By: Ronnie Ruff
Driving Miss Daisy
NobleHeart Repertory Company
One of the wisest things a small theatre company can do and one of the hardest lessons to learn is not to over reach. It is far too easy to forget the limitations that come with a modest budget and smaller stage. Failure to heed this oft forgotten concept many times leads to the miscalculations and pitfalls that can sink an otherwise fine production.
By: Ronnie Ruff
Awake and Sing—Arena Stage
It is easy to understand Zelda Fichandler’s love of Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing currently mounted at Arena Stage. Awake and Sing is the story of two generations, one who has accepted the “American Dream” of values and hard work that seems to have failed them and the younger generation who have no choice but to believe a better day will come, but are not convinced that the values of their parents will get them there. That said, the play is more a story of family dynamics than a vision of depression era New York City. Arena’s staging of Awake and Sing does not describe the desperate roles citizens of the Bronx had to assume in order to live – it does describe the interpersonal relationships in this dysfunctional family where a dominate matriarch (Jana Robbins as Bessie Berger) verbally abuses her husband (Steve Routman as Myron Berger) and keeps the family on edge and in line. Yes the family has a boarder (Adam Dannheisser as Moe Axelrod), but it also has a rich uncle (Brian Reddy as Uncle Morty) to help with the expenses, something the average family in the Bronx circa 1935 did not have.
By: Ronnie Ruff
Death Of A Salesman
Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman is often called the first great American tragedy and is as compelling today as it was fifty years ago. It is the next production to be mounted by Keegan in a season that started with three Tennessee Williams plays. Helen Hayes nominated director Dorothy Neumann creates a somber somewhat chilling characterization of the relationship between an aging father and a son that is haunted by past failures and his father’s marital infidelity. Full of anguish, acrimony and rankling, the production struggles through a less than satisfying first act before a second act where the play becomes more forceful and as such far more interesting.
by Juliet Moser
A high backed chair, all straight lines and black, beetle-shiny surface, is topped with a blood-red cushion. Standing at attention center stage and highlighted by a single overhead light, the chair solemnly greets patrons of the Folger Theatre. Thick black columns etched with arching whorls frame the stage. The title of Folger’s latest offering, Measure for Measure, is projected on a panel above the stage. As soon as the lights go down, Matthew 7:12 – commonly known as the Golden Rule – appears: “Judge not, that ye be judged. For what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete , it shall be measured to you again.” Foreshadowing the mistreatment about to ensue, director Aaron Posner, winner of the 2005 Helen Hayes award for Outstanding Director for last season’s The Two Gentleman of Verona, opens the show reminding audiences how they are supposed to behave. Yet the main characters of his production ignore this biblical advice, using and abusing one another as pawns in a games played for personal gain.
By: Tim Treanor THE STORY at African Continuum Theater
Playwright Tracey Scott Wilson once wanted to be a reporter. “I wanted to be a journalist for a long time, but when I got to college, I realized it was not what I imagined,” she said in an artview interview. “I wanted to inject my opinions in the articles and, worse, I wanted the facts to fit my ideas. Journalism is hard. I realized I was better cut out for fiction.”
Wilson was thus well qualified to write The Story, which is loosely based on the sins of Janet Cooke. Cooke nearly won a Pulitzer Prize with her wholly invented news story about “Jimmy,” an eight-year-old heroin addict. Wilson understood her temptation: shoehorning facts to fit ideas is the provenance of fiction writers, who understand what they are doing, and of schizophrenics and politicians, who do not. When reporters try to pass lies off as truth, bad things happen, as Cooke and serial liars Jayson Blair and James Frey have shown. (more…)
By: Tim Treanor
Two Queens, One Castle
This is what happened to Jevetta Steele:
She fell in love with a man when she was sixteen. True to the tenets of her Pentecostal faith, she married him, and through twelve years of married life he was her one and only. They had two children. . She went to Broadway, and received an Academy Award nomination. Then her husband had something to tell her.
By Tim Treanor
Fair Ladies at a Game of Poem Cards
“Life is but a dream,” says the samurai Takiguchi (Patrick Bussink) “but in the lotus blossom is the beginning of reality.”
He is preparing to cast off his worldly delights and ambitions to live a life of prayer, meditation and self-denial. In so doing, he hopes to in some way make up for the unspeakable, unforgivable crimes he has committed.
Here are the crimes: he has accidentally permitted the Empress’ pet titmouse to escape. Although it is of no moment to the Empress (Rahaleh Nassri), who soon after releases all her songbirds, it has disgraced Takiguchi’s family and brought shame to the young man. In addition, he has presumed to fall in love with the sweet and down-to-earth Yokobue (Nelina Giridhar), one of the Empress’ Ladies-in-Waiting – another unthinkable act. This is the Imperial Court of twelfth-century Japan, where every unbending step must proceed from an unyielding protocol.
By Ronnie Ruff
Photos by Carol Pratt
Nevermore Director Eric Schaeffer describes his show as a cross between musical theatre and Cirque du Soleil. The show has the feel of such an event, the excitement, the anticipation of what is to come, this is usually the case with a brand new show. But there is more than just the anticipation of a new work, it begins as we are lead to our seats — the wind whistles through the bare trees and the night’s silence is parted by a haunting laugh by a woman dressed as if going to a Victorian wedding. Women in dark gothic costume mingle with the theatre patrons searching for their seats. There is a dark sinister feel to the space — people are gazing at the beautiful yet eerie stage. Then the lights go down and the orchestra plays the first notes of Alone.
One of the most important building blocks of any piece of musical theatre is the music. Composer Matt Conner has characterized the music as gospel inspired pop that at times is on the verge of rock. Power ballads that grab your heart and twist — one could imagine the same music performed by a power rock band. The rock flavoring spills forth often not only in the music but also in the Goth inspired costumes and set. The set is a surreal blend of beauty and chilly, cemetery spookiness. A door, open as if beckoning for one to enter, sits alone in the center of the set. A line of bare leafless trees on either side of the set guide the eye to the door. The door could be symbolic, a door to Poe’s soul or a symbol of the gates to hell. The full moon to the right of the door glows on a cold winter night, it’s light serving to partially illuminate the orchestra. The color scheme is of course dark, black and deep night blues, there is a nip in the air. Costumes by Jenn Miller are simply fabulous, from Poe’s dark period suit and platform boots to A Whore’s nineteenth century bustier.
Nevermore is a huge dream, one that tells a loose story of Poe’s life. The dream ebbs and flows — the women of Poe’s life crash his dream and create managed chaos as he drinks himself into a horrible dark world of fear and terror. Poe, sometimes referred to in the script as Eddie by his young wife Virginia (Lauren Williams), is played by Daniel Cooney who does a great job as the tortured soul that was Edgar Allan Poe. A far sexier version than the original, Cooney commands pity and lust from the women who would be his love interests but no pity from his mother and aunt who see him for what he is. Cooney portrays Poe with the flair of a rock band front man and the sensitivity of a well trained actor — his vocal performance is steady and inspired, each of his numbers moving and emotional.
The rest of the cast are made up of the women in Edgar’s life, his mother, aunt, love interests and a single prostitute who represents his promiscuous lifestyle. All of the female performances are simply splendid — there are a variety of wonderful voices, all a bit different, that do the material justice and make it their own. Virginia (Ms Williams) is the taunting Lolita and as the play progresses develops a scary, macabre feel to her character. She is erotically stimulated by Poe’s horror stories and the masturbation depiction was charged with creepy, shocking electricity. Her duet with Eddie in the Bridal Ballad is stunning. Elmira, Po’s first love, is portrayed by Jacquelyn Piro whose sci-fi coiffure will remain in my mind’s eye for days to come. She has a very assured stage presence and her duets, Silence and Fairyland, are sung with vibrant passion. Poe’s mother played by Florence Lacey does a fantastic job with Evening Star and her haunting laughs lingered in my memory long after curtain call. Maria “Muddy” Clemm (Poe’s Aunt) was the least interesting character in the production, this is not to fault Channez McQuay who did what she could with the part, sadly the part was just not well developed. Saving the most unique performance for last Amy McWilliams is blessed with the part known only as A Whore. McWilliams is almost raven like, she symbolizes Poe’s use of prostitutes throughout his life, his passion for the dark side of the street. Her numbers El Dorado and Eldorado Reprise are simply wonderful songs that are brilliantly conceived and sung.
By Ronnie Ruff
Forum Theatre & Dance mounts two plays The Gas Heart by Tristan Tzara and Hamletmachine by Heiner Muller that have a an anti-war message as part of their season titled “The Present Moment”. World Wars I and II are the focus of these one-acts that seek to tie the reactions from those wars to those of present day conflicts.
By: Tim Treanor
Monkeyboy
I must tell you at the outset that this play features an enormous Cockatoo. When I say “enormous” I don’t mean big like the bird that Robert Blake, pre-indictment, carried on his shoulder in Berretta. I mean bigger than Totie Fields, bigger than Flipper the Dolphin, bigger than God. Monkeyboy is a meta-bird with a rolling basso profundo voice and a taste for Fox News and Facts of Life, put here on earth to torment his hapless owner, Veronica (a superb Rachel Bridges.)
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