World Premiere | Dangerous Common Sense

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:

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.