview originally appeared at the NH Theatre Happenings website.

Spotlight was an ongoing effort, created to showcase individuals and organizations who've furthered the cause of theatre in New Hampshire.

In honor of Kevin Gardner's birthday today, we're pleased to run the interview again.

Spotlight:

A Conversation With

Kevin Gardner

Who is Kevin Gardner? Where did you grow up, where were you educated, and what brings you to the present moment? What drew you to NH, or, if you're a native, what kept you here?

Oh, I’m a native all right. Of New Hampshire, of my town, of my road, of the dirt I walk on every day. I’m about as rooted to this place as a person can be. I am the owner of twenty acres of woods that have been in my family for close to a century, and I have ancestry here that goes back a good deal further than that. I built my own house in the 1970s, and I’ve lived in it nearly my entire adult life. I was raised in a succession of other houses and farms in the immediate neighborhood, and there’s family close by to this day. I’ll be 60 in a little over a year, and I’m not going anywhere.

Both my parents were theatre professionals. My mother was a superb costumer, and my father was a singer, actor, director, and set designer. They met while working at the old Brattle Rep in Cambridge, Mass., and they remained active on both the community and professional levels even after they moved back here in the early ‘50s (Hopkinton is my mother’s hometown), to raise their family. I’ve been married for fifteen years to an exquisitely indescribable woman named Brenda Foley, an actress-turned-professor who teaches at Marlboro College over in Vermont. We met while working, too, playing opposite each other in a production of The Sound of Music at the Palace in 1991. (Jenny Simard played Leisl in that show, and the great Natalie Brown was Elsa.)

I started my formal schooling in a two-room, six-grade village schoolhouse, and essentially finished it ten years later when I “withdrew” from one of New England’s most renowned boarding schools after my sophomore year. I faked it through two more years of public school, wasted three semesters at Hobart College, and dropped out to go to work as a builder. I may have had some success as a teacher, but I was an indifferent train wreck as a student. I have a diploma from Concord High, and that is all. Most of my real education comes from experience and reading, two schools from which you never have to graduate.

You wear many hats. Tell us about some of the things you do: actor, director, educator, reviewer, adjudicator. You also have the distinction of being a stonemason who's also an author - or, are you an author who's also a stonemason?

For the last several years almost all my theatre work has been teaching/directing at Plymouth State and St. Paul’s school. At PSU I’ve directed productions of plays by Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Brecht, Miller, and others. I have longstanding associations with Beth Cox and Paul Mroczka in that department, and the staff led by Matt Kizer and Bob Bruemmer and Stuart Crowell is laid back and patient and extremely competent.

St. Paul’s is all Shakespeare. I get a big kick out of working with young people, especially the eager teenagers I see in its Advanced Studies Program. This is a five week summer school for hotshot high school juniors from all over the state. If you get in, you take just one intensive class in something your regular school doesn’t have, like Chinese or Astronomy or Molecular Biology. My course is called Shakespeare for Performance, and it produces two full-length, fully-teched productions, back to back, with just over two weeks of rehearsal apiece on a schedule that runs up to seven hours of rehearsal a day, seven days a week. This kind of intensity is a revelation to most high school kids, but they love it, and so do I. After years of slogging away at show after show in small pro houses, I was restored by their wonder and excitement at what it’s possible to accomplish onstage with that kind of sustained concentration. They continue to remind me what it was that made me love the theatre in the first place, every time.

I adjudicate two or three festivals a year, on average, including the NH (NHETG) State High School festival, and state AACT festivals in NH, Mass., New York, and Connecticut. I’ve also done several regional AACT Festivals, and in 2005 I was one of the adjudicators of the AACT national finals in Kalamazoo, MI. I started reviewing plays for NHPR in about 1985 or so and did it regularly for almost ten years before moving into straight features and special projects. Last year I resumed reviewing, but the station is in a financial squeeze, so that’s been touch and go since the summer. I’m about to start doing it again on a less-frequent basis, but who knows how long it’ll last…

I also compose and record a fair amount of music, mostly for use in productions. When I was a teenager I became weirdly entranced by medieval music, so I taught myself to play the recorder, which I still do. It’s very handy for Shakespeare. I also play the guitar, kind of, and various keyboards and percussion instruments. I used to play live in little theatre bands a lot, but now I just record everything here at home. I’ve done complete underscores for Macbeth, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Pericles, Metamorphoses, Alice in Wonderland, and a bunch of children’s theatre productions.

I started directing at college. To date I’ve done just shy of 100 productions, almost entirely for schools and small professional companies, and I’ve appeared in perhaps 200 more. I haven’t worked as an actor for a while now, though, long enough so that I don’t really think of myself as one anymore. But for 25 years or so, I did. My first professional apprenticeships happened when I was still in high school in the late ‘60s, and I averaged perhaps three or four productions a year from then until sometime in the mid ‘90s. A partial list of companies includes the Palace, American Stage Festival, Seacoast Rep, Peterborough, Stage One, Camden (ME) Shakespeare Company, Kearsarge Theatre Company, Gloucester (MA) Stage, and in Boston, Lyric Stage and the Huntington Theatre Company. I got my Equity card in a 1989 or ’90 American Stage Festival production of Bus Stop and I’ve kept it current even though the last time I worked was in 2003, as Uncle Peck in a PSU version of How I Learned To Drive, under Brenda’s direction.

I stopped being an actor because I got tired of chasing work and because I realized I wasn’t going to go any further in the field unless I left the state. Since that was out of the question, I just let it fade away. Lately I’ve been thinking of doing something onstage again, though, just to shake off the rust and remember what it’s like. I was a character guy, frequently cast in big, non-romantic leads like Salieri or Prospero or Lee in Shepherd’s True West, or in whacked-out supporting roles like Simon Stimson in Our Town or Thersites in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. I was never the singer my father was, but I could hold my own ok. I’ve played Judge Turpin, El Gallo, Cervantes/Quixote, Captain von Trapp, Bobby (in Company), the MC (in Cabaret), Judas (in JC Superstar), and so on.

Even when I was still acting regularly, I did a lot of other kinds of work. In addition to stone masonry, I’ve been a logger, a cordwood cutter, a folksinger, and an orderly in a mental institution. I’ve done a lot of farm work, and been a house builder. I started teaching seriously at the New Hampton School in the early ‘80s, and I’ve done a lot of that ever since, though rarely fulltime.

Tell us about THE GRANITE KISS, the work that inspired the book, what's happened since the book was written, and the relevance that building stone walls has to the other things you do in your life. What are your other books, and are there any currently in the works?

I wrote The Granite Kiss in 2001. I’ve published other stuff – poems and essays and song lyrics - and written for the radio for a long time, but a book is different. It changes the way people look at you, sort of like the way getting leprosy or being convicted of a felony does, except good. That was the biggest surprise.

My uncle Derek taught me to build stone walls more than thirty years ago. He taught me a lot of other things, too, but for some reason I have a temperament that took to stone work. We worked as a family team for a long time, but I mostly do it by myself now. Derek’s getting older, and the other members of our crew have moved on.

The main thing the book did was make me an official Expert. People call me for consultations, or for news articles they’re writing. I get quoted and sometimes featured in other books about stonework or the New England landscape. I go out on the lecture circuit at regional libraries and historical societies a lot. It’s fun.

Stone wall building doesn’t have any special “relevance” to the other things I do. I’m just a person who likes making things, whether they’re walls or plays or songs or sentences. Learning to build them was one of those strokes of luck that happens from time to time.

Out of all the disparate elements that occupy your life, is there any one vocation, or avocation, that exerts the most influence over your life? Or are they all important?

They’re equally important, in exactly the same way a group of strange and varied characters is important to the wholeness of a play.

You're known as one of the foremost theatre critics and adjudicators both within and outside of NH. You're primarily known through your commentaries on NH Public Radio. How did you come to be NHPR's "go-to guy" for theatre criticism in and around NH? As a reviewer, what is your primary mission when reviewing? What is it you hope to convey when reviewing a show, and what do you want your listening audience to take away from your reviews? Would you like to see more theatre critics/reviewers throughout NH, or less? Are you satisfied with the quality of the reviews you've seen? Do you believe that there's a code by which reviewers should conduct themselves? What can reviewers do better?

I started at NHPR because of an accident, and because of an extremely uncharacteristic act. I was sitting in the offices of the NH State Council on the Arts one day in 1985 (I do occasional performance evaluations for them) when the station’s News Director called over there and asked if they knew anyone who could review plays on the air. I’m the furthest thing there is from a self-promoter, but for some reason I walked over to the station then and there and told Jim Van Dongen I was his guy.

It took me a while to figure out how to do it efficiently. The format when I started was up to seven minutes of air space – an eternity on the radio – and that tended to encourage blathering analyses much too detailed for a general audience. Now the window is under three minutes, and that really makes you think about what’s important.

I’m not trying to do anything fancy when I review, just offer some context about the material, a few examples of what makes the production good or not good, and the reasons why I think what I think. I try to make the writing direct but entertaining, without showboating too much or talking about anything but the play itself and its creators. If I can manage those things, I think I’ve done ok.

To answer your other questions, I certainly would like to see more NH reviewers being published and broadcast. I think there are two main reasons why this isn’t happening. First, the habits and instincts of those who run the media companies here shy away from criticism of local arts things because they sense that it’s somehow unsupportive. I find this attitude demeaning to the arts community because it presumes that nothing the community produces is good enough to withstand informed scrutiny. It’s what I call the “refrigerator door mentality”, a kind of Montessori-school attitude of bland approval no matter what’s being considered. Second, there’s not enough professional theatre here to make reviewing useful for ticket buyers who are trying to figure out which show to patronize. There has to be more competition for reviewing to take its proper place on the scene.

Of the current crop of NH reviewers, I think the quality of what’s showing up in the big papers in Portsmouth and Nashua, and in upstart outlets like the Hippo, to say nothing of smaller sheets like in Milford and Conway and so on, is mostly just awful. Most of these reviewers have no discernible expertise in the theatre, and many of them don’t know the difference between criticism and mere personal response. Frankly, I don’t think their papers do, either. If you get to the end of someone’s review and you realize you’ve learned absolutely nothing about the production it’s discussing except the writer’s opinion, you’ve found yourself a bad reviewer.

I don’t know that there’s a special code for reviewing that’s any different from other aspects of journalistic integrity. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that people hired to write about performing arts know something about the field that’s a little more sophisticated than whether or not they liked what they saw. I’m sure this all sounds terribly self-serving, but I’m not trying to take anyone else’s job (well, not at the moment, anyway), and it’s what I think.

Do you have a philosophy about what you contribute to theatre in NH, and if so, can you share it?

I’d share it if I had one, but I don’t. I concentrate as well as I can on the work that’s in front of me, whatever it is, and leave it at that.

What is one thing about Kevin Gardner that you would like people to know, but aren’t sure they do know?

That in spite of the blunt or sardonic way I often express myself, I am entirely motivated by fascination, respect, and love for this place, its people, my students, and the arts and crafts that I practice.

Who or what has influenced you to do what you do? How or why?

Oh, my. Well, everything, of course. My parents, for better and worse, my uncle, certain amazing teachers I’ve encountered in and out of school, the older actors I met when I was starting, a couple of great directors and musicians.

What is your opinion of the state of theatre in NH?

I think NH has by far the most vibrant and active community theatre scene in northern New England, and the least vibrant and active professional theatre scene in New England as a whole.

What do you like the most about theatre in NH? Least?

I very much like its smallness, and I cherish my familiarity with those who’ve been in it for a long time. I have friends in this little fishbowl that I’ve literally grown old with. When I cross paths from time to time with people like Genevieve Aichele or George Piehl or Van McLeod or Scotty Severance, - there are many others - I’m looking at the inhabitants of my own life. I go back thirty years and more with some of them. That’s sweet to me.

Least: I don’t think that this is a particular trait of NH theatre folks as individuals, but I find unbridled organizational boosterism really grating. It’s one reason why I’m skeptical about the NH Theatre Awards, for instance. Quite aside from the organization’s ludicrous adjudication system, the claims it makes about the NH theatre scene’s “uniqueness” and “extraordinary dedication”, etc., etc., etc., sound to me like outtakes from some pamphlet written by the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce. You can take this for what it’s worth, but it says here that there isn’t anything about the NH theatre scene that qualifies as either “unique” or “extraordinary” – nothing at all. What’s happening here is happening just as enthusiastically in thousands of other places in this country. That’s not a putdown, just the truth. Guess I’d be a lousy Midwesterner.

What do you think you contribute to theatre in NH that sets you apart from what others do?

I have no idea, and it would be presumptuous of me to even speculate. That’s something for others to decide, and it’s quite likely that the answer is nothing. There are talented theatre people working in NH on every level, and many of their contributions are much more significant and wide-ranging than mine. I may do a lot of things, but I also live in a very small world. Bounded in a nutshell, yet a king of infinite space.

What does the future hold for you?

More of the same, I hope. My ambitions are mostly interior – I just want to get better at the things I already do, and have continuing opportunities to do them.

What message would you like to convey to those who are coming up through the ranks (not necessarily related to theatre)?

I try to stay out of the life-wisdom business, even though that’s not always possible when you work with young people. Still, I think I get more than I give. The world I grew up in and the one my youngsters face are different animals indeed, and being with them keeps me from becoming obtuse enough to pretend that’s not so. I’ve learned just as much, if not more, from them as they have from me. It’s one reason I like teaching so much – because it’s actually learning. If you think you know a thing, try teaching it to someone else. You’ll find out - fast - how much you really understand.

About Kevin Gardner

photos: Kevin Gardner

The 2010 NH Theatre Awards

2011-02-08T11:19:00.000-05:00

CAUGHT IN THE ACT congratulates all of the winners of the NH Theatre Awards, and thanks those behind the scenes who made the 2010 Awards Night possible.

The 2010 NH Theatre Awards

PROOF

2011-01-28T21:09:00.036-05:00

presented by Nashua Theatre Guild

directed by Mike Wood

PROOF ostensibly chronicles the mental disintegration of a mathematical plenipotentiary, the cabalistic subculture of pure mathematics and those who apotheosize it, and the travails of those who must contend with both the chaos and irrational order of events that arise after coming in contact with all three.

Turns out it's much more than that.

Deconstructions abound of David Auburn’s masterful telling of a university mathematics professor’s inexorable decline into insanity, and the repercussions his illness has upon his gifted youngest daughter, her sister and the grad student who idolized him.

Yet, within the story, an elegantly un-complex fact rises to the fore: that the end result of a life, no matter what afflicts it, is very much the opposite of the vaunted proofs that form the cornerstone of mathematics.

In sum, not everything in the world can be neatly quantified.

The ultimate story of PROOF is a distillation of what occurs when an unstoppable object- madness- meets an unmovable object: a hybrid of love, loyalty, and ambition- and the complex relational formulas that spark into creation when these disparate elements collide.

Director Mike Wood honors Auburn's work with his own unabashed and self-proclaimed love for the piece. He grasps the intricate complexities of relationships that are fostered when one falls victim to an illness of the mind, and the soul. He understands the allegiances that form, and re-form, likes soap bubbles blown into the wind: ephemeral and fragile, yet resilient, perfect, and miraculous for all of that.

These precepts are what Wood passes on to the cast: that whatever reality we create is fleeting, only to be changed by, or assimilated into, other realities.

These realities constantly collide, bumping up against one another, and out of that inchoate mass they sometimes manage to arrange themselves into ordered, rational concepts that stretch from person to person, extending into infinity and savagely beautiful for all their unending complexity.

Such combinations seem explainable, even understandable- but not always, and this is one of PROOF's many tantalizing contradictions within the story it tells.

The play does have a significant flaw: its first act comes across as over-deliberate and plodding in its pacing, but this is less to do with director/actor choices and more about how Auburn chooses to lay out the story.

Act 1 follows the classic theatrical formula of setting itself up for a reveal that gives the play’s second act its raison d’être, but as a plot device, it bogs down the story.

No worries: Act 2 more than makes up for Act 1’s deficiencies with a cascading panoply of reactions to the reveal that propels the actors down new and interesting paths, carrying the audience with them.

Ensemble-wise, there’s no finer assemblage of talent: actors who power the story’s arc not only with their individual gifts, but who are adepts of the dying art of listening first, and reacting to what each other is doing and saying, utterly within the moments that move PROOF forward.

Shawna O’Brien, Larry Lickteig, Versee Damien Carter and Christin Clohosey all endow their characters with a rich, luminescent palette of wants and needs and thus sketch out who they are and what they want with compelling dimensionality.

All four make up a powerhouse quartet, exercising restraint within the context of each character’s mission when it’s called for, and then fearlessly throwing themselves into the coldest, deepest wellsprings of emotion to dredge up raw slabs of pain, fear, resignation, and yes, even hope and longing as they grapple with the dark and awful thing we know as madness.

In and of themselves, each actor is riveting to watch; as an ensemble, they’re an elemental force.

Lighting by Rick Brooks is richly attuned to the play’s moody peaks and valleys, accentuated by the use of fog that envelopes the stage and adding a deep allegorical dimensionality to the work.

Thomas Morgan and Will MacGregor’s unit set is PROOF’S fifth character; a sad, wearisome, suburban backyard that groans with ennui in every neglected angle, reflecting the depression and angst played out within.

Nashua Theatre Guild’s PROOF pays homage to the inference within the play’s title: that logically, any concept known to humankind can be vaidated by a sequence of steps, statements, or demonstrations, provided they lead to a valid (ie: provable) conclusion.

However, this production’s director and cast go further, and juxtapose the story’s empirical gravitas with the eternal concept that has impassioned and inspired, all measure of man since time immemorial: that of faith, that unseeable, unquantifiable element that is no more, and no less than, a belief in the evidence of things not seen.

Yes, faith. Faith that not everything is as it seems. That what consumes the father may not in turn consume his daughters.

Indeed, even faith that order can come from chaos, but does not always do so with mathematical precision- that much of our waking existence sees us careening from one messy situation to another before we begin to put our houses in order.

In terms of absolute reality, these universal abstractions would annihilate one another, like matter and anti-matter.

Those who see Nashua Theatre Guild’s PROOF this weekend will be treated to a world where opposites not only attract, but merge, creating something new and beautiful in its potential.

Madness and sanity, possible and impossible, not only coexist but blend to create new realities.

World without end, hallelujah; this is but one of the doxologies that sing the praises of how David Auburn illuminates the enduring contradictions between what is real, what we accept to be real, and what happens once we choose one over the other.

This is this play's enduring PROOF.

PROOF runs January 27-30 at the Janice B. Streeter Theatre in Nashua. Please visit the NTG website for details.

2010 NHTA Finalists

2011-01-07T05:12:00.000-05:00

CAUGHT IN THE ACT wishes to extend its congratulations to the 2010 New Hampshire Theatre Awards Finalists.

The list of final nominees can be found here.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A MUSICAL GHOST STORY- Community Players of Concord

2010-11-19T07:54:00.010-05:00

A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A MUSICAL GHOST STORY

presented by the Community Players of Concord

written & directed by Joel Mercier

As of this writing, there are hundreds of adaptations of A CHRISTMAS CAROL; so many, in fact, that Charles Dickens’ fustian masterpiece deserves to have its own ghost appear whenever one makes the decision to reconfigure the work.

The Ghost of Change A Classic At Your Peril, or perhaps that of Dickens himself; a shade that would hang over one’s head with grim tenacity, threatening the ambitious would-be playwright or composer with a shake of a diaphanous fist if his attempts to re-interpret this time-honored tale of supernatural redemption in any way compromises its original intent.

Happily, there is no such spirit attached to the story, or, if there is, playwright/composer Joel Mercier wasn’t daunted, looking it squarely in the eye, shaking its hand, and getting about the business of bringing his version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL to the stage.

In so doing, Mercier succeeds in banishing that uneasy revenant by presenting a fresh retelling of Dickens’ rather hoary chestnut of a story. Not only is the original story intact, but Mercier, who also directed, honors A CHRISTMAS CAROL’s enduring themes, keeping the dark and dreary aspects of the tale as Dickens wrote them, but gilding the story with a rich tapestry of song and adding a contemporary poignancy to the psychology that drives its central characters.

There are 36 cast members in this show, many of them pulling double-and triple-duty, recreating Dickens’ more famous archetypes as well as city folk, vendors, partygoers and the like.

This cast works extremely well together as an ensemble, managing to smoothly and completely manifest all of these characters within the constraints of the Concord Auditorium’s less-than generous stage dimensions.

Of the principals, look for standout performances from John Conlon, in the role of the emotionally closed-off Scrooge; Erik Hodges’ boisterous apparition Jacob Marley; Marc Willis as the eternally optimistic Bob Cratchit; Jerry Smith and Karen Braz as the rotund, jolly Fezziwigs; Aaron Compagna as both Scrooge’s kindhearted nephew Fred and a younger version of Scrooge; Allison Duhamel as Scrooge’s lost love Belle Fezziwig and Aiden O’Connell as an angelic Tiny Tim.

The set is a visual wonder as executed by scenic designer Jarrod Bray; stairs and levels abound, giving the cast plenty of space in which to roam and evoking scenes of 1840s London with the detail worthy of a Currier and Ives lithograph. Of particular note is Wayland Bunnell’s utilitarian clock dominating stage right, serving to mark the disparate streams of time through which Scrooge is made to pass, and some clever hidden images throughout as executed by scenic painter Lacy Long.

Lights by Wally Pineault are, quite simply, stunning, as are the period costumes by Elizabeth Vigil. Masks by Greg Stuart and wigs by Anne Orio add a capricious, Grand Guignol aspect to the scenes involving Scrooge and the ghosts who bedevil him. Music by Jed Holland and his small yet capable pit underscore the action well.

Scenic elements are equally detailed and illustrate both time and place, and scene changes are smooth and crisp, owing to the precision of this production's extremely adept stage manager and running crew.

As is nearly always the case with new works, there are rough spots that need to be smoothed out, and no doubt will be, once this production ends and the playwright can take another swing at shaping the storyline.

Of the nineteen original songs, most serve the scenes for which they were written well, with the exception of “Never Returning Here”, a schoolmaster’s lament for the loss of his star pupil, which comes off as mean-spirited rather than comic. Belle Fezziwig’s lovely “There Was A Time” ballad is oddly mashed up with a jangly, not entirely necessary number called “Dance of the Ghosts” meant to bring Act 1 to its conclusion, robbing “There Was A Time” of its evocative impact.

There are a few awkward transitions, especially as Scrooge is taken through the past, present and future, and there is a leitmotif in Act I- “Scrooge, your time is near” – that’s a bit overdone.

Like many new works, the script is slightly top-heavy, but fairly well- structured, clocking in at around two and a half hours with intermission. Once this run concludes, it would serve the playwright well to give his book another critical once-over and see where the dialogue and the music could be tightened up.

Despite its fresh-out-of-the-gate stumblings, A CHRISTMAS CAROL is a solid production, and one that does the job with its requisite hauntings and enduring lessons within its script, set to a entertaining musical score.

In the end, the audience will be engaged by The Community Players’ interpretation of Dickens’ classic story, and come away with a tuneful reminder of the book of Matthew, which contains the cautionary parable “as you treat the least of those around you, so shall you yourself be treated”. Not a bad lesson of which to be reminded, especially at this time of year.

The Community Players once again demonstrate their talent and commitment in the telling of this timeless tale, and are to be commended for the manner in which they bring A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A MUSICAL GHOST STORY to life. God bless them, every one.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A MUSICAL GHOST STORY runs November 18-20 at the Concord City Auditorium, 9 Prince St., Concord, NH. Please see the Community Players’ website for details.

THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA- The Winni Players Community Theatre

2010-11-07T12:27:00.015-05:00

THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA

presented by the Winni Players Community Theatre

directed by Neil Pankhurst

THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA is poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca’s stark, realistic rumination on familial despotism, the dynamics that arise from it, and how the destinies of those caught up in the constraints of denial play out, ensnaring not only themselves, but those around them.

At its deepest level, BERNARDA ALBA is an allegory, arguably one of Lorca's last and best: he finished the play two months before he himself was killed during the conflicts that wracked Spain following the fall of its dictatorial regime and transition to a Nationalist government. Indeed, BERNARDA ALBA touches upon many of the troubles that afflicted Spain at the time: totalitarianism, oppression, and class warfare, to name but a few.

So convinced was Generalissimo Francisco Franco that Lorca's writings were subversive exhortations against his regime, all mention of the man and his work were banned for nearly twenty years following Lorca's murder, and it was not until Franco's own death in 1975 that Lorca could once again be discussed freely in Spain.

On its surface, the play chronicles the travails of the five adult daughters of the mercurial Bernarda Alba, following the death of Bernarda’s husband and the eight years of mourning that Bernarda imposes upon her children.

This imposition of virtue comes at a time when the daughters are each, in their own fashion, yearning to break free of their mother’s stifling influence. Coupled with this struggle is the appearance of an unseen suitor, who exerts his own brand of charm on each of the women in turn, and their reactions to his attentions.

Add to the mix constant allegorical whiffs of burgeoning sexuality all around the Alba compound: attractive young men hired to bring in the harvest, an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, a libidinous stallion kicking at the stable wall in his desire to service the herd.

Stir in salacious gossip from the servants, the suppression of family secrets, set all within the oppressiveness of summer heat, and soon you have a recipe for a situation that’s both succulent and revolting in the same mouthful.

As is his wont, Neil Pankhurst makes choices that allows the text to speak for itself; his presence as this play’s director is more ephemeral than weighty, allowing for the story’s thematic strata to rise to the surface and peel themselves away to reveal what’s beneath.

As an ensemble, the twelve women that make up the cast are, for the most part, satisfactory in imparting the personalities and desires of Bernarda Alba and those under her rigorous charge. Despite dropped lines and some uneven manifestations of character, overall the cast rises to the challenge of interpreting Lorca’s dense, multi-layered treatise.

Standouts are Barbara Webb as the dictatorial Bernarda Alba, Tamara McGonagle as Angustias, the eldest daughter who is equally steely in her resolve to defy her mother as her mother is to bend her to her will, and Mo Demers as flinty servantwoman La Poncia, the Alba family’s unswerving conscience and moral compass.

Dan Daly gifts BERNARDA ALBA with an intuitive set that follows the allegorical themes of the play. At first glance, it appears to be the well-appointed courtyard, but as the play progresses, takes on darker aspects- that of a convent where the nuns are cloistered against their will, perhaps, or an oubliette where one is not damned to be forgotten by the outside world, but to forget it.

The irony of this space lies in the fact that the daughters come and go as they wish, but are drawn back again and again by the sheer force of their mother’s will, playing out their destinies within the courtyard’s confines.

Of note are the period costumes by Kathy Lockwood and Lori McGinley, outfitting the women in mourning without making them dour and mordant. Splashes of color offset the women’s’ traditional funeral garb and serve to remind that there is more to the world than black and white in the choices one makes.

If you equate community theatre with family-friendly themes, happy endings, "name" playwrights and/or lots of singing and dancing, then this show is definitely not for you. If you like your theatre to be challenging, provocative, and outside of the box, then make it a point to be in the audience during BERNARDA ALBA's run.

While other community theatre groups in the state serve up uninspired redundancies, it’s to this company’s credit that they continue to look for ways to forgo standard community theatre fare.

THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA may not have been the best choice, but it is arguably one of the most interesting, and one of the most absorbing. Kudos to The Winni Players Community Theatre for raising the level of discourse to a higher plateau.

THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA runs November 5-14 at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. See their website for details.

Image courtesy of The Winnpesaukee Playhouse

GAY BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN

2010-10-17T16:06:00.020-04:00

book by Dane Leeman & Billy Butler, music & lyrics by Billy Butler

produced by The Rep

directed by Billy Butler

“Once there was a young girl….”

Opening with an appropriately ominous minor-key musical prelude, GAY BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN’s central storyline, and its raison d’être, is revealed: promising scientist Doctor Shocker prepares to take to wife the love of his life, the beauteous Liza.

Here's the kicker: Liza, as it turns out, isn't all that keen on marrying the young doctor, nor is she enamored of boys in general.

Yup, you got it; Liza swings on the distaff side of the garden gate. She’s deeply entrenched in the passions of Sapphic love with her own gal pal, but, because of the manipulations of her own cruelly ambitious mother, is forced to follow through with her betrothal to Dr. Shocker, and forever cast aside her lover.

Rather than deny her true nature and consign herself to a life without the woman she wants to be with, Liza breaks away from her new husband on their wedding night, setting herself on fire, torching the Shocker ancestral mansion and consigning her soul to hell.

Shocker is driven to madness following his bride’s betrayal and death, and vows to spend his life to finding a way to bring her back, using as his inspiration the horrific experiments of a certain Swiss physician, himself made infamous in a 19th-century novel by the sweet young wife of a famous English poet.

But how?

From this off-center starting point, GAY BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN's story, as written by Seacoast natives Billy Butler and Dane Leeman, takes off into even more bizarre territory, borrowing liberally from time-honored sources like Mary Shelley, Rocky Horror, Universal horror films, comic books and 70s-era Saturday morning cartoons.

GBoF makes no apologies that its plot follows an outré and fantastic formula- indeed, the play revels gleefully in the strangeness of its characters, and the situations in which they are mired.

In fact, Dr. Shocker’s predicament becomes almost secondary to GBoF’s other story line: pretty, peppy teenager Chloe is confused by the unique dilemma of having to fend off the amorous advances of not only her oversexed boyfriend Thad, but those of her lifelong best friend- Edna.

Chloe’s tribulations, where they lead her and how she comes to terms with them, is an engaging lateral narrative to the twisted machinations of Dr. Shocker, and provides this unorthodox musical with a unique parallel punch.

In addition to the mad scientist, the pure young girl and her friends, GBoF is packed with archetypes: ten actors comprise the cast, playing everything from from humble janitors to text-addicted zombies, and everything in between.

Director Billy Butler commands his troupe to grab the audience from the start, and they do, bringing the house on a wild rocket ride from the play’s spine-chilling opening to its equally gripping conclusion.

Because these actors are more than happy to comply with GBoF’s demanding pace, it seems that there are far more people onstage than are actually there.

To their credit, the actors, a mix of Equity professionals and a few familiar Seacoast faces, are energetic and inventive, manifesting each character extremely well. As members of the ensemble, each does his part to support the story and keep intact the humor which drives the play.

The onstage action is augmented beautifully by Adrienne Maitland’s adroit and inventive choreography, and Butler, pulling double-duty as GBoF’s musical director, leads a five-piece band in offering up seventeen of his own superb musical numbers, from raucous rock (My Abomination", "Beelzeboogie"), to humorous recitatives ("Token Bad Guy") and tender ballads ("Hanna", "Here Comes The Rain").

From a technical standpoint, GBoF’s crowning achievement is the physical space in which the show takes place, a collaborative effort as executed by set designer David Towlun, lighting designer Matt Guminski, comic book artist Dan Drew and SennovA’s projections guru Jeff Cady.

The focal point is the set’s back wall, an assemblage of fabric swatches stitched together to form a pastiche of riveting projected images. As the story moves along, the audiences are treated to a series of black and white renderings, interspersed with live-action shots of the band and other vivid representations that supplement the onstage action- it’s a graphic novel of the story, given a life of its own.

Contrasting the plain lines of this set and its monochromatic imagery is a fluid and animated light plot, comprised of lush colors and vivid textures that arc and swirl in tandem to what’s happening on the stage.

In and of itself, the set and lighting are as much characters in this production as the actors, and the result is nothing short of marvelous.

Of note are Michele Macadaeg’s costumes and makeup effects by Claudia Koziner Faulkner, which add another phantasmagoric layer to this already densely packed musical.

With all that’s right about this show, is there anything that doesn't work? Indeed there is: its book.

GBoF’s script is top-heavy and awkward, relying as it does on a panoply of situations and gags cribbed from other sources. The cribbing isn’t the problem; it’s that there’s a lot of it.

Too much borrowing gives the book the overall impression that its writers are either too lazy or not smart enough to come up with their own material. Worse, the overzealous borrowing threatens to overshadow GBoF’s main plot point- that of how the Bride becomes the GAY Bride.

And, in at least three critical spots, bad writing prevents the story’s through-line from flowing as smoothly as it could. They are:

(SPOILER ALERT- skip over this if you don’t want key aspects of the story to be revealed)

* in order for Dr. Shocker to resurrect the spirit of his dead bride, Chloe has to die.

That she does die isn’t the issue- it’s that when they learn of her death, Chloe’s brother, boyfriend and best friend hardly react at all, shrugging off the fact of it as if it were no more bothersome than a flat tire.

Further, the manner in which Chloe dies sets the play up for a weak ending, whereby the newly-reincarnated Liza gamely attempts to fit herself into Chloe's life as a straight girl.

She fails, but fear not: the entire gang is treated to a schmaltzy deus ex machina vision of Chloe in heaven, assuring everyone that she's okay, they're okay, and everything's okay. As a resolution to the play, it's a cheat, and it doesn't work.

* Shocker’s nurse-slash-henchman reveals himself to be a detective who’s been on to Shocker for years.

So how is it that a cop who knows what the mad doctor is planning to do, doesn’t prevent him from doing it?

* the insertion of Hanna, who’s referred to (but not seen) in Act I as the deceased love of Chloe’s brother Hairy.

Other than that Hanna is dead, and that Hairy loved her, nothing is revealed about the character until Act 2, when Hairy sings one of the best ballads in the show- the titular ”Hanna”- and we find out that Hanna is, in fact, a dog.

The character has no relevance to the story line except as a vague reference toward the end of the play as to why Hairy wants to keep Shocker’s Wolfman as a pet.

Too bad the “Hanna” song is so good; as a plot device, Hanna’s nothing more than an unnecessary distraction.

(END SPOILERS)

This is GBoF’s third foray onto the stage, which means it’s been re-written and changed at least that many times since Leeman and Butler came up with the original idea in 2006.

Following its run at The Rep, GBoF will be past its nascent period, and at the point where its success will hinge less on what’s added, and more on what’s subtracted or refined.

GBoF is at a critical juncture, where it becomes imperative to shape and lock in the elements that will ensure its impact as an artistic and theatrical venture. As a newer work, and one that’s certainly worthy of the effort, it begs to be to be distilled to its essence.

As of this review, it’s about three-quarters there. Following this latest staging, a dispassionate and objective revisiting of its book is in order, whereby what works is fixed in place, and what doesn’t work goes.

Then, publication, and from there- the sky’s the limit, if the honest work is done.

Its flaws notwithstanding, GBoF is a solid production that pulls you in from the start and engages you to the end. So much so, in fact, that its 100-minute running time seems far too short. It’s not, but that’s one of the many things about GBoF that doesn’t need to be changed.

GAY BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is already a good show; it’s an intelligent, irreverent homage to aspects of popular culture that we continue to embrace, and its snarky, shoot-from-the- hip style ensures it a spot as an iconoclastic theatrical phenomenon.

Once the necessary revamping is done, it’s destined to become even better, and by going you not only support Butler and Leeman’s endeavor, you get to say you saw it “when”.

So take yourself to The Rep and see how a couple of local boys made good, and how they, with their talented cast and crew, bring this particular monster roaring to the Rep’s stage.

A great deal of love,heart and soul has gone into giving birth to this creature; here's to GAY BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN enjoying a long, long life.

GAY BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN runs October 15-31 at The Rep. Please visit their website for more information.

THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL!

2010-09-18T11:43:00.017-04:00

THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS:

THE MUSICAL!

presented by Not Your Mom’s Musical Theater

directed by Jamie Feinberg

Are you a theatre geek? Is your iPod loaded with thousands of show tunes? Does your inner diva thrill to an overture? Can you reel off what Broadway show was written by what composer, in alphabetical AND chronological order?

Then THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL! is right up your Tin Pan Alley.

TMOMTM is classic cabaret-style theatre- a show with a small ensemble, modest production values, and one that that relies heavily on the brilliance of the material and the talents of its cast in order to captivate its audience.

The premise is simple. Four actors play out one plot line- one of them can’t pay the rent, and enlists the help of the others to avoid being evicted by a heartless landlord.

That’s pretty much it. Simple and not all that deep, insofar as theatrical conflicts go.

But then the action veers away from hackneyed melodrama, taking a sharp turn into the hilarious; while the plot isn’t particularly original, the structure of this show very much is.

TMOMTM is divided into five vignettes, all variations on the same theme of not being able to pay the rent, but sung and acted in the style of the most famous Broadway composers known to the musical theatre genre.

In short order, Rogers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kander & Ebb are showcased, lampooned, and skewered.   Not only are a host of songs from Broadway shows of the last seventy-five years twisted around- major plot lines and even physical styles are hijacked and turned on their heads.

In the course of the evening, shows like OKLAHOMA! EVITA, CHICAGO, HELLO, DOLLY!, COMPANY and dozens of others are plucked from their pedestals, stuffed into the blender of parody and served as a satirical smoothie to an audience that sucks it up and clamors for more.

Make no mistake: this isn’t hollow, mean-spirited satire just for the sake of satire; THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL! is an affectionate homage to an art form that’s endured for well over a century, one which honors while it gently pokes fun at the time-honored traditions of Broadway.

In so doing, TMOMTM demonstrates its love and respect for the storied theatrical dynasties of the ages, in the same instant that it mocks them.

The laughs don’t just come from the pastiche of songs that come at the audience with varying degrees of silliness; it’s the very talented cast and their deadpan spoofs that cement the production, and elevate TMOMTM into the heights of hilarity.

Jennifer Mallard, Michael Galligan, Joey T. and Heidi Welch are, in turn, hugely funny in their interpretations of the weird characters they inhabit in each successive vignette. Each actor has the unenviable task of strapping on a host of different characters, from naïve cowgirls to boozy society broads, from effete phantoms to flamboyant chorus boys, and everything in between.

These actors are fearless in how they embrace the physical humor, and very much in their element in bringing the comedy to an intimate yet enthusiastic and appreciative audience. Couple this with the fact that they’re all gifted singers and dancers, and you have a cast that gives one hundred percent in terms of the impact they have.

As the four morph from persona to persona, they have to not only keep the farce fresh, but the energy levels consistent so that the show doesn’t flag. Which they do; it’s impossible to stop laughing once these four get you started. TMOMTM rockets from start to finish, fueled largely in part by the non-stop guffaws powering it, thanks to this quintessentially clever quartet of comedians.

The four are ably supported on keyboards by the equally talented Jamie Feinberg, who also directed and choreographed. Production values are wisely kept to a minimum and mesh beautifully with the staging, which works to the show's advantage, since it’s really what the cast does with the material that’s the focus.

True theatre aficionados will delight in the show’s sly, rapid-fire inside-man dialogue as well as its broad humor. Those who have only a working knowledge of the Broadway oeuvre might get lost from time to time, but don’t fret- there’s more than enough gleeful mockery of the genre’s more popular offerings, so that everyone is on the joke.

In all, THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL! is overdone, overblown, over-the-top, and, though it clocks in at a little over two hours, over too soon.

As done by Not Your Mom's Musical Theatre, THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL! is one of those rare gems: a well-written, well-played show that has plenty for those who see it, but which leaves them wanting more. Don’t miss it.

THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS: THE MUSICAL! plays September 17-20 at Boynton’s Taproom in Manchester. See the NYMMT website for details.

Image: BroadwayWorld

ROOMS: A ROCK ROMANCE

2010-09-13T15:09:00.015-04:00

presented by The Rep

directed by Craig Faulkner

ROOMS, one of the newest offerings in the Broadway rock oeuvre, walks an uneasy line between allegory and musical. Its premise is that we occupy many rooms in the course of our lives- not only on the physical plane, but also in our dreams.

In each room, we act out scenarios that are engineered by our hopes and fantasies, or that we play out due to outside influences. These, in turn, lead us to other rooms, in a seemingly endless chain.

Sometimes we revisit the same rooms over and over; there are rooms we can’t leave until we learn the lessons that wait for us within their walls. We may return because we have not yet mastered the skills to run the intricate machinery which opens the doors to other rooms that we long to visit.

We may linger in a room because what is there provides us comfort, or because fear keeps us from taking the step across the threshold to what lies in the next room, waiting.

And there is always a next room. And a next.

Couple the allegory with a brash, blazing wall of music that runs the gamut from grinding, percussive punk prose to stirring rock ballads, and you have ROOMS. It's the latest in a line of stage productions claiming the redoubtable title of "rock musical", styling itself as a romantic drama- one that pays homage to the music that seized the last quarter of the 20th century by the short hairs, and also providing its audience with a gritty love story reminiscent of icons like Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, with all of the angst but none of the horror.

In ROOMS, we meet Ian and Monica, two young, ambitious musicians from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, as they occupy one room after another on their journey from Glasgow to the vibrant, shimmering music scene of late- 1970s New York, when punk and new wave were set to change the world of rock music forever.

Director Craig Faulkner stages ROOMS with the use of a single door that opens on a series of rooms as the story unfolds- from a dank, niggardly bedroom in working-class Glasgow to the glitzy echoing chamber of the celebrated CBGB music club in New York City, and many rooms in between.

As such, the door is its own allegory, becoming the portal through which the audience witnesses what happens to Ian and Monica, representing the possible and the probable, propelling the pair into and through the many rooms which their actions take them, where they act out their particular destinies.

Because there are only two actors in ROOMS, their gifts and deficiencies are readily apparent throughout. Graham Bailey (Ian) and Christine Dulong (Monica) both do a fair job of portraying two Scottish musicians with dreams of dominating the world of punk rock. They’re energetic and convincing; both have well-developed characters and both sing well.

Dulong is a powerful singer but falls in and out of the accent necessary to fully convince us of her character, and there are times when Bailey’s character wavers under the effort of trying to match Dulong vocally. Both actors make some questionable choices in the portrayal of their characters, and sometimes fall back on over-the-top interpretations which take the audience out of their belief in who they are and what they want.

Production values are mostly tight, with a visually imposing set design by David Towlun, Matt Guminski’s intricate and intuitive light plot, and a fascinating collage of projected images by SenovvA’s Jeff Cady. The six-piece band plays through the nineteen musical numbers with consistency, ably supporting the onstage action. Sound, however, is over-amped, overdone and often the actors are unintelligible.

*** SPOILER: don’t read any further if you plan to see this production. ***

The major flaw with ROOMS lies not in its execution, but its structure. Stripped of its post-industrial motif and entertaining score, the story of Ian and Monica and their travails isn’t really all that interesting.

While the success of any play lies in the believable resolution of its interior conflicts, ROOMS concludes with far too pat an ending, when EVERYTHING is resolved, and far too neatly.

Ian especially makes out like a bandit. First, he's overcome by the bottle, eventually leaving a pregnant Monica in America following a crisis of confidence in his ability to cope with the changing music scene, returning to Scotland to creatively and conveniently suffer in the studio he builds with the earnings from his improbably short career.

Through the magic of theatre, a few years fly by, and Ian kicks the booze, flies back to the States, wins Monica back, gains a son and returns with them to Scotland, where presumably they end up collaborating and raising their children in a blissful haze of post-punk connubial bliss and prosperity, writing jingles for Scotland's Board of Tourism.

Ian even gets back the guitar he drunkenly abandoned in a cab some three years before. Would that life truly managed to work out as it does in this play; that’s certainly a room we’d all like to occupy.

This storyline’s been done, done again, and done better. ROOMS ends up being little more than a mild variation of what could have been an unflinching examination of some of the more dramatic aspects in the life of these two people- the nihilism of punk, the sheer cascade of creativity that came from the new wave movement, and how both consumed those who were drawn to their brightly burning flames.

Still, while it’s not likely that we will ever occupy the rooms that Ian and Monica end up living in, ROOMS affords us with the pleasant fantasy that we one day may, and in that, the stage at The Rep isn’t a bad room in which to spin out that fantasy.

ROOMS runs September 10-October 13 at The Rep. Please visit their website for more details.

Image: Sympathetic Compass

SIX NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT

2010-08-27T01:16:00.031-04:00

written and directed by Lowell Williams

produced by M & M Productions

On August 13, 1965, in the shadow of the county jail in Hayneville, Alabama, Jonathan Daniels' life was cut short by a shotgun blast- scant moments after he had been released from the same building, following six days' incarceration for picketing merchants who refused to serve blacks.

He was 26 years old.

As to who Daniels was, and what prompted a stranger to kill him, is a story that has retreated further into the shadows of the past as the ensuing decades fall away.

Few today know that Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian from New Hampshire, was among the first wave of civil rights workers who gave up the comforts of home to travel to the Deep South to work for the budding civil rights movement.

In the course of doing of what he could to inch the leviathan of equality forward, Jonathan Daniels was murdered, and his story became one that was told less and less as the civil rights movement gained ground, until his contribution was nearly forgotten.

Until now.

In SIX NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT, Lowell Williams’ compassionate and empathic treatment of the life of Jonathan Daniels, we bear witness to Daniels' transformation from sheltered New England seminarian to driven civil rights champion, and from there to martyr for a cause he believed in utterly, even as it consumed him and put him on the path to death.

This is the third staged draft of SIX NIGHTS, and arguably the best. While the fact of his death comes early, it's Jonathan Daniels' short but extraordinary life that remains SIX NIGHTS' focal point.

The result is a powerful tale which still resonates. Even with strategic changes to both action and dialogue, Williams' latest version of Jonathan Daniels' journey to martyrdom remains largely intact.

Transformation was one of the central themes of the previous draft of this play, and continues to this one, to its advantage. Williams, who also directs, charts the course of several days in Alabama without straying far from the events that led Daniels from his home and career to the South, or lingering too long on what may have motivated him. Instead, Williams prefers to let Daniels react to that which surrounds him, and the situations into which he places himself, of his own free will.

Thus, the character of Daniels self-actuates; he is less a victim of circumstance and more the architect of his own destiny. It is this young man’s belief in the greater good, coupled with his abiding strength, which transforms him. The changes he undergoes- from unassuming religious student to quietly determined crusader for the rights of the oppressed- draw us in, and keep us with him as his journey unfolds.

What makes this version better is that the action is streamlined, and the dialogue pared down to its essence. The play clocks in at a brisk hour and twenty minutes, moving along at a steady pace, touching upon important aspects of Daniels’ stay in the south but not lingering. We are treated to the gist of where Daniels was, who he met, what he did, and this distillation of the events serves the play far better than did its scene-heavy, wordy predecessor. This latest version plays as a finished product, and a well-crafted one at that.

Apart from a few technical glitches and missed cues, the technical elements are solid, save for sound: unfortunately M & M Productions persists in forgoing sound augmentation, and in a venue as large as the Amato, this is a mistake. As a result of not miking the performance, some of the actors, as well as the background gospel choir, aren’t always heard as well as they should be. Lights designed by Craig Brennan provide an interesting palette that supports the action, and the set as executed by Paul Meltzer and Tom Morgan is spare, almost severe in its design, but lends itself to what unfolds on stage. Costumes by Val Verge are faithful to the period.

Actor-wise, this is one fine ensemble. John Decareau brings an absorbing yet quietly consistent depth to the character of Jonathan Daniels himself, manifesting a power borne of serene conviction in the choices he makes, but never lapsing into fatalism.

Conversely, Chauncey Moore, as civil rights icon Stokely Carmichael, brings a far wider panoply of emotions to his character. Energetic and engaged, Moore fascinates as he brings to light the complex moods and passions of Carmichael, as he first struggles to understand that which motivates Jonathan Daniels, and later as he reluctantly accepts the young seminarian, and his mission.

Larry Piza does a superb job as the Reverend Watkins, Daniels’ mentor and host minister in Selma who’s at odds with his role in the community and as the leader of his church. Mari Keegan personifies this play’s central conflict as the hard-edged, iron-willed Mary Ann Hasham, a bigoted church trustee who, through her actions and words, may be instrumental in Daniels’ eventual arrest and subsequent murder. And Maria Mendez brings both fire and steel to juke-joint proprietress Loretta, who sees in Daniels all of the hopes and dreams of her race, and who pledges herself to doing all she can to see that those dreams finally come true.

Shaina Schwartz as Ruby Sales and Cheryl Norton as Judy Upham both support consistently as the women in Jonathan Daniels’ life; one black, one white, they are polar opposites in terms of what it is they want from Daniels, and thus provide the play with a richer dimensionality.

There is an instance of ambiguity that detracts from the play, and that is the relationship between Jonathan and Judy Upham, whose reason for being with Jonathan is never clearly defined. Is she a friend? A lover? Why is she there at all? What is it she wants? We aren't really told, and before her mission crystallizes, Judy fades from the action, going back to New England and leaving an unresolved hole in the place she used to occupy.

The play is enhanced throughout by the inclusion of live gospel music, sung at intervals by a five-person choir. The vocals do a nice job of knitting the play together and providing it with a more compelling narrative; again, had they been miked properly, their presence would have been all the more evocative.

What one ends up taking away from this incarnation of SIX NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT is the simplest of lessons, one that the perpetrators of violence never learn: when someone falls in the name of a just cause, he, and the life he led, becomes consecrated.

Jonathan Daniels may have fallen victim to an assassin’s bullet in 1965, but he is now ageless, forever fixed in time as young, strong, full of hope and passion for a better world. All that he thought or did is, like his inspiration the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., part of a greater legend that transcends the man, and his all-too-brief life.

One might argue that in producing SIX NIGHTS, M & M Productions has done their part to make Jonathan Daniels and his legacy relevant once again. One might counter that argument by maintaining that Daniels always was relevant.

However the memory of Jonathan Daniels and his work is kept alive, we can be thankful for the part played by Lowell Williams’ fine play, and the company that brought it to the stage this time around.

Together, they gently remind us that the spirit of Jonathan Daniels is always with us, and that his message of tolerance and harmony is as timely today as it was nearly fifty years ago.

Go, and be moved by that spirit.

SIX NIGHTS IN THE BLACK BELT plays August 26-29, 2010 at the Amato Center in Milford, NH. Please visit the M & M website for more details.

Image: The Episcopal Archives

BLITHE SPIRIT- The Winnipesaukee Playhouse

2010-07-24T23:03:00.012-04:00

BLITHE SPIRIT

presented by the Winnipesaukee Playhouse

directed by Neil Pankhurst

It’s hardly worth arguing whether or not Noel Coward’s stage comedies, so adept at poking sharp sticks at the peccadilloes of the upper class, were the apotheosis of piquant humor.

They were. And still are; so much so that nearly 100 years after they were penned, his works for the stage still give off a peculiarly caustic vibrancy that resonates with play-goers of every stripe.

Certainly Coward was much loved on both sides of the pond: more for his willingness to satirize the heretofore-unimpeachable British ruling class than to mouth empty obsequies for it.

The English loved Coward for daring to use comedy to expose the feet of clay with which everyone knew the upper crust were cursed. Americans loved him because he reinforced in them the belief they, too, would one day be rich enough to be lampooned.

BLITHE SPIRIT chronicles the arcane travails of novelist Charles Condomine and his wife Ruth, socialites and rather tedious dilettantes of the era in which they inhabit- in this case, an idyllic English village in the 1930s.

They engage the services of a psychic to amuse them one summer evening as they’re entertaining guests; said psychic accidentally raises the ghost of Charles Condomine’s first wife, dead some seven years prior.

The bulk of the play concerns itself with the couple’s increasingly frenetic attempts to rid themselves of a recalcitrant jazz-baby poltergeist and keep their marriage from unraveling. As they say, hilarity ensues.

But for the sixty years that separate them, the Condomines are dead ringers for Flan and Ouisa Kitteredge, the hapless victims of a con man in John Guare’s SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: fiercely entrenched within the confines of their social class, smirkingly confident in all that they feel entitled to, and possessing not one original thought between them but for what they can afford to purchase from others with the ridiculous amounts of cash they always seem to have on hand.

Thematically, both Guare’s and Coward’s works parallel one another- the materialistic ruling class getting ensnared in convoluted quagmires that their own self-absorbed vapidity serves to make worse.

In terms of style, this is the point at which these playwrights part company. Coward simply refuses to wallow in the bravura epiphanies and sense of self-awareness that comes to the Kittredges at the conclusion of Guare’s play- with BLITHE SPIRIT, there’s no real comeuppance, even for those most deserving of it. There’s just another layer of irony, served at a table which was already groaning with it.

Unlike Ouisa’s prissy come-to-Jesus speech and the murky resolution that afflicts the conclusion of SIX DEGREES, we’re treated to the gleeful- if not grating- reality that the rich often get away with outrageous acts.

It’s Coward’s gift for prickly dialogue and for making the most improbable situations believable that carry BLITHE SPIRIT through to its bizarre, yet wholly entertaining, ending- given the fact that the play centers on the best way to make an unwelcome spirit go away, it’s not that much of a stretch to accept that BLITHE SPIRIT’s plot is plausible, and possible.

Director Neil Pankhurst has Coward’s passion for biting one-liners and cheeky, whimsical situations firmly in mind, shepherding the Winnipesaukee Playhouse’s version of BLITHE SPIRIT from beginning to end with a jocular energy. Rather than be an apologist for the fanciful plot of BLITHE SPIRIT, Pankhurst lets the play stand on its own merit, preferring instead to endow it with the energy it needs to capture and keep the audience’s interest.

The actors that take on the seven characters in BLITHE SPIRIT do a fair job of maintaining that energy; save for a few missed lines here and there, all are up to the task of sustaining the vivacity integral to powering this comedy, which logs in at well over two hours.

Of note: Colin Gold’s effete, fussbudgety Charles Condomine; Tonya Free’s addlepated maid Edith; and Bryn Jameson’s Madame Arcati, who seems to have risen whole from an amalgam of Carol Burnett and Beyond The Fringe sketch comedies. These three are burnished examples of the caricatures that supplied Coward’s plays with their raison d’être, and the actors occupying them are well-matched for the task of keeping them interesting without allowing them to become maudlin.

Melissa Shakun manages to transform the Winni P’s compact acting area into an expansive, luxurious living room, replete with high ceilings, crown molding, and all of the trappings one might expect of a country home belonging to a wealthy writer without ever appearing cramped or cluttered. The detail is marvelous- period furnishings and accessories, a chandelier and even an inlaid parquet floor.

As with Coward’s characters, the set is only what it seems to be on the surface; be prepared for a few surprises as the evening draws to a close.

Lighting designer Matt Guminski outdoes himself with this show. Guminski has a history of innovation where the Winnipesaukee Playhouse’s shows are concerned- his light plots for them have garnered more wins at the NH Theatre Awards than any other lighting designer.

With BLITHE SPIRIT, Guminski steps up the entire concept of theatrical lighting a notch and brings a fascinating level of design to the Winni P that is rarely seen outside of the big production houses. It’s lighting that that raises the bar for how lighting not only should be done, but must be done, if a company wishes to stay ahead of the creative curve.

Costumes by Danee Grillo are excellent, and Tonya Free pulls double-duty by acting in the show and creating some fascinating spectral effects with makeup. Props and set pieces are relevant to the period and director Pankhurst also graces the play with lovely sketches of period music, some of which are actual recordings of Noel Coward singing his own songs.

BLITHE SPIRIT stands up to this day because of its author’s fearlessness- first, in the dense layering of his plays, chock-full of with rich situations that ran the gamut of highbrow comedy to low farce, and second, in his propensity to shrug off the overweening fear that he might suffer the wrath of the anointed by being so bold as to suggest they were less than perfect.

That Coward stood on the periphery of the ruling class and was considered their court jester is well-known. Less known is how Coward himself felt about that designation. Because he was relegated to the sidelines, he was placed in the enviable position to observe what went on in the hallowed halls of the so-called anointed.

Further, he was gifted with the ability to write about that which he saw, and that which he lived, in the gently wicked manner that is often imitated, but never duplicated. It is a style which belongs solely to him, and it has made him immortal. .

With their production of BLITHE SPIRIT, the Winnipesaukee Playhouse pays homage to Noel Coward, and to his gifts.

Go, and let the spirit move you.

BLITHE SPIRIT plays July 21-July 31 at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Please visit their website for details.

Image: 123rf.com

SCOTLAND ROAD- The Winnipesaukee Playhouse

2010-07-17T12:22:00.013-04:00

SCOTLAND ROAD

presented by the Winnipesaukee Playhouse

directed by Bryan Halperin

It’s 1992. The news is agog with a story of a young woman dressed in early 20th century clothing, found on an iceberg.

She speaks but a few words and then lapses into silence… yet those words lead her rescuers to believe that she survived the sinking of a ship that foundered some eighty years before.

A ship named TITANIC.

Thus sparks Jeffrey Hatcher’s riveting treatise on that which is real, that which is not, and how we gravitate toward both ends of the truth spectrum in order to satisfy our own conflicted desire to reinforce the balance between what we know to be true, and what we wish was true.

Director Bryan Halperin treats the premise of SCOTLAND ROAD as an elaborate joke that plays on the gullibility of the masses- in short, a hoax.

Rather than poking fun at the credulous simplicity of the great unwashed, Halperin instead plays up the wistfulness that arises from our need to have a little magic in our lives, and how we ruefully cherish the most blatant attempts to trick us into believing in something that couldn’t be true, even under the most extraordinary of circumstances, and even when the ruse is over and we know full well we've been fooled.

We all need to believe in something, even if that something is so fantastic and improbable that we literally strain the fabric of the realities we occupy in order to accommodate it. Halperin knows this, and because he does, he takes a far more sensitive tack with SCOTLAND ROAD, crafting from that premise a play that's much more compelling to watch, enriching the story as well as what the actors choose to do in their varied moments within the story.

As an ensemble, there's no hoax about the four actors in SCOTLAND ROAD, except perhaps the tales their characters tell to get them to the point where their lives converge in an oddly-shaped room on the coast of Maine, where this story unfolds.

Each of the four are adept at playing characters who are not what they seem to be- the hallmark of what grifters call “the long con” - yet who convince us that they are exactly who they represent.

Bryn Jameson and Dorothy Piquado both take the stage in strong, convincing ways- Jameson as The Woman’s attending physician and Piquado as a superannuated, utterly creepy recluse who also survived the TITANIC sinking.

Yet, of course, in the context of the hoax, neither is quite what they’d have us believe. As the play progresses, both Jameson and Piquado strip away the veneers in which their characters are encased to reveal more conflicted, and far darker, reasons for claiming to be who they are. Both women grace this play with artful performances that excellently underscore the main plot of SCOTLAND ROAD.

Like the TITANIC herself, Jill Palmer’s Woman is a deep well of silent secrets, none of which come to the surface without an incredible amount of effort on the part of others. Palmer spends much of the play in deliberate silence, only offering up bits and pieces of who she claims to be, and what set of circumstances led her to the stark white room of this day and age.

As to why she has not aged past her twenties, or who or what she is- a personification of the ship itself, a ghost back from the black depths, or a manifestation of a life of feverish dreams- we aren’t sure. Palmer’s masterful reticence only adds to the mystery, and grips us.

Richard Brundage turns in SCOTLAND ROAD’s most enticing performance as John, a man who simultaneously seems to be consumed by all that The Woman represents, and the most suspicious of it. John seeks an amorphous something- redemption? Validation? Certainly he is on a quest for something to fill a void in his life, and is at turns unsettled by what The Woman reveals- when she chooses to reveal anything- and comforted by it.

Brundage crystallizes two of SCOTLAND ROAD’s central themes- first, of desire, then, of conflict. He envelopes the audience in John’s dreams, skating right up to the edge of obtaining what he wants- only to either sabotage himself, or be rebuffed by the reality that underlies the desire itself.

Brundage manifests in John a restless complexity that, in keeping with the other characters, seems to pull him simultaneously toward and away from what it is he himself wants. In the end, it seems that John will get what he wants- but as to whether his desire for what he wants will be as strong as it is before he gets it, there’s no telling.

As John, it’s Brundage’s deliberately underplayed actions and how he tries to control the circumstances under which the other characters labor that sets up the final scene- one that makes us think that John may have willingly entered his own particular version of Heaven. Or Hell. Or both. Or neither. We are left to wonder, and to marvel how Brundage gets us to that point.

David Towlun once again demonstrates the skills that have garnered him a number of design awards in and around NH with a stark white, rectilinear set dressed with one deck chair at its center. As to its purpose, Towlun leaves that aspect of the set tantalizingly murky: is it the prow of the doomed TITANIC? The iceberg that sent the ship to its watery grave? A geometric rendition of an interrogatory oubliette in the woods of Maine? It appears to be all of these things, yet none of them: because it can’t be categorized, it unsettlingly underscores the onstage action, and meshes beautifully with it.

Lighting designer Matt Guminski starts the play off with a grainy image of a large mass of ice, then segues into a utilitarian and rather harsh light plot that compliments the action and the set. Of course, Guminski doesn’t stop there; there’s far more as the play progresses, and Guminski sets it all up in a sly, understated manner, setting a perfect tone for what’s happening on stage from opening to final blackout.

Of note is Neil Pankhurst’s brooding, discordant sound design, punctuated with jangly, percussive interstices that serve to remind that this play is more than a mere drama.

If you like your plays with an eclectic mix of mystery, drama, theatrical sleight-of-hand, ghosts, obsession, and references to the TITANIC, staged with visually arresting scenic elements, then this is your type of play, and you should not miss it. It’s superb.

SCOTLAND ROAD runs July 7-17 at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Please visit their website for more information.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

2010-06-05T19:08:00.009-04:00

produced by M & D Productions

directed by Richard Russo

The best plays also make the best poetry.

Context, image, metaphor, rhythm- these are just some of the many building blocks that the great poem, and the great play, must draw upon in order to be born, and to surpass their lesser fellows.

A good play, like a good poem, only has to be well written. A great poem or play is one that has lasting impact, and which resonates, from audience to audience, and era to era, without losing any of the essential qualities that make it resonate from its first inception to its millionth incarnation.

It is not merely the words, but the way they are arranged, and how they fall from the page, with their dissonance, tone, metaphor and unique meter, that give rise to the enduring stories and ideas that that assemblage of words comes to symbolize.

Artists who understand the rules that govern both poetry and prose, and who are able to bend those rules to their will, often create immortal works of greatness that transcend their time on this earth. They are the laureates of their chosen craft, and rightly so.

Tennessee Williams is such an artist; time and again his plays are held up as the example to which all playwrights must aspire. A prolific author- over 70 one-acts and around 30 major plays – his creations are, like the best poems, elegiac in the depth and scope of what they offer.

Williams’ riveting storytelling style, with its lush imagery, and the uneasy juxtaposition of illusion and reality, mark his imprimatur on not one, but at least five contributions to American drama- A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA and THE ROSE TATTOO.

In A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, we come face-to-face with an engrossing parable; one of class conflict, the inexorable erosion of old traditions, the disruption of marital symbiosis and the harsh realities that rip away at the cocoon of fantasy we often create for ourselves, and one that has been a theatrical mainstay for over sixty years.

Williams meshes these themes with a unique blend of gritty dialogue and raw, unvarnished sexuality, making for a story that continues to captivate and delight, in a manner that’s as relevant today as when it first came to the stage in the late 1940s.

In M & D Productions’ staging of STREETCAR, full credit for the treatment of this tale goes to its director, Richard Russo, and his superb cast.

Russo (2008 NHTA Award for Best Director, THE GLASS MENAGERIE/M& D Productions) makes the decision to focus on how very hard it is for beauty and magic to exist in a harsh and uncaring world, and how very ephemeral those things are.

In light of the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon disaster, with millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico and threatening to forever disrupt a way of life that has held fast for untold generations, Russo’s concept is unsettlingly relevant- and it works on a level that has to be experienced to be believed.

M & D also rise to the occasion with the impressive technical elements they bring to the stage with this production. Deborah Jasien creates a shabby apartment in New Orleans’ sultry French Quarter of New Orleans, limning a densely layered work of art on which the actors play out Williams’s convoluted tale. Mark DeLancey’s light plot is spartan, but supports STREETCAR’s story with elegant simplicity. Costumes by Janette Kondrat are nicely reminiscent of the post- WWII decade, and the selection of music adds yet another layer to the opulent dimensionality of STREETCAR’s overall stage picture.

STREETCAR’s cast is nothing short of exquisite; each brings Williams’ characters to the stage fully fleshed and worth paying attention to. As individuals and as an ensemble, this cast shows us how flawed the people who populate this play are, and how driven they are, by that which they want. The manner in which they come together to tell a story of people and ideals at odds with one another is wondrous in its execution.

One cannot speak of this play without making mention of its principals- Blanche, Stanley, Stella, and Mitch, and the strange symbiosis that they enter into, which ultimately leads to an aftermath of chaos and regret.

However, it’s the supporting cast of this production that deserves first mention; pay attention to them, for they prove as as adept in their honoring of STREETCAR the principal actors, by being faithful to the story and director Russo’s interpretation of it.

The choices they make as actors enable them to zero in on the aspects of that what’s most important to that which makes us care about what is happening between the four principals, and what is happening in the larger world they occupy. We may not necessarily like these characters, but we recognize them, and understand their place in the larger scheme of things.

Without them, STREETCAR would not have the scope it needs in order to be the work it needs to be. There’s not a wasted line, not does any character come across as superfluous; Williams knew his business when he created these characters, and the actors charged with bringing them to the stage are fully aware of Williams’ intent. They are not only instrumental in powering the arc of this story from beginning to end, but critical to it.

Award-winning actor Adam Kee (NHTA 2008: Tom/THE GLASS MENAGERIE/Winnipesaukee Playhouse) is a treat to watch as Mitch, Stanley’s best buddy and Blanche’s would-be beau.

In the first scenes in which we see Mitch, Kee skates right up to the edge of abject submissiveness as a bumbling, timid man-boy afraid to step out past the sphere of influence exerted by his so-called sick mother.

In truth, Mitch’s mother might be real, but the illness under which she purportedly suffers comes across as more of a convenient construct, one that Mitch may have created in order to avoid some of life’s more complicated entanglements, and one which ultimately entraps him.

However, when he meets Blanche, a long-stunted aspect of his personality awakens- indeed, blossoms. Blanche opens Mitch’s eyes to the more exotic mysteries of life, and the joys of fleshly love, that Mitch has long denied himself, and the unseen specter of his mother is pushed further back into the twilight existence that she occupies.

This is where Kee shines; we get to see Mitch come to life, and take his first steps to true manhood. Kee gives us a Mitch who is ripe for change; a man who is ready to step out of his predictable, bleak, existence to embrace a life where the overpowering figure of his mother casts no shadow.

So carried along are we by Kee’s very genuine portrayal of this painfully shy man that it’s doubly painful to bear silent witness to the heartbreak awaiting Mitch when that which Blanche promises him turns out to be no more than a flimsy construct, much like the paper lantern that adorns the bare lamp bulb in her room, and as easily crushed.

As Stella, Heather Elise Hamilton is a walking contradiction; she yearns to be the wife and lover that Stanley needs, but is also driven by her loyalty to her sister Blanche, and her desire to keep her fragile sister safe from the realities which threaten to crash down upon her increasingly insubstantial world.

Hamilton sketches out, then walks that fine line between her obligation and desire for Stanley , and the duty borne of guilt for leaving her sister behind to contend with their dying relatives and the creditors who eventually take their childhood home. Stella is a woman bound by loyalty, but to whom?   It is this conflict that constantly drives Stella, causing her to pendulum between Stanley and Blanche without rest, and Hamilton illustrates that conflict beautifully.

Ryan Sturgis gives us a Stanley Kowalski who exudes a sense of personal power just by being comfortable in his own skin; as Stanley, Sturgis knows who he is, where he’s going, and what he wants. Stanley is proud of his humble upbringing, disdainful of the airs that intrude into his otherwise level existence in the person of Blanche; he calls it as he sees it, and, when Blanche’s increasingly pathetic affectations become too much for him, he’s not afraid to call her on it.

Sturgis manifests Stanley as a quintessential working stiff who’s at peace with the uncomplicated life: fair pay for a fair day’s work, the simple pleasures of beer and bowling, and the naked dependence mixed with lust that he has for his wife, and she for him. This is a Stanley who’s unapologetically, sometimes crudely, ambitious; postwar America has taught him that he has a right to a better life, and he’s not afraid to reach out and take it. Heaven help anyone who gets in his way.

Without question, Blanche Dubois is this play’s central character, the pivot point on which it turns, and- perhaps accidentally, perhaps not- playwright Tennessee Williams’ unspoken simulacrum.

It’s in this role that actor Christine Thompson is most luminescent. Thompson pays homage to Williams’ own profligate tendencies by being an echo of the life Williams himself led when he wasn’t writing. She recreates Williams’ demons in a slyly genteel manner, masking the baser desires which drove him- and which in turn define Blanche’s own existence- with an almost comic sense of manners.

In so doing, Thompson paints Blanche as a creature with her feet in two worlds- one of penury and the life born of it, and the other of childlike desire for magic and beauty to “take her away” from the privations that dog her waking moments.   As to which spawned the other, Williams wisely leaves that to the audience to decide, as does Thompson.

From the first time we see her to her last moments on stage, Thompson’s Blanche is an elemental force. She is chaos personified, a human hurricane that blows in to upend the Kowalski’s complacent domesticity, only to roar back out to sea, leaving behind the wreckage of lives forever changed by the furious storms of instability that Blanche drags along with her, imposes on others, and leaves in her wake.

M & D’s version of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE not only unflinchingly explores the iconography of lives touched by desire, desire, denial, and illusion, it sings it.

That song is a work of poetry that should be heard, seen, and savored.

Like the words that make up best poems, this show, this director, and this cast come together to awaken emotions that continue to reverberate within the soul long past the experiencing of them.

Tennessee Williams, America's celebrated playwright, would be pleased, humbled- and yes, proud- to see one of his most enduring creations rendered so poetically.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE runs June 3- June 19 at the M & D Productions performance space in North Conway, NH. Visit their website or Facebook page for details.

SWEET CHARITY- Actorsingers

2010-05-22T17:42:00.027-04:00

presented by Actorsingers of Nashua

directed by Paul Metzger

SPOILER: A review that's neither sweet, nor charitable

Imagine, if you will, Actorsingers as a student.

At the college level.

Say, of theatre.

Imagine that their production of SWEET CHARITY is an academic paper on which their grade for an entire semester is contingent.

Imagine further the Actorsingers’ audience is the professor to whom it falls to grade this particular paper.

Got all that? Good.

Because this is the only framework in which one can conceivably quantify the disappointing result of this particular student’s labors.

There’s an expression that has asserted itself in the popular lexicon, particularly amongst devotees of social networking sites like Facebook.

That expression: “EPIC FAIL”.

While Actorsingers doesn’t exactly “fail” in their effort to bring SWEET CHARITY to the stage, the company certainly does not rise to the challenge of producing an engaging, entertaining production this time around.

So, in a departure from the normal review format, let’s deconstruct SWEET CHARITY, and approach it much like a professor might approach the disparate components of a term paper, and see where this show stands.

A little background first.

SWEET CHARITY chronicles the travails of a taxi-dancer-slash-prostitute named Charity in 1960s New York, a comely lass who’s all too willing to offer up her body in exchange for the sweet Scarsdale existence of picket fences and PTA meetings, contending with the complications of her gritty urban life, and her relationships with the men who use and abuse her.

This show is intrinsically flawed from the onset; it hit Broadway in 1966, and its quaint setting, coupled with the era in which it inhabits, touts a set of values that barely reverberates with contemporary audiences.

While SWEET CHARITY provided both Gwen Verdon and Shirley MacLaine with star vehicles that helped to launch their respective careers, it was, in and of itself, a last of a dying breed; a musical that showcased the whore with a heart of gold.

But by the time SWEET CHARITY made the scene, America was on to other concerns- social inequality, an escalating war in Asia, and the increasing disconnect between the government and the electorate.

It’s not that we didn’t care about that whore, or her golden heart: it’s just that, in the larger scheme, her problems paled in comparison with the bigger issues dogging an increasingly conflicted nation.

Had it come along a few strategic years earlier, SWEET CHARITY may have taken its rightful place amidst classics like OKLAHOMA! or A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE.

Alas. It didn’t. It’s a show that’s quintessentially representative of the age it represents, and it’s doomed for the same reasons; outside of the giant social upheavals that rocked the 1960s, there’s very little in SWEET CHARITY to make us care that this show was written at all.

The grades:

Acting: B-minus.

First of all, there’s not an actor in this production who shouldn’t be lauded for doing what they can to keep this soporific slice of 60s urban life from keeling over dead.

Actorsingers’ 30-plus cast is a talented bunch, and they all do whatever’s in their power to sustain interest in the plot. Ultimately, it’s an exercise in futility. It’s not their fault that the show is bad, and they can’t be blamed for how SWEET CHARITY comes across.

The acting corps of SWEET CHARITY is an enthusiastic, committed, and passionate group of volunteers; as such, it serves no purpose to single out their deficiencies. What these actors do, or don't do, become evident soon enough to anyone who attends the final two shows.

But because SWEET CHARITY does center on a single character, mention needs to be made of the young lady who takes on the role of Charity Hope Valentine, this show’s protagonist.

Katie Proux is a gifted dancer, sings well and has an exquisite sense of comic timing; however, as Charity, she hardly ever strikes to the heart of her character. Proux fails to find the balance between that of a working-class dance-hall hostess with a healthy sense of identity, and the wistfulness of a girl who wants to be pure and good but whose impulses push her in the other direction.

Proux dwells too much on the earthy, bawdy aspects of Charity, and in so doing, never traverses the full arc of the character so that the audience is fully exposed to Charity’s wistful, nurturing, gentle side.

Because Proux tends to portray Charity as a vacuous bimbo rather than an ambitious career girl, the audience finds itself hard up to really care for her, and as such, there’s little resonance as Charity seeks to get up and out of the existence she’s crafted for herself.

Indeed, it’s a wonder the audience doesn’t cheer when Charity gets chucked into a duck pond not once but twice in the course of the play, such is the empathy that Proux generates for her character.

Fortunately, Proux’s deficiencies as an actress are offset by the stellar performances of Rachel Cerullo (Nickie), and Renee Lawrence (Helene). As Charity’s coworkers and confidantes, they represent everything that Charity is trying to rise above; they’re bold, brassy broads who know who they are, what life is apt to hand them, and they’d as soon smack you in the mouth as to apologize for what they have to say about it.

These two ladies give bravura performances that not only support Proux’s Charity, but often eclipse it, and these two fine actresses provide us with a far more interesting tapestry of life in 1960s new York than we get from Proux alone.

In addition to Cerullo and Lawrence, Eric Skoglund literally saves SWEET CHARITY with his neurosis-infested worrywart Oscar Linquist, who sails into Charity’s life via a broken elevator at the local YMCA, and who continually endears himself with a refreshing mix of dyed-in-the-wool nebbish and stalwart romantic from the moment we first meet him in Act 1, to his last line in Act 2.

Skoglund almost single-handedly drags this play up and out of the doldrums to which it has settled by the time he makes an appearance; his acting choices serve to rekindle the emotional investment in the show that the audience was about ready to abandon. An adroit physical actor, Skoglund is at turns hilarious and adorable as the twitchy Lindquist, poignant in manifesting who he is and what he wants all at once, and, as a result, he does the lion’s share of keeping the audience engaged.

Between them, Cerullo, Lawrence and Skoglund are this show’s honor students; they deserve a solid A-plus (plus plus plus plus plus), not only because they did the work necessary to manifest their own characters brilliantly, but because their efforts as actors lift this show to a level of enchantment that, were they not involved, would have been nearly impossible to achieve.

Strike the “nearly”; without these three, it’s doubtful this show would have gotten off the ground. Well done.

Stage Direction: B-minus.

This is less a commentary on director Paul Metzger’s ability to conceptualize and execute a viable plan to carry off a show and more an observation that you can put perfume on a pig, but it still ends up being a pig.

Especially when that pig is a big, fat, sweaty, eight-titted sow like SWEET CHARITY.

SWEET CHARITY is, at the very least, a mediocre product, and there’s nothing that Metzger could do to fix what’s wrong with it. All Metzger could do was exercise restraint and spend as little time as possible trying to work around this show’s flaws.

Which he does.   Allowing SWEET CHARITY's story line to spin out as written is the wisest course of action Metzger could have taken, and it is certainly no reflection on him that he was saddled with this albatross of a show.

Music: C-minus, teetering on D-plus.

Rarely did the orchestra sync up with the actors, and it often came across as if Actorsingers recruited some of its musicians from the local grade schools- very little evidence of musical proficiency, and too many mistakes in presentation. Surprising, and dismaying, considering the excellent work normally put forth by music director Blake Leister.

Songs: C.

(With the exception of: BIG SPENDER, SOMETHING BETTER,
And DREAM YOUR DREAM)

Yeah, sure: BIG SPENDER, along with IF MY FRIENDS COULD SEE ME NOW and THE RHYTHM OF LIFE, are considered the iconic standards of this production. The cast does all right by these numbers, but outside of the songs mentioned, almost all of the musical interludes are weird little snippets that trail off at the end and leave the audience feeling that they were tacked on for effect, not included to enhance and support the story.

Dance: B-plus.

It’s harder than hell to take a collection of largely non-dancers and make them look good on stage, and in this instance, they certainly do. Donna O’Bryant Metzger’s choreography is lush, multilayered, tight throughout, and faithful to the decade. Her attention to detail and innovations in movement definitely help to move the flagging plot forward.

Sets:

Design: B–plus.

Jim Webber has put together an ambitious representational set that, in true Webber style, serves the play by constantly shifting and morphing from one location to another. There’s even an active volcano!

Execution: D.

There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be dealt with onstage because of the design, and the running crew is ill equipped to deal with it.

Scene changes are a struggle, adding far too much to the running time and making what was increasingly becoming a hard slog (three and one –quarter hours with intermission) that much less fun to sit through.

Oh, and all the haze pumping in from stage right that ended up dominating every scene- set malfunction or conscious choice? Either way, distracting and unnecessary.

Lights: A.

Rick Brooks proves once again that no matter what the show, he can do no wrong, and his absorbing, dynamic light plot is worth watching all on its own.

Costumes: B-plus.

Kudos to Maggie Mahoney and her team for recreating the brash and bold palettes of the psychedelic age: everything from kicky Mary Qant shifts to the cheery tie-dyed funkiness of the burgeoning hippie era is well-represented here.

Sound: F.

Terrible. ‘Nuff said.

Venue: F.

Nothing to do with the show itself except to add yet ANOTHER layer of distraction to a show already crippled by a host of flaws, but the venue, proudly known as the Edmund Keefe Auditorium at the Elm Street School, ended up becoming hotter than the hinges of hell by the forty-five minute mark of the production, and never got any cooler in the course of the evening.

Having done every show at the Keefe for the past thousand years, why Actorsingers had no contingency plan to deal with the airless hell that the auditorium became is bad planning on their part.

Jack up the A/C, or, if there is none, open a friggin’ door, and offer free ice water to offset the loss of precious body fluids that inevitably occurs from having to sit in southern NH’s largest sauna.

Enduring sub-tropical temperatures while sitting through a sub-par musical is bad enough; don’t give us heatstroke while we’re forced to witness the suck.

Overall score: D.

As a company whose chief focus is to provide its base with what they want (or are assumed to want), Actorsingers skates right up to the edge of “epic fail” with SWEET CHARITY.

Due to the fact that they’ve done a pretty fair job of providing their neck of the woods with consistently good theatre for the bulk of their existence, it’s safe to say that this production will see generous attendance, and little damage will be done.

Indeed, while there’s not enough going on to make this production viable, Actorsingers itself is much like insurance giant AIG- " too big to fail".

Thus, their faithful base won’t ignore this yawnfest; they'll fork over the price of admission, endure it, and walk out convinced that it wasn’t a bad night out, "considering".

However, like a student that’s made an egregious error in an otherwise competent career, the mistakes made in producing SWEET CHARITY are too glaring for its professor- the audience- to just let slide. Thus, Actorsingers gets grade that's harsh on the surface, but, in this reviewer's opinion, a fair return for that which was presented as the company's final product.

In sum, Actorsingers serves up a rarity: a bad show with few redeeming features, but one that manages (just barely) to provide a level of entertainment that won’t satisfy, but will be largely forgiven.

Again, it’s not the cast’s or production crew’s fault that this show is as terrible as it is. They didn’t write it, and they gamely do their best to fix what can’t be fixed.

It’s just a bad show, and if nothing else, its inclusion to the Actorsingers’ repertoire proves that the company is as susceptible to bad judgement as any other.

That they step up, and do their best with the material at hand is commendable.

I don’t recommend you attend SWEET CHARITY by any stretch of the imagination, but I will say that only a fool would ignore Actorsingers’ sterling reputation of providing consistent entertainment. SWEET CHARITY is most likely the exception to the rule.

Cut them some slack, and see the next show they do, and the next.

God knows, after this production, they’re going to need your support, and they deserve it.

SWEET CHARITY runs May 21-23 at the Edmund Keefe Auditorium in the Elm Street School, Nashua, NH. See the Actorsingers website for details.

CROSSING DELANCEY

2010-05-18T19:27:00.008-04:00

CROSSING DELANCEY

presented by the Manchester Community Theatre Players

directed by Deb Shaw

Putting aside the Woody Allen oeuvre and how Allen objectifies women, Susan Sandler’s CROSSING DELANCEY is arguably the quintessential treatise on the urban Jewish female experience- angstsy, kvetchy, intelligent in and of itself, and, as both stage play and film, ultimately engaging in the story that it tells.

Set in 1980s New York, CROSSING DELANCEY chronicles the travails of Izzy, a nice Jewish girl “from uptown’ who’s caught between two worlds- that of the staid traditionalisms as espoused by her irrepressible Yiddish grandmother (aka “Bubbie”) and the free-wheeling, literary world of the breezy goyim author of her dreams.

Izzy aspires to a more sophisticated—and perhaps more gentle- gentile? - lifestyle than the raucous working-class existence that defined her lower East-side forebears of a generation or two prior.

Izzy is “arranged” by Bubbie, via marriage broker Hannah, to meet the more sedate Sam, a pickle merchant who works and lives in Bubbie’s neighborhood.

Fresh from a fantasy meeting of her favorite author Tyler, himself a product of uptown New York parvenu society, Izzy rebuffs Sam by claiming, "This isn't my style.”

But isn't it? As Izzy discovers more about Tyler and Sam, she finds herself alternatively drawn to the qualities of one, and repelled by those of the other, only to find that those qualities, good and bad, are not all that they seem on the surface.

Will Izzy choose the heady existence of the New York literati, or will she “settle” for an earnest, steady life as the lifelong companion of a man who sells gherkins for a living?

For Izzy, happiness lies in the balance: with whom will she choose to spend her life, and what quality of life will result from her choice?

Thus, the Delancey Street of Bubbie's neighborhood becomes Izzy's Rubicon: will she cross into glamorous uncertainty, or choose to keep her feet upon familiar shores?

In her notes, director Deb Shaw compliments “a cast that has honored traditions and language very different from their own”. Perhaps this homage was appropriate during the rehearsal process, but, aside from two out of the five actors that make up the CROSSING DELANCEY ensemble, it certainly was not a sentiment made flesh on this play’s opening night.

Maria Barry as the brassy yenta Hannah, Charles Mitchell as egocentric author Tyler and Laurie Torosian as the conflicted Izzy are all serviceable in their roles, but not much more.

It’s a pity: either the director missed the mark in helping to develop these three important characters, or these three actors forgot three crucial rules of being onstage.

Rule 1: listen to the other actors on stage with you.

Rule 2: have fun with the role.

Rule 3: know who your character is, what he/she wants, and what changes when/if they get it.

As of opening night, these three actors either hadn't taken those rules to heart, or forgot them. In terms of who their characters are, how they relate to the other characters, and what they want, Barry, Mitchell and Torosian come off as diffident and one-dimensional, diluting the impact of this bright, smart, funny play with their tentative interpretations.

It’s as if the chemistry that these actors worked for months to attain went right out the window opening night. Aside from a select few moments, it's clear that the bulk of the cast swings and misses at the comedy and pathos of CROSSING DELANCEY, both of which come from listening to each actor is saying, paying attention to what each actor is doing, and reacting accordingly.

Above all, these actors should have been enjoying the hell out of these three richly defined, incredibly funny character roles, and it was evident that they weren’t.

So, opening night jitters? Unclear communication from the director? It doesn’t matter. Whatever the root cause, the choices made (or not made) truncate the potential that this play has.

The exceptions: Michael Coppola and Donna Goldfarb. As Sam Posner, the pickle merchant intent on wooing and winning Izzy, Coppola is a winsome presence throughout. Aside from his puzzling choice to endow Sam, who’s at least a first-generation American Jew, with an odd singsong Russian émigré accent that fades in and out, Coppola is spot on as a man smitten by Izzy, both as the physical woman and by what she represents to him.

Coppola’s Sam is sweet and boyish, yet unafraid to take charge when the moment calls for it. In all things, Coppola's Sam demonstrates the characteristics that ultimately win the girl on whom he has set his heart: a willingness to step far outside of his comfort zone for the woman he knows he is destined to be with, because, in the end, it is she who matters, and without her, he is nothing. In this, he captivates us.

This production is salvaged by, and belongs to, Donna Goldfarb’s earthy, incandescent interpretation of Bubbie Kantor, Izzy’s grandmother, confidante, and best friend. Goldfarb imbues every moment of her time on stage with a refreshing, devil-may-care frankness; Bubbie says what she wants to say, when she wants to say it, and gleefully meddles in her granddaughter's life far past the point that any loving and concerned relative has any right to. And we love every minute of it.

Goldfarb brings an unapologetic “when I am old I shall wear purple” sensibility to the role of Bubbie without stepping into either arrogance or willful ignorance. Like the poem itself, Bubbie never apologizes for who she is, what she says, or what she wants.

This is, perhaps, one of the very few rewards for making it to old age; Goldfarb exploits that reality for every comedic moment she can, and her performance alone is worth the price of admission.

Therein lies the real tragedy of this production; apart from Donna Goldfarb’s Bubbie and Michael Coppola’s pickle man Sam, MCTP’s incarnation of CROSSING DELANCEY is pretty much typical community theatre fare. It’s not so bland that you’ll fall asleep in your seat, but there's also not that much to compel you to actually fork over the price of admission.

This isn’t a bad show- just not all it could be. Due to the choices made by the director and cast, CROSSING DELANCEY is just not offering much of anything that you haven’t seen on a community theatre stage already.

This version of CROSSING DELANCEY is like a batch of pickles that doesn't come out quite right; you can still eat them, but you just won't enjoy them as much as you thought you might when you first opened the jar.

CROSSING DELANCEY plays May 15-23 at the Jewish Federation in Manchester. Please see the MCTP website for details.