'A Lie of the Mind' review

Here's my latest review from the Post. I have seen a few shows, and I have seen a few shows at Paragon, but I'm telling you, this is an absolutely killer piece, essentially top to bottom. I am clearly a Sam Shepard fan, so it is possible that I am biased, but try it out for yourself and see what you think.

I like to think I know Shepard; I was Austin in an OpenStage production of 'True West,' and (like everyone else) I come from a fucked-up family. But I don't think i ever knew how absurdist and fearless he was about jumping off the deep end--and dragging his audience along--until I saw this show. Be prepared: he keeps twisting the screw tighter and tighter until, by the end, even though you realize how ridiculous things have gotten, you're still along for the ride anyway. You can't help it.

If I could be a writer with a tenth of his skill at storytelling, I would be a happy man. Anyway, enjoy.

P.S. I really liked James O'Hagan-Murphy's performance; I just didn't mention it directly because I have been in a show with him and I was worried about the potential for the 'appearance of impropriety,' as they say in politics. :) Go. Enjoy. In fact, I would see this again; let me know if anyone's interested in checking it out.

via the Denver Post: William Hahn and Emily Paton-Davies in, as John Moore dubbed it, Sam Shepard's family freakout, 'A Lie of the Mind.'

A LIE OF THE MIND

If you want to know a man, meet his family.

No matter how much you may think you’ve changed after leaving home, your true self remains with them.

Perhaps that’s why we often hesitate when introducing a new love interest to our kin: our interactions with our parents and siblings unwittingly divulge more of our true nature than we are prepared to share.

More than any other modern playwright--perhaps more than any other writer period--Sam Shepard has a gift for tuning in to this secret language of family. Broadcast on a frequency just under the hearing range of outsiders, it’s no less real than words spoken aloud.

Shepard has made a career of documenting the dissolution of the ancient, agrarian-based family unit as it has morphed into the rootlessness of post-war America, and how our alienation from ourselves coincides with our alienation from family. For Shepard, the true pain and weirdness of what it is to be part of a family is thrown into stark relief whenever we go back to the old homestead for a visit, no matter how hard we try to hide these truths from ourselves.

Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind” is Paragon Theatre’s latest show, with not one but two families on display.

The show opens with a desperate phone call taking place on a darkened set: “She’s dead. I killed her,” says a weeping Jake (Tom Borillo) to his brother Frankie (James O’Hagan-Murphy). Soon the lights come up and Warren Sherrill’s brilliant set is revealed to be two rooms side-by-side, each pure Shepard: bare light bulbs and puckered, yellowing paint speak of a thousand cigarettes smoked over grim, terse conversations between unhappy people.

One room is the Southern California house that belongs to Frankie and Jake’s mother Lorraine (Edith Weiss) and the other serves as the Salt Lake hospital room for Jake’s recovering wife Beth (Emily Paton Davies) and later as her family’s Montana home.

So, Beth has indeed survived the savage attack by her jealous husband Jake, leaving her brother Mike (William Hahn) to care for her in the hospital. He has his work cut out for him; Beth has been so severely beaten that her thoughts and speech come slowly. Even walking is a challenge.

Mike also serves as Beth’s bewildered advocate when the siblings’ parents Baylor and Meg (Jim Hunt and Patty Mintz Figel) make the trek down from Montana to see their daughter--and to sell a couple of mules while they’re there.

That small touch of humor and sense of strangely misplaced priorities is perhaps an early indicator of how weird things are going to get--which is much weirder than you think.

While Jake devolves into a little boy over his guilt for what he still believes to be a murder, refusing to come out of his childhood bedroom where he is coddled by his mama, little brother Frankie decides to see for himself if Beth survived the attack.

Director Jarrad Holbrook gets some tremendous performances from his cast, especially Tom Borrillo, who skillfully handles Jake’s numerous emotional levels and shifts in tone and demeanor. As his brain-damaged wife Beth, Emily Paton Davies is also outstanding, revealing the frustrated claustrophobia of the human being trapped inside the broken thing her brain has become.

As Frankie and Jake’s mother Lorraine, Edith Weiss is the epitome of frizzed-out, bleach-blond white trash, never to blame and ever lashing out at a world that has treated her and her boys oh-so unfairly.

And never play poker with William Hahn. Better than any actor in town, he is magnificent at holding his cards close to his vest, revealing the places his character is heading only incrementally, giving us tiny slices of what is to be right up until he turns over a straight flush.

Aside from a few minor, momentary deviations, this is a magnificent show. Bring the whole (adult) family; you’ll be delighted to learn that families get even weirder than your own.
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Indiscretions

Here's my latest review from the Denver Post. Full text follows below.

I've seen several shows at Germinal, and this was the first one with which I was just dumbfounded. As you'll see below, the show is Cocteau's 'Indiscretions,' an absurdist farce. But they chose to use these dialects that sounded like these people were the offspring of Dr. Phil mating with a retarded monkey. And while I suspect that the point was to make the whole thing even more absurdist, it was really off-putting.

I don't know why I get so offended when people employ bad Southern accents and bad Southern stereotypes. As with any stereotype, there is some sliver of truth buried within; I myself make fun of white trash and rednecks all the time.

Maybe it's just because it's such an easy target. People forget that rednecks live in all fifty states; look at Alaska, and all we've learned about that (very very northern) state over the past couple of years. Ignorant, redneck trash abounds; to pin all of it on the South is disingenuous, especially when it appears as though you have no real experience with the South, or with actual southerners, as it does with these people and their accents.

There will surely be those who say I just don't get the absurdism of the piece; I say it is possible to be absurdist without being ridiculous. And despite some genuinely funny moments, this piece is just ridiculous.

Kirsten Deane as Madeleine and Royce Wood as Michael in Germinal Stage-Denver's "Indiscretions." (Courtesy Germinal Stage-Denver)

INDISCRETIONS

When French auteur Jean Cocteau first wrote "Les Parents Terribles," later renamed "Indiscretions" for American audiences, he was probably unfamiliar with the term "white trash."

But luckily for director Ed Baierlein and Germinal Stage-Denver, in modern America this is one of the last groups of people it is generally considered safe to ridicule en masse: the lowlife who runs shirtless and drunk from police on countless episodes of "Cops"; the lout confronted by his several baby-mamas on daytime talk shows; the resentful dirtbag who blames the world for his own failings.

In Germinal's production, Cocteau's wonderfully bent family of wackos is portrayed this way, as the quintessential denizens of trash TV.

In their claustrophobic bedroom-cum-living room, which bears more resemblance to the back room of a pawn shop, family matriarch Yvonne (Erica Sarzin-Borrillo) whiles away her overdramatic days and nights, railing about her diabetes and threatening suicide at every turn.

But mostly she dotes on her adult son, Michael (Royce Wood), with whom she shares a bond so intimate that even if we aren't meant to take it as literally incestuous, it is at the very least deeply icky. They frolic on the bed together, laughing and rolling around like children at play once the rest of the family has left the room, smother each other with kisses, and generally conduct themselves as if they were a couple, not mother and son.

But when Michael breaks the news that he has found a girl he wants to marry, all bets are off.

The farcical aspects of the show really get rolling when we discover that Michael's father, George (played by Leroy Leonard), has until recently been sleeping with Michael's bride-to-be, Madeline (Kirsten Deane).

The only semi-reasonable voice in this mess is stoic Aunt Leo, Yvonne's sister (played by Chip Winn Wells). But even her attempts at straightening out the increasingly convoluted machinations of her none-too-bright relatives turns ugly when we learn she has her own agenda.

As Madeline, Kirsten Deane is the epitome of thong-exposing trashiness; she shows us a heart that regrets her philandering, but also a small mind incapable of behaving honestly. Her tension is palpable and genuine as she viciously pops her gum and taps her foot with a jittery mania.

As Yvonne, Sarzin-Borrillo has a sweet zaniness about her that makes you root for the batty old thing despite her misguided motivations. She is a diva gone mad, crammed up in a madhouse of her own making, with a captive audience but no stage upon which to play.

But even though she is the most over-the-top character in the show, Yvonne still somehow seems grounded; she is clearly a loon, yet she's human at the same time.

The real problems come about because other cast members seem more cartoon than human, especially when they speak in accents akin to what Dr. Phil might sound like if some disgruntled viewer were to cave in half his skull with a hammer. Leroy Leonard as George (pronounced here as Gee-yo-uh-j) especially comes off as a mentally disabled Foghorn Leghorn crossed with Mr. Mackey from "South Park."

And in this case, it is unfortunate that the old axiom "like father, like son" holds true: Royce Wood's Michael employs the same non-dialect.

For anyone from the South, or who has spent time in the South, or who has even spoken with someone from the South, the accents are guaranteed to grate. Even if this is all meant to be part of the absurdity of the piece, it is still insanely distracting and honestly rather pointless.

What, are audiences taken to be so stupid that we won't be capable of understanding the absurdity of these people and this piece without such cartoonish choices being forced on us?

The show has its moments — many of them, in fact — but mostly it's an exercise in looking down one's nose at a paper-thin version of the worst aspects of humanity.

And there simply is no challenge in tearing down a straw man made of such flimsy materials.

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"Indiscretions" **1/2 (out of four stars)

Comedy. Presented by Germinal-Stage Denver, 2450 W. 44th Ave. Written by Jean Cocteau; adapted by Jeremy Sams. Directed by Ed Baierlein. Through June 23. 2 hours, 15 minutes . 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 7 p.m. Sundays. $17.75-$21.75. 303-455-7108 or germinalstage.com

equus review

Paternal? How about creepy?

We got our Denver Post review out finally, and it looks pretty good overall. John Moore felt the staging of the horses seemed a little cramped due to space constraints (six guys in hooves and horse heads are bound to take up some room, so, yes.) But he really loved Zuni (Jose Zuniga) the tremendous actor who plays Alan:

And on the tiny Vintage Theatre stage, Zuniga is very much a boy. Gangly, gawky, not yet filled in. And performing a role that is intensely vulnerable — clothes on or off. He's awkward, emotional and fires off a cool, enigmatic glare that could freak you out for days. You know, like most 17-year-olds.

And I don't think I've ever had the word 'paternal' associated with the words 'Kurt Brighton' before. So I must be getting better at acting, haha:

That's due in large part to Zuniga and his warm chemistry with Kurt Brighton as Martin Dysart, the emotionally dead shrink who tries to unravel why Alan did it. As he coaxes Alan into opening up about the mutilation, Dysart battles his own strange feelings of envy — for Alan has experienced a kind of passion Dysart knows he never will.

This requires a calm, measured and even paternal performance, which Brighton (an occasional freelance theater reviewer for The Denver Post) delivers with a strong hand and soothing voice, often speaking in withdrawn whispers that could drown out shouts.

John also had kind words for the rest of the cast as well, indicating to me (if you read between the lines) that he felt that overall the show was pretty top-notch. I had a conversation with some people who saw the show last week who said something like (I paraphrase) 'There was no one person who took you out of it, who seemed out of place.' I think this sentiment is echoed here:

Bond gets strong supporting turns from Theresa Dwyer Reid as Dysart's confidante, a forceful Libby Rife as Alan's don't-blame-me mum, and the two competing objects of Alan's intense sexual desire — Caitlin Tomlinson as the first girl to show a sexual interest in him; and Zach Stowell as a man-horse called Nugget.

I'm very proud of this show, and I've been overwhelmed by the response people are having to it. The response feels honest, emotionally exposed and raw. You can do a few shows and start to get a feel for when people are gushing over the show, or if they're 'gushing' over it, and in this case, it feels like an genuine, gut-level response without pretense or trickery.

What I mean is that in responding to theatre, whether it is in your seat without saying a word, or in talking with the cast afterward requires the use of very different muscles than most of us are familiar with employing. If it's done right, it is visceral, real, threatening and raw-edged with emotion. You can crap all over a Matt Damon film without any real fear that he will hear your opinion. But when you see a play, your feelings are on your face, and in your heart and hard to hide.

And when you speak with actors afterward, you'd better be a damn good actor yourself if you think you're going to fool them.

I don't feel like anyone has felt the need to try to fool us with this show. Hope you get a chance to come and see it!

Also, here is David Marlowe's (Life on Capitol Hill and Out Front) review:

Equus

Vintage Theatre (2/18 – 3/20)

Craig Bond directs Vintage Theatre’s production of “Equus” with the eye of a poet and the touch of the master. Under his astute direction Bond has not only cast the show well, he has brought in Jonathan Scott-McKean to embellish the production with the genius of his lighting and sound designs.

Peggy Morgan-Stenmark’s set design uses every inch of the stage. Her work provides an imaginative labyrinth that is as practical to the actor as it is aesthetically pleasing to those in attendance.

Jose Zuniga is outstanding as Alan Strang, the young man who has committed a hideous crime. Zuniga’s performance is of the stunning variety. Zuniga does more than get under our neural fingernails. This young artist is a force of nature. Kurt Brighton does some fine work in his performing of the role of Dysart, the psychiatrist who takes on this case. Theresa Dwyer Reid is brilliant as magistrate Hester, Dysart’s colleague and good friend. The studied performance this actor gives moves fluidly from the urgency of soliciting Dysart’s help with the Strang case to one of staunch support as the psychiatrist slips more and more into despair. Libby Rife plays Alan’s mother Dora, a woman who has replaced the sex in her marriage with religiosity. Andy Hankins plays Frank, Alan’s sexually frustrated father. Caitlin Tomlinson portrays Jill. Roger L. Simon is Mr. Dalton, the owner of the stables at which Strang works. Preston Lee Britton, Addison Parker, Stephen Paulding, Nathan Raymond, Zach Shotwell and Jim Wills portray the horses. I have been told that the gorgeous metallic horse heads came from California and the hooves from Texas.

Vintage Theatre is showing us that we needn’t go to Broadway for outstanding serious drama. We can have our souls shredded by the breathtaking artistry over at Seventeenth Avenue and Vine Street. Vintage Theatre has run for the roses and landed right smack dab in the winning circle! And yes … there is nudity and adult subject matter. Any lover of serious dramatic theatre must see this show.

Not to be missed!!!!!!

Shout!

Dinner theatre is one of those ideas that makes sense in concept but which is inexplicably weird in practice. The idea of relaxing at a table, eating, having a cocktail or coffee--all this smacks of a comfy living room atmosphere for taking in a show.

And I'm sure that the actors who double as servers make bank, but I still can't help but feel sorry for them. Doing a show is hard enough. It requires concentration, believe it or not; so does waiting on a full section.

It is just strange to me that older people (predominantly dinner theatre's demographic) would be willing to shell out $40 or $50 for mediocre food and musicals which are often not a whole lot better. Maybe there's something about having many of the decisions made for you already--the limited menu, the show, the set times when things happen. Or maybe there's something to be said for planting your ass in one seat for the entire evening's entertainment--dashing from a restaurant to make a show can be traumatic.

Another positive is that sitting at a table is more conducive to conversation. Also, having more time to be sociable than is possible at a traditional theatre is a plus.

Still, my experience with Boulder's Dinner Theatre, to see their production of Shout was pretty good overall. Here's the review in full; the link above is to the Post's edited version.

SHOUT!

“I’m just a person trapped in a woman’s body.” --Anonymous

If there were any doubt that “Shout! The Mod Musical” is a jukebox musical--that is, little more than an excuse to sing along with a selection of fun, recognizable songs brought together by only the flimsiest of storylines--the fact that the characters don’t even have names should be a dead giveaway.

Welcome to swinging London in the 1960s, where, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, women are reduced to the colors they wear: Green, Orange, Yellow, Blue and Red, each of which represents a different personality type.

Austin Powers, your table is ready. And the ladies are feeling randy, baby.

Naturally, the show is slathered top to bottom in neon-bright color, as though a unicorn snorted a troll doll cut with cotton candy then threw up an entire bag of Gummi Bears. Riffing on the miniskirt and the sickly-sweet color scheme, costume designer Linda Morken as well as scenic designer Amy Campion seem to have thoroughly enjoyed their work.

The story, such as it is, is set around a British fashion magazine called “Shout,” which purports to provide women with fashion, hair, makeup and romance advice while the gals randomly dance and sing, as people were apparently wont to do in the 1960s.

There are a number of “Laugh-In”-type comedic moments between numbers, but when they’re not singing the ladies mostly ask for advice from columnist Gwendolyn Holmes (in hilarious voiceover segments by Barb Reeves) which is invariably vapid and shallow.

When one girl is uncertain about her boyfriend, Holmes’s voice intones: “Perhaps clear up what’s in your head by clearing up what’s on your head! A new hairstyle!”
But the reason for this exercise is the music, and the fact of the matter is these women can sing.

They cover songs mostly from that peculiar subset of 1960s music that is more pop than psychedelia, more teeny-bop than ground-breaking, a largely British strain of pop-rock that, while embedded with some hints of awareness of a changing world, also largely played it safe.

This is the sugar-coated 1960s, if you will.

Boomers as well as the living will no doubt bounce along with irresistibly catchy songs like “I Only Wanna Be With You,” sung by Orange (Shelly Cox-Robie). And Ellen Kaye as Blue performs Petula Clark’s “Don’t Sleep in the Subway” with a genuine warmth, boundless charm and a killer smile.

But the big guns don’t come out until near the end of the first act when Joanie Brosseau absolutely destroys (in a good way) Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man,” alternately eliciting Springfield’s smoky allure as well as her raw sexual power.

That’s followed by a hilarious rendition of “Goldfinger” sung by Alicia Dunfree (Yellow, natch) but featuring the entire cast contributing various 007-type sound effects and stylized Bond-girl dancing and pistol-packing poses. Dunfree also gets to sing Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walking,” which hardly seems fair.

As Red, Julia Perrotta gets off lightly in a way. Her character is meant to be something of a dingbat, and as an actor she has tremendous comic timing, so it’s a natural fit. But we also get to see her sweet side, as well as a rich and powerful singing voice on display in “To Sir With Love.”

Accents are inconsistent at best, and the story isn’t much. But the singing is what we’re here for, and it is across-the-board wonderful.

And to be fair, the storyline does eventually get around to slagging the idiotic columnist Holmes, portraying the women standing up to crumbling societal strictures in the form of the magazine’s advice. But the creators’ claims that the show is somehow all about women redefining themselves as liberated and strong like the singers they cover are wildly overblown.

On the other hand, to see just how far we’ve come in terms of gender equality, pick up any women’s magazine at the grocery store checkout.

Better yet, don’t.

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Sunset Boulevard

Ann Crumb as Norma Desmond in the Arvada Center's production of 'Sunset Boulevard.'

Here's a review from last week of the Arvada Center's 'Sunset Boulevard.'

When we picked up the tickets and press kit on the way in, the publicist there gushed, 'It's Andrew Lloyd Webber's best show!'

I'm going to have to disagree. I gave it 3 1/2 stars, but only because in the context of what they were trying to do, it was as fine a show as it could be. There was tremendous singing, an amazing set piece (the old woman's mansion, which rolls on and off-stage) and nothing really wrong with the production itself--it's just extremely weak material, to me.

I dunno--are there any 'Sunset Boulevard' (the musical) fans out there? Is there anyone who can tell me what I'm missing, if this is such a great Lloyd-Webber show? Because all I really felt was a desire to pick up the original film--even though Ann Crumb was amazing as Norma Desmond.

SUNSET BOULEVARD

It’s classic movie night at the theatre.

The clacking of a projector, the black and white Paramount logo projected onto a scrim, ominous music swelling dramatically--all these remind us early on that Hollywood is truly the lead in this show.

As if the title “Sunset Boulevard” weren’t enough to make that clear.

But it’s a cozy feeling as the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical begins, almost like settling in to watch a film from Hollywood’s golden era as narrator and protagonist Joe Gillis strides on stage to tell us a story about a man who always wanted a pool, the blue ripples now projected onto the scrim evoking the view from below the surface.

The unglamorous story of the Hollywood has-been was rarely told prior to the release of Billy Wilder’s 1950 film of the same name, with Gloria Swanson memorably playing the role of silent film star Norma Desmond. Picking up her story well into her decades-long downfall brought about by the advent of sound, Wilder showed the nastier side of the Hollywood game.

In the Arvada Center’s production of the musical, only the second time a regional theatre has been granted the rights in the past 14 years, the role of Desmond has been taken up by Broadway veteran Ann Crumb, who strikes a perfect balance between an overweening sense of drama and barely-concealed madness.

The book sticks closely to the original story, with aspiring writer Joe Gillis (Kevin Earley) stumbling upon Desmond’s crumbling mansion one night as he seeks to evade debt collectors. He is rather brusquely invited in by Desmond’s servant Max (Stephen Day) who thinks Joe is there to help with a grisly chore that foreshadows one of Michael Jackson’s peculiarities by nearly half a century.

When Desmond discovers Gillis is a writer, she decides to hire him to edit her script for a film about Salome, which would of course star herself as the 16-year-old seductress. Although her proposed project is of course ridiculous, Gillis realizes that he doesn’t really have any other prospects, despite the fiancée of a friend wanting him to flesh out a short story he wrote long ago.

Scenic designer Brian Mallgrave’s set is gorgeous, with a massive two-story piece representing Desmond’s manse, evoking a cluttered and gloomy sort of languishing Hollywood glamour, much like that in the original film. Three portraits of Desmond dominate the dark walls, overlooking a two-level black tile floor, an organ, a fainting couch and a grand staircase perfect for a diva’s entrance--and eventual exit.

The power of Crumb’s presence as Desmond cannot be overstated, and not only by way of her tremendous singing voice--she is riveting in every line she speaks as well. It’s as though audience members are wary party-goers keeping an eye on a particularly overdramatic drunk: what’s going to set her off next?

To know a diva is to love her as much as she loves herself--whether or not you want to--and Desmond portrays this all-consuming hunger and need perfectly.

As Gillis, Kevin Earley also exudes tremendous power, with a rich, majestic voice and a stage presence that counters that of Crumb with just enough strength. Stephen Day as Max is also a magnificent singer, and evokes vibrant shades of emotion in his songs, especially those he sings adoringly about Desmond.

The problem is that when we aren’t watching the slow-motion train wreck of Desmond’s life and career, the ensemble and their sub-plots seem disconnected and paper-thin by comparison. Although Lloyd-Webber has predictably given us bravura songs and a subject with a surfeit of pathos, his book writers never really got around to filling out the story satisfactorily.

The second act barrels along toward Crumb delivering that famous line from the film, but the show doesn’t seem to end so much as simply stop.

Problems with the material aside, director Rod A. Lansberry has created a dour and grim world evocative of the noir-ish look of the original film with some stunning performances that nearly obscure the thin façade upon which the show--and of course Hollywood itself--are built.

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Denver Post theatre preview

Here's the Post's Fall Arts theatre preview of upcoming shows to look for in 2010--including our little production of "Angels in America" at Vintage Theatre!



John Moore did a short interview with an actor or director for each show, and for ours he picked on Haley Johnson, who is playing Harper. She was also my Blanche when we did A Streetcar Named Desire, and of course I write for the Post as well, so the two of them had a glorious opportunity to badmouth me here. (They were actually quite restrained, considering. :D )

Reefer Madness

My latest piece for the Denver Post.

If there's any one thing I could have added to this, I would have pointed out that while it is a silly show, and while times have changed a great deal, I would remind people that the hysteria surrounding marijuana in the 20s and 30s was essentially the basis for our modern drug laws. Other reviewers have suggested that this show is hardly worth a titter, what with marijuana dispensaries sprouting up, and weed being (rightly) deemed so mild to us civilized, modern folk.

But this glosses over the fact that there are still hundreds of thousands of Americans in prison over negligible amounts of weed. There are countless people who have lost their jobs, been kicked out of school or the military or had their lives otherwise irretrievably damaged because of this innocuous plant that the powers of racism, big business and plain old temperance freaked out about nearly a hundred years ago. The legacy of the idiots who made the film "Reefer Madness" in 1936 is still alive and well today, in the idiots who oppose loosening our modern prohibition and failed war on Americans who use non-prescribed, non-alcoholic, non-tobacco drugs.

A smug attitude of 'Oh, we're so much smarter now' completely glosses over the plight of those affected by these wrong-headed and stupid laws, and frankly is incorrect, given the rest of our draconian and illogical drug laws--including, in many states, marijuana laws. Satire is important because it points out the uncomfortable, and this show does exactly that.

Here's the piece in full.

REEFER MADNESS

It’s hard to explain to the uninitiated just how ridiculously over-the-top the original “Reefer Madness” film really is.

Funded by a church group in 1936 at the height of the race-baiting, anti-marijuana hysteria whipped up by Harry Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst, the film portrayed “marihuana fiends” as sex-maniacs, murderers and finally deranged, amoral lunatics driven insane by the weed.

Beginning in the 1970s, the resurrected film quickly gained cult status on college campuses, the unintentional hilarity of the stilted acting and absurd anti-marijuana claims making it a natural fit for that smoky decade.

And since everything else ever put on celluloid has already been made into a musical, as the world is now officially out of new ideas, Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney decided to make one too--probably while taking bong rips.

But their efforts have been worthwhile. They’ve written 20 hilarious songs, punctuated now and again with reprises of the portentous, minor-key warning of the title song, and a story that doesn’t stray too far from the original exploitation flick.

Equinox Theatre’s production of the show is sharp, and under Colin Roybal’s direction and choreography, the cast mostly strikes the perfect tone--spoken in 1930s, rapid-fire, tough-guy lingo--only occasionally letting the mask slip, revealing self-awareness.

And that’s vital to making a show like this work: the hilarity lies in the characters not knowing that what they are saying and doing is hilarious, and that is a tricky tightrope to walk--the exception being the ensemble of dancing and singing reefer zombies doing their best “Thriller” impression at the top of the show.

Enter Jimmy (Eric Mather) and Mary (Hillary Tae), two sweet kids studying Shakespeare together and making time at the five and dime, because that’s what good, wholesome, white, Christian kids do.

Obviously.

Their underworld counterparts Jack (Arthur Pierce) and Mae (Celia Jones) host an ongoing pot party/orgy at their apartment, with Jack doling out joints to jittery acolytes like mad, giggling Ralph (Adam Perkes) who, we are told, “used to be a college kid.”

Much like “The Rocky Horror Show,” which also drew inspiration from the exploitation films of the first half of the 20th century, “Reefer Madness” is structured around a narrator (Brandon Bill) telling a story of moral decline. He paints the sad portrait of these good kids gone bad, warning of the dangers of listening to “weed-blowing, ginger-colored...agents of evil” like Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong.

And we also get tidbits of information from ensemble members periodically strutting out with signs held aloft, helpfully pointing out lessons to be learned from various set-pieces we’ve just witnessed: “Reefer makes you giggle for no good reason.” Or “Reefer will make you sell your baby for drug money.”

Again, obviously.

As the leads, Eric Mather and Hillary Tae are mostly pitch-perfect. The hyper-kinetic Mather occasionally slips the chain and indulges himself a bit too much in the silliness of the show--like the natural comedian he is--but his offenses are not grave.

And Tae is the quintessential wide-eyed neophyte--until she’s not anymore; it’s just a shame that her voice gets devoured by the Bug’s barn-like space and by the excellent but obviously full sound of the five-piece band. It’s unfortunate that when it comes to musicals, it seems like the Bug is somehow not quite big enough to justify using mics, but too big not to.

Celia Jones as Mae has no problem with being heard; her voice powers through the room and she manages to remain deadly serious even while singing lines like “You once had all the brains/Now they’re just carpet stains...”

Also of note are Katie Rhoades’ dirty, flirty Sally, and Adam Perkes, who threatens to steal the show as the hysterically bent Ralph.

All in all, Roybal and Equinox have put together an excellent show that one hopes will prompt people to educate themselves on the terrible trend of baby-selling drug fiends ravaging the country, in the wake of medical marijuana becoming widely available.

Or maybe it will just make people giggle for two solid hours--but with good reason.

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Boulder International Fringe Festival 2010

Fred Blanco as Cesar Chavez in his one-man show at BIFF 2010

Here's my latest piece from the Post. (Full text below.)

I can't express enough how much fun this event is. This is my second year covering the festival and I had a blast both times, even though I was under the deadline gun and had to race home that night to write it up. I can only imagine having an entire evening to check out different pieces, leisurely strolling around town rather than racing from venue to venue to catch as much as possible.

The shows are mostly $5-$10 and if you pick and choose well, they are worth it. The great thing about most of these shows is the electricity of not knowing what to expect, and the live edginess of seeing people about to step off the cliff in something they have created and which they feel passionate about.

Personally, I would rather pay $5 for an hour of weird but top-quality theatre than pay $20 for three hours of a 'meh' reinterpretation of a 'meh' show that's been around for decades or more.

Fringe Fesitval's Time-Tripping Is Well Worth the Journey

Things aren't quite normal here.

The first indication is Howard Petrick, decked out in his peace-sign-emblazoned World War II-era helmet to promote his show, "Rambo: The Missing Years."

The second is that everyone in line at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art seems to know everyone else; the first full night of performances at the 2010 Boulder International Fringe Festival is a chance for performers to catch each others shows, and there's a joyful camaraderie in the air.

This year, the festival is geographically sprawling, adding a "Bring Your Own Venue" opportunity as far away as Settlers' Park at the western end of Canyon Boulevard. Luckily, Boulder is the definition of a bike-friendly town, with a mad jumble of signs, flashing lights, and painted lines screeching hysterically at drivers from every corner. Otherwise the odyssey from the park to, say, Wesley Chapel, across from Folsom Field, could be prohibitive.

Still, it's worth the trek up Folsom Street to see "The Stories of Cesar Chávez," a one-man show performed by veteran Los Angeles actor Fred Blanco. Set in 1968 during one of Chávez's fasts in solidarity with striking farm workers, the show is a powerful homage to a brave, humble man.

But it's also potent social commentary that resonates with today's headlines. It serves as a discussion on immigration and an alternative to the xenophobic fear-mongering coming out of Arizona — and lately, New York and Washington.

Blanco slips effortlessly into various characters: a young, zoot-suited Chávez; an ancient abuela, her body broken from decades in the fields; a fiery revolutionary; a redneck strikebreaker.

This is one of those rare one-person shows in which the character shifts don't seem contrived. You find yourself forgetting the primary voice of Chávez until Blanco straightens his bent legs and back and unscrunches the old woman's face back to his own.

Also playing at the Wesley is an experimental work called "The Lovinator," a rock musical/dance piece that tells the story of an otherworldly hero who comes to Earth, a pirate named Captain Jesus. Through live vocals, guitar and bass, and backed with computer-recorded rhythm tracks, a six-person ensemble dances and sings its way through his story, which bears similarities to another well-known chronicle about a guy named Jesus.

The story is rather weird and muddled; of course, when it comes to religion, that's never really been a problem before. And there are some beautiful dance pieces, with striking manipulation of a plaster head representing the pirate/savior.

The music borrows shamelessly from influences like Frank Zappa, Prince, every 1970s musical about Jesus ever, and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," but you don't really mind, especially when the ensemble busts out in haunting but humorous four-part harmony on a well- known 1980s song.

Another show gaining buzz is "Moxie," which tells three stories of women working in the entertainment business spanning the 20th century, performed and written by Alana Eve Burman and Teresa Sparks (Fringe Festival director and administrative director, respectively).

It starts a little slow, with Penelope working in a production office during the silent-film era, backed by portentous piano music and dialogue slides explicating her story. But once we roll into the 1940s "Movietone News" section of the piece, it gets much funnier.

Using the conceit of wartime newsreels, Burman plays Eugenia, an aspiring tuba player in a USO band, as well as characters commenting on her halting climb to stardom.

Burman has excellent comic chops, and she is able to slip unnoticed from the sharp-elbowed patter of a 1940s announcer to the breathless, slightly lunatic exuberance of 1950s television as Erica, a phone-bank operator for an Atlanta news show, taking phone tips from callers.

She not-so-secretly wants to be an on-air reporter and disastrously wangles her way into covering a story on a man so good-looking he causes traffic accidents on a daily basis.

No, things are not normal here. But if you ask most people at the Fringe Festival, they'll tell you normal is vastly overrated.

The Boulder Fringe Festival runs through Sunday at venues across the city. Prices are reasonable and vary, and multiple-show passes are available. Check the website at boulderfringe.com for details.

Murderer

I also reviewed "Murderer" at Firehouse recently. Helluva show, dark, dark funny, if you like that sort of thing.

MURDERER

Taking another’s life is of course the most heinous crime imaginable. Apart from a reality show participant, there is no sub-human creature more loathsome, odious and despicable than a murderer.

And much in the way we’re glued to the crime of reality television, we seem to take an almost lascivious delight in examining every lurid detail of the crimes of murderers: we know its wrong to watch, we know it can’t be good for us, yet we are unable to turn away. We cover our eyes and gasp in horror, all the while peeking between our fingers.

Firehouse Theatre’s production of “Murderer” by Anthony Shaffer, who also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Frenzy” and the original production of “Sleuth,” has taken that odd repulsion-fascination to its logical conclusion.

Meet Norman Bartholomew, a strange painter with an encyclopedic knowledge of famous murderers. He lives in a village in Dorset, England, caught in a loveless marriage with his carping wife Elizabeth (Theresa Dwyer Reid).

Turns out he might be seeking practical applications for his vast knowledge of the fine art of murder.

The show begins with over 20 minutes of dialogue-free action, beginning with Norman (played by James O’Hagan-Murphy) painting a portrait of his lover Millie (Lindsey Christian) while his wife is away.

As usually happens in these cases, girl meets boy, boy drugs girl, boy dismembers body in the bathtub.

Who hasn’t had a Saturday night like that?

Actually this opening is a brilliant piece of theatre, a silent sketch that encompasses grotesqueries as well as many flashes of humor. The sight of Norman wearing goggles and a butcher’s apron over nothing but boxers and a pair of argyle socks is funny enough--until he takes a break from the dismemberment to make a cup of tea, fussily cutting the crusts off his sandwich before returning to his task.

And while Shaffer’s script is laden with these moments of dark humor, that’s not to say that there isn’t very real and visceral emotion as well. The loathing between husband and wife is palpable, horrific in its own way. And the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between Norman and the village constable Sergeant Stenning (Luke Terry) are also an emotional minefield.

The other great gift the late Shaffer had was his mastery at taking an audience for a ride in one direction, then abruptly spinning the world 180 degrees. Suffice to say that anyone who says they saw what was coming at the end of “Murderer” is as big a liar as your cousin who swears he figured out the secret at the heart of “The Sixth Sense” halfway into the film.

O’Hagan-Murphy stands out in a role that demands a lot from an actor, physically and emotionally. With a gibbering, high-strung laugh a la Jonathan Pryce, his loopy capering could in itself make the show. However, he holds other emotions in reserve, revealing them a bit at a time, playing the varying power relationships well.

As Sergeant Stenning, Luke Terry does yeoman work, largely relegated to playing the straight man, although he clearly has a great deal of fun tormenting Norman with his Columbo- like questions.

Lindsey Christian as Millie is a sweetly vicious airhead, adorably murderous as she pushes Norman to finally put up or shut up with regard to his harpy of a wife. Its unfortunate, then, that her dialect slips are abundant enough to distract from the character.

And finally to the aforementioned harpy: as Elizabeth, Theresa Dwyer Reid is brutally cold and emasculating, a cojones-crusher of a wife. She takes great joy in aiming withering rejoinders at her husband. Aside from going a bit too big at the climax, Reid carries the character with stoicism as well as genuine humanity.

Overall, director Stacey Nelms has put together a fine show that will leave some viewers horrified and others giggling--perhaps imparting a balance of the two to most.

###

Tomfoolery

Here's my latest review for the Post, the excellent "Tomfoolery" now showing at the Denver Vic.

TOMFOOLERY

Satire should sting a little bit. At its best--razor-edged, likely to confuse and offend a portion of its audience--satire cuts to the heart of dusty, unchallenged societal hypocrisy.

There was no American era quite as perfect as the 50s and early 60s for a satirist like Tom Lehrer to come along. If you believed the propaganda, America was a nation of Don and Betty Drapers, uniformly flush with confidence, living the high life amid a booming post-war economy, smugly certain of the godly righteousness of their leaders and their nation. It took people like Lehrer, the Beats, and the nascent folk movement to point out the Emperor’s decidedly minimalist wardrobe choice.

While Dylan was solemn and frustrated, and the Beats were joyous and wild, Lehrer’s weapon of choice was musical satire. He wielded his songs like a scalpel, slicing with precision at treasured myths of American life, a collection of which have been brought together in the revue “Tomfoolery,” now showing at the Denver Victorian.

Though this is veteran director Wade P. Wood’s first time at the helm of a musical revue, he keeps the ship largely on course as his cast of four rips through 25 of Lehrer’s classic songs in under two hours. There are plenty of groan-worthy puns and rather obvious jokes, but also lots of humor requiring some degree of thought--Lehrer’s other career as a Harvard-educated mathematician is a dead giveaway that intelligence and a sense of humor often go hand in hand.

The show begins with “Be Prepared,” featuring the entire cast led by Clark Bomer Brittain as a sort of demented scout leader, all wearing boy scout-style neckerchiefs and marching down the aisles to the stage. That’s followed by one of Lehrer’s best-known songs, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” which sounds like a sweet and ordinary 1950s-style love song until you realize the murderous nature of the singers.

Soon we move on to Lehrer’s time at Harvard, with songs like “Bright College Days” and “Fight Fiercely Harvard,” which hilariously features Amanda Goldrick as an enthusiastic if not entirely coordinated cheerleader. And in a most amazingly tongue-tripping demonstration of clear diction and memorization, Henrik Boes sings “The Element Song,” a listing of the periodic table set to the tune of the “Major-General’s Song” from “Pirates of Penzance.”

With songs this old--especially satiric songs--there are bound to be a few clunkers.
Indeed, when the show first came out in 1981, reviewers noted the risk of boring the audience, given the dated nature of the pieces even then. But there is still fun to be found within them.

Paula Jayne Friedland stoically stands up to the chore of singing “In Old Mexico,” an almost too-dated song which gets a lot of mileage out of the apparent hilarity that people from different countries speak differently than we do--for instance the pronunciation of the “j” sound in “Guadalajara.” But even this song has buried gems of Lehrer-esque wordplay within: the song as a whole may not be that funny, but rhyming “toros” with “morose” is hilarious.

The misses are few, and merely the side-effect of the passage of time, not the fault of the cast. Soon the show is back on track with “When You’re Old And Grey,” the most honest love song ever, chronicling in detail a couple’s likely decline: “I’ll lose my virility/And you your fertility/And desirability...”

And the “Vatican Rag” alone is worth the price of admission, between Missy Moore’s choreography and the cast dressed as nuns singing lines like “Genuflect! Genuflect! 2-4-6-8 / Time to transubstantiate!”

The piece is a revue, and as such it suffers from the thinness typical of this type of show. But surprisingly perhaps, most of the material holds up fairly well; perhaps enough time has passed that the songs have moved past dated and into the category of nostalgia. Cast and director have treated Lehrer’s work with love and enthusiasm, bringing to life the work of a beloved American humor icon in a show that will amuse both old fans and new.

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picasso at the lapin agile

Here's my latest review for the Post.

Full text below, but additionally here's a couple of quotations I started with but didn't have room to run with the story. I often search for quotations on whatever the general themes seem to be when I'm reviewing a play, and slap them at the top of the piece to glance at as I write. Anyone else do that?

Enjoy, and comments welcome.

Although they will immediately be disregarded. :)

“I want to be ready for it, to be ready for the moment of convergence between the thing done and the doing of it...at that moment, I am speaking for everyone; I am dreaming for the billions yet to come.”
-- Steve Martin, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"

"The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions - which time and mediocrity can solve."
-- Hugh Trevor-Roper

“To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius--the men of reasoning and the men of imagination.”
--Isaac D’Israeli

“Real recognize real.” --MF Doom

PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE

The word “genius” gets tossed around a lot. A thoroughly unscientific search of recent headlines turned up the word in reference to Billy Bob Thornton, Adolph Hitler, Michael Jackson and Argentine soccer coach Maradona.

If nothing else, such a group would make for an interesting dinner party.

Putting aside the strong possibility that the word has been cheapened by overuse, genius seems to imply a sort of magic or alchemy, a connection to something outside of oneself, a great leap forward as inexplicable as it is miraculous.

By any definition, the genius guest list should include Steve Martin, polymath and author of 1996’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.” As a stand-up comedy writer and performer, he routinely made great leaps, nimbly dancing in the gray area between the silly and the sublime. “Picasso,” his first full-length play, does the same.

Veteran director Terry Dodd has treated the piece with the joy and respect it deserves. Martin imagines a 1904 meeting between a young Albert Einstein (Brian Kusic) and Pablo Picasso (Ben Cowhick) at a Paris bar, the two men consumed with passion for their respective subjects of interest.

The dawn of the 20th century is a perfect laboratory for Martin’s thought experiment, a time when it must have seemed like new wonders of art, science, and industry were emerging every day. That innocence, that wide-eyed wonderment at the world and human achievement in it is written into the characters as well as the show as a whole.

Martin immediately has some fun with Einstein as he introduces himself to bar-owner Freddy (Larry Hecht) and incontinent customer Gaston (James Nantz). When Freddy declares that he can’t be Einstein, the theorist mutters, “I’m not myself today.” Then he fluffs up his hair to resemble the famous wild hairdo from a million dorm room posters and asks, “Better?”

Suzanne, a young woman joins them (the lovely and elegant Z. Z. Moore), tells of a tryst with Picasso, and waits in hope of seeing him again. When he shows, Picasso has naturally forgotten her, and in a hilarious sequence he tries to pick her up again using the same techniques Suzanne has just described.

But the majority of the show features Picasso and Einstein metaphorically circling one another, verbal knives out: the flamboyant, womanizing artiste and the seemingly meek patent office clerk, each on the brink of creating his masterpiece. Over the course of the lightning-fast 90 minutes, they come to recognize that ultimately, genius is the same creature, no matter how divergent the fields of study in which it is accessed.

The two leads are well-matched and mostly equal to the task of playing their larger-than-life characters. As the great painter, Ben Cowhick has a bit of work to do in terms of fully, truthfully inhabiting Picasso’s brash swagger, but he isn’t far off the mark. Brian Kusic as Einstein has mastered a sly, layered meekness that barely covers the theorist’s own tremendous ego and confidence.

As the combative Germaine, Laura Lounge can come off a little one-note at times, but she has a lovely moment late in the play when she reveals her own philosophy. Larry Hecht as the deadpan, sardonic bartender Freddy anchors the cast, much like the bar itself built into the lobby of the Barth Hotel.

Two minor points about the Barth: while it is a beautiful building, using the lobby’s regular lighting does detract from the magical nature of the show, especially one as otherworldly as this. Also, the acoustics of the place ensure that if the actors don’t make a point of holding for laughs, lines will get swallowed up in the echo.

While the glib, 21st century thing to do would be to smugly dismiss “Picasso” as a comedian’s pack of one-liners tenuously built on the shifting sands of absurdity, the truth is that there is a great deal of truth here. In exploring where inspiration comes from, author Martin, director Dodd and his cast also serve to inspire.

###

ADDENDUM: And according to I Write Like, based on this review, I write like H.P. Lovecraft.

Huh. And I didn't even mention Cthulu once...

true west review

True West is playing at the Vic for another three weekends, and well worth checking out.

Here's my review in the Post.

Here's the slightly different version I turned in. :)

TRUE WEST

When it comes to the dynamics of family, Sam Shepard has a unique gift for peeling back the scabs we thought had healed long ago.

And then dousing the raw wounds with gasoline.

Few playwrights capture so eloquently and yet with such brute force the dreadful angst of what it means to be kin. Shepard knows that the honestly examined chronicle of family contains at least traces of a peculiar, haunting sense of loss, an unspoken shared remembrance of tiny failures, tiny regrets.

Through the interactions of Austin and Lee, the adult sibling protagonists of his 1980 play “True West,” Shepard manages to convey a series of poignant snapshots: we can visualize the ancient broken toys, the fraying cardboard game boxes, the half-remembered fights and the inevitable tears.

Beyond that, Shepard also examines notions of identity, and whether we can truly escape the family that raised us, however far we travel.
The show opens on Austin (Brian Brooks), a Hollywood screenwriter who is pure khakis and minivans, a Polo-shirted distillation of the suburban American Dream, working on a new project while house-sitting for his mother.

Enter slovenly Lee (sloven-Lee?) played by Nils Swanson. Austin’s formerly estranged brother is his polar opposite: swilling down beer, wearing thrift-store slacks and a grubby wife-beater, he talks of breaking into houses and stealing appliances as his major short-term goals.

If Austin is Diet Coke, then Lee is his Mentos.

For any other playwright this could easily devolve into some depressing rehash of “The Odd Couple.” But Shepard, in allowing the temperature to reach a slow boil--and by throwing in scenes in which Austin’s producer Saul (Terry Burnsed) becomes infatuated with Lee and his screenplay idea--allows Austin’s civilized veneer to be agonizingly scraped off, while forcing Lee to acknowledge that his confidence isn’t always backed up by capability.

While much has been made of the too-clever notion that Austin and Lee may actually be two halves of one individual, Shepard himself has said that he was looking more at the notion of each individual human’s internal contradictions, rather than some metaphorical split.

And as we learn more, we see the brothers are indeed of the same ilk. The two men are ground down to their essence, each shaped like a lens, each coming more sharply into focus, each becoming more like his opposite number.

At the same time, they become more like themselves.

In a thankless role, Linda Suttle as the boys’ mother is irritable, baffled and hilariously clueless, as one would expect of a woman who raised these two.

Terry Burnsed’s Saul Kimmer is amusing as an effeminate Hollywood producer, with more layers than his Don Johnson suit might indicate at first. But while allusions to a sexual interest between Saul and Lee can be read into the script, director Terry Dodd may have let some of the jokes get a bit too obvious: Saul talking of Lee’s “raw talent” while holding up his arm at an angle springs to mind.

Indeed, for such a menacingly dark--and, granted, darkly funny--play, the pacing and jokiness at times undercut the actual words the characters were saying. Dodd has the show down to a taut hour and a half, but the banter was so rapid-fire that at times the actors didn’t seem at all connected to what they were saying, much less to what had just been said to them. Shepard’s other great gift--his realism--is thus somewhat lost.

Still and all, the show is a keeper. Swanson is stellar as the dirtbag older brother Lee: uneducated but cagey, Lee possesses that uniquely manipulative, white-trash cunning one can see in former half-term governors of Alaska and the like.

And Brooks’ Austin is the quintessential nice guy who finishes last. An early scene where he gets shunted aside while Lee barges into conversation with producer Saul is both sad and hilarious. One criticism is that when he gets angry in later scenes it can seem forced, as if a switch has been thrown rather than an organic, internal build to that anger--although some of this could also be attributed to the pacing.

Ultimately though, Dodd and his cast do capture the essence of Shepard’s classic: the realization that family, the people we are supposed to know best, are often the most mysterious of strangers.

###

This obviously isn't Brian and Nils, but it's a pretty cool True West promo pic from the 2000 revival.

bare: the musical

And here's the latest. This is a better show than my review came out. I just get really frustrated when performers aren't given a chance because technical issues prevent it.

From today's Post:


Theater isn't easy. What stage performers do every night is akin to walking naked across a bed of hot coals while juggling puppies and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Backward. In Serbian.

Oh, and do try to look more natural while you're doing it, would you?

Although besieged by the alien cruelty of economics — as foreign to art as baseball is to frogs — live theater remains important and vital today because we as audience members can sense this danger. Even if we're not aware of it, we get a vicarious thrill watching performers teeter on the edge of the abyss.

So when a fledging company like Gravity Defied comes along at the worst economic moment for theater in recent memory, with a completely mad and unique mission — plans to donate money from every show to nonprofits — you really hope that, for once, everything goes perfectly.

Alas, on opening night of "Bare: The Musical," the inaugural performance for the group, that was not the case.

First, the story: "Bare" is, frankly, a grab-bag of standard problems facing adolescents: sexual identity, drugs, teen pregnancy, parental estrangement, religion, morality, mortality. But it centers on two Catholic schoolboys who are in love, a formidable predicament indeed.

Peter (Danny Harrigan, who doubles as choreographer) struggles with his love for Jason (played by director Keith Rabin Jr.) and how it fits in with his presumed faith. Further complicating matters, Jason is a jockish, popular kid who fears ostracism and worse should they make their relationship known.

The boys and their classmates are preparing a production of "Romeo and Juliet" — star-crossed lovers, anyone? All the while, they're embroiled in the pitiless politics of high school: Jason's popular girlfriend Ivy (Suzanne Dani'l Simone) and his bitter twin sister, Nadia (Sherean Samimi), hate each other; their friend Matt (Blake Nawa'a) pines for Ivy; and Lucas (Benjy Schirm) deals drugs.

It's a powder keg, if a somewhat predictable and overwrought one. But despite the show's cult status, with nearly 40 (often repetitious, nearly indistinguishable) songs and at least 942 scene changes, creators Jon Hartmere and Damon Intrabartolo have birthed a monster that would benefit from a nip and a tuck.

Even with these challenges, the Gravity Defied cast has created some tremendous moments of beauty. The love between real-world partners Rabin Jr. and Harrigan was on display in song, in longing gazes and in stamping frustration alike, especially in the second act's "Bare."

As Nadia, Samimi lends the show some much-needed humor with her excoriations of the shallow Ivy. She shines even brighter when she lets her tough-girl shield fall away in "A Quiet Night at Home."

And as the sole voice of reason in this asylum, Sister Chantelle (Anna Maria High) brings down the house with "God Don't Make No Trash." She also has a hilarious, "Jesus Christ Superstar"-inspired turn as a hallucinatory Virgin Mary in "911! Emergency," although at that point, much of what she and her angels were singing was unintelligible.

Which brings us back to the technical difficulties.

It's not that a show must be perfect to be good, or that one can ever be perfect; it's that there was so much preventable discord marring otherwise potentially great performances.

The light cues were off. The unwieldy set proved impossible to shift either quickly or quietly, and the microphone problems grew from mildly annoying to infuriating over the course of the first act.

Newcomer to community theater Nawa'a as Matt seems to have a stunning voice, but his songs were shredded with distortion. Same with Darrell Johnson as the priest. Even the equalizer settings were flat in the first act, clearly something that should have been looked at long before curtain.

All of this is frustrating because tech week is where the myriad microphone, scene-shift and lighting problems should have been solved, not intermission. And even then, the solutions were haphazard at best.

Both Gravity Defied as a company and "Bare" in particular have tremendous potential. There is a great deal of talent in the group; here's hoping they can iron out the kinks.

"Bare: The Musical" **1/2 (out of four stars)

Presented by Gravity Defied Theatre at the Aurora Fox, 9900 E. Colfax Ave. Book by Jon Hartmere and Damon Intrabartolo; music by Intrabartolo; lyrics by Hartmere. Directed by Keith Rabin Jr. Choreography by Danny Harrigan. Starring Danny Harrigan, Keith Rabin Jr., Sherean Samimi, Suzanne Dani'l Simone, Anna Maria High, Darrell Johnson, Jia Apple, Blake Nawa'a, Benjy Schirm. 2 hours, 48 minutes. Through Aug. 22. $30 (a portion of each ticket sold for this show goes to PHAMALy.) 303-325-3959 or go to the Rocky Mountain Arts Associations website at rmarts.org

old times

Here's a review I wrote for today's Post on Paragon's new production of 'Old Times.' It was weird seeing other people perform a show that I was in a few years back. It's such an absurdist, otherworldly play that that just added another layer of strangeness on top. It has been five years, though, so I think I managed to separate myself from my 'ownership' of the show, if you will.

These are some wonderful actors, and they put on a wonderful show. Enjoy.

Oh and if you read to the end, you will note that John Moore and I now share the same email address. :)

We're registered at Spencer's Gifts, and Argonaut Liquors.


Full text follows:

There are certain truths in the world, things that we have agreed to refer to as facts. For instance, say, that Earth is very old. Or that trouble follows tequila.

That said, another truth is that my facts may not always line up perfectly with yours. Some people believe that dinosaur fossils were planted by a trickster deity, or that ordering a fourth margarita is a good idea.

So how could we possibly agree on what took place between friends and lovers in the distant past?

Memory and the tricks it plays are but one aspect of Harold Pinter's masterpiece "Old Times," but it underlies everything. A married couple is joined at their converted farmhouse by the wife's old friend from her younger, wilder days, and the three of them proceed to orally spar, spinning ever-more implausible yarns over what occurred 20 years ago, and to whom.

With only the sting of Harold Pinter's words, Deeley (Kevin Hart) and interloper Anna (Emily Paton Davies) verbally disembowel one another in "Old Times." (E. Tyler Photography. )

Based on that wildly oversimplified description, the play sounds like a snooze- fest of monumental proportions.

But no: This is Pinter.

His dialogue is often described as "menacing." But when it comes to "Old Times," Pinter's use of language borders on violence. There are no fisticuffs or gunplay in the show, but these people — especially the husband, Deeley (Kevin Hart), and the interloper, Anna (Emily Paton Davies) — are attempting to verbally disembowel one another.

The battlefield is David Lafont's clean, beautiful set, resembling nothing so much as an austere psychoanalyst's office, circa 1973, where they slash and burn in oral warfare, the outcome of which can only be victory or death.

Kate (Carolyn Valentine), Deeley's wife, or his "casserole," as Anna refers to her, is the prize. She spends much of the first act in a daze or reverie, as the others battle over and around her.

But Kate is fighting too, in her own way. It is no accident that Pinter references a film called "Odd Man Out." The shifts in alliances among the three starkly yet subtly illustrate the ever-slippery power dynamics at play. Now Deeley is bragging about his job and his life with (read: control over) Kate; now Anna and Kate are giggling like schoolgirls while Deeley looks on, fuming.

The unspoken sexual component that may or may not underlie the various relationships among the trio is never far off. That Deeley feels threatened by the ladies' nostalgic memories of Anna stealing Kate's underwear and whispering stories of her exploits in the dark of their shared room is a given. That Anna doesn't bother to disguise her distaste during his crude reminiscences of the first time he and Kate slept together is no surprise either.

The cast and director Suzanne Favette have done a wonderful job of capturing the surface tension of the piece, the delightfully horrid discomfort of unwanted social niceties we have all endured. Although Favette has inexplicably made a change at the end of the piece which frankly alters the author's intent rather drastically, the overall effect of the show is haunting and genuine.

What is sometimes missing is subtlety: that which lies between what the characters say and what they are not saying, the source of the tension in any Pinter piece, is vital. Too often Hart's Deeley bludgeons with words when an epee might be more appropriate, thus undercutting himself when he finally does explode.

And when Kate's casserole finally bubbles over, the hugeness of Valentine's anger and frustration seems like a choice that is forced, rather than one of allowing Pinter's words to do their own work. It is Davies' Anna who anchors them, with her seemingly sweet smile and open, outwardly friendly enthusiasm — only rarely does she let the mask slip, and at just the right moments.

Still, this is a taut, wonderful hour and a half, and audiences will be left wondering what, after all, is true.

Kurt Brighton: jmoore@denverpost.com

---

"Old Times" *** (out of four stars)

Drama. Presented by Paragon Theatre at the Crossroads Theater, 2590 Washington St. Written by Harold Pinter. Directed by Suzanne Favette. Starring Carolyn Valentine, Kevin Hart, Emily Paton Davies. Through Aug. 15. 1 hour, 30 minutes. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. $19 (Thursdays two-for-one). 303-300-2210 or go to paragontheatre.com

stones in his pockets

here's a link to a review i wrote last week of Stones in his Pockets, an irish tragicomedy that's running at the victorian playhouse in denver thru april 5.
somehow in the editing process, i left out that there is indeed a significant amount of tragedy in this story as well as humor. not quite sure how that happened. i blame the post and it's 650-word limit. (although the truth is i edited those parts out myself before i sent it in.)
it's a great show, however, with all the characters done by two excellent actors, seth maisel and austin terrell (above).

as for myself, i am auditioning tonight for a spot in a new play by gene kato, "18 holes." it's about golf not porno, which had me puzzled for a while. it is an interesting script, and i would love to do a play in denver, finally, although the parts for ahem, gentlemen of a certain age are scant.
i am just excited to do a monologue audition. it's been forever.

also, i am auditioning for the part of stanley kowlaski in a production of streetcar named desire next week(!!!) that should be interesting...i've been going to the gym a lot lately. :) i may not be able to act worth a shit, but i can play "shirtless" with the best of them, lol.

peace,
k

white christmas

very exciting news! got my first theatre review for the denver post! read it here.

i went and saw "irving berlin's white christmas," which, if you know me, is right up my alley. i'm all about the sweet, nostalgic warmth of family and holidays, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, singing christmas carols, freakin' sleigh bells...

okay, that's bullshit. i'm not a terribly sentimental person, to put it mildly. :)
but i have to say that, even walking in the door knowing that i was in for a light holiday romp based on an uber-sentimental bing crosby film from 1954, i was prepared to take in the show based on what people who like that sort of thing might like, if that makes any sense. that is to say, i was trying to watch it through the eyes of someone who is drawn to treacle and nostalgia, and prepared to ignore my own inner groans.

that said, these people put on an awesome show. it doesn't drip with sentimentality, they don't manipulate the audience--too much--and it is quick-moving and has some sharp bits of humor and acting that make the overall message of holiday spirit and falling in love not only tolerable, but actually fun to watch and kinda sweet.

god, i'm not saying this very well. all i mean is that not only did they do a great job with what they had to work with, they also did a great job in general, even for the jaded cynic in the audience.

whew. check out the article. it hopefully makes more sense than i am making here. :)

--kjb