A Little Night Music

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

Glencoe– For its scintillating revival of “A Little Night Music,” the Writers’ Theatre has condensed the Sondheim classic into a chamber musical. The action is played out on a small thrust stage enclosed by lacy floor-to-ceiling curtains. The only set is a raised two-step platform in the middle of the playing area. The intimacy of the staging brings the audience into close touch with the wit, sophistication, and gentle eroticism of this most worldly and elegant of American musicals.

        “A Little Night Music” is Sondheim’s adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman film “Smiles of a Summer Night,” a droll story of sexual musical chairs among the middle and lower classes in provincial Sweden at the turn of the last century. Three generations of characters assemble and reassemble romantic relationships until everyone is reasonably paired up at the end. But along the way there are shouting matches, tears, trysts, even a game o Russian roulette.

        Sondheim conveys this complex sexual merry-go-round with some of his most brilliant and exquisite lyrics. The only hit to come out of the score is “Send In the Clowns” (whose international popularity mystified the composer), but his graceful operetta-ish score is a continuous flow of comic, wise, dramatic, and romantic songs.

        The core characters are a middle aged Swedish lawyer named Fredrik Egerman and his ex lover, actress Desiree Armfeldt. Egerman has a 20-year old son named Henrik by his first marriage and, as a widower, married 18-year old Anne, a lass he had known since childhood. The marriage is in its 11^th month and still unconsummated because Ann is shy. Henrik is a divinity student tortured by raging hormones exacerbated by his passion for his teen-aged stepmother.

                                        

                                                                                                                                                     Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow

        Desiree stops in the town to perform with her acting company and she and Fredrik meet, igniting the old flame of their love affair. Desiree is currently the mistress of Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, a pompous and preening dragoon. Charlotte, the count’s wife, is in constant agony over her husband’s infidelities and general boorishness. He’s a lout but she loves him. Egerman’s lusty maid Petra leads the below stairs characters, the only person in the play having a good time for the entire duration of the story.

        Presiding over the romantic couplings around her is Desiree’s mother, the aged Madame Armfeldt, a famous, and successful, courtesan in her time. She now lives in opulent retirement with her memories of happier days and her granddaughter Fredrika, Desiree’s child. The peremptory Madame Armfeldt took custody of the girl to insulate her from Desiree’s bohemian lifestyle. Add Madame Armfeldt’s butler Frid, a man who matches Petra’s lusty nature, and you have a combustible mix of sexually charged personalities who gather at a weekend house party called by Madame Armfeldt at her daughter’s insistence. It’s at the house party that the characters rearrange themselves into proper romantic combinations. Some of the newly assembled relationships may not last long but they grant the characters at least momentary respite from their jealousies and sexual longings.

        William Brown has demonstrated a deft hand at directing high comedy at the Writers’ Theatre and elsewhere and his staging gives “A Little Night Music” a proper veneer of wry wisdom, lust, and humanity. He does end the show on an unexpected note that may startle fans of the musical. The audience can decide whether it adds or detracts from the final mood.

                                      

                                                                                                                                                           Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow

     The production is spot-on in its casting. Area theatergoers will be familiar with the three featured performers—Jonathan Weir as Fredrik, Shannon Cochran as Desiree, and Deanna Dunagan as Madame Armfeldt, and they do not disappoint. Weir is best known as a classical actor but he displays a surprisingly strong voice to enhance his portrait of the beleaguered Fredrik, dealing simultaneously with a kittenish wife less than half his age and a son roiling with turbulent emotions. Cochran fits Desiree’s personality to perfection, a woman in early middle age who has seen much and done much, droll and very delightful. Her yearning and expressive take on “Send In the Clowns” is a production highlight. I’ve seen more acerbic Madame Armfeldt’s than Dunagan’s portrayal but the actress deftly conveys the old woman’s urbanity, imperious nature, and cynicism.

        The others in the cast are well up to the mark, especially as vocalists (neither Weir, Cochran, or Dunagan are primarily singers). Tiffany Scott is terrific as the unhappy Charlotte, trying to keep a civilized facade to conceal her hurt and anger over Carl-Magnus’s crass conduct. Her rendition of the “Every Day a Little Death” says everything that needs saying about loving an inattentive and insensitive husband. There is real bite and intelligence in her performance. Royen Kent succeeds in the difficult role of the anguished Henrik, a young man who is the butt of the older characters around him as he burns with longing.

 Kristen French is fine as the immature and feckless Anne, a young lady emotionally unprepared to be the wife of a successful middle-aged man. Brandon Dahlquist throws himself into the role of the officious Carl-Magnus with lip-smacking relish, and he has one of the best voices in the company. And a special round of applause goes to Brianna Borger as Petra, who stops the show with her stirring rendition of “The Miller’s Son.” The ensemble is handsomely rounded out by Shannon Corey as Desiree’s daughter, J. Michael Finley as Frid, and Cory Goodrich as Desiree’s maid Malla.

        The story is worldly, charming, and rueful--emotions eloquently displayed by Sondheim’s score, abetted by Hugh Wheeler’s underrated book. At the Writers’ Theatre the show moves largely through the music with almost no choreography. The production dispenses with the Greek chorus of five lieder singers in the Broadway version, their singing interludes performed by the main characters. The elegance of the show is handsomely reinforced by Rachel Anne Healy’s stunning costume designs. Kevin Depinet is the scenic designer but most of the set consists of Nick Heggestad’s properties design, a sumptuous collection of furniture and carpets and candelabras. Jesse Klug’s lighting design bathes the production in a mellow midsummer Scandinavian glow. Andrew Hansen is the sound designer and Valerie Maze conducts the superb chamber music quintet that does great credit to Sondheim’s lilting waltz-driven score.

        “A Little Night Music” runs through July 8 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

        The show gets a rating of 31/2 stars.    May 2012

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Hesperia

At the Writers Theatre

by Dan Zeff

Glencoe – Sexual passion and religious faith battle it out in “Hesperia.” Sex holds a clear edge in the production at the Writers’ Theatre.

        The play title is the name of a small Midwestern town that’s the home to devout Christians like Trick and Aaron and Daisy. Some time before the action begins, young Claudia arrived from California in spiritual turmoil and seeking peace and consolation, fleeing from life in the pornographic film industry in Los Angeles.

Claudia finds succor in Hesperia’s sympathetic Christian fundamentalist community. She particularly finds religious counsel and then romance with the devout Trick, with their wedding set for the near future. For some obscure reason, Claudia sends a wedding invitation to Ian, her porn film partner and lover in California. Ian shows up, on the run from unspecified pursuers seeking money he owes them. Ian, who grew up in the Hesperia area, takes to the religious spirit of the people he meets in the town and decides he wants to convert from his tawdry life to a faith-based existence.                   

Ian’s appearance in Hesperia roils a number of the locals, especially Trick’s cousin Daisy, a young woman with no sexual experience. Her hormones raging, Daisy falls in love with Ian who professes he loves her, though he previously admitted to Claudia he loved her. Ian also crosses paths with a naïve youngster named Aaron, living in a state of confusion and frustration over his awakening sexual feelings.

Claudia had already confided to Trick that she had made pornographic movies in California but the young man shows commendable understanding and forgiveness. After Ian’s unexpected arrival, Trick tries to keep his cool. He  befriends Ian and encourages the visitor’s decision to turn over a new leaf and join the company of the faithful in the town, even though Claudia is understandably uneasy about her ex lover’s sudden leap of faith.

        The 90-minute single act play consists of a series of scenes mostly involving two or three characters. The sexual heat escalates to a series of passionate encounters among Ian, Daisy, Claudia, and Trick. The religious faith of Daisy, Trick, and Aaron is unquestionably sincere, with its call for sexual abstinence until marriage, but they are in a losing fight against the power of sex. Aaron’s sexual confusion is intensified after he finds a DVD that shows Claudia and Ian doing their porn thing.

                                                                                  Photo by Michael Brosilow

        “Hesperia” is obviously a very personal work for playwright Randall Coburn. He went through stages in his life that were marked first by Christian fundamentalism and then by an abusive sexual relationship. His play provides some stimulating dialogue about faith that is neither patronizing nor doctrinaire. His characters are well drawn and their individual crises hold the audience’s attention. The love scenes certainly do not lack commitment from the performers.

        But the play is better in its parts than as a whole. I had trouble accepting that Ian really was trying to convert to a religious faith in spite of a sharply observed and sensitive performance by Nathan Hosner. Kelly O’Sullivan is an attractive Claudia, but she comes across as a sweet young lady and it’s difficult to place her in the rough and tumble world of pornographic movies. Aaron’s finding the incriminating DVD provides  Tyler Ross with a strong and credible emotional scene, but the DVD still seems like an unnecessary plot device (Trick already knows about Claudia’s porn career in California). And after 90 minutes play just stops, Aaron and Daisy languishing offstage and Ian leaving town with strangers in a car with California license plates, his future unknown but probably unhappy.

                                                                                                                                                              Photo by Michael Brosilow

      The young ensemble does very well by Coburn’s script. In addition to Hosner and O’Sullivan, there are incisive and sensitive performances by Erik Hellman as Trick, Rebecca Buller as Daisy, and Tyler Ross as Aaron. The direction by Stuart Carden is intelligent and unobtrusive. Chelsea Warren designed the open set, Jacqueline Firkins the costumes, Heather Gilbert the lighting, and Mikhail Fiksel the sound.

        “Hesperia” runs through March 18 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets $45 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

                  The show gets a rating of three stars.

                 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.  February 2012

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The Real Thing

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

Glencoe—“The Real Thing” is a Tom Stoppard comedy about marriage, infidelity, and a bunch of other things. Being a Stoppard play, it is witty, sophisticated, and literate. And it’s receiving a glittering revival at the Writers’ Theatre. The opening night audience apparently loved it. I wish I could share their enthusiasm.

        For a Stoppard play, “The Real Thing” is a pretty conventionally presented story. It has none of the philosophical and theatrical whiz bang of such Stoppard classics as “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Jumpers,” “Travesties,” and “Arcadia.” In “The Real Thing,” Stoppard tells a straight ahead story of two failed marriages involving a successful British playwright (Henry), two actresses (Charlotte and Annie), and an actor (Max). Three peripheral characters appear in the second act.

        As the story opens, Henry is married to Charlotte but loves Annie, who is married to Max. By the third scene, Max and Charlotte are made aware that their spouses have been having an affair and their marriages are over. Henry and Annie move in together, and they are the central figures in the rest of the play, with occasional appearances by Charlotte. Max disappears from the stage, though at the end of the evening we hear that he is remarrying.

        My problem with “The Real Thing” is that I couldn’t warm up to any of the characters. I loved their eloquence and prickly urbane dialogue, but after a while being in the company of so many super articulate people gets wearying. No major character is ever at a loss for words, no matter how emotionally fraught the situation. Even Debbie, the teen-age daughter of Henry and Charlotte, is ostentatiously precocious, matching Henry and Charlotte flippancy for flippancy and witticism for witticism.

        Henry delivers some great set pieces that dazzle the ear with their eloquence and intelligence. Annie has struck up a friendship with Brodie, a Scottish pacifist soldier now in prison for an act of vandalism against an English patriotic monument. Brodie has written a play pouring out his bile against the ills he sees in British life and Annie asks Henry to edit the script. Brodie’s writing is awful and presents Henry with a platform for ridiculing the play and lauding the power of words to change the world, if used properly. It’s a wonderful mini essay on the English language but it sounds like Stoppard talking, not a spontaneous monologue by a character, no matter how educated and civilized he may be.

                     

        And so it goes for the whole show. Nobody is ever at a loss for the telling riposte or scintillating observation. Even when the normally phlegmatic Henry turns fiercely jealousy at the possibility that Annie is having an affair with Billy, a young actor, his anguished response is phrased in perfectly chiseled prose. All the main characters endure some emotional pain, but Stoppard never allows their distress to interfere with their ready repartee.

        Stoppard injects some literary and musical inside material throughout the play. Annie and Billy rehearse scenes from John Ford’s Jacobean tragedy “’Tis Pity She’s a Whore” that underscore the passion developing between the two moderns. Henry has a guilty pleasure of loving rock music of the 1960’s, so we hear swatches from Herman’s Hermits, the Monkees, and Procul Harum as well as reverential praise for the Righteous Brothers. To balance the musical pallet we get bits from Bach and a Verdi opera. All these emendations provide opportunities for humor without really illuminating the narrative.

     The Writers’ Theatre ensemble under Michael Halberstam’s smooth directing is first rate. Sean Fortunato, a Writers’ Theatre regular, dominates the play as Henry, a man who arouses much irritation among the other characters for his glib emotional distance, until he comes apart facing Annie’s possible infidelity. Fortunato tosses off Stoppard’s verbal arias superbly, especially the playwright’s marvelous bit using a cricket bat as a metaphor for the need to treat words respectfully.

        Natasha Lowe is outstanding as Charlotte, handling her loss of Henry with dignity and class and a strong ascerbic sensibility. Carrie Coons is likewise excellent as the more emotional but equally intelligent Annie. Henry certainly knows how to pick strong women. Rae Gray is fine in her single scene as Debbie, a girl about to go out into the world with her parents’ misgivings but obviously able to take care of herself, no surprise considering her blood lines.

        The three supporting male characters are well played by John Sanders, who takes his cuckolding hard in the first act    as Max; Jordan Lane Shappell as Billy; and Ryan Hallahan in a brief but telling scene near the end of the play as the belligerent Brodie.

        The play’s title explores the realities and illusions of love and art. For example, which is truer to art, Brodie’s wretchedly written play that still brims over with ferocious commitment or Henry’s revision, much better written but perhaps at the cost of the passion that gave birth to the play originally? It’s all stimulating food for thought as explored in Stoppard’s elegant, epigrammatic style, especially if the listener has a high tolerance for self-consciously brilliant dialogue.

        The production in the intimate Writers’ Theatre profits from Collette Pollard’s inventive set, with its sliding drawers and fluid shifts in location, adroitly managed by stagehands between scenes. David Hyman designed the costumes, Heather Gilbert the lighting, Mikhail Fiksel the sound, and Nick Heggestad the properties.

        “The Real Thing” runs through November 20 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m.  Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

               The show gets a rating of three stars.

                Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.  Sept. 2011

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Heartbreak House

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

Glencoe – George Bernard Shaw subtitled his play “Heartbreak House” as “A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes,” with a special nod to Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” The parallels between the two plays are suggested rather than specified, though both take place on a rural estate, both portray the futile lives of the leisure class, and both present characters who tend to fall in love with the wrong person.

     The main difference between Chekhov’s classic and “Heartbreak House” is that the Russian drama is about real people. “Heartbreak House” is populated by two-dimensional men and women who talk a great deal but provide little human connection with the audience. The characters are mostly posturing, self indulgent, and self-pitying folk who exist primarily to recite Shaw’s observations about politics, society, and relations between the sexes.

“Heartbreak House” is a challenging play, with its lack of coherent plot and endless conversations among people who enjoy saying shocking things to each other. It requires a large ensemble of actors who can talk Shaw’s talk with humor as well as intelligence and with more emotional credibility as the script implies. The Writers’ Theatre has assembled a fine cast under the direction of William Brown, a proven hand at this kind of verbal comedy/drama. The company does what it can to bring the characters alive, but the play remains elusive, verbose, and very long.

Shaw wrote “Heartbreak House” during World War I, though the play wasn’t published until 1919 and first staged in 1920, and in New York City rather than England.  The Writers’ Theatre revival moves the time to 1940, at the onset of World War II, but the time is of little consequence. The men and women talking away at Captain Shotover’s provincial estate are hermetically seal from real life. They mock each other and moon about, oblivious to any real world outside their cloistered existence.

Captain Shotover (perhaps Shaw’s mouthpiece) is an elderly former sea captain, disillusioned and a bit senile when it suits his purpose. To his country house come a bizarre assortment of people, led by his daughters Ariadne  Utterwood and Hesione Hushabye. The most vibrant character in the play is youthful Ellie Dunn, a woman weary of poverty who is happy to marry for money, even if it means wedding that nasty capitalist Boss Mangan.

Ellie’s father, Mazzini Dunn is a wise but impractical man who fails in business but triumphs as a sympathetic humanist. Hector Hushabye is a self-dramatizing womanizer. Randall Underwood loves his sister in law in vain and Ellie pines for Hector until she learns the man is Hesione’s husband. Into this menagerie plunges a canny burglar, who by a very long arm of coincidence is a rascal who once served under Captain Shotover.

At the end of the play, a dirigible drops a bomb on the estate that kills Boss Mangan and the burglar, “the two practical men of business.” Until that moment there was no indication anywhere in the play that a war was going on.

After two extended acts of random confrontations among the main characters, the final act settles in to analyzing the state of the neurotic and purposeless leisure class in particular and English society in general. The mood is censorious, with Shotover contributing aphorisms, as he has throughout the first two acts, about the country being rudderless, the “crew is gambling in the forecastle, the ship will strike and sink and split.”

“Heartbreak House” may have struck sparks among English audiences back in the early 1920’s, when the catastrophe of World War I was fresh in their minds. A play that implies the disastrous war was at least partly the fault of an indecisive and pleasure-seeking ruling cast would have created a shock of recognition. But nearly a century later, the play lacks that historical immediacy. Today’s society may have its problems, but they can’t be laid at the feet of a languid upper class too effete to steer the ship of state in the right direction.

So what we have is two hours are 45 minutes, including two intermissions, of talk among eccentrics and bohemians. Much of that talk is witty and insightful. After all, this is Shaw. But in the absence of recognizable human beings who lead realistically human lives, the show gets to be a long sit.

The Writers’ Theatre cast includes familiar faces, like Karen Janes Woditsch as Hesione, John Lister as Boss Mangan, and John Reeger as Captain Shotover. Whether intentionally or by happy chance, the roles of Ellie Dunn and her father are played by a pair of Asian-looking actors, Atra Asdou (Ellie) and Kareem Bandealy (Mazzini). Their characters are outsiders in the play, subtly underscored by the actors’ ethnic contrast with the Anglo-Saxon types around them. And they both deliver strong performances.

Shaw typically makes his women stronger characters than the men, and so it is in “Heartbreak House,” with the exception of Reeger’s droll Shotover. Woditsch, Asdou, and Tiffany Scott (Ariadne) are sharper than the men folk they deal with, and they are the characters most worth listening to.

The supporting male roles are taken by Lister as Boss Mangan, Martin Yurek as Hector, Kevin Christopher Fox as Randall Utterwood, and Tim Gittings as the burglar. They are a foolish and purposeless bunch, not to be taken seriously, but the Writers’ actors have plenty of fun with their extravagant emotional outpourings. Jeannie Affelder completes the ensemble as a no-nonsense Scottish nurse who rules the Shotover household from below stairs.

Keith Pitts designed the handsome and detailed country house garden where most of the action takes place. Rachel Anne Healy’s costumes look as much 1920 as 1940, but no matter. The characters live in a world beyond time. Jesse Klug designed the lighting, which features a blinding flash to represent the off stage bomb explosion. Andrew Hansen is the sound designer and composer.

“Heartbreak House” runs through June 26 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Performances are Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

The show gets a rating of three stars.  April 2011

Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.

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Do the Hustle

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

Glencoe – Brett Neveu’s “Do the Hustle” at the Writers’ Theatre is a slender play, filled with unsavory characters who spend most of the show’s 85-minute duration snarling and cursing at each other. But it does offer diversions in the form of slight of hand con games two grifters inflict on gullible victims, known in the con lexicon as “marks.”

       The two con artists are the father and son team of Eddie and Sam Sisson. Eddie is a veteran of small time swindles, assisted by the 17-year old Sam. The Sissons do not live in the glamorous and big time world of “The Sting” or “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” One of their cons, in a public library, nets $20. The play builds to its climax with the elaborate execution of a con that involves maybe $1,000. The Sissons have chosen a tough way to make a living.

       Along the way, the play portrays the uneasy relationship between Eddie and his son. Eddie is a sleaze, funneling his mother and his drug-addicted wife into the big con that ends the play. Eddie has been Sam’s mentor, but Sam has a streak of independence that rears its head as the big con is about to unfold. Sam is an intense, wary teenager, wound very tight emotionally. His bond with his father is laced with suspicion and mistrust, leading to the play’s rueful final image as the lights go down.

   There is a bit of black humor in “Do the Hustle” but mostly the play is just black. An atmosphere of betrayal filters through all the action, the Sissons betraying their marks, members of their family, and maybe each other. The high moral ground is nowhere to be seen.

       The action proceeds through a series of short scenes that take the Sissons to various locations in their pursuit of the marks’ money. The time is early winter and the place is an unnamed Midwestern city that could be Chicago. It’s a grungy world well suited to the tawdry characters. Eddie and Sam both dress like inhabitants of the street. Their careers as conmen definitely have not translated into prosperous lifestyles.

       A blue ribbon cast portrays the shabby lives of the Sissons. Francis Guinan is superb as the grizzled, bullying Eddie Sisson, capturing the character’s petty criminal personality and absence of conscience in his behavior toward every other character in the play. It’s a totally convincing and authentic rendering of a lowlife.

       Patrick Andrews’s Sam Sisson seethes with barely suppressed resentment throughout the story. Andrews is a slightly built young man but he exudes a riveting physical presence through his brooding silences mingled with violent verbal outbursts. With a role model like his father, it’s not surprising that Sam views his world with hostility and suspicion. I couldn’t take my eyes off Andrews, especially in his moments of taut silence.

       Joe Minoso and Karen Janes Woditsch portray seven supporting characters between them with conviction and versatility. Woditsch in particular delivers a trio of women living on the edge and justifiably apprehensive about Eddie Sisson’s motives.

       Kevin Depinet designed the flexible set, with sliding panels at the rear of the stage moving the action from place to place as the performers carry appropriate props on and off the intimate playing area. Rachel Anne Healy designed the thrift shop style costumes. Charles Cooper designed the dramatic lighting and Andrew Hansen the sound (and original music).

       “Do the Hustle” isn’t an appetizing play. None of the characters are admirable and the world they inhabit is grim. As a short theatrical foray into the lower depths of contemporary society it has some interest, though I didn’t detect any attempts at social criticism, even though Eddie Sisson tends to pontificate about the nature of the con. What works best are the down and dirty, sometimes ferocious, performances by Guinan, Andrews, Minoso, and Woditsch.  

       “Do the Hustle” runs through March 20 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org

      The show gets a rating of three stars.  February 2011

             Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.

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She Loves Me

At the Writers' Theatre

By Dan Zeff

Glencoe – “She Loves Me” meets the Writers’ Theatre. The encounter becomes one of those musical comedy experiences that leaves an audience sighing in contentment.

       “She Loves Me” is based on a Hungarian play from 1937 that was turned into a classic romantic film in 1940 called “The Shop Around the Corner.” The story takes place during the early 1930’s in an unnamed central European city, likely Budapest. The outside world may be inflamed by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism but in the cozy world of “She Loves Me” a collection of average and agreeable men and women just get on with their lives.

        The story locale is Maraczek’s Parfumerie, a store that sells beauty products to women. The central characters are Georg Nowack, the bachelor manager of the store, and Amalia Balash, a young women newly employed at Maraczek’s as a clerk. Georg and Amalia develop an instant antagonism toward each other. What they don’t realize is that they are also pen pals, exchanging romantic lonelyhearts letters as “Dear Friend.”

        Georg and Amalia bicker through two-thirds of the show before they discover their pen pal relationship. They are astounded that they really love each other and their embrace at the final blackout provides one of the more satisfying happy endings in modern musical theater.

        The storyline is scarcely cutting edge. The theater is filled with plays and musicals about men and women who are hostile to each other for most of the show before falling in each other’s arms at the final curtain. It’s not matter but manner that makes “She Loves Me” such a winner, thanks primarily to the seamless integration of songs and dialogue into Joe Masteroff’s warm and sympathetic book.

        The intimacy of Writers’ Theatre is the ideal venue for the low keyed realism of “She Loves Me.” And director Michael Halberstam has assembled a blue ribbon cast who charms (it’s impossible to get away from that word) the audience.

        Jessica Mueller has become one of the top young divas in area musical theater so her delightful portrayal of Amalia is no surprise. I’ve seen Rod Thomas in several productions in the past few seasons but his Georg Nowack surely represents his finest work. Georg is an ordinary person in an ordinary job but his feelings run deep. Thomas makes this commonplace but yearning character a real romantic hero, and his chemistry with Mueller is spot-on.

        Heidi Kettenring normally is the star in area musicals. Here she plays Amalia’s fellow clerk Ilona Ritter, a woman on the make for a permanent romantic relationship who has an abrasive affair with store clerk Steven Kodaly (James Rank), a shameless womanizer. Kettenring  makes this potentially vulgar character into a charmer (there’s that word again) who finds her own true love by the end of the story, adding to the audience’s satisfaction.

        Ross Lehman plays Mr. Maraczek, the owner of the store, who thinks Georg is playing erotic games with his wife. Lehman often tends toward exuberant comic performance but in “She Loves Me” he’s a model of understatement and the production is the better for it. Like Kettenring, Kevin Gudahl normally is a star, but here he is perfectly cast as a gentle and self-effacing clerk in Maraczek’s who assists his friend Georg in finally connecting with Amalia.

        The show has a kind of chorus in three actresses who play store customers—Kelli Clevenger, Bethany Thomas, and Stephanie Herman. Jeremy Rill plays a worldly waiter at a chic restaurant where Georg and Amalia have an unexpected meeting. Bernard Balbot plays Arpad, a young deliver boy at Maraczek’s who aspires to become a full-time clerk. Andrew Goetten is a busboy who also doubles as a Christmas caroler. No matter what the sizes of their roles, they are all delights.

        The storyline of “She Loves  Me” may seem simple but this is an intricate show to stage. Halberstam is a master at melding the musical numbers into the flow of the narrative. He obtains performances of truth and humanity from his ensemble without ever striking an arch or cutesy note. Halberstam turns the theater’s limited physical playing area into a virtue, bringing the attractive men and women and their personal problems to within touching distance of the spectators.

        Atmosphere is everything in this show. Nan Zabriskie’s costumes perfectly capture the feeling of the 1930’s. Jack Magaw’s set design coverts the stage from the outdoors into the store interior by the characters rolling a few props onto stage (applause for properties designer Nick Heggestad here). Keith Parham’s lighting and Ray Nardelli’s sound design are both essential co-contributors.

        This isn’t a dancing show, but choreographer Jessica Redish has created some pleasurable dance interludes, notably witty shadow dances behind a curtain at the restaurant. Ben Johnson directs a fine chamber quartet who ably accompany the performers and further reinforce the mittel Europa flavor of the story. All in all, an irresistible production.

        “She Loves Me” runs through November 21 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $70. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

        The show gets a rating of four stars.   Sept.2010

                Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.

                    Visit Dan on Facebook.

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A Streetcar Named Desire

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

 

 GLENCOE—“A Streetcar Named Desire” is a great play and the Writers’ Theatre delivers a solid revival, with one glaring flaw.

        The production been much anticipated this season, not only because we rarely see this masterpiece on a local stage, but also because David Cromer directs. Cromer has become the director of the moment nationally after building a notable career in Chicago theater and anything he directs automatically becomes an event. 

        Audiences anticipating Cromer’s reinvention of the Tennessee Williams drama will be disappointed. Cromer’s staging is mostly faithful to the playwright’s script, with only a few minor, and unnecessary, embellishments. “Streetcar” is powerful enough to hold the audience without directorial bright ideas, a truism Cromer mostly honors.

        The Writers’ Theatre has stocked its ensemble with local performers, nearly all with basically storefront theater experience. The absence of familiar faces gives the production a fresh look, and Natasha Lowe delivers an exceptional performance as the doomed Blanche DuBois. She is surrounded by fine complementary work from a half dozen players, but there is one huge stumbling block.

        “Streetcar” is essential a duel, with vulgarity, emotional brutality, and insensitivity ultimately triumphing over art, beauty and sensitivity. In a Tennessee Williams play, delicacy always goes down before the onslaught of crass realism.

Stanley Kowalski is a coarse blue-collar type, bursting with animal vitality. Stella Kowalski is Blanche’s younger sister, in thrall to her husband’s sexual magnetism, while Blanche is revolted by Stanley’s cynicism, lust, and volatile temperament.

Matt Hawkins is either miscast or misdirected as Stanley. Granted, Marlon Brando’s original performance on Broadway and in the film is one of the iconic acting jobs in American theater history, but I’ve seen the role performed with great strength and insight by actors who avoided the Brando shadow.

Hawkins plays Stanley as a near hysteric, often screeching out his rage or frustration. Stanley may be a brute, but he should be a charismatic brute. Hawkins’s Stanley is more of a skittish punk and bully. This Stanley is a small man emotionally and scarcely the callous adversary who ultimately defeats the vulnerable Blanche. Here he is merely boorish, robbing the play of a large chunk of its dramatic potency in the conflict between the two main characters. Even Stanley’s horrifying rape of Blanche at the end of the play comes off as a mere pettish assault.

Blanche has her failings. She’s manipulative, delusional, and neurotic, but she’s always fascinating. Maybe in another life she could have been a grand lady, cultured and capable of honest love. Still, her erotic and decadent appetites, her fragile personality, and her emotional self-indulgence might have been baggage that would destroy her in any life. Lowe’s Blanche is a maddening, tragic woman who isn’t strong enough to withstand life’s hard knocks. Blanche is an endlessly engrossing character and Lowe is eloquent and heartbreaking in her portrayal.

Stacy Stoltz is a fine, earthbound Stella, a character intelligent enough to make the spectator question what she sees in the crude and abrasive Stanley on the Writers’ Theatre stage. Danny McCarthy fine as one of Stanley’s poker playing buddies, a pathetic middle-aged man who for a time becomes Blanche’s suitor. There is also good work from Loren Lazerne as an upstairs neighbor and Jenn Engstrom as his wife. The ensemble is filled out by Ryan Hallahan, Derek Hasenstab, Carolyn Nelson, Rosario Vargas, and Esteban Andres Cruz.

Cromer has injected cameo appearances by the ghosts of Blanche’s tragic young husband and the boy’s lover. The husband committed suicide after Blanche discovered his homosexuality and his death launched Blanche on her long downward psychological spiral. The apparitions do the play no harm but they are scarcely necessary. We’ve already seen the troubled inside of Blanche’s head through the woman’s own words and actions.

Collette Pollard has designed an extraordinary set that fills the small Writers’ Theatre acting space with the Kowalski’s claustrophobic two-room apartment and a stairway leading to an upstairs apartment. Janice Pytel designed the gritty 1940’s clothes. The sound design by Josh Schmidt leans heavily on discordant New Orleans jazz music, ramming home Blanche’s disordered mind a little too insistently. Likewise, Heather Gilbert’s lighting often turns nightmarish, again to emphasize what we already know, that Blanche is living on her nerve ends and on the brink of collapse.

The jazz music aside, the production doesn’t sufficiently create the hot and humid and exotic New Orleans backdrop that underpins the play’s mood. Possibly that’s the fault of the theater’s intimate playing space.

Overall it’s good to have a decent rendering of “A Streetcar Named Desire” back on a local stage. And I won’t soon forget Lowe’s performance as Blanche. A more successful Stanley would have elevated this production to something really special.

“A Streetcar Named Desire” runs through July 11 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

The show gets a rating of three stars.     May 2010

             Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com

                  Visit Dan  on Facebook.

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The Old Settler

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

 

        GLENCOE—“The Old Settler” was first staged in 1997 and in a short time became one of the most produced plays in the United States. It’s easy to see why. Along with matters of economy (only one set and four characters), the play brims with warmth, humanity, and humor, plus honest sentiment that never descends into sentimentality.  All the heart and sympathy of “The Old Settler” are flawlessly displayed in the superb staging at the Writers’ Theatre.

        The play by John Henry Redwood is the latest in a dazzling string of dramas about black life that have burst upon the Chicagoland theater scene over the last several weeks.  Some of the plays have been edgier or more experimental in their style, but none exceeds “The Old Settler” in its compassion, vivid personalities, and stirring confrontations. It’s a leisurely play by today’s standards, flowing for 2½ hours to a bittersweet but satisfying conclusion.

        “The Old Settler” is a romance and it’s also a convincing historical re-creation. The time is 1943, during World War II, and the place is Harlem in New York City, that oasis of African American culture just starting to lose some of the glamour of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

        Bessie and Quilly are a pair of middle-aged spinster sisters. The slightly older Bessie (age 55) brought Quilly (age 53) from their deep South home to Harlem. Quilly works as a domestic for a white family but Bessie still rents out rooms to help pay the bills. Bessie is a generous and expansive woman in contrast to her sister’s contrary nature. Years ago Quilly married a man who Bessie loved. The marriage failed but Quilly’s presumed disloyalty led to an eight-year break between the sisters. The reconciliation hasn’t entirely obliterated the scars of their conflict.

        The narrative centers on a 28-year old boarder from the rural South, a pleasant and innocent young man picturesquely named Husband. Bessie and Husband gradually develop a relationship that leads to a full-blown love affair, in spite of the disparity in their ages. Bessie had been an Old Settler, the disparaging term for a woman past 40 who is unmarried and unlikely ever to get married. Bessie sees Husband as the final chance for love in her life. The sharp-tongued Quilly, whether out of jealousy or altruism, claims Husband is looking for a surrogate mother and not a wife.

        Complicating the love affair is a manipulating floozy from the South named Lou Bessie, a young lady who insists on being called Charmaine because it’s more sophisticated. Lou Bessie’s brazen sexuality is a continual enticement to Husband and an ongoing threat to Bessie.

        “The Old Settler” isn’t primarily a racial drama, though racism does intrude in accounts of white insensitivity and intolerance that were part of the daily lives of black people in America in those days.  Essentially the play is a story about family, the often prickly connection between Bessie and Quilly softened by their unspoken recognition that for all their rivalry and bickering they share the same blood.

        The theater does not lack for stories of May-December romances, but the Husband-Bessie connection is particularly rich in feeling, humor, and passion. The outcome of the Bessie-Husband affair holds no surprises but that doesn’t lessen its affecting emotional resonance. The playwright’s delicate, realistic handling of the romance is a marvel.

        The four-member cast is impeccable but the behind-the- scenes hero is director Ron OJ Parson, who orchestrates the characters and the action with the surest of touches. It’s the best kind of directing, invisible to the audience, allowing the narrative to unfold spontaneously and naturally.

        Chicagoland favorite Cheryl Lynn Bruce dominates as Bessie, a full-figured woman—religious, compas-sionate, embittered by her sister’s past perfidy, and dazzled by the good fortune of apparently winning a good man’s love. If any theater is contemplating a revival of “A Raisin in the Son,” here’s your Lena Younger.

        Wandachristine is the perfect foil as Quilly, armored with a façade of skepticism to mask her fear of a lonely old age. Kelvin Roston, Jr., perfectly captures the naïve Husband, a Southern country boy overmatched by the pace and temptations of the big city in the North. Alexis J. Rogers is saddled with the two-dimensional character of the callous siren Lou Bessie, but she maximizes her few scenes, carving out a colorful portrait of a young woman on the make, confident in her sexuality and careless of the feelings of others.

        Jack Magaw has designed a historically authentic and detailed apartment interior that skillfully utilizes every inch of the intimate playing area. Nan Cibula-Jenkins designed the period costumes, and Heather Gilbert (lighting) and Josh Schmidt (sound) contribute effective visual and aural embellishments.

        “The Old Settler” runs through March 28 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

        The show gets a rating of four stars.       February 2010

       Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com  

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

 

        GLENCOE—In 1967 Tom Stoppard exploded on the international theater scene with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” an audacious riff on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The Writers’ Theatre is opening its 2009-2010 season with a revival of the Stoppard show, demonstrating that more than 40 years later “Rosencrantz…” still stands tall with its wit, theatricality, and intelligence.

        Stoppard builds his play around two minor characters in “Hamlet,” a pair of young men who knew the melancholy Dane in younger days and have been called to the Danish court by the new king to investigate why Hamlet is so out of sorts.

        Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves drifting in an uncertain universe. They aren’t even sure which of them is Rosencrantz and which is Guildenstern. But these two insignificant Shakespearean figures move to the foreground as central figures in their own play while the chief characters in “Hamlet” (some of the most famous names in dramatic literature) fuss about in the background.

        The two men occupy much of their time playing word games, tossing coins, and pondering the meaning of death. Periodically they are drawn into the actual “Hamlet” play, speaking Shakespeare’s lines and then returning to their own rudderless world when their brief time on the stage ends. Along with their coming and going in “Hamlet,” the two encounter a troupe of grungy traveling players, allowing Stoppard to make some amusing and penetrating comments about the theater.

        Rosencrantz and Guildenstern engage in plenty of comic moments but overall they are dominated by a mood of uncertainty and unease. They are caught up in events beyond their understanding and control, following orders as laid out by Shakespeare’s drama and their reward is their death.

        “Rosencrantz…” is at its best when it’s being clever and literate. Periodically an aura of pseudo profundity oozes into the action, giving aid and comfort to generations of graduate students seeking deeper meanings in the play. The title characters have been compared to figures out of a Samuel Beckett absurdist drama, two commonplace human beings trapped in an existence they will never fathom. They go to their deaths never knowing why they are fated for their tragic end. Pretty chewy stuff, especially when combined with their ruminations about the nature and condition of death.

        Rosencrantz and Guildenstern suspect there is some hidden meaning to their lives “Operating on two levels, are we? How clever!” But they are never masters of their fate. “What are we supposed to DO?” The answer: “Relax. Respond. We only know what we’re told. And for all we know it isn’t even true.” They exist on a very slippery slope indeed.

        The audience can take all the philosophizing or leave it alone. The play is still a gem because Stoppard’s language is so scintillating and his manipulation of the title characters in and out of the “Hamlet” story is so clever. A warning: full enjoyment of the play requires a fairly thorough knowledge of “Hamlet,” though the evening is ingenious and droll enough to stand on its own merits.

        Although “Rosencrantz…” is essentially a two-character play, the Writers’ ensemble consists of 13 actors, several of them doubling and tripling in roles. We get all the major characters in “Hamlet,” including the prince, Polonius, Claudius, and Gertrude, as well as the rag-tag company of traveling players. The Writers’ production has hired several of the leading performers on the area theater scene for the supporting characters, like Terry Hamilton, Fredric Stone, Karen Janes Woditsch, and John Hoggenakker. The star among the complementary actors is Allen Gilmore, who delivers an expansive bravura performance as the leader of the traveling acting company.

        But it all boils down to the two leading men, Timothy Edward Kane as Guildenstern and Sean Fortunato as Rosencrantz, and they are both outstanding. Even though the characters are interchangeable in their identities, Kane’s Guildenstern is the smarter of the two, more articulate, more prone to thinking deep thoughts, more intellectually curious. Fortunato’s Rosencrantz is a bit of a dim bulb with little patience for all of his partner’s heavy thinking. He’s a confused young man and he just wants to go home. Their contrasting personalities play off beautifully against each other. Even their physical appearances, the craggy faced Fortunato and the dapper and handsome Kane, contribute to establishing the characters’ separate personas.

       The production fits neatly into the intimate performing space at the Tudor Court theater. A raised stage accommodates the “Hamlet” portions of the play. The backdrop is a kind of diorama showing seating in a modern theater, reinforcing the shadowy line between reality and the make believe of the theater.

        Director Michael Halberstam orchestrates the performances beautifully. This is a talky show, especially the first act, but the multi-level action flows with engrossing inevitability. This is first and foremost a play about language and Halberstam ensures that all of Stoppard’s sparkling dialogue radiates through the production. Collette Pollard designed the set, Rachel Anne Healy the Elizabethan-style costumes, Keith Parham the strong lighting, and Andrew Hansen the sound. Hansen also composed the original music.

        “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” runs through December 6 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

        The show gets a rating of four stars.    October 2009

        Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com

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A Minister’s Wife

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

 

        GLENCOE—The Writers’ Theatre world premiere of “A Minister’s Wife” is a very good chamber musical and very good George Bernard Shaw. That’s a solid combination for audiences seeking a sophisticated but accessible new theatergoing experience.

        “A Minister’s Wife” is an adaptation of Shaw’s mid-1890’s comedy-drama “Candida.” The show features an original score by Josh Schmidt, a consensus nomination for the leading young composer on the contemporary American musical theater scene. Austin Pendleton did the adaptation and Writers’ Theatre artistic director Michael Halberstam directs. Along with Schmidt, that’s a powerhouse brain trust, and they accomplish their mission handsomely, with much assistance from a group of outstanding designers.

        “Candida” lends itself to the 90-minute intermissionless compression of “A Minister’s Wife.” The play has only six characters and one has been deleted from the musical, a boorish and bullying businessman mostly in the show for comic relief and excess baggage for the main narrative. The script is one of Shaw’s shorter works and the narrative can be distilled into a single question, who deserves the love of the play’s title character?

        The story is mostly a three-hander between the Reverend James Morell, a respected social activist in late Victorian London, his wife Candida, and a passionate 18-year old poet named Eugene Marchbanks. Marchbanks loves Candida, 15 years his senior, with all the fervor of a teenage poet. Eugene believes Morell is unworthy of so fine a woman. He accuses Morell of being a clerical windbag, mouthing pieties for congregations who enjoy a good sermon as entertainment. Marchbanks insists Candida is too good for Morell but perfectly aligned with the poet’s rarefied sensibilities.

        The play reaches its climax in a final scene in which Morell asks Candida to choose between him and the teenager. She makes the obvious choice for an unexpected reason. And there the Shaw play ends. The musical adds a coda that lends an air of ambiguity to the story’s resolution, and the spectator leaves the theater pondering whether any of the three main characters will be the same.

        The show’s book relies heavily on the original Shaw play and most of the songs are Shaw’s dialogue set to music. Jan Tranen receives credit as the lyricist but nearly all the lyrics I heard came directly from the play.

        Schmidt’s score is unobtrusive compared to the electrifying music he composed for the celebrated Next Theatre production of “The Adding Machine, a local hit in 2007 and a national hit in 2008 when it transferred to New York City.

        “The Adding Machine” score was full of dissonances to mirror the expressionistic tensions of the original play. The music in “A Minister’s Wife” is just as effective, but more self-effacing. The songs flow with the dialogue naturally with no spotlight grabbing arias. We listen more closely to song lyrics than we do to conventional dialogue and Schmidt’s score cannily enhances the emotional intensity of Shaw’s lines.

        The musical’s interpretation of Candida’s character does not break with tradition. The show portrays the woman as sympathetic, understanding, and nurturing, deftly balancing relationships with two problematical men. There is a contrarian view that paints Candida in darker colors. According to this view, Candida, for all her outward earth mother wisdom, is the intellectual inferior of both Morell and Marchbanks and employs her street-smart feminine wiles to control both men. Candida patronizes Morell, one of the best known and most honored men in London, and condescends to Marchbanks, who may be a brilliant poet, her manipulations bringing both men down to her level.

       Whatever one makes of Candida’s personality, there can be no quarrel with Kate Fry’s intelligent and warm performance. She evokes Candida’s highly charged feelings in the coda scene that add a startling new edge to the story. Kevin Gudahl is first rate as Morell and there is fine complementary work from Liz Baltes as Prossy, Morell’s prickly secretary unhappily in love with the minister, and John Sanders as Morell’s clerical assistant.

        But the performance of the night comes from Alan Schmuckler as Marchbanks. This is a notoriously challenging role. Marchbanks is a physically fearful lad who lives on his nerve ends and uses his weakness as a weapon against Morell. The actor playing Marchbanks must be convincingly youthful and given to lapses of cowardice and near hysteria, yet command the audience’s respect for his insights and eloquence. Schmuckler brings off the character as a fascinating combination of the laughable and the near tragic. An exceptional performance.

        “A Minister’s Wife” is an intimate show that could be ruined by highly trained operatic voices. The members of the ensemble sing simply, expressively, and clearly, and that’s just right for Schmidt’s evocative score.

        Brian Sidney Bembridge has designed a splendidly realistic Victorian parsonage parlor. Keith Parham designed the mood-setting lighting and Rachel Anne Healey the authentic period costumes. At my performance, Timothy Splain directed the outstanding four-piece chamber orchestra—Paul Ghica (cello), Pasquale Laurino (violin), a very pregnant Jennifer Woodrum (clarinet and bass clarinet), and Splain on piano.

        “A Minister’s Wife” runs through July 19 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

        The show gets a rating of four stars.     June 2009

          Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com

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Old Glory

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

 

        GLENCOE—The audience has to work very hard to make sense out of Bret Neveu’s new play “Old Glory.” By the time the show ends, many spectators will wonder if it was worth the effort.

        The play presents three pairs of characters, each in a different place on different dates in 2006, though for some scenes all six characters are on stage at the same time. The play starts in at a bar in Berlin, Germany, on December 14. Then we move to a U.S. army barracks in Iraq on April 25 of that year. Finally we are transferred to a home in Mesilla, New Mexico, on September 3.

        The bar scenes bring together two American men, one apparently an ex American military officer and the other a civilian. In the barracks scenes, two young American soldiers banter and bicker while the Iraq war roars outside. The Mesilla scenes involve a middle aged woman and her neighbor.

        Neveu doles out his narrative in elusive bits and pieces. Gradually we learn that all three pairs of characters are connected by the death of a soldier in Iraq, a death that first was ruled accidental but probably was murder.  The civilian in the bar was the dead soldier’s father. The woman in Mesilla was his mother. The ex officer in Berlin apparently was the soldier’s commanding officer. The Mesilla neighbor knew the truth about the soldier’s death but withheld it from the parents.

        The audience knows that by the end of the play all three sets of characters will connect. But lacking narrative reference points, the spectators are adrift in dialogue and incidents that exist in isolation for most of the night. The spectators don’t know how to process the information tantalizingly distributed on stage because they don’t have a handle on what’s going on.

        When the pieces of the plot finally fall into place at the end of the play, the viewer might want to revisit all those early scenes to absorb the bits of information that emerge as relevant only at the end.  At that, some scenes never do seem to contribute to the storyline, especially the emotional exchanges between the mother and the neighbor in Mesilla.

        The play is really about the toll the Iraq war takes on American forces. One of the two soldiers flips out after witnessing an Iraqi family destroyed when their car is blown up by trigger-happy American troops. That’s the core of the play. The scenes in Berlin and Mesilla are more distractions than contributors to the narrative whole.

        The six performers under William Brown’s direction all deliver intense performances and look and sound like they know what’s going on, even if the audience is grasping for narrative straws. Steve Haggard and Marcus Truschinski are outstanding as the two soldiers. Their tension-filled relationship mirrors the ever-present violence in the Iraqi landscape outside their barracks. It’s their play and the script struggles when they are out of the spotlight.

        Tom McElroy as the father and Philip Earl Johnson as the military officer are both fine in their cat and mouse game in the Berlin bar. LaShawn Banks and Penny Slusher do what they can with the roles of the neighbor and the mother, but their scenes turn into emotional roller coaster rides that made no dramatic sense to me.

     Neveu injects several exchanges between characters, like the men in the bar talking about a frozen fish and the mother angrily speculating to the neighbor that his new baby could be choking to death as they speak. These verbal cadenzas may serve some purpose in the play that I wasn’t able to identify.

        The show runs 90 minutes without an intermission. The three locations are nicely delineated by the composite Keith Pitts set design. Rachel Anne Healy designed the costumes and Charles Cooper the lighting. Andrew Hansen designed the sound and composed the original music.

        The title of the play is as much a perplexity as its slippery storyline. The play completes a three-play project by Neveu called “Trilogy: ’04-’05-06,” following “Harmless” and “Weapons of Mass Impact.” I haven’t seen the first two works and possibly “Old Glory” would hold together better within their context, but that doesn’t excuse the latest drama’s weaknesses as a stand-alone play.

        A play is not obligated to spell out its plot and message in obvious broad strokes. But there is no virtue in being so allusive and circumspect that the spectator flounders trying to understand the narrative.  There are some vividly dramatic scenes and some strong writing in “Old Glory.” Neveu has the makings of a powerful play when he focuses on the Iraq scenes. He could do for the Iraq War what playwright David Rabe did for the Vietnam War a generation ago. Neveu just needs to get to the point.

        “Old Glory” runs through March 29 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $40 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

The show gets a rating of three stars.    February 2009

Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.

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Picnic

At the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

 

        GLENCOE—William Inge was a hot American playwright during the 1950’s, with four consecutive Broadway hits. Then he ran into a string of critical failures and eventually committed suicide in 1973.  Inge effectively disappeared from the American theater for a generation. Bur recently there has been an Inge reappraisal, with theaters and audiences rediscovering the man’s craftsmanship and his skill at creating psychological studies of ordinary people in small Midwestern towns.

        Locally we have enjoyed recent revivals of Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” (by the Shattered Globe Theatre) and “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” (by the American Theater Company). And the Shaw Festival in Canada staged a fine version of “Bus Stop” a couple of seasons ago.

     Now comes the Writer's Theaters revival of the Pulitzer prizewinning 1953 drama 'Picnic'.(The theater revived 'Bus Stop' in 2006.) It's achievement , thanks to a pinpoint cast led by David Cromer's insightful directing.

    “Picnic” is located in prime Inge territory, a Kansas town populated by ordinary people with strong feelings of desire, fear, and hope. These feelings seethe below the surface of their commonplace lives, blocking individual fulfillment until the pent-up frustrations come boiling to the surface.

     In “Picnic,” Inge portrays how the repressed romantic dreams of several women boil into a series of crises after a handsome drifter comes to the town. In a conventional production, the play would turn into a romantic comedy-drama with a heavy garnish of local color. Hal, the drifter, connects with Madge, the town beauty. Erotic sparks fly and off they go, into the sentimental Hollywood sunset.

        Cromer drains any hint of sentimentality out of the narrative. Hal isn’t only a sexy hunk, he’s a young man who conceals his low self esteem and vulnerability under a veneer of bravado. He’s awkward beneath his blowhard façade, bitter at the hand life has dealt him, and a little pathetic. The 18-year old Madge has heard her entire life how pretty she is and how wonderful it is for a girl to be pretty. As a result, she has no sense of her own worth.

        Madge’s younger sister Millie is a feisty girl who fiercely resents Madge and her beauty and is demoralized by her own lack of social skills. Flo, their mother, struggles in genteel poverty to raise her daughters. There are tensions in Flo’s personality rooted in her own marriage. We never learn what happened to her husband, whether he died or ran off. But his absence has emotionally scarred Flo, who tries to steer Madge into the economic and social safety of marriage to Alan Seymour, the local rich boy, a lad lumbered with his own insecurities.

        The complementary characters are burdened with their own repressions and frustrations, especially Rosemary Sydney, a boarder at Flo’s house, a middle aged schoolteacher aching to escape her dead end life by corralling a local businessman into marrying her.

        The play’s characters suffer from such heavy doses of psychological angst that the show threatens to turn into second rank Chekhov. But the honesty of Inge’s writing, his compassion for his characters, and David Cromer’s incisive directing combine to elevate “Picnic” into a nonstop engrossing viewing experience.

        At first, the acting seemed so low keyed that I feared the ensemble was too artless to carry the play. But as the evening progressed, the people on stage came alive in their ordinariness. Millie is a key example of the wonders Cromer works with the play. Millie can easily be played as comic relief, the bratty kid sister good for a few laughs as she brags that she will leave her boring town after college and go to New York City and write novels that will shock people. Cromer takes Millie seriously, and thanks to Hillary Clemens’s first rate performance the viewer can accept that Millie’s dream will someday be a reality. She has the spunk and talent to write those novels.

        The 1955 movie version of “Picnic” starred William Holden as Hal and Kim Novak as Madge. At 37, Holden was far too old for the role and Novak, though only 22, projected a glamour that was a bad fit for Madge’s inner pain and confusion.

The Writers’ Theatre casts Boyd Harris as Hal and Bridgette Pechman as Madge. They both look very young, at that hormonal age when erotic attraction is at its most intense. Their coupling is inevitable but the prospects of a successful long-term relationship look dubious. Cromer turns what could have been a conventional happy ending into something much more problematical. Madge doesn’t so much run away to join Hal as she runs away from her stultifying existence as the small town beauty queen with no substance beyond her looks. We wish her luck with the rest of her life but she has a high hill to climb.

  The remaining performers are all outstanding, led by Natasha Lowe as the anguished Flo, trying her best to mediate between her two daughters and their conflicting personalities. Hanna Dworkin is perfect as Rosemary, the spinster who finally erupts in bile and frustration at a shocked and defenseless Hal.

                 Marc Grapey gets a striking amount dramatic heft out of Rosemary’s reluctant swain. Robert Fagin is outstanding as the rich kid who should have everything but instead is gripped by his own insecurities. Alyson Green and Samantha Gleisten are very good as Rosemary’s middle-aged unmarried lady friends. Annabel Armour is fine as an elderly woman whose personal life has been blighted by a monster of a mother, but the woman soldiers on, maybe the bravest person in the story.

    The theater has been reconfigured into an almost in-the-round facility. The action takes place in a front yard linking two neighboring houses. Jack Magaw’s set gives the production an environmental feeling and some viewers must walk across a wooden front stoop to get to their seats. Janice Pytel designed the authentic looking 1950’s costumes. Keith Parham designed the lighting and Rick Sims the sound.

        “Picnic” runs through November 16 at the Writers’ Theatre, 325 Tudor Court. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are  $50 to $65. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org.

The show gets a rating of four stars.        Sept. 2008

Contact Dan at  zeffdaniel@yahoo.com .

       

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The Lion in Winter
 at the Writers' Theatre

 By Dan Zeff

GLENCOE- Historical dramas by American playwrights have never been large on the American stage. We've had plenty of hit musicals with historical backgrounds, but straight plays rarely catch the box office ring, even a historical work as literate and entertaining as James Goldman's ‘The Lion in Winter.’

   ‘The Lion in Winter’ opened on Broadway in 1966, attracted plenty of positive reviews, though perhaps fatally, not from the New York Times, and expired in a few weeks. The movie adaptation starring Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn was much more successful. Over the last 40 years, ‘The Lion in Winter’ has managed a decent life in regional theaters, like the Writers Theatre, which currently is presenting a triumphant revival of the play.

    At first look, Goldman's play does seem a little forbidding in its subject matter, centering on a medieval English king named Henry II and his family one Christmas season in 1183. There¹s nothing there to grab the interest of an American audience, except that the play is really a masterful comedy-drama about a dysfunctional family, and heaven knows we've seen plenty of those in recent seasons, but rarely with the wit and intelligence of ‘The Lion in Winter.’

   Goldman’s play portrays real historical figures, though the dialogue and action are fictional. All the characters look medieval in Nan Zabriskie’s authentic looking 12th-century wardrobe designs. But the emotions and passions are as real as today, with the characters fiercely engaging in betrayal, manipulation, and shifting alliances. The play ends up being a blend of adult romantic family comedy and ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’

   In the play, Henry gathers his three grown sons to his castle, along with their mother and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Henry and Eleanor in real life had one of the most volatile marriages in European royal history. Henry had imprisoned Eleanor in a castle for years in France for plotting against him, but there is a powerful bond between them--love at war with political expediency.

   Henry wants to make his son John the heir to the English throne. Eleanor supports their son Richard. The third son, Geoffrey, is the odd man out but he is entirely capable of looking after his own interests. Adding further complexity to the narrative is a 23-year old French princess named Alais. She loves the 50-year old Henry and he loves her, or so he says. He mainly wants to breed more sons, not being satisfied with the three now on hand, and he selects Alais as the vessel for the new male generation. Understandably, Eleanor is not pleased.

   The sons plot with and against each other and against their father, with Eleanor pulling some of the strings and the young King of France on hand with his own spin on the political situation. The plot may be set in the Middle Ages, but it is recounted in a very modern fashion. The characters talk like they are residents of the 20th century. After one particularly heated verbal conflict, Eleanor sighs ‘Well, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs?’

   Henry is the dominant character, but the most complicated and ultimately poignant figure is Eleanor, a woman nurturing a love-hate relationship with her husband. She is brilliant, articulate, and politically savvy, a wheeler-dealer who can hold her own with the rough playing men folk. Katharine Hepburn won an Academy Award as Eleanor in the motion picture. It’s a great role and at the Writers’ Theatre Shannon Cochran is tremendous, running the psychological changes on Eleanor¹s personality from pleading supplication and surrender to scheming and unscrupulous protector of her turf.

   As Henry, Michael Canavan (Cochran’s real life husband) matches Cochran’s stage presence, delivering a persuasive portrait of macho self-possession flecked with despair and frustration at the muddle he and Eleanor have made of their three sons. Canavan gives a performance of great assurance and it¹s not his fault that Eleanor simply has the better lines and more theatrical scenes.

   The three sons are all portrayed with spot-on dramatic and comic impact. Robert Belushi is superb as the whiny, cowardly, infantile John. As Richard, Lea Coco is every inch the ruthless and ambitious prince who will permit no impediment between himself and the English crown, including his father. Christopher McLinden is subtly sinister as Geoffrey, the third son who won’t allow himself to be marginalized in the power plays between John and Richard.

   In a pair of telling complementary performances, Laura Coover is sweet and youthful as Alais, a plucky girl in way over her head among all the plots and counter plots swirling throughout the castle. Michael Fagin is excellent as the French king, a crafty young man with a possible homosexual relationship with Richard.

   The last production of ‘The Lion in Winter’ that I saw ran a verbose and tiresome three hours. At the Writers’ Theatre, director Rick Snyder keeps the pace brisk and the scene changes fast and efficient. The zesty flow of the play conceals the fact that Goldman’s play is almost all talk and very little action. Jack Magaw designed a functional all-purpose set dominated by a row of Romanesque arches at the rear of the stage to set the historical tone for the evening. J. R. Lederle designed the lighting and Josh Schmidt the sound.

   The show gets a rating of four stars.                         June 2008

   For more information, visit www.writerstheatre.org.

Contact Dan: zeffdaniel@yahoo.com

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As You Like It

at the Writers’ Theatre

By Dan Zeff

       GLENCOE—By a quirk of scheduling, two of Chicagoland’s leading theaters opened productions of Shakespeare on consecutive nights. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater presented “Othello” in a brilliant staging, but we’ve become accustomed to major league work on the Bard from the CST.  It’s their mission. On the other hand, the Writers’ Theatre had never staged a Shakespeare play before its current revival of “As You Like It,” but the result is likewise brilliant.                                                                      

        "As You Like It” is one of Shakespeare’s most agreeable comedies. Most of the plot is front loaded into the first 30 minutes. During that time, young Orlando and Rosalind fall in love at first sight. Then Orlando flees for his life from his evil older Brother Oliver to the Forest of Arden. At the same time, Rosalind is banished by the equally nasty Duke Frederick, who has usurped her father’s land. So Rosalind and her cousin Celia (the nasty Duke’s daughter) flee in disguise to the Forest of Arden, setting up a round robin of romantic encounters. With all the key characters in Arden enjoying the hospitality of the rightful duke and his merry men, the wheels of the plot stop spinning and assorted love affairs are put into place.

In addition to the exiles, the forest is populated with country folk, like the shepherdess Phebe, much loved by the bumpkin Sylvius. But Phebe falls in love with Rosalind in her disguise as a young man. The jester Touchstone accompanies Rosalind and Celia into the forest and matches up with the country girl Audrey. By the end of the play Shakespeare has paired off everyone in the forest but the chiggers, with the exception of the melancholy Jaques who ruefully philosophizes on the frailties of the world.

            Director William Brown places the action in modern times, giving the story an easy accessibility for the audience. The stark difference between the intrigues and cruelties of the court and the camaraderie of the forest is a pronounced subtext. Shakespeare obviously prefers the generosity of spirit of life in natural surroundings to the darkness and betrayal of the court (read civilization).

            “As You Like It” is not a knockabout farce. Brown orchestrates a mellow, sympathetic atmosphere in the forest, with Jaques’s melancholy a keynote.  Larry Yando ornaments the production with his wry mocking, sounding at times like Jack Nicholson and looking like a character out of a Samuel Beckett drama. Yando practically reinvents Jaques’s famous “Seven Ages of Man” monologue, his measured and thoughtful discourse giving this familiar speech a new depth and richness. Even the normally broadly comic Touchstone plays as a knowing and human clown, superbly delineated by Ross Lehman, an old hand at Shakespeare’s comic characters...

            The heart of the play is Rosalind, performed in a breakout performance by Tracy Michelle Arnold, who delectably captures the woman’s intelligent and realism without stinting on her female vulnerability (in Shakespeare’s eyes). Marcus Truschinski is a handsome Orlando, but he’s a bit of a ninny as written in comparison with the vivacious Rosalind. But Truschinski’s good looks and affecting manner make him a good match for Arnold’s Rosalind in the end. Carey Cannon is a marvelous Celia, often merely a second fiddle to Rosalind. At the Writers’ Theatre, Cannon endows Celia with a feisty, saucy personality that adds unexpected comic flourishes to the character.

            In supporting performances, five of the actors double in roles, all to good effect.  There is especially good work from Kevin Asselin as both the good and bad dukes, Eric Parks as the lovesick Sylvius, Nancy Moricette, sporting a delightful West Indian accent, as Phebe, and Carol Kuykendall as an unconventionally savvy and hip Audrey. The ensemble is rounded out with distinction by Tim Gittings, David Dastmalchian, and John Lister.

            “As You Like It” is filled with some of Shakespeare’s finest songs, all neatly integrated into the action instead of being mounted as isolated set pieces that stop the action in its tracks. The songs are delivered in a contemporary folk manner with guitar accompaniment and moving vocal work by Kuykendall among others.

The set by Keith Pitts recreates the Forest of Arden as a decaying mansion surrounded by unspoiled nature. The harsh realities of the real work periodically intrude with the menacing sound of a helicopter overhead obviously searching for the subversive exiles in the woods. The physical production is further enhanced by Rachel Anne Healy (costumes), Charles Cooper (lighting), and Andrew Hanson (sound and original music, complimented by some spot-on moody Miles Davis).

            But the hero of the evening, along with Shakespeare, is director Brown, who injects countless felicitous touches into the story that illuminate rather than distract. Brown fits the production perfectly into the intimate  Writers’ Theatre acting space, allowing the spectators to get up close and personal with an “As You Like It” that is especially fertile in charm and gentle humor.

            “As You Like It” runs through April 13 at the Writers’ Theatre,

325 Tudor Court. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $58.  Call 847 242 6000.  

                             For more information:  www.writers'theatre.org

                             

                                 The show gets a rating of four stars.

Feb. 2008

Contact us : zeffdaniel@yahoo.com

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The Turn of the Screw

 at the Writers' Theatre in Glencoe

By Dan Zeff
           

GLENCOE - Ghost stories are notoriously difficult to bring off on the stage. Those flesh and blood actors work against the sense of the supernatural and the horror that are built into the genre. That's why ghost tales are normally more effective on the printed page or in movies or on the radio where the narrative can scare us without the mood breaking intrusion of real people acting out the stories.           

 So give the Writers' Theatre all the credit in the world for not only taking on one of the most famous and unsettling ghost stories ever written, but staging it in a remarkably convincing manner.

The story is 'The Turn of the Screw,' an 1898 short novel by Henry James that has already inspired one stage version, as well as a motion picture adaptation and even an opera. James's tale has fascinated readers and critics for more than a century, not only because it is a true chiller but because there is no consensus that it is even a ghost story at all.

The story is set in 1872 in Victorian England. A young woman is interviewed by a wealthy London bachelor, who seeks a governess to take complete charge of his young niece and nephew on an estate in the country. The young woman accepts the job, partly because she has fallen in love with her employer at first sight and naively hopes for a relationship between them leading to marriage.           

The governess settles in on the estate and immediately tries to bond with her two young pupils, Miles and Flora. The only other resident of the estate is a housekeeper named Mrs. Grose. In short order the governess learns that Miss Jessel, her predecessor as governess, drowned in the estate lake and the estate steward, Peter Quint, was found dead by the children after falling from a tower on the property.

 Through the housekeeper, the governess hears that the two dead people had an illicit relationship. The governess soon sees apparitions of Quint and Jessel and comes to believe that the two are malignant forces trying to entrap the children. The governess sets herself up as the protector of the children against these forces of evil, leading to a tragic outcome.           

The story is mostly told through the journals kept by the governess and much of the narrative is seen through her eyes. The tale can be taken two ways. Either Quint and Jessel were indeed ghosts bent on harming the children or the whole saga is the product of the governess's fevered imagination. There is much in the story to suggest that the young woman is sexually repressed, the victim of an abusive childhood and caught in the web of high Victorian sexual, or rather anti-sexual, attitudes.           

James himself was never definitive about how to read his story and he loads it with ambiguities. Miles is expelled from his school for apparently intolerable behavior but we never learn specifically what crimes the precocious lad committed. Likewise, we are not clear on the precise nature of the connection between Jessel and Quint, though with our 21st century sensibilities, we can make some educated guesses. And we never learn about the parentage that shaped the two unusual children. Overall, James leaves the details of his story open-ended, enticing the audience to fill in the blanks with their own imagination.         

 Playwright Jeffery Hatcher boils the story down to 90 uninterrupted minutes of intense stage time. He writes the drama for just two performers, a woman who plays the governess and a man who assumes the roles of the bachelor employer, the housekeeper, and young Miles. This is chamber theater at its most intimate, and perfectly suited to the Writers' Theatre venue, a 50-seat space at the rear of a bookstore in downtown Glencoe.

The story is told both in extended monologues from the governess's journal and in scenes between the woman and another character. The set consists of a single chair and a set of opaque black curtains that enclose the stage on two sides. The tone of the action generally is understated, with boiling emotions seething just below the surface. The mood is set by eerie lighting, subtly creepy sound effects, and those sinister drapes. The sudden entrance of a character through the drapes can jolt the spectator like a pistol shot.           

The cast consists of Kymberly Mellen as the governess and LaShawn Banks as the other characters. They are both spellbinders. Banks is superb in morphing from the bachelor uncle to the housekeeper to young Miles with only a delicate shift in vocal inflection and body language. Once the audience recognizes the conventions of the staging, it's no leap of faith at all to accept Banks in whatever character he assumes.           

Mellen is marvelous as the governess, possibly doing battle against wicked spirits and possibly in the grip of her own disordered mind. It's a heroic performance, especially because the actress was fighting a cold on opening night. Mellen deftly builds the rising hysteria in the governess and by the end of the evening we can't be sure whether she really saw those ghosts or they are the product of her fantasies.           

Jessica Thebus has orchestrated the production with nuance and insight. A single false note would have destroyed the fabric of the story. I saw or heard no false notes. The design team of Jack Magaw (scenery), Andre Pluess (sound), J. R. Lederle (lighting), and Rachel Anne Healy (costumes) combine to weave a mesmerizing mood to support James's haunting text.

Hopefully, the muted response by the opening night audience didn't discourage the players. The crowd wasn't being unappreciative. They were so caught up in the spell of the show that loud applause or even conversation on leaving the theater seemed totally out of place.           

'The Turn of the Screw' runs through March 30 at the Writers' Theatre, 664 Vernon Avenue. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p. m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $55. Call 847 242 6000.

The show gets a rating of four stars.             Nov. 2007

For more information:  www.writers'theatre.org us :

Contact  Dan  zeffdaniel@yahoo.com