“Anchor Baby” offers a fun but simplistic theater take on culture clash at First Congregational Church
by Rosemary Ponnekanti / The News Tribune
May 5, 2012
Tacoma has quite a history of small, independent theater in odd venues, and “Anchor Baby” is one of them. Mounted by Dukesbay Productions, who’ve been responsible for the “Java Tacoma” live local sit-com and other creative shows, Richard Tucker’s “Anchor Baby” opened Friday night at First Congregational Church and tells a culture-clash tale of what happens when brash, clueless Americans plonk themselves into the peaceful society of the fictional island of Mehlot. It’s a mostly fun piece of theater but the acting has some holes and the script is about as about as subtle as a lead hammer.
Dukesbay is a group of community theater folks with an emphasis on cast diversity. For this show they also have a star-studded production line-up which sets a professional tone from the moment you walk into the church’s musty alleyway door: Set designer Scott Campbell (formerly Lakewood Playhouse and Tacoma Little Theatre) has made a gorgeous tropical-apartment set out of an uninspiring church basement room, along with painter Maggie Knott (also formerly Lakewood). Composer Allan Loucks adds a quasi-steel-band touch to the scene change music.
The acting is less professional. James Gilletti (a local regular) and Chevi Chung play the biracial couple Bobby and Alita Anchor, who live on the idyllic Pacific island of Mehlot are expecting their first baby. Gilletti’s Bobby, the local TV news anchor with dual American-Mehlotti citizenship (clever wordplay here) is Mr. Nice Guy, exactly how you’d imagine a TV anchor to act at home. Chung makes a ever-kind Alita but delivers each line as if to a slightly deaf grandparent – odd for a character who’s supposed to have graduated from Rutgers. As they deal with the sudden arrival of Bobby’s embarrassingly racist parents and rebel teen daughter, the plot thickens but the acting doesn’t. Curt Beech, as Bobby’s ignorant and offensive father Jack, drops a lot of lines and acts like a wooden board; Elizabeth Gibson is at least convincing as the eye-rolling teenager Charlene but is given too many flounces and unbelievable actions from indoor graffiti to shooting someone.
No, it’s the older women who carry the play. As Bobby’s mom Phyllis, Laurie Sifford hits the perfect combination of scheming bossiness and housewifely fuss, while Aya Hashiguchi, who along with Bryan Yambe plays a string of Mehlotti locals, infuses every character from joking factory worker to sweet mother-in-law with convincing passion.
As Bobby’s parents progress from insulting the locals to capitalizing the economy and fixing the elections, and Alita gets increasingly fed-up (and pregnant) the script begins to let everyone down. America’s boorishness and cultural insensitivity is an important point to get across, but Federal Way playwright D. Richard Tucker belabors not only his point but every gag and every scene, not much aided by director Randy Clark’s everyone-sitting-in-chairs blocking. The prose gets purple (like when Charlene pulls a knife and threatens, “I will slice you! I will dice you!”), and as a thought-piece on biracial families and post-colonialist awareness the whole thing’s almost insultingly simplistic.
Nevertheless it’s great to see a topic like this on stage, and “Anchor Baby” is basically a fun piece of theater – especially the ending.
Toy Boat Theatre plumbs the depths of Edward Albee’s bleakness in “Zoo Story”
by Rosemary Ponnekanti / The News Tribune
May 5, 2012
Tacoma has quite a history of small, independent theater in odd venues, and “Anchor Baby” is one of them. Mounted by Dukesbay Productions, who’ve been responsible for the “Java Tacoma” live local sit-com and other creative shows, Richard Tucker’s “Anchor Baby” opened Friday night at First Congregational Church and tells a culture-clash tale of what happens when brash, clueless Americans plonk themselves into the peaceful society of the fictional island of Mehlot. It’s a mostly fun piece of theater but the acting has some holes and the script is about as about as subtle as a lead hammer.
Dukesbay is a group of community theater folks with an emphasis on cast diversity. For this show they also have a star-studded production line-up which sets a professional tone from the moment you walk into the church’s musty alleyway door: Set designer Scott Campbell (formerly Lakewood Playhouse and Tacoma Little Theatre) has made a gorgeous tropical-apartment set out of an uninspiring church basement room, along with painter Maggie Knott (also formerly Lakewood). Composer Allan Loucks adds a quasi-steel-band touch to the scene change music.
The acting is less professional. James Gilletti (a local regular) and Chevi Chung play the biracial couple Bobby and Alita Anchor, who live on the idyllic Pacific island of Mehlot are expecting their first baby. Gilletti’s Bobby, the local TV news anchor with dual American-Mehlotti citizenship (clever wordplay here) is Mr. Nice Guy, exactly how you’d imagine a TV anchor to act at home. Chung makes a ever-kind Alita but delivers each line as if to a slightly deaf grandparent – odd for a character who’s supposed to have graduated from Rutgers. As they deal with the sudden arrival of Bobby’s embarrassingly racist parents and rebel teen daughter, the plot thickens but the acting doesn’t. Curt Beech, as Bobby’s ignorant and offensive father Jack, drops a lot of lines and acts like a wooden board; Elizabeth Gibson is at least convincing as the eye-rolling teenager Charlene but is given too many flounces and unbelievable actions from indoor graffiti to shooting someone.
No, it’s the older women who carry the play. As Bobby’s mom Phyllis, Laurie Sifford hits the perfect combination of scheming bossiness and housewifely fuss, while Aya Hashiguchi, who along with Bryan Yambe plays a string of Mehlotti locals, infuses every character from joking factory worker to sweet mother-in-law with convincing passion.
As Bobby’s parents progress from insulting the locals to capitalizing the economy and fixing the elections, and Alita gets increasingly fed-up (and pregnant) the script begins to let everyone down. America’s boorishness and cultural insensitivity is an important point to get across, but Federal Way playwright D. Richard Tucker belabors not only his point but every gag and every scene, not much aided by director Randy Clark’s everyone-sitting-in-chairs blocking. The prose gets purple (like when Charlene pulls a knife and threatens, “I will slice you! I will dice you!”), and as a thought-piece on biracial families and post-colonialist awareness the whole thing’s almost insultingly simplistic.
Nevertheless it’s great to see a topic like this on stage, and “Anchor Baby” is basically a fun piece of theater – especially the ending.
Toy Boat Theatre plumbs the depths of Edward Albee’s bleakness in “Zoo Story”
The latest production from Toy Boat Theatre, a temporary black-box theater company and Spaceworks participant on the Hilltop, is Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story,” which in just one hour manages to descend to the depths of human misery both through Albee’s inimitable wordsmithing and through excellent work from two Tacoma actors.
Scott Campbell (formerly of Lakewood Playhouse and Tacoma Little Theatre) plays Peter, while Luke Amundson (The Outfit, Found Space Productions) plays Jerry in this first of Albee’s plays. Written in 1958, it was initially rejected by American companies for its caustic degradation of “wholesome” American society; it was premiered in West Berlin (of all places) before seeing later success back home. Albee has since written a prequel to fill it out to evening-length, but the acclaimed American playwright allows college and non-professional companies to stage the original one-act version; this is the version so grippingly performed at Toy Boat Theatre this and last weekend.
Campbell and Amundsen take on their rather unlikeable characters in a set-up that makes the most of Toy Boat’s narrow but long space, an empty commercial property available through the Spaceworks program. The foyer is extended with tables for a casual “zoo dinner” (hot dogs, beer and animal crackers) and the play takes place in a back area. With audience rows and the characters’ park benches staking out diagonally opposite corners, director Brie Yost immediately engages the audience; you’re sitting right there in Central Park, unwitting observers to the bizarre and devastating events of the play.
Well-matched in strength, Campbell and Amundsen inhabit their characters fully. As the preppy ‘50s Upper East Side family man Peter, Campbell hits a superbly geeky note, delightfully awkward and anal-retentive, and hilariously shocked at Jerry’s crude sexual references. As Jerry, the blunt, intrusive working-class loner from the Upper West Side, Amundsen is at once threatening and salvatory, relishing Albee’s lengthy monologues. While Jerry interrupts Peter’s afternoon reading in the park with his oddly desperate stories about his landlady and her dog, Yost escalates the tension with clever blocking, moving the two men antagonistically apart then violently close. For the audience, this is as gripping as the back-and-forth of a boxing match, with the undercurrent of Albee’s cynical assessment of dysfunctional American society.
Amid increasing misunderstanding and background animal noise, this “Zoo Story” continues to a spellbinding, metaphorical ending – just as disconcerting as it was half a century ago.
Éclat: "The Zoo Story" at Toy Boat Theatre
by Michael Dresdner, South Sound Arts, Etc., Friday, Oct. 14, 2011
One dictionary definition of éclat is “brilliant show,” and that, in a nutshell, describes “The Zoo Story” at Toy Boat Theatre.
I don’t use that term loosely, but here it fits. Everything about this performance – in fact, about the total evening’s experience – was superb; brilliant acting and directing, thoroughly appropriate costumes, and a stage setting that made it all the more real.
And that’s just the play. Included in your modest ticket price is food and drink (hot dogs, chips and soda) before the play, and a live band afterwards, in case you’re not ready to go home yet. Still, the heart of the evening is the play.
It would be easy to mess up a play like “Zoo Story;” easy to play it too dark and lose the humor, too ham-handed and lose the startling nuance, too abrupt and lose the slow, imperceptible morphing of the characters. Instead, what director Brie Yost brought us through the absolutely flawless acting of Scott Campbell and Luke Amundson was a realistic, visceral experience; the finest aspiration of what live theatre hopes to be.
Both actors fulfill the ultimate dream of stage craft; to so become the character that you can’t possibly imagine anyone else playing the part. I’ve seen “Zoo Story” before, and I can assure you I’ve never seen it done so perfectly.
Yost chose to do the play in traverse, a stage setting where the acting takes place in a strip of space between rows of audience seats facing one another. That works best in intimate theatres, like the 40-seat black box Toy Boat inhabits. The audience gets to clearly see action and facial expressions while the actors realistically face and address not an unseen audience, but one another.
“Zoo Story” is a fairly short (approximately 50 minute) one-act play with just two characters. It opens with neatly dressed, coifed, bespectacled Peter (Scott Campbell) sitting and reading on a secluded park bench in NYC’s Central Park. He’s soon intruded upon by Jerry (Luke Amundson), a somewhat disheveled transient who insists on both questioning Peter and telling him long and darkly funny stories about his sordid life.
Under Jerry’s questioning, we learn that Peter is an upper middle class publisher with the perfect life: a wife, two children, one cat and two parakeets. Through his rants we discover that Jerry is one of those rootless, grubby, marginal denizens who adds to the charismatic panoply of the big city.
Jerry’s tales, though a chronicle of a pathetic existence, are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, at least for a while. Soon, though, the stories and his demeanor turn darker. Eventually he pushes the tightly wound Peter, and the audience with him, out of his comfort zone and past the breaking point.
Campbell plays the mild mannered Peter, a completely familiar upstanding citizen, with total realism. Eventually, Jerry pushes him too far, but he tips over believably, slowly, fighting it all the way, his better nature striving to endure until it is just too much.
Amundson’s Jerry exudes character and, yes, charm, as he shares his long winded but delightfully sardonic observations of the absurd and gritty world he inhabits. The stories are not happy, but he somehow makes them damned funny. Once we’re comfortable laughing at his dark tales, an almost imperceptible change occurs.
Real schizophrenics often sound completely plausible, right up to the point that we realize they’ve somehow gone off the deep end, though we’re never sure just when that was. Amundson creates that perfectly. He adroitly slides into something frighteningly off, changing so subtly that we never notice it happening. We only realize, at some point, that it has.
The result is a theater experience that starts us out chuckling, draws us in, then hurls us through a true emotional upheaval. It’s a magnificently executed theater event, and the director, actors and all the others who created it deserve the highest praise.
Toy Boat Theatre itself deserves some explanation. It’s part of Spaceworks Tacoma, an initiative that gets owners of vacant buildings to allow arts groups to use them rent free for a short period of time. For now, and until December, Toy Boat inhabits a humble, charming space on MLK Way.
They do little or no advertising, which contributes to why you’ve probably not heard of them. Now that you have, make your way there. In fact, do it very soon, because trust me, you do not want to miss “Zoo Story.”
The class menagerie: Our greatest debate occupies Hilltop
by Christian Carvajal, The Weekly Volcano, Oct. 17, 2011
Toy Boat Theatre's "The Zoo Story"
As I write this, thousands of protestors "occupy" Zuccotti Park, across the street from Four World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, to protest the economic polarization of America. Some see this event as a disorganized mob squatting in the name of class envy. Others view it as the vanguard of American progressivism, a necessarily chaotic response to an economic hydra. Either way, it's pretty obvious to most of us that the middle class lost adequate governmental representation, and some of us have had enough. In fact, Occupy Wall Street is a response to the same crisis that inspired the Tea Party: Our Congress works against 99% of us in order to bolster those few voters it cares about.
Look, I can't claim any great insight into this debate. What I can say is it's just one visible expression of an old conversation. As proof, Toy Boat Theatre offers The Zoo Story, Edward Albee's 1958 two-hander in one act. Director Brie Yost wisely sets the play in the mid-‘60s and allows us to observe the parallels for ourselves. Scott Campbell, until recently Yost's boss at Tacoma Little Theatre, plays Peter, a publishing executive with the expected wife and two kids, plus pets. He resembles no one more than Roger Kaputnik, cartoonist Dave Berg's befuddled establishment type from Mad magazine, complete with pipe and Brylcreem. Luke Amundsen pours his heart and soul into Jerry, who sees a chance meeting with Peter as an opportunity to vent some intense frustrations. The fuse is lit on this character from minute one.
Every element works. Toy Boat's mission statement promises "good acting in a humble house" and delivers on both fronts. Why, I'd even call Amundson and Campbell's performances outstanding. Their show's political without being didactic, heightened without being melodramatic, and poetic sans pretension. Your ticket includes a hot-dog supper and band performance; so if you feel the urge to occupy someplace, I'd start there. The Zoo Story rocks.
One of the best things about this performance is that all of the actors clearly enunciate their lines while remaining fully in character and not sounding like they’re making an effort to articulate well. That might seem insignificant, but since Shakespearean language is hard for many contemporary Americans to understand, it is important.
The one thing that is not outstanding is the sword fighting. The fight scenes seem a little anemic to me, but that does not bother me much as the play is about the human conflict, not physical fights.
Erin Chanfrau’s scenic design smartly creates a mood rather than a specific look of various scenes, and the movement of props on and off stage is kept to a minimum. Gnarled tree limbs made of twisted brown paper line the entries and three walls of the theater – which is simple, creative and highly effective.
Bryan Bender plays Macbeth, the anguished general of the Scottish army, whose blind ambition, aided by the machinations of his treacherous wife, drives him to murder the good king Duncan (Christopher Gilbert). This is a tough role to pull off because of the intensity of Macbeth’s anger, fear and sorrow. It is a role that could easily be overly dramatized. Bender plays it with controlled intensity – likewise Rebecca Wood as Lady Macbeth.
Unlike the complicated Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, King Duncan is transparent in his simple love of his country and his fellow men. Gilbert fills the role with natural grace, easily conveying the good king’s naiveté. And then, after Duncan is murdered, Gilbert ably doubles up in the roles of Old Siward and other minor characters.
Luke Amundson is outstanding as Macbeth’s friend and fellow general, Banquo, who is murdered by his best friend and comes back as a ghost to haunt him. His bloody makeup is remarkably grotesque.
Also outstanding in a variety of small roles is veteran South Sound actor Scott C. Brown. Since Brown has played many lead roles (most notably R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Salieri in “Amadeus”), his appearance in this play as various soldiers amounts to a series of cameos. And he really stands out in his brief comical turn as the drunken porter. This small scene is the epitome of comic relief.
Finally, a word about Rebecca Wood. She is the first Equity actor ever to appear on the Lakewood Playhouse stage, and she is absolutely believable as the strong-willed and devious murderess who succumbs to madness when overwrought with guilt. Lady Macbeth does not have as much time on stage as her husband, but in her scenes all eyes are riveted on her.
The staging, lighting and costuming of the three witches and all of the attendant hocus-pocus and supernatural weirdness was done with great style and just the right touch of theatricality to be effective without overwhelming the narrative. And, while all of the witches are good, I was especially impressed with Katy Shockman in her Lakewood Playhouse debut.
Finally, a word about Josh Johnson pounding on the big drum at every scene change – what a wonderful way to bring actors on and off stage.
If you like Shakespeare, no matter how many times you may have seen “Macbeth,” and even if you are not familiar with his plays, I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy this one.
And yet, 10 minutes into “The Sound of Music” at Lakewood Playhouse I forgot all about Julie Andrews. Adrienne Grieco is Maria. Seldom if ever have I seen an actor in a community theater so completely become a character.
Her voice is sweet and pure, her look wholesome and her emotions unabashedly right on the surface. Her expressions of pain and joy and her love for the von Trapp children go right to the heart. In the oh-so-popular film version, the sentimentality is sickeningly overdone, yet there is no taste of that false sentimentality in Grieco’s performance.
The same can be said for the actors who play the younger von Trapp children: Kat Christensen as Louisa, Anna Rose LeMaster as Brigitta, Justin Niedermeyer as Kurt, Hannah Thoreson as Marta and Claire Thoreson as Gretl. It is a joy to see their distrust of the new governess begin to melt away as Maria teaches them the delightful song “Do Re Me” and then turn to pure adoration as she sings “My Favorite Things” while the children huddle in her bed for protection from the scary thunder and lightning of a storm.
Christopher Gilbert as the crusty Capt. Georg von Trapp is stiff and unbending at first. Unlike Grieco and the children, he seems to be acting more than inhabiting the role – until he, like the children, melts under the warmth of Maria’s love. By the second act, the audience is as much in love with him as they are with Maria and the children. And his voice, though not as strong as Grieco’s, is mellow, warm and especially engaging on his duet with Grieco on “Something Good” and his solo on the touching “Edelweiss.”
Other performers who are outstanding are Carol Richmond, who plays housekeeper Frau Schmidt and doubles as one of the nuns; Marie Kelly (a terrific singer) as Capt. von Trapp’s fiancée, Elsa; and Ted Fredericks as Uncle Max Detweiler. (If there is such a thing as comic relief in this show, it is provided by Fredericks, who plays Uncle Max as a pompous rooster but ceases to be funny when he begins to cave in to the Nazi invaders.)
Lakewood Playhouse does all of their shows in the round, which means that set changes in a show like this are a huge challenge. But director Scott Campbell and set designer Doug Kerr solve it with simple pieces that are quickly moved by actors as they enter and exit the stage area.
Special recognition must also go to the band: Larry Trop, keyboard and conductor; Hanna Jepson, keyboard; and Jack Lake, percussion.
I saw a preview performance, meaning it was the first performance with full set and lighting in front of a live audience. There were one or two entrances that were too slow, and the nuns singing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” were somewhat tentative. But these slight problems were insignificant and fixable.
I wish it could have ended with the von Trapp family exiting the stage while singing the “So Long, Farewell” reprise. Everything after that – including the scene with Liesl’s boyfriend turned Nazi, Rolf (Steve Barnett) – was anticlimactic. But contrived as that scene is, it is necessary to the story, and a lot of people would probably be disappointed if it were left out.
For all its sentimentality and familiarity, this show is wonderful to watch. And as Lakewood Playhouse artistic director Marcus Walker warned in his welcoming remarks, it is hard to resist the temptation to sing along out loud.
"The Chosen" is a powerful play about compassion and righteousness, and even though it is set more than half a century ago and investigates the clash of two cultures that are far removed from the dominant modern culture, it is a story that remains relevant today.
Walker Richmond
Lakewood Playhouse stages marvelous ‘Macbeth’
by Alec Clayton, The News Tribune, Nov. 7, 2008
I’ve seen quite a few performances of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” and the one now playing at Lakewood Playhouse is the best in my memory. The dramatic staging and lighting, the sets and the acting are all outstanding. Special kudos to director Scott Campbell and costume designer Naarah McDonald.
I’ve seen quite a few performances of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” and the one now playing at Lakewood Playhouse is the best in my memory. The dramatic staging and lighting, the sets and the acting are all outstanding. Special kudos to director Scott Campbell and costume designer Naarah McDonald.
One of the best things about this performance is that all of the actors clearly enunciate their lines while remaining fully in character and not sounding like they’re making an effort to articulate well. That might seem insignificant, but since Shakespearean language is hard for many contemporary Americans to understand, it is important.
The one thing that is not outstanding is the sword fighting. The fight scenes seem a little anemic to me, but that does not bother me much as the play is about the human conflict, not physical fights.
Erin Chanfrau’s scenic design smartly creates a mood rather than a specific look of various scenes, and the movement of props on and off stage is kept to a minimum. Gnarled tree limbs made of twisted brown paper line the entries and three walls of the theater – which is simple, creative and highly effective.
Bryan Bender plays Macbeth, the anguished general of the Scottish army, whose blind ambition, aided by the machinations of his treacherous wife, drives him to murder the good king Duncan (Christopher Gilbert). This is a tough role to pull off because of the intensity of Macbeth’s anger, fear and sorrow. It is a role that could easily be overly dramatized. Bender plays it with controlled intensity – likewise Rebecca Wood as Lady Macbeth.
Unlike the complicated Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, King Duncan is transparent in his simple love of his country and his fellow men. Gilbert fills the role with natural grace, easily conveying the good king’s naiveté. And then, after Duncan is murdered, Gilbert ably doubles up in the roles of Old Siward and other minor characters.
Luke Amundson is outstanding as Macbeth’s friend and fellow general, Banquo, who is murdered by his best friend and comes back as a ghost to haunt him. His bloody makeup is remarkably grotesque.
Also outstanding in a variety of small roles is veteran South Sound actor Scott C. Brown. Since Brown has played many lead roles (most notably R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and Salieri in “Amadeus”), his appearance in this play as various soldiers amounts to a series of cameos. And he really stands out in his brief comical turn as the drunken porter. This small scene is the epitome of comic relief.
Finally, a word about Rebecca Wood. She is the first Equity actor ever to appear on the Lakewood Playhouse stage, and she is absolutely believable as the strong-willed and devious murderess who succumbs to madness when overwrought with guilt. Lady Macbeth does not have as much time on stage as her husband, but in her scenes all eyes are riveted on her.
The staging, lighting and costuming of the three witches and all of the attendant hocus-pocus and supernatural weirdness was done with great style and just the right touch of theatricality to be effective without overwhelming the narrative. And, while all of the witches are good, I was especially impressed with Katy Shockman in her Lakewood Playhouse debut.
Finally, a word about Josh Johnson pounding on the big drum at every scene change – what a wonderful way to bring actors on and off stage.
If you like Shakespeare, no matter how many times you may have seen “Macbeth,” and even if you are not familiar with his plays, I think you’ll thoroughly enjoy this one.
Playhouse comes alive with ‘Sound of Music’
by Alec Clayton, The News Tribune, Dec. 28, 2007
Certain roles by certain actors are so indelibly etched in the minds of theatergoers that they simply cannot be done by anyone else. Gregory Peck as Atticus in “To Kill a Mockingbird” comes to mind, and Jack Nicholson as R.P. McMurphy in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and, perhaps the most iconic of them all, Julie Andrews as Maria in “The Sound of Music.”
And yet, 10 minutes into “The Sound of Music” at Lakewood Playhouse I forgot all about Julie Andrews. Adrienne Grieco is Maria. Seldom if ever have I seen an actor in a community theater so completely become a character.
Her voice is sweet and pure, her look wholesome and her emotions unabashedly right on the surface. Her expressions of pain and joy and her love for the von Trapp children go right to the heart. In the oh-so-popular film version, the sentimentality is sickeningly overdone, yet there is no taste of that false sentimentality in Grieco’s performance.
The same can be said for the actors who play the younger von Trapp children: Kat Christensen as Louisa, Anna Rose LeMaster as Brigitta, Justin Niedermeyer as Kurt, Hannah Thoreson as Marta and Claire Thoreson as Gretl. It is a joy to see their distrust of the new governess begin to melt away as Maria teaches them the delightful song “Do Re Me” and then turn to pure adoration as she sings “My Favorite Things” while the children huddle in her bed for protection from the scary thunder and lightning of a storm.
Christopher Gilbert as the crusty Capt. Georg von Trapp is stiff and unbending at first. Unlike Grieco and the children, he seems to be acting more than inhabiting the role – until he, like the children, melts under the warmth of Maria’s love. By the second act, the audience is as much in love with him as they are with Maria and the children. And his voice, though not as strong as Grieco’s, is mellow, warm and especially engaging on his duet with Grieco on “Something Good” and his solo on the touching “Edelweiss.”
Other performers who are outstanding are Carol Richmond, who plays housekeeper Frau Schmidt and doubles as one of the nuns; Marie Kelly (a terrific singer) as Capt. von Trapp’s fiancée, Elsa; and Ted Fredericks as Uncle Max Detweiler. (If there is such a thing as comic relief in this show, it is provided by Fredericks, who plays Uncle Max as a pompous rooster but ceases to be funny when he begins to cave in to the Nazi invaders.)
Lakewood Playhouse does all of their shows in the round, which means that set changes in a show like this are a huge challenge. But director Scott Campbell and set designer Doug Kerr solve it with simple pieces that are quickly moved by actors as they enter and exit the stage area.
Special recognition must also go to the band: Larry Trop, keyboard and conductor; Hanna Jepson, keyboard; and Jack Lake, percussion.
I saw a preview performance, meaning it was the first performance with full set and lighting in front of a live audience. There were one or two entrances that were too slow, and the nuns singing “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” were somewhat tentative. But these slight problems were insignificant and fixable.
I wish it could have ended with the von Trapp family exiting the stage while singing the “So Long, Farewell” reprise. Everything after that – including the scene with Liesl’s boyfriend turned Nazi, Rolf (Steve Barnett) – was anticlimactic. But contrived as that scene is, it is necessary to the story, and a lot of people would probably be disappointed if it were left out.
For all its sentimentality and familiarity, this show is wonderful to watch. And as Lakewood Playhouse artistic director Marcus Walker warned in his welcoming remarks, it is hard to resist the temptation to sing along out loud.
‘Major Barbara’ deserves a salute at Tacoma Little Theatre
By Jill Russell, Tacoma Weekly
Tacoma Little Theatre (TLT) concludes its 91st season with George Bernard Shaw’s classic 19th-century play “Major Barbara.” Attending this play made me nervous for two reasons: it was written in the 19th century and by Shaw – which could have meant long, dry and outdated. However, TLT shattered my pre-judgments.
Director Scott Campbell shortened the play to a comfortable two and a half hours, making the story and experience more accessible to today’s hustle-and-bustle audiences.
The production is the story of Salvation Army Major Barbara Undershaft (Nicole Lockett) and her crafty father, millionaire weapons manufacturer Andrew Undershaft (Mike Slease). While visiting Barbara’s Salvation Army shelter for the poor, he revealed that the shelter’s benefactor made his money by distilling whiskey.
Lockett’s portrayal of a woman on a mission to save as many souls as she can is very convincing. Slease’s character of a rich, scheming patriarch is fantastic. A British accent can sometimes be hit or miss for American actors, but the attempt made by many of the actors was fairly accurate and did not sound forced.
Barbara’s mother, Lady Britomart (Betzy J. Miller), is an archetype of many 19th-century mother-like characters. She wants to see herself and her children supported with the finer things in life. Miller had one of the best accents of the night. She plays a strong, convincing mother and her on-stage chemistry played well against Slease’s father character.
The production boasted a colorful cast of supporting characters as well. Adolphus Cusins (Jonathan Paul Lee), Sarah Undershaft/Jenny Hill (Leischen C. Moore) and Stephen Undershaft (Kody Bringham) all added depth to the plot.
The most impressive feat is that several actors were challenged by performing a traditional, 19th-century Cockney accent. Although this accent was difficult to understand at times, the characters of Rummy Mitchens (Syra Beth Puett), Snobby Price (David Robertson) and Peter Shirley/Bilton (Darrel Shephard) displayed an impressive mastery of it.
One of the standout performances is that of John Munn’s Bill Walker and Charles Lomax. The latter character is a bumbling idiot of a man, who added needed comic relief. However, Bill Walker is an angry, disturbed degenerate with a general disrespect of women, religion and the upper classes. It is impressive how Munn effortlessly switched between these two vastly opposite characters. Munn’s portrayal of Walker is epitomized in a violent, rage-fueled performance during a scene in the second act. This is one of the best scenes in the production.
The stage decoration is modest, as most community theater productions are. However, the costuming is timely and detailed, which adds to the overall production.
The actors in TLT’s production of this 19th-century classic prove that Shaw’s ideas about the world are as timely and humorous as they were when he wrote them 100 years ago. This is a production that should not be missed.
“Major Barbara” plays through June 13. For more information visit http://www.tacomalittletheatre.com.
Published on May 26, 2010
For kids, by adults
Lawnboy has plenty of lessons, but its biggest feat is demonstrating the importance of developing young theater lovers
The puns, oh god, the puns.
If you can think of a pun that involves marine life, courtroom procedure, or marine life enacting courtroom procedure, you can bet it will be found somewhere in the Bryan Willis script of The Incredible Undersea Trial of Joseph P. Lawnboy - the tale of a 20-something perennial high school student captured by pollution-stricken sea life to stand trial for his contribution to humanity's crimes against the water.
Lawnboy is a show for children, through and through. Its necessarily short running time - an hour is all any parent is likely to get out of the target audience before a potentially fatal case of the fidgets sets in - is full of bright colors, exaggerated expressions and blatant jokes.
As is made fairly clear by the synopsis, the show is also filled with messages - obvious, outright messages. Don't pollute your lawn. Don't throw oil down your storm drains. Don't waste water. Tear open your six-pack rings.
And then there's the broader social message, which Scott Campbell points out in his director's notes: "In this play, we learn that second chances do exist, and that we need to make the most of them. We learn that it's never too late to make a change for the better."
We also learn that it is perfectly acceptable to fall in love with an opera-obsessed fish.
Wait, what? Caring, lasting friendship I can certainly understand. But Lawnboy plays the ultimate relationship between Joe, the human lawn boy (played by Jerod Nace), and Greta the fish (Caresse Robertson) a little closer to romance than one might expect - or accept.
Bizarre fish-love aside, Lawnboy is as fun as it ought to be, and as silly as it ought to be. The children in the audience are encouraged to shout gibberish periodically, which it seems children are naturally inclined to do anyway. And adults are thoroughly encouraged to act like children and shout right along.
The entertainment value of the show is helped immensely by the consistent sense the cast is having as much fun as they hope the audience will. Longtime TLT mainstay Betzy Miller gets to waggle around four extra arms and sport some fairly epic sunglasses as Darlene - a mayfly larva. Caresse Robertson has the opportunity to show off her PLU-trained vocal chops, while a fellow Robertson, David, lords over the show's pun quotient as narrator and judge. And Nace gets to play a cheerful, exaggerated doofus. Unfortunately having fun doesn't help Darrel Shepherd's singing as Fred, the deep-diving loon prosecutor, but on the whole the performances are quite acceptable.
All told, Lawnboy simply isn't theater for adults. There is little subtlety to its message, and it is, at times, utterly nonsensical; but it largely achieves its goal in a too-empty niché: theater made by adults for children. Most theater you see for children are plays featuring children as cast, and while that is certainly important, equally important are shows put on by trained actors to develop young, interested theater lovers.
‘Amadeus’ hits the right notes
April 6th, 2007
April 6th, 2007
You might remember the Academy Award-winning movie "Amadeus," starring Tom Hulce as the giggling man-boy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and F. Murray Abraham as the dark and conflicted Antonio Salieri. Most memorable in the movie was Mozart’s amazing laugh – a high-pitched and explosive screech – and his virtuoso piano playing.
In the production at Lakewood Playhouse, which stars Scott C. Brown as Salieri and Bryan Bender as Mozart, that hyena laugh is still in evidence, but the music takes a back seat to the drama, and Salieri’s role looms much larger.
An exquisitely stylized artifice – which is how Salieri describes a Mozart opera – the play is more abstract than the movie and more visceral.
The stage is set by the two Venticelli (Jamie Pederson and Darrel Shephard). Described by playwright Peter Shaffer as "purveyors of fact, rumor and gossip," the Venticelli are silly, fey, powdered and bewigged young men who prance about and tell the audience (and Salieri) what is going on. They are Salieri’s paid spies and also serve as a Greek chorus. They announce that Salieri claims to have killed Mozart, but that nobody believes him. And then Salieri is wheeled on stage in a wheelchair, and he begins to plead his case to the audience as if addressing a jury. From this point on, Salieri becomes – like the God he mocks and cajoles throughout the play – a trinity: a bitter and dying old man; the actor in his own story; and the narrator who harangues God and explains to the audience what is going on.
This is a highly demanding role, and Brown proves more than adequate to the challenge.
Early on, Salieri bargains with God to make him a great and famous composer. Success follows soon after, convincing him that God has accepted his bargain. But then God brings a rival to Vienna
He vows to destroy God by destroying his creature, Mozart. And in order to destroy Mozart, he must become his mentor and benefactor. He pretends to guide Mozart’s career while actually seeing to it that he is penniless and that his marvelous music never gets the audience it deserves.
Bender’s Mozart is just as silly and childishly insane as the memorable Tom Hulce character in the movie. He looks and acts a lot like the great comic actor Crispin Glover, and he plays Mozart as a sex-obsessed and potty-mouthed overgrown child. During the course of the play, he goes from a fun-loving child secure in his awareness of his own genius to a desperate and destitute man falling apart from the inside out and completely at the mercy of his destroyer, Salieri.
Despite a highly complex plot, the play is engaging and easy to follow. It is beautifully directed by Scott Campbell. Dramatic lighting by Ali Criss and a classic set designed by Erin Chanfrau enhance the drama. The acting is superb. Both Bender and Brown stand out in their complex roles. Lauren Wood does a commendable job as Mozart’s wife, Constanze, and Pederson and Shephard are hilarious as the Venticelli.
The music is recorded. The gilded piano has no keyboard. But music is important to both the mood of the play and the progression of the plot. Some of the most inspiring moments come when Salieri describes Mozart’s music as the music plays in the background. The more he hates Mozart, the more he loves his music. It is, to him, God’s voice on Earth. And Brown conveys this rapture convincingly.
Even though some of Salieri’s monologues and harangues are overly drawn out and the play is awfully long, "Amadeus" is easily among the top five plays I have seen since beginning this column four years ago. It is a roller-coaster ride between peaks of hilarity and depths of despair. Mozart’s language, while appropriate to the character, may be offensive to some audience members.
Conflicts in "The Chosen" remain relevant today
Alec Clayton - The News Tribune
"The Chosen" is a powerful play about compassion and righteousness, and even though it is set more than half a century ago and investigates the clash of two cultures that are far removed from the dominant modern culture, it is a story that remains relevant today.
It is the story of a friendship between two boys who occupy vastly different worlds, even though they live a mere five blocks from each other in Brooklyn , N.Y. Michael Dresdner ), the rebbe (or tzaddik) of a strict Hasidic sect.
The teenagers become best friends despite the different worlds in which they live. Both are intellectual sons of intellectuals, and they both love baseball. The similarities end there.
Reuven is a mathematics wiz who decides to study to become a rabbi. He and his father have a loving and mutually supportive relationship. Danny, who is destined by tradition to take his father's place, wants to become a psychologist. The relationship between Danny and his father is cold and tense. Reb Saunders will not speak with his son except during Talmud lessons. He has chosen to "teach with silence." His refusal to speak to Danny seems heartless. But Reb Saunders does talk to Danny in his way; he speaks to him through Reuven. And through Reuven, it is revealed that he loves his son with a harsh kind of love not unlike what pop psychologists of a later era would term tough love.
Speaking to Danny through Reuven, Reb Saunders says, "A heart I need for a son, a soul I need for a son, compassion I want from my son, righteousness, mercy, strength to suffer and carry pain, that I want from my son, not a mind without a soul!"
The fathers' clashing political views affect their sons' friendship. When Mr. Malter becomes a champion of Zionism and the building of an Israeli homeland after World War II, Reb Saunders "excommunicates" Reuven, telling Danny that he cannot so much as come within four feet of him.
There are only five actors in the play, and no scene changes. Everything is played out on a traverse set (brilliantly designed by Scott Campbell) in which the Saunders and Malter homes face each other with five blocks and the whole world in between, and the audience on either side like spectators at a football game.
Reuven as an old man (Samuel Rudolph) narrates the tale. His narration helps clarify some of the religious traditions and condenses events that need condensing. Regrettably, there is far more narration than necessary, meaning that Old Reuven occasionally insults the audience by explaining things unnecessarily. On the other hand, he offers much-needed comic relief both as narrator and in various other roles he slips into, and his dialect and head-nodding and hands-behind-back saunter all seem delightfully authentic.
Dresdner as Reb Saunders also has the head nod and the dialect down pat. Both of these actors obviously had a lot of coaching on Brooklyn Yiddish gestures and dialect. That coaching came from assistant director Rebecca Osman, a member of the Congregation Shaarei Tefilah-Lubavitch Synagogue of Seattle Seattle
'Seussical' will make spirits bright
December 22, 2006
December 22, 2006
"Seussical," the musical at Lakewood Playhouse, is endearing holiday entertainment for all the family. It’s high-energy and loaded with great music and outstanding acting. Many of the characters – most notably Horton the elephant (Marcus Walker) – will really touch your heart.
Yet somehow the story fails to fully engage. There’s something lacking in the script by Lynn Ahrens, and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what. Ahrens wove together characters, settings and plotlines from 17 different Dr. Seuss stories. She created a single, complex and coherent story that is touching in parts and funny in parts, but the whole never quite equals the sum of those parts. That, I suspect, is why the Broadway show was never as successful as expected. It closed after 34 previews and 198 performances, a short run by Broadway standards.
The main story line combines the books "Horton Hears a Who" and "Horton Hatches an Egg," with bits from "If I Ran the Circus," "Oh, the Places You’ll Go" and other Seuss classics.
The Cat in the Hat (Karen Christensen) narrates the story and periodically steps out of her narrator role and into the meat of the action to stir things up.
Horton the elephant hears a sound coming from a speck of dust and decides there must be tiny people there. He picks up the speck of dust and places it on a clover, and decides to guard it. All the other animals, led by the Sour Kangaroo (Cynthia Bettes), make fun of him, but Horton is determined to protect the people of Whoville. He expresses his determination throughout the play with the repeated refrain, "A person’s a person no matter how small."
Horton’s neighbor Gertrude McFuzz (Stephanie Nace) is a bird with a pitifully inadequate tail. Gertrude falls in love with Horton but fears he will never notice her because her tail consists of merely one "droopy-droop feather." So she goes to a doctor (the Cat in the Hat stepping momentarily out of her narrator role) and gets a pill to make her tail feather grow. She wants a tail big enough to make Horton see her, so she takes more and more pills. It works too well. She sprouts a marvelous tail that is so long she can no longer fly. (Kudos to costume designer Frances Rankos for the ever-growing tail.)
Speaking of tails, another bird, Mayzie La Bird (Elizabeth Richmond), has a glorious tail, but she is deliciously self-serving and haughty. Mayzie convinces the gullible Horton to sit on her egg while she goes off on vacation. So, while Mayzie languishes on the beach, Horton dutifully sits on her egg month after month.
Eventually Horton hatches the egg, Gertrude gets a normal tail back, Horton saves the Whos, and Jojo (Peter Gernon), the Who boy who had been chastised for thinking too much, is honored for being a "thinker non-stop."
The staging and choreography are marvelous, and Scott Campbell’s set really brings the world of Dr. Seuss alive. This is a refreshing alternative to seeing another "Christmas Carol" or "Charlie Brown Christmas."
Sunday 29 May 2005: The Merry Wives of Windsor at Lakewood Playhouse
by Joe Boling - Theatre Puget Sound
Lakewood Associate AD Scott Campbell has adroitly directed twenty-one players through twenty-seven roles in this engaging and satisfying in-the-round version of the tale of the fat knight. Checkmarks to Campbell (who also designed the set) and the following players: Christopher S Cantrell as Falstaff, Terra Lea Allen as Mistress Ford, Betzy J Miller as Mistress Margaret Page, Joseph Grant as Sir Hugh Evans, Joshua Sampson as Peter Simple, and Ailsa Prideaux-Mooney as Mistress Quickly. Honorable mentions to Sampson again as Pistol, John Marx as Master Ford, Steven Thomas as Abraham Slender, and Martin Zimmerman as Doctor Caius. It seems like a lot of honors, but it is an exceptionally strong company, and this is not even half of the roles. One more week - make your reservations early.
Sunday 29 May 2005: The Merry Wives of Windsor at Lakewood Playhouse
by Joe Boling - Theatre Puget Sound
Lakewood Associate AD Scott Campbell has adroitly directed twenty-one players through twenty-seven roles in this engaging and satisfying in-the-round version of the tale of the fat knight. Checkmarks to Campbell (who also designed the set) and the following players: Christopher S Cantrell as Falstaff, Terra Lea Allen as Mistress Ford, Betzy J Miller as Mistress Margaret Page, Joseph Grant as Sir Hugh Evans, Joshua Sampson as Peter Simple, and Ailsa Prideaux-Mooney as Mistress Quickly. Honorable mentions to Sampson again as Pistol, John Marx as Master Ford, Steven Thomas as Abraham Slender, and Martin Zimmerman as Doctor Caius. It seems like a lot of honors, but it is an exceptionally strong company, and this is not even half of the roles. One more week - make your reservations early.
Private LivesJoseph E Boling - (TPS Online)
September 18, 2004
This is a stylish, witty, well-directed (by Scott Campbell) rendition of the classic Noël Coward script. Checkmarks to Matthew Vail (a double check) and Nellie Doelman as former spouses Elyot and Amanda, and to Meridith Anne Baldwin as Elyot's new wife, Sybil. Christopher S Cantrell (Amanda's new husband) and Cara Roper-Vaughan (the French maid) complete the cast. Fight choreography by Deborah Fialkow. Well worth driving south for; ask about their new Saturday matinees. Steel Magnolias
Joseph E Boling
December 14, 2003
The very title of this piece makes my throat tighten; here are southern women completely unlike those of Tennessee Williams—gritty, self-sufficient, and if they have any neuroses, they exploit them. I’m sure most readers are familiar with the story: Truvy (Kelly Johnson) runs a beauty salon in the converted carport of her home. At rise, she is evaluating the work of Annelle (Ashley Miller), a new arrival in town who walked in asking if Truvy needed any help. Later that morning Truvy is going to do the hair for M’Lynn (Maggi Barrett) and her daughter Shelby (Jaime Reichner), who is getting married today. Also dropping in will be Clairee (Dana Messina Galagan), the former mayor’s widow, and Ouiser (Jeanne Ross), a neighbor of M’Lynn. That’s all, folks—these six women are the play (except for a radio announcer’s voice, the only place a guy can get a word into this piece).
There are four scenes in two acts; the scenes are spaced a few months apart. Shelby gets married in the summer; by Christmas she is pregnant, against doctor’s advice (she is severely diabetic); the following Christmas, she has had the baby (three months premature), her kidneys have failed, and she is about to undergo a transplant; the last scene is the day of her funeral. Sounds grim, but this show has more zingers per minute than any I can think of right now; even in the dark scenes, these women use humor to get themselves through the tight spots, and it brings the audience along, too.
Half of the cast are new faces for me, and director Scott Campbell has found some gems. Miller’s bashfulness and apprehension in the first scene are perfect. Barrett is excellent as a worried mother, and especially in her scene as a bereaved mother. Reichner, in her Washington debut, simply overwhelmed me as Shelby. The piece is performed in the round, with the beauty shop as the whole stage. At one point in the third scene, Reichner was right in front of me with no lines—the action was across the stage from her. But the stress and fatigue in her face as she prepared for tomorrow’s transplant were stunning, and as she left the stage at the end of the scene, I was watching a woman falling into an abyss. An hour earlier, she had looked completely different as she prepared for her wedding. I don’t think the haggard look she wore was just a change in makeup—here is a real actor.
The costumes for this show (by Naarah McDonald) would make any company proud, and for a company with the resources of Lakewood—well, she deserves the checkmark in my program. The set also got one (by Erin Chanfrau), a fully functioning beauty shop, right down to the 1984 and 1985 magazines on the racks.
I saw this play three times in 1999, and not since, so a lot of it felt fresh. Looking back at the commentaries I wrote for those other shows, I have to conclude that this one is the best I have seen. Check it out—it’s worth a drive. Runs through 21 December, then picks up again after New Year, 2-11 January.
Anne of Green GablesJoseph E Boling
December 21, 2002
This is a fine new adaptation by young director Scott Campbell. It needs a couple of tweaks, but he’s done a great job of both moving the story to the stage and getting good work from his players. Lead among these are Angelica Duncan in the title role and Dana Rice as Marilla Cuthbert, Anne’s adoptive mother. Duncan makes the twelve-year-old Anne’s imagination visible; her enthusiasm and spirit are completely convincing. Her subtle maturing as the play rolls and the years pass is also engaging. Rice is equally compelling as a spinster reluctant to take on rearing a pre-teen but too good-hearted to turn Anne away. The escapades as Anne proves unable to live as a titmouse are credible and enjoyable.
Other notable performances are from John Pfaffe as Marilla’s brother and Anne’s adoptive father; Penelope Bourdon as Mrs Lynde, a meddlesome but also good-hearted neighbor; and Nicole Teeny as Diana, Anne’s same-age “bosom friend.” There are nearly a dozen other players in this large community theater cast, all more than adequate to their roles.
Lakewood continues to play in the round, with a fairly large set. Campbell uses an effective technique for reaching the audience way on the other side of the set; in many scenes the players are seated, so continual movement to direct lines in all directions is not feasible. Campbell plays these scenes at edges of the space with the players facing center; those on their side of the room are close enough to hear them even though the players are facing away, and those across the room have the benefit of being spoken to directly. I don’t recall seeing this use of a four-sided stage before; it works well.
The adaptation drags in the second act when Matthew dies; Campbell points out that the book devotes many pages to this event, to which I reply that he need not duplicate the author’s error. There is also some choppiness after Anne goes to teacher’s school; attention is needed there. But otherwise, Campbell has done a very good job of keeping the action moving without disruptive scene changes. Incident follows incident rapidly and understandably, making the three-hour piece seem much shorter. I never read the original, and as far as I can recall, I have never seen a film or stage version of this story. I was entranced by Anne’s mind and the many vignettes of farm life a century ago in rural Canada.
Murder on the NileJoseph E Boling
April 1, 2001
This is a well-done rendition of a proven Agatha Christie script, a nice Sunday afternoon diversion. John Munn directed. The ten cast members deliver mostly strong performances, only some of the supporting players seeming to struggle with finding their characters’ personalities. Especially good are Tom Birkeland as Canon Pennefeather, Scott Campbell as Simon Mostyn, and Deya Ozburn as Jackie deSeverac. I had seen several of the cast in other productions in the south Sound, but several others are new to me, and I hope to see them again.
The story is too convoluted to describe briefly; suffice to say that there are a love triangle, money, an exotic setting, and red herrings galore. The mystery works itself out believably (though the success of the murder plot seems too dependent on unpredictable events to make me confident of success if I were the plotter).
It’s worth a look if you like this genre; I can’t remember when there was a similar show in Seattle.
Spend some time in 'Our Town'Alec Clayton
November 3, 2006
Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" is among the dozen or so best plays ever written, and it's as relevant in 2006 as it was in 1938 when it won the Pulitzer Prize.
Most people today have probably seen it performed by one r another regional theater, and many can recall the made-for-TV version starring Hal Holbrook. Some may even remember a 1950s musical version starring Frank Sinatra. (Thankfully I never had to sit through that desecration of a masterpiece, but I do remember the sappy song that came out of it - "Love and Marriage.") No matter where you may have seen it, I'd be willing to bet you've never seen anyone do it any better than Lakewood Playhouse. Their production - directed by Doug Kerr and starring Scott Campbell as the Stage Manager - is true to Wilder's vision of how the play should be done.
It is performed with minimal sets and lighting, most actions pantomimed, and all of the characters - right down to the town drunk - are played with quiet dignity.
The small black-box theater has been converted to contain what may be called a modified proscenium stage with a deep apron, or thrust stage, and seating on three sides. The back wall is brick. Warm and unobtrusive lighting creates a feeling of intimacy. Two ladders lean against the wall. The ladders stand in for upstairs bedroom windows through which the neighbors, young lovers George and Emily, talk to each other. The only other set pieces are two small tables, some chairs and a trellis gate.
Throughout the play, the Stage Manager teases the audience by erecting and then breaking through the metaphorical fourth wall - the wall that separates the audience from the actors and play from reality. The Stage Manager tells the audience in the opening scene that they are about to witness a play about the town of Grover's Corners, N.H. He acknowledges the playwright and the director, and then invites a local historian, Professor Willard (Rolly Opsahl), and the editor of the local newspaper, Mr. Webb (Randy Clark), to tell the audience a little about local history. Mr. Webb even takes questions from the audience - actors planted in the audience.
This deliberate play between the real world and the pretend world seems like a bit of silliness at first, but becomes increasingly important as the play progresses.
"Our Town" is a three-act play. Very few plays are presented in three acts anymore, even though not long ago that was standard for all plays. In this one, the three-act structure is important. Act I provides a window into the world of Grover's Corners. We meet the Gibbs and Webb families: Dr. Gibbs (Christopher Gilbert), his wife (Laurie Sifford) and their children, George (Chad Russell) and Rebecca (Monica Meyer); Mr. Webb and his wife (Aya Hashiguchi) and their children Wally (Jonathan Hogue) and Emily (Erin Culbertson); and a host of townspeople. The town seems quaint and its people quirky. Everything is homey and lighthearted.
Act II is a love story between George and Emily, the quintessential boy and girl next door. It seems terribly dated, quaint and innocent. But the romance and down-home humor comes to an abrupt end as Act III opens in the town cemetery a few years later. Major characters are now dead and buried, and the audience is forced to look at what life and death are all about. The dead say of the living: "It all goes so fast, people don't have time to look at one another. ... Do any human beings realize life while they live it?"
Front-Row Seat: Even Steel Magnolias changeJames A. Van Leishout
December 26, 2003
Things change. That's the theme of "Steel Magnolias," which Lakewood Players performed this month and will resume Jan. 2. Author Robert Harling wrote the autobiographical play in the 10 days following the death of his sister.
Set in Truvy's Beauty Salon in the fictional town of Chinquapin, La., it is the story of six women who find friendship, camaraderie and the latest gossip while they get their hair done. At first, the characters seem two-dimensional, almost stereotypical. Truvy (Kelly Johnson) is a brash, too-big haired, southern girl with husband problems, "He can't figure out whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt." Annelle (Ashley Miller) is Truvy's sweet, born-again-with-a-vigor assistant in the shop. Clairee (Dana Messina Galagan) is a rich widow with a wicked ear for gossip, "If you don't have something nice to say, come sit by me." Ouiser (Jeanne Ross) is a curmudgeon who gardens because it's what's expected of a batty, old Southern woman, "I'm not crazy, I've just been in a bad mood for 40 years."
The story follows Shelby (Jaime Reichner), who visits the shop with her mother M'Lynn (Maggi Barrett). In time, the characters gain depth and become richer and more real, reflecting Harling's insights into the characters in his own community.
Following her first visit, Shelby returns to have her hair done for her wedding. Later, she announces she is pregnant, even though, because of her diabetes, it is against her doctors' advice. The baby, born prematurely, is healthy, but Shelby's kidney's are severely compromised. When a donated kidney from her mother fails, Shelby dies from complications.
Annelle explains that the only way she can make sense of the tragedy is that Shelby couldn't help all the people she wanted to when she was alive, so God needed to make her a guardian angel. Miller delivers this speech with such quiet strength and dignity that her born-again ideals gain power and dignity, a truly moving moment.
M'Lynn, in a powerful moment of acting by Barrett, lets go all the sorrow, and frustration and anger she feels. When she says she is so mad she wants to hit someone, Clairee grabs Ouiser and says "Hit her, hit her. There are a lot of people in town who would not pass up this opportunity."
This is the high point of the play. "Laughter though tears - that's my favorite emotion," Truvy says.
It epitomizes the strengths of this play and this production. I recently saw Johnson in "Barefoot in the Park" and did not recognize her as Truvy, a sign of a talented actress. Reichner lets Shelby's character age and mature over the course of the play. Ross finds a warmth and compassion behind the irascible facade of Ouiser. The subtlety of Galagan's performance is no less significant, as Clairee evolves from a small-town widow to world traveler. This is an excellent production by a good cast and is well directed by Scott Campbell.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "The only constant is change." Life, death, gossip change. They understand these things at Truvy's Beauty Salon. Lakewood Players does the most consistently good work among the theaters I review. "Steel Magnolias" is no exception.
September 18, 2004
This is a stylish, witty, well-directed (by Scott Campbell) rendition of the classic Noël Coward script. Checkmarks to Matthew Vail (a double check) and Nellie Doelman as former spouses Elyot and Amanda, and to Meridith Anne Baldwin as Elyot's new wife, Sybil. Christopher S Cantrell (Amanda's new husband) and Cara Roper-Vaughan (the French maid) complete the cast. Fight choreography by Deborah Fialkow. Well worth driving south for; ask about their new Saturday matinees. Steel Magnolias
Joseph E Boling
December 14, 2003
The very title of this piece makes my throat tighten; here are southern women completely unlike those of Tennessee Williams—gritty, self-sufficient, and if they have any neuroses, they exploit them. I’m sure most readers are familiar with the story: Truvy (Kelly Johnson) runs a beauty salon in the converted carport of her home. At rise, she is evaluating the work of Annelle (Ashley Miller), a new arrival in town who walked in asking if Truvy needed any help. Later that morning Truvy is going to do the hair for M’Lynn (Maggi Barrett) and her daughter Shelby (Jaime Reichner), who is getting married today. Also dropping in will be Clairee (Dana Messina Galagan), the former mayor’s widow, and Ouiser (Jeanne Ross), a neighbor of M’Lynn. That’s all, folks—these six women are the play (except for a radio announcer’s voice, the only place a guy can get a word into this piece).
There are four scenes in two acts; the scenes are spaced a few months apart. Shelby gets married in the summer; by Christmas she is pregnant, against doctor’s advice (she is severely diabetic); the following Christmas, she has had the baby (three months premature), her kidneys have failed, and she is about to undergo a transplant; the last scene is the day of her funeral. Sounds grim, but this show has more zingers per minute than any I can think of right now; even in the dark scenes, these women use humor to get themselves through the tight spots, and it brings the audience along, too.
Half of the cast are new faces for me, and director Scott Campbell has found some gems. Miller’s bashfulness and apprehension in the first scene are perfect. Barrett is excellent as a worried mother, and especially in her scene as a bereaved mother. Reichner, in her Washington debut, simply overwhelmed me as Shelby. The piece is performed in the round, with the beauty shop as the whole stage. At one point in the third scene, Reichner was right in front of me with no lines—the action was across the stage from her. But the stress and fatigue in her face as she prepared for tomorrow’s transplant were stunning, and as she left the stage at the end of the scene, I was watching a woman falling into an abyss. An hour earlier, she had looked completely different as she prepared for her wedding. I don’t think the haggard look she wore was just a change in makeup—here is a real actor.
The costumes for this show (by Naarah McDonald) would make any company proud, and for a company with the resources of Lakewood—well, she deserves the checkmark in my program. The set also got one (by Erin Chanfrau), a fully functioning beauty shop, right down to the 1984 and 1985 magazines on the racks.
I saw this play three times in 1999, and not since, so a lot of it felt fresh. Looking back at the commentaries I wrote for those other shows, I have to conclude that this one is the best I have seen. Check it out—it’s worth a drive. Runs through 21 December, then picks up again after New Year, 2-11 January.
Anne of Green GablesJoseph E Boling
December 21, 2002
This is a fine new adaptation by young director Scott Campbell. It needs a couple of tweaks, but he’s done a great job of both moving the story to the stage and getting good work from his players. Lead among these are Angelica Duncan in the title role and Dana Rice as Marilla Cuthbert, Anne’s adoptive mother. Duncan makes the twelve-year-old Anne’s imagination visible; her enthusiasm and spirit are completely convincing. Her subtle maturing as the play rolls and the years pass is also engaging. Rice is equally compelling as a spinster reluctant to take on rearing a pre-teen but too good-hearted to turn Anne away. The escapades as Anne proves unable to live as a titmouse are credible and enjoyable.
Other notable performances are from John Pfaffe as Marilla’s brother and Anne’s adoptive father; Penelope Bourdon as Mrs Lynde, a meddlesome but also good-hearted neighbor; and Nicole Teeny as Diana, Anne’s same-age “bosom friend.” There are nearly a dozen other players in this large community theater cast, all more than adequate to their roles.
Lakewood continues to play in the round, with a fairly large set. Campbell uses an effective technique for reaching the audience way on the other side of the set; in many scenes the players are seated, so continual movement to direct lines in all directions is not feasible. Campbell plays these scenes at edges of the space with the players facing center; those on their side of the room are close enough to hear them even though the players are facing away, and those across the room have the benefit of being spoken to directly. I don’t recall seeing this use of a four-sided stage before; it works well.
The adaptation drags in the second act when Matthew dies; Campbell points out that the book devotes many pages to this event, to which I reply that he need not duplicate the author’s error. There is also some choppiness after Anne goes to teacher’s school; attention is needed there. But otherwise, Campbell has done a very good job of keeping the action moving without disruptive scene changes. Incident follows incident rapidly and understandably, making the three-hour piece seem much shorter. I never read the original, and as far as I can recall, I have never seen a film or stage version of this story. I was entranced by Anne’s mind and the many vignettes of farm life a century ago in rural Canada.
Murder on the NileJoseph E Boling
April 1, 2001
This is a well-done rendition of a proven Agatha Christie script, a nice Sunday afternoon diversion. John Munn directed. The ten cast members deliver mostly strong performances, only some of the supporting players seeming to struggle with finding their characters’ personalities. Especially good are Tom Birkeland as Canon Pennefeather, Scott Campbell as Simon Mostyn, and Deya Ozburn as Jackie deSeverac. I had seen several of the cast in other productions in the south Sound, but several others are new to me, and I hope to see them again.
The story is too convoluted to describe briefly; suffice to say that there are a love triangle, money, an exotic setting, and red herrings galore. The mystery works itself out believably (though the success of the murder plot seems too dependent on unpredictable events to make me confident of success if I were the plotter).
It’s worth a look if you like this genre; I can’t remember when there was a similar show in Seattle.
Spend some time in 'Our Town'Alec Clayton
November 3, 2006
Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" is among the dozen or so best plays ever written, and it's as relevant in 2006 as it was in 1938 when it won the Pulitzer Prize.
Most people today have probably seen it performed by one r another regional theater, and many can recall the made-for-TV version starring Hal Holbrook. Some may even remember a 1950s musical version starring Frank Sinatra. (Thankfully I never had to sit through that desecration of a masterpiece, but I do remember the sappy song that came out of it - "Love and Marriage.") No matter where you may have seen it, I'd be willing to bet you've never seen anyone do it any better than Lakewood Playhouse. Their production - directed by Doug Kerr and starring Scott Campbell as the Stage Manager - is true to Wilder's vision of how the play should be done.
It is performed with minimal sets and lighting, most actions pantomimed, and all of the characters - right down to the town drunk - are played with quiet dignity.
The small black-box theater has been converted to contain what may be called a modified proscenium stage with a deep apron, or thrust stage, and seating on three sides. The back wall is brick. Warm and unobtrusive lighting creates a feeling of intimacy. Two ladders lean against the wall. The ladders stand in for upstairs bedroom windows through which the neighbors, young lovers George and Emily, talk to each other. The only other set pieces are two small tables, some chairs and a trellis gate.
Throughout the play, the Stage Manager teases the audience by erecting and then breaking through the metaphorical fourth wall - the wall that separates the audience from the actors and play from reality. The Stage Manager tells the audience in the opening scene that they are about to witness a play about the town of Grover's Corners, N.H. He acknowledges the playwright and the director, and then invites a local historian, Professor Willard (Rolly Opsahl), and the editor of the local newspaper, Mr. Webb (Randy Clark), to tell the audience a little about local history. Mr. Webb even takes questions from the audience - actors planted in the audience.
This deliberate play between the real world and the pretend world seems like a bit of silliness at first, but becomes increasingly important as the play progresses.
"Our Town" is a three-act play. Very few plays are presented in three acts anymore, even though not long ago that was standard for all plays. In this one, the three-act structure is important. Act I provides a window into the world of Grover's Corners. We meet the Gibbs and Webb families: Dr. Gibbs (Christopher Gilbert), his wife (Laurie Sifford) and their children, George (Chad Russell) and Rebecca (Monica Meyer); Mr. Webb and his wife (Aya Hashiguchi) and their children Wally (Jonathan Hogue) and Emily (Erin Culbertson); and a host of townspeople. The town seems quaint and its people quirky. Everything is homey and lighthearted.
Act II is a love story between George and Emily, the quintessential boy and girl next door. It seems terribly dated, quaint and innocent. But the romance and down-home humor comes to an abrupt end as Act III opens in the town cemetery a few years later. Major characters are now dead and buried, and the audience is forced to look at what life and death are all about. The dead say of the living: "It all goes so fast, people don't have time to look at one another. ... Do any human beings realize life while they live it?"
Front-Row Seat: Even Steel Magnolias changeJames A. Van Leishout
December 26, 2003
Things change. That's the theme of "Steel Magnolias," which Lakewood Players performed this month and will resume Jan. 2. Author Robert Harling wrote the autobiographical play in the 10 days following the death of his sister.
Set in Truvy's Beauty Salon in the fictional town of Chinquapin, La., it is the story of six women who find friendship, camaraderie and the latest gossip while they get their hair done. At first, the characters seem two-dimensional, almost stereotypical. Truvy (Kelly Johnson) is a brash, too-big haired, southern girl with husband problems, "He can't figure out whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt." Annelle (Ashley Miller) is Truvy's sweet, born-again-with-a-vigor assistant in the shop. Clairee (Dana Messina Galagan) is a rich widow with a wicked ear for gossip, "If you don't have something nice to say, come sit by me." Ouiser (Jeanne Ross) is a curmudgeon who gardens because it's what's expected of a batty, old Southern woman, "I'm not crazy, I've just been in a bad mood for 40 years."
The story follows Shelby (Jaime Reichner), who visits the shop with her mother M'Lynn (Maggi Barrett). In time, the characters gain depth and become richer and more real, reflecting Harling's insights into the characters in his own community.
Following her first visit, Shelby returns to have her hair done for her wedding. Later, she announces she is pregnant, even though, because of her diabetes, it is against her doctors' advice. The baby, born prematurely, is healthy, but Shelby's kidney's are severely compromised. When a donated kidney from her mother fails, Shelby dies from complications.
Annelle explains that the only way she can make sense of the tragedy is that Shelby couldn't help all the people she wanted to when she was alive, so God needed to make her a guardian angel. Miller delivers this speech with such quiet strength and dignity that her born-again ideals gain power and dignity, a truly moving moment.
M'Lynn, in a powerful moment of acting by Barrett, lets go all the sorrow, and frustration and anger she feels. When she says she is so mad she wants to hit someone, Clairee grabs Ouiser and says "Hit her, hit her. There are a lot of people in town who would not pass up this opportunity."
This is the high point of the play. "Laughter though tears - that's my favorite emotion," Truvy says.
It epitomizes the strengths of this play and this production. I recently saw Johnson in "Barefoot in the Park" and did not recognize her as Truvy, a sign of a talented actress. Reichner lets Shelby's character age and mature over the course of the play. Ross finds a warmth and compassion behind the irascible facade of Ouiser. The subtlety of Galagan's performance is no less significant, as Clairee evolves from a small-town widow to world traveler. This is an excellent production by a good cast and is well directed by Scott Campbell.
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "The only constant is change." Life, death, gossip change. They understand these things at Truvy's Beauty Salon. Lakewood Players does the most consistently good work among the theaters I review. "Steel Magnolias" is no exception.
