Breaking New Ground at the Humana New American Play Festival

37^th Humana Festival of New American Plays 2013:  Actors Theatre of Louisville;

Reams could be written about plethora of fine acting, directing and production values at the Humana New Play Festival but for this reviewer the emphasis is on “the plays the thing.”

Les Waters’ first full year as Artistic Director of Actors Theatre of Louisville and over-seer of the 37^th Humana Festival of New American Plays came to a successful conclusion on April 7 with plays that stimulate the mind, ask cogent questions, exposes political corruption with drama and humor.  Only one play, The Delling Shore by Sam Marks misses the mark although our own local Bay Area favorite director Meredith McDonough gave it a noble try.

All of the plays that arrive at the festival undergo professional scrutiny and are assigned a dramaturg(s) as well as technical staff. Rewrites have been often been incorporated while they are in rehearsal and previews. Along with Mark’s play that seems incomplete, Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins has a dynamic first act that would benefit from a second act revision.  Cry Old Kingdom by Jeff Augustin, Gnit by Will Eno and O Guru Guru Guro or why I don’t want to go to yoga class with you (yes it is all in the title) by Mallery Avidon are all ready for road.

GNIT  by Will Eno (Two hours 10 minuts with intermission)

The best of the lot in this years offering is Gnit by Will Eno, the master of language with a wicked sense of humor. This time around Eno tackles the rambling epic poem of Peer Gynt and comes up with a winner that will surely grace the boards of Berkeley Rep who, like Christopher Isherwood of the NY Times are ‘Enophiles.”

It helps that Les Waters directed the show with an excellent cast of Linda Kimborough playing the Mother and Dan Weller as Peter along with four other cast members that play a multitude of roles. Our own San Francisco product, Danny Wolohan, who has relocated in New York, reinforces his selection as San Francisco’s Best Ensemble Actor with sparkling wit befitting an Eno play.

Eno has subtitled his play “a rough translation of Henrik Ibsen’s PEER GYNT.” That may be true since this reviewer is not familiar with the poem or the story line. Rough or not it just seems right without any apology. It begins with Mother saying “Never have children. Or, I don’t know, have children. You end up talking to yourself, either way” and her first words to Peter, “You’re a liar.”

From this point Peter goes off on a far flung journey to find his true self leaving behind his bedridden mother. Before he leaves Norway, with neighbors in hot pursuit, he runs off with the bride betrothed to another. She gets deserted because Solvay is his true love.

His journey takes him to Morocco, Egypt (fantastic moveable set pieces by Antje Ellerman) and a dozen other places where he encounters the real world only to return unfulfilled to Norway. One wonders what Ibsen would say of this work.

APPROPRIATE by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins  (2 hours and15 minutes with intermission)

Actors Theatre has great acting spaces including the spacious Pamela Brown proscenium arch stage, the medium sized theatre-in-the-round Bingham and the intimate three-sided Victor Jory theatre.  Appropriate directed by Gary Griffen is mounted on the Pamela Brown stage and Antje Ellermann’s sensational set design evokes the mood even before two characters enter through a window.

Author Branden Jacobs-Jenkins who was born in the South and whose mother lives in Arkansas is familiar with the depressed areas where once glorious mansions are gradually crumbling. He also has a fascination with family interaction, specifically dysfunctional families. And so it is with Appropriate.

The three generations of Lafayettes arrive at their Arkansan plantation to liquidate the estate of their deceased patriarch. Those arriving through the window are a wayward son Franz and his significant other, a young female who is a believer in meditation and has had a salutary effect on Franz’s screwed up life. The oldest daughter Toni has been burdened with the care of their father who had descended into complete dependency before his eventual death. She is arranging the liquidation, is extremely defensive and offensive about the misery she has endured.

Arriving from New York is successful lawyer and oldest brother Bo, with his Jewish wife and two children. The animosity between the siblings escalates and layer by layer the past transgressions are exposed. When a photo album containing graphic photos of blacks being hanged is discovered the secret of the patriarch’s racist life is revealed. Although denial abounds, the truth of that discovery seems real although Jacob-Jenkins leaves it up to the audience to believe or not to believe.

The play, after a brilliantly written first, partially falls apart when violent physical action erupts between the family members. A non-dialog epilog with the set falling apart as strangers invade the mansion, although very dramatic, is unnecessary and probably will be excised from the final script.

 

CRY OLD KINGDOM by Jeff Augustin (80 minutes no intermission).

Although Jeff Augustin has never been to Haiti, the setting for Cry Old Kingdom, his mother was born there and he has been immersed in the oral history of the island nation. There was a dichotomy between his mother’s romanticizing and news stories of the brutality of the François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s regime. Set in1964 the protagonist Edwin a once admired artist painter is hiding in a secluded seashore location to avoid conflict with the oppressive Papa Doc’s henchmen the Tonton Macoutes. Into this secluded area ventures young Henri Marx who is building a boat to sail to America and freedom.

The inspirationally depleted painter/poet Edwin is rejuvenated when he meets Henri and will allow the boat to be built if he allows Edwin to paint the boy in the process. A poetic dependency develops between the two and progress continues on the boat building.

Edwin’s wife Judith continues to work each day and supplies the necessities for living. Her intellectual strength and love of country leads to her jailing, forcing Edwin to make a horrendous decision of whether to reveal Henri’s escape attempt thus freeing his wife or to remain silent. The ending is devastating.

O GURU GURU GURU or why I don’t want to go to yoga class with you by Mallery Avidon (90 minute no intermission)

Mallery Avidon’s strange play with the exceptional long title also has the tag of being a “triptych.”  Not only is it written in three parts, it is also a lesson in what really is yoga. To the initiated, this reviewer being one of them, it is a lesson in the history and art of Hindu transcendental meditation, not just the bone twisting physical exercises.  An ‘ashram’ is a hermitage, monastic community, or other place of religious retreat for Hindus and meditation is the game.

The play is semiautobiographical since Avidon lived for a time in an ashram in the Catskill Mountains but she moved on with her life forgoing satsangs that are gatherings where the participants experience a higher state of consciousness through music, meditation and wisdom.

The first part of the triptych on a stark blank stage is a lecture given by 30 year old Lila who projects blank slides in explaining the intricacies of yoga and how she got to this stage in her life. OK, now what? Now what is a full blown satsang beautifully staged with colorful saris and incidental music on an accordion type instrument with audience participation. At the performance I attended, 23 of the audience took off their shoes and sat cross-legged on stage to participate. As part of the satsang is a beautiful long shadow puppet show about the Hindu God Shiva and how he got his elephant head.

The final scene is a Hollywood set of a movie Eat, Pray, Love that stars Julie Roberts who dispenses wisdom to Lila playing an extra. Really. End of play.

**********************************

The Apprentice Company play this year, Sleep Rock Thy Brain, was written byRinne Groff, Lucas Hnath  and Anne Washburn. It was an off venue location where the cast members had a chance to fly suspended by wires from the ceiling. Fun but fails to win the brass ring.

 

PERICLES, Prince of Tyre: Drama by William Shakespeare. Conceived by Mark Wing-Davey with Jim Calder. Director Mark Wing-Davey. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison Street @ Shattuck, Berkeley, CA 94704. (510) 647-2949 – www.berkeleyrep.org.

April 12 – May 26, 2013

PERICLES, Prince of Tyre is a theatrical event at Berkeley Rep

How does a theatrical company change a Shakespearean drama that involves incest, murder, three shipwrecks, revival of a dead queen and a virgin forced into a brothel into a comedy? First hire Mark Wing-Davey as the director, surround him with an excellent production staff, compose original music for a live on stage trio and assemble a talented ensemble cast of eight to play all the roles originally written for 17 characters and a narrator/chorus named Gower (Anita Carey, the directors partner in life) chanting:

To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man’s infirmities,
To glad your ear, and please your eyes.

Even before the formal play begins “to glad your ear, and please your eyes”, the cast has been mingling with the audience and the leader of the musicians warms up the audience by composing a song using plebian words and eventually ending with a frere  jacques type three part melody. It works.

Antiocles, King of Antioch is having an incestuous relationship with his beautiful daughter. To keep her to himself and hide his actions he has created a riddle that every suitor for her hand must solve. By not doing so the suitors lose their heads. The severed heads of the unsuccessful ones are represented as heads of cabbage that fall from rear balcony. Yes humor rears its ugly head(s) and it is only the first scene!

When Pericles is given the riddle, it is written in mirror type and he reads it by reflecting the parchment in a series of mirrors fastened to the daughters dress. Now that is a clever directorial conceit and many more are to come. Alas he can solve the riddle and dare not do so and begs 40 days to study it. Pericles knowing his fate flees and his picaresque sea voyage journey begins. On his first stop he fills the coffers of the famine ridden people of Tarus thus making a friend of Dionyza, the governor. That will hold him in good stead later on. A sub-title should be “virtue rewarded.”

His first encounter with a storm at sea tosses him to the waves and rescued by two fisherman taking him to Pentapolis where a jousting contest is being held to win the hand of the beautiful Thaisa, daughter of King Simonides. He wins of course in a hilarious jousting contest acted out behind a black screen. The marriage night consummation on a platform bed mounted on heavy duty springs would make a virgin blush.

Off he goes with his pregnant bride on another sea voyage and the production crew mounts a storm to end all storm scenes with a fire hose spraying the stage with copious amounts of water while the ship (that consists of the aforementioned spring mounted platform) is tossed and buffeted while Queen Thaisa gives birth to a girl to be named Marina, of course since she was born at sea. To appease the gods Thaisa gets placed in a casket and dumped overboard but when the casket washes ashore she is brought back to life with magic herbs and she goes off to mourn in the Temple of Diana.

Time passes, Marina grows into a ravishing beauty, is about to be killed by her jealous guardians, is ‘rescued” by pirates, sold to a brothel but maintains her virginity by her virtuous nature. Eventually she is reunited with Pericles and they both find Thaisa in the Temple of Diana and all ends well.

The entire production has twists and turns of lights, sound, music that will keep you entertained. But the members of the cast are a marvel as they slip into character after character without a hitch. David Barlow as Pericles carries most of burden with a perfect demeanor of virtue personified even as he suffers the tribulations of Job. James Carpenter’s clear senatorial Shakespearian voice and commanding stage presence makes him perfect on to play the kingly roles. Jessica Kitchens’ regal/bawdy bearing almost matches Carpenter line for line and Annapurna Sriram exudes virtuous virginity even when she is hoisted high above the stage in a cargo net.

This is a not to be missed theatrical event that could become a model for further Shakespearean staging.  Note: Mark Wing-Davey may not be taking liberties with Shakespeare since there is question whether Shakespeare wrote this play or only part of it. A non-entity named George Wilkins may be the true author.)
Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine

 

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of  www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

Cecily (Riley Krull) and Gwendolen (Mindy Lym) both fall in love with men they believe are named “Ernest”
in the World Premiere musical BEING EARNEST,  presented by TheatreWorks April 3 – 28
at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.  Photo credit: Tracy Martin

BEING EARNEST: Musical. By Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska, adapted from Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Directed by Robert Kelley. TheatreWorks, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. (650) 463-1960. www.theatreworks.org. Through April 28, 2013

BEING EARNEST at TheatreWorks has charming star quality.

There are others who have undertaken to put Oscar Wilde’s near perfect 1895 satirical drawing room comedy The Importance of Being Earnest to music with a modicum of success. The first was in 1960 when Ernest in Love (Earnest without the ‘a’) received laudatory reviews off Broadway and move uptown where it played for about four months. The next incarnation was as a London musical simply called Earnest (the ‘a’ reinserted) that moved on into theatrical oblivion. Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska have kept the ‘a” in the title but their marvelous TheatreWorks’ production under Robert Kelly’s spot on direction only deserves a solid ‘B’.

Oscar Wilde’s play has a riotous plot with satirical characters that beg to cavort in gorgeous costumes trying to do justice to Wilde’s well known witticisms. Many of those (in)famous lines appear in the libretto and often provide titles for songs. Recognizing the necessity to incorporate the best (they are all good) of those wicked lines into the play the opening scene of the second act is devoted to the ensemble cast of seven quoting many of them to the audience with a photo of Wilde projected on the back scrim. It is a great touch and I would bet director Kelly had a hand in it.

The ludicrous convoluted storyline of two supercilious English girls who can only love a man with the name of Earnest has been transplanted to 60s London, specifically Soho’s Carnaby Street. It is a stretch of the imagination that there are similarities between 1965, the time period of this musical adaptation, and beginning of the Victorian Era but the authors wish the audience to think so as an explanation for the style/intent of the music.

The music is extremely clever and the lyrics incorporate Wilde’s words as cues for the actors but the final result does not reach the level of sophistication of Alan Jay Lerner’s use of Shaw’s dialog in My Fair Lady. The major actors (Hayden Tee as Jack, Euan Morton as Algernon, Riley Krull as Cecily and Mindy Lym as Gwendolen) are expert singers and the entire performance exudes good nature humor that carries through from opening number to an interesting Shavian type epilog with slide projections informing us that Wilde was right on, and it is true daughters become what their mothers are. This brings us to local favorite Maureen McVerry being miscast or misdirected as the formidable Lady Bracknell. Audience favorites are Brian Herndon playing multiple roles and Diana Torres Koss as Miss Prism who left poor baby Jack (Earnest) in a handbag at Victoria Station.

Placing the action in the Carnaby Street Era (that has since faded) allows costume designer Fumiko Bielefeldt to go wild starting with gorgeous Mondrian style dresses in the early scenes maintaining the high style throughout the show. Joe Ragey’s set with a central stairway allows the girls to use it as a runway for Bielefeldt’s fashion show. Running time two hours and 10 minutes.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com

 

STUCK ELEVATOR: A Theatrical Piece.Music by Byron Au Toung. Libretto by Aaron Jafferis. Directed by Chay Yew. American Conservatory Theater, 450 Geary St., S.F. (415) 749-2228. www.act-sf.org.April 16 – 28, 2013.

STUCK ELEVATOR at A.C.T. is ambitious and a long 81 minutes 

San Franciscowith its plurality of Asians is probably the perfect venue for the world premiere of Stuck Elevator with a Chinese protagonist, his family and a mostly oriental production crew. To further appeal to the locals, while the libretto is in English, Chinese super-titles are used. It is a clever idiosyncrasy.

 The entire production can rightfully be called clever but a more appropriate designation would be ‘eclectic” and the PR material labels it “a hybrid of musical theater, opera, and solo performance.”  The single word ‘opera’ would be equally appropriate. The stark libretto is sung mostly in long stretches of resistive and hip-hop rap. The staging is brilliant and that alone is worth a visit. The entire production that is packed into the 81 minutes (without intermission) becomes tedious although it is often mesmerizing. 

The libretto is based on the true story of a 35 year old Ming Kuang Chenoa a Chinese “take out” delivery boy for the Happy Dragon Restaurant inBronxwho was stuck in an elevator for 81 hours. It features Julius Ahn, given the name of Guāng, in the lead and a very competent ensemble of Raymond J. Lee, Marie-France Arcilla, Jose Perez and Joseph Anthony Foronda – all of whom play multiple roles. 

The 81 days is compressed into 81 minutes with a series of over-lapping scenes, some taking place in actual time but mostly in the mind of the trapped Guāng. He is working the sometimes dangerous “take out” job to earn money for his family still inChinaand also to pay off a huge debt to the Snakehead who smuggled him intoNew Yorkinside a cargo container. During that stifling trip his nephew has died of suffocation. 

Interestingly he initially thinks about losing money to his friend/competitor Mexican Marco to whom he has sold his cell phone that would have been his contact with the outside world. He thinks about his wife Ming and son Wang Yue and imagines they are there with him. An interesting conceit: When he fantasizes talking with Ming, Marco answers in Spanish. This is the start of hallucinations that become more bizarre as the hours, morph into days.

 His anger rises as he recognizes that he is an invisible immigrant stuck in the elevator and he eats the few fortune cookies and sauce packets in his delivery bag. Guang’s mind is obsessed with thoughts of his nephew’s death and the time he was mugged losing $200. That last memory elicits a bladder spasm wetting his pants. 

All the previous scenes are performed with the stage in blacks and grays. As his hallucinations become more outlandish color and humor is injected in the proceedings. The elevator becomes a slot machine inAtlantic Cityand when he pushes the button he wins the jackpot, color lights up the video projections, the ensemble cavort in amazing costumes. The winnings are used to buy a home and he and is family can now live the good life inAmerica. . . the futile goal of every immigrant is fulfilled. 

His letters exchange between Guang andChinaare folded paper airplanes that are flung on the stage and into the audience. . . a great way to involve the audience into the mix. In his dreams he wrestles with an Elevator Monster, complete in a glistening metallic costume only to be temporarily rescued by a Fortune Cookie monster that is revealed as Ming when the ever dangerous Snakehead rips off the Cookie Monsters mask. Alas Guang is defeated. 

A mugging scene enters Guang’s dream as he is stabbed with a pocket knife. Realizing he is not dead he imagines himself bicycling through the night sky over the city with Ming, Wang Yue and Marco before the 81 hours is up and the elevator door opens. End of play. It is to be noted that earlier Quang eats his last fortune cookie finding a blank fortune. Symbolic? Of course. 

Scenic designer Daniel Ostling; costume designer MyungHee Cho; lighting designer Alexander V. Nichols; video designer Kate Freer, IMA; and sound designer Mikhail Fiksel; music director Dolores Duran-Cefalu; choreography by Stephen Buescher; orchestrations by Byron Au Young.   

Kedar K Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com.

TINSEL TARTS in a HOT COMA: The Next Cockettes Musical Unabashed Drag Show. Thrillpeddlers. The Hypnodrome, 57510th St., S.F. (415) 377-4202  or www.brownpaper.com.

Through June1, 2013

TINSEL TARTS IN A HOT COMA is bi-coastal and omni-sexual

If you are not familiar with the original Cockettes you are in for a rollicking treat when you go to see the latest Thrillpeddlers production. It is a belly full of laughs when the 20 member cast cavorts, trip the light fantastic and belt song parodies with sex infused lyrics. Not only are the hilarious costumes covered with glitter, so are the faces and every (and I mean EVERY) exposed body part. Be warned that nudity, especially in the cataclysmic finale, is rampant.

This resurrection of this Cockettes musical had its origins in 1971 when the original show caused a semi-sensation, often for the wrong reasons, when their 1930 musical Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma opened in New York for a three-week run. Two of the original cast, Scrumbly Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent have rewritten the script added 18 (count them) new songs, music and lyrics. Another core member of the Cockettes, Rami Missabu, joins the cast.

The time is the 1930s and Hollywood is the place, filled with egocentric divas, actor wan-a-bees, eccentric directors and gaggles of movie extras. Conflict is as rampant as the songs and dances spill out into the audience. The theatre is a very, very intimate space. Vedda Viper a bitchy news broadcaster ala Walter Winchell is sort of the master of ceremonies as she spreads the gossip “no matter who gets F—-d!”

The irreverent hijinks just keep coming and coming and you will have a tough time if you try to figure out who is who. You’ll meet, Mayor Fiorello Laguardia, Goldie Digger Cow (complete with a two titted udder), Auntie Social, Salvador Deli, Graucho, Chico and Harpo Marx. Then there is the Tender Loin Chorus (you will not have to use your imagination since they leave nothing uncovered), Brunnhilde, Angel Gabrille and finally The Devil in the finale to end all finales.

Scrumbly plays the piano and directs the orchestra (Sax, Bass and drums) from on stage and has his chance to emote and take part in the action. Running time a bit too long but never boring and that is a promise.

(Music and Lyrics by Scrumbly Koldewyn. Book by Pam Tent and Scrumbly Koldewyn. Additional Lyrics by Link Martin,”Sweet Pam” Tent, Martin Worman, Tom Orr)

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of www.theatreworldinternetmagazine.com