Casting Disabled Actors

Here is an interesting article I came across about actors with mental and physical disabilities.  It revolves around the producers of Fox’s ‘Glee’ (one of whom is a Loyola grad) casting a non-disabled actor to play Artie, the show’s wheelchair-bound character.  Thought-provoking stuff.

Peace,

Barry Eitel

Some Really Good Mamet

Apologies that it took so long for this to come out.  I’ve been snowed in at home in Toledo without internet access.  Well, sort of.  But better late than never:

American Buffalo

Steppenwolf Theatre

***.5 (out of 5)

With most theatres throwing up traditional or parodies of traditional holiday shows, Steppenwolf has instead decided to fill December with their production of American Buffalo, David Mamet’s fiery three-character play set in the bowels of a Chicago junk shop.  Revolving around the petty lives of small-time crooks, the 1975 play doesn’t have much to do with the season of giving.  In this time of extreme consumerism, Amy Morton’s rapid-paced production reminds us about the economic struggles going on and forces us to look at the real value of material things.

American Buffalo is one of several plays by Mamet based in Chicago.  Located in a resale shop crammed with junk of different eras, it also one of his seediest plays.  This sleazy mood pervades Kevin Depinet’s meticulously-dressed set, where shelf after shelf of random crap towers to the ceiling.  Morton and guy decided, in a genius move, to put the shop in a basement of a rickety old building.  Upon entering the theatre, you immediately feel like you’ve crawled into some underground lair, where your next-door neighbors are the subway and the sewage system.  And in this cavern of the city, we watch three men battle and disintegrate over business, friendship, and a few hundred bucks.

The plot spins around planning a heist to get an expensive buffalo nickel.  Symbolism alert—the coin, which features an Indian head on one side and the near-extinct American buffalo on the other, hits us with themes concerning American capitalism.  The tale begins with Donny (Francis Guinan), who owns the subterranean shop where a man came in and paid $90 for a nickel he plucked from a bowl of random coins.  Donny feels cheated, even though he ratcheted the price up from the man’s original offer of $15 and has no idea what the coin is actually worth.   Thinking he’s entitled to the coin, he plans to rob the buyer with his assistant, former-junkie Bobby (Patrick Andrews).  Don’s friend Teach (the slimeball Tracy Letts), is also able to talk his way into the robbery.  The three multi-generational characters form a sort of dysfunctional family, with Don as the matured grandfather, Teach as the business-savvy father, and Bobby as the impressionable young son.  Or possibly Don is the father to both Teach and Bobby?  Either way, lies are told, truths are withheld, and knick-knacks are smashed.  The prospective thieves are forced to choose between greed and loyalty.  All of this for a coin that they never look up in the price book and probably isn’t worth much more than Don sold it for.

Letts, the Pulitzer-prize winner of the bunch, is fantastic as Teach.  He shoots out Mamet’s language like an AK-47, blasting rounds of profanities, poisonous persuasions, and prejudicial tirades.  However, he can also find the terrified-child side of the character.  It is the mark of a great actor when he can find a tear-jerking moment in a Mamet play.  Guinan is reserved as Donny, but still creates a vibrant character.  He could be more commanding, though; sometimes it feels like he is bending too far to Teach’s will.  Andrews’s Bobby is very strung out.  Sometimes the young actor is a bit over-zombified, and moments are missed.  As an ensemble, Morton’s cast squabble like hungry rats, which is pitch-perfect for Mamet’s squalid world.

Mamet is famous for his cynicism and machinegun-paced dialogue.  Steppenwolf’s American Buffalo finds all of this, but also tears open the emotional heart buried under the hatred and nihilism.  In our materialistic culture, it’s both enlightening and jarring to be reminded of the importance of human relationships.  This production serves it up like a pack of dynamite.

More information here.

–Barry Eitel

LOFTY DEEDS A Redneck Good Time

REVIEW

ALL THE FAME OF LOFTY DEEDS

 

House Theatre

Written by Mark Guarino

Directed by Tommy Rapley

Through December 20^th (tickets available here)

 

*** (out of 4)

 

Let me clear the air before you read any further and let you know that I might be an anomaly when it comes to all things House Theatre.  To be honest, I’ve never really been too impressed by much of anything I’ve seen by them (which, admittedly, hasn’t been a whole lot).  Their adolescent sense of curiosity, dancey staging, and extreme energy acting doesn’t really jive with my tastes.  Maybe that makes me a soulless, fun-hating ol’ stick in the mud.  Either way, there was something about their newest production, All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, which struck a chord (get ready for some music puns) with me.  The show, detailing the rise and fall of a country music star, is darker and more mature than the House’s usual fare, and also requires a more grounded style.  Although there are some glaring narrative and stylistic issues, Lofty Deeds forces all of the House’s creative energy into something denser and deeper than anything I’ve seen there previously.

Although they usually devise their own pieces, the House chose an outside play as their season opener. Lofty Deeds, written by rock journalist Mark Guarino, is saturated with the music and art of Jon Langford.  Langford, an alt-country pioneer, is known for his twangy hillbilly music and mythic lyrics that combine classic country with a punk rock ethos.  He is also famous for painting portraits of country music legends like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.  Lofty Deeds captures Langford’s aesthetic: the story revolves around a rebellious country music star staring death in the face (in the form of a tumbleweed), the design is inspired by Langford’s art, and vibrant, live versions of Langford’s music infiltrate every scene.

The “dangers/fallacies/hypocrisies of the music business” plot doesn’t cover any new territory.  At the beginning of the play, former country music star and senior citizen Lofty Deeds (Nathan Allen) is coerced into revisiting the ghosts of his past—the death of his recording partner and brother, ruined relationships, selling out to evil music executives, the inevitable substance addictions.  Where the House really succeeds is painting this story in a charmingly imaginative way.  In this production, the “suits” appear as a Brooks Brothers-adorned five-headed hydra.  Through Tommy Rapley’s dance-like choreography, the five actors that represent corporate America become a single organism: moving, speaking, and thinking the same.  We also see Deeds slow-dance his way into love with a woman whose face is always veiled, and then we watch him neglect her for a life on the road.  All of this is narrated and driven by a talking and singing tumbleweed (Corri Feuerstein).  It seems that the weed is sometimes a grim reaper figure, sometimes an inspiration, and sometimes the cause of Lofty’s unwanted flashbacks.  Like a bunch of the show’s elements, the tumbleweed character often causes more confusion than symbolic enlightenment.

I was able to forgive many of the clunkier moments and just go with the production’s rhythmic flow.  However, there were more than a handful of times when the narrative became obscured.  For example, there is a recurring talking horse puppet that never really made sense to me.  Part of these inconsistencies was probably due to Guarino’s script being a little underdeveloped, and part of it came from Rapley’s emphasis on theatricality over clarity.

Lofty Deeds stands out among House productions for me because it was the most grounded show I’ve seen by them.  In a refreshing twist, not every moment was overplayed.  Allen does a pretty good job carrying the show, but he plays far too much to the audience.  That might be the House’s aesthetic, and it is totally fine in the more expressive moments, but it can dissipate all the tension in the dramatic scenes.  It just doesn’t work when we watch Deeds discuss his perpetual loneliness with his brother’s ghost or the singing dead plant and then he turns and delivers a couple of lines to us.  Patrick Martin, though, does a marvelous job as his dead brother, Lefty Deeds.  He is simple yet complex, remarkably charming yet says little.  If the whole production could match his style, the show could be absolutely wonderful.

 

–Barry Eitel

More information can be found at www.thehousetheatre.com

Updates

Hey friends–

Been pretty busy the past couple of weeks…directed a production of Caryl Churchill’s FAR AWAY here at Loyola and then I’m in their AS YOU LIKE IT that’s opening this weekend (as Duke Frederick and Duke Senior).

I’ve had some other stuff on different sites, so I thought I’d keep y’all up to date.  Here are links to my Animal Crackers, Death of a Salesman, and Frankenstein review (although Frankenstein only ran two weekends and closed yesterday).  I also wrote up a review for CST’s Richard III.

A couple of weeks ago I was part of a giant theatrical experiment involving Tectonic Theatre Ensemble’s newest work, THE LARAMIE PROJECT EPILOGUE.  You can read a feature I wrote on the experience here.

There’s not a whole lot out there right now that I’m wildly excited about…I think most of the heavy stuff won’t come out until January, really.

EP Drops the BAAL on Brecht

REVIEW

BAAL

EP Theater

Written by Bertolt Brecht

Directed by AJ Ware and Hunter Kennedy

Through October 10th (tickets available here)

2 Stars (our of 4)

Because it is the first play written by Bertolt Brecht, arguably the most important theatre theorist of the 20^th Century, Baal is a fascinating work.  The sprawling drama was written in 1918, before Brecht nailed down the Epic theatre style which would become his trademark.  Glimmers of Brecht’s later techniques can still be found, though, such as the use of song and direct address.  EP Theater’s current production, billed as their biggest show to date, features live music accompaniment by the band The Loneliest Monk.  Although the production values of this Baal can be pretty ingenious, it lacks clarity and comes across as sloppy and confusing.

There is a lot of love for Brecht’s first work right now, with not one but two full productions happening this season (TUTA is also producing the play next May).  Now Baal is an interesting little play for studying the writer’s development, but Brecht’s later masterpieces totally overshadow his debut in terms of quality.  I wondered why any company would select it over his later works, but I was reminded how devastating and resonant the story can be.  Drawing on Romantic period themes, the play follows a young, self-destructive poet with an insatiable appetite for liquor, sex, and verse.  Desensitized to the world, Baal leaves shattered hearts and lives in his wake.

Co-directors AJ Ware and Hunter Kennedy’s production is so muddled; however, the full potential impact of the play is lost.  Most of the locations or spans of time were never defined.  This made the action of story and relationships of the characters hard to piece together.  There’s also a diverse collection of tertiary characters that are double-cast, but these were also ill-defined.  The narrative in general was jumbled and the themes, characters, and emotional effect were disordered.

Even though Baal was written before the Brechtian style became the Brechtian style, there are still opportunities to use his powerful methods.  Brecht himself retooled the play in 1926 to more closely fit his tastes.  I was perplexed by the fact that EP’s production seems to shy away from embracing Brechtian techniques when they can be such a fun challenge for a smaller company.  The live musicians are a start, especially when they occasionally interact with the actors.  But there isn’t much of an attempt to play around with the audience; it feels like we’re watching a realistic play with some poetry tossed into the dialogue.

The performances might be to blame here, many being way more moody than cynically detached.  Craig Cunningham was able to encapsulate the moroseness and aloofness of Baal, along with some of the humor (like when he’s playing with a fresh corpse).  Shawn Pfautsch’s Ekart, Baal’s slightly more aware best friend, refreshingly punched up the poetry of the script.  However, I’m pretty sure Pfautsch and Cunningham were secretly competing for wobbliest walk and seeing who could get closest to the other.  The best performance in the production, hands down, is Gus Menary as Johannes.  The part is tiny, but Menary’s portrayal was disturbingly underplayed, in particular when he describes how the body of his dead sister must look after years of floating in a river.

David Beaupre’s drab set design allowed the actors to explore different levels and could be transformed into a myriad of locales.  With all of the possibilities the set opened up, it feels as if the set wasn’t fully utilized by the directors.  The lighting was possibly the worst lighting design I’ve ever seen, sometimes highlighting pointless sections of wall and other times not providing enough visibility to see the actors.  The Loneliest Monk is a saving grace of this production, though, providing complex and haunting ambiance.

The live music along with the actors’ obvious respect for Brecht’s evocative poetry makes the production acceptable.  With more attention to story and technique, though, EP’s “biggest production to date” could’ve been destructive.

–Barry Eitel

More information can be found at www.eptheater.com.

TimeLine’s “ALL MY SONS”: A Classic Production of A Classic

REVIEW:

“ALL MY SONS”

TimeLine Theatre

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Kimberly Senior

Through October 4th (tickets available here)

3 Stars (out of 4)

The shattering of the American Dream present in Arthur Miller’s opus All My Sons shook a few feathers when it premiered in 1947.  In fact, it landed him in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Over fifty years later, war profiteering is still very much alive in the American conscious.  Kimberly Senior’s straightforward production for TimeLine Theatre Company, currently taking place at the Greenhouse Theatre Center, proves that the play can still be rattling.

All My Sons, like most of Miller’s dramatic triumphs, centers on the American Family living in the American Heartland.  The patriarch Joe (Roger Mueller) owns a local business that manufactured the cylinder heads for airplane engines during World War II.  He shares the business with his son Chris (Erik Hellman), who is the only one of two sons to return from fighting.  It’s slowly revealed that the business had been under investigation for sending out faulty equipment that caused the death of 21 servicemen.  As a result, Joe’s partner was imprisoned and Joe’s family was openly ostracized by the community, although by the time of the play Joe has resumed card games with his neighbors.

Although the plot centers on the father and son dynamic, in this production, however, it is the women roles that push the play to a visceral level.  Our hearts splinter as we watch the matriarch, Kate (masterfully portrayed by Janet Ulrich Brooks), repeatedly deny the inevitable fact that her MIA son, Larry, must be dead.  Her delusions have a heavy effect on Ann (Cora Vander Broek), Larry’s former fiancée and Chris’s current.  She also happens to be the daughter of the Joe’s jailed partner.  War, business, and romance shred the family to pieces.

It’s unfortunate that the men’s performances can never quite reach the level of their female counterparts.  Mueller can pull off the Arthur Miller dad, it comes off very naturally.  Hellman’s Chris seems very comfortable as well; he can externalize the moral conflict of the character beautifully.  However, when the flame is supposed to explode between the two characters, neither can really cut it.  The stakes aren’t quite there.  A few people comment on Chris surprising ability to be a hard killer in the war; we never get to see this side.  The scenes between Broek and Brooks have way more palpable passion.  Not that Hellman or Mueller don’t have their moments of brilliance.  This production is the first time ever where a character mentions the title of the play (Joe in this case) and it had a powerful emotional impact on me, instead of me just getting excited they said the title.

All the design aspects are solid and support the story.  Jack Magaw’s setting is simple yet recreates Middle America exquisitely.  Lindsey Pate’s ‘40’s era costumes and Charles Cooper’s lighting transport us to a familiar time and place, even if we’re not baby boomers.

If this had been the international premier of the play, Senior would’ve been sitting on a fantastic, world-class production.  But the play is a classic in the American canon, and this uncomplicated manifestation feels a little stale.  If more risks were taken, the production could’ve been a measure for all future All My Sons.  With the very notable exception of the strong emphasis on the women’s roles, however, the production doesn’t do much to illuminate the text.  Being able to witness a director play around and refresh a text is one of the major reasons we still go and see classic plays in a live theatre, or else we’d just add it to our Netflix queue.

–Barry Eitel

More information can be found at www.timelinetheatre.com.

Taming the Shrew

Just a reminder to all you flatfoots to check out my review of Theo Ubique’s review of “Taming of the Shrew” at PlayShakespeare.com.  Read it, comment on it, live it.

Or whatever.

–Barry

Equity Jeff Nominations Announced

The Jeff Nominations for equity theatres were announced yesterday, sparking the usual debate that award nominations often do.  Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a whole lot of the nominees, especially the musicals, but it seems like a good variety of productions were nominated.  I was a little peeved that the Goodman’s “Rock’n'roll” didn’t receive more nominations, but I think I was in a minority for absolutely loving it (maybe that’s just because I strive to be a pseudo-intellectual).  The Goodman had an exceptionally decent season this year, though I could have done without the overblown “Desire” and I fortunately missed the much despised “Turn of the Century.”  But I’m happy to see their “Crowd You’re In With” and “Boleros for the Disenchanted” get nominations.

For Best Production of a play, I’ll probably root for either “Ruined” or Graney’s “Edward II” (I’m a bit of a fan boy).  I also have a feeling “Ruined” will get best new play, considering Nottage already nabbed that Pulitzer Prize.  Heard of it?

But I never trust my own opinions.  Check out the list and see you what you think.

-Barry

Theatre Fun Stuff: Water Fools

Alternative title: “Foolin’ Around at Navy Pier.”

Pretty good, huh?  Save it.

In their international search for cool stuff, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre has brought in Marseilles troupe Ilotepie.  They’ll be performing their water-borne show “Fous de Bassin” (“Water Fools” for those who don’t parlay voo Francy).

The premise is bringing European street performance to the water, sort of like Pizza Hut can bring Italy to your doorstep.  The videos look pretty cool, making the surface of the water appear to be a bustling French metropolis.  This Lake Michigan performance is the American premier, but the fools have braved the waters of the Seine and Thames rivers across the Atlantic.

Another exciting aspect is that it is something for free at Navy Pier.  The $15 bleacher seats have been snatched up, but they are releasing something like 3000 tickets for those who just want to chill out on the pier and check out the watery insanity.  The shows start at 9:15 (or whenever sundown happens) Saturday and Sunday.  The Sunday performance occured because its raining tonight (Friday).  I’m hoping to join the 2999 others down there to check out these Frenchmen, you should hop a long too.

Not Gonna Lie, “Lies and Liars” is Alright

REVIEW:

“Lies and Liars”

Theatre Seven at Chicago Dramatists

Co-written and directed by Margot Bordelon and Cassy Sanderson

Thru August 30^th (Tickets available here)

2.5 Stars (out of four)

We, as a species, love to lie.  I’ve lied three times already this morning.  Lying and liars infiltrates all parts of our lives—work, family, and love.  Because of this, it has been a favorite device of writers of all genres.  Theatre Seven continues this tradition with a corporate world twist.  Co-conceived and co-directed by Margot Bordelon and Cassy Sanderson, Lies and Liars introduces us to the inner machinations of a bizarre company, ALCOR, which keeps tabs on all lies ever told.  A fascinating start, but the writer/director pair are unable to break any new ground with their concept.

The play follows a freshly-hired janitor, Ben (Brad Smith), as he learns the ins and outs of ALCOR.  He quickly fines that ALCOR is prone to the problems of any office: deceitful employees, bosses with grudges, and plenty of office romance to go around.  Through some office hijinks, he is confronted with his own file, and the ability to know every lie ever told to him.

The plot has a few loose ends, and the attempt to tie them all together is a bit weak.  For example, unauthorized file-reading is the cardinal sin of ALCOR, yet many of the workers admit to reading files but still have a job.  There’s not much of an attempt at security; the only barrier to reading a file is a filing cabinet.  Plus, how the company discovers every lie told is underdeveloped.  A couple of field workers doesn’t seem like enough.  I would think you would need millions of cameras and bugging devices, as well as mind-reading abilities (maybe brain microchips?).  However, a company like ALCOR seems just a little far-fetched, so I wasn’t very disturbed by unexplained details.

Theatre Seven does have some awesome story-telling tricks up their sleeve, though.  The movement work in the piece is fun and captures the quick-pace of the business world (a la “West Wing”).  The choreography is even more pronounced when Ben cracks open his file and is thrown into a savage exploration of lies, complete with guide in a pith helmet.  The implementation of video and sound design is also brilliantly done.  The play begins with a tongue-in-cheek video orientation of ALCOR, and various projections pop up throughout the play.  CJ Arellano’s video wizardry combines starchy middle-management slogans and symbols with a goofy millennial sensibility.  He is matched by Christopher LaPorte’s elevator music-inspired soundscapes.  All of the design is well-utilized by the staging; everything syncs up beautifully.

There is an intense energy that radiates from the entire cast.  Smith handles the lead decently, choosing to underplay rather than overact.  This is good, because some of the other actors become parodies rather than believable characters, especially Marjorie Armstrong and Cyd Blakewell.  Not to say the two aren’t committed, every little keystroke or page-turn is in character, but the whole character ends up coming off as one-dimensional.  Jennifer Waldrip and Brian Stojak (who looks uncannily like a young Dan Akroyd) are well-grounded as Ben’s janitorial coworkers.  The other performances are all decent, but sometimes the purpose of certain characters is never truly revealed.

Most of my issues are with the script.  I don’t think Bordelon and Sanderson set out to do anything immensely profound, considering the inherent humor in the writing.  After a few scenes, however, the entire plot of the play can be predicted.  Without the earnestness of the ensemble and the flair of the choreography and design the piece would be utterly boring.  Luckily, this isn’t the case, and Theatre Seven’s work is definitely entertaining, if a bit fluffy.

–Barry Eitel

More information can be found at theatreseven.org.