REVIEW: Trustus Theatre's The Thanksgiving Play - by Patrick Michael Kelly

Cindi Boiter November 19, 2020

“Watching the show feels as close to an evening on Lady Street as possible - you can almost smell the Cromer’s popcorn.”

Trustus bills The Thanksgiving Play as “a woke comedy” and that’s apropos. Larissa FastHorse’s play follows four white people - Logan, Jaxton, Caden, and Alicia - in their attempt to creatively devise a culturally sensitive play about the First Thanksgiving for Native American Heritage Month. They stumble over many obstacles - mainly themselves and each other - on their quest to craft an engaging, equitable educational show and ultimately arrive at the simplest of conclusions that less is indeed more.

FastHorse wastes no time establishing tone; we know what we’re in for from the jump. The play begins with a Thanksgiving rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” complete with Indian, Pilgrim, and turkey costumes, and choreography that the cast performs with full commitment. These surreal interludes - snippets from the play that might come from the group’s endeavor - recur throughout and serve to break up the realistic scenes with blasts of musical comedy. It’s a pleasing combination.

Consumer culture, linguistic cliches, gender bias, social media, “upcycling”, vegans, etc. - all are placed on the altar or chopping block, whichever metaphor you’d prefer, and while this play’s glut of contemporary issues could feel tiresome, they are integrated perfectly with the story. Most effective are discussions about the fantasy of a “post-racial” society and what it means to be an ally, and a lovely scene between Alicia and Logan concerning the values of sex and beauty, the dangers of their commodification, and the value of their power. FastHorse tackles big issues head-on and lays out all the angles, but rather than smashing you over the head, she builds them in tactfully.

FastHorse also skewers the craft and politics of theater expertly. Often, plays about making plays come off as obnoxious and cliquish, but The Thanksgiving Play manages to poke fun at devising, improv, warm-ups, and the like without alienating non-thespians. Furthermore, she squeezes in some terrific commentary about casting issues that plague the industry, from the well-past-timely death of so-called colorblind casting to the usual excuses of producers and directors about how hard it is to find ethnic actors to fill roles appropriately. At one point, Alicia mentions that she’s “maybe part-Spanish” so she should get to play all the Spanish roles because “it’s a drop thing.” We cringe, but it’s real.

Kayla Cahill Machado is solid as Logan, the embattled high school drama teacher who needs this project to succeed - there’s grant money on the line and a professional actor in the room. Machado drives much of the action of the play and juggles empowering everyone with keeping the project on the rails. We feel her pain.

Patrick Dodds brings his usual charm and affability to Jaxton, the yoga practitioner and “professional” actor. Jaxton’s heart is in the right place, but his desire to do right by everyone all the time gets in his way of being effective. Dodds’s Jaxton comes off a little too young and dumb at times, but the actor’s passion and vulnerability easily make up for it.

Clint Poston as Caden is winning from his first entrance. He nails Caden’s enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge and drives the pace in much needed moments. Caden wants so badly to be useful and to have his hard-won authority recognized, and Poston channels his desperation with a sweetness that cuts through his pretension.

Brittany Hammock plays Alicia (pronounced uh-LEE-see-ya, because of course it is), the self-centered actress with a “super-flexible” look to a tee. Her enthusiastic cluelessness and well-intentioned cynicism both give the group fits and inspire them to rethink their way of being. Hammock steals many scenes with her dry delivery.

Director Abigail McNeely has done a nice job making an ensemble out of her performers while allowing them to play to their strengths. The scenes are dynamic and flow nicely; McNeely clearly knows the story and where the most important parts are and highlights them to great success. The production suffers at times from pacing issues, particularly in the early going, but the actors find their footing as the action builds. The inventive staging and exciting feel of the interludes is a testament to the director’s expansive vision.

It is a treat to see a true box set. Many contemporary plays are filmic in that they employ shorter scenes and multiple locations, making realism an impossibility. Film does realism better than theater, but a realistic stage production is still a satisfying endeavor for artists and audiences alike. FastHorse’s employment of a single location - outside of the musical interruptions - allows for the production team to create a fully inhabited world onstage. Scenic Designer Sam Hetler is up to the task; his set feels just like an American high school drama classroom. The attention to detail provides lots of little surprises for us to find, like old Columbia theater posters on the back wall and a masquerade-themed bulletin board urging us to “put your mask on.” Clever.

Curtis Smoak’s lighting is cheery with just the right touch of industrial, mimicking the unpleasant wash of public fluorescents while warmly supporting the actors and the space they inhabit. The choice to forgo lighting shifts when two characters are having a private conversation in a public space is confusing; the helpful theatrical convention of separating the groups with light to assist the audience’s understanding should apply, even in a realistic piece like this. During the interludes, the lights shift dramatically to make the performers pop along with the musical numbers, giving it a bit of a rock cabaret vibe.

The recording of this production is well done. The shots and the sound are both clear and we get the feel of watching a play live and in person magnified through the camera’s eye and microphones. That said, shot selection is often static in the scenes and much more dynamic in the interludes, and the editing needs to split the difference more. More often than not, the scenes are played out in a wide shot with close-ups and two-shots few and far between. This might have been an attempt to preserve the piece as a play as much as possible, but if you’re going to make a film, make a film.

That being said, it’s hard not to notice that the element that gives live theater its power is sorely missing here. As if comedy weren’t hard enough already, taking away the audience puts the performers in a tougher spot, and they respond by pushing in moments where the support of laughter or other audible reactions would otherwise buoy them. Trustus deserves applause for making theater - and polished theater at that - safely, but the interplay between actor and audience is what makes theater...well, theater.

In its first attempt at producing a fully mounted show for home consumption, Trustus delivers a quality product and should be commended for adapting to these trying times. Watching the show feels as close to an evening on Lady Street as possible - you can almost smell the Cromer’s popcorn. Format-associated growing pains aside, The Thanksgiving Play is well worth your time and your donation and should inspire some spirited conversation at your virtual Turkey Day dinner table.

Patrick Michael Kelly is the theatre editor for Jasper Magazine.

REVIEW: Belles Ring True at Workshop Theatre by Patrick Michael Kelly

Cindi Boiter March 10, 2020

“… guided by the steady hand of *Robin Gottlieb**, whose extensive experience and sweet touch show through in this polished production .”*

Workshop Theatre rings in the springtime with Mark Dunn’s Belles, a Southern comedy about keeping family ties over long distance. At a matinee on its first weekend, an attentive crowd laughed and cried along with the action at the Cottingham Theatre at Columbia College.

Belles weaves a story of six sisters spurred by an unfortunate encounter between their elderly mother and some bad tuna fish. Written in 1989, Dunn’s script is filled with zingers, one-liners, and Southern touchstones. Some humor doesn’t stand the test of time and makes for some awkward moments, but the play has a lot of heart, and it goes to some places you might not expect if judging a (phone)book by its cover. Underneath, Belles is a meandering portrait of a family broken by alcoholism and the telephone wires that, also, barely hold it together. The sisters are haunted by the ghost of their abusive father and scattered memories of their fading mother. The lives they choose all fall within the spectrum of trauma recovery. If this all sounds rather bleak, rest assured that there is plenty of hope to balance it out, guided by the steady hand of Robin Gottlieb, whose extensive experience and sweet touch show through in this polished production - her first in the director’s chair at Workshop.

At rise, we meet Peggy, the eldest sister and caretaker of mama (whom we never see but whose influence permeates every scene) as she calls up each of her other five sisters to give them the latest news. Over the course of the two-hour’s traffic, we watch the sisters communicate - with each other, with friends, and even strangers - giving us a window into each woman’s life and slowly revealing to us a larger context of the bonds of family and the wounds of time. Belles is largely a series of interwoven monologues, but it’s at its best when it employs dialogue. The scenes between two sisters (and sometimes two pairs of sisters), with the characters talking to each other directly even though they are hundreds of miles apart, are when the play really sings.

As is any monologue-heavy play, Belles is a showcase for its actors, and Gottlieb has provided us with a solid group.

Allison Allgood shines as Audrey, the performer of the family, with a strong sense of timing and full commitment to her character’s passions. Audrey dotes on Huckle, her wooden partner and surrogate child, and polishes their act in preparation for their big break. When things go off the rails, Audrey finds solace in her strong marriage, and Allgood’s engaging quirks become grounded in love.

Katie Mixon brings her all to the most out-there character as Dust, or the sister formerly known as Sherry. Mixon focuses on the fickle eccentricity of her character and it pays off. The ongoing drama with her various paramours - most of which she handles solo - provides a lot of levity to the play, and the scene where she gives baby sister Paige relationship advice is a standout.

Kira Nessel is winning as Paige, the baby of the family who is now a grad student with impossibly high standards and a chip on her shoulder. Paige tries her best not to get too emotionally invested in an eager suitor, holding out hope for a more perfect specimen, but her sisters’ perspectives challenge her to be open to opportunity. Nessel’s journey as Paige is relatable and we root for her every step of the way.

Krista Forster’s Roseanne is facing a dissolving marriage, transitioning from stability to doubt and uncertainty. As such, Forster is tasked with some heavy lifting and she answers the bell, bringing full emotional availability and curiosity to her character. She also does an admirable job of communicating many of the more dated jokes. A particularly successful scene finds Forster personifying her sisters as various items in her kitchen as she decides which of them to call.

Raia Hirsch is well-cast as the most successful of the sisters, at least in terms of bank accounts. Hirsch’s Aneece works hard and drinks harder to cover up the traumas of her upbringing. A particularly powerful couplet of scenes in the second act stir up the family drama and reveal the reason for Aneece’s prickly exterior, and Hirsch succeeds in truthfully relating her character’s pain. Hirsch’s speech imagining a phone conversation with her mother is gutting.

Zsuzsa Manna grounds the cast - and the family - in her turn as Peggy. Manna has the most scenes in the play as Peggy is the hub through which all information gets filtered. Manna displays a lot of range between a heated argument with Aneece over their mother’s parenting and lending a concerned ear to Roseanne and her situation, however a promising scene where Peggy receives a lewd late-night caller could have gone further.

Gottlieb’s production has a savvy production team behind it as well, and she blends their contributions nicely. Dean McCaughan delivers an eye-catching set, with multiple playing areas on different levels, each space featuring vivid colors and curated details to distinguish each sister’s world. McCaughan pulls double duty as sound designer, and the combination of clever and unobtrusive analog-era tunes with a chaotic array of dial tones, busy signals, and automated messages is becoming of the material. Lighting by Patrick Faulds is simple but effective. Amber Westbrook’s costumes help date the play appropriately and further define the characters for the audience.

The many roles the sisters in Belles play to overcome the trauma of their upbringing - the caretaker, the workaholic, the homemaker, the performer, the flake, the commitment-phobe - all serve to paint a complete portrait of a family in recovery. By the play’s end, each sister is a little closer and more empathetic to the others, and a reunion appears on the horizon. While this 31-year-old play doesn’t break any new ground, it does prompt examination of our own paths, and may inspire you to call your loved ones a little more often. Workshop’s Belles is well-worth ringing up.

Patrick Michael Kelly is the new Theatre Editor for Jasper Magazine. For more about Patrick read athe spring issue of Jasper releasing mid-April.

Belles runs through March 15th at Workshop Theatre at Cottingham Theatre on the campus of Columbia College.

For more information contact Workshoptheatre.com.

REVIEW: Jon Tuttle's Boy About Ten at Trustus Theatre

Cindi Boiter August 19, 2018

“A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.”

-Gore Vidal

John Tuttle is, by any standard, a man with a talent for writing, but after seeing the world premiere of his play, Boy About Ten, I can affirm that he is also quite adept at articulating human relationships. Indeed, the oft-troubled intertwining of Boy About Ten’s dysfunctional, but (somewhat) connected nuclear family of four, drives the plot of Tuttle’s work, taking a well-written piece to the level of a performance bristling with all the sharp edges relationships can provide. This is not to suggest that the production currently running at Trustus is without laughter or light-hearted moments. It may be a tragicomedy, but Boy About Ten doesn’t hesitate to let the tragic cede the stage to the comedic in a legitimate, story-faithful way. In his program notes, Trustus Artistic Director, Chad Henderson, comments that “this play has undergone a more involved development process than our previous Playwrights Festival winners or commissions,” which no doubt contributed to the feeling of polish and streamlining found in the script. I managed to make notes on some of the truly standout lines, but by no means is my list comprehensive.

The play opens with D’Loris (Lonetta Thompson), a kindhearted but world-weary social worker, dealing with what is clearly a family in distress. She is trying to prepare Todd (Tommy Wiggins), the elder son, to go to his mothers’ house for a week. Todd is obviously troubled in multiple ways, but is largely nonverbal, using a set of oversized headphones to drown out the conflict which surrounds him, while hiding his face behind his chin-length bangs. As usual, Thompson creates a fully-realized, textured character, who has flaws as well as sincerely caring nature. I never tire of seeing Thompson onstage, as she is always completely immersed in and committed to her character and the moment. It would have been the easy way out to depict D’Loris as either a hyper-idealistic Wonder Woman, or as a “honey, I’ve seen it all,” world-weary cynic, but Thompson chose to create someone in-between, and in the process, gave the audience a layered, complex, and realistic performance. Kudos also to Wiggins, a former Trustus Apprentice Company member, making his mainstage debut. Though Todd doesn’t speak much, especially in the early scenes, his body language, movement style, and a sort of self-embrace clearly establish him as a damaged human being, doing his best to avoid his psychic pain. When it is revealed that he is a self-cutter/burner, it is a bit of a shock, but totally believable for the character he has, by that point, made three-dimensional. I suspect we’ll be seeing much more of Wiggins on the Trustus stage in seasons to come, and I look forward to watching his development as an actor.

The arrival of Tammy (Jennifer Hill), lightens the mood by, ironically, introducing the least likeable of the five characters. Hill’s Tammy is brash, flashy, loud, and obnoxious, fancying herself far above the rest of the family. She dresses herself in designer clothing, while a couple of mentions are made of the kids’ clothes coming from Goodwill, and she personifies the cliche of the “helicopter parent,” dispensing screechy advice and criticism thinly veiled as “encouragement.” Hill’s comedic timing is absolutely spot-on, and she brought Friday night’s house down with such well-penned verbal spewings as “I was once a Sweet Potato Queen, now I’m a Cyclops!” (It seems that Tammy has a glass eye, which is broken, requiring her to wear an eye patch.) Clearly proud of her somewhat meager accomplishments, she touts having played Yum-Yum in a community college production of The Mikado, along with a few other small successes, in an attempt to impress D’Loris, who is eventually prompted to ask “what the hell is wrong with you people?” The moments of conflict between Tammy and D’Loris establish a curious dynamic. Tammy, in her own twisted, control-freak way, wants the best for her children, while D’Loris tries to help establish exactly that, which eludes the self-centered Tammy.

One gathers fairly quickly that Tammy is at her ex-husband’s house to swap out the younger son, Timmy, (Daniel Rabinovich), who is a straight-A, rule-abiding, do-gooder, complete with Webelos Scout uniform, and practically a stranger to Todd, and the two react somewhat cautiously to each other. (I may have missed an important line or mention of the situation, but it is clear that the brothers have not spent much time together.) Rabinovich demonstrates an actor’s sensitivities quite impressively, especially for a young actor. His character arc may well be the most dramatic in terms of growth and change, and he handles it like a true pro. As with Wiggins, this is a young man to watch.

Once all is settled, Timmy is left alone with his father, Terry. Played by Trustus mainstay, Paul Kaufmann, Terry is an affable, childlike n’ere-do-well, whose love for his sons manifests in an “at my house, there are no rules” dynamic. (When asked by Timmy if they can attend an Imax film or visit the Planetarium, Terry immediately scoffs at the thought of an educational outing, at least in the traditional sense.) Kaufmann, without ever breaking the established reality of the play, or mugging to the audience, brought to life an enchanting man-child, reminiscent of Tom Hanks in Big, with a dash of Bertie Wooster and Falstaff tossed in. To Timmy’s growing amusement, the two of them chug Cheerwine (no sodas allowed at Tammy’s house), fight ludicrous pretend war games against “Vagicilla, Dark Queen of the Nether Regions” (inspired, no doubt, by Tammy), and Timmy frequently receives his father’s military decorations, which may or may not be legit. It was at this point that I began to wonder about the show’s eponymous title. Was Timmy the Boy About Ten, or was his father? Had the parent/child dynamic between them already shifted before the action of the play began? Kaufmann, incidentally, scores one of the biggest laughs in the show while telling Timmy about his days in an ersatz KISS cover band. “You can always tell when chicks dig you. They chew their gum at you…like meat!”

A brief in-one scene gives us our sole glimpse of life at Tammy’s house, when the focus is, both literally and figuratively, on Todd, who is passively receiving an unwanted haircut from his mother. A special tip of the hat to Lighting Designer Laura Anthony, for transforming a simple floor lamp into a “where were you on the night of the robbery?” beacon. This is an occasion upon which the lighting truly made the scene for me. We, the audience, are semi-blinded by the intensity of the same light shining into Todd’s eyes, and subject to the same jabber from Tammy. Like a police officer in a bad, made-for-TV crime drama, she prattles on and on about how Todd should want to be “normal” and make friends “like all the other boys,” painting a Leave It To Beaver lifestyle, which will supposedly emerge with a haircut and a suit from Goodwill. Interrogation/indoctrination and “tough love” establish an uneasy coexistence at Tammy’s house, and the two children she raised reflect that. Timmy’s unblinking obedience earns him praise, so he obeys. Todd, whom I assumed to be somewhere on the autism spectrum, is unable to deal with what his senses perceive as blinding light and a barrage of impossible commands. Though short, this scene impacted me. I began to wonder through whose eyes we were seeing any given situation, and then viewing each scene from each character’s angle. Thank you, Jon Tuttle, for this (I’m guessing) three-page scene, which widened the lens through which I saw the rest of the play. Though she was the antagonist of the scene, it allowed a glimpse into Tammy’s desperate desire for a “normal, happy, family,” and humanized her for me.

I won’t go into too much detail about the second act, as it is, essentially, a minefield of spoilers, and much of what happens requires the elements of shock and surprise to work. While not without laughs, the second act takes a somewhat darker turn, with a grim family story, involving animal abuse, being revealed. (*While no violence is depicted onstage, a gruesome monologue could be mildly to moderately triggering for some.*) Terry childishly endangers his and Timmy’s lives at the end of act one, the aftermath of which, we see in act two. Todd returns, neatly trimmed and besuited, but still distant, albeit with the occasional smile of hope. Toward the end of the play, we discover that Terry suffered physical wounds far worse than Timmy’s while saving the boy from the dangerous results of his (Terry’s) recklessness. Romantic impossibilities are pondered and argued, D’Loris loses another crumb of her idealism, but hangs on to hope, Timmy takes his first step toward adult cynicism, Tammy reveals some game-changing information, and the family is left as we found them; bruised and battered, but oddly okay. The playwright leaves us with the idea that life will simply go on, and with the insanity and bizarre love in this family, who can even speculate on the eventual outcome?

Director Patrick Michael Kelly has taken an artfully written play, refined by much workshopping, and brought to the stage a world of slightly-heightened reality, never losing sight of the connecting themes of family and what it truly means to care for someone.

So, who is the Boy About Ten? I have my suspicions that each character, with the exception of D’Loris (who serves as the impartial observer and voice of reason) is that boy. Perhaps that answers my earlier question, and tips us off that the show is seen from D’Loris’ perspective.

Boy About Ten is an engaging, thought-provoking, and most enjoyable play, and a worthy addition to the Tuttle ouvre. Only four performances remain, so get your tickets now!

-- Frank Thompson

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Tickets can be purchased online at Trustus.org , or by calling the Trustus Theatre box office on 803.254.9732

Remaining performance dates are:

Wednesday, August 22 – 7:30pm

Thursday, August 23 – 7:30pm

Friday, August 24 – 8:00pm

Saturday, August 25 – 8:00pm

Frank Thompson is the theatre editor for Jasper Magazine - contact him at flt31230@yahoo.com