Saving Miss Bennet

No, this is not my (becoming) annual Clarence the Angel adventure in redemption. Previously we have saved Mr. Potter (from It's a Wonderful Life), Miss Fezziwig (A Christmas Carol), and Mr. Sawyer (Miracle on 34th Street). This post's title is inspired by the new "rolling world premiere" of some delightful Jane Austen fan fiction now gracing the stage of the Round House Theatre, titled Miss Bennet, Christmas at Pemberley.

To be fair, Jane Austen has inspired a lot of fan fiction (there's even something to do with zombies, I hear), but I will say the Miss Bennet piece, focusing on the Jan Brady of all Bennet sisters, righteous and scholarly Mary, is true to Jane's wit and writing style (more so in the first act than the second). Two years have passed since the marriages of her older sisters, and Mary has had the chance to mature and develop her musical abilities and her scholarly pursuits. Yet she retains a smug superiority and crankiness that keep her relateable as a flawed human, unlike her perfectly perfect older sisters. (The play brings back younger married sister Lydia but omits the penultimate of the five, Kitty, with even less to distinguish herself than Mary.)

The problem with Mary, and perhaps for the actress who plays her in this production, Katie Kleiger, is that she inevitably disappears when her two older, far more interesting sisters are in the same room with her. Maybe that's my problem, since the two older sisters are played by two of my favorite local actresses, Erin Weaver as Elizabeth and Katie deBuys as Jane. (And speaking of favorites, it's always a pleasure to feast on the chiseled features of Danny Gavigan, this production's Mr. Darcy.)

I will credit the authors, Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, with a surprising but appropriate love interest for Mary in the form of Darcy's distant cousin Arthur (William Vaughan) and a complication in the form of Anne de Bourgh (Kathryn Tkel), the daughter of the recently expired Lady Catherine. The twist is that sickly Anne has inherited her late mother's imperious self-importance, complicating matters for the protagonists.

I'll also credit the authors for doing something even Jane Austen never quite succumbed to, which was to create happy endings for characters we'd been accustomed to dismissing as unworthy of either attention or affection. This is what I've been trying to do in my own "Saving So-and-So" series here. They just do it better than I do!

So, Mary Bennet having been saved by worthy writers, I'm still obliged to rescue some of my own favorite egregiously left-behind characters. Will give it some more thought. My candidates right now are Susan from the MacMillan Toy Company (Big), who lost the love of her life when Josh (Tom Hanks) went back to being 13, and Heaven Can Wait's Max Corkle, the trainer for the Rams who lost his friend Joe Pendelton once our dear Mr. Jordan found a suitable football player for Joe to reincarnate into. Joe walked off with the girl but left poor Max behind. I always hated that.

Love, hosaa
No character left behind

Nutcracker Versus The Rats

Back from the first preview performance last night of Round House Theatre's production of The Nutcracker, subtitled "A New Holiday Musical" in the banner ads, but unofficially subtitled, "No, Not That Nutcracker."

Not that that Nutcracker doesn't already have a mad kaleidoscope of variations available for public display, at least in the dance world. Those of us who grew up with the Baryshnikov version (with his then-girlfriend Gelsey Kirkland as Clara dancing all the juiciest roles) are sometimes surprised by the many different ways that the story and the steps can be rearranged. The one that made the most sense to me (and yes, even fantasy needs to make sense) was the Washington Ballet's version at GWU's Lisner Auditorium a couple of decades ago.

The RHT's production of the Hoffmann fairy tale focuses on a family tragedy that interrupts Christmas, and its impacts on the impressionable Clara (is it a nightmare or a nervous breakdown?). At least one major plot point is retained here, in Clara's defeat of the Rat King. (At last year's Joffrey overproduction, if Clara threw her slipper at the fiend, I missed it in the busyness of the stagecraft.)

Oh, sorry, should that have had a spoiler alert? No, the real spoiler here is in the design and staging of the Rat King himself. Honestly, that was my favorite part of this production.

Less successful to me were the fits and starts in the scenes, some empty aural and visual gaps, and a few technical glitches and unevenness in the actors' body mics. Those could just be early-in-the-run issues, but there was just an overall unevenness in the tone throughout.

Even the costume design seemed uneven, with all the imagination going into the dolls and rats, and the "contemporary" family dressed in generic Mid-Twentieth-Century Nostalgia.

I would also like to have seen the musicians and conductor, since this production actually bothered to have live music!

Costume sketch for "Phoebe" doll by Helen Huang (Costume and Puppet Designer), image via Facebook

But the dolls and rats were all delightful, though of course it's disappointing to see a couple of my favorite actors (Erin Weaver, Will Gartshore) buried in makeup design. Oh, well. Their talent couldn't be buried. The Phoebe doll (Weaver) used her pull-chord-triggered recorded phrases with assertive, plot-turning emphasis: "I'm afraid of the dark!" (Cue: hey, let's turn on the lights.)

The updated story no doubt touches a chord in most families--dealing with the loss of a loved one at holiday time. I'm just not sure it's a great way to start celebrating the holidays. Sometimes we just need to make cookies.

Love, hosaa
making cookies

The Nutcracker
Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryand, through December 28, 2014
Director: Joe Clarco
Created by Tommy Rapley, Jake Minton (book and lyrics), Phillip Klapperich (book), and Kevin O’Donnell (music), based on the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann

Cast:
Clara: Lauren Williams
David (Clara's father), Rat, Teddy: Mitchell Hébert
Martha (Clara's mother), Rat, dance captain: Sherri L. Edelen
Drosselmeyer, Rat: Lawrence Redmond
Fritz, Nutcracker: Vincent Kempski
Monkey (sock toy): Will Gartshore
Hugo (robot toy): Evan Casey
Phoebe (doll): Erin Weaver

Music director: William Yanesh
Scenic designer: James Kronzer
Costume and pupped designer: Helen Huang
Lighting designer: Daniel MacLean Wagner
Sound designer: Matthew M. Nielsen
Props master: Jennifer Crier Johnston
Dramaturg: Sarah Scafidi