Open Wardrobes

This afternoon I went to see The Royal Family at Lakeshore Players. Loosely based on the Barrymore family, this 1920's comedy chronicles the misadventures of the Cavendish family, from Uncle Bertie's latest attempt to get back on the stage to latest scandal of black sheep Tony Cavendish. It is a chaotic family, with everyone coming and going at every moment, although at times the nearly three hour show suffered from slow pacing. In the end though director Joe Hendren brings us along for a fun roller coaster ride with a family we are secretly glad we don't have to spend Thanksgiving with.

Karen Rene-Peterson as Julie Cavendish helps anchor the family and the cast, as the current leading lady of the family she has to help keep everyone else's life together while trying to keep a handle on her own. She aptly portrays a woman at a crossroads as Julie looks back on her life wondering if she took the path she truly wanted or the one simply expected of her. Syd Stephen and Jan Arford as Uncle Bertie and Aunt Kitty play wonderfully off each other as the bickering couple trying to recapture their former glory. Christopher Kidder does a nice job as the fun-loving, wild son of the family, and James Crews stands out as Oscar Wolfe who has the unenviable job of trying to manage the Cavendish family's affairs. Miranda Mewes also gives a strong performance as Gwen, youngest of the family, whose conflict between the family name and her own desires mirrors her mother's own struggle.

Beyond the comedic surface of the play lies the question of what causes some of us to choose the artistic life, despite all of the trials that such a life brings with it. Julie and Gwen both struggle with this question, with part of them wanting nothing more than to quit the stage and lead a "normal" life. However, in trying to do so they discover that when something is your passion it has a way of drawing you back, however impractical it may seem. Despite the the chaos of the life she lives, in the end Julie seems to realize that the life she has led is the life that has made her truly happy. From my own experience, this is indeed what brings so many of us back to the theater time and time again, despite all of the work involved. Somewhere in the middle of memorizing lines and the long nights of rehearsals, we realize that coming together and creating this ephemeral work on the stage is what brings us joy.

Lastly, Technical Director Dennis Joslyn works his magic once again with a beautiful set that makes you wonder just how he managed to fit it on such a small stage. The Royal Family continues for three more weekends, performing Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 2 PM through March 28th. 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Last night Walking Shadow Theatre Company opened their second production this season: Mojo by Jez Butterworth and directed by company member Amy Rummenie. Set in 1950's Soho as Rock and Roll is growing in popularity, the play centers around the staff of the Atlantic nightclub who believe they've found the next big Rock and Roll star and are eager to get a piece of the pie. After a hit concert starring their find, Silver Johnny, they think their fortunes made, but it all goes south when the nightclub owner is sawed in half and Silver Johnny disappears, all courtesy of the local mob boss, and the rest of the nightclub staff holes up in the club waiting to see what the fallout will be.

I've mentioned before that the scripts Walking Shadow chooses can be hit or miss for me, though the production value is always top notch. Mojo wasn't the best script they've chosen, but overall I thought it was a fun piece. The play had a nice rhythm to it, even if the characters spend most of their time waiting for a hit that never comes. It also could stand for about 20-30 minutes of trimming; at almost 3 hours (including an intermission) the play was long for what the story was, despite the actors' great pacing. (And due to the excessive language, it's definitely not one to take the kids too.)

But whatever you think of the script itself, this was a production that belonged to the actors. The strong cast kept the play moving swiftly along, a must for a script that is mostly talk. A weaker cast would have quickly become bogged down in the text, but such was not the case here. Skyler Nowinski was my favorite, with his quirky portrayal of Potts who schemes and dreams of riches in the wake of his great find. He is wonderfully complemented by Joey Ford's delightfully good-natured and none-to-bright Sweets who is mostly along for the ride. Ryan Parker Knox provides a nice counterpoint to this humorous pair as the straight-faced number two who must figure out how they can survive the night in the wake of his boss' murder. Mark Benzel does a nice job as well as the awkward Skinny who tries desperately to fit in while escaping the harassment of the sadistic Baby (Anthony Sarnicki). Kudos must also go to the cast for dealing with the the unexpected seventh cast member: a bat who flew around for about 20 minutes during the second act. They persevered despite its repeated interruptions and it certainly made for a nice humorous break. (There are some experiences you just can't get except in live theater.) I have to also call out the great scene design by Steve Kath. I wasn't so impressed during act one, just a simple room on one side of stage... until I realized during intermission that once it and the curtains were removed there was an entirely different set for the downstairs of the club behind it!

So all in all a solid production. Shows continue through February 27th at the Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis with a Pay-What-You-Can performance this Monday night (shows at 7:30 PM, except for Sundays which are a 3:00 PM). 4 out of 5 stars.

Last Sunday afternoon we wrapped up Doubt with our last performance, and 15 minutes later were hard at work tearing the set apart. Four weekends felt like the right amount of time to me for a run. I'm always sad to have a show over: you may work with the same people again or do the same play again, but it's never quite the same. Each production is it's own unique experience that can never be recaptured again, on stage or off, and that is part of what is so wonderful about it. It is transient, but there is a beauty in that transience, just as there is in a sunset. It happens every day and yet each in unique, and were it not so it could easily become mundane. Even within a production every performance is different. The wonder of live performance is that it never is the same twice but wholly unique. And we as actors and audience are changed by the experience, in large ways and small, and do not come out of it the same as we went in, not if we are truly experiencing it. The end of a production means leaving the character behind, parting ways after spending so much time together, but I am always conscious that a piece of the character stays with me. I am a different person than I would have been for not portraying this role (which is why I believe that a good actor is not someone who can play any role, but is someone who knows what roles they should play). The experience of being in a show is too an interesting observation of human nature. You can throw a group of random people together, potentially where none of they have ever met each other before, and by the end of the show have a group that functions as a family. Certainly this does not always happen, most actors probably have at least one story of a completely dysfunctional cast, but when it happens there is a magic there and it translates to what you see on stage.


And the show is over, and these people you have spent hours and hours with over the course of weeks or months you may not see again. But something special has been created that goes beyond the performance. It is, I think, akin to what is meant in the Christian sense when we talk of the Body of Christ: together we are something that we could not be alone, and yet without any loss of our individuality. C. S. Lewis compares the Christian view with others that seek a Oneness of humanity, pointing out that Christianity differs in its thoughts on this in that as the Body of Christ we are more ourselves, not less, for being one in God. A theater performance is much the same: we need to be our unique selves in order to create something together that is more than the sum of its parts. It is a paradox, but one thing life has taught me is that "paradox" is not a synonym for "false," however much it means we may not understand.

Yesterday afternoon, before heading off to my own performance, Kelly and I went to see The Mousetrap at Lyric Arts. I've seen the play a couple of times before (including the long-running production in London), but not for many years and Kelly hadn't see it at all. It's the first time I've seen Lyric's space. It's a great theater and the beautiful set fit in perfectly (I wasn't always sure where the set ended and the theater itself began). Overall this cast of 8 was strong. Rachel Weber was a highlight with her reserved and inscrutable Miss Casewell, as was Ron Tolliver with his genial Major Metcalf. Joe Hendren gave a solid performance as Sergeant Trotter as he tries to unravel the mystery despite the lack of cooperation among the guests. Mary Kay Fortier-Spalding was also a delight with her hard-to-please Miss Boyle. Allie Munson was nice, if busy, as Molly Ralston and she made a good pairing with Toby Rust as her husband Giles. I found Tim Gage's Christopher Wren a little over the top, and Keith Wynecoop's Paravicini was sadly lacking any sense of mystery.


While a long production (a good 2 1/2 hours or so, including intermission) it did not feel slow-paced and Christie's wonderful script keeps the audience engaged throughout. The show runs for one last weekend (January 28 - 31) with evening shows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and matinees on Saturday and Sunday. Definitely a good opportunity to catch a classic. 4 out of 5 stars.

After a week of tech and dress rehearsals we opened Doubt last night to a full crowd. The performance went great and it was nice to at last perform for more than an empty theater. :-D The audience was very responsive and found much of the show much funnier than we expected, but those surprise reactions are always fun. Sister Aloysius was a bit hit (the audience clearly loved to hate to her!) and the Father O'Rourke speech went over really well too. It's just such a solid cast and they have all been a pleasure and joy to work with. I'm looking forward to the rest of the run! For all the details visit the Lakeshore Players website. I hope to see you at the show!

I am been very remiss in blogging about Doubt rehearsals (which you should of course come and see; details here). We started rehearsals nearly a month ago, which has flown by! We did have a week break in there for Christmas which gave us all a nice chunk of time to work on lines. It's a tough show, no doubt about it (no pun intended), but that's what makes it so satisfying as an actor. With just a cast of four the show will ultimately rise or fall on us. We have a fantastic director (Kevin T. Houle) who is helping us all dig deeper and deeper into this piece, not to mention one of the best stage managers I've worked with (Sue Kuta) who I know will keep things running extremely smoothly, but in the end we four actors have to sustain an hour and a half of thought-provoking drama on our own. It has been a daunting task, as least I've found it to be so, and a ton of work. When so many people have at least seen the movie version, how do you break people's preconceived notions of this play? How do you keep the characters interesting and dynamic above and beyond the concepts being wrestled with? If they are not, the show becomes merely pedantic and the characters two-dimensional mouthpieces.


This at least is a taste of what I've been wrestling with. As Kevin has pointed out many times, this plays is most definitely NOT about whether or not Father Flynn did it. One of my challenges has been to not make that question too easy, to give the audience doubt about what my character may or may not be capable of. We have just under two weeks to go and we are definitely getting there. We have a great cast and I've been enjoying working with them on this. I'm excited for performances and to see what the audiences have to say.


But a New Year would not be complete without a new writing project. November of course was spent in NaNoWriMo, and December brought with it the start of rehearsals and Christmas, but during my break I've finally found some traction on a new project. My friend Brian teaches middle school theater in Georgia and awhile back we had talked about the idea of me writing a short show that he could use as scenes in class. Brian has build a small stage in his classroom (beyond acting he is an accomplished designer) and a flexible set comprised of many doors. We talked about writing something in the commedia dell'arte style, as we both though it would work well with minimal set and the stock characters would give his students s starting place. At the time I was knee-deep in writing the Fringe show, and so while I loved the idea it had to sit on the back burner for awhile.


But over the past few weeks I finally started doing some research on the commedia characters and over the last week started writing a scenario. As the original commedia was all improvised, the actors would choose a scenario for a performance that detailed the entrances and exits and gave the general gist of the plot. From there the performers, who each specialized in one stock character, would create the show on the fly. Later on playwrights such as Goldoni wrote full plays using the commedia characters and style and this was my goal as well. I don't normally start plays with a detailed outline, but in this case I wanted to create such a scenario first in order to replicate the commedia process as much as possible. And so, now having such a scenario in hand I have now started in on the writing process and shall see where it goes.

Yesterday afternoon I went with Kelly and my family to see Stuart Little at Lakeshore Players. After doing the holiday show the last two years it was difficult to forgo auditions this year in order to audition for Doubt (which did work out well, to be fair), and so I was certainly not going to miss the show. Claudia directed for the third year in a row, and I knew a good number of the cast, nearly half, which included many of the Greenies from last year plus a few others that I've worked with before. My two little nieces (5 and 3) came, it was the younger's first play, and they loved it! It is a cute, sweet story (though more episodic than I expected having only seen the movie) and the young actor playing Stuart did a fine job. It was a large cast, over 20, of mostly young performers and it is always fun to see kids on stage for the first time. Anne Westcott, one of the handful of adults, was a highlight as the devious cat Snowbell out to get both Stuart the mouse and the bird Margalo. Justin Baker, one of the kids in the cast, also had nice moments as the dog that Stuart keeps having to run from, and his older sister Jenna Baker was perfect as Margalo. The pacing of the play suffered a little from the episodic nature of the script, but on the whole it kept the attention of the mostly young audience (and from what I heard was loved by the school groups who came last week). Stuart Little closes this afternoon (the holiday show always has a short run) but Lakeshore always picks fun, family-friendly shows for this slot and so I recommend hitting the holiday show this time next year (rumor is it will be A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which should be fun). And of course Doubt is coming up next at Lakeshore which will be a show not to be missed (shameless plug). 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

On Monday night I went to see Corleone at Gremlin Theatre. I had missed this show at the MN Fringe a few years ago, due to its extreme popularity, and so I wanted to make sure to catch it this time around. The general premise of the script is "What if Shakespeare had written 'The Godfather'?" The script, written (and here directed) by David Mann, is certainly a fun romp through such a possibility. It has a very Shakespearean feel to the language, throwing in many a Shakespeare reference for good measure (i.e. "Michael, remember me!" says the ghost of his brother Sonnie). Mann also changes elements to better fit Shakespeare's era, using daggers rather than guns, and the result is a piece that you could well believe came from Shakespeare's time if it were not the reference to modern-day places such as Hollywood and New Jersey. For the most part I didn't feel left out not having actually seen The Godfather, although I thought the play could have been more streamlined. It was sometimes difficult to keep track of the many minor characters (not helped by most actors portraying several roles) and some episodes felt unconnected to the rest of the plot. But on the whole the adaptation was nicely done and good fun.


The show had a solid cast all around. One of highlights for me in the cast was Ryan Lindberg (who I've seen in multiple Walking Shadow productions), who nicely carried Michael's arc from being disconnected with the family business to taking over as the new Godfather. I also enjoyed Garry Geikan's charming performance as the villain Sollozzo and Peter Christian Hansen's energetic and fun-loving Sonny, the roguish son of the Godfather. I was also impressed by Tamatha Miller's set design which I thought both simple and elegant. All in all it was a fun show and a good time. The show runs through December 13th, so plenty of opportunities to catch it (and a good reason to stop by Gremlin's space if you haven't seen it yet). Four out of five stars.

Last night Kelly and I attended the opening night of Neil LaBute's Some Girl(s) which opens Walking Shadow's new season. I tend to be skeptical when I hear about some new playwright who won this award or that, or has been produced at some big New York theater. These things have ceased to impress me. Write a good script and then I will be impressed. After all, that's what really counts. I say this not to put down anyone's accomplishments, but to help explain that when I say I think Neil LaBute is an extremely talented playwright, this is not praise I often give.


Walking Shadow produced LaBute's Fat Pig a couple of years ago and I think it is still perhaps the best script that they have done. I am a big fan of Walking Shadow. They always give great production value, but for me the scripts they pick can be hit or miss. Last season's Amazons and Their Men, for example, was a well-done production of an only so-so script (which read to me like an early draft that needed much more depth). And the less said about the script to Caligula, the better. (I should add here that I loved Robots vs. Fake Robots, script and production alike.) But when I saw they were to do another LaBute script I was extremely excited, and I can honestly say LaBute has proved himself in my eyes to not be a one-hit wonder.


Some Girl(s) takes place in four scenes, each set in a different hotel room in a different city (and Kelly and I both delighted in the small touches the "maids" did during the scene changes to make each room slightly different, with different pillows on the bed, a different painting, the paper in a different place, and so on). In each scene the main character, Guy, meets with a different woman from his past (and later makes it clear that there have been many more), as he prepares himself for his upcoming wedding. On the surface Guy seeks to make amends for the wrongs he has done to these women, though he clearly has no idea about how to really go about doing so. The women differ greatly, from the high school sweetheart-turned-mother, to the older woman he had an affair with several years ago, to the alternative-sometimes-drug-addict. In the end Guy's motives for these reconnections become more murky and we are left unsure of how sincere he truly was. Clarence Wethern's portrayal makes Guy feel charming and likable, when he's not spurting out something guaranteed to insult any woman with a pulse. Wethern gives a wonderful performance, oozing good intentions, and aptly portraying Guy's inability to figure out how to connect to these different woman. And it is clear that Guy never really knew. Each of the woman gives a strong performance as well, particularly Anna Sundberg's fun-loving Tyler who seems to be the only one who feels at all charitable towards her ex-boyfriend and get, at least a little, why he is revisiting the past. And in a production such as this where everything seems to flow so seamlessly together, credit must go out to the director, here Brian Balcom who created a very natural-feeling atmosphere throughout. The set too was excellently done (courtesy of designer Steve Kath), and all the technical elements again reflect Walking Shadow's high production standards.


The script keeps things moving at a nice pace (although without an intermission and running at close to 2 hours I did find myself a little restless towards the end of the final scene). LaBute has a nice knack for writing very natural-sounding dialogue, replete with hesitations and rambling sentences, without taking these to a too-realistic extreme. And the play gives plenty of food for thought later, as Guy's actions in the last scene shed some new light on everything that has gone before. Is he a nice guy, if shallow, who just doesn't understand relationships? Or is he a manipulator who is using his own past purely for personal gain? Well, you have plenty of time to decide for yourself. Some Girl(s) continues tonight and runs through December 5th at the Pillsbury House Theater in Minneapolis. (Monday the 23rd is pay-what-you-can night.) So five out of five stars for a solid production all around. My advice? Spring for the Walking Shadow season ticket to also enjoy their productions this season of Jez Butterworth's Mojo in February and company member John Heimbuch's new work The Transdimensional Couriers Union in May.

As an actor I have long had this fantasy. I find the time between auditions and getting the "yea" or "nay" to be the most nerve-wracking, stressful part of the acting process, and so I have long had this fantasy where as soon as auditions are done I get the call from the director to do the part I really, really want to do.


Tonight that fantasy came true. The second night of Doubt auditions wrapped up at about 9 PM tonight, and at 9:07 PM I had a call from the director. "It must be about callbacks," I thought, for the director hadn't been certain last night if he would have them or not. It was not about callbacks. It was the director asking me if I wanted to play the part of Father Flynn in Doubt.


I said yes.