"Johanna Faustus" at The Hypocrites

Seldom do I urge the playwright and director to make a production longer, but this time I wrote to Sean Graney, director and co-author, suggesting that he slow it down.  The production was crammed into an hour.  Lines spoken so fast, they were unintelligible.  Funny bits lost because the actors stepped on lines and did not allow the audience to absorb the jokes.  

And, the plot was rendered unintelligible as well.  Was it really Marlowe's Dr. Faustus or just parts of the plot woven into a new take on the validity of religion?  Overall, it felt like we were being exposed to the first version of a new work with many changes to come - at least I hope they come before they perform it again.  Graney is known for his new takes on old plays.  Ed and I have been twice to enjoy the 10 hour "All Our Tragic", based on the remaining 18 Greek plays.  Loved it both times.  Score:  Toad

P.S. - Sean replied, "I hated the production".

Scary Fairy Tales with a Russian Twist

There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby:  Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin, 2009)

Why couldn’t I put this book down?  Same reason Grimm’s Fairy Tales still captivate us – how awful can it become for these victims?  I must continue to read to see the macabre outcome.  

To add spice, these tales come from Russia, so are tinged with Slavic pessimism, deep, dark woods, snow covered steppes and hangovers of Soviet deprivation and nihilism.  Yum.  These are not scary fairy tales for children.  These are adult to their anguished soul.  Read one a night and enjoy Petrushenskaya’s craftsmanship.  

"Guards at the Taj" wins Obie - hands down.

On a delightful trip to Los Angeles in November, 2015 - Friday the 13th to be exact, we saw Rajiv Joseph's latest play, "Guards at the Taj" at the Geffen Theater in Westwood.  We love his previous plays, especially "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo".  "Guards" carried a warning not to reveal the ending.  That's because few would want to experience the end of this play. Likely I did not review it because I was still stunned.  

Featured are two guards who must stand rigid at the entrance to the soon to be completed Taj Mahal.  A wall separates them from the glorious mosque.  No one is allowed to see the work inside.  Life is boring and routine - the first act like a "Bob and Ray" radio comedy.  But slyly, the plot reveals itself as the  character of Shah Jahan, commissioner of the Taj Mahal, and the nature of life in an absolutist political system, is revealed in the guards' exchanges.  

Seems the architect, Ustad Isa, asked the Shah if the 20,000 workers could tour their completed masterpiece.  Rather than responding with benevolence, the Shah demands that the hands of the 20,000 workers and the architect be cut off so that nothing as beautiful as the Taj could ever be constructed again.  (Note to reader:  this is fiction, not fact.)  

Act II opens with the stage, now a pool several inches deep of blood and the two guards, who have been put in charge of the hand-ectomies, nearly out of their minds at the horror of their work.  Ultimately, one guard must cut off the hands of the other - and you see this (actually very well staged) in gory detail.  

So now you know "the rest of the story".  We left the theater feeling like we had been sucker-punched.  But it was good theater.  And it does deserve the Obie. 

Score:  Bloody Prince

"The Secretaries" and "The Few" - Toad Kissing in Chicago

We're toad-kissing again in Chicago. There is so much live theater produced in Chicago, it’s like diving into a chocolate sundae.  But, though worthy, not all of these plays are princes, and DBH and I will spend lots of time kissing toads throughout the summer.  I’ll keep you apprised of our adventures.

First up, The Few at Steep Theater. These are the folks who produce edgy, small plays that make you think.  Sort of like Steppenwolf Theater before they because such a money machine. Written by Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Brad Akin, starring Peter Moore, Dana Black (looking and acting like former Steppenwolf star, Laurie Metcalf, just a bit more zaftig) and Travis Coe.  
Synopsis from the website: “Four years ago, Bryan walked away from his life, his lover, and his labor of love: a newspaper for long haul truck drivers. Now he’s back, without any answers and looking to finish what he couldn’t on the road. In the middle of nowhere, at the edge of the millennium, The Few pulls together the pieces of lives filled with loss.”

A newspaper for long haul truck drivers…really?  Yup, Bryan was a driver who saw and experienced the loneliness of the long-distance trucker and wrote about it.  Without him for four years, the paper has become pages of “seeking” ads, placed by truckers and for truckers. These play from the phone answering machine at poignant moments throughout the play. There are lots of small sub-plots artfully woven into the 90 minutes.  Overall a well-crafted, well-performed production.  Hunter won a MacArthur Fellows Genius Grant in 2014.  Good investment of their money – ours too.  Score:  Prince

Today, we grabbed last minute tickets to see The Secretaries produced by About Face Theater, a LGBTQA group.  Description from their website, “The Secretaries chronicles the initiation of Patty Johnson as she lands the job of her dreams at the Cooney Lumber Mill in Big Bone, Oregon. But those dreams turn into bloody nightmares when she discovers that her coworkers are chainsaw-wielding lumberjack killers!  Amidst the campy carnage, this feminist satire skewers female stereotypes of the 80s and 90s while hilariously subverting sexist ideas of femininity. And while it was written more than two decades ago, The Secretaries remains startlingly fresh with regard to how little has changed in the last 20 years.”

The Secretaries reminded me a bit of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom which Ed and I saw in a dicey area of New York City about 1985.  Today, we went to the Sunday matinee – you need to be slightly more than high to really enjoy The Secretaries.  But it did have its moments, including the tyrannical office manager, Kelli Simpkins, who is a ringer for Tilda Swinton, the ingénue, played by Erin Barlow, one of our favorites at The Hippocrates Theater ensemble. Best of all, it brought back floods of memories of my first job in the Trust Department of Lake Shore Bank, 601 N Michigan Avenue.  Where are they now:  The office manager, Evelyn Nerdowitz, the vault teller, Bonita Dufik, the secretary to the EVP of the Trust Department, Susan Schultz, the bookkeeper, Josie Mancuso?  These women formed me in ways no college ever did.  But, score for the play:  Toad.  

And They All Fall Down – The Rogue Theatre knocks it out of the park in Tucson

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder is a U.S. literary classic, read by most of us in high school. It’s a simple book about five Peruvians falling to their deaths when a rope bridge across a chasm breaks in 1714.  

Pepita, Doña Maria, Esteban, Uncle Pio and Don Jamie - at the brink of death

But it not so simple when you examine the beautiful details of their intertwined lives in Colonial Peru.  The five victim are Don Jamie, child of the Perichole, an actress with dreams of gentility; Uncle Pio, mentor of the Perichole and now assuming that role with her child; Marquessa Dona Maria, heartbroken mother and nascent literary genius with her companion, Pepita; and Esteban, bereft survivor of his identical twin, lost to gangrene.  A local Franciscan, Brother Juniper, seeks to prove that these five died because God deemed them valueless sinners.  His research, the premise of the book, illustrates the value of all who died and therefore the capriciousness of God.  Brother Juniper and his book are burned by the Church.

This production, adapted from the book by Rogue Managing and Artistic Director Cynthia Meier and directed by Joseph McGrath, Artistic Director, is a tour de force.  Like most book adaptations for the stage, it is long on narrative.  The spoken dialogue and much of the narrative are taken directly from the book.  But it is in the staging that this production shines.  The ensemble is large, 11 cast members, two playing dual roles.  Most are on the stage simultaneously, with lighting directing the action flow.  The stage is stark, focused on the broken arc of the bridge at center stage.  For me, the most memorable scenes are those of the “soon to be dead” as they complete their stories and mount the bridge until all five are there.  Dramatic staging at its best.

All actors were special in their roles.  Kathryn Kellner Brown as the Marquesa Doña Maria was stunning.

Gabriella De Brequet as Pepita and Kathryn Kellner Brown as the Marquesa Doña Maria

This adaptation is the first sanctioned by the estate of Thornton Wilder.  It will likely become a classic of community and school theater like “Our Town”.  Kudos to The Rogue and may they bask in ongoing royalty revenue.