The Harvey Project published

Hey so I heard from playwright Dave Ulrich the other day. He's the guy who penned 'The Harvey Project,' a play in which I originated the title role a few years back. He's gotten around to publishing some older titles of his on Amazon, and asked me to write a review, so here it is. You can purchase the play for a mere $5 on Kindle!

The Harvey Project - Amazon review

I love this play, and not only because I had the privilege of appearing in the first-ever production of it. But, as such I had a lot of opportunity to think about Mr. Ulrich’s ideas and words, and the way he presented them, and I found as we went on that the piece reveals itself to be deeper over time, that you can peel back layer after layer of meaning if you pay attention.

When you are learning lines for a play, believe me, you read those pages over and over until you see them in your sleep. You give whatever play you’re working on--the characters, the story, the underlying meanings--a lot of thought, sometimes against your will. :-)

And what I found was that, especially for a young writer with not a tremendous amount of experience, Ulrich keeps the reader/audience engaged, and carries the weirdly intertwining stories along very gracefully.

I love the overlapping worlds he has created here--no spoilers, just read the damn thing; it’s only five bucks--and the philosophical questions he raises almost casually, almost elegantly, offhandedly.

But far from being some coldly tricksy, intellectual exercise, some smug treatise on existence and the absurdity of life, Ulrich has penned characters with heart and with emotion and with places they want to be, stories they want to tell. He has created real people that step up from the page. There is love here, and not of the schlocky, Hollywood-ized kind either, but rather that of real people with real conflicts and real problems.

While, to be honest there are a couple of transitions that are a bit awkward, and there are moments when the language gets a little clunky (hey, new playwright, remember?) overall it is a fun, and thoughtful ride with true depth and a solid if weird through-line.

I think ‘The Harvey Project’ is not only a great read, I would recommend it to schools and theatre companies as a show that will challenge actors, directors and audiences alike in terms of the material as well as the nuts and bolts of putting on a show set in a multi-verse.

Damn! There go the spoilers!

p.s. here's another piece by Dave which I haven't read yet, but which looks interesting.

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The Who's Tommy

Here's my latest review from the Post.

I hope I made it clear how much fun I had; it was just frustrating that the sound person had the vocal mics set where the band's volume should have been. They clipped and cut out constantly, whereas the band was way way to quiet. (They cut my point about just HOW LOUD the vocal mics were from the piece, but just trust me.)

At any rate, had a great time both at the show and in Dillon. That fucking lake-- I could live right there, in a tent on the shore.

At least until October or so.

THE WHO'S TOMMY

It was the 1960s, after all.

For a small slice of just how ridiculous — or magical, depending on your perspective — that era was, try to imagine the pitch meeting for The Who's rock opera "Tommy" had it been written today:

"Well, there's this kid who sees something traumatic, right? And he goes catatonic as a result. Eventually, he recovers by smashing a mirror then becoming a world- class pinball player and quasi-savior."

Ooo-kay . . .

But as is known to anyone who appreciates the original album or even the ultra- weird film version (starring Ann-Margret, Elton John and Jack Nicholson — it was the 1970s, after all), there is an understanding that Pete Townshend and the Who, at the height of their powers, were not subject to the usual rules of storytelling.

Lake Dillon Theatre boldly brings the sprawling, reworked 1994 show, "The Who's 'Tommy,' " to its postage-stamp stage, seeming to embrace that lack of cohesion, taking the audience on a whirlwind trip through the looking glass.

The sense of events being completely out of deaf, dumb and blind Tommy's control is the show's real strength. Keeping us off-balance under the rapid-fire succession of scene changes and shifts in tone seems to be director Chris Alleman's goal here, and largely, he succeeds.

Some liberties have been taken in Act 1 with how the timelines of young Tommy (Alex Anderson) and older Tommy (Josh T. Smith) cross, and how they interact with each other, but it works. Somehow, both characters' experiences make more sense as viewed through the lenses of memory or premonition. It's a way to show that we are all, in a way, trapped in a younger version of ourselves.

And there are some fine performances here — Smith as adult Tommy is a riveting messiah, and his interactions with Anderson as his younger self are poignant.

As Mrs. Walker, Amy Jo Jackson brings a human warmth to a troubled woman. Michael Jayne Walker as Cousin Kevin delights in a joyful wickedness during his torment of Tommy, and Brett Michael Wilson as perverted Uncle Ernie is a greasy, twisted loon who would make Keith Moon proud.

Often lost in talking about the music of the Who, amid the detritus of Townshend's smashed guitars and Moon's jet-engine drumming, is that the band composed and performed astounding four-part harmonies. Lake Dillon's company does justice to that tradition.

That said, this is rock 'n' roll, damn it. Even with the understanding that it isn't the Who performing, the music must, by definition, rock. The offstage band was mostly capable, but almost everything it played seemed tentative in terms of volume, as well as tempo, as though it was afraid of overwhelming the singers. (Which would have been impossible: the vocal mics were almost universally too loud.)

The band needed to be louder. Much louder. The music of the Who — even the theatrical version of it — should be a freight train threatening to crush all in its path.

And that's tragic, because the show's potential was apparent in not only the individual performances but also in the cleverness of the scene changes, the swooping, vertiginous sensation of time and events taking over and pushing everyone into their next phase.

Still, for a fun retro-ride, the show is worth the drive to the mountains — there are many glimpses of beauty and power and rage and loss. It's just too bad its potential hasn't fully been reached.

"The Who's 'Tommy' " ** 1/2 (out of four stars)

The Lake Dillon Theatre Company, 146 Lake Dillon Drive. Directed by Chris Alleman. Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend. Saturday-Aug. 28. 1 hour, 45 minutes. 6:30 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. $15-$29. 970-513-9386 or lakedillontheatre.org

'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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little shop review

Hey all--
As many of you may know, my life has been extra-extra crazy lately because I’ve been moving and also opening a show. I have been neglectful of friends and fam, methinks, but hopefully I can earn forgiveness at some point, and maybe a little empathy.

Not that I’m feeling sorry for myself! Far from it: doing Little Shop has thus far proven to be one of the most fun and educational experiences of my theatrical career. My castmates and director have been amazingly helpful and they have welcomed me with open arms to the Equinox family.

And the hard work is paying off--here’s another amazing review from Father Patrick Dorn. Industry night tomorrow (Monday 6.6--pay what you can--7:30 curtain--more info follows).

Hope you can make it!


Equinox Theatre Company's production of "Little Shop of Horrors" plays through June 18 at the historic and quirky Bug Theatre, 3654 Navajo Street, Denver. Tickets are $12-$15. Call 720-984-0781 or visit www.equinoxtheatredenver.com for information or to purchase tickets.

That's me with the beehive on the left.

Okay. No it isn't.

The Vagrant

Here's another review of mine in the Post, for Dangerous Theatre's 'The Vagrant.' Full text follows below.

"The Vagrant" is an unusual play about a homeless man, played by Winter Maza, who chooses to live on the streets. (Provided by Dangerous Theatre)

Despite some clunkiness here and there--a couple of the smaller roles were played by people who seemed to have very little experience, or at least to have been given poor direction--it was a truly moving show. I'm always fascinated by playwrights and screenwriters and authors who can make you feel without seeming manipulative. There are far too many films and plays that prey on your emotions rather than bring them out honestly. I'm hard-pressed right now to define the difference; it's one of those 'I know it when I see it things.'

But in any case, 'The Vagrant' connected without being cloying.


THE VAGRANT
3 stars
running time 1:32

If you still don’t believe reports that the decelerating engine of American Empire is forcing people out of their houses, drive down Park Avenue West past the shelters sometime. Just a few blocks from Coors Field, that towering edifice of triumphal capitalism, you will see fifty, perhaps a hundred people spilling out into the street every evening as they queue up just hoping for a chance to sleep inside.

But that crowd is more than a faceless, amorphous blob. It is a demographic composed of individuals who have stories very much like our own. They have parents and siblings and sons and daughters; very likely, they once had a roof over their heads too.

And while there are complicated and overlapping issues coloring any honest discussion of homelessness--mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse, perpetual funding shortfalls--perhaps the most maddening of all is our lack of empathy toward those whom we as a society have deemed invisible.

Dangerous Theatre’s show “The Vagrant” seeks to address this, to re-humanize the problem of homelessness.

Enter Lenny, played by Winter Maza. He appears to be a jolly street-philosopher, taking homelessness as a sort of carnival act, cadging lunch from hapless hot dog man Rodney (Steve Towbin) through his gift of gab.

Soon we meet Lenny’s friend Maggie (Winnie Wenglewick), a grumpy, bag-toting sort who is perhaps not so high-functioning as Lenny. He reminds her to take her heart medicine, and gently pulls her back to reality when she rants about Shriners being aliens in disguise.

In an jarring moment during her entrance, Maggie turns the tables on the audience: she stares out hard and tells Lenny, “The bastards are back again, looking at you with their beady little eyes.”

It’s discomfiting to be among those on display, to have the luxury of privacy revoked even for a few seconds--a luxury the homeless never enjoy.

Lenny is soon visited at his park bench by John (Alexander Wu) and Rachel (Norrell Moore) a pair of young, struggling stockbrokers. When Lenny offers them a few stock tips resulting in better-than-expected gains, the pair are intrigued by this enigmatic man and drawn in different ways into his story.

Rachel is the personification of the argument against helping any individual homeless person: the problem is too great; I have my own problems, etc. She embodies unabashed selfishness, the dimwitted Randian mantra that greed is the only possible good, or even the only possibility for human behavior at all.

But Moore also manages to show us another, nastier component of this argument: there is an unspoken assumption buried within this philosophy that anyone less fortunate than ourselves probably only got what they deserved. Moore shows tremendous poise and grace as she plays out these multiple yet intersecting levels, which, in a less-skilled actor’s hands, could easily be shrill or overly simplistic.

Alexander Wu as John is the kinder, gentler counter to Rachel’s heartlessness, reaching out to Lenny and showing a compassion that is rare when the more fortunate are forced to deal with the homeless face to face. Wu infuses John with a bemused warmth, an instinctively human desire to help, to understand.

At the heart of the story though is Lenny, played by Winter Maza. His sonorous baritone voice calmly cuts through others’ self-delusions; he alternately laughs and cries, feels sorry for himself and empathizes with others. He cajoles, entreats, and raves. It is a beautiful performance marred only by rare occasions when actor momentarily seems disconnected from character.

Despite some supporting characters that are clunky at best and a couple of odd directorial choices, this is a moving, honest show that pulls at one’s emotions without being cloying or overly manipulative.

It may be an old saw that we’re all just two paychecks away from joining the ranks of the homeless, but in these times it might behoove us to remember that they are people too, flawed, fallible, imperfect people--just like us.
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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!!!!!!

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.

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.

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

dual New Orleans post

Today my review of 'Ameriville' at Curious Theatre came out. Read it here--it's a 90-minute, spoken-word/hip hop melange of anecdotes with video accompaniment, with four actors playing a variety of roles all related to the Hurricane Katrina mess.

It was moving for me to see this, to hear some of the stories the group Universes tried to relate in the piece; it's been years since I've been back there, and I'm still a little scared to go visit, afraid that what i may find won't be the place i remember. (I mean, of course it won't be. 'You can't go home again' and all that. But I wonder how broken it is...)

Coincidentally, a ruling just came down from a federal court that found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was indeed negligent in its upkeep of the city's levees and one canal in the Lower Ninth Ward in particular, for years prior to the storm.

The story is complicated, and there is much more to it than the paper of record reports here. (Go here to read Harry Shearer's latest on the ruling, but also go back and check out his earlier posts. He is a New Orleans resident and has been a forceful, relentless voice describing the myriad injustices that have taken place there since 2005.)

The gist of this latest ruling is that over the decades of obsession with cost-cutting and budget-trimming, infrastructure like the levees that is vital to the survival of American taxpayers has been critically neglected. And, paranoia aside, can anyone honestly say that they would not at least question whether a wealthier, whiter city would have been treated differently over the years?

These were Americans who drowned, who lost their homes, their history and their futures. They paid taxes and had a reasonable expectation that their government would do the work it is assigned in return.

As a character in 'Ameriville' says: 'Are we not citizens? Are we not you?'

'a picasso' review

My review of the Miner's Alley production of 'A Picasso' came out today.

The link above is to the Post's edited version, but I'm pasting the original below--if you compare the lede sentences you'll see why. :)

Here's the Post's edited version (which is fine, by the way. It may be better than my original, simply because it isn't so wordy.)

'A hundred years before folks like Dane Cook and Tila Tequila used MySpace to build careers based on the collective idiocy and short attention span of America, there was another self-promoter extraordinaire, one who made them look like pikers.'

But here's the way I turned it in. I dunno--I just like the word 'odious,' I guess.

Peace.


A PICASSO

A hundred years before Dane Cook and the only slightly more odious Tila Tequila used MySpace to build careers based on the collective idiocy and short attention span of America, there was another self-promoter extraordinaire, one who made them look like pikers.

His name was Pablo Picasso--er, kind of.

Not only was he a master of recreating himself and his art every few years--including his very name, which was actually Ruiz--he also had an incredible talent for leaving behind a scorched-earth swath of broken friendships, betrayed wives, and suicidal mistresses.

Bastard or genius or both, his life and career have been exhaustively dissected. But playwright Jeffrey Hatcher has nonetheless found an interesting if hypothetical moment upon which to build a taut, two-character play, “A Picasso,” now showing at Miner’s Alley in Golden.

It’s 1941, and Picasso (Chris Kendall) is living in Nazi-occupied Paris. There, he is unable to show his “decadent” art, but as a Spanish expatriate, neither was he required to serve in the Spanish Civil War, nor compelled to fight for France.

These (non) loyalties are part and parcel of who the man is, the preservation of self being one of his prime motivators. But his tenuous equilibrium is about to be upset by a meeting with a Gestapo agent, Miss Fischer, played by Paige L. Larson. She has sought the artist because the Reich is in possession of three drawings that may or may not be genuine Picassos, and she asks him to authenticate them.

In short order we discover that the Nazis intend to throw an art opening that involves gasoline and matches, and one of Picasso’s works is invited.

Thus the stakes are raised, and the life-and-death struggle begins, for as Picasso says, “If you burn a Picasso, you burn Picasso!”

His clever retorts aside--according to Hatcher, the great man crammed a lifetime of memorable quotes into one 80-minute conversation--Kendall’s portrayal is utterly believable. From his first nervous moments before his interrogator arrives (sit? Or stand?) to slipping easily into the confident Picasso persona, all power and lust and child-like impulse, to his passionate, tearful explication on various pieces and how they relate to his life, we never doubt his authenticity.

As his antithesis, Larson’s Miss Fischer is every bit as genuine, her Teutonic crispness and position exuding an equal if opposite power. Immediately in command, she strides into the basement room where Picasso waits (standing, finally) along with dozens of confiscated paintings and drawings. Her purple woolen suit is itchy even from 20 feet away, and any trace of sexuality seems to have been scrubbed from her demeanor with the exactitude of an obsessive-compulsive with a Brillo pad and a guilty conscience.

But as opposite as the two characters seem to be--the wild, sex-mad artist devoid of conscience, and the precise, regimented agent, casually dismissive of “queers” and Jews--the reveals Hatcher has written into the play are impressive, as is the way the cast handles them. Little by little they show us the layers beneath the two-dimensional explanations for who these people might be, and our opinions of them must be refined again and again.

Under the direction of Robert Kramer, the tension builds nicely, keeping the audience guessing as to who will eventually win--if anyone can be said to win--the power struggle between these two fearsomely strong opponents.
There is a beautiful, telling anecdote in the play about artists using a mirror to paint portraits rather than using direct observation, in order to ensure that the subject doesn’t change upon being observed--a sort of Schrödinger's cat theory for art.

That is exactly what Kendall and Larson have done so well here, through the equally magnificent words of Hatcher: they have held up an oddly-angled mirror to an over-examined, larger-than-life, near-fictionalized Artiste with a capital A, and shown us the man as well as the artist from a different perspective.
###

die mommy, die!

Forgot to post this last week. This is seriously one of the funniest shows you will see all year. From the Post:


Parody is hard to do, and it's harder to do well. With all the winking and nodding, it's easy for writers, actors and directors to let a show slip into self-indulgence.

But what all truly great parodies do require is a foundation of love. There would be no "Rocky Horror Picture Show" without Richard O'Brien's love of sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s, no "Hairspray" without John Waters' love of the beehive-and-Wonder Bread "culture" of America's emerging suburban middle class.

taghigh-camp parodyWith Charles Busch's play "Die, Mommie, Die!" it's clear that the playwright/actor adores the old horror/mystery films of the mid-'60s, more so the dangerous, nutty divas who populated them. Every scene in this hilariously campy send-up of films like "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" oozes with love for dominant, bent movie queens played by the likes of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Lana Turner. He also tosses in a nod to "Psycho" and a hilarious send-up of the LSD fear-mongering drug films of the late 1960s.

Not only that, Busch is also to be commended for having written, hands- down, the finest suppository-insertion scene ever in the history of theater.

The story, naturally, revolves around a diva, fading lounge singer Angela Arden (played by Chris Whyde) trapped in a loveless marriage to crass Hollywood producer Sol Sussman (Robert Wells). When Sol produces photos of Angela with her lover — the sexually omnivorous Tony Parker (Jeremy Make) — but refuses to grant her a divorce, she begins plotting other ways to get rid of her husband.

Sol's bout of constipation provides Angela with an opening, so to speak.

Meanwhile, daughter Edith (Julia Perrotta) is daddy's little girl — in even littler skirts — harboring a hatred of Angela and a love for her daddy that knows no bounds.

No, she really, really loves her daddy. Edith climbs all over her Sol, clinging to him in squirm-inducing, wholly inappropriate ways — although that doesn't stop her from chasing after Tony, as well.

After Sol's death, Edith almost immediately suspects Angela and plots a way to take her down. She enlists the help of her deranged brother, Lance (Cameron Stevens). Naturally, he too wants to bed Tony.

Toss in a Bible-thumping maid (Trina Magness), and you get the idea. Mysteries will be revealed, people aren't who they seem to be, and Whyde's Angela is guaranteed to shriek several times with an eardrum-crushing, banshee wail of alarm, a sound somewhere between a train whistle and a foghorn.

But the genius of the show — and the tightrope that director Nick Sugar has deftly navigated — is the presentation. This is somewhere between parody and homage.

All of these insanely over-the-top characters at some point deliver melodramatic lines to the house in the best tradition of those gothic, Grand Guignol films of yesteryear, punctuated by portentous organ chords. Whyde delivers a scathing, mad second-act rant that is pure Bette Davis, but everyone gets a chance.

This is a show with both size 13 stiletto heels firmly planted in the camp tradition. But while the mainstreaming of drag humor has rendered it somewhat safe, somewhat neutered in this day and age, with "Die," Busch inserts it firmly but gently back into risk-taking territory. Grandma and the kiddies should probably stay home for this one.

But it all somehow fits — as does the cast. Whyde fully inhabits the character of Angela, making you like her even as you eagerly await her comeuppance. But even playing opposite such a grande dame of a character, the rest of the cast manages to hold their own.

Perrotta, as Edith, nearly steals the show as the nut-job diva in training, and Make delivers the granite-jawed, cynical lothario without cracking a smile. Remarkably, he does so without losing his balance either, given costuming choices that were likely made in consultation with the produce department at Safeway.

It's tasteless, and it's crass, but it's also one of the funniest shows you'll see all year.

"Die, Mommie, Die!" ***1/2 (out of four stars)

Presented by The Avenue Theater, 417 E. 17th Ave. Written by Charles Busch. Directed by Nick Sugar. Starring Chris Whyde, Julia Perrotta, Jeremy Make, Trina Magness, Robert Wells, Cameron Stevens. Through August 29. 1 hour, 47 minutes. 10 p.m. Fridays, 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays. No show Aug. 16. $15. Call 303-321-5925 or avenuetheater.com

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

review -- Modern Muse's 'As You Like It'

Here's a review I wrote for the Post that just came out today. These guys are some talented actors, but the directors attempted to tell this story with a cast of only 6 people playing all the roles, and it just didn't quite work out.

Here's the lede, which i like :)

'For art to have value, an element of risk is crucial. And theater especially embodies risk, perhaps more than any other art form. Writers have editors, film actors get endless takes, and painters can literally cover their mistakes. But on stage, every performance has a life of its own, subject to a thousand factors that can alter the final result.'



The other strange choice they made was to set the play in rural Appalachia. Which is fine; I've seen some Shakespeare productions (and been in some, too) that were set in unexpected places and times. But good God, I'm sorry but i just can't listen to the Bard's words spoken like it's Bo and Luke Duke having a conversation with Boss Hawg. To wit:

'But even with the understanding that wigs, accents and body language must shift in order for audiences to get that the actors are playing someone else now, it's all so over-the-top that it's distracting. The accents are a straight-up Yankee interpretation of Southern trailer trash. And even if someone somewhere really does speak that way, and even if Appalachian dialect is the closest extant example we have of Elizabethan speech, it's nonetheless horrifying to hear Shakespeare masticated through a "Deliverance" style of parlance.'

Well, read the whole review, and maybe even see the show--there are some good performances in it, and if you don't mind the accents, there are some very funny and silly moments built in too. The dialect might not bother some people like it did me. Here's what Juliet Wittman of Westword thought.

Peace,
k

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