"The Whipping Man" - Jillian Owens reviews the NiA Company/Off Off Lady Series production at the CMFA ArtSpace

At the end of the Civil War, a young Jewish soldier (Bobby Bloom) returns to his once-grand plantation in Virginia—now in ruins. The only remaining inhabitants of his childhood home are two of his former slaves, Simon (Darion McCloud) and John (Mario McClean), who were also raised as Jews in the DeLeon home. As they come together to celebrate Passover, secrets are revealed, alliances are severed and forged, and the meaning of freedom is explored.

As newly-free men, Simon and John are now left to discover how to fend for themselves when the only world they’ve known has crumbled around them. Simon, the older and gentler of the two, intends to stay on with the DeLeons as a servant—and to be well-paid for it.  John, wild with freedom, loots and ransacks the empty mansions around him.

“What’s all this?”

“Things.”

“Whose?”

“Mine now.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Own it.”

“Why?”

“Because I can.”

He plans on moving to New York City to make his fortune.  But do either of these men really see these dreams as possibilities, or are these just the stories they’ve told themselves in order to cope with the loneliness, hopelessness, and famine of their war-ravaged surroundings?

When Caleb returns in dire need of medical attention, questions of loyalty arise.  Why should Caleb expect the help from the men he used to own-- and even have whipped-- now that they are free?  It is possible for men of different races to truly be friends when one of the races has been repressed by the other?  How can one race with a history of being enslaved justify enslaving another?  As these men gather to literally break bread together, these questions are explored.  While it’s initially surprising to seeing two black men of Jewish faith in 1865, this isn’t all that strange for the time.  The tie-in to their observance of Passover, which commemorates the Exodus, is fitting, but it’s beaten to death (no pun intended) in this play. We get it.

Thankfully, Matthew Lopez’s script is deeper than this over-explored metaphor.  The secrets these three men share and keep from each other twist around them, chaining them to their ruined home.  While technically all “free” men, none of them can leave.  There is no emancipation from the sins of their pasts, and the sense of impending doom almost seems to play a fourth character in this play.

Darion McCloud delivers a beautiful performance as the kind and loyal Simon. You may be familiar with Mario McClean’s work as a local singer/musician. I would have liked to have seen a subtler take on the character of John, whose non-stop angry energy becomes more bombarding than moving at times. Bobby Bloom’s Caleb had a Southern accent that came and went and he yawned noticeably several times. Despite these distractions, Bloom’s performance was still powerful.

The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez is a great fit for the NiA Company, whose mission is to bring actors of all colors and cultures together.  As the “Where’s Waldo?” of the Columbia theatre community, it’s challenging to find some of their venues, but the CMFA Artspace houses this show nicely.  I recommend sitting a few rows back to overcome the sight line issues of a stage that is too high for the first couple of rows to see well.

Co-directed by Darion McCloud and Heather McCue, The Whipping Man is a thought-provoking story of shame, regret, faith, and redemption.

~ Jillian Owens

The Whipping Man runs through Friday, March 22 at the CMFA ArtSpace at 914 Pulaski Street. Curtain is at 7:30 PM, and tickets may be purchased at the door.

Jillian Owens reviews "Boeing-Boeing" at USC

Fasten your seatbelts…it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Some theatre is aimed at starting intellectual discourse and delving  into complex societal issues…but not this show. Theatre South Carolina’s Boeing-Boeing is a high-flying farce from the swinging sixties.  The decade isn’t the only thing that’s swinging.  Meet Bernard.  He has a bit of a thing for airline hostesses….three of them!  A connoisseur of international relations, he is engaged to a feisty American named Gloria, a sassy Italian named Gabriella, and an extremely romantic German named Gretchen.  Bernard has taken a Pan Am approach to polygamy by only dating stewardesses with conflicting flight schedules, using his book of airline timetables as his handy guide.

Of course none of his fiancées know about his philandering ways.  When the new Boeings are introduced as commercial aircrafts, layovers and flight times are reduced, leaving Bernard scrambling to keep his constantly rotating mini-harem under wraps.

Luckily, Bernard is not alone.  His saucy/exhausted maid, Berthe and his socially awkward college chum Robert do their best to help him hide his three little secrets…but will they be able to keep up the ruse before they collapse from exhaustion?   

Boeing-Boeing is no comedy masterpiece, but it is a very fun farce.  It was originally written for French audiences by Marc Camoletti, and later adapted for the London stage in 1962 (where it ran for seven years) by Beverly Cross.  In 1991, Boeing-Boeing was listed as the most performed French play in the world.  It even had recent Broadway revival in 2008, garnering a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.

This a solid, even if formulaic, buddy comedy.  You’ve seen this type of duo in dozens of movies before.  Bernard is the handsome and charming ladies’ man, while Robert is his clumsy wisecracking sidekick.  Trey Hobbs plays Bernard well, although it’s a rather one-dimensional character.  Josiah Laubenstein gets to have much more fun with the role of Robert, who gets some of the funniest lines and best bits of physical comedy in the show.  Josiah’s performance is reminiscent of Jerry Lewis (which makes sense—Boeing-Boeing was made into a film in 1965 starring Lewis and Tony Curtis). He’s charming, flirtatious, and likeable.  By the end of the show, you’ll want to hang out with Robert for a drink or two…but you won’t want to leave him alone with your girlfriend.

Let’s not forget the intensely well-traveled ladies of the show! Melissa Peters plays Gloria, the American with an accent and an appetite as large as the state of Texas.  Kate Dzvonik plays the domineering Italian who’s ready to settle down already, and Laurie Roberts steals the show as Gretchen, the hilariously aggressive German.  Bernard’s overemployed maid Berthe, played by Leeanna Rubin, does her best to keep the whole scheme together, but is most certainly not pleased about it.  It would be easy for a feminist to be offended by this show, as all of the women fall into ridiculous sexual stereotypes with absurd accents—but this is a farce.  Such things are to be expected.  Keep in mind the fellas end up being pretty ridiculous themselves.

All of the action takes place in Bernard’s swanky two-story flat.  When I first saw the set (designed by Meredith Paysinger), I immediately wanted to ask how much it would cost to rent it as my new dwelling.  It’s fabulous and perfect for the period.   The costumes (by Caitlin Moraska) are simple and fun.  The air hostesses each have their own unique and very form-flattering uniform, and the gents look nice and snappy.  USC has amazingly consistent high-quality sets, costumes, and lighting.  This show is no exception.

If you’re in the mood for a silly bit of escapism, Boeing-Boeing is what you’re looking for.  If not, don’t worry—King Lear is coming to USC in April.  Tragedy tomorrow…comedy tonight!

 ~ Jillian Owens

Boeing-Boeing, directed by Richard Jennings,  runs through March 2 at Longstreet Theatre. Show times are 8 pm Wednesdays-Fridays, 7 pm Saturdays and 3 pm on the first Sunday.  There is an additional half-price late night performance on Saturday, March 2 at 11pm.   Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors 60+, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30 pm-5:30 pm.

"The Motherf*%#er With the Hat" - August Krickel reviews the new Trustus show

"We're the theatre that curses and does nude shows," Trustus co-founder Jim Thigpen joked in the very first issue of Jasper. And how. The Mother*#%$er With the Hat features plenty of full frontal male and female nudity, liberal use of the title expletive along with its many cognates and derivatives, plus violence, and drug and alcohol abuse. Or, as an old roommate used to say, that's four-star entertainment right there for sure. Director Chad Henderson notes in the program that author Stephen Adly Guirgis chose the title as a disclaimer to signify the intensity of the subject matter, a sort of "let the buyer beware" warning so that the audience has no illusions as to the grittiness of the themes or dialogue.  That said, there is plenty of comedy, a few moments of tenderness and compassion, and a lot of insight into human nature, however dysfunctional and self-destructive that may be.  The play's five characters are low-lifes, addicts, ex-cons, alcoholics and/or scumbags, but thanks to the commitment of the performers, and some creativity from Henderson and scenic designer Kimi Maeda, we sort of kind of care about them, at times anyway.

Jackie (Alexis Casanovas) is newly paroled and newly sober; his AA sponsor Ralph (Shane Silman) now sells nutritional supplements instead of drugs, and has stayed sober for 16 years in spite of a tumultuous marriage to Victoria (Michelle Jacobs) whom he met, you guessed it, at a meeting. Jackie's cousin Julio (Joe Morales) has likewise channeled his energies into therapeutic massage and perfecting his recipe for the perfect empanada, but is ready to stash a handgun or channel his inner Van Damme in a rumble. Veronica (Raia Jane Hirsch) still uses, and may be cheating on Jackie with the titular character, who could just as easily be called "some dude who may be doing my girlfriend." Or Jackie may just be paranoid, and in need of a refresher course on the Twelve Steps.  All five actors believably flesh out these damaged characters as they navigate the choppy waters of recovery, relationships and betrayal. At one point, Silman and Casanovas are so intently arguing with each other that one gets the impression that they have forgotten the audience entirely, and instead just really want to win the argument, using the playwright's words. Equally impressive is the way that the actors bare their souls on stage while baring everything else, yet manage to stay in character, and never miss a beat. The dialogue is very honest, which again explains the play's title, since people use the term so frequently these days, especially in the sub-culture we see depicted here.

Guirgis has a way of relaying fairly profound thoughts and ideas via the natural cadences of simple and ineloquent people. At some level, all the characters realize how badly they have messed up their own lives, and how tenuous their grasp on stability is. Yet "the space between who you are, and who you think you are, is pretty wide," as Cousin Julio tells Jackie - cautionary words for us all. Morales, deadpan as Julio, provides most of the wisdom in the first act, which is in many ways a comedy, although one peopled with sad, tragic figures. The second act is more of a serious drama, although full of hilarious lines, most spoken by Julio.  Guirgis once worked on an episode of The Sopranos (as did two of the original Broadway cast, including the original Victoria, Annabella Sciorra, aka Tony's crazy goomah Gloria Trillo.) Before I spotted that in the program, I leaned over to my friend and whispered "Tell me this isn't Christopher and Adriana," the similarly struggling and clueless addicts from that series.   "What are we, Europeans?  I'm from the neighborhood," Jackie protests when faced with a difficult choice. There are a number of modern playwrights who use the natural rhythms of common urban speech to depict "real" life in the big city, including David Mamet, Martin McDonagh, and Neil LaBute, all performed by Trustus over the years.  In fact, this work could almost be reasons to be pretty, Pt. 2, if that LaBute play had focused on losers and substance abusers. Directed a few years ago by Henderson, reasons featured similar themes of commitment and infidelity, similar challenges of growing up and getting serious about life, similar blunt language, similar argument and fight scenes, and similar scene transitions.

Speaking of those transitions, I griped and moaned like a...well, like the title of this play, over another recent production where the actors did choreographed actions as the scenes changed. Here, it works perfectly, and indeed enhances the material. Henderson keeps his cast in character, or stylized versions of their characters, as they act out brief, pantomimed representations or summaries of what they are feeling. Sure, it keeps the action and pace flowing while the cast and stagehands change the scenery, but the mini-vignettes work quite well on their own. Nowhere is it better, or more appropriate, than when Hirsch sees the walls literally and figuratively closing in on her, and rushes to push back in vain.  Kimi Maeda's scenic design is created with an artist's eye, and incorporates three revolving, triangular set pieces, each forming part of the interior of three apartments.  Anything the actors need to touch - a chair, a door, a table, even a boom box - is physically present on stage, while everything else - a window, a lamp, the headboard of a bed - is painted onto the colorful walls with simple, broad strokes. Henderson mentioned the cartoon-like echoes of artists like Roy Lichtenstein in his interview with Jasper, but I was actually reminded of the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, and of local artist Page Morris, who coincidentally was featured in an exhibition just a couple of blocks down Lady Street from the theatre during opening weekend.    .

As I have written previously, back in the day Trustus used to do shows like this all the time: controversial, raw, edgy, unknown outside of New York, and featuring crazy titles. In fact, I found myself mentally casting this c. 1990, with Firdous Bamji and Erin Thigpen in the leads, and maybe Linda Pollitt and George Altman (or Jayce Tromsness) as Victoria and Ralph.  Here, there isn't a lot of controversy per se, apart from, well, OK, the title, the language, and the nudity. The themes are relatively straightforward, with no message beyond acknowledgement of humanity's flaws, and how we all have to strive to overcome those to get through one day at a time, even if we occasionally act like idiots and jeopardize it all. Consider yourself warned, or encouraged to see the show, depending on how much you enjoy challenging material, and how willing you are to laugh at the disturbing absurdities of human existence.

The Mother*#%$er With the Hat runs through Sat. Feb. 23rd; contact the box office at 803-254-9732 for ticket information.

~ August Krickel

An Ode to Toad, and a Dialogue with Frog: "A Year with Frog and Toad" - a Ribbiting Production at Columbia Children’s Theatre! Plus: the return of celebrity guest blogger Kat Bjorn (age 5)

If you only have time to read the first paragraph, let me make this simple:  unless you are the bride and groom in a wedding, or have the misfortune of attending your own funeral these next two weekends, move whatever scheduling mountains you must — no matter your age — to attend A Year with Frog and Toad at Columbia Children’s Theatre. Frog and Toad are sacred characters who define our contemporary storytelling selves, not just for children, but for parents and anyone else who later in life relearns the critical import of children’s tales.  Arnold Lobel’s kinetic Frog and sourpuss Toad, and their whimsical, parable adventures, have become for millions of readers a canonical definition of storybook friendship — perhaps no less important than Gilgamesh and Enkidu, only with a wee biteen more emphasis on tea and cookies.

Thus, one has to imagine that any children’s theatre approaches the staging of the groundbreaking 2003 musical adaptation of nine priceless vignettes from Lobel’s four Frog and Toad books with the gravitas of a classical company staging King Lear.  (For those unaware, the musical, commissioned by Lobel’s daughter, cracked the mainstream Broadway barrier after initial successful runs in Minneapolis and Off-Broadway.)  Indeed, this production was enough to draw Artistic Director Jerry Stevenson out from under the lily pads and onto the stage for his first main role since co-founding Columbia Children’s Theatre.  This alone is cause for celebration, as Stevenson nails every warty jot and tittle of Toad’s reluctant, crepe-hanger personality.  Given the adult audience members’ uniform delight in Stevenson’s performance, one sincerely hopes that he will consider lending his comedic and singing talents to other roles about town in the years to come.

One simply cannot heap enough praise onto the entire cast and crew for possibly pulling off the best children’s show in the history of our famously hot town, and the show I have most enjoyed attending since the legendary production of Ragtime at Workshop nearly a decade ago.  I still feel the warmth of theatrical mirth hours after the curtains closed, and I am sincerely jealous that my daughter, Kat (see interview with cast below), will have the opportunity to attend a second performance with her school next week.

Of particular thespian note, one must congratulate veteran children’s theatre actor Lee O. Smith for a frolicking, amphibian performance as Frog that seems to have been plucked from a Bing Crosby/Bob Hope “Road to” film.  Also, Elizabeth Stepp again demonstrates requisite talent in anthropomorphic animal roles, in particular as the crocheted-Mohawk Lizard; she brings such animation to her characters that at times one finds her nearly a full time zone ahead of anyone else on stage.  Finally, Paul Lindley II and his crisp voice nearly bring the show to a halt — literally — as the postal-laden Snail, who, inch by inch throughout, ties together all of the separate narrative threads.

While the Columbia Children’s Theatre stage itself may be humble (yet deserving of ‘amphi’-theatrical size), the company’s creative team really has outdone itself.  Jim Litzinger’s daisy-and-cattail, woodsy stage truly brings the storybook backdrop to life.  But the success of any show with animal characters hangs in the creative balance of its costumes, and the team of Stevenson and Donna Harvey seems to have raided with abandon Plato’s World of Forms for an abundance of imaginative ideas, from Frog and Toad’s outrageous argyle socks, to Turtle’s straw hat shell, to the umbrella puppets in the ghost story vignette, “Shivers.”  Then there’s Toad’s bathing suit, which out of respect for his metamorphic modesty, I shan’t discuss.

One final shout out is deserving of local face-painting artist, Sarah Dippity, who donated her time on opening night to turning dozens of kiddy faces into a colorful collage of butterflies, Darth Mauls, princesses, and Iron Man masks.

A reviewer knows that he cannot cash the following chip lightly:  I really cannot think of a time I have enjoyed myself more in a Columbia theatre.  More importantly, I know that my five-year-old daughter and dozens of other children on Friday night felt precisely the same way.

One final word:  Go.  Or as Snail might put it:  Escargot.

~ Arik Bjorn

Kat Bjorn’s Interview with Frog & Toad

KB:  Why is it “frog and toad” and not “toad and frog”?

Toad:  Alphabetical order.  I’m pretty sure “F” comes before “T.”

[cast sings “the alphabet song” in somewhat accurate fashion—amazingly so, in fact, for a group of minimally-educated woodland creatures.]

KB:  I picked up a toad once, and it felt lumpy-bumpy.  Toad, are you lumpy-bumpy?

Toad:  Definitely.  Definitely lumpy-bumpy.

KB:  How did you come up with your Frog voice and your Toad voice?

Toad:  That is my default Cowardly Lion voice.

Frog:  I obsessively watched the TV show “Frasier.”

KB:  [coughs]  What’s it like to be amphibians?

Toad:  It’s very convenient when traveling.

Frog:  Absolutely.  Over land and water.  Very handy.

KB:  In the story “Cookies,” we don’t know what kind of cookies they are.  Are they bug and fly cookies?

Bird:  The song is very clear.  They are Marvelous Cookies.

Snail:  With a touch of honeysuckle nectar, I think.

Lizard:  And mealworms.  Ooh, yeah.  Yum, yum.  Mealworms.

KB:  That is disgusting.  Next question.  In the story “Spring,” why did Frog trick Toad with the calendar pages?

Frog:  What?!  I didn’t trick him!

KB:  [coughs; clears throat]  Yes you did!  And you threw it in the fireplace!

Toad:  You tricked me, Frog?!  You owe me a calendar.  I’m not speaking to you again.

KB:  In the story “A Swim,” how does a turtle sound when it laughs?  Turtles don’t make sounds!

[cast is stumped.  sound of non-equity crickets.]

KB:  In the story “The Letter,” why didn’t Frog just deliver the letter himself instead of giving it to Snail?

Toad:  We were in desperate need of an 11 o’clock number.

Snail:  And I delivered!

KB:  [coughs]  Last question.  Have Frog and Toad known each other since they were tadpoles?

Toad:  [points to a portrait on the wall]  We’re related, actually.  Those are our ancestors in the painting “American Frog-thic.”

Frog:  Say, that’s quite the cough you have there, kid.

KB:  I know.  I have a frog in my throat.

Frog and Toad runs February 8-17 with performances at the following dates and time:  Friday, February 8 at 7 p.m.; Saturday, February 9 at 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; Sunday, February 10 at 3 p.m.; Friday, February 15 at 7:00 p.m.; Saturday, February 16 at 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m. & 7 p.m.; and Sunday, February 17 at 3 p.m.  Tickets are $8 for adult and children 3 and up.  The Columbia Children’s Theatre is located at the Second Level of Richland Mall, 3400 Forest Drive (corner of Beltline and Forest Drive).  Enter the Second Level parking garage walkway and park in Level 2-L for easy access.  Call 691.4548 for more information or to reserve tickets for groups of 10 or more.  To learn more about Columbia Children’s Theatre , visit http://columbiachildrenstheatre.com/ .

Marauding Zombies, Playful Amphibians, and That Mofo With the Hat - What to See on Stage This Weekend

George Romero's low-budget, cult hit from 1968, Night of the Living Dead, was the granddaddy of all modern zombie stories. Zombies had been around before, but were usually depicted as corpses animated by some controlling voodoo master. Romero took the basic idea of hordes of the undead from Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, made them less vampires and more corpse-like, yet still eager to chomp your flesh and turn you into one of them, and his world-view of a zombie apocalypse took off, influencing everything from the Resident Evil and Silent Hill video games, to director John Landis's classic video for the Michael Jackson song "Thriller," to the current hit comic book and cable tv series The Walking Dead. We're still fond of this exchange from the Joss Whedon-produced series Angel, written by Steven S. DeKnight (now the show-runner for Spartacus) : CONNOR (Angel's mortal son, who hates him): He looks dead.

ANGEL (the "good" vampire with a soul) : He is dead. Technically, it's undead. It's a zombie.

CONNOR: What's a zombie?

ANGEL: It's an undead thing.

CONNOR: Like you?

ANGEL: No, zombies are slow-moving, dimwitted things that crave human flesh.

CONNOR: Like you.

ANGEL: No! It's different. Trust me.

Zombies are all the rage in Columbia too, with an annual Zombie Walk (Crawl? Lurch?) each Hallowe'en. High Voltage Theatre is currently producing a stage adaptation of the original Romero film, running this weekend and the next, Friday and Saturday nights, through Sat. Feb. 15th, at the Tapp's Art Center on Main Street. For information or reservations, call: 803-754-5244. And you can read a review at the Free Times.

Over at Richland Mall in Forest Acres, Columbia Children's Theatre is opening their new production of A Year With Frog and Toad, the Tony-nominated (seriously!) musical by Robert and Willie Reale, based on Arnold Lobel's series of children's books. The cast includes local favorites such as Jerry Stevenson, Lee O. Smith, Bobby Bloom, Sara Jackson, Paul Lindley II (doubling as musical director) Toni Moore, and Elizabeth Stepp (who also choreographs.)

From press material:

Arnold Lobel's well-loved characters hop from the page to the stage in A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD, the Theatre of Young Audiences version of Tony-nominated musical. This whimsical show follows two great friends -- the cheerful, popular Frog and the rather grumpy Toad -- through four, fun-filled seasons. Waking from hibernation in the Spring, Frog and Toad plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, go sledding, and learn life lessons along the way. The two best friends celebrate and rejoice in their differences that make them unique and special. Part vaudeville, part make believe, all charm, A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD tells the story of a friendship that endures, weathering all seasons.

The show runs through Sun. Feb. 17th; contact the box office at (803) 691-4548 for information.

Meanwhile, down in the Vista, Trustus Theatre opens Stephen Adly Guirgis's The Motherf@*#&er With the Hat, directed by Chad Henderson, with a score by Preach Jacobs, scenic design by Kimi Maeda, and featuring Alexis Casanovas, Shane Silman, Raia Jane Hirsch, Michelle Jacobs, and Joe Morales.

From press material:

ADULTS ONLY PLEASE: language, nudity, sexual situations, & violence

"This sexy and modern show was nominated for Tony Awards, Drama League Awards, Outer Critics Circle Awards, and Drama Desk Awards – TRUST US, it’s more than the title that’s provocative about this show."

Struggles with addiction, friendship, love and the challenges of adulthood are at the center of the story. Jackie, a petty drug dealer, is just out of prison and trying to stay clean. He's also still in love with his coke-addicted childhood sweetheart, Veronica. Ralph D. is Jackie's too-smooth, slightly slippery sponsor. He's married to the bitter and disaffected Victoria, who, by the way, has the hots for Jackie. And then there's Julio, Jackie's cousin … a stand-up, "stand by me" kind of guy. However, when Jackie comes home with flowers to find a strange man’s hat by his and Veronica’s bed, these characters careen forward as Jackie goes in search of the hat’s owner. What follows is an examination of trust, lust, loyalty, and true love.

You can read an interview with director Chad Henderson here.  Contact the box office at (803) 254-9732 for ticket information.

A Poor Man’s Götterdämmerung (God bless you!) or Everything You Ever Needed to Know About Wagner from Fools in Thule - Arik Bjorn reviews Das Barbecü

  Somebody somewhere - probably with the encouragement of a little Schnapps - declared 2013 “The Year of Richard Wagner.”  And this wasn’t even an article in The Onion.  For this reason, opera companies and classical orchestras the world over have been scrambling to place the greatest of German composers on their season schedules.  This includes Opera at USC, which for its part has chosen to bless our community with a three-night performance beginning Friday, February 1, of Das Barbecü, a best-lil’-Ragnarök-in-Texas reworking of the fourth opera of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Götterdammerüng.

There are more than a handful of Wagner enthusiasts none too pleased to witness the canonical characters Siegfried and Brünnhilde hogtied and dragged to a dusty, smokehouse world of armadillos and Dallas pompadours.  (For this we can credit Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins, who commissioned the work in 1991 in order “to counteract the heaviness of the Ring.”)  Then again, those who find Das Barbecü an irreverent toying with Wagner’s Ring Cycle might themselves wonder how the immortals of Asgard felt when Wagner lifted and rearranged so many elements from the Norse Eddas.  Stick that in your Texas crude and smoke it, Herr Komponist.

When asked why she chose this of all possible Wagner (or quasi-Wagner) showcases, director Ellen Schlaefer (also the director of Opera at USC) admits that “it’s fun and midwinter.”  She pauses to consider the fact that a Columbia winter does not exactly threaten the leaves of Yggdrasil with hoarfrost.  She explains that USC opera students have their own matriculating cycle:  during the course of their studies, students get performance shots at a Mozart opera, an operetta, and a musical.  (Over this year, community members have the opportunity to see Opera at USC perform Copland’s The Tender Land, the baseball opera Bambino, and Don Giovanni.)  Thus, the planets were simply aligned to fit into the worldwide Wagner celebration with a fun musical.

Schlaefer also notes that it is not necessary to know Wagner’s Ring Cycle in order to enjoy the performance.  While that is the case, to my mind, it actually works the other way around.  Das Barbecü could become the quintessential Wagner primer for 21st-century theatregoers.  After all, Götterdämmerung is not the easiest tale to follow, especially if you do not have the time to read the complete works of Snorri, nor to learn German.  There are Norns, rings of fire, various personages from Valhalla, plus two fairytale lovers Siegfried and Brünnhilde.  Oh, and there’s a Ring of Power which every character seems determined to possess - yet instead of a Gollum, there is a sniveling, greedy dwarf named Alberich.  In fact, what audience members quickly realize is there are more characters in this tumbleweed plot than you can shake a horny toad at — yet only a handful of actors.  For the innumerable costume and character transitions, the cast, led by long-time Columbia musical veteran Stann Gwynn (as Wotan, Gunther, et al.) and USC student Jared Ice (as Siegfried, Dwarf, et al), plus stage manager Kaley Smith, are due copious accolades.

The show is replete with just about every honkytonk stereotype in the book, including requisite songs about guacamole and hails to the great Lone Star State.  About halfway through the performance, the thought dawned on me that perhaps every literary stage epic should be rewritten with a Texas backdrop.  I would love to see Les Mis with a storming of the UT-Austin bell tower, or Tevye in a ten-gallon hat.

Truly deserving of praise is scenic designer Teddy Moore, who has turned the stage of Drayton Hall into a sprawling, ocher, bourbon bottle label, with cartoonesque backdrops and set pieces that play like candy to the eye during scene changes.  Equally pleasant are the splendid singing voices of the quartet of female actresses, Shelby Sessler, Christa Hiatt, Stephanie Beinlich, and Jordan Harper (Brünnhilde), as well as the live musical student performances directed and joined by USC faculty member Rebecca Phillips.  A final note of thespian praise goes to the aforementioned Ice, who plays the entire role as Alberich the Dwarf in a bent-knee-catcher position, which left my 40-year-old knees wincing all night long.

Asgard & Co. do not make rounds to Columbia very often.  I highly recommend a trip to the USC campus this weekend for a Lone Star/Valhalla hoedown.  You will laugh to beat the barbecue band, and then can brag to all your friends that you too participated in the great Global Wagner-Fest of 2013.

Das Barbecü runs February 1-3 at Drayton Hall on the University of South Carolina campus.  Drayton Hall is located at the corner of Greene and Bull Streets.  The February 1 and 2 performances are at 7:30 p.m.  The February 3 performance is at 3:00 p.m.  Performances are $5 for students, $15 for seniors/USC faculty & staff/military, and $20 for other adults.  For tickets, please call:  803.777.5369.  To learn more about Opera at USC, visit them on Facebook.

~ Arik Bjorn

Barefoot in the Park, Night of the Living Dead, Das Barbecu running this weekend!

Neil Simon's classic Barefoot in the Park runs another weekend at the Village Square Theatre in Lexington, this Friday, February 1st through Sunday, February 3rd. From press material:  Paul and Corie Bratter appear as different as they can be.  He's a straight-as-an-arrow lawyer, and she's a free spirit always looking for the latest kick. Their new apartment is her most recent find:  too expensive with bad plumbing and in need of a paint job. After a six-day honeymoon, they get a surprise visit from Corie's loopy mother, and decide to play matchmaker during a dinner with their neighbor-in-the-attic Velasco, where everything that can go wrong, does. Paul just doesn't understand Corie, as she sees it. He's too staid, too boring, and she just wants him to be a little more spontaneous, running "barefoot in the park" would be a start.

The show features the talents of Rachel Goerss as Corie Bratter, Michael Hazin as Paul Bratter, Gina Calvert as mother-in-law Ethel Banks, Dennis Kacsur as their eccentric neighbor Victor Valasco.  Harrison Ayer and Steven Nessel complete the cast.   For more information or tickets, contact the box office at (803) 359-1436.

Opening downtown on Main Street in the Tapp's Art Center on Friday, Feb. 1st is Night of the Living Dead, based on the 1968 film by George Romero.  From press material:  High Voltage Theatre, the Southeast’s premiere performance company dedicated to presenting classic and modern horror on stage, brings to Columbia the granddaddy of all zombie stories! The play is adapted and directed by Chris Cook and features Hollywood-level special FX make-up, stage combat,  firearms, and hordes of man-eating zombies! A true classic of American cinema is now the hottest theatrical event in Columbia of 2013! Reviving the edgy, off-beat, Chicago-style theatre that put High Voltage on the Midlands map in 2002.

Night of the Living Dead promises to shock, thrill, chill, and excite audiences currently on a steady diet of The Walking Dead. Yes, "We're coming to get you, Columbia!"

For reservations please call: 803-754-5244

Tickets: $15 per person

8 PM curtain for all the performances at the Fountain Room in the bottom of Tapp's Art Center.

Runs: Friday and Saturday February 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th, 15th and 16th!

Starring: (In order of appearance)

Mary Miles as "Barbara" Harrison Ayer/ Michael Layer as "Johnny" Marques Moore as "Ben" Chris Cook as "Harry Cooper" Jenna Sach as "Judy" Evelyn Clary as "Helen Cooper" Mazie Cook as "Karen"

Meanwhile, over on campus, Opera at USC presents: Das Barbecu by Jim Luigs and Scott Warrender on Friday, February 1st and Saturday, February 2nd at 7:30 PM, and Sunday February 3rd at 5:30 PM, at Drayton Hall.    "A re-telling of Wagner's Ring Cycle. This time set in Texas.”

Featuring Jared Ice (recently seen as Don Giovanni) Jasper Theatre Artist of the Year Finalist Shelby Sessler, Jordan Harper, Stephanie Beinlich (recently seen as Cendrillion) Stann Gwynn (recently seen as George in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf") and Christa Hiatt.

$5 - Students $15 - Seniors/ USC Faculty & Staff/ Military $20 - Adults

FOR TICKETS CALL (803) 777-5369

Rebecca Phillips, Conductor Ellen Schlaefer, Director Lynn Kompass, Musical Preparation Anna Dragoni, choreographer Teddy Moore, scenic designer Chet Longley, lighting designer

Memorable Theatre Moments from 2012 - August Krickel's picks

This time last year, on a lark, I put together a stream-of-consciousness recollection of some things I had enjoyed on stage over the preceding year.  Would you believe - we set a new record for site visits with that blog post!  Sure, sure, the site and blog were still young, and most of it was folks logging in to see if they were mentioned or not, but still, it showed everyone involved that there is significant interest in theatre among the greater Columbia arts community.  As I wrote at the time, "theatre for me is sometimes not about the final product, but rather individual moments that move me, make me smile, or stay with me long after the show is done."  This year I have been fortunate to see most of the shows at the main theatres in downtown Columbia:  7 of 8 done on the Thigpen Mainstage (plus a late-night show) at Trustus, 3 of the 5 done at the Trustus Side Door, 5 of 6 at both Town and Workshop, plus a couple at Columbia Children's Theatre.  That's 23 freakin' shows, which sadly means that I didn't have time to see any at the many excellent theatres and venues on campuses and in the suburbs.  So with that disclaimer, I give you the best, funniest, and most memorable theatre moments for me from 2012: - the opening image as the curtain rose in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels at Town Theatre, with dancers frozen in exotic poses. In particular, Haley Sprankle, Grace Fanning and Becky Combs were draped over their partners with extension that went from here to the moon, and it perfectly captured the look and feel of the carefree and free-spirited Riviera setting.

- Doug Gleason in Scoundrels, goofing and camping it up shamelessly, then breaking into song with the voice of an angel, not a buffoon.  In my review, I wrote that he reminded me of the young Bill Canaday, a gifted comic actor now happily retired from the state and (at least temporarily) the stage. Several people mentioned to the real Bill that they saw his name in a theatre review, and he laughed and later told me that this was like the actor's nightmare - was he supposed to have been in a show somewhere?  Did he miss his entrance?

- Elizabeth Stepp as a huffy, haughty insect, miffed over being shooed away in Pinkalicious at Columbia Children's Theatre.  Lindsay Brasington, vamping and cooing for the press as she imagined being the first doctor to diagnose acute "pinkititis." George Dinsmore, dramatically confessing to his wife after all these years, his dark secret that he too secretly had a fondness...for the color ....pink.  (At which point Sumner Bender leaned over and whispered to me "But they named their daughter ... Pinkalicious?"

- Shelby Sessler's tour-de-force as three separate and distinct characters in Alfred

Hitchcock’s 39 Steps at Town.  Only a couple of weeks after portraying the titular tyke in Pinkalicious above,  she played a va-va-voomish German femme fatale,  a forlorn Scottish farm wife, and a proper yet spunky yet romantic British lady. As the German she somehow managed to not only play dead, but to feign rigor mortis, stretched out over an armchair... I still don't know how she managed it.  As the lady, she and her castmates mimed all the effects to convey a train speeding down the tracks.... and if you looked down, very subtly her hand was fanning the hem of her skirt back and forth to add the effect of wind.  Not surprisingly, she was one of three finalists for Jasper Theatre Artist of the Year, and organized the entertainment for the November issue release party at City Art.

- Avery Bateman and Kanika Moore playing multiple roles in Passing Strange at Trustus.  Bateman cracked me up as a materialistic princess-type whose life with hero Mario McClean was pre-planned within about 5 seconds; then she and Moore turn up as Dutch girls, then Germans. "Have a conversation vit' ze hand," Moore declares, almost getting American slang right. Even music director Tom Beard got a line in on stage, rising in outrage, when the cynical German nihilist characters dismiss the punk movement as commercialism, to protest "What about The Clash, man???"    Also loved the vivid colors that symbolized the free-spirited European setting of Passing Strange, provided via original paintings from ten local artists, and director Chad Henderson's always-moving, never-a-dull-moment, no-one-wasted-on-stage  blocking.  (And sure enough, Henderson was voted Theatre Artist of the Year by Jasper readers!)

- Randy Strange's lush, opulent, plantation-interior set for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Workshop Theatre. There was something to take everyone's breath away in this classic show, from Jason Stokes in a towel, to E.G. Heard (and on alternating nights, Samantha Elkins) in a negligee. Ironically, the beautiful and talented Heard teaches theatre at my old high school, while the equally lovely and gifted Elkins teaches drama at the one I was zoned for. I seem to recall my old theatre teacher was nicknamed "Sasquatch" - my how times have changed!

- G. Scott Wild utilizing the teeny Side Door Theatre space at Trustus more efficiently and realistically than I had ever seen before, with his set design for A Behanding in Spokane. The entire show takes place in a hotel room, and Wild wisely used every single

inch of available space, including the main entrance into the theatre as the room's only door, complete with deadbolt and peephole.  And Wild himself, perfectly capturing a world-weary, frustrated (possible) serial killer, then seamlessly segueing into the character's actual nature: a world-weary, frustrated, hen-pecked nebbish.  When you meet him, you realize Wild is quite young, but with little make-up and primarily mannerisms, he effectively embodied a character 20+ years older than he. Christopher Walken played this role in New York, but I somehow suspect that Walken played Walken, while Wild embodied and fleshed out the character.

- Also, in Spokane, Elisabeth Smith Baker embraced a challenging character role.   In my review, I wrote that she somehow managed "to be pathetic and sympathetic, winsome and adorable in a skanky sort of way, vulnerable, crafty and resourceful, yet sometimes just dumb as a post. She has some nice moments of physical comedy that would make Lucille Ball proud.   At one point she makes a quite logical decision to try to charm her way out of a life and death situation, yet her effort is so obviously contrived that only an idiot would fall for it... and of course, one does."

- Sumner Bender and Ellen Rodillo-Fowler, both getting a chance to sink their teeth substantial roles in In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play at Trustus.  Color-blind casting is always a tricky challenge, and Bender and her infant's wet nurse need to be white and black respectively, because of specifics in the script, but Rodillo-Fowler played another society lady, and peer to Bender.  Was she perhaps the mixed-heritage daughter of a prominent admiral or missionary? Could she have simply been adopted, and raised in starchy whitebread Victorian society?  Or was she (as my spirit-guide Dr. Moreau suggested) a Native American? Most importantly, it didn't matter.

- Vibrator also featured the return of Steve Harley, not seen enough on local stages in recent years. I got some mileage out of this line of his:  "Hysteria is very rare in men, but then he is an artist.” The artist referenced was played by Daniel Gainey, one of a number of gifted young actors who seemingly came out of nowhere to captivate local audiences. (See Wild and Gleeson above, and Andy Bell below; with Gainey, "nowhere" was actually many roles in opera and operatic musical theatre.)

- Speaking of Gleeson, he played a vastly different type in Andrew Lippa's Wild Party at Workshop, still a clown, but a scary one. The extreme physicality of some of the choreography was impressive, as were his scenes with Giulia Marie Dalbec (his leading lady in Scoundrels above, but more on her in a moment.) Also in the cast as part of the ensemble was Grace Fanning, as an underage party girl in the Roaring 20's. At one point the lyrics describe each "type" as they enter: a dancer, a producer, a madam, a boxer, and.... as Fanning sashays in, anticipating something like "a flapper," "a beauty," "a vamp" .... all she gets is: "a minor." The look of shock and outrage on her face was priceless, a combo of "I'm busted!" and "Is that all I get?"

- the strong supporting cast in Grease at Town, finally getting to sing all their best songs. The film version cut out a lot of the 50's do-wop homages, and focused on Sandy and Danny.  Here, Sirena Dib got to break hearts with "Freddy My Lo-ove," and Patrick

Dodds (still sporting his high hair from Spring Awakening) not only got a chance to smile on stage, but rocked out with "Those Magic Changes," two of my favorite songs of all time. Hunter Bolton reclaimed Kenickie's "Greased Lightning" (complete with the original lyrics describing exactly what sort of wagon it is) while Jenny Morse and Mark Zeigler beautifully harmonized in "Mooning," a song I had forgotten entirely. Leandra Ellis-Gaston got to drop the (Italian) F-bomb on Town Theatre's stage (it's just the seemingly meaningless "fangu," but it means the same thing) and was another example of how color-blind casting rarely hurts

anything.  Sure, the script calls for Rizzo to be Italian, but who's to say her dad wasn't progressive, and married an African-American?  Dodds also got some incredible moments of physical comedy with Haley Sprankle, as he tries to match her, move for move, at the prom.

Elizabeth Stepp, a gifted comedienne, literally throwing herself into each scene with abandon, as a beautiful Cinderella (at Columbia Children's Theatre) who still managed to get plenty of laughs.

- Gerald Floyd's increasing frustration with life after death in Almost An Evening (at the Trustus Side Door) navigating obstacles that ran from a maddeningly matter-of-fact receptionist (Vicky Saye Henderson, another Theatre Artist of the Year finalist) to a smooth-talking, winking bureaucrat (Jason Stokes.) Followed by his sympathetic portrayal of a grieving Texas father, in his scene with Kendrick Marion, playing against type as a stuffy, repressed government operative.

- the graphic puppet sex and nudity in Avenue Q at Trustus. And Kevin Bush hastily inventing his girlfriend Alberta...from ...um... Vancouver...in Canada.  And Katie Leitner voicing and manipulating two very different-sounding characters, Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut, with the aid of Elisabeth Smith Baker, who voiced plenty of others too, including one of the Bad Idea Bears. "Important day at work tomorrow?  Let's do some shots!"

- the commitment by director Shannon Willis Scruggs and costumer Lori Stepp to go all the way into the absurd in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Town.  The musical numbers are pastiches of various styles (country, rockabilly, calypso, etc.) and here, almost like a live cartoon, the cast morphed quickly into Frenchmen with berets, cheerleaders with pom-poms, you name it. Frank Thompson as the King, baby, i.e. an Elvis-style Pharaoh, was particularly amusing.  James Harley noted in his review that "some of the show’s best energy comes from deep within the ensemble, Charlie Goodrich leading the way with 100% commitment to every movement he makes on stage."  There were dozens of people on stage at any given time, so I made a point to look for Goodrich within each number, and sure enough, whether or not he had any lines, he was always the best at reacting appropriately to whatever was going on.  And conceiving the "hairy Midianites" as members of ZZ Top was just inspired.

- Katie Foshee, who has enlivened the ensembles of about a hundred musicals in recent years, stepping into (and owning) the lead role in Camp Rock - The Musical at Workshop.  Avery Herndon and Alex Webster too were adorable as they as they succumbed to puppy-love-at-first sight, and Kathryn Reddic made a great mean girl.  From her bio, Reddic would have had Linda Khoury for drama in high school, meaning that she is well-versed in Shakespeare, and as a current English major at Vanderbilt she is surely immersed in Shelley and Keats, Joyce and Yeats, Chekhov and Strindberg, yet she rocked out like Beyonce in some complex hip-hop dance numbers.  Commodore girls represent, y'all.

- James Harley back on stage in Palace of the Moorish Kings at Trustus, under-playing a complex character who wasn't given a lot of lines or movement. Silence can sometimes speak volumes, and Harley had some great moments where he started to say something... then words failed him, and the point was nevertheless made.  But he did get a few memorable lines as a member of the "greatest generation," who never felt entirely comfortable as being seen as a hero, since he never killed anyone, never did anything heroic, and only served after being drafted.

- Elisabeth Smith Baker (yet again!) so sweet and natural in Next to Normal at Trustus.  And the show's big "reveal," which fooled me entirely, even though I more or less was familiar with the plot.  Andy Bell made a great transition from musician to actor/singer on stage, and the entire cast distinguished themselves as professionally as if they were the original cast on Broadway. The set too (by Danny Harrington, with input from Chad Henderson) showed how even the big-name New York shows are going for simple, stylized, low-cost sets these days, which often work better than trying to achieve realism.

- Giulia Marie Dalbec dominating the year with not one but four bravura performances.  While she has played countless roles as vixens, ingénues, or someone'sgirlfriend or daughter, Dalbec made her mark as a name-brand lead in Scoundrels and Wild Party (above) and as Elle in Legally Blonde at Workshop. The word that immediately comes to mind to describe her on stage now is "confident" - and with that confidence, she bravely took on the role of the meek Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (also at Workshop) and nailed that one too.  Half the time Honey was drunk, or passed out, or ignored by everyone else, but Dalbec was always engaged in believable action and movements, however subtle.

- Robert Michalski's swaggering cameo as a UPS delivery guy in Blonde; I don't think I've ever seen a performer simply walk across a stage and then through the audience and get such a big laugh.  As I wrote at the time, he definitely had a package, and was determined to deliver it.

- Elena Martinez-Vidal's characterization (complete with New England accent) of Martha (in Virginia Woolf) as an aging Snookie, the college president's scandalous daughter who bluffs her way through academia via booze, sex, humor and bravado.

- Paul Kaufmann playing 35 different characters in I Am My Own Wife at the Trustus Side Door. Clad for most of the time in a dress!  The main figure was an East German "tranny granny" who may or may not have been a pioneering cultural historian, a murderer, an informer for the secret police, and/or a courageous activist and supporter of the oppressed gay community in Berlin.  After a while you got used to most of the various German and American "voices" ...and out of the blue, he's also a crisp Anglo-Indian reporter called Pradeep Gupta, with the perfect, smooth, musical lilt to his voice that you'd expect.  And this was a week after playing the male lead in Next to Normal !

- the striking, sunset-hued panels that comprised most of the set for Next Fall at Trustus. And the banter between G. Scott Wild and Jason Stokes (both yet again!) as mismatched lovebirds who just happen to be guys.  And the odd (but probably fairly common) paradox of fundamentalist Christian characters as they try to rationalize their own "sinful" lifestyle, especially as detailed by Bobby Bloom.

- Abigail Smith Ludwig, conveying the flowing, soft, lyrical beauty of German syllables and consonants in a  disgruntled rendition of "O Tannenbaum" in Winter Wonderettes at Town. And Alexa Cotran, yet another remarkable discovery, a very young performer who matched her older castmates note for note, scene for scene. Cotran bears a striking resemblance to my first grade teacher, who had that exact same huge 1960's hairdo, perfectly coiffed here by Cherelle Guyton, who was responsible for most of the good-looking hair in the shows mentioned above.

- the wonderful cast of [title of show] at Trustus in just about every moment on stage. Laurel Posey recounting her recurring lead role as "corporate whore," and Robin Gottlieb segueing from a cute number on secondary characters into Aerosmith were especially funny, but somehow the genuine moments in this little show touched me as few usually do.  "Who says four chairs and a keyboard can’t make a musical?  We’re enough with only that keyboard - we’re okay with only four chairs. We’ll be fine with only four chairs - we’ll rock hard with only four chairs!"  That sort of do-it-yourself mentality and optimism can be applied to so many things in life, as can their conclusion that it's better to be "nine people's favorite thing, than a hundred people's ninth favorite thing."  Score one vote for the rice crispy treats, as this was far and away my favorite show of the year.

- the actual do-it-yourself production of Plan 9 from Outer Space - Live and Undead 2.0 presented at Trustus, but essentially cobbled together on a shoe-string six months earlier at Tapp's Art Center.  Thanks to enlisting the aid of some of Columbia's finest actors, the show almost became a real play, even though the basic idea was to do a tongue-in-cheek spoof of what many feel is the worst movie ever made. So many of the cast were inspired in their campy re-imagining of the film's original dialogue, including Jennifer Mae Hill as a sexy stewardess (Hill was a gifted actress at Trustus, Chapin, and elsewhere long before she got into doll-making) and Chad Forrister as the stolid hero. Forrister was also the hero of 39 Steps above, and has perfected the mock-heroic, ever-so-slightly-exaggerated tone required by these spoofs.  Victoria Wilson was beautiful as an evil alien, but used a

rich, serious, Shakespearean voice that reminded you of Judith Anderson or Maggie Smith. Some of Forrister's best moments came with Catherine Hunsinger, playing the soon-to-be-abducted heroine.  There's an exercise in acting classes called "give and take," where two actors alternate allowing each other to take focus and dominate a scene. Hunsinger could have gotten some laughs as a stereotypical 1950's housewife, and given some to Forrister; instead, she wisely chose to downplay her performance, setting him up for vastly bigger laughs than either would have gotten separately.  As I wrote in the review, "Another example of her generosity on stage comes when the zombie-fied Scott Means attacks her; she swoons melodramatically...but at the same time, falls over the actor's shoulder in a perfectly-timed movement, allowing him to lift her easily, with as much grace as two ballet dancers.  Well, or pro wrestlers."

Hunsinger is a fearless performer, taking an emotionally demanding role in Spring Awakening the year before as the (semi-compliant) victim of a disturbing rape/seduction by the show's protagonist, yet somehow she managed to allow him to still seem deserving of the audience's sympathy. And then she tackled the Olivia Newton-John role in Grease (above) which is surely a daunting vocal challenge for the most talented of singers, but she filled Sandy's saddle oxfords with ease.  That incredible voice had its biggest test in Plan 9, as Hunsinger's character was pursued across stage and into the house by zombies.  The

original villains' make-up from the film was absurd enough, and here it was made even campier, yet Hunsinger chose to play the entire scene straight. As Chris Bickel cued some vintage movie chase-scene music and Hunsinger gamely screamed her head off, just for a moment I was no longer at Trustus.  Just for a moment I was a 13-year-old watching the Mummy or the Wolfman or the Creature abduct some forgotten heroine on the Universal or Hammer Studios back lot. Just for a few seconds there was a genuine chill down my back, as a brave young actress fully committed to being a terrified damsel in distress, running for her life from unspeakable horror.   Theatre is supposed to transport you, to take you out of yourself, and so this was for me, however briefly, the most memorable moment on stage in 2012.

So there are some of the things I enjoyed in the last year.  How about you?  That "comments" section below is there for a reason. What did you enjoy on stage in 2012?

~ August Krickel

"5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche" - Jillian Owens reviews the new Trustus Side Door Theatre production

Love, loss, secrecy, catharsis, and the vast importance of egg-based protein in one’s diet are all parts of the wonky comedy that is 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche. Welcome to 1956! It’s time for the annual Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein quiche breakfast-- and you’re all invited!  So grab a seat by a fellow “widow” *wink* and a nametag, and let the festivities begin!

But wait…can these five ladies maintain decorum and adhere to their motto: "No men. No meat. All manners."  even when nuclear Armageddon is upon them?!?!  Of course not! (and would it be any fun at all if they did?)  This play is absurd.  If it were a quiche, it would be filled with marshmallow fluff and bananas.  It’s silly, bawdy, and not at all deep.  That’s not a bad thing, friends!

The first 10 minutes or so made me wonder if I could tolerate the next 70.  This show is over-the-top, and I was worried that it was about to get downright annoying.  Not to worry.  As I settled in with my fellow “widows” *wink*, I really began to have fun!

As we begin our meeting (we’re all a part of this…check your name tag), our five officers take care of all necessary business and explanations.  Dale (played by Emily Meadows) hasn’t spoken to a man since she was three.  Ginny (played by Katie Mixon) is one of our newest members from across the big pond who loves her quiche …quite… ahem... graphically.  Vern (played by Dewey Scott-Wiley) is our pantsuit-loving DIY enthusiast.  Wren (played by Vicky Saye Henderson) is the epitome of barely contained ladylike excitement.  Lulie (played by Elena Martinez-Vidal) is our matriarch — protecting the sanctity of our eggs and quiches at whatever the cost.

This ensemble cast works really well together.  The role of Dale could have been written for Meadows, and Scott-Wiley’s Vern is terrifically farcical.  Martinez-Vidal comes off as distractingly heavy-handed (even for this production), but it all somehow manages to work.

The original NYC incarnation of this show has just arrived Off-Broadway after a sold-out run at the New York International Fringe Festival.  The director of this humbler (but still hilarious) production, Robin Gottlieb, has been talking with the show’s writers, Andrew Hobgood and Evan Linder throughout the rehearsal process, getting rewrite and edit upon rewrite and edit.

While the NYC cast’s Off-Broadway venue may be a bit larger than our more intimate Trustus Side Door Theatre, the smallness of Trustus’ black box venue is great for the audience participation this show demands.  Don’t worry — you’re not going to be pulled onstage, but you very well might be addressed directly by one of the officers of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein!

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche is a short (80 minutes) and utterly silly show that grownups (this show is NOT for the kiddos) with a bawdy sense of humor will enjoy — specially if they get a cocktail or two in them beforehand.  I’m rating Quiche R for lady-on-lady passion, lascivious quiche-eating, and partial disrobing.  So why in the world would you want to miss it?

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche runs two more weekends, Thursday-Saturday, at the Side Door Theatre (off Lady Street) and closes on February 2nd; for ticket information, contact the Trustus box office at (803) 254-9732.

~ Jillian Owens

Lori Minor's "The Coping Mechanism" - a staged reading at Richland Library Southeast Sun. Jan. 20th at 3 PM

Some four years ago I reviewed a Workshop Theatre production of Caroline, or Change, and wrote "Top honors have to go to Lori Minor as Caroline’s daughter Emmie... Minor enhances and elevates each moment on stage with her irrepressible vitality and presence, and it’s not hard to imagine that we are seeing the next Miss South Carolina, or the next American Idol."

I still think Minor could do well in one of those venues,  but the young actress and singer has taken her career in a different direction, working as a teacher's assistant in Lexington 2 school district, and is about to make her debut as a playwright.  Her play, The Coping Mechanism, will be presented as a staged reading at the Richland Library Southeast (7421 Garners Ferry Road) at 3:00 PM on Sunday, January 20th.  Featured in the cast are Cris Griffin, Tamika Richardson, Kennedy Richardson, Kenny Hunter, and Stacy Jennings.

From press material:  "It is said that love is the glue that holds us together, but can it keep everything intact if there are missing pieces?  What does real love look like?  What would you give or give up in the name of love for your family, and when all is said and done, was it worth it?   Paul Hansen contemplates these questions daily.  After tragedy hit home for his family, they struggled to regroup and put themselves back together.  Dealing with death is never easy and the coping mechanisms we adopt are meant to help not hinder us, but the Hansens' way of coping, they are finding out, may be hurting more than healing their wounds."

The show is directed by Leasharn M. Hopkins, founder and Artistic Director of New Life Productions, a community-based theatrical ministry.  New Life's  theatrical repertoire has focused on contemporary themes and topics such as alcoholism, drug awareness, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, gang violence, sexual assault, communicable diseases, HIV/AIDS, Black Heritage Awareness, as well as faith-based plays . Their site describes their mission as being to "educate, entertain, and minister through theatre."  They offer workshops for organizations, churches, and public agencies on the concept "Edu-tainment," performance arts workshops, individual and group acting classes, and script consultation.

For more information on The Coping Mechanism, see the event page on Facebook. ~ August Krickel

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A String Lesson in Compassion: A Review of "Beauty and the Beast" at Columbia Marionette Theatre by Arik Bjorn

On the heels of the Columbia Marionette Theatre’s technically and visually stunning production of Hansel and Gretel comes another tale of dark forest puppetry straight from the classic fairytale canon:  Beauty and the Beast. There is hardly a child alive—or adult for the matter—who associates this children’s fantasy with anything other than Disney’s bookworm Princess Belle and the behemoth Beast, which seems inspired from a Klingon on steroids.  About the only original concept Mickey Mouse & Co. retained in its animated film are the mid-eighteenth-century French origins of the story.  CMT artistic director Lyon Forrest Hill and writer-director John Scollon once again reclaims the forgotten origins of timeless children’s storytelling, and with a few musical numbers of their own, remind us that La Belle et la Bête is first and foremost a moral tale—not a song and dance routine with perfect pitch, jazz hands silverware.

Well aware of the attention span of the average tot, Scollon perfectly condenses the tale of the selfish, spellbound prince and the selfless merchant and his daughter into a perfect hour of weekend entertainment.  On a proverbial dark and stormy night, a prince, expecting his latest noblematch.com date at the palace door, instead comes face-to-face with an old hag whom he refuses to grant shelter.  The hag reveals her magical self, and converts the nobleman into a pectoral-heavy satyr, and his footman Radcliffe into a cheese-mongering, pudgy rodent, now Ratcliffe.  In this state they will remain until the master of the estate learns a life-changing lesson about compassion.  (At this point, parents are wishing this would actually happen to most hedge fund managers.)

Meanwhile, a woebegone merchant “in a nearby neck of the woods” receives a singing telegram from a seaman informing him that his poverty has come to an end:  his ship, the S.S. Porcupine, has finally docked at port laden with foreign goods.  The merchant’s daughter, Grace, asks her father to pick out the entire Tiffany catalog on his journey to claim his fortune.  The more modest daughter, Beauty, expresses that she will be content with just a single rose.  That rose, of course, becomes the crux upon which Beauty will eventually sacrifice herself, becoming an indentured guest in her entrapped father’s place at the Beast’s enchanted castle.  Finally, the prince learns his lesson about judging others by their outward appearance, and is allowed to trade his hooves for his feet, and gets a storybook wedding ending, to boot.  (Could there possibly be a more relevant 21st-century fairytale—even for hedge fund managers?)

The production is replete with technical highlights that will delight both children and adults, including an abracadabra buffet table and vanity, a sartorial dance number with dazzling gowns, and the magical prince portrait behind which the beast both conceals and reveals himself to those who dare enter his domain, and which is a critical leitmotif children will later encounter in every 1930s horror movie and episode of Scooby-Doo.  While the beast is a truly delightful feat of puppetry monstrousness, CMT should be even more proud of its Beauty creation; she is the spitting image of a young Kim Basinger.   CMT always puts as much creative effort into designing its sets as it does its marionettes; of note are set painter Carolyn Merkel’s Osiris-eye stain glass windows and swirling blue-green forest backdrop, as well as the miniature castle model and character figurines which maintain kiddie attention spans during set changes.

Beauty and the Beast is a must-see show for parents seeking an affordable, high-quality entertainment option on weekends this spring.  The show also provides an open door for parents to teach their children “the real” fairytale classics.  And remember:  Columbia Marionette Theatre provides field trip and birthday party options for larger groups of children.  CMT is an arts community jewel and once again has earned our support.

Beauty and the Beast runs until March 16 with performances every Saturday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.  Tickets are $5 per person.  Children under 2 are free!  The Columbia Marionette Theatre is located at 401 Laurel Street (corner of Huger and Laurel).  Call 252.7366 for more information or to reserve party space for your little ones.  To learn more about Columbia Marionette Theatre, visit www.cmtpuppet.org .

Special note to parents:  There is something important about the soft edge of darkness and fear of marionette theatre.  Stringed puppet shows are no less a rite of childhood passage than roller coasters and midway funhouses.  But as parents, we sometimes forget that the diminutive marionettes are as large as, or larger than, the little audience members sitting segregated from adults in the first few rows.  As a suggestion, if you are bringing your little one to CMT for the first time, it would not be a bad idea to arm him or her with a little penlight or an open hand for comfort during the first few minutes.  Fret not:  your child will quickly become an audience veteran and become engrossed in the narrative.  Yet thinking about this in advance may help to avoid disturbing other children trying to follow the show closely.

~ Arik Bjorn

Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" at Workshop Theatre - a review

Eugene Jerome is a dreamer, spinning baseball playoff fantasies in which he is both star and announcer. These dreams alternate with visions of being a writer, wishesthat his family might occasionally cut him some slack, and most importantly, wishes of seeing a girl naked.  Any girl, even if it's his nubile cousin Nora, staying with the Jeromes along with her mother and little sister after her father's death. In other words, Eugene is a 15-year-old boy, and the alter-ego for author Neil Simon, whose acclaimed Brighton Beach Memoirs is very loosely based on his own life.

In Workshop Theatre’s new production of this classic, both Jared Kemmerling, as Eugene, and Connor Odom, as older brother Stanley, are playing about two years above their own age, but capture the essences of their characters perfectly. As narrator, Kemmerling addresses the audience directly, setting up assorted family issues that take place over a week in September of 1937, as seen from the highly subjective point of view of a bright but smart-aleck teenager, who just happens to have the most successful comedy writer of the 20th century providing his dialogue.  These interactions play out, with Eugene often adding a running commentary along the way via asides to the audience. The role of Eugene made a star of Matthew Broderick on Broadway and earned him a Tony, and Broderick has to some extent been playing the same impish wisecracker who talks to the audience ever since.  Kemmerling really has good timing and stage presence, especially for such a young actor, and Odom's age actually works, giving him the impression of being a baby-faced young adult, which explains some of his struggles to make decisions and be taken seriously as a man, not a boy.

I must confess that it's hard for me to be completely impartial here since I know these folks so well.  No, not the actors, although I've met a few of the older cast members in passing a few times, but rather the characters, as some 22 years ago I played older brother Stanley in a local production of Simon's sequel to this play.  For me the most moving moments here were the natural interaction between the two brothers, and Stanley's frank discussions with his father about what it means to be an adult, but take that with a grain of salt.

The beauty of this show (and what brought it so much acclaim in the 80's) was that it marked a change in tone for Simon, who had already been mining his own life experiences for material for years. (If you ever want to see two brothers, one naive and one worldly, as swinging bachelors in New York, check out Simon's very first play, Come Blow Your Horn; if you're curious about how one copes after divorce, see The Odd Couple, or for how the other copes after the death of a spouse, see Chapter Two.) Here Simon takes his ear for dialogue and ability to portray the range of ordinary human emotions, and allows them to flow naturally for entire

scenes, without significant punch lines, until Eugene pops in at the end to sum everything up from the viewpoint of both the sarcastic kid, and the mature writer's memory.  Upstairs, the brothers engage in frank, and hilarious, discussion of the mechanics of puberty that wouldn't be out of place in American Pie or Portnoy's Complaint.  Downstairs, it's close to Tennessee Williams territory as the adults wrestle with problems that threaten to tear the family apart. Perhaps in the greater scope of things they don't have it so bad: Dad risks his health by working multiple jobs to support his family in the middle of the Depression, widow Blanche imagines herself as unemployable, unattractive, and a burden to her sister, hot cousin Nora and little sister Laurie feel neglected and under-valued by their still-grieving mom, and Stanley makes some unwise decisions at work.  So, pretty much any family anywhere, but Simon's genius allows us to see how intensely routine domestic conflicts can affect those involved. There is no perfect resolution; instead, forgiveness, acceptance, compromise, the occasional white lie, and the lost art of actually talking things out provide a fragile peace, until the next mini-crisis arises.

Samantha Elkins, as Blanche, and Lou Warth, as mom Kate, are best at capturing the

sound and tone of Jewish Brooklyn residents, but Kemmerling was getting there even as the opening night performance progressed. The pale blonde Warth has gone brunette, while the striking Elkins (who stepped into this role only two and a half weeks before opening) dons glasses, pins her hair back, and drops her voice by an octave or so to play much older than her own age. Both are quite believable, and do some good dramatic work in a deeply hurtful argument over virtually nothing.  Their best moment together comes as both draw inward, their backs turned as they fight back tears, unable to express how shocked and sad each is to have turned on her sister. Father Jack (Hunter Boyle) is a long-suffering mensch who accepts his mandatory role as head of the family in any number of "just wait 'til your father gets home" scenarios, but prefers to offer his modest wisdom as reasonable advice. Boyle is an accomplished, veteran actor who has distinguished himself when cast against type, especially as a sympathetic Juan Peron a few years ago in Evita. Here, sadly he is simply the wrong actor for the role, and isn't particularly believable. Fortunately, he delivers his lines with good timing and clarity, allowing his partners on stage to shine in their scenes. The miscasting doesn't really hurt the play much at all, but it doesn't help anything either.  Allie Stubbs and Catherine Davenport alternate as Nora; I saw the latter on opening night, and she and Kimberly Hubbard (as Laurie) have some good moments on stage, together and with others, but I must warn all of the younger cast members: as a former Stanley, I can attest that the upstairs level of the set will swallow your lines, so project as you have never projected before!

Speaking of that upstairs level, Randy Strange's set design is practical: a completely realistic rectangular box with the fourth wall removed would be boring, and would pose sightline difficulties for audiences on each side of center. Instead, the home's living and dining room areas are opened out, giving the actors plenty of space in which to move, and the upstairs bedrooms are angled and situated to be as close to the audience as possible. (But a few extra mikes up there still couldn't hurt.)  Director David Britt successfully helps his cast to navigate the fine line between comedy and drama which the characters cross and recross so often. Still, with the name Neil Simon attached, a fair number of potential audience members are likely to be convinced that this is hokey, sit-com style family fluff, which it isn't. Likewise, others may be taken aback by the blunt discussions of sexuality, some salty language, and a few stretches of fairly dark conflict, which are no worse than anything on, say, Mad Men, but just be advised. Ultimately this is one of the most beloved and praised works from one of the biggest comic playwrights of the last 60 years, performed capably by some good local actors, in an enjoyable community theatre context. Brighton Beach Memoirs run through Sat. Jan. 26th; contact the Workshop box office at 799-6551 for ticket information.

~ August Krickel

Jillian Owens reviews [title of show] at Trustus Theatre

Trustus Theatre has just launched their production of [title of show] , and no…that’s not a misprint.  Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell are two nobodies in New York who have only three weeks to write a musical to enter in the inaugural New York Musical Theatre Festival.  Unable to come up with an original work (not a show based on a book or a movie), they decided to write their musical about their experience writing their musical, along with their talented friends, Susan and Heidi. How meta!

This probably sounds like one of the most trite, gimmicky, and self-aggrandizing ideas you’ve ever heard of, right?  Don’t worry, you aren’t alone in thinking this.  Jeff, Hunter, Susan, and Heidi all have their doubts and fierce insecurities about this work-in-progress about their work-in-progress, and that’s what makes this tiny show with only four chairs and a keyboard really special.

Keep in mind: this show is a true story about four friends who played themselves in show about themselves.  Director Dewey Scott-Wiley had the unenviable task of casting this show with four real people who could fully embody the characters of four other real people who custom-made a show for themselves.  I’m happy to say, she nailed it.  Kevin Bush (Jeff), Matthew DeGuire (Hunter), Robin Gottlieb (Heidi), and Laurel Posey (Susan) are all Columbia theatre veterans whom you’ve probably seen before, and they’re all absolutely terrific in this production.  Randy Moore isn’t just the Musical Director for this show;  he also plays Larry, the oft-neglected keyboard guy who doesn’t really get any lines, and doesn’t even get to be in the publicity photos (song: “Awkward Photo Shoot”).   With this group of local all-stars, it would be hard to go wrong.  It’s important for the actors in this show to have chemistry.  We need to believe they are the tight-knit group of pals they are portraying in order to care about them.  Otherwise [title of show] would be a total bore.  As you learn more about these people, you begin to feel an odd sort of comfiness.  I really felt like these were my friends, and I found myself rooting for this little show with a big heart the entire time.

The dialog starts off as being a bit too try-hard with cliché gay and sex jokes that feel forced.  As the play (and our understanding of the characters) develops, it becomes more real—and really quite funny!  The score is cute, witty, and at times truly moving.  The lighting design by Frank Kiraly makes the most of an intentionally simple set in brilliant and clever ways.

[title of show] explores the terrifying excitement of creating something new.  In the song “Change It, Don’t Change It”, our fab four begin to doubt the quality of their work and themselves.  Is their play really good enough for Broadway?  Are they good enough?  As Susan says, "Why is it that if a stranger came up to me on a subway platform and said these things, I'd think he was a mentally ill asshole... but when the vampire in my head says it, it's the voice of reason?"

If you have ever created anything, or thought of creating anything, this show will inspire you.  It will inspire you to finish that novel that’s been languishing in your desk drawer for over a year.  It will inspire you to write that screenplay that you don’t think will be clever enough.  It will inspire you to try out for that play.  It will inspire you to stop “procrasturbating” (as Hunter says), and put something new out into the world.

~ Jillian Owens

[title of show] runs on the Trustus Main Stage through December 16^th, 2012. After the New Year, the show returns on January 3^rd, 2013 and runs through January 12^th, 2013. Main Stage shows start at 8:00pm Thursdays through Saturdays, and Sunday matinees are at 3:00pm. Tickets are $27.00 for adults, $25.00 for military and seniors, and $20.00 for students. Half-price Student Rush-Tickets are available 15 minutes prior to curtain.

Trustus Theatre is located at 520 Lady Street, behind the Gervais St. Publix. Parking is available on Lady St. and on Pulaski St. The Main Stage entrance is located on the Publix side of the building.

For more information or reservations call the box office Tuesdays through Saturdays 1-6 pm at 803-254-9732. Visit www.trustus.org for all show information and season information.

"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at Workshop Theatre - a review by August Krickel

Shattered survivors struggle over scraps of nourishment in a barren, apocalyptic wasteland in Workshop Theatre's new production of Edward Albee's classic play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  At least, it seems that way, as we spend a few desperate hours in the alcohol-fueled, vitriol-filled lives of a seriously disturbed, and disturbing, married couple, George and Martha. Audiences eager to experience Albee's dark fable with no holds barred will undoubtedly get their money's worth and then some, thanks to brilliant characterizations by a committed cast. Metaphors notwithstanding, the set-up for Who's Afraid is deceptively simple: two academic couples drink, carouse, and argue into the wee hours of the morning. Martha drunkenly and shrewishly criticizes George's shortcomings as a husband, a professor, and a man; he returns fire with wry, catty observations on said drunken shrewishness. Like rival boxers engaged in a harmless exhibition bout, often one or the other can't resist sneaking in a sucker punch or two. Neither really knows where to draw the line, but a bizarre game/deception has enabled the marital battle to rage on for 23 years. Like many, I read this play many years ago, and saw the Burton-Taylor film version, but I had forgotten how devastatingly witty the dialogue is. Elena Martinez-Vidal portrays Martha as an aging Snookie, the once-scandalous college president's daughter, now using booze and random affairs to carry her through a seemingly unhappy marriage. For Martha, it's far easier to get laughs from a clever play on the author Woolf's name and the nursery rhyme, than to actually discuss (or understand) Woolf's work.  Stann Gwynn as George wears a natty, professorial blazer, but sinks his hands deep into its pockets as if it were an old sweater, indicating general despair. Oddly, however, he is verbally clever and quick, nimbly playing with words, images and ideas; if this brilliant man's career has stalled, one wonders how responsible his drunken wife may have been in the squashing his ambitions. Both leads are at the top of their acting game, utterly believable as these amusing yet unlikeable characters.

Lee Williams and Giulia Marie Dalbec play a younger couple, labeled Nick and Honey in the program, although Nick is never referred to by name, and only he ever calls to his wife, as "honey."  Dalbec is either offstage or passed out (or both) for almost half of the play, but does a great job in a radically different role for her, playing mousy rather than the usual vivacious. During long stretches while others are speaking, she is always completely in character, busy with countless, unobtrusive little bits of business that make perfect sense.  It would be very easy to say that Williams seems awkward and self-conscious... except that Nick the character is supposed to be seen that way.  One could add that he is at times overwhelmed by the forceful personalities of the two leads...yet again, the character is written that way. Albee never gives Nick the lines to establish him as a scholar or scientist; in fact, in many ways he seems to be a younger, blander, incomplete version of George himself, with modest career goals, a wife who can't hold her liquor, a wealthy and larger-than-life father-in-law, and unspoken issues in his past. (The Trekkie in me wants Nick and Honey to be George and Martha from some alternate universe, visiting via a temporal flux, but no such luck.) Overall, Williams does his best with a difficult role.

I might have wanted to see a deeper debate on science vs. history or philosophy, but Albee is working in a different direction entirely, as the couples spend a solid two and a half hours (plus intermissions) seemingly fighting over nothing.  There's a central (and famous) plot twist that I won't reveal here, but in retrospect, it seems telegraphed from early in the first act, but I'm uncertain how newcomers to the show will perceive it.  Martha tells George that he doesn't know the difference between truth and illusion, to which he replies "No, but we must carry on as though we did."  In interviews, the playwright has professed a desire to aggressively engage the audience in the business of understanding the material, and accordingly we have to fill in many of the blanks and connect the dots for George and Martha's backstory and motivations. Only at the very end do we glimpse the actual affection and co-dependency shared by the couple, which then explains much of the dysfunctional fiction they have created, but audiences, scholars and critics have spent the last half century debating just how believable and effective that may be, from a literary standpoint. From a dramatic standpoint, it's quite moving.

Director Cynthia Gilliam allows the fast and furious dialogue to proceed naturally, never missing any of the many laugh lines that pepper the dark material.  I was surprised at how fresh and contemporary the 50-year-old script seemed, with just the tiniest hint of the Mad Men era, before certain modern expressions became common.  Costumes (by Janet Kile) are authentic, and yet could be worn today; a couple of random references to the Depression and World War 2 are the only things to indicate the setting. Towards the show's conclusion, George recites part of a Latin requiem, while Martha recounts an often-told story. Gilliam cleverly takes advantage of Gwynn's rich voice and has him actually sing the words, giving the moment a haunting beauty that is not otherwise found in the original.  Randy Strange's set accurately depicts an ordinary, upper-middle class living room, but I must praise whoever dressed the set (I'm guessing Meg Richards, credited for props.) Among all the customary suburban bric-a-brac are two framed photos, and sure enough, they are youthful portraits of Gwynn and Martinez-Vidal.

The ultimate question becomes: did I enjoy the play?  My answer is that I thoroughly enjoyed and admired the performances by the cast, and the new insights gained into the material via the director's vision.  I’d really question someone who actually enjoys Albee, much as one might admire the first ten minutes of Saving Pvt. Ryan, but not technically enjoy them.  Albee is one of the giants of contemporary theatre, and undeniably a genius, although possibly a mad genius. Joe Six-Pack who might otherwise be watching WWE Raw will likely not appreciate this work (although it features similar smackdowns and trash-talking!)  Any literate adults with backgrounds or interests in literature, sociology or psychology, and who want to see challenging themes acted out live by gifted performers, need to see this production.  With only seven performances left in a 199-seat theatre, there's no excuse for there not to be standing room only.  The show runs through Sat. Nov. 24th, i.e. the Saturday after Thanksgiving, contact the Workshop Box Office at 803-799-6551, or visit http://www.workshoptheatre.com for ticket information.

~ August Krickel

Jillian Owens reviews "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" at USC's Longstreet Theatre

  The timing could not be better for Theatre South Carolina’s production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Compleat Female Stage Beauty, directed by Gary Logan.  Gay rights and gender equality have been hot button issues this election season, and both of these are woven intricately into the tapestry of this poignant and bawdy production.

In 1660, Edward Kynaston is sitting pretty as the most famous leading lady in the London theatre scene.   After 18 years of Puritan rule, England is experiencing a renaissance of theatre, fashion, and decadence.  Called "the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life" by Samuel Nicolas, Edward is loved and admired for his brilliant portrayal of tragic female roles.  When King Charles II signs a law allowing women to act on the stage, his career is ruined, and his entire identity is called into question.

This show features a new crop of USC Theatre's MFA candidates.  Melissa Peters immersed herself in  extensive movement and vocal work to develop the role of Kynaston.  “The shape of the pelvis changes a lot about how we move,” she told Otis Taylor of The State.  Her hard work has paid off.  You completely forget that she is a she, and instead can only see her as Edward Kynaston.  While Kynaston was the last of his kind, his rival Margaret Hughes was the first of her kind.  Kate Dzvonik is lovely and charismatic in this role.  However, she is difficult to understand through her thick accent.  Most of her performance comes off as one-dimensional, but she is positively winning in her final scene.  Leeanna Rubin makes a hilarious and raunchy Nell Gwynn, the popular mistress of King Charles II (played by Cory Lipman).  Stephen Ingle is  playfully perverse as Kynaston’s  fey and foppish antagonist, Sir Charles Sedley—who suceeds in being both mincing and menacing.

April Andrews has earned accolades for her amazing costumes, and Xuemei Cao’s set is cleverly transformative.  The transitions between scenes are scored by Matthew Nielson, and are evocative of the period.

Compleat Female Stage Beauty reminds us of the progress that has been made in our society’s acceptance those who are gay and transgendered.  Yes—there is much progress to be made, but at least gays can marry in nine states.  The risk of being pelted with excrement onstage for being a homosexual has lessened considerably since the 1600’s as well.  But, the question of what it means to be man or a woman is still a question that continues to pop up in conversation…whether we’re discussing transgendered youths being admitted into the Girl Scouts, gays in the military, or even whether boys should be allowed to wear pink.  The discussion of sexual and gender identity have become major political issues.

While addressing serious subject matter, this show still manages to be quite funny.  Hatcher has written a cleverly witty script, and the cast manages the delicate balance of capturing  every humorous moment without becoming farcical or irreverent.

Compleat Female Stage Beauty is a darkly comical, but  touching production.  It brings humanity to issues that are easy to think of as being merely political and abstract.  Due to its mature subject matter and some partial nudity, this is definitely an adults-only show.

~ Jillian Owens

Show times are 8pm Wednesdays-Fridays, and 7pm Saturdays.  There is an additional half-price late night performance on Saturday, November 17 at 11pm.   Tickets for the production are $12 for students, $16 for USC faculty/staff, military personnel and seniors 60+, and $18 for the general public.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 803-777-2551 or by visiting the Longstreet Theatre box office, which is open Monday-Friday, 12:30pm-5:30pm.

Cynthia Gilliam reflects on her upcoming production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at Workshop Theatre

Veteran Midlands director Cynthia Gilliam, one of the founders of Workshop Theatre, recently took time to chat with Jasper Theatre Editor August Krickel about her upcoming production of an Edward Albee classic. Jasper: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is currently being produced on Broadway in a very high-profile revival - why do you think it still resonates with audiences?

Cynthia Gilliam:  For me, Albee's script is as timeless as Macbeth. Delicately balanced between comedy and tragedy, I believe this play will be staged again and again, right on into the foreseeable future. While George and Martha are bickering, disappointed, aging, alcoholics, they are deeply in love with each other. Their marriage, like the play, is a tightly wound tragicomedic concoction bound to endure. While (the) script is incredibly heavy lifting for actors, it is a different experience for the audience, when it is well played.  First-timers are as amazed and delighted at the rich comedy in the script as they are raked by the anger and vitriol there.

Jasper:  Albee has said that he wants audiences still to be completely entranced by and caught up in his shows even as they leave the theatre.  What sort of ideas/themes/messages do you hope audiences will take from this show?

CG:  However they are wounded, most people manage to make their way through life as best they can. Those with scars seek others similarly wounded, and they accommodate each other, often with made up games, hearty laughter, and a good sex. The cards we are what they are. We must deal with what we are dealt.

Jasper:  This is the 50th anniversary of the original Broadway premiere of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  However, you've done this show previously in Columbia?

Cynthia Gilliam:  This marks my third, and most likely final, encounter with (this) play. I produced and directed it the first time with Milton Dixon as George, and Bette Herring as Martha at the Playbox Theater, housed in an old Postal Office in Eau Claire. Years passed, and Russell Green, former head of the Theater Department at USC and an incredible director, cast me as Martha opposite Bob Hungerford’s George in a production staged at Charlton Hall Antiques Gallery on Gervais Street.   Acting with Hungerford was a stellar experience, and Russell was a whiz, with a very firm hand. We were gypsies back in those days, but we managed to stage credible productions, get decent reviews, draw good crowds, pay our bills, share what was left over, and do exactly as we pleased. Adding up the days and nights spent on these first endeavors would likely equal five months of living inside this script. Martha was my very last appearance as an actress.

Jasper:  Stann Gwynn and Elena Martinez-Vidal (profiled in Jasper 004 as one of Columbia's "leading ladies") play George and Martha in this production.  Just like with the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor film version, it may be hard for local audiences to realize that Stann and Elena are old enough for these roles.  Have you worked with them before?

CG:  This production is my first opportunity to work with Stann, although I have admired his talent on many occasions.  He and Elena cast me as their director, and I responded to their call!  Elena and I go way, way back. We have been talking for several years about working together again.

Jasper:  We've followed the career of Giulia Dalbec-Matthews for a number of years, and are so impressed with the increasingly complex and challenging roles she has taken on in the last year.  Still, the vulnerable character of Honey is very different from anything she has done on stage previously - how did you come to cast her?

CG:  I have made a point of trying to see everything (on stage) I can this year, as I want to do more, and need to know what everyone is doing, and how well. Lucky for me, I saw Legally Blonde at Workshop, primarily because my daughter, Liz, is involved in producing the show at Dreher High School, and she wanted to see it.  I was struck with the incredible energy and focus coming from Giulia, (and so) I cast Giulia based on her performance in Blonde.  I believe Giulia is very serious about growing herself as an actress.  Wise beyond her years, her intuition tells her that the more roles she tucks into her resume, the more she can widen her range of opportunities. To become the best actress you can possibly be, you have to practice the craft regularly, stay on the lookout for roles that will give you growing pains and lengthen your reach. I admire her for taking on this part, and she is making it all her own. She is very “directable.”

Jasper:  We profiled veteran Workshop Theatre set designer Randy Strange this summer in Jasper 006. How is he to work with?

CG:  To borrow from Mr. Albee, Randy is “a beanbag”. He is the perfect collaborator. Because of Randy, this cast will have more than ten days to rehearse on a complete, furnished, and finished set. He has made a very challenging prop called for in the show, and I tested it three days ago. I irritate the snot out of him, but he endures and produces just what I need. Who could ask for more?

Jasper:  Big-budget musicals are always a hit locally, and sometimes so are new, name-brand dramas, but this show is 50-yrs. old, and touches on issues not everyone might relate to (academia, middle-age, upper-middle-class malaise, etc.)  Why should a Columbian theatre-goer come see this show?

CG:  Theatre-goers should come to this show for the same reason they would attend a fine production of Hamlet. Virginia Woolf is an American classic, and, as you said, it is over 50 years old. Yet, people are still putting it up on the stage all over the country. It is worth hearing and seeing every decade or so.  Were I in Chicago next week and a production was running there, I would book tickets as soon as I got to my hotel.   I do not believe it will wilt with time or fall from favor. There is so much in this script that is yet to be mined and put on display.

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Ticket information can be found at http://www.workshoptheatre.com/ or by calling the box office at 803-799-6551 from noon to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.  Show dates are Nov. 9-11, 14-18, and 23-24.  All performances are at 8:00 PM, except for matinees on Sunday Nov. 11 and 18.

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"Next Fall" at Trustus Theatre

Geoffrey Nauffts’ Next Fall, now running at Trustus Theatre, was Tony-nominated for Best Play, and won the Outer Critics Award.  As detailed in press material, "this contemporary play explores relationships, faith, family, and the very current topic of same-sex rights in hospitals. The show chronicles the five-year relationship between Luke and Adam. With Luke being devoutly religious and Adam being an atheist – their love and their principles are often tested. However, when an accident changes everything, Adam is forced to examine what it means to 'believe' and what it will cost if he doesn’t." Visiting Director Sharon Graci previously directed the show at Charleston’s PURE Theatre.  Trustus Artistic Director Dewey Scott-Wiley notes that “Next Fall asks a lot of important questions about love, family, religion, and civil rights, and how the questions get answered within the context of a same-sex relationship. What is most wonderful about Next Fall, however, is that many of the questions are left for the audience to answer.  There is nothing predictable or didactic about the show."

That said, every audience member brings a different perspective to any show. Jasper Literary Editor Ed Madden, Theatre Editor August Krickel, and guest critic Stephen Kish all had drastically differing takes on the production. One felt the show delivered an important message, one was looking for much more of a message, and one felt the message was less important than the love story. All enjoyed the performances by G. Scott Wild, Jason Stokes, and Kim Harne, and all to some extent felt the supporting cast were under-used, especially in the first act.  One liked the use of miming in place of props but didn't think it was always accomplished that well by the cast, while another admired the actors' mastery of the technique, but didn't like its use to begin with. Two weren't wild about the creative scene changes, while one loved them.  So go figure.  Jasper encourages and indeed embraces diversity of opinion, and urges everyone to go see the show, and decide for yourself.

Ed Madden's take on the show - with some editorial thoughts on the larger societal context of some of the issues raised, can be found here. August Krickel's review can be found  here and  here. And guest blogger Stephen Kish's review is below:

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A familiar feeling crept over me while sitting in the audience of Geoffrey Nauffts's Next Fall - I’ve seen this before.  A simple setup starts us off.  Friends and family gather after Luke (Jason Stokes) is critically injured in a car accident.  We have every type of stock character: the chatty, overbearing mother (Kim Harne), the female co-worker (Brandi Smith) who loves hanging out with gay men, the father (Stanford Gardner) who can't accept the truth about his son, and Adam (G. Scott Wild), the cynical, religion-hating lover of comatose Luke.  There is hope, briefly, that this may all play out like a Flannery O'Connor story, wherein characters from different backgrounds clash over fundamental ideals, ultimately leading to some great epiphany - but that would be reaching to hope for such greatness.  Sadly, Next Fall, plays out like a Lifetime Movie, but without any of the fun.

To be fair, it isn't the fault of the actors or even the director; the material never rises to the occasion, and never is the feeling of grief or loss truly seen or felt by anyone. There are, nevertheless, very good parts within this production.  Kim Harne as Luke's very Southern, very chatty mother is altogether fun in her performance.  The rest of the cast didn't fare as well.  Jason Stokes as Luke is likeable and charming, as is G. Scott Wild as Adam.  They do not, however, possess any chemistry as lovers.  This presents a large problem during the staging of the play, as their relationship is the main drama.  The remainder of the cast was under-utilized, and didn't make much of a lasting impression.

The direction, by Sharon Graci, presents problems early on due to some strange choreography choices that alert the audience to scene changes.  There was a moment when the cast is moving chairs, an enjoyable pop song is playing, and I truly thought they were going to burst out into a full-on musical number, but of course they were just setting up the next scene.  Things like this jar the audience out of the experience, and take away much of the dramatic tension.

With this feeling of familiarity persistent throughout the performance, I wasn't sure how to feel. In many ways, this is just another story of a closeted gay man who can't face his fundamentalist father; there was nothing new explored, just more of the same.  There could have been so much more that could have been said here, but the script happily meanders the entire time, never becoming edgy, or delivering anything more than a heavy-handed message.  I wanted more from this play, but sadly didn't get it. Then again, not everything has to be life-changing or challenging.

~ Stephen Kish

Next Fall runs through Saturday, November  10^th, on the Thigpen Main Stage at Trustus.  Tickets are $22.00 for adults, $20.00 for military and seniors, and $15.00 for students. Half-price Student Rush-Tickets are available 15 minutes prior to curtain if seating is available.

Trustus Theatre is located at 520 Lady Street, behind the Gervais St. Publix. Parking is available on Lady St. and on Pulaski St. The Main Stage entrance is located on the Publix side of the building.

For more information or reservations call the box office Tuesdays through Saturdays 1-6 pm at 803-254-9732. Visit www.trustus.org for all show information and season information.

Complete History of America (abridged) at Town, Little Mermaid at Lexington

Some of Jasper's favorite performers are opening in shows tonight.  Bill DeWitt, who played a dozen different residents of Tuna, TX a few years back in A Tuna Christmas, is joined by Frank Thompson, who along with DeWitt portrayed several dozen separate characters in The 39 Steps this past spring; teaming up with Charlie Goodrich, who has been acting nonstop this year (Andre in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Gooper in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sonny in Grease, Judah in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and many other roles) the trio set out to recreate the complete history of America... just slightly abridged.  Yes, it's another production originally created by the Reduced Shakespeare Conpany, with three performers doing madcap, semi-improv comic versions of the story of our nation.  Jamie Carr Harrington directs, and her assistant director is Shelby Sessler, one of the three finalists for Jasper's Theatre Artist of the Year, and the female lead(s) in 39 Steps with Thompson and DeWitt. From press material:

From Washington to Watergate, yea verily from the Bering Straits to Baghdad, from New World to New World Order – The Complete History of America (abridged) is a ninety minute rollercoaster ride through the glorious quagmire that is American History, reminding us that it’s not the length of your history that matters – it’s what you’ve done with it!

The Complete History of America (Abridged) is a delightfully zany evening and wildly inaccurate crash course in American history. In only an hour and a half you'll have a screwball evening of fun starting with who actually discovered America, all the way to the current  President! See Bill DeWitt (The 39 Steps), Frank Thompson (Harold Hill in The Music Man) and Charlie Goodrich (Judah in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) attempt to put history in its place. Proceeds will go to Town's Repair-the-Roof Campaign.

Town Theatre will present this two night only engagement on Nov. 2nd and 3rd at 7:30 PM.  Tickets are ONLY $12 in advance and $15 at the door. This will be the funniest history lesson you'll ever have.  Call 803-799-2510 for more information.

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On the other side of the river, the Lexington County Arts Association presents Disney's The Little Mermaid, Jr. at the Village Square Theatre; it runs tonight through Sun. Nov. 18th, with shows at 7:30 PM Fridays and Saturdays, plus Saturday and Sunday matinee performances at 3 PM. We're especially excited to see Haley Sprankle step into the lead role of Ariel - this young actress has stood out in the ensembles of everything from Legally Blonde to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and was a memorable and hilarious Frenchie, the beauty school dropout, in Grease (which coincidentally featured Goodrich and Thompson from above.)

From press material:

In a magical kingdom fathoms below, the beautiful young mermaid Ariel (Haley Sprankle) longs to leave her ocean home to live in the world above. But first, she'll have to defy her father King Triton (Tanner Connelly), make a deal with the evil sea witch Ursula (Bailey Gray) and convince Prince Eric (Rut Spence) that she’s the girl with the enchanting voice.  Based on the Hans Christian Andersen story and the Disney film, directed by Debra Leopard, Eliza Caughman Spence and Becky Croft, with musical direction by Jonathan Eason; lyrics by Howard Ashman and Glenn Slater, music by Alan Menken, and book by Doug Wright.

Next Fall, This Fall: A Timely Play Opens at Trustus

“How do you make that call?”  That’s the question asked at beginning of the second act of Next Fall, the new play opening at Trustus this weekend.  And it’s really the question that drives the play.  Everyone is on cellphones in the play.  There are missed connections, unreturned calls, emergency contacts—and the inevitable chain of calls that happens when something awful happens to someone you know.

How do you make that call?

In the play, which was written Geoffrey Nauffts and staged on Broadway in 2010, Luke, a closeted gay man, lies in a coma in a New York hospital after an automobile accident.  Hospital policy limits access to “family only.”  In the hospital are two close friends and Luke’s parents, who have just arrived from Florida and who don’t know that Luke is gay, nor that he has lived with another man for 4 years.  The arrival of Luke’s partner at the hospital sets into motion the complicated (and sometimes infuriating) interactions of these 6 characters as Luke’s situation goes from bad to worse.  Life support, organ donation, access to your loved ones at a time of illness or catastrophe—all of these issues raise the question, “How do you make that call?”  And, perhaps, more importantly, who gets to make it.

It’s a deeply moving play, all the more so, I think, because it’s a message play about issues that matter, in some way, to everyone.  We’ve all faced, or will eventually face, these questions.  But I think they’re particularly fraught for gay people, and that’s where the real drama—and heartbreak—of the play lies.

* * *

Hospital visitation is an issue that has haunted the gay community for decades.  Under the law, for years, a family who had cut you off might have more claim over your health care than the partner you had chosen.  I remember, when I was younger, hearing about the Sharon Kowalski case.  Like Luke, Kowalski had been with her partner about 4 years, though unlike Luke and Adam, she and her partner Karen Thompson had had a commitment ceremony and had named one another as insurance beneficiaries.  Also like Luke, she ended up in a hospital after an automobile accident.  A drunk driver hit her in 1983, and she suffered severe brain injuries, with permanent physical and mental disabilities.  Kowalski’s anti-gay family and her lover repeatedly went to court over her guardianship.  One court after another disagreed.  Thompson eventually won, and the raised awareness in the lesbian and gay community about durable power of attorney forms for couples.

Of course, those legal forms don’t carry much weight if the state you live in doesn’t recognize your relationship—as Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond discovered when Pond collapsed on a family cruise in Florida with her partner and their two adopted children.  Even though Langbehn had the proper legal document, that durable health care power of attorney, the Florida hospital refused to recognize it.  As the Lambda Legal website puts it, “The hospital also informed her that she was in an antigay city and state and that she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as family.”  For almost eight hours, neither Langbehn nor their children were allowed to see Pond.  She died in the hospital.  To add not merely insult but cruelty to injury, the state of Florida and the Dade County Medical Examiner refused to give Langbehn a death certificate when she requested one to get life insurance and Social Security benefits for their children.

Clearly, even if you had the right piece of paper, this fundamental human right to take care of the ones you love was subject to a patchwork of hospital practice, state policy, and homophobia.  Clearly, too, despite the Full Faith and Credit clause, states could not only deny recognition of couples and families recognized elsewhere, but they could also do so, as the medical examiner’s actions suggest, in particularly cruel and inhumane ways.

I can’t help but wonder if the playwright had this case in mind, when he made Luke’s parents Floridians.

* * *

Like much of the play’s publicity, the play’s flashback scenes, within which the relationship of Adam and Luke is developed, focus on their fundamental religious differences.  Adam is an atheist or agnostic, while Luke is a devout believer of a particular sort—not only a Christian but one who believes in the Rapture (a nonmainstream theology made popular by TV evangelists and the Left Behind franchise) and one who hasn’t reconciled his sexuality with his faith.  He still thinks his homosexuality is wrong—so much so that he prays after sex, even though he’s been with Adam for years.

Understandably, that’s unsettling to Adam.  But it makes sense to Luke’s best friend Brandon, who has sex with black men but doesn’t believe in the “lifestyle.”  As he explains to Adam, “When you two were just hooking up, it was one thing, but when it turned into something, well, more . . . Look, I understand the need to act on the urges, believe me, but to choose the lifestyle? To live like it was . . . right, I guess?”  Brandon draws the line there.

Or as Adam throws it back at him, “You draw your line at love?”

Part of the power of this play for me actually lies in the representation of Luke and Brandon—perhaps uncommon figures in contemporary gay theatre but both very real kinds of gay men, not just closeted or self-loathing (those are familiar), but unable to reconcile their sexuality and their faith, and, like Brandon, so deeply conflicted that they give themselves permission to have sex (those pesky "urges") but not permission to love.  That Luke prays after sex is just one of many coping strategies for the cognitive dissonance he and Brandon feel, trapped between two incompatible worldviews.

I am not a theatre critic, but I have to say that G. Scott Wild was excellent—compelling and human in the role of Adam.  His first few scenes felt stagey (though that was perhaps more the script than his acting), but as he got into the character—and through the entire second act—I found his character heartbreakingly believable.  Also, Kim Harne as Arlene, Adam’s mother, was a believable gem of an unstoppably chatty Southern woman, though as with Adam, the play gives her much greater depth as a character in the second act.

Part of the problem with the play, in fact, is the way the first act has to establish character and worldview in broad strokes, but the second act fills in with depth and empathy characters who seemed almost cliché in the first.  For example, Stan Gardner as Butch, Adam’s father, is an asshole and a fundamentalist Christian who doesn’t believe in evolution, uses the n-word, and makes clear what he thinks of faggots.  It’s a hard role to pull off without being a cliché, but Stan pulls it off surprisingly well, especially in the second act as his world falls apart.  Brandi Smith as Holly (the self-described fag hag and Luke’s boss) and Bobby Bloom as Brandon are also quite good—Brandi's timing spot on, and Bloom’s doe-eyed face a canvas of masked self-torture and conflicted allegiances.  Pretty and self-assured, Jason Stokes as Luke was an enigma of a character for me, though Stokes registers the confidence of convinced Christians that can so often come across as self-righteous smugness.

I also have to say I love the way the director (Sharon Graci, Artistic Director of Pure Theatre) moves us between scenes, using musical breaks for characters to move around the simple chairs and table that create a hospital chapel, a New York loft, or a coffee shop.  Or the use of umbrellas to open each act (simple and stunning).  These were beautifully and carefully choreographed moments of music and movement.

I also liked the minimal staging, though at times the lack of props and the (sometimes not-so-well) mimed acting of drinking, opening doors, and packing a suitcase became distracting.  Perhaps it’s appropriate, though, given the play’s theme, that other than the hospital waiting room furniture, the only real props were a Bible, a bottle of pills, and a cellphone.

* * *

I love those moments in theatre when I lose my sense of being in an audience and I get lost in the story.  Those moments, in this play, when emotion overwhelmed the characters—and overwhelmed me.  Despite my problems with the first act, overall I thought the play powerful and important.  And by the end, simultaneously crushing and hopeful.

Luckily, thanks to President Barak Obama, the rules have changed about hospital visitation.  Moved, in part, by Langbehn’s horror story of anti-gay Florida and others like hers, the president signed an executive order in 2010 mandating that any hospital receiving government funding (including Medicare and Medicaid) recognize the relationships of gays and lesbians and their children.

Luckily, too, South Carolina passed a law in 2008 (in the wake of the amendment’s broad denial of rights to lesbian and gay couples), allowing one to designate hospital contacts and visitation rights.  (Gay activists kept a distance from these deliberations, for fear the knowledge that this law would allow recognition of lesbian and gay couples would derail it in the generally homophobic South Carolina legislature.)

Of course, such policies wouldn’t help someone like Luke in the play, unconscious and unable to make such designations, and too closeted (and perhaps too soon in the relationship) to have sought ratification of the relationship in a legal document.  When the surgeon stipulates “family only,” Adam protests, “I am family.”  That relationship, however, is not recognized by law or hospital policy, and with a faggot-hating, Bible-toting, creationist father in the waiting room, it’s not likely to be recognized by those who have the power to make the call either.

If Mitt Romney is elected, sadly, this play may have even more resonance.  Within the past week, Romney has announced that being able to visit your dying spouse or parent in the hospital is a privilege, not a right, and should be left to states to decide.  (See here and here.)  As others have noted, this implies that Romney would reverse Obama’s 2010 federal order requiring hospitals to recognize visitation rights of gay couples and their children.

On behalf of Romney, his spokesperson clarified:  “Governor Romney supports a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as an institution between a man and a woman. Governor Romney also believes, consistent with the 10th Amendment, that it should be left to states to decide whether to grant same-sex couples certain benefits, such as hospital visitation rights and the ability to adopt children.”

Theory and practice, I guess.  Banning gay marriage is a federal issue, but it’s up to the states to put cruelty into practice.

Next fall, Next Fall might feel all too possible, given the vicissitudes of elections and the determination of the Right to turn back progress.  I hope, instead, that next fall (or maybe the one after that or the one after that...), as powerful and moving at this play is, it will seem a dated message play, that Next Fall will join Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart as a playabout a time when institutionalized denigration of gay people and the denial of their relationships was a tacit norm.

"How do you make that call?"  And who gets to make it?

Go see the play.  Make sure your gay and lesbian friends have a durable power of attorney.  And vote.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - a Review by Jillian Owens

Is it possible to gain serenity by isolating and removing all that is evil and full of rage from our minds?  This is the question Dr. Henry Jekyll seeks to answer in Chapin Theatre Company’s production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  After much experimentation and late hours in his laboratory, Jekyll creates a concoction that transforms him from his kind-natured bookish self into a raging violent monster who calls himself Mr. Hyde.  In Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of the famous novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, the lines of good and evil fade to grey.  In the beginning of his experiments, Dr. Jekyll remembers his alter-ego’s activities, but gradually he begins to “black out” for days at a time; as Hyde terrorizes London with violence, depravity, and murder.  Jekyll, through the testimony of his friends and colleagues is acutely aware of the dangerous and deadly extent of Hyde’s actions, but continues with his experiments regardless.  Hyde, on the other hand, becomes a sympathetic anti-hero.   Born with a rage he can’t control, we see surprising moments of tenderness to Elizabeth, a young chambermaid who falls in love with him.  He laments being unable to lament his cruel nature, and does all he can to defend himself from Jekyll’s threats to destroy him. This production of what could be a deeply moving exploration into the darkest corners of man’s soul doesn’t entirely work.  I applaud a small community theatre for attempting such a difficult production, but several elements of the show came off as hokey and/or unpolished.  Some of this is due to the challenging nature of the script.  Relying heavily on an ensemble cast, most of the actors end up playing a different aspect of Mr. Hyde -- a device that isn’t very effective, as it doesn’t really contribute to the story.   The constant “filling in the gaps” of the story by aside narrations and journal readings wouldn’t be so annoying if they weren’t so plentiful, often halting and killing any suspense that might have otherwise built up.  George Dinsmore’s performance of Dr. Henry Jekyll becomes much more powerful in the second half of this production, as we begin to actually see his inner turmoil and guilt for what he has done.  Nathan Dawson pulls of multiple roles, including the “main” Hyde well, although his Hyde is teeters on the edge of becoming a caricature, with a voice that is distractingly Tom Waits-ish.  The lack of erotic tension in the scenes between Hyde and Elizabeth (played by Emily Meadows) made their intense relationship seem quite unlikely.

This isn’t to say this production is without merit -  far from it.  The ensemble cast pulls off their rapidly-changing characters well,  changing their voices, postures, and mannerisms seamlessly and impressively.  Somehow a scene where one of the characters (played by David Reed) oversees an autopsy of the character he played in the previous scene doesn’t seem at all strange or out of place.  While the individually ever-rotating Mr. Hydes aren’t very effective, the scenes where they converge together to torment Dr. Jekyll are downright chilling.  

The set is stark, raw, and adaptive – perfect for this production.  The music plays a major part in creating this show’s haunting mood.  A few costume changes would have been helpful in establishing character changes, but became unnecessary, due to the strength of the cast’s ability to change so effortlessly and distinctly from role to role.

Chapin Theatre Company is making bold strides in moving away from being just another community theatre.  While they haven’t reached the caliber of other theatre companies in the Columbia area yet, they are well on their way.  Despite its flaws, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde will make a great addition to your Halloween season.

~ Jillian Owens

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the Robert Louis Stevenson novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, runs Oct. 19-Nov. 3, 2012 at the Harbison Theatre at Midlands Technical College, 7300 College St., Irmo, SC 29063. Visit www.chapintheatre.org for information on specific performance dates and reservations.