5 stars | Dangerous Common Sense

UniSon

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Steven Sapp (Poet), Asia Mark (Apprentice)
photo from OSF

UniSon

A new musical by UNIVERSES
Inspired by August Wilson’s Poetry
In association with Constanza Romero
WORLD PREMIERE

UniSon is a brief, brilliant, shotgun wedding between poetry and drama, lubricated into position with just the right amount, and right style, of original music.

UNIVERSES and collaborators pulled off a transformation. Wilson’s original poetry, supplemented by UNIVERSES verses, are used as the dialogue in a coherent, sensible, sensitive narrative.

No longer just words, even vivid words, the views and observations in poems are given context and life by 7 Terrors from the dark parts of the mind of a fictional poet. The Poet, a doppelganger for August Wilson, is the focus of the play and its main character. Those Terrors reveal secret, unsanitized parts of the revered poet’s life.

The set and projections are strokes of genius. The stage is furnished cleanly allowing key elements of the action to grab as much attention as possible. Meanwhile, the multiple projection screens are the best use of that technology that I have seen. They are front-and-center, key to the movement of the story. Sometimes providing the written words of the poet, sometimes displaying appropriate icons, and sometimes providing simple elegance. Always spot on.

The play begins with the poetic words of August Wilson projected, and the dialogue opens with Steven Sapp (the Poet) artistically dispensing bombastic wisdom to Asia Mark (his Apprentice). He bludgeons his assistant with insight. A few pages of heavy Meaningful commentary go by before we wind up at the poet’s funeral and will reading. He bequeaths everything to the Apprentice on the condition that when she locates his trunk of private poems she destroy the contents.

Of course, she doesn’t destroy, but opens, the Poet’s box, unleashing the Terrors. This all happens within the first 10 minutes of the production, but the introduction felt a bit draggy. Maybe I was just worried that the entire 90 minutes was going to be as disconnected and lofty (tending toward pretension) as the first few scenes.

But, my fears of boredom were dispelled by the first spotlighted Terror, Terror #3, played by Kevin Kenerly. Physical energy, depth, emotion took over the stage as Kenerly revealed suppressed worries of the Poet, sounding perfect using the type of verses that had sounded too high minded and ethereal just a minute ago.

It turns out that Kenerly was just the first of 7 master class dialogues unleashed by each Terror in succession. The vignettes illuminate the torments hidden inside the Poet. Together they create a vivid view of a private man.

The acting could not have been better, nor could the work have been better designed. Each character had at least one spotlight moment that built — or revealed — an essential part of the Poet. Each actor made the most of what was written for them and added movement, voice, and feeling. Sapp, Mark, Kenerly were completely right. So were Christiana Clark (Terror #1/Seamstress), William Ruiz (Terror #2/Butcher), Rodney Gardiner (Terror #4/Black Smith), Mildred Ruiz-Sapp (Terror #5/Hunter), Yvette Monique Clark (Terror #6:/Momma), and Jonathan Luke Stevens (Terror #7/Soldier).

Each character, each actor, had seriously impressive scenes. Together the scenes built a seriously impressive story.

And, you keep wondering. How much are the poems, the dialogue, the fears really August Wilson on August Wilson? How close is the whole story to his life? How much of the material did Constanza Romero, Wilson’s widow, provide from Wilson’s own trunk and give to this production? How could she let the verses go public and not destroy the poems, if Wilson’s will mandated that destruction? Thank God she didn’t.

I enthusiastically recommend UniSon as a play, a performance, as poetry, as art. I’d also change a few things. The initial scenes setting up the opening of the Terror trunk are too long and self-important. The audience can get the idea sooner, and the Poet’s stabs of pain foretelling his imminent death are unneeded, or at least weirdly executed.

Then at the will reading we were told that the Apprentice was given the estate on the condition that she burned the contents of the trunk. She didn’t. Nothing happened. The Poet didn’t say anything releasing her from that bond, and the estate didn’t go away. So, I felt like you showed me a gun in Act I and never fired it.

Finally, I am very pleased that the actual performance did not convey the situation described in the Playbill: “… the Apprentice opens the trunk, accidently pulling the Poet from the afterlife.” Nothing in what I saw made the trunk opening a cosmic bar to the afterlife or anything. I am glad I didn’t have to worry about getting the Poet to heaven or hell and could just learn about his life. Please, creative team, do not pick up the tired storyline in a rewrite!

UniSon is a thrill, a triumph, a collaborative win. Even with its few rough edges it rates .

By Galen|2017-04-25T13:08:59-07:00April 25, 2017|osf, plays|0 Comments

“A Song at Twilight”

San Francisco, CA
at Theatre Rhinoceros

A Song at Twilight
By Noël Coward

Theatre Rhinoceros’ A Song at Twilight is an excellent production in every way. Its short, two-week run is almost half over, and I say grab a ticket. (They’re cheap, too!)

First, I need to address the lingering, decades-old stigma of Theatre Rhino’s productions. Too often in the distant past, going to The Rhino was a duty of gaydom/lesbianness. We went to support queer theater, and we often suffered through embarrassingly poor plays and unskilled actors. We went to show solidarity, but we rarely went expecting much or left feeling satisfied. I have memories of excruciating awful nights at the old space on 16th Street, if I have to be honest.

However, the general quality of the Rhino’s productions has gotten much, much better. Quietly and consistently the Rhino has morphed from an obligation into a pleasure. Under artistic director/executive director John Fisher, the Rhino has become interesting and fun. Sometimes the production values have showed the non-profit nature of the company, but the Rhino is producing at least reliable, good theater. So, if you’re my vintage of a San Franciscan, you should consider retiring your blessedly out-dated expectations of what The Rhino does.

This production of A Song at Twilight is simply excellent theater.

Sylvia Kratins as Carlotta Gray and John Fisher as Sir Hugo Latymer in Noel Coward’s A SONG AT TWILIGHT.

The play is a moving reminder of what queer people in Coward’s day had to do to cover-up who they were and who they loved. Coward repeatedly denied the story was autobiographical. So, really. It wasn’t about him. Really!

In any event, Song represents perfect play selection for a queer theater.

The script is witty, dangerous, fun, and awful. I remember most of Coward’s works as very pleasant diversions. Song is tightly-written and filled with quick dialogue, but the verbal barbs are devastating and not merely entertaining. The play means something. The characters suffer. We and they learn things. And, yeah, there is a lot of linguistic cleverness to sit back and enjoy.

The acting is excellent and the actors are well matched to their roles. This is one mature, professional, and spot-on collection of talent! The main characters (John Fisher as Hugo Latymer, Tamar Cohn as Lady Latymer, and Sylvai Kratins as Carlotta Gray) handle the rapid-fire, zinger-laden dialogue with finesse. They act as if everyone talked and fought using Coward-style lines. They make impossible transitions between repartee and all-out warfare seamless and clear.

Wonderful! The cast, including the butler (Marvin Peterle Rocha as Felix), were flawless.

The production values were first class throughout. The sets by Gilbert Johnson, the light by Sean Keehan, and Scarlett Kellum’s Costumes were natural, appropriate, and complementary to the action on stage.

The Z-Below theater also adds to the experience. The lobby/waiting area is lofty-tacky, but once you’re inside the 88-seat theater, you relax. The space is excellently designed. The rake between rows of seats gives everyone a clear view of the whole stage, and the space feels comfortable, innovative, and modern.

I would go into more detail, but, really, I don’t have time. The show closes January 31st. And, I’ve never said this of a Rhino production before…, it’s a MUST SEE piece of theater.

Disclosure: I do the Rhino’s website and Internet work for them.
But, seriously, this is the first time I’ve posted a review and urged you to see one of their productions!

By Galen|2016-01-24T11:00:12-08:00January 23, 2016|plays|0 Comments

Head Over Heels — World Premiere

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Head Over Heels
Play by Jeff Whitty
Music and Lyrics by the Go-Go’s

Jonathan Tufts and Ensemble. Photo by Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Head Over Heels is the latest saucy work from the razor-sharp, careful, sensitive, and insanely clever mind of Jeff Whitty. His inventive approaches to story telling are twisted and brilliant, and this Oregon Shakespeare Festival production exquisitely delivers pure fun.

The play uses the Go-Go’s songbook as the source of its music, although Music Director Geraldine Anello has dramatically freed some of the arrangements from the original signature driving beat when Whitty’s book demands it.

Head Over Heels is no drivelly biographic jukebox musical. Whitty says his book started with Sir Philip Sidney’s 16th-century pastoral romance, Arcadia, and the characters speak in iambic pentameter. Whitty also populates the story with traditional Shakespeare-like characters (clown, pushy daughter, sensitive younger daughter, etc.) But, the core to the play’s success are the family relationships and story twists and turns which are dangerously modern and exuberant.

I could exhaust myself reaching for superlative adjectives that describe the intellectual frolicking onstage. I was giddy with the constancy of the subtle zingers in the script. Some were laugh-out-loud funny, others kept my face in a grin that hurt my muscles.

All the excellent fluff is ENTERTAINING! But, Head Over Heels is subversive in the way it unveils the normality of a range of sexual orientations. The audience roots for the two couples of young lovers to overcome the obstacles to their coupling (which in each case is both a lack of self-knowledge and class). The fact that one couple is straight and the other lesbian is not even noted in the script nor in any reaction.

Identifying a single outstanding character is problematic. The acting and singing was nuanced and strong.

Jonathan Tufts (Philanax) as the fey narrator and clown was funny, obvious, and completely engaging. He plays against type and plays it just right.

Bonnie Milligan (Pamela, the older daughter) belts out her character and songs, oozing with the self confidence of an un-selfquestioning older sibling. She’s great when she consoles Tala Ashe (Philoclea, her sister) over how much prettier she, Pamela, is. Bonnie is a large woman and made up to emphasize her bigness, while Tala is smaller and traditionally more attractive.

Ah! There it is again! Another invisible cultural concept correction snuck into the script by Whitty. Pamela’s rating of herself as the much more attractive sister is never corrected or smirked at onstage. The audience knows her self-assessment is wrong,… but is it? No one in the play seems to think so.

Now, back to the performances. All deserve praise! But, really Miriam Laube (Gynecia, the mother of the family) has to be singled out for doing an outstanding job, reminding us that she does not need to be in the title role or to be in center stage to own the scene. She was believable and fun.

“Thank you!” to Michael Sharon (Basilius, the father), Dylan Paul (Musidorus, Philoclea’s beau), Tala, Britney Simpson (Mopsa, Pamela’s lust object), and Michele Mais (the Oracle). The actors and dancers who are not featured delivered energetic, tight, and fully wonderful performances, too. Heartfelt applause to all!

Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar was helped by the continuing collaboration of Whitty and the creative team, but that help doesn’t detract from the fact that he made all aspects of the production fit together as comfortably as an in an old classic. The set by Christopher Acebo focused the audience while giving the cast plenty of room to romp, dance, and play. It was masterfully useful.

Loren Shaw’s outrageous, vivid costumes matched completely the words, music, and action. They were wholly over the top, but in a reassuring good way. Look at the sample of the costuming in the picture posted here… detailed and individual works of art.

I also liked the treatment of the Go-Go’s songs. The occasional recasting and reworking of the tone let the depth of the music and lyrics become audible when the original versions served mainly as energy vehicles. Head Over Heels uses every bit of depth in the groups entire songbook to carry the show. If I have any concern it is that there is more enjoyable Whitty story than there is Go-Go’s music.

Head Over Heels is quick, smart, and complex. It’s a must-see… but, if you don’t make it to Ashland, I bet you’ll be able to see it on Broadway.

Ozdachs Rating:

By Galen|2015-08-23T16:50:34-07:00August 23, 2015|osf, plays|0 Comments

Sweat
Gallery
Sweat

osf, plays

Sweat

Ashland, Oregon
at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Sweat
by Lynn Nottage | World Premiere

Jack Willis, Carlo Alban, and K.T. Vogt in “Sweat”.
photo by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Sweat is Lynn Nottage’s brilliant story of people and community in collapse. Before writing this commissioned American Revolutions series play, Nottage talked to residents of America’s poorest city of 2001, Reading, Pennsylvania. Her work shares the residents’ pain, losses, and self-immolation as their good jobs are eliminated in relentless, financially logical, corporate-mandated factory closings and union busting.

I knew the story’s outline coming into the theater. I expected satisfying liberal ranting and raving at the evils of unchecked capitalism. I anticipated heroic, self-sacrificing union people rallying together, and I imaged an uplifting ending engendered by a character or two’s meaningful transformation from floor machinist to educated professional. Or, some other dramatically reasonable redemption that would further Nottage’s growing reputation.

Fortunately, Nottage did not write Sweat with my limited vision. Instead, her approach, plot, and words are extraordinary masterpieces. Her exposition is unconventional, unexpected, and completely involving.

The play’s action occurs in 2008 and in a series of scenes in 2000. We start out seeing key players in 2008, and then Nottage takes us on a chunk-by-chunk visit to the days in 2000 that led to the creation of the 2008 characters. We wind up in modern day (2008) and with the same group of locals from the 2000 neighborhood bar.

The 2000 disruption, drama, and dissolution had been excellently crafted and spectacularly well executed onstage in front of us. The drawing of the characters, the choice of illustrative scenes, and the depth of the language of the eight-year-old scenes were alone striking enough to make Sweat a classic.

Yet, the depth of the individual and collective destruction becomes gasp-inducingly crushing when the audience and characters return to 2008. We understood previously that unpleasant things were happening to our people. But, the time-spaced moments at the play’s conclusion go beyond our earlier intellectual understanding of tragedy and force us to witness and feel the wreckage of minds, souls, and bodies.

Trying more to describe the power Sweat’s writing would be foolish. I’d be in danger of substituting my language for Nottage’s. It just needs to be said that Sweat is an amazing piece of theater based solely on the vivid story and writing.

Then, after giving full credit to the experience to Nottage, we need to add superlative positive descriptions for every other professional contributor of the OSF. Really.

Every actor owned their role. There were no moments when I second guessed the tone or action of any of the people on stage.

The length of my applause for each actor pretty much follows the number of lines they were given to say. Certainly Jack Willis (bartender Stan) had a perfect read on his part from beginning to the very end. Ashland newcomer Tramell Tillman (Chris) used both facial expressions and body movement exceptionally well to accompany his otherwise flawless acting. Of course, any mention of well controlled movement coupled with devastating line delivery needs to lead to a shout out to Terri McMahon. Her drinking buddies Kimberly Scott (Cynthia) and K.T. Vogt (Jessie) also had their own focus-riveting moments, and those women’s work was impeccable.

But, now I want to reorder the positive comments because it’s not fair to leave Carlo Alban (Oscar) until now. He gave a spot-on performance of a role with a lot of onstage downtime coupled with a few critical scenes. And, Tyrone Wilson (Evan)’s probation officer sets up key moments with mouthfuls of exposition. Wilson is skilled getting things said with real and appropriate humanness.

Which unfairly leaves Kevin Kenerly (Brucie) to last. (Please shuffle the order of actor kudos!) Brucie in word and presence is a Cassandra-like warning for the other regulars in the bar. Yet, Kenerly’s straight-forward, strong but low-key portrayal leaves the audience responsible for connecting the dots.

Better than excellent acting, all.

Then there’s the set. Innovative, effective, and richly done. Scenic designer John Lee Beatty created a canvass that let the action move smoothly and quickly and effectively. The scenery, props, and videos (by Jeff Sugg) worked together with comfort and clarity.

With so many facets of Sweat being flat-out wonderful/meaningful/affecting clearly thanks and credit are due to another Ashland newcomer, director Kate Whoriskey. All aspects of the evening are in sync. Whoriskey was part of the Nottage team that worked on the ground in Reading (if I read the Playbill correctly), and her resulting artistic choices made a memorable theatrical event.

This world premier feels like a shaken-out classic. The minor flaws I noticed are not worth mentioning. I am grateful to Oregon Shakespeare festival for their ambitious commissions, to Lynn Nottage for her story, and to the cast and crafts for their artistry.

By Galen|2015-08-27T07:57:54-07:00August 19, 2015|osf, plays|0 Comments

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