Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol

By Tom Mula, Directed by Jon Ferguson
John Hassler Theater, November 29, 2007

(As Jacob Marley learns, time can move very fast or stand very still, especially around Christmas. I’ve been kindling my Christmas spirit by playing my own version of Bob Cratchit these past weeks. That’s my apology for the lateness of this review.)

I thoroughly enjoyed Tom Mula’s version of the Dickens’ holiday classic at the Jon Hassler Theater. The story is a great mix between what we know (the visits by Christmas spirits to the miserly Scrooge) and what we don’t know: the surprising twists and turns in the otherworld that lead to Scrooge’s annual change of heart. Mula takes the audience on this playful journey while staying true to a Dickens’ formal yet playfully satiric voice.

The Jon Hassler production utilizes four actors who move seamlessly between characters and onstage narration, a technique that works very well. In fact, rather than breaking up the story, the characters’ self-narration makes the audience co-conspirators in the unfolding events of this particular Christmas Eve. This works particularly well for the Bogle (a sprite played by Jane Schranz) who gleefully gossips with the audience over the hapless Marley (played by Charles Fraser) as she guides him through the confusing world of spirits. In a unique twist, this narration often asks the audience to imagine the special effects that a story of the supernatural demands: sometimes this narration is simply humorous; sometimes it’s amazingly effective at creating the illusion of spirits, costumes, crowds, and travel in the other world.

With simple lighting, some simulated wind, and sparse sound effects, the production effectively creates this otherworld. Ralph Ruan’s set utilizes the theater’s wide stage area to good effect, using cantilevered platforms to create the image of a world suspended by chains. The Jon Hassler’s wide performance space can cause problems for the designer (and a “tennis match” experience for the audience); here, as in Mercy of a Storm, Ryan’s design utilizes the space well. In a particularly nice turn of staging, the counting house where Scrooge and Marley spent their accounting days becomes the counting house where Marley must account for his actions as a mortal. Fraser’s Marley is humbled to sit on a stack of ledgers in the counting house&emdash;the same ledgers he piled on Bob Cratchit on Christmas eve.

With a sparse staging and only four actors, the success of Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol depends on the actors. All four play several characters, including themselves as bumbling actors. For example, they unprofessionally peer at the audience from back stage before acts and even during scenes, and they seemingly can’t remember how scenes are blocked. And yet all four are able to conjure convincing versions of Dickens’s (and Mula’s)characters when the play requires it.

The end result is a production that re-tells Dickens’s classic with ample humor and playfulness as it moves the audience toward the expected catharsis with respect for both the story and the audience intact.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol runs through December 23

Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules and tickets: Jon Hassler Theater

Holiday Productions

I have to admit to being a bit of a Scrooge about holiday theater, particularly about A Christmas Carol. I’ve always felt that the first ghost is quite enough and that the following ghosts simply add to the suffering—of the audience. Much of that humbug feeling melted away while attending the Commonweal’s 2003 production. It’s likely that up until that appearance of Ghosts Past, Present, and Future, I’d simply never seen a production that handled Dickens with the humor, warmth, and inventiveness of a fine company like the Commonweal.

While no one is ever likely to say of me, “he knew how to keep Christmas well,” I have found myself enjoying A Christmas Carol and other holiday productions the past few Decembers. I realize that I’m the odd one; for many, a holiday-themed production may be the only theater they see all year. And that’s why theaters big and small produce holiday shows; it’s a dependable way to fill the seats and cover some of the year’s operating costs. And A Christmas Carol is the most dependable of the holiday plays.

This season, Southeast Minnesota Theater goers have the opportunity to see two A Christmas Carol “spin offs”: Inspecting Carol at the Commonweal and Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol at the Jon Hassler Theater. (Of course there’s sure to be many productions of the traditional version, including one at the Guthrie Theatre.)

Inspecting Carol

By Daniel Sullivan, Directed by Alan Bailey
Commonweal Theatre, Lansboro

In Daniel Sullivan’s Inspecting Carol, which is running at the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro this season, a non-profit theater is staging the holiday classic in hopes of staving off financial ruin. Unfortunately—for the fictitious company—everything that can go wrong in a production goes wrong. The play good naturedly lampoons actors, directors, arts administrators, subscribers and even the National Endowment for the Arts. Sullivan, one of the most sought after directors in the country, created Inspecting Carol while serving as the Seattle Repertory Theatre’s resident director, and the play was developed along with the Rep’s actors, who are in a pretty good position to know what’s funny behind the scene.

Inspecting Carol runs through December 23.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol

By Tom Mula, Directed by Jon Ferguson
Jon Hassler Theater, Plainview

Dickens opens A Christmas Carol with him: “Marley was dead: to begin with.” Tom Mula has taken the “to begin with” and spun a tale that he claims is the real story behind A Christmas Carol: “the story of Jacob Marley’s heroic behind-the-scenes efforts to save old Scrooge’s soul.” The result is a unique and humorous (irreverent, funny, and ultimately, deeply moving, says the publisher) take on the holiday classic.

Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol runs through December 23

Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules and tickets: Jon Hassler Theater

Proof is worth taking in

Winona State’s production of David Auburn's Proof is well worth taking in. I just returned from the opening night performance, and I was impressed by Auburn’s script and the WSU staging and acting. It’s a very engaging play, and it’s also the first play I’ve been to that has turned to the Philosophy department for program notes.

Proof also marks the final play at WSU for Director David Bratt who has taught in the Theater Department at Winona State for more than 30 years. Kari Knutson did a nice story about Bratt for the Winona Daily News today.

See below for more on WSU's production of Proof.

Proof

by David Auburn, directed by David Bratt
Winona State University Theatre and Dance Department

This Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play explores the elusiveness of genius, presenting the difficulty of a mathematical proof as a metaphor for the uncertainties of love, trust, and integrity.

Presented in the Dorothy B. Magnus Blackbox theater in the WSU Performing Arst Center. Tickets are limited, so advanced purchase is highly recommended.

Performances run November 28 - December 2, 2007 at 7:00pm
Winona State Performing Arts Center
$7.00 General Admission
Box office: 507-457-5235

WSU Theatre and Dance Page.

Yerma

by Federico Garcia Lorca
Directed by Judy Myers, M.F.A.

St. Mary’s Department of Theatere Arts presents Federico Garcia Lorca's Yerma November 9 - 12 at the St. Mary's Page Theatre.

See St. Mary's Campus Notes for more information.

Friday, Nov. 9, 2007 - 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007 - 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007 - 3 p.m.
Monday, Nov. 12, 2007 - 7:30 p.m.

Visit the Page Theatre website for schedule and ticket information.

Last chance to see a few great performances

Commonweal Theatre

Only one more week to see the Commonweal's Wait Until Dark. The Commonweal's summer thriller closes October 28.
Review: Wait Until Dark

Uncle Vanya plays through November 11.
Preview: Uncle Vanya
Review: Uncle Vanya

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Jon Hassler Theater

Tuesdays with Morrie closes Sunday October 21.
Preview: Tuesdays with Morrie

Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules and tickets: Jon Hassler Theater

Uncle Vanya

By Anton Chekhov, directed by Lisa Weaver
Commonweal Theatre

It seems like it has been a long time since we’ve seen Commonweal’s Executive Director Hal Cropp on stage, and his portrayal of the desperate Vanya is another gem. Vanya has come to the realization that his life may have been totally wasted: he’s toiled for 25 years managing the home estate of his deceased sister, sending the proceeds to support his brother-in-law, the esteemed Professor. In fact the entire household—Vanya, Sonya, Vanya’s mother, the household staff—have lived their lives vicariously through the success of the professor. The discontent arises when the professor retires to the home estate bringing home his new young bride.

Vanya is shaken from his reverence for the professor by the reality of the professor in the day-to-day flesh. Perhaps it’s jealousy that precipitates the change: a contemporary of Vanya’s, the professor has taken nearly all the income produced by the estate to live a lavish, celebrity lifestyle, and now in retirement he has come home with a young beautiful wife (played by Amanda Davis). Vanya on the other hand has lived a frugal, dispassionate life, and with the appearance of Yeliena, his life and future seem very lonely and very celibate. Cropp is able to capture this anguish in his pronouncement that not only is the professor a whining nuisance, but his intellectual production is also void of any original thought. Cropp’s Vanya sums up his new understanding of the professor by declaring him a “lump.” (Which would work better if the professor wasn’t played by the lanky Stephen Houtz, but Houtz makes up for his stature by confirming Vanya’s assertions.)

“Lump” is a good reminder that Chekhov wrote this play as a comedy, and there is much to laugh at in this production: irony, twisted logic, childish idealism, outlandish behavior. But audiences have been reluctant to laugh because of the anguish underneath the humor. (At some points in the play, I may have been the only one laughing.) This production, while not seeming to play to the laugh lines, certainly provides ample opportunity for laughter.

The underlying pace of Uncle Vanya plods with dialog that often goes nowhere. Characters engage in irrelevant banter about tea, crops, household routines, hereditary sweat disorders—while underneath, characters are tumultuously re-evaluating their lives and finding their current paths meaningless. Each of the main characters will break out of the slow pace to make a desperate attempt to salvage some possibility of happiness. These acts seem too large, too clumsy, and uncharacteristically too passionate.

Jill Underwood as Sonya and Hal Cropp as Uncle Vanya. Photo: Commonweal

While this is the first production of Uncle Vanya I’ve seen, I expected these desperate acts to be executed clumsily, yet within the Russian reserve that runs through Checkov’s plays—I imagine this reserve as being similar to “Minnesota nice.” Yet the Commonweal’s characters scream with passion in a way that makes a Minnesota audience squirm. I left the theater thinking that the acting was too passionate for Chekhov: Jill Underwood’s Sonya, who runs the estate with staid efficiency and stability, becomes an insecure adolescent when she confesses her secret love for the doctor; mustachioed Erick Knutson abandons his medical demeanor and his life’s work of reforestation to make sexual advances to the professor’s young wife; Vanya weeps openly and often, loudly professes his anger and disillusionment to anyone who will listen, and makes his own advances on Yeliena.

While these passionate outbursts may seem out of character for Chekhov, director Lisa Weaver is presenting exactly what passionate expression might feel like to a person who has spent a lifetime avoiding passion. This exaggerated passion allows the audience to feel the internal terror a dispassionate person might experience over even the smallest expression of passion. Sometimes this internal experience moves into the surreal: Vanya’s attempt to shoot the professor seems comic rather then terrifying. Afterwards, Vanya wonders aloud if the shooting was even real: “It’s queer! Here I’ve tried to commit a murder, and yet no one arrests me, no one charges me with anything…It must mean they think I’m a madman.” (trans. Elisaveta Fen).

Come to see Uncle Vanya prepared to laugh, prepared to squirm at the un-Minnesota attempts at passion, and prepared to explore your own missed opportunities and deferred aspirations. Cropp, Underwood, Davis, and Knutson turn in powerful performances that add to the impressive body of work of the Commonweal.

Uncle Vanya plays through November 11.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Tales Told 'Round the World

By Forest Musselman
Directed by Vivian Fusillo

Vivian Fusillo and the Winona State University Department of Theatre and Dance present Tales Told ‘Round the World this weekend. Tales marks the 40th annual Children's production for WSU and Fusillo, and it's the first of these productions specifically written for WSU.

Written by local poet/dramatist and WSU grad Forest Mussleman, Tales Told ‘Round the World, is a collection of stories and music specially selected for younger theatre-goers.

See Scott Bestul's article about the Tales Told ‘Round the World from the Winona Post.

Performances run October 19-20, 2007 at 7:00pm
Winona State Performing Arts Center
$7.00 General Admission
Box office: 507-457-5235

WSU Theatre and Dance Page.

St. Mary’s Department of Theatere Arts presents: Art

by Yasmina Reza
Directed by Dr. Steven Bouler

Yasimina Reza’s Art premiered in Paris in 1995, London’s West End in 1996, and Broadway in 1998—with each production winning major awards. It’s been translated into more than 25 languages and has become a favorite of actors and audiences around the world for its sometimes whimsical look inside the workings of friendship and inside the minds of three individuals who,for better or worse, think a lot like us.

Three long-time friends must re-evaluate their friendship when one of the men, Serge, purchases a very expensive painting, a white landscape (which may or may not have a hint of colorful or white stripes). While the painting does make an appearance, in Art, art serves as a backdrop for an examination of character and relationship. Each of these men display flaws that are at times, irritating, humorous, and fascinating. But most of all, these exposed flaws find uncomfortably fertile ground among theater goers.

The play is strong and engaging. The action is confined to the interactions between the three characters, with interesting freeze-frame asides that further explore the workings of the human mind. I first saw Reza’s Art in 2001 in a Commonweal production that was spell binding—a result of brilliant acting by the company and a tremendous play. Winona State students presented a strong production of Art a few years later. SMU's production offers a welcome opportunity to see another production of Art in Winona.

St. Mary’s production of Art runs September 28 - October 1.

Visit the Page Theatre website for schedule and ticket information.

Commonweal to Stage Readings of New Plays

September 18, 7:00 pm: The Seventh Seal
September 25, 7:00 pm: Ice Maidens

The Commonweal Theatre Company continues its new play development program with two public staged readings on September 18 and 25. Admission is pay-what-you-can with all proceeds benefitting the victims of recent flooding.

“We are very excited to share with our audiences the brand new work by these two gifted and inspired theatre artists,” said Commonweal Executive Director Hal Cropp. “And we are equally grateful for the opportunity to help our neighbors who sustained significant damage from the floods.”

Featured in the September readings are a theatrical adaptation of the late Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal on September 18th and the original drama, Ice Maidens on September 25th.

The Seventh Seal has been adapted for the stage by Charlie Oates, chair of the University of California San Diego Theatre & Dance department. Mr. Oates has created and performed interdisciplinary theatre events all over the world, and has taught several master classes for the Commonweal company over the last five years.

According to playwright Stan Peal, most native Midwesterners have stories about falling through the ice. His Commonweal-commissioned play, Ice Maidens, deals with one such story. Peal is an actor, playwright and musician who currently makes his home in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Both readings will be held on the stage of the new Commonweal Theatre at 7:00 p.m. with refreshments to follow. The audience is invited to provide feedback after the readings, and one or both of the plays may be chosen for a full production in the future.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Jon Hassler Theater: Tuesdays with Morrie

Opens Saturday, September 22; runs through October 21.

Tuesdays with Morrie
by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom

This true story about the love between a professor and his pupil reminds us of the affection and gratitude that many of us still feel for the significant mentors of our past. Adapted by playwright Jeff Hatcher from the best-selling novel by Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie recounts the author's weekly visits with his terminally ill mentor, one-of-a-kind professor Morrie Schwartz, who, even on his deathbed, imports lessons on the power and joy of living life to its fullest.

Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules and tickets: Jon Hassler Theater

Rochester Rep: Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming

Now in its 24th Season, the Rochester Repertory Theatre presents Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, which plays through October 6.

Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming
A Musical Written by Connie Ray; Conceived by Alan Bailey, with Musical Arrangements by Mike Craver.

It's October, 1945, and the gospel-singing Sanders Family is back together again. The war is over and America's years of prosperity are just beginning. But there's another kind of rite of passage at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, where Reverent Mervin Oglethorpe is giving his last service. He's been called to preach in Texas, and he's already bought a ten-gallon hat and is preparing to ride into the sunset with his wife June, who is eight months pregnant. Tomorrow morning, young Dennis Sanders takes over as Mount Pleasant's pastor. Join the Sanders Family as they send Mervin and June off in style, with hilarious and touching stories and twenty-five toe-tapping Bluegrass Gospel favorites.

For tickets, visit the Rep online: www.rochesterrep.org

Commonweal Presents Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya

Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya opened last weekend at the Commonweal Theatre Company in Lansboro, marking the company’s first production of Chekhov.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860 - 1904) lived in a transitional Russia, between the abolition of serfdom and the upheaval of the revolution to come. His major plays portray a Russia caught between centuries of tradition and a modern, egalitarian Russia, a transition that seems to leave both the peasants and the aristocracy displaced and disconcerted. While Chekhov treats his falling aristocratic characters with tenderness, their own foolishness serves to condemn the system that maintained their ancestors’ leisure luxuries.

Chekhov does not romanticize the past, nor does he extol the future with its “picture of gradual and unquestionable degeneration.” Nor does Chekhov romanticize the rural estate he portrays in Uncle Vanya. The beautiful summer countryside gives way to the cold and grey, and the professor knows that he will not be able to suffer the tedium of the country during the fast approaching winter.

The professor, retired, portentous and idle, returns to his estate with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. For many years, the professor’s daughter, Sonya, and her Uncle Vanya have sent the farm’s proceeds to the professor, receiving only a small salary in return.

Both Vanya and the local doctor, Astrov, fall in love with Yelena, Sonya is in love with Astrov, and Vanya gets so fed up with the professor he decides to take drastic action.

“All the characters want love,” observed the play’s director, Lisa Weaver. “And they are all so rich and complex. I’m also impressed by the many, still relevant ideas in the play about the environment, men’s and women’s roles in society, and what it means to be a success.”

Chekhov became the beloved principle dramatist for Stanislavsky’s experimental Moscow Art Theatre which premiered in 1898 and included Chekhov’s The Seagull in their inaugural season. His plays have been have been performed continually ever since and have had a profound influence on theater around the globe.

Director Lisa Weaver is a Commonweal Resident Company Member. She has also directed When We Dead Awaken, Lonely Planet and the world premiere of Marguerite Bonet.

The cast features Resident Company Members Hal Cropp, Amanda Davis, Eric Knutson and Jill Underwood as Vanya, Yelena, Astrov and Sonya, respectively.

Twin Cities-based actors Lavina Erickson and Stephen Houtz make their Commonweal debuts as Sonya’s nurse, Marina, and the professor Serebryakov. Rounding out the cast are Gail Fraser as the professor’s mother, Mariya and Milton Papageorge as Sonya’s godfather, Telyegin.

The show is designed by St. Mary’s University’s Kit Mayer (set) and Luther College’s Lisa Lantz (costume), with lighting by Jason Underferth, properties by recent Viterbo graduate, Troy Iverson, and sound by “Over the Back Fence” Artistic Director Stela Burdt.

Uncle Vanya plays in repertory with Wait Until Dark through November.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Community Theater Productions

If you know of an upcoming production, let me know the pertinent information by e-mailing Minnesota Theatre at rjstuber@gmail.com, or post a comment below.

Glengarry Glen Ross

By David Mamet, directed by Nicholas Dibble
Presented by Theater Du Jour
August 17, 18; 8:00pm
August 19, 2:00 pm
Chateau Theater
3450 E Circle Drive NE
Rochester, Minnesota
www.theaterdujour.com

Sunshine Boys

By Neil Simon, directed by Jeff Thauwald
Presented by Brave Community Theatre
August 15, 16, 17, 18; 7:30 pm
Spring Valley Community Center
Spring Valley, Minnesota

Brave Community Theatre of Spring Valley, Minnesota has produced shows for 34 years, entertaining southeast Minnesota at the Spring Valley Community Center and in area Arts Centers. Visit www.bravecommunitytheatre.org

Fiddler on the Roof

Presented by Pine Island People for the Arts
August 23, 24, 25; 7:30 pm
August 26; 2 pm
Pine Island High School Auditorium
Pine Island, Minnesota
Tickets are $10 for ages 13 and older, $5 for ages 3-12.

The Veggie Villain, or He Had a Steak in It

Presented by Lanesboro Community Theater
August 25; 1 pm and 5 pm
Sylvan Park
Lanesboro, Minnesota
There is no admission charge, but donations are welcome. Bring your own lawn chairs and blankets.

Mercy of a Storm

By Jeff Hatcher, directed by Matt Sciple
Jon Hassler Theater, August 9, 2007

While the door to the pool house gaped open revealing the snow storm beyond, the Minnesota audience squirmed noticeably as they watched the heat rush out into the winter night—even while sitting in an air conditioned theater in August. When George Holmberg finally shut the door, an audible sigh of relief filled the theater. Perhaps this a testament to the effectiveness of the set and lighting design at representing the snowy winter night of New Year’s eve 1945. But it also reflects an audience that knows the danger of winter and understands the cost of heating fuel. It will take much of the play before the audience will care about the storm brewing inside as much as the snow falling outside.

Mercy of a Storm takes place entirely in a pool house, a small building beside the pool of a private club somewhere in industrial Ohio. The pool house provides a secluded location for the illicit meeting of George, played by Phil Kilbourne, and the much younger Zanovia Chestovich, playded by Lindsay Hinman.

Yet things aren’t exactly what they seem. This secret meeting is between an estranged husband and wife who are meeting, against the advice of their lawyers, to arrive at a settlement for their upcoming divorce or, as the play progresses, to take one more attempt to save their marriage.

Mercy of a Storm derives most of it’s charm from the slow unveiling and unraveling of the world that surrounds George and Zanovia. Among these revelations: The couple had been married only one year, she had been the daughter of George and his late first wife’s house keeper, she is working class Polish Catholic, he is Episcopalian and a member of the Country Club set, their romance had been steamy (and continues to be steamy), and they continually battled over their differences of age and class. The revelations are delicious providing a series of “ah ha” moments as the sometimes shocking details of their lives become clear.

George has just returned from a State Department trip designed to show American industrial leaders the results of their work—the defeat of Nazi Germany. He feels an ownership of the success of Ohio’s steel mills and factories’ contributions to the war effort—though Zanovia points out that as an insurance agent, he didn’t actually contribute all that much.

George is particularly taken by what was not destroyed—by the restraint of the Allies once it was clear that Hitler was going to lose. George sees this as evidence of rules of conduct that must be followed, even in warfare—an acknowledgement that war is not forever and people need to be able to pick up their lives once the fighting stops. He’s comforted by the thought of this decorum, particularly in the city of Dresden, where remarkably, many buildings still stand. But Dresden is flawed evidence of restraint in war. It had remained untouched through most of the war only to be fire bombed into rubble by the British and Americans. Some historians argue that this bombing, one of the most destructive in history, came after the outcome of the war was already inevitable.

George has made elaborate preparations for his own all—out war, with the confidence that he can follow an honorable decorum once it’s clear he has achieved his objectives—a “do no more harm than necessary plan.” But Zanovia can’t see the honor of this “restraint.” She sees that a man willing to make the preparations for a total assault might as well be the man that carries through with them.

The challenge for the director and actors of Mercy of a Storm is to make the audience care more about the characters on stage than the valuable warm air escaping through the carelessly left open door. Carelessness could summarize all of what the audience knows about George and Zanovia’s life—and carelessness can rub a Midwest audience the wrong way. In addition, the social stigma of the marriage presents more impediments to the audience caring about the relationship. From the outside, a man married to a woman the same age as his daughter will always look unbalanced. From the outside, a marriage between a man with a cool country club decorum and a working class woman who speaks with a bitingly honest tongue will seem out of place.

On the one hand, it is a credit to Kilbourne and Hinman that they don’t take any short cuts toward winning the audience. For much of the play, Kilbourne is a stiff and detached fifty-eight-year-old man. He offers few clues to what might have attracted Zonovia in the first place. And Hinman’s Zanovia is crass, superficial, and unpredictable. Her youth and beauty seem to be the only magnetism for George.

But on the other hand, the audience spends most of the play like the rest of the country club crowd, watching the lives of their friends unfold with detached fascination and smug civility. Mercy of a Storm holds the audience at arms length for most of the play hoping to win it over by play’s conclusion. While this may work for some, other audience members are still too worried about the snow and cold, about Zanovia entering the snow with high heels, to worry about the possible fire bombing of the couple’s marriage.

Mercy of a Storm plays Thursdays through Sundays until September 2.

Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules and tickets: Jon Hassler Theater

Community Theater Productions

If you know of an upcoming production, let me know the pertinent information by e-mailing Minnesota Theatre at rjstuber@gmail.com, or post a comment below.

The Music Man

By Meredith Willson
Presented by Wit's End Theatre
August 8, 9, 10
Potter Auditorium
Chatfield, Minnesota

"The Music Man" is the fourth annual production of the Wit's End Theatre. For more information, see Wit's End Theatre page at SEMPAN.

The Sound of Music

Music by Richard Rogers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Presented by Rock Solid Youth Center
August 9, 10, 11; 7:30 pm
August 12; 4:00 pm
Rock Solid Youth Center
75 West Third Street
Winona, Minnesota
507-457-2125

Glengarry Glen Ross

By David Mamet, directed by Nicholas Dibble
Presented by Theater Du Jour
August 10, 11; 8:00pm
August 12; 2:00pm
August 17, 18; 8:00pm
August 19, 2:00 pm
Chateau Theater
3450 E Circle Drive NE
Rochester, Minnesota
www.theaterdujour.com

Sunshine Boys

By Neil Simon, directed by Jeff Thauwald
Presented by Brave Community Theatre
August 15, 16, 17, 18; 7:30 pm
Spring Valley Community Center
Spring Valley, Minnesota

Brave Community Theatre of Spring Valley, Minnesota has produced shows for 34 years, entertaining southeast Minnesota at the Spring Valley Community Center and in area Arts Centers. Visit www.bravecommunitytheatre.org

Jon Hassler Theater opens Mercy of a Storm Friday

The Jon Hassler Theatre will offer a sneak preview of their new offering, Mercy of a Storm, on Friday, August 3. The play opens on Saturday and plays Thursdays through Sundays until September 2.

Written by Minnesotan Jeffery Hatcher and directed by Matt Sciple, Mercy of a Storm is set on New Year’s eve in 1945. Jon Hassler Theater offers a synopsis on their web page. (Click the link and scroll down for the summary.) Peggy Sue Dunigan offers a brief thematic summary in her review of New York’s Next Act Theatre company production of the play:

“Romance vs. love. Cold outside (the winter weather) vs. warm inside (the summer pool house). Wealth vs. working class. Old vs. young. Divorce vs. marriage. This play is a study in contrasts that give the play contemporary meaning in a period setting. Jeffrey Hatcher, an accomplished playwright whose work has previously been produced on Milwaukee stages, subtly captures the conflicts of each contrast, with little resolution, through cleverly and passionately written dialogue. Everything is filtered through the personalities of George and Zanovia, both flawed and hurting, as Hatcher creates characters that he and the audience care about.” Vital Source Magazine.

Phil Kilbourn and Linsay Hinman in Jeffery Hatcher's Mercy of a Storm. (Photo: Jon Hassler Theater)

This two-person play features Lindsay Hinman as Zanovia and Phil Kilbourn as George. Both actors come to the Jon Hassler with extensive acting credits in the Twin Cities and beyond. Hinman has appeared with the Illusion Theater and Jungle Theater in Minneapolis, and she starred in the award winning independent film Firefly. Kilbourne has worked extensively in the Twin Cities as an actor and director, including appearances at the Jungle Theater, Penumbra Theatre, and the Frank Theatre. He was named City Pages “Best of the Twin Cities” Actor in 2005.

Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules and tickets: Jon Hassler Theater

Wait Until Dark

By Frederick Knott, Directed by Jamie Horton
Commonweal Theater, July 25, 2007

The Commonweal has inaugurated its new stage with a thriller that takes advantage of the increased staging and improved lighting, ironically, to better portray the dark. Frederick Knott’s tightly constructed story has breathtaking twists and turns of plot and metaphor. Light and dark metaphors become complex as, for example, the on stage photo darkroom turns film negatives into print positives. The Commonweal has meet the challenge of Knott’s play with convincing performances by the entire cast, with a particularly beautiful portrayal of the lead role by Commonweal veteran Adrienne Sweeney.

The play utilizes two thematic arcs. The first follows the sophisticated scam perpetrated on a young blind woman by three con men. Continuing with the light and dark metaphor, these three men begin the play in the light: they see the layout, and they have the advantage of knowing how the swindle will work on the trusting Susy Hendrix. As the play moves toward its climax—which as the title suggests, happens in the dark—the con men’s advantage diminishes and the physical danger increases.

Adrienne Sweeney is Susy Hendrix and Milton Papageorge plays Harry Roat, Jr. in Commonweal's Wait Until Dark.
(Photo: Commonweal)

Scott Dixon and David Hennessey play petty criminals who are coerced into taking on the “job.” They begin the play as men who think they know the score, yet their flawed displays of criminal bravado early in the play help explain why each has recently been to prison. Their transformation from petty criminals to sophisticated con men is a little harder to explain. The two pull off a complicated scheme by acting as characters with more sophistication than either seem to possess. For example, Dixon moves too easily from the rough thug of the opening scene to the middle-class professional his character portrays in the con. Aside from that small complaint, these two characters make the scam work, and the scam is fascinating to watch unfold. Dixon plays the “concerned friend” seamlessly, persuading Susy that he is there to help and protect her. Hennessey plays “bad cop” with conviction and with a bit of a hint of the petty criminal. While these two are serious about the job, they are not killers. Milton Papageorge is.

In the company conversation after the play, an audience member asked 12-year-old Katie Bowler (who plays the troubled upstairs neighbor Gloria, alternating performances with Addison Cross) if she wasn’t scared to be in this production. Bowler responded, “With all these really nice people [indicating the other actors], how can I be scared?” But the audience was still a bit scared of Papageorge—even out of character. He is the sophisticated criminal that Dixon and Hennessey’s characters imagine themselves: he is smart, calculating, and in control. Yet his cold-blooded ruthlessness rattles even these hardened criminals.

The second arc of the play follows Sweeney’s character Susy, who is on a metaphoric journey from dark to light. She has recently lost her sight, and is still re-learning how to interact with the world as a sightless person. Sweeney moves easily and unaffectedly about her apartment to the point where the audience can forget that she is blind, yet she doesn’t stop to pick up a note that has blown from the phone stand into her line of vision (a sighted character would impulsively and nonchalantly pick up the misplaced prop and return it to its place), and she runs into an out of place chair so hard that the audience winces in sympathy for the impact with her shins. Yet even with this competence, Susy still becomes easily frustrated with the out-of-place chair, the refrigerator door left ajar, and the “lost” wastebasket, and she is wary of the world outside of the apartment. During the course of the play, She grows in confidence, which causes the advantage to shift her way. By embracing “the dark” of her new world, she has, ironically, helped illuminate her desperate situation in the scam and gained the knowledge and confidence to enter the dark promised by the play’s title.

While having lost some of their early advantage to Susy, the con men are still the experts in the world of darkness, and Wait Until Dark makes the audience wait until the very end to find out who will prevail in the dark.

The Commonweal’s Wait Until Dark is a stunning work on many levels: story, character development, theme, action, suspense. It treads on territory usually reserved for suspense novels and movies. To see this type of thriller acted so convincingly by real people 15 or 20 feet away is very unusual, and very powerful. So powerful, the audience has to take a moment to unclench fists and relax tense legs before standing up. And yet it is not suspense for suspense sake. It’s not a simple story about bad guys picking on a blind woman and a little girl. It’s a story of empowerment and discovery—the white knuckles are an extra bonus.

Wait Until Dark plays in repertory with The Mystery of Irma Vep through October.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules and tickets: Commonweal Theatre

Julius Caesar

By William Shakespeare, Directed by Rick Barbour
Great River Shakespeare Festival Apprentice Acting and Intern Company
July 24, 2007

The now traditional introduction of the cast of characters that begins all Great River Shakespeare Festival productions seemed as if it would never conclude on Tuesday night as the Apprentice Acting and Intern Company presented Julius Caesar for the first of two performances. The cast of Senators, conspirators, soldiers, and citizens—with many actors taking on two, and three roles told the the story of the plotting and successful murder of Julius Caesar and the ensuing fight for control of Rome that takes place after his grizzly death. The story is full of clasping of hands and heart-felt declarations of love and loyalty to each other and to Rome. It also contains delicious deceit and political betrayal.

Philip Zimmermann as Julius Caesar and Caesar’s ghost, and even Caesar’s statue, carries the name of the play well, though his character is involved little with the development of the plot—he is the unwitting object of it. Led by the tenacious Anna Sundberg as Caius Cassius, a group of Senators plots against Caesar to prevent him from becoming “too strong.” Like all politicians, they assure themselves that their motives are not for personal gain, but for love of country. And to this end, and for political cover, they mus convince the honorable Brutus to join the conspiracy. David Utter plays the honest friend of Caesar and the recipient of Caesar’s famous words, “Et tu, Brute?”

Julius Caesar has an amazing amount of words, words that have entered the day to day lexicon of modern America and words put together in speeches lengthy, bold, and pretentious. These Apprentices and Interns had to learn all of these words while understudying the main festival productions, putting up posters, setting up tents, selling coffee and cookies, directing traffic, lifting barges, and toting bales. Anyone involved with the festival will tell you that these young actors, stage hands, and technicians have been working hard this summer.

Julius Caesar depicts a politics familiar to anyone following American politics—though the falling on swords and spilling of blood are generally metaphoric in today’s picture. Mark Anthony’s funeral speech for Caesar—“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!”—signals a turn in the play by using a brilliant rhetorical device that has often been imitated. Stepping up after Brutus has convinced the citizens of Rome that Caesar’s death was necessary to protect Rome, Chris Lysy as Mark Anthony turns their affection back against Brutus with his humble repetition of Brutus’s honor:

He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitions,
And Brutus is an honorable man. (III.ii.84-86)

Along with the blood, nearly every character is smeared with politics in the hand clasps, oaths, and love of country. My anthology calls this The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. But it’s more truly Brutus’s tragedy, and even more truly, it’s the tragedy of those who mistake political ends for moral ends. It might be a preview of the upcoming presidential elections.

This is a production that you’ll want to skip work on Friday afternoon to see. It’s great acting, great production, and great theater. Congratulations to the Apprentices and Interns for a job well done.

Julius Caesar plays Friday at 3:00 p.m.

Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules: Great River Shakespeare Festival

Shakespeare Festival Events this Week

The Great River Shakespeare Festival enters the last week of season 4 with a very full slate of events, including two performances by the the apprentice company, a free Prelude Concert, and a company talent show.

Tuesday, July 24

7:30 pm: Julius Caesar Apprentice/Intern Project

(Talent Show/prelude moved to Friday, 2:00)

Wednesday, July 25

1:00 pm: Reading of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia by members of the Acting Company

7:30 pm: As You Like It (Company conversation following performance)

Thursday, July 26

7:30 pm: Macbeth (Company conversation follows performance.)

11:00 pm Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) Performance of a new one man show by GRSF Acting Company member Jacques Roy. (Note: due to mature subject matter, this performance may not be appropriate for all audiences.)

Friday, July 27

2:00 pm: Company Talent Show/prelude Concert. On the WSU green, free.

3:00 pm: Julius Caesar (Apprentice/Intern Project)

8:00 pm: As You Like It

Saturday, July 28

10:00 am: Festival Morning conversation at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse.

3:00 pm: As You Like It

6:30 pm: Prelude Concert: Chris Koza, on the WSU green, free.

8:00 pm: Macbeth

Plus, Theatre du Mississippi’s "Drops and Drama III" at 1:00 and 3:00 pm.

Sunday, July 29

1:00 pm: Front Porch Conversation with Michael Gerson.

4:30 pm: As You Like It (Season Farewell Ceremony immediately following)

Minnesota Theatre Shakespeare synopses and reviews

Synopsis: The Tragedy of Macbeth: A Primer
Review: The Tragedy of Macbeth

Synopsis: As You Like It: A Primer
Review: As You Like It

Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules and tickets: Great River Shakespeare Festival.

Community Theater Productions

If you know of an upcoming production, let me know the pertinent information by e-mailing Minnesota Theater at rjstuber@gmail.com, or post a comment below.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, book by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan. Directed by Judy Brone.
Fountain City River Players
July 25, 26, 27, 28, 29; 7:30 p.m.
July 29; 2 p.m
Fountain City Auditorium
Fountain City, Wisconsin

The Fountain City Players have built a reputation for putting on great summer musicals utilizing the area’s best young actors. Modern Millie is guaranteed to be a lot of fun.

Tickets available at Hardt’s Music, Midtown Foods (at the Winona Mall), Fountain City Kwick Trip and Waumandee State Bank, or by calling (608) 687-7174.

The Music Man

By Meredith Wilson
Phoenix Theatre production
July 19 – 21; 7:00 p.m.
July 21; 2:00 p.m.
July 26 – 29; 7:00 p.m.
July 29; 2:00 p.m.
Sheldon Theatre
443 West 3rd Street
Red Wing, Minnesota

Tickets at 800-899-5759

Two Summer Productions at the New Commonweal

The Commonweal opened it’s beautiful new theater building on July 7 with a new summer thriller, Wait Until Dark. Written in 1964, and produced as a movie starring Audrey Hepburn in 1967, the play tells the story of a blind woman who becomes entangled in a scheme to procure her seemingly ordinary doll. Thinking she'll be an easy target, the three con men underestimate Susy's resourcefulness. (Read more about Wait Until Dark from the Commonweal.)

The Mystery of Irma Vep has made the transition from the St. Maine theater to the new Commonweal. Read Minnesota Theatre’s review of Irma Vep.

Irma Vep plays Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays, through Sepetmeber 2
Wait Until Dark plays Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays through October 28.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules: Commonweal Theatre

Community Theater Productions

Summer is a time for community theater, and southern Minnesota is bursting with a wide range of opportunities to see your neighbors ply the boards on stages big and small. The more I look, the more productions I see. I know I'm not finding all of them, but I'll try and list what I can. If you know of an upcoming production, let me know the pertinent information by e-mailing Minnesota Theater at rjstuber@gmail.com, or post a comment below.

How to Talk Minnesotan

By Howard Mohr; Directed by Myron Schober, musical direction by Dianna Poppe
July 18, 19, 20 – 7:30 p.m.
July 21, 22 – 2:00 p.m.
Rushford High School
Rushford, Minnesota

Rushford Area Society for the Arts (RASA) presents its 28th annual summer theater production. The productions are always good and tickets go fast. (RASA notes that the theater is air conditioned.) For more information, visit RASA at SMPAN

Tickets available at About a Buck in Rushford or by calling 507-251- 9599 for reservations.

Old-time radio at the Jon Hassler Theatre

Rochester Radio Theatre Guild
July 20 – 21, 8 p.m.
Jon Hassler Theater
Plainview, Minnesota

The Rochester Radio Theatre Guild will present radio classics, including “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “The Mysterious Traveler” and a Stan Freberg sketch “Max's Delicatessen,” as well as commercials, jingles, and sound effects. The guild is celebrating its 20th anniversary season.

Tickets are $12 and can be reserved by phone at (507) 534-2900 or 1-866-548-7469.

How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser; book by Abe Burrows
Ye Olde Opera House
July 18 – 22; 8:30 p.m.
155 W. Main
Spring Grove, Minnesota

Call (507) 498-JULY for reserved tickets.

The Music Man

By Meredith Wilson
Phoenix Theatre production
July 19 – 21; 7:00 p.m.
July 21; 2:00 p.m.
July 26 – 29; 7:00 p.m.
July 29; 2:00 p.m.
Sheldon Theatre
443 West 3rd Street
Red Wing, Minnesota

Tickets at 800-899-5759

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Music by Jeanine Tesori, lyrics by Dick Scanlan, book by Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan. Directed by Judy Brone.
Fountain City River Players
July 25, 26, 27, 28, 29; 7:30 p.m.
July 29; 2 p.m
Fountain City Auditorium
Fountain City, Wisconsin

The Fountain City Players have built a reputation for putting on great summer musicals utilizing the area’s best young actors. Modern Millie is guaranteed to be a lot of fun.

Tickets available at Hardt’s Music, Midtown Foods (at the Winona Mall), Fountain City Kwick Trip and Waumandee State Bank, or by calling (608) 687-7174.

As You Like It

By William Shakespeare, directed by Paul Barnes
Great River Shakespeare Festival, July 11, 2007

The Great River Shakespeare Festival populates the three worlds of Shakespeare’s As You Like It with numerous memorable characters including a wrestler, a clown, two pairs of feuding brothers, a lord who refuses to be happy, and lovers almost too numerous to count. Shakespearian comedies often move between urban and rural settings, and this holds true with As You Like It. But while the text identifies only two locations, the court and the forest, this production correctly identifies the rural as two distinct locations: the deep forest and the edge of the forest. Each of these three worlds have their own feel, their own rules, and special characters who seem to thrive there.

Chris Mixon plays Duke Frederick’s thuggish and arrogant wrestler, standing as a representative of the world of Duke Frederick’s court. (Frederick, played by Christopher Gerson, and Oliver, David Graham Jones, also represent the court well, but Mixon’s Charles is truly remarkable.) With Frederick’s purse to lure challengers, Charles takes on all comers, promising dismemberment or death to those who try their luck. Mixon’s performance, perhaps modeled after a World Wrestling Federation bad guy, is simply a lot of fun, and the match with the young Orlando (Andrew Carlson) is both humorous and dramatic. It’s a fine work of fight choreography, superbly executed. The world where a trained fighter dismembers the desperate peasants for entertainment is the world of Duke Frederick’s court, an unnatural world where brother has turned against brother, and fear and repression reign.

The second world of As You Like It, the forest of Arden, is populated by Frederick’s brother, the usurped Duke Senior and his supporters. Despite claims by Charles that these men live “like the old Robin Hood of England,” they are presented as living sparse and rustic, more melancholy than merry.

Much of the melancholy comes from Jonathan Gillard Daly who plays Jaques, a man who refuses to be happy. Jaques has many of the play’s most memorable lines, including the famous, “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players.” Jaques concludes this famous speech with seven despairing descriptions of successive stages of life, starting with, “the infant / Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.” Gillard Daly plays the part with the same fierceness and conceit of his superb portrayal of Malvolio in last year’s Twelfth Night but without the arrogance or ambition. While the play doesn’t tell how Jaques came to his state of melancholy, Jaques observations capture the reality of the “merry” life in the forest and provide a balance to the sugary sweet final scene.

Rosalind and Celia create a distinctly more happy world on the edges of the forest. They have run away from the court to live with Rosalind’s father, Duke Senior. But before they find the Duke, they ask for shelter at a sheep farm. They like the farm so much that they buy it. In this world, love is the major concern, and a woman dressed as a man controls the action.

Rosalind, delightfully played by Carla Noack, originally disguises herself as a man for safety. But once safely arrived in this midway rural setting, and with no real need to continue the disguise, she and Celia do not pursue the search for Duke Senior. Instead, Celia seems to be learning how to run a sheep farm, and Rosalind, dressed as a man, conducts the multiple love plots that seem to be the business of this pastoral, including her own. It is not too far fetched to believe that Rosalind stays in this world between court and exiled court because she experiences a freedom and a power that she has never had in the court—a freedom and power that she is likely to lose once she puts on her woman’s clothes and weds. Noack’s is top shepard of this truly pastoral realm.

Daniel Kallman has composed several wonderful songs utilizing lyrics included in Shakespeare’s text. The first songs are sung by Doug Scholz-Carlson as Amiens, a lord in Duke Senior’s stark camp. Later he sings a rousing duet with Kern McFadden as Touchstone, which will be taken up by the whole cast for the final weddings. Music clearly was part of Shakespeare’s productions, yet the music is not preserved. Bringing this music back into the plays continues to be an important contribution from this company.

Shakespeare doesn’t provide a lot of plot or character development in As You Like It. He does provide words: love poetry that is moving and love poetry that is laughable; melancholy reflections on the state of humans and exclamations on the possibilities of love; wise words to defend foolish ideas, and foolish words to defend wise ideas. The cast of this production of As You Like It clearly likes all these words, and they do a remarkable job of making sure that the audience understands and enjoys them, too.

See also, Minnesota Theatre's As You Like It Primer

Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules: Great River Shakespeare Festival

The New Commonweal Is Open!

The Commonweal Theatre opened its new building with a day-long community celebration on July 8, 2007. Events included a ribbon cutting, tours of the new building, childeren’s activities, free food and street fair with live music, and a post-performance dance with music by the La Crosse Hot Club.

Now in it’s 19th season, the Commonweal has built a tremendous, community-based professional theatre in Lansboro, Minnesota. Congratulations to the Commonweal and to Lansboro on the completion of their New House.

Wait Until Dark plays in repertory through the summer with The Mystery of Irma Vep
Visit the Commonweal for schedules: Commonweal Theatre

The Tragedy of Macbeth

By William Shakespeare, Directed by Doug Scholz-Carlson
Great River Shakespeare Festival, July 5, 2007

Perhaps the most heart-felt ovation on this Thursday night production of Macbeth came as the actors entered for the prologue and introduction of characters, a device that has become a tradition with the festival since its use in year one. Before a line is uttered, the audience spontaneously offers a heartfelt welcome back to Winona, and on Thursday, the welcome continued to build, briefly delaying the start of the production. Macbeth, along with the Great River Shakespeare Festival company, merits this applause for its luscious sets, lighting, and music and the incredible acting by the its talented cast.

Returning for their fourth season, Kim Martin-Cotton and Christopher Gerson play the leading roles as Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. Their first on-stage interaction is filled with a lustful physicality that fits a soldier’s return home after a long absence. Not only does this scene shake the audience out of an expectation of how Shakespearian monarchs (or soon to be monarchs) should act, it establishes the passionate connection between the two, adding a passionate subtext to the events that will follow.

Dressed in a floor-length, blood-red gown, Martin-Cotton’s rich voice evokes a lusty life force transferring her procreative potential to the task of giving birth to her royal aspirations. Her performance transforms her injunction to the spirits—“unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe topful / Of direst cruelty!”—from a cold negation of her nature to a re-focusing of her hot-blooded passion.

Gerson’s Macbeth is swayed by her passion, adding it to his own desire to believe that the predictions of the three Wyrd Sisters are his fate. While Lady Macbeth’s identity with blood eventually overwhelms her—“Yet who would have thought the old man / to have had so much blood in him?” she wonders of the king she had murdered after sliding into insanity—Macbeth is undone by what he feels is a betrayal by his fates. Yet this betrayal is overshadowed by his despair over the death of Lady Macbeth:

Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Gerson’s agonizing and angry delivery of these lines, delivered before he learns of his full betrayal at the hands of fate, shows a realization that attaining the crown was a shared ambition, and the crown is empty without Lady Macbeth. Conventional wisdom says Macbeth is about cold ambition, yet Martin-Cotten, Gerson, and the rest of the company have succeeded in showing that this ambition is hot and complex.

Kern McFadden plays a memorable Banquo—both dead and alive, and Arthur Moss wears Duncan’s crown well, showing himself to be a lovable and clueless monarch. Jonathan Gillard Daly is wonderful as the porter but is oddly doubled as one of the murders while still playing the porter. Laura Coover’s channeling of the three apparitions as Wyrd Sister 3 is particularly memorable.

The Wyrd Sisters (Director Doug Carlson indicated that the Folio the company used for the play never calls them witches) stand as one of the highlights of this production with rich costuming, lighting, and song. The sisters’ presence on stage begins even in the prologue as they include the rest of the cast in a ritualized circle. They become a fixture in the backdrop during many pivotal scenes early in the play and maintain a presence on stage later in the play. This increased stage time, along with the heightened dramatics, promises a heightened significance. Yet, this promise is left unfulfilled. The prominence of the Wyrd Sisters might be an attempt to emphasize the role of fate or the supernatural in the events of the play. But both of these would undermine the rich context that Gerson and Martin-Cotten have created. Rather, I find the Wyrd Sisters’ prominence in the play ambiguous, as if the production has not made up its mind about who or what the Sisters are or why they are in the play.

I left Thursday’s production feeling that the play was somehow flat. I can only describe the elements of the play as top notch—the acting, lighting, music, staging—yet for me, something didn’t quite work. I wonder if my perceived “flatness” has to do with the disconnect with the Wyrd Sisters I tried to describe above, or if it relates to some of the choices over doubling characters (using one actor to play a second smaller role—used as a practical matter with a small cast, but sometimes used to suggest a relationship between the characters being portrayed by a single actor). I’m thinking particularly of the Porter’s double as a murderer and Lady Macbeth’s doubling as the messenger who warns Lady Macduff of her impending doom. In both of these doublings, the smaller characters maintain their original character, so Lady Macbeth actually delivers the warning, and the lame and wise porter becomes a brutal murder. I found that instead of adding interest or significance, these doublings tended to distract, and in the case of Lady Macbeth, distorted her character.

With minor complaints from this past Thursday’s show, this staging of Macbeth is a very strong presentation of this wonderfully horrid story. And if past year’s are an indication, the Great River Shakespeare Festival’s Macbeth will get better and better as the season progresses.

Macbeth plays in repertory with As You Like It through July 29
Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules: Great River Shakespeare Festival

The Tragedy of Macbeth: A Primer

The Great River Shakespeare Festival’s tragedy selection again offers ample opportunity for spilling blood on the stage, and even if you are not a fan of blood, its haunting look at human greed and ambition make it one of Shakespeare’s most popular offerings. While the Great River Shakespeare Festival has presented several tragedies, Macbeth may be the darkest. This characterization may be best illustrated by a brief comparison to Richard III.

In Richard III, Richard begins the play corrupt and deformed (a physical symbol of his moral deformity). Accepting that Richard is amoral allows the audience to become conspirators in his sinister and evil steps toward achieving the crown. Macbeth on the other hand, begins the play a respected war hero, loyal to the king, and content with his place in the governance of Scotland. In the end, his campaign for the crown is as ruthless and full of bloodshed as Richard’s. But Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, and the audience are all horrified by the turn in character required to get the crown. With Richard, the audience is fascinated, and to some extent won over, by the reckless bravado; with Macbeth the audience sees the process of choices that lead respected people down the bloody path to ruin, and they respond with the implication that they could have made those same choices.

The Story

The Scottish army has just won back-to-back wars behind the valor of Scotland’s generals, Banquo and Macbeth. The King rewards Macbeth for his service with an additional landed title: Thane of Cawdor.

But before the generals meet the king to receive their rewards, they meet three witches who greet Macbeth with the prophecy that he is Thane of Cawdor and will be King of Scotland. Macbeth thinks little of the witches words until he finds out that he indeed has been named Thane of Cawdor. This naturally leads him to wonder about the third prophecy.

Macbeth writes to his wife of the witches’ prophecy. Together, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth decide that becoming King is their fate, and they must take bold action to make it happen.

The Characters

Duncan—the current King of Scotland (Along with promoting Macbeth, he promotes his son, Malcolm, to be next in line for the throne, which rubs Macbeth and others the wrong way.)

Macbeth—an army general, Thane of Glamis, later Thane of Cawdor, later King of Scotland.

Lady Macbeth—wife of Macbeth.

Banquo—army general, hero of the recent war. He meets the witches with Macbeth and the witches prophesy that Banquo’s offspring will one day be king.

Macduff—one of a number of the king’s noblemen. Unlike many of the others, Macduff is suspicious of Macbeth and flees Scotland for England. A spirit conjured by the witches warns Macbeth to beware of Macduff.

Three Witches—women that Macbeth encounters in an open place who are able to foretell the future.

The Witches

Witches were a hot topic in the first decade of the 1600s in England, and today they continue to be one of the most interesting parts of Macbeth. Shakespeare’s audience would have held a variety of understandings about who or what witches were or whether they existed or whether they were simply the wild imaginations of superstitious people. On the European continent, there was a strong sentiment that witchcraft was real, that witches worked as extensions of the devil, and that they undermined the natural order of things. Persecutions of people (mostly poor women) as witches was very strong on the continent and in Scotland. Some in England would have held these same views, though England was much more skeptical of the existence of witches as evil, even though England had an anti-witchcraft law of their own on the books dating back to 1563.

James I (who was known as James IV when he was King of Scotland) assumed the English throne in 1603 and was King when Macbeth was first performed (probably 1606 or 1607). James had been a virulent prosecutor of witches in Scotland and six years before becoming King of England had authored an influential book vilifying witches called Daemonology. James not only identified witches as demonic, he saw them as an assault on the king—as a form of treason.

A close read of the scenes involving the witches find few clues as to what Shakespeare may have thought about witchcraft. Certainly, James I would have watched Macbeth and seen his version of witchcraft on stage. But it is probable that skeptics of witchcraft or believers in a witchcraft not inherently evil might have been satisfied as well. (There is much in the play to please James: The throne returns to his ancestor at the play’s end, and Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest work, perhaps appeasing James’ stated preference for short works.)

Believers in a demonic witchcraft would naturally see the witches as tricking Macbeth and maybe even “bewitching” him into his fateful, traitorous path. Skeptics could see that the witches offer prophecy in good faith, and if there is evil, it resides with the decisions Macbeth makes—based on his misunderstanding of the witches’ words and his own ambitions. Still others, as Shakespeare scholar William Carroll speculates, “must have ‘believed’ in witchcraft as a dramatic proposition that, like men dressed as ghosts or boys dressed as women, was simply another dramatic given that an audience had to grant to a play in order for it to work.”

Portraying the witches on stage, and the apparitions they call up, offers producers of Macbeth a wide range of choices. With the supernatural implications, I expect the Great River Shakespeare Festival will take full advantage of the opportunity to pull out all the fireworks.

Why see Macbeth?

Adherents to theorys about Tradgedy claim that plays such as Macbeth are somehow redemptive and cathartic because the tragic character meets his or her doom, and order is finally restored. Macbeth certainly meets this criteria, but on a more immediate level, Macbeth is a gripping story, told with great language, and presented here by a talented theatre company.

Macbeth plays in repetory with As You Like It through July 29
Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules: Great River Shakespeare Festival

Information on James I and concepts of witchcraft in the 15 & 1600s are taken largely from William C. Carroll's William Shakespeare Macbeth: Texts and Contexts.

Gilmore Creek Summer Theatre

Gilmore Creek Summer Theatre Company opens its inaugural season this weekend with the musical Lend Me a Tenor. The company will open its second offering, a celebration of Jerry Herman’s music, Showtune, the following week. The two plays will run in repertory through August 5.

With the addition of Gilmore Creek, Southeast Minnesota has the honor of being home to two professional summer theaters.

Lend Me a Tenor
By by Ken Ludwig; Directed by Steve Snyder
Opens July 6 with preview on July 5

Showtune: Celebrating the Words and Music of Jerry Herman
Conceived by Paul Gilger; Directed by Judy Myers
Opens July 13 with preview on July 12

Visit St. Mary's University Page Theater for schedules and ticket information

Read about Gilmore Creek Summer Theatre Company in the Winona Daily News (June 5)

Theatre du Mississippi Summer: Prelude Concerts and Drops and Drama

Theatre du Mississippi is busy this summer presenting its third annual installment of Drops and Drama as well as producing 5 concerts in conjunction with the Great River Shakespeare Festival.

One scene from "Drops and Drama III"

Drops and Drama III

Theatre du Mississippi has prepared another new “Drops and Drama” production that will feature many of the theater drops from the historic Masonic Temple. The theater’s 90 drops were hand painted in 1909 and powerfully create numerous scenes from classical theater. This new show is written by Lynn Nankivil, narrated by Ray Felton, and will include recorded dramatic readings from the classics by Great River Shakespeare Festival apprentice actors.

Saturdays through July 28
Shows at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m..
Historic Main Street Theatre
255 Main Street
Winona, Minnesota

Prelude Concerts

Theater du Mississippi is also producing musical events in conjunction with the Great River Shakespeare Festival (including last Saturday’s James Armstrong Concert). Four prelude concerts are free and open to the public and start at 6:30 p.m. in the commons area in front of the Performing Arts Center at Winona State University.

Cam Waters
Friday, July 6, 6:30 p.m.

Liz Queler & Seth Faber
Saturday, July 14, 6:30 p.m.

Curtis & Loretta
Saturday, July 21, 6:30 p.m.

Chris Koza
Saturday, July 28, 6:30 p.m.

Visit Theater du Mississippi’s Web for performer bios.

Grand Opening

By John Hassler, Directed by Sally Childs

John Hassler Theater, June 28, 2007

When the Foster family arrives in Plum and the grandfather asks the name of his new town, he repeats the word sceptically, “Plum,” to the nervous laughter of the Plainview audience who knows that Plum is the pseudonym for Plainview, the town where author Jon Hassler grew up. In a sense, the audience is watching a play about themselves, or more precisely, a play about their grandparents. Outside the theater, the Catholic and Lutheran Churches still stand at opposite ends of the main street, and while the religious polarization presented in the late 1940s play seems silly today, life in a small town can still be difficult for the newly arrived and for the misfits.

In Hassler’s adaptation of his novel Grand Opening for the stage, he moves the misfits to the front of the story. For example, Rufus Ottman is on stage for the opening and closing scenes—and many of the scenes in between. Now in his 40s, Rufus doesn’t speak and has the vacuous look of someone with severe mental impairment. Many of the town’s people call him a “moron,” while his mother says he is simply “happy.” Kent Griffin does an admirable job of portraying Rufus, who is often led on stage and left to watch the goings on at Hank’s Grocery during the day. The community keeps an eye on him, gently leading him back to his mother or back to his favorite spot at the grocery when he wanders too close to danger. Yet others ask: “if this town can take care of Rufus, why can’t it make room for me?”

Other newcomers and misfits don’t fare as well in Plum. Sixteen-year-old Dodger Hicks (Nick Lange) is shunned by Plum’s adults because his parents aren’t married, his father is in prison, his mother entertains men, and Dodger tends to steal things. He is ridiculed by the children because he is several grades behind in school. Because he wants to belong so desperately, the other children prey on his vulnerability. Dodger’s parental instability (and implied childhood abuse) find little sympathy in Plum.

Another misfit, Wallace Flint, carries scars from childhood abuse and neglect along with epilepsy. Once a promising high school intellectual, Wallace has settled into a cynicism that easily moves into nastiness. Ethan Scot Savage marvelously captures that nastiness in the role, sneering his way into disfavor and ruining any chance of acceptance or support. Even the mostly sympathetic Plum resident, Stan Kimball (played by Merle Savage), shuns Wallace—as does Hassler and the audience. Yet the question must be asked: had the community taken care of Wallace as they’ve taken care of Rufus, would he have turned into such a bitter young man?

Catherine Foster’s (Mary Chick) membership in the misfit club comes not just from being an outsider from the big city, it comes from her desire to find and cultivate art and literature in the small town. The town however, doesn’t see itself in need of reforming. They are happy with their bookcase-sized library and the school board’s lack of interest in raising the intellectual level of its pupils. (There is a certain irony to be sitting in this theater in the Rural America Arts Center—surely the culmination of the efforts of people like Catherine, presumably over the objections of people like Mrs. Kimbal who insist that one author is sufficient for for the moral upkeep of the town’s literary interest—dedicated to bringing arts and letters to rural America, to Plum).

While these serious questions and critiques of small town Minnesota are prevalent in the play, Grand Opening is full of humor and delight. Mark Colbenson’s Grandfather character often steals the show with his stories, his confusion over where he is, and his faux gallantry toward the ladies of Plum. At times he seems to have lost any sense of appropriateness—he tells a morbidly funny story about a tragic train accident from his railroad days during a funeral service, for example. Merle Savage’s Stan Kimball is equally funny as he balances his role as the town’s only atheist and undertaker with being married to the leading Lutheran busybody.

With the addition of short narratives delivered directly to the audience by Brendan Foster, the story becomes Brendon’s. Played by 11-year-old Collin Chick, Brendan is presented with a series of choices which weight his moral standing against his acceptance into the social structure of Plum’s young. Chick plays the role well, and his breaks in character to deliver these monologues help Hassler underscore his major themes.

Director Sally Childs and the rest of the cast and crew have put together an enjoyable piece of drama that is well worth the drive to Plum (Plainview), Minnesota. The community actors do an exceptional job of bringing Hassler’s characters to life, and Grand Opening offers a unique opportunity to watch a play while sitting in the very same town being presented on stage. In fact, Wallace Flint, Hank Foster, or Mrs. Kimball may be sitting right behind you (so don’t laugh too hard if they aren’t laughing).

Grand Opening plays at the John Hassler Theater through July 15
Visit the John Hassler Theater for schedules: Jon Hassler Theater

Openings and Celebrations

Great River Shakespeare Festival

Friday, June 29: The Great River Shakespeare Festival opens Friday with Macbeth at Winona State University's Performing Arts Center, with a reception following the performance.

Saturday, June 30: As You Like It (see As You Like It primer below) opens Saturday. Following the show, the cast, crew, and audience will walk by candlelight to the Lake Park band shell to join a concert by blues artist James Armstrong. Armstrong's concert begins at 9:00 and is free and open to the public.

Macbeth and As You Like It play in repertory through July 29.
Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules: Great River Shakespeare Festival

Commonweal Theatre

July 6 – 8, Impossible Dream Celebration: a weekend of events surrounding the opening of the new theater: The Commonweal.

Friday, July 6, special opening of Wait until Dark. By invitation only.

Saturday, July 7, Public opening of Wait until Dark. 8:00 pm.

More Celebrating July 7:

Ribbon cutting at 1:30 p.m.
Community Block Party 1:30 - 4:00 p.m.
Community Dance with the Parisian gypsy jazz sound of the La Crosse Hot Club, following the evening performance.

Wait Until Dark plays in repertory through the summer with The Mystery of Irma Vep
Visit the Commonweal for schedules: Commonweal Theatre

The Mystery of Irma Vep

By Charles Ludlam, directed by Craig Johnson
Commonweal Theatre, June 14, 2007

Commonweal’s summer comedy offering, The Mystery of Irma Vep, is a zany and delightful look inside a clichéd Victorian estate with a cast of six characters performed by two actors. Director Craig Johnson calls Irma Vep a “campy,” work from the “rag-tag world of Off-Off Broadway” from the early 80s.

The play has little in the way of plot or character development, but instead relies on melodramatic scenes that foreshadow events that often never occur. This unconventionality is part of what makes Irma Vep so much fun. The other part is the acting of Eric Knutson and Scott Dixon.

Both actors play two principles: Knutson plays the estate’s maid, Jane Twisden, and the estate’s lord, Edgar Hillcrest; Dixon plays the estate’s caretaker, Nicodemus, as well as the new lady, Enid Hillcrest. This setup causes problems as the story must be told with only two characters on stage at the same time. It’s the sort of puzzle that might challenge Marilyn vos Savant: each of four main characters can only interact with two of the three other characters, but only one at a time, so who is the werewolf?

But soon the audience forgets the puzzle, and by intermission, might even be convinced that Jane and Edgar (both played by Knutson) did share the stage a couple of times. Sometimes the actors let the audience in on the joke by reminding one another that they really can’t talk to a certain character or by stalling to give the other actor time to make the appropriate costume change. But at other times, the joke is on the audience. I’m sure I’m not the only audience member who expected more actors to come out for the curtain call. And at one point in the play, a character enters the stage almost instantaneously after her counterpart’s exit—causing a small gasp from the audience.

One particularly campy scene finds Nicodemus speaking with Enid. To accomplish this, Dixon stands in a doorway and alternately speaks to himself, offering a shoulder with Enid’s dress to the audience and then the other shoulder with Nicodemus’ black coat while plucking the wig on and off to fit the speaker. But as the conversation continues, the trick becomes more and more real. Irma Vep’s irresistible charm lies with this ability to make fun of itself while selling the audience on the story and the characters.

The success of the play sits largely with the actors’ ability to sell the tricks. Knutson’s portrayal of Jane is particularly outstanding, as is Dixon’s Nicodemus. Special backstage credit goes to Justin Madsen and Alexandra Gowdy-Jaehnig who facilitated the costume changes and, appropriately, join Knutson and Dixon for the curtain call.

One caution in choosing a seat for Irma Vep: you might want to avoid the secret passage.

The Mystery of Irma Vep plays at the St. Maine through July 5.
The Mystery of Irma Vep opens at The Commonweal July 13 and plays through September 2.

Visit the Commonweal for schedules: Commonweal Theatre

As You Like It: A Primer

To help prepare for the upcoming Great River Shakespeare Festival and to help get over those who-was-that-again and what-did-he-say-about-his-brother and why-was-she-banished questions that can distract an audience member in the first few scenes of a Shakespeare Comedy, Minnesota Theatre offers its primer on William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

As You Like It is a comedy

With a play billed as a comedy, Shakespeare’s audience would have had certain expectations about the makeup of a comedy. Shakespeare, looking for box office success, usually met those expectations. Not only would a comedy be funny, but it would often move from an urban to a pastoral setting, few will die, individual mishaps won’t spoil the fun of the play, and the hero will not only end the play happy, he or she will end the play getting married. Often the marriage happiness is so contagious that nearly everyone on stage will get married.

So with a happy ending assured, Shakespeare’s original audience could sit back and enjoy the word play, cross dressing, and other foolery without worrying about that powerful Duke on his way to the forest to cut everyone to bits for having too much darn fun while being banished. So we don’t have to worry about it either.

The Plot

I’ve just mentioned the powerful and mean Duke. Here’s the back-story: Duke Senior, the good Duke, and all his people have been driven out of the court by his brother Frederick—the usurper Duke. Duke Frederick is mean, but he loves his daughter Celia and even allows the banished Duke’s daughter Rosalind to stay in the court because Celia and Rosalind are great friends.

At the beginning of As You Like It, Duke Frederick changes his mind about Rosalind because he is mad that people keep running away from the court to join up with his banished brother in the forest. He banishes Rosalind, and Celia chooses to forsake her father and runs away with Rosalind.

In another spat between brothers, Orlando learns that his brother Oliver means to kill him, so he sets out to join up with the banished Duke. But just before leaving, Orlando has a brief encounter with Rosalind, and becomes sick with love.

That’s pretty much the plot. Bad guys stay at court; good guys leave for the forest where life is pretty good, rules are suspended, and everyone eats well.

Woman Dresses as a Man

Shakespeare returns to one of his favorite tropes: he has a woman dress as a man. In As You Like It, Rosalind decides that it would be safer if she traveled as a rough countryman, so she takes on the name and appearance of Ganymede. And as a man, she meets Orlando who is wondering the countryside writing love poems to her. Predictably, Rosalind will advise Orlando how to pursue his suit and even convinces him to say his love words to Ganymede with a vague promise that those words will somehow get to Rosalind.

It is interesting to note that modern audiences see a female actor playing a woman pretending to be a man. Shakespeare’s original audience—because all parts were played by men—would have seen a male actor playing a woman pretending to be a man. And while it might have seemed more natural to watch a male actor portraying a man, it is likely that the actor would have been a boy. This would make jokes about a lack of beard or other masculine trappings funny on several levels. But I digress.

Other Interesting Characters

Touchstone the Clown. Anytime Shakespeare includes a fool or clown, pay attention: there’s often wisdom with the wit.

Jaques. He spends the entire play wallowing in “melancholy,” shunning the company of the happy banished band. He won’t be cheered, but he does get to deliver one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches: “All the World’s a stage, / and all the men and women merely players.” Look for it at the end of Act II.

Charles. Listed in the Dramatis Personae as “wrestler to Duke Frederick.” This is the only play I know that boasts a wrestler, and while it’s probably not worthy of note, I am noting it. Actually, much could be written about Charles: Charles is instrumental in Orlando and Rosalind meeting; Frederick has a wrestler who kills opponents while Duke Senior is wrestler free. Can’t wait to see who gets to play Charles.

The Plot (Again)

For those of you worried about the plot and the mean Duke traveling to the forest with his brutal army to end the happy party of the banished Duke: don’t worry. And for those of you who still worry, Shakespeare conjures up a third brother to Orlando in Act V who suddenly appears in the forest with news of the advancing Duke Frederick:

And to the skirts of this wild wood he came; Where meeting with an old religious man, After some question with him, was converted Both from his enterprise and from the world, His crown bequeathing to his banished brother, And all their lands restor’d to them again That were with him exil’d.

No need to worry: make way for the weddings, sit back, and enjoy a great play produced by the Great River Shakespeare Festival in their fourth season.

The Great River Shakespeare Festival launches its fourth season in Winona with previews on June 28 and June 29 of Macbeth and As You Like It. The two plays run through July 29.

Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules: Great River Shakespeare Festival