Information, reviews, and miscellaneous shorts focusing on professional, nonprofit theater—from a Southeast Minnesota perspective.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

BOOM! An International Lost and Found Family Marching Band


The Boom! family. Carla Noack, second from right.

(from Lanesboro Arts Council)
Tuesday, July 28, 7:30 p.m.
St. Mane Theatre, Lanesboro

Straight from a hit run of this year’s KC Fringe Festival, the Kansas City theatrical band is playing one night in Lanesboro, MN to share their sad, sad story. Created and directed by UMKC professor Stephanie Roberts the ensemble features Daniel Eichenbaum, Peter Lawless, Grant Prewitt, Heidi Van, Roberts, and Lanesboro’s own Carla Noack.

Boom! is the story of reunited orphans from around the world. Misplaced by their traveling scientist parents, these wayward foundlings magically converged in the heartland where they now seek meaning and healing through mysterious marches and geometrical formations. Come see what Robert Trussell of the Kansas City Star calls, “Joyful, foolish and crazed…agreeably ridiculous!

More about Boom!: www.myspace.com/boominternational
$10 tickets available at the door (doors open at 6:30)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Hamlet

Great River Shakespeare Festival

by William Shakespeare, directed by Rick Barbour
Great River Shakespeare Festival Intern and Apprentice Acting Company (July 22, 2009)

The GRSF production of Hamlet provides a good reminder of what a great play Hamlet is. It’s also a good reminder of how well the entire GRSF company delivers Shakespeare’s texts. WSU’s black box theater exposes the actors on three sides of the stage—just feet away from the audience. There is little in the way of set pieces to hide behind, minimal lighting, minimal costuming, few props, and no exits. In fact, all the actors are on stage for the entire production. In this setting, the success of the play rests on the actors willingness to trust Shakespeare’s text and their ability to make Shakespeare’s language resonate.

Perhaps it is the language that is the strongest part of the apprentice production. Like all of the GRSF productions, these young actors are able to deliver Shakespeare’s lines with a precision and a cadence that is quite beautiful. Even during times when my mind may have wandered from the meaning of the words, I found myself enjoying the sound and the flow of the words—the company has achieved a certain musicality. And while it is easy to take the language for granted—it is Shakespeare after all, and these actors make it sound natural—the musicality must be the result of dedicated work with the text.

In an unusual choice, this production splits the role of Hamlet between four actors. While director Rick Barbour indicated that the decision to break up the role was largely a matter of sharing the work load and making sure that all the acting apprentices had significant roles to work on, the four-person Hamlet actually seemed quite natural. The four, JJ Gatesman, Kate Kremer, Dylan Roberts and Sarah Naughton, hold a certain unity in the role, even as each actor inevitably brings a unique personality to the person of Hamlet. I expected to be distracted by the changing, but like the rest of the play, it simply works, and different actors helped fill out the character. Hamlet is a very complicated and conflicted character—the different actors provided a subtle way to explore this complexity.

The acting in this production is strong from the major roles all the way down to minor characters. In the sixth year of the festival, Winona’s growing theater audience may take it for granted that all of the roles in a play will be played by very good actors. But this isn’t always the case in theater, and especially with Shakespeare’s plays, which tend to have large casts, most productions suffer a drop off in talent in the smaller roles. But because this cast is very talented, even the smaller characters maintain a high level of delivery. For example, Nicholas Munoz plays a powerful Fortinbras, worthy of a conquering general and future king of Denmark. Because Fortinbras’ entrance comes in the final scene of the play as most of the major characters lie dead on the stage, there often is not a powerful actor left to play him. (Munoz and nearly all of the other actors play two or more roles to cover the many and varied persons who appear on stage.)

In keeping with the black box nature of the play, the scenes are created by the actors on stage. Hamlet presents many challenges for settings, and the Intern and Apprentice company use simple and creative methods of meeting these challenges. From the night watch scenes to shipside and the graveyard, the company rises to the challenge of creating enough of an illusion of a space to move the story along. Much of this space and mood is established by on-stage vocalizations and simple instrumentation. This is particularly effective in the scenes where Hamlet’s ghost appears, but these types of sound effects are used effectively throughout the production. Additionally, Stephanie Lambourn’s musical adaptations and enacting of Ophelia’s “mad” songs are effectively disturbing and moving.

The Intern and Apprentice Acting Company’s production allows its audience to experience Hamlet in a way that really lets Hamlet shine. It is also a very good showcase of some young actors who are able to rise to the demands of one of the world’s great plays.

The GRSF Intern and Apprentice Acting Company’s production of Hamlet has three more performances:
Thursday, July 23, 3:00 p.m.
Friday, July 24, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 25, 3:00 p.m.

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

Community Theater Calendar

Suessical the Musical

July 23 - 25
Words Players -Senior Troupe
Century High School, Rochester,
www.northlandwords.org/wordsplayers

Annie Jr.

July 30 - August 1
Ye Olde Opera House Youth Show
Directed by Bethany Tisthammer
Spring Grove, MN
www.yeoldeoperahouse.org

Guys and Dolls

July 29 - August 2
Fountain City River Players
Fountain City Auditorium
42, North Main Street
Fountain City, Wisconsin.

The Fantastics in Lanesboro

July 30 - 31
Words Players--Alumni/College Age Production
St. Mane Theater
106 Parkway Ave. S
Lanesboro, MN
www.northlandwords.org

The Fantastics in Rochester

August 6 - 16
Words Players--Alumni/College Age Production
Rochester Repertory Theatre
103 7th St. NE
Rochester, MN
www.northlandwords.org

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Tempest

Great River Shakespeare Festival

by William Shakespeare, directed by Alec Wild
Great River Shakespeare Festival (July 8, 2009)

The Tempest has traditionally been a hard play to categorize. It is often placed with a grouping of plays that are unsatisfyingly called romances. Included in this group are The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, and Cymbelin, which have all been produced by GRSF in the past years. Yet what can make these plays feel unsettling cannot be attributed entirely to their failure to follow structural expectations about comedy or tragedy. The romances ask an audience to suspend reality—using heavy doses of magic to move the plot. The Endings are often happy, if one can be satisfied with delayed happiness or too many lost years. And romances tend not to make a clear delineation between good and evil—evil often goes unpunished and characters are allowed to evolve and repent of their misdeeds. In contrast, in plays like Macbeth and Richard III, the protagonists are driven to evil by a lust for power. The audience can admire the plotting and action for their sheer audacity, yet the audience also understands that these men have reached too far and will get what they deserve.

The Tempest is surrounded by evil with the inclusion of a brother usurping a brother for a dukedom, a brother plotting against another brother for the crown, a plot for revenge, and the presence of witches, spirits, monsters, and magic. And yet, the audience doesn’t enjoy the clear satisfaction of knowing what or who is evil or of being assured that the evil characters will not prevail.

The Tempest GRSF
Michael Fitzpatrick as Stephano(eft) and Doug Scholz-Carlson as Tinculo in the Great River Shakespere Festival’s The Tempest.

Orchestrating the action of The Tempest stands Jonathan Gillard Daly as Prospero. Since being shipwrecked on the island 12 years earlier, Prospero has ruled the Island with an iron hand. He has enslaved the only inhabitant of the island as well as the spirits and nymphs who play and make music there. Through magic and diligence, Prospero controls time and circumstance. Daly’s role as Prospero is reminiscent of his powerful portrayal of Richard III in the GRSF’s second year. Like Richard, Prospero seems to relish the power inherent in manipulating people and events. Yet Daly’s Richard made the audience a conspirator in his clearly evil plot. While Daly’s Prospero makes similar confederacy with the audience, his motives and plans are more complex and harder for the audience to understand.

For example, Daly is not only the absolute ruler of the island, he is also the lone parent of the 15-year-old Miranda. And in the second scene where Prospero reveals to Miranda her birth identity, one wonders about his motives. Why has he waited all these years to tell her? Why does he check to see that she has little memory of Milan before telling his story? Why does he use magic to put her to sleep before finishing his tale? Is his affection for his daughter feigned like the affection Richard shows Lady Anne in Richard III? Does he love her, or is she just one more pawn to move in his complex plot?

The play begins under the spell of a tempest that Prospero has conjured to waylay the passing ship containing both King of Naples and Prospero’s brother. The shadow projection of the storm and the waves is both effective and delightful. The storm as well as the unlikely rescue from the storm are carried out by the island’s nymphs and spirits who are in Prospero’s service. These nymphs and spirits add a haunting feel to the play as they are always present, usually propped expressionless in the shadows of the set platforms wearing colorless body suits. Like Prospero, the nymphs and spirits seem menacing, yet they aren’t exactly evil. They are led by the spirit Ariel who is played by Tarah Flanagan. Flanagan presides over Prospero’s scheme as she flies over the island observing and intervening as necessary. On this set, Flanagan, with white hair flaming from her head, flies on the top of a tower near the center of the stage, even remaining aloft during intermission. While she is clearly in Prospero’s service—she is anxious to gain her promised freedom—there is a close bond between the man and spirit. Yet one wonders the same about Prospero’s feelings toward Areal as toward Miranda: does he really love this spirit, or is Areiel just one more pawn in his plans?

The set itself is made of cold metal and is usually darkly lit and inhabited by nymphs. The set platforms leave their steel trusses exposed and move on a cold steel rail. Even the island’s trees and plants are represented by metal pipes, which also serve as weapons. While this island is more like a prison to Prospero than a vacation resort, it seems a bit odd that an enchanted Mediterranean island, which has sustained Prospero and his daughter for 12 years, is presented as a cold, prison-like environment. The environment is a purposeful decision; the production clearly doesn’t want the audience to see the island as an appealing, pastoral setting.

One area where the island is allowed to lose its cool edge (while still maintaining its mysticism) is with music. Shakespeare has the spirits providing unexpected and often joyful music that both amazes and pleases the recently shipwrecked wanderers of the island. Composer Daniel Kallman brings these songs to life with a musical compositions that go beyond setting songs to music. The actors double as orchestra playing a wide variety of instruments, including rain drum, flute, viola, and hand bells. The music so perfectly fits the play that one easily forgets that it is not simply part of the air—even with the actors playing and singing on stage or in the semi-darkened upstage area. The music creates the storm, accompanies the singers, and helps to create the magic of the island.

Special note must be made of Caliban who often serves as a lightning rod for heated discussion about the play. Christopher Gerson answers the question of whether or not Caliban is human or monster with an almost unequivocal “monster” portrayal. Yet what is truly remarkable is that he convinces the audience that he is not human without use of any sort of monster costume (in fact, he is naked to the waist and wears no wig or mask). He seems unable to walk on two legs, seems to be in great pain when he speaks, and displays some unusually double jointed shoulder blades. And while the audience is likely to feel some sympathy for him, the slight deformities displayed by Gerson are enough evidence for Prospero, the new visitors to the island, and the audience that he is not human. Perhaps this is a good indication of how little deviation from the norm people are willing to allow before disavowing someone else’s humanity.

Sharing the stage with Caliban for much of the play is the jester, Doug Scholz-Carlson, and the drunk butler, Michael Fitzpatrick. Scholz-Carlson and Fitzpatrick display much of the same delightful impertinent playfulness that they showed in nearly identical roles in Twelfth Night in 2006 as the clown Feste, and Sir Toby Belch. Equally funny, but on the other end of the spectrum, Nicole Rodenburg plays Miranda with a devotion to her father and a winning innocence that matches Nick Demeris’s sudden and delirious devotion to her (despite the fact that he has just lost his father to the storm, he doesn’t know where he is, and Miranda’s father seems a bit mad.)

In his romances, Shakespeare asks his audience to be satisfied that happiness delayed—sometimes years later—is still worth while, that people can learn from the mistakes of their past, and that people can, after a time, forgive. But these requests are hard for an audience expecting a more timely revenge or repayment. The questions of who is good and who is evil still linger unanswered, and the play ends on the melancholy side of happiness. Even Prospero must remain on stage to ask the audience to be satisfied with the story and the ending, in short, to be satisfied with the fine acting, the powerful music, and the spectacular production. It’s not hard to follow Prospero’s injunction to “release me from my bands/ with the help of your good hands” and applaud at the conclusion of The Tempest (Epilogue 9 - 10). But long after leaving the theater, I’m still applauding the production for telling such a compelling story.

The Tempest plays in repertory with Love’s Labour’s Lost through July 26.

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

Minnesota Theatre Preview of Love's Labour's Lost

Sunday, July 12, 2009

More Summer Musicals

This week, two well-established Southeast Minnesota community theater troupes present their summer musicals. With companies marking 29 and 30 years, Rushford area Society of the Arts will stage Honk!, and Ye Olde Opra House will offer Lucky Stiff.

Lucky Stiff

Lucky Stiff poster

Presented by Ye Olde Opera House
Book by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens.
Directed by Scott Solberg.

Lucky Stiff marks the 30th outdoor musical for Ye Olde Opera House, which presents an ambitious annual season of community theater in Spring Grove, Minnesota. Lucky Stiff is presented at “Ye Olde Gray Barn” just east of Spring Grove, and it includes an optional pre-show dinner under the stars. (Dinner served 6:30; performance; at 8:30)

July 15 - 19, 8:30 p.m.
Ye Olde Grey Barn, Spring Grove, Minnesota

For ticket and other information visit www.yeoldeoperahouse.org

Honk!

Honk! graphic

Presented by the Rushford Area Society of the Arts (RASA)
music by George Styles, Book and Lyrics by Anthny Drewe

RASA has been producing theater and other activities in Rushford, Minnesota for 29 years, with the annual summer musical emerging as one of the area's strongest community theater productions. Tickets generally go fast.

July 15, 16, and 17 at 7:00 PM
July 18 and 19 at 2:00 PM
Rushford-Peterson High School Theater, Rushford,Minnesota

Tickets on sale at Rushford Foods
More info at (507)251-9599

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Love’s Labour’s Lost

By William Shakespeare, directed by Paul Barnes
Great River Shakespeare Festival (July 7, 2009)

Great River Shakespeare Festival

In many ways, Love’s Labour’s Lost may be a risky play for Great River Shakespeare Festival to take on. Shakespeare’s verbal gymnastics must hold the audience because there is little in the way of action or plot. Small, familiar plot devices serve merely as diversions: mixed up letters, love sonnets that fall into the wrong hands, a party where the revelers are masked, for example. But this production stands strongly on its verse, and Shakespeare’s verbal power and this company’s skill and charisma rise to the occasion and make Love’s Labour’s Lost a rousing success.

Love's Labour's Lost
Chris Mixon (top) as Berowne and Andrew Carlson as Longaville in the GRSF production of Love’s Labour’s Lost

Love’s Labour’s Lost could be a Shakespeare skeptic’s worst nightmare: a play with seemingly endless Shakespearian speeches: no murders, no fights, no plotting for power, no forbidden love. And yet even a skeptic could quickly be drawn into the language of this production. Nearly all the dialog is in verse, and while the audience isn’t likely to recognize the sonnets and other poetry forms as they fly by, the incessant rhymes serve as constant reminders that the speeches and word play are largely constructions that allow the speakers to admire their own voices and their own wit. The sonneteers labor at their love with pen and tongue, yet they are more in love with themselves and their words than with the supposed objects of their affection.

At first blush, the GRSF staging of Love’s Labour’s Lost suggests the play will be a romp in the park. A lush green grass covers the center circle of the stage, and a simulated tree with pastel colored parasols for branches provides a fanciful pastoral setting. (And in bit of even more fancy, the parasols open early in the play and later close when the pastoral sporting must be set aside).

But while the King of Navarre and his court do their best to maintain their mirth and lover’s play, the seriousness of death surrounds the play. The bare, cold staging that surrounds the green of Navarre’s garden reminds the audience of the limits of play. The persistence of death is further reinforced by an interesting portrayal of the ill King of France personally handing his daughter the papers that she is to deliver to Navarre. This exchange happens quickly, in a pantomime that takes place as part of a sequence of song and character introductions before Shakespeare’s dialog begins. (The King of France never appears in Shakespeare’s play, yet the announcement of his death near the end serves as a critical turning point and a reminder of Navarre’s desire to defeat death by achieving fame in this life.)

Doug Scholz-Carlson as the King of Navarre tries to summon a seriousness that will meet death’s presence head on. Yet there is nothing about Scholz-Carlson and his followers that suggest seriousness—despite their serious oaths. They are dressed for sport in bright colors (in what seems to me to be a sort of 1900s country club look) even as they vow to three year’s study, fasting, and celibacy. Before the ink is dry on their vows, the men are bored and ready for diversions.

The diversion comes in two forms. The first diversion is the blundering verbosity of Christopher Gerson as the visiting Spaniard, Don Adriano de Armado. Gerson’s Spanish persona—complete with musketeer costume, sword and wig—does not disappoint. The other diversion comes by way of the Princess of France, Tara Flanagan, and her three attendants. Quickly, the King and his three men abandon their oaths and begin composing love sonnets in secret.

Chris Mixon as Berowne, one of the King’s men, does a wonderful job as perhaps the most verbal character in the play. His early speech explaining why it is unnatural to join the King’s school of fasting and celibacy temporarily alienates him from the King, but allys him to audience. He quickly appeases the King and agrees to sign with another poetical flourish punctuated with another rhyming couplet: “Give me paper, let me read the same, / And to the strictest decrees I’ll write my name” (I.i. 116-117).

While Mixon and the other men are serious about their sonneteering, Rosaline (Shanara Gabrielle) recognizes that these earnest men are not serious. Reprimanding Berowne, she tells him, “A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear / Of him that hears it, never in the tongue / Of him that makes it” (V.ii. 861-863) For once in the play, Berowne is humbled and speechless. Berowne and the rest have clearly been jesting for their own amusement and making love oaths for the love of the sound of them.

And the same could be said for Shakespeare, since the incessant word play is his. This production of Love’s Labour’s Lost consorts with its audience to enjoy the irony inherent in Shakespeare’s overly verbose warning of the dangers of poetry and speechifying.

Love’s Labour’s Lost plays in repertory with The Tempest through July 26.

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

Monday, July 6, 2009

GRSF Extra: The Daly News

Great River Shakespeare Festival

Great River Shakespeare Festival actor Jonathan Gillard Daly, known to GRSF audiences for his work as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the title role in Richard III, among many others, will bring his play with music, The Daly News, to Winona for a special performance on Monday, July 13. All proceeds will benefit GRSF. This season Daly plays Prospero in The Tempest and Holofernes in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Gregg Coffin, composer of Love’s Labour’s Lost as well as 2005’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, collaborated on the music for The Daly News with Daly and Santa Maria, CA composer, Larry Delinger.

The Daly News

The Daly News tells the story of Martin Daly, Gillard Daly’s grandfather, who was a well-known Milwaukee banker. To keep his four sons connected to the family while they were serving in the military in World War II, Martin retired to the basement of the family home in Milwaukee each week where he edited and published a newsletter he called The Daly News. From 1943 to 1946, Martin mailed his weekly compilation of Milwaukee news and excerpts from his sons’ letters home to friends and other members of the family. Gillard Daly came across the newsletters years later and set to work turning them into a theatre piece, which was first performed at PCPA Theaterfest in California and later refined and adapted for production in the his family’s hometown, Milwaukee, WI.

July 13, 7:00 p.m. The Daly News: book and lyrics by Jonathan Gillard Daly, music by Gregg Coffin, Larry Delinger and Daly.

GRSF Apprentice and Intern Company: Hamlet

Another production to put on your calendar is the annual Apprentice and Intern production of Hamlet. The Apprentice and Intern Company play has been a popular ticket since its single performance in year one of the festival. In 2009, its production has expanded to five shows. The play is staged in WSU’s blackbox theater during the festival’s final week.

Hamlet

Tuesday, July 21, 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 22, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, July 23, 3:00 p.m.
Friday, July 24, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 25, 3:00 p.m.

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

Dear James

John Hassler Theater

Adapted by Sally Childs from the Novel by Jon Hassler; directed by Sally Childs.
John Hassler Theater (June 25, 2009)

The subject matter of Dear James is a bit unusual for drama: the thoughts and desires of a retired small town teacher and a retired Catholic priest. But this type of drama may have been just what the Jon Hassler had in mind when the collaboration between Sally Child’s Lyric Theater and the town of Plainview began 10 years ago. Bringing to life rich and full characters from small town Minnesota was the mark of Hassler’s fiction; the challenge for a Hassler staging is to place the complex web of relationships and generations and time into two hours on a single stage. In many ways this staging of Dear James does an extraordinary job of reducing the novel to its most important relationships: Agatha McGee’s relationship with a Catholic priest and her relationship to Staggerford, Minnesota, the town populated almost entirely by her former students or classmates.

Agatha, played by Cheryl Frarck, has found a kindred spirit in the way of a pen pal from Ireland named James. The exchange of letters between the two has forged a relationship, perhaps the most important relationship in either of the characters’ long lives. The similarities of their lives in somewhat insular, small-town Catholic communities helps to create the bond; but it is the limitations that each feels within their home life that makes the letter exchanges so important. The relationship is at a stand still at the opening of the play because Agatha unexpectedly traveled to Ireland to meet her pen pal only to discover that he is a priest. Robert Gardner’s soft brogue and gentle manner as the Irish priest are winning to both Agatha and the audience. His reason for failing to mention his vocation to Agatha is both understandable and completely inadequate. He says he never expected to meet her in person because he simply isn’t used to people picking up and traveling all over the world.

Time takes care of this withholding of information, which is one of the problems with this central relationship of the play. There is the potential for conflict over this betrayal and the potential for inner conflict over crossing the taboos of a relationship between a woman and a priest. There is also the potential for a public scandal in each of the small towns where private lives are hard to keep private. Even some of the advertising for the play suggest that this potential scandal along with Agatha’s anguish over being a companion to a priest will be central. But the play doesn’t really deal with these issues. Agatha and James meet in Rome and re-start the relationship. Later, James has an uneventful visit to Staggerford. There are no conflicts, no scandals, no personal anguish, and no drama.

The real conflict of the play is between Agatha and the town. One of Agatha’s former students, played deliciously by the scheming Coralee Grebe, finds James’ letters to Agatha which exhibit Agatha’s attitudes and opinions of the town and the townspeople. Grebe’s character broadcasts the contents of these letters, and when Agatha returns from her pilgrimage to Rome, she is met with a cold shoulder by the townspeople who feel betrayed by one of their most upstanding citizens.

The only satisfying confrontation is a delightful phone conversation between Frarck and Grebe where Frarck confronts her former student, and Grebe responds with the bold, faked innocence that she likely perfected as a student in Stagggerford’s schools. While the lack of direct conflict may disappoint a theater audience, perhaps this is the way it is, both inside and outside of a small town: problems aren’t resolved by direct conflict but by the passing of time and the placing of recent hurts and betrayals into a long perspective that life lived in one place provides. The audience is asked to accept that the town and Agatha have forgiven each other. But I’m not convinced; the long perspective can just as easily mean a long memory over a perceived wrong.

The acting in the play is very strong. I especially enjoyed Eric Knutson’s portrayal of the child-like Vietnam vet French, who, even as one of the town’s eccentrics, stands in as a representative of Staggerford. He wants to please, is easily distracted from what is important, yet is unwilling to be pushed into to doing something that he doesn’t want to do. The single set stage does a nice job of creating the different spaces where action happens. I found the screen and lighting that creates James’ study in Ireland particularly effective.

Dear James plays at the Jon Hassler Theater through July 12.

Visit the John Hassler Theater online for schedules and tickets: www.jonhasslertheater.org
Phone the Jon Hassler Theater at 507-534-2900.