Labors of Love

Two shows within a week's time invite comparisons: A Doll's House, Part 2 (DH2) at Round House (temporarily quartered at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh venue) and Love's Labor's Lost (LLL) comfortably nestled in the library-within-the-library at Folger. [Note: Spoilers within.]

Holly Twyford and Craig Wallace in A Doll's House, Part 2. Round House Theatre via Facebook.

Love's Labor's Lost set designed by Lee Savage for Folger Theatre

Both stories conclude that love is harder than it looks, no matter how agile your language skills are. Language requires communication skills, which are broader than the leaps over furniture Nora (Holly Twyford) effects in her abandoned Doll House. (Here, I go by the Signet Classics paperback edition, which eschews punctuation and possessiveness in titling Ibsen's play A Doll House rather than the more common A Doll's House. Signet also eschewed the hyphen in Moby Dick. What can I say.)

What the stories demonstrate is that true love requires respect, and respect comes from (and with) honest communication. Nora and Torvald traveled that road (with injuries) after Ibsen's story ends and Lucas Hnath's continuation completes. And Shakespeare broke the rules of Comedy by bringing this revelation about honesty and respect to his heroes and heroines without joining them in a four-way wedding at the end of the story (or five if you count Don Armado and Jaquenetta, which you should). I almost want to see Love's Labor's Lost, Part 2 after the four principal couples reunite a year and a day hence to see if respect conquers all after all. It didn't in Nora and Torvald's case.

As for the theater-going experience, I saw both shows in matinee mode, which I've been told doesn't bring out the best in either performers or audiences. I've always disagreed with that and have rarely been disappointed. I'm far more awake in matinees than evening performances, and I've never discerned a lack of energy in matinee performers.

That said, I'll say I appreciated DH2 but loved LLL. For some reason, I was expecting more comedy (though not necessarily Comedy) from DH2 than was there. As a modern take on Ibsen that wasn't reflected in the set (a broken home), the production added language (vernacular; i.e., vocabulary; i.e., dirty words) I didn't expect and didn't appreciate. It wasn't clever, to my mind and sensibility. 

The DH2 set was devoid of a home's warmth, which I suspect was the point but made for a somewhat lifeless experience. On the other hand, this allowed the focus to be on the character's speeches, which indeed were speeches rather than dialogue (mutually respectful communication). 

In contrast, the LLL set, a sumptuous library (with a hidden bar behind the books), provided an idealized world for would-be academics showing off their erudition and sophistication. 

For both DH2 and LLL, the delight is in the performances. I am in awe of actors, and the direction guided their performances to perfection. Round House is always full of favorites, and the cast of four--Twyford, Craig Wallace (Torvald), Nancy Robinette (housekeeper Anne Marie), and Kathryn Tkel (Nora and Torvald's daughter Emmy) all are RHT alumni. I always look forward to actors I consider familiar friends. Over at LLL, that familiar friend was Eric Hissom as the ridiculous Don Armado (I'm reminded of the Adolpho character in The Drowsy Chaperone). Other standouts in the cast were Zachary Fine as a virile yet ultimately humble Berowne and Megan Graves as an adorably impish Mote.

Love, hosaa

Respect's labor's found 

Eye for Change

Back from Tony Kushner's Caroline, Or Change at the Round House, and just want to quickly note that, as usual, I'm delighted to see familiar faces like John Lescault, Will Garshore, Naomi Jacobson, and Felicia Curry. 

poster art, via Facebook/Round House Theatre 

But I also want to note the RHT newbies, especially Nova Y. Payton in the title role and youngster Elijah J. Mayo in the role of Caroline's older son Jackie. As Caroline, Nova carried the weight of the character's complex sorrows, pride, and fear, and she did so with one of those star-turning "(And I'm Telling You) I'm Not Going" you expect in a musical.

But if you go, pay particular attention to Elijah, who brought a spark of brilliance to the first act finale. He didn't "steal the scene" in the sense of upstaging anyone else, but he had that star quality that captures you. I couldn't take my eyes off him! I hope to see him in more shows around town. I'll keep my eye out. I think I've spotted a future star. It's why I've kept my programs all these years.

love, hosaa
star gazing

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

An Unheroic Return

Back from the Round House Theatre production of Suzan-Lori Parks's epic Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2, and 3) (and hoping that parts 4, 5, and 6 aren't all prequels). What a great production--certainly among the best offerings from RHT.

This Civil War recasting of the Ulysses tale humanizes the myth through characters that are flawed, loyal to (or betraying) all the wrong people, with the hero of the story, Hero (JaBen Early), carrying the weight of the most flaws and weaknesses.

The second part of the play deals most directly with the racial issues we still confront today, as Hero follows his master (Tim Getman) into battle on the promise that "boss-master" will free him for his service. It's pretty clear the despicable boss-master won't do it, so Hero's hope and loyalty--and ever-present Hamlet-like indecision about running away--are incomprehensible (at least until Part 3).

In this section Getman delivers a speech that made the largely white suburban audience (her own self included) very uncomfortable--it's the Southern Colonel slave-owner's confession to his Union captain prisoner (Michael Kevin Darnall) that he's thankful he is white. On the surface, it is clearly an assertion of superiority. But Parks's language and Getman's delivery of it is more nuanced: The reason he is thankful, boss-master says without irony, is that the black man's life is so miserable. Well, duh. Who wants to be miserable? He of course takes no responsibility for being the cause of that misery.

(From left) Michael Kevin Darnall, Tim Getman, JaBen Early, in Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2, & 3). Image: Round House Theatre via Facebook.

Also in Part 2, the Union captain prisoner tries to convince his Confederate, slave-owning captor that he cannot even imagine owning other humans. But [SPOILER ALERT] the fact that this Yankee is not actually white, but passing as white (and also passing as a captain rather than a private) leaves no opportunity for white redemption. That's a bit disappointing, I'll confess.

Part 3 makes some of Hero's (now Ulysses's) decisions clear, but not all of them. He's a flawed human. To lighten things up, and in true Shakespearean manner, Parks's provides us with a "funny bit with a dog," who turns out to be the story's moral touchstone. Maybe true unquestioning loyalty really is just a dog thing.

And I'll give a shout out to one of the best voices in Washington, Craig Wallace as "Oldest Old Man," Hero's father-figure in Part 1 (and taking a surprising second role in Part 3 I won't spoil).

Craig Wallace. Image: Round House Theatre via Facebook.

Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)
Written by Suzan-Lori Parks
Directed by Timothy Douglas
Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryland, through Feb. 21, 2016.

Cast
Hero: JaBen Early 
Penny: Valeka J. Holt
Oldest Old Man, Odysseus: Craig Wallace
Homer: Kenyatta Rogers 
Colonel in the Rebel Army: Tim Getman
Smith, a captive Union soldier: Michael Kevin Darnall
slaves: Jefferson A. Russell, Jon Hudson Odom, Stori Ayers, Ian Anthony Coleman
Musician: Memphis Gold

"Where Is Love" and "The Touch of Art"

Time to catch up again.

The last two performances I saw at Round House Theatre had nothing to do with each other; one was produced by Adventure Theatre MTC, the children's theater training camp at Maryland's Glen Echo park, and the other was RHT's entry in the regionwide Women's Voices Theater Festival. And though they had nothing to do with each other, Oliver! and Ironbound had more in common than the latter did with another WVTF entry at Ford's Theatre, The Guard.

[I interrupt this brief recap to report another RHT-hosted production I saw a few days before Oliver!, evidence of which is a xeroxed list of the 11 "clumps" of one-minute plays in the obviously named One-Minute Play Festival. The audience seemed to be composed mainly of authors of the 50 or 60 "plays," who laughed and cheered noisily in support of each other's art. I can recall almost none of this now, not even the date of the production, which failed to make it onto the one-page info sheet.]

Adventure Theatre's Oliver! happened to be my first exposure to the stage version of one of my all-time favorite movie musicals. My 12 1/2 year-old within is still in love with Jack Wild's Academy Award-nominated performance as the Artful Dodger, so my biases on movie versus stage were pre-formed. I loved the dancing in the AT show, and I thought the little actor playing Oliver (Franco Cabanas, per my program) had a gorgeous voice. The failure to cast a like-sized Dodger, as in the movie with Wild and Mark Lester, proved a big disappointment to me, and their voices never blended in that chummy way they should.

The next RHT production, season-opening Ironbound, was a world premiere play by Martyna Majok, focusing on the struggle of a single immigrant mom, statically positioned at a bleak New Jersey bus stop, poised between failed romances.

As far as women's voices go, this was one I couldn't really relate to, and it was yet another one of those stories about people I simply don't want to spend time with. Yet, upon further review, I found the story had a lot in common with Oliver!. Like the orphan begging to be fed more of even the worst gruel, ironbound Darja (Alexandra Henrikson) hungers. That ill-defined hunger exposes her to a cruel lover or two, a cruel life, and a cruel yearning, "Please, sir, I want some more."

I think what Darja wants is to matter. Her "where is love" plea is a demand for respect. Things seem to turn around for her when she meets her own "Artful Dodger" in the form of a random kid (William Vaughan as Vic), who finds her at the bus stop one night, badly beaten up, and reaches out to help her.

Ironbound's William Vaughan and Alexandra Henrikson. Photo by Cheyenne Michaels, RHT/Facebook

Moving along on the Women's Voices series, The Guard actually had less to do with "women's voices" and turned out to be the kind of play I wish I could write: witty, touching, philosophical, a portrayal of what art means to us (me). It was a bit smutty, though, so I'm happy to leave it to more sophisticated talents.

Playwright Jessica Dickey's story starts and ends with a museum guard (Mitchell Hébert) goaded into touching Rembrandt's painting, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer.

The Guard's Mitchell Hébert, Katherine Tkel and Josh Sticklin. Photo by Scott Suchman, Ford's Theatre/Facebook

This "touch" takes us back in time to Rembrandt's (Hébert again) daily life, and then further back to Homer (Craig Wallace) complaining about people wanting to write down his poems. They're meant to be heard, he says, so people can zone out if they want (says Homer/Wallace, glaring at the audience). Back to the guard's present, he has been fired for touching the art. He then devotes himself not to art, but to life, caring for his partner (Wallace again), a dying poet, tenderly touching his head as Rembrandt's "Aristotle" touched the bust of Homer.

love, hosaa
touched by art

A Tale of Two Plays

Slightly behind in my recapping enables me to bring two current productions together: A Tale of Two Cities performed at Synetic Theater and NSFW performed at Round House Theatre.

Coincidentally, the term NSFW was just added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, which defines it as "not safe for work" (meaning, if you're e-mailed a link or attachment so labeled, don't open it at the office).

In the RHT production, the term is expanded to "not safe for women," meaning workplaces such as playwright Lucy Kirkwood's two fictional commercial magazine offices, Doghouse and Electra, that sexualize, objectify, exploit, and manipulate images of women. While I could relate a bit to the young woman working at Doghouse (she needs the work), there are compromises and comeuppances in this story that I just don't get. (Thank goodness for noncommercial journalism, right?)

In a way, exploitation and objectification of female imagery is also what the drag queen Jerry (Alex Mills) does at Synetic's Tale, in an adaptation originated by Everett Quinton. Jerry entertains an irrationally inserted baby in his apartment (Vato Tsikurishvili as Dorian the baby) as he prepares to perform his act.

Alex Mills (Jerry) and Vato Tsikurishvili (Dorian), A Tale of Two Cities. Synetic Theater

The parallels between Jerry's primping for his act and Electra editor Miranda's (Deborah Hazlett) primping for a night out were astonishing. (No production photos for NSFW up yet, but if you see both shows, you'll see what I mean.)

Alex Mills, A Tale of Two Cities, Synetic Theater

Alex Mills, A Tale of Two Cities, Synetic Theater

The lesson is clear to me: 'Tis a far, far better self-actualization when you take control over your own life, work, image, sexuality, and self-expression.

Love, hosaa
safe for work

A Tale of Two Cities
Synetic Theater (1800 South Bell Street, Crystal City, VA 22202)
May 13 through June 21, 2015

NSFW
Round House Theatre (4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814)
May 27 through June 21, 2015

Living, Working, Resting with Vanya

I'm behind, but before I get more behind, a quick mention of Round House Theater's opening of Uncle Vanya.

promotion art for Round House Theatre, via Facebook

The best thing about Chekhov is the talent he attracts, and the talent on RHT's stage last night was virtually a who's who of Washington theater (alphabetically): Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey, Kimberly Gilbert, Mitchell Hébert, Mark Jaster, Nancy Robinette, Ryan Rilette, Eric Shimelonis, Jerry Whiddon, and Joy Zinoman.


The production was beautifully laid out, with characters entering and exiting from normally underutilized voms, and the language was updated accessibly by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Annie Baker.

Pre-performance discussion at Round House Theatre, via Facebook.

But even all this talent couldn't keep me from nodding off in Act One. It's not their fault, and it's probably not even Chekhov's fault, though he is probably one of my least favorite Russian writers (below Gogol, ahead of Pasternak). As it so happens, this week I rejoined the working Vanyas, Sophias, and Marinas of the world, and rest will have to wait.

That's sort of the gist of the story: We all work, sort of, and we all live, sort of. Some of us "work" a little uselessly, like the professor (Alexander, Jerry Widdon) who basically writes about what others have thought and written about, but who ranks above the brother-in-law (Vanya, Mitchell Hébert) who manages the estate that provides income for the family.

As for the women, we can be beautiful and desired but ultimately bored and useless (Yelena, Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey), or we can love passionately but futilely, plain and ultimately accepting (Sophia, Kimberly Gilbert). The only two characters who seem to go about finding their own way to happiness are the doctor and forest-saver (Astrov, Ryan Rilette) and the nanny (Marina, Nancy Robinette). They both live useful working lives that seem to fulfill them.

I guess that's as much as I can ask for out of life: a useful and fulfilling one. Funny to feel like a "minor character" in a play (Yelena's complaint). At least you're in the play.

love, hosaa
from somewhere in row D

Blistered, Burned, Enraptured

Back from last night's first preview performance of Gina Gionfriddo's Rapture, Blister, Burn, at the Round House Theatre, and the only glitch in the proceedings was that they brought the houselights up when the audience was trying to give the cast a standing ovation. I felt a little cheated out of showing them the love.

Previously in Hosaa's Blog, I reported very little about my experience with Gionfriddo's last play on the RHT stage, Becky Shaw. Didn't like it. The characters were just not people I wanted to spend two hours of my life with. With RBB, however, I had more in common with the characters: two 40-something women--one married and the other a single, successful academic--and the lunk of a husband/love interest they shared, plus the 70-something mother of the single scholar, and one wiseass 20-something babysitter/would-be reality-TV developer.

Oh, exactly which character did I "relate" to? "Cathy" (Michelle Six), the single, successful academic, you say? Ha Ha Ha! Well, actually, the part about her that I did relate to was her relationship with her mother, "Alice" (Helen Hedman), and the realization that no man would ever love her the same way that her mom did. That part is true, and a lot of us just don't realize that until mom dies. That's a shame.

I could actually connect a bit with the lunk of a husband/love interest, "Don" (Tim Getman), because at the root of his problems is his own self-defeating awareness that he can't live up to other people's expectations of him or to his own sense of potential. He resorts to pot and porn to soothe his sagging ego and goes on letting down the two women who (inexplicably, IMO) love and compete for him. (I guess I know what I resort to--not pot and porn, though. *g*) 

The stay-at-home wife, "Gwen" (Beth Hylton), is the judgey recovering alcoholic who yearns for the presumably better life of the single friend whose boyfriend she stole and married rather than completing grad school.

And for a generational perspective to balance that of the not-dead-yet heart-attack-surviving mom, we get the babysitter "Avery" (Maggie Erwin, my new great actress to watch). The wise-beyond-her-years free spirit is appreciative of the freedoms won by our feminist ancestors but can't really relate to the problems of an earlier era. We can vote because suffrage was obviously right. Duh.

Maggie Erwin. Publicity photo via RHT Facebook.

The characters are not quite caricatures, but do come off as stereotypes. Or maybe archetypes. And the business of women yearning to switch lives with each other is nothing new (see Turning Point with Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft, for example). Then there's the ridiculous plot device of having the wife and babysitter as the only students of the single-scholar for a seminar on feminism and female portrayals in popular culture--a seminar that takes place in the mom's house so we can get all the females in the same place together, relating their personal experiences to academic observations.

But the direction by Shirley Serotsky and acting by all (seriously, Erwin is a revelation) more than made up for these contrivances. The historic and cultural references (Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlafly, the messages behind slasher movies) all brought out touchstones to touch and mull on. And instead of just being angry and making the audience angry (or defensive), the dialogue, the conversations, invited a lot of self-reflection. What do we want as women? And what happens if we get it? Or don't get it? And what do men have to do with it anyway?

I go back to the relationship between the mother and the grown daughter. My mother was just that supportive and nurturing (in her own weird, narcissistic way--that's another blog). Mothers teach their daughters that love means being supportive and encouraging, so we expect that in a husband. When the men turn out to expect that of their wives but not of themselves, that's where the frustrations start.

Avery is the one with the answer to all that crap. Maybe you just outsource it.

love, hosaa
Still thinking a butler would be better than a husband, in many ways.

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

Love for Fools

Ah, so great to be back home in my little seat in the theater; this season I've moved up one day and over one seat with my new subscription for the Round House.

Also new at Round House is the digital version of the production program--e.g., Fool for Love now playing. Though I'm a known program collector, lots of people leave theirs behind in the recycle/reuse basket on the way out, and having the digital version available for reference is useful both before and after the show. (It's nice, for example, to know in advance that the play is performed without an intermission; it's also nice, after the show, when writing about it, to be able to look up spellings of people's names.)

It's also great to be back with "old friends" of my theater experience, including the ferociously fragile Katie deBuys ("May") and master of the hangdog drawl Marty Lodge ("Old Man"), previously paired in RHT's Seminar. Joining the cast of familiars is Tim Getman ("Martin"), who I'd just seen in Synetic's Three Men in a Boat, and new-to-me Thomas Keegan ("Eddie").

Playwright Sam Shepard is, of course, best known to me as the iconic actor portraying iconic test pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff. I hadn't seen any of his plays, so I was expecting tough, gritty realism. Instead, Fool for Love mixes fantasies and memories with the volatile, violent yearning that fools call love. (It isn't. Passion, yes. Lust, yes. Love? Not by my definition.)

The choice of this play is in line with the current "despicable people you don't want to spend time with" artistic direction at RHT, but the performances and production are so mesmerizing, I forgive the play. Katie's May, especially, pulls and pushes on the audience's sympathy even as she pulls and pushes at Keegan's Eddie, sometimes to comic effect.

Thomas Keegan, Katie deBuys, rehearsal photo via RHT Facebook

Fool for Love by Sam Shepard
Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryland, September 3-27, 2014
Directed by Ryan Rilette

Cast:
May: Katie deBuys
Eddie: Thomas Keegan
Martin: Tim Getman
Old Man: Marty Lodge

Production credits:
Scenic and costume designer: Meghan Raham
Lighting designer: Daniel MacLean Wagner
Composer/sound designer: Eric Shimelonis
Fight choreographer: Casey Kaleba
Props manager: Andrea Moore
Dramaturg: Brent Stansell

Stripped Productions and Big Blonde Vocals

Back from Ordinary Days last night at the Round House and will use this to catch up with one other previously unreported artistic experience, the concert version of A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Baltimore Symphony, performed at the Strathmore.

I'm not a fan of overproduced shows, and it's a problem in musicals, especially, when I can't hear the lyrics to the songs. In a show like Ordinary Days, which is sung through, I wouldn't have much of a chance of following the plot if it weren't for the stripped down production--in this case, a pianist (musical director William Yanesh) and the powerhouse vocals of the actors.

I was excited to see a couple of familiar names on the program: adorable Erin Weaver as quirky, neurotic graduate student Deb and the handsome Will Gartshore as man-in-love Jason. Will has been around the Round for quite a while, but I really took note of him in this season's This. And Erin was the fabulous Juliet at the Folger's R&J production earlier this season. That's a little bitty blonde with a great big voice, and she took over Ordinary, too.

Erin Weaver. Courtesy of RHT via Facebook

Will Gartshore. Courtesy of RHT via Facebook

Likewise, the stripped down production of Midsummer was a full concert with seven actors running in and out of the orchestra, changing costumes on stage, and speaking their Shakespearean lines whenever the orchestra put Mendelssohn on pause.

Again, one of the attractions for me is always a familiar name/face, in this case Katie deBuys, who played Shakespeare's Hermia and was last seen at RHT in Seminar. But in this case, the "blonde with the big vocal" and very comical presence was Kate Eastwood Norris as Helena.

Maybe they teach you this in Shakespeare Clown School, but Kate had a way of running hilariously, like Tom Story did in Winter's Tale back at Shakespeare Theatre Company. It involves the arms flapping and flailing over one's head or outstretched in front while exiting (whether chased by bear or not). Anyway, she cracked me up.

Kate Eastwood Norris, via KateEastwoodNorris.com

Levity, lightness, a deft touch and a powerful voice. That's all it takes, and it's what I go to the theater for.

That, and the confetti. ;)

ephemera collected from Ordinary Days at Round House Theatre

ephemera collected from Ordinary Days at Round House Theatre

Love, hosaa
prop stealer

About 7 Billion "Trains Running"

I should know by now to write very shortly after thinking of something, because I had a much better title for this post than that when I woke up this morning and forgot it already.

The thing is, when I went to see Two Trains Running at Round House the other day, it was the same day I'd just been to a memorial service for one of my Shakespeare Readers friends. And if you don't know the story behind Two Trains, much of it is about the funeral business and the death of an acquaintance whose life would have been worth knowing better.

Of the performance, I'll say it was long but not at all draggy. The production is evenly divided into two 90-minute acts, with a 15-minute intermission, so it makes for a long mid-week night. Still, the audience was on its feet to applaud the work, not to clamor to the exits.

My season tickets have been for the Thursday previews all these many years; so many scheduling conflicts led to my changing my ticket so many times, I finally opted to change to the Wednesday performances next season. I looked at the list of performances I'm to attend, and it turns out my Wednesdays will be the first performances. So they're going to be even rougher than what I've been seeing.

"Rougher." That's funny. One friend tells me that the ONLY show to go to is the last performance, when the actors have absolutely perfected their work. Well, that's one point of view. I like the earlier, "imperfect" performances. It seems more human, for instance, when the actor stumbles on a line or two.

Actors just amaze me. Truly. I've been trying to read and learn from this book that Ken Ludwig wrote, How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare--well, with reviewing it in mind, maybe--and discovering that I can't hold in my mind more than two lines of the speech from Midsummer Night's Dream that begins the process:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows

And that's it. (Did I even get that much right?)

So when a team of actors puts three hours of dialogue and timing and blocking onto their shoulders to present their Two Trains to a few of the 7 billion others sharing their world, I am just always amazed and in total admiration.

Stand-outs for me were the two (maybe?) potential lovers, Sterling (Ricardo Frederick Evans) and Risa (Shannon Dorsey), both newcomers to the RHT stage. The character of Risa, the waitress whom all the men flirt with, with greater or lesser degrees of seriousness, is both enigmatic and pragmatic. She would rather be alone than with a man--like Sterling, the recently released convict--who would do nothing but worry her to death.

Ricardo Frederick Evans (Sterling) and Shannon Dorsey (Risa). Photo: Round House Theatre Facebook

I can relate to that. But to keep the men at bay, she had resorted to cutting up her own legs, making herself ugly to avoid unwanted attention. It didn't really work, and none of the men can understand a woman not needing or wanting a man. Sterling, for all his recklessness, is genuinely touched by Risa. The moment that they finally kiss, and Sterling receives the girl's absolute tenderness, is a revelation to him and a breathtaking moment for the audience.

Among the other trains spinning around in my mind with this story was all of the superstitions these people latched onto, whether it was routinely playing the numbers or following the spiritual advice of the mysteriously aged ("three hundred and twenty-two years old") Aunt Ester, which always involved throwing a twenty-dollar bill into the river for the advice to work. Aunt Ester's eschewing monetary gain for her work was a contrast to the other unseen character, the flashy local "prophet" about to be buried during the course of the play.

Back to my friend's memorial service earlier in the day. The first part of the service is the readings and the hymns and the recitations and the responses, none of which I knew. My other Catholic friends attending could participate. I sat (or stood, as required) and listened, not really comprehending. It was a good, peaceful time to think about our friend who had passed.

But at the end of the service, our friend's nephew delivered the eulogy. He had been the caregiver for this single, independent "Risa" for the past five months, and told the audience about how much she'd meant to him growing up. His voice quaked a few times, for which he apologized. It was moving and dear. And just as human as a professional actor muffing a line or two. It connects.

When two trains are running, they have to run on parallel tracks or on different schedules, lest they crash. When there are 7 billion of us running, those occasional "crashes" of crossing lives is actually what brings us together.

Two Trains Running
Written by August Wilson
Directed by Timothy Douglas
Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD, through May 4, 2014

Cast
Memphis: Jefferson A. Russell
Wolf: Kenyatta Rogers
Risa: Shannon Dorsey
Holloway: Michael Anthony Williams
Sterling: Ricardo Frederick Evans
Hambone: Frank Britton
West: Doug Brown

scenic designer: Tony Cisek
costume designer: Reggie Ray
lighting designer: Dan Covey
sound designer/composer: Matthew M. Nielson
dramaturg: Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe

eta - later that same day ... I remembered the title I was going to use for this post. When the location for my friend's memorial service was said to me over the phone, I got the name of the church wrong: It was really the Church of Annunciation. What I wrote down was: Church of Enunciation. Which is what theater really is.

Writers Get Schooled

Would-be writers have a lot to learn about the realities of writing and publishing and getting read, and a lot of those lessons are up for interpretation, as documented in the Round House Theatre's production of Theresa Rebeck's Seminar.

This is the kind of play that should either be right up my alley or too in-your-face close to home and off-putting. While I certainly could relate to the writing and editing and hoping to be published aspects of the story, I personally lack the ambition that put the would-be writers into the room with their well-paid but dismissive and abusive tutor. At my point in my career, I could relate best to the tutor (hopefully I'm not that dismissive and abusive!), whose promising writing career had been thwarted and redirected to editing and tutoring.

Anyway, it was relatively easy for me to create the distance I needed from my parallelling life and enjoy the language, the actors' interactions, the rhythms, and all that make productions worth producing. It's an adult comedy, hitting many of the same notes as RHT's This earlier this season.

What I was looking forward to most was seeing three of my favorite local actors playing together: The adorably goofy Tom Story (as Douglas), of course, plus Marty Lodge (Leonard), who first captured my attention in the old RHT's round space as the ghetto hotel manager in Problem Child, and the breathtakingly versatile Katie deBuys (Kate), whose previous Shakespearean work (Henry V at Folger and Measure for Measure at STC) I have noted as chameleon-like. It was great to see more of her in a contemporary role.

Marty Lodge and Katie deBuys. Photo by Danisha Crosby for Round House Theatre 

(L-R): Laura C. Harris, Tom Story, Katie deBuys, Alexander Strain. Round House Theatre via Facebook

A play about writing that doesn't show much of the writing under review--just the characters' reactions to the writing and to each other's reactions--is naturally going to be (as my companion noted, without irony) talky. In the care of such good actors, though, the talk has its own musicality. As the cynical, misogynistic tutor, Marty Lodge tears down the student work in monologues that are positively Homerian.

I've also seen Alexander Strain (Martin) and Laura C. Harris (Izzy) in other productions--Strain was RHT's Asher Lev, for instance, and one of the highlights of Glengarry Glen Ross, and Harris was a delightfully feisty Marian in RHT's Young Robin Hood--so it was nice to see them shine in this tight ensemble.

Speaking of careers evolving from writing to something less glamorous (but no less honorable), I see Lloyd Rose, a former drama critic for the Washington Post, served as dramaturg for this production. She's apparently been doing this sort of thing for a while. I still don't know what dramaturgs do, but I think, like editors, they make other writers' writing better. Well done.

Seminar

Written by Theresa Rebeck

Directed by Jerry Whiddon

Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD ~ February 5 – March 2, 2014

Cast

Leonard: Marty Lodge

Kate: Katie deBuys

Martin: Alexander Strain

Douglas: Tom Story

Izzy: Laura C. Harris

scenic designer: James Kronzer 

costume designer: Ivania Stack

lighting designer: Daniel MacLean Wagner 

original score/arrangements/sound design: Eric Shimelonis

Catch-Up: Nuts and Lyons and more nuts, oh my!

Hosaa crawls back to the second-to-last row of the balcony, taking back her comfortable place in the audience following brief (but occasionally long-winded) attempts at providing content....

Knowing the Fall would be a bit over-scheduled, I let the recapping here go a bit. But now it is the end of the year, and I have a few notes to share. I'll keep them brief, if possible. (No guarantees on that.) I'll take any opportunity available to mention Edward Duke and Clay Aiken in the same post, but let's start with the more recent past.

The Nutcracker ~ Joffrey Ballet, Kennedy Center, November 30, 2013 (evening performance)

Overproduced. Very pretty, with lovely dancing, but too busy. The Washington Post's review of the production mentioned the voluminous clouds of dry ice and the snowflake and flower-petal shaped confetti littering the stage, which caused at least two dancers to fall during the performance I saw.

There also were simply too many people on stage. Love to see jobs for dancers, but when your eye doesn't know where to go, you miss some major plot points. (Yes, Virginia, there are plot points in The Nutcracker.) I totally missed Clara chucking her slipper at the Mouse King, which drives the grateful folks in Candy Land to dance their thanks to her in Act II.

Christine Rocas and Rory Hohenstein in the Snow Pas de Deux, courtesy of The Joffrey Ballet via Facebook

Highlights for me were the Arabian lady (Coffee), danced by Christine Rocas, and the surprising balloon airlift out of fantasy land, a la Wizard of Oz. (Unfortunately, that ended the show before Clara/Dorothy could wake up and realize that her dream had been a gift.)

Finale, Joffrey's Nutcracker. Via Facebook

Speaking of gifts and gratitude, however, I am extremely thankful to my dear friend who gifted me this ticket, which not only gave us the God view of the stage, but it also gave me the opportunity to enjoy the experience with someone very knowledgeable about dance! Great fun.

Henry IV by Luigi Pirandello, translated by Tom Stoppard, Lansburgh Theatre, December 9, 2013

The second of this season's free ReDiscovery Series readings, produced by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, here starred the previously described "ferocious" actor Patrick Page as the aristocrat-gone-nuts in Pirandello's blackly comic psycho-social satire. In Stoppard's contemporary interpretation, there was more comedy than I remembered when I read the play at Grinnell (the version in the classic Naked Masks anthology), especially in the form of the four characters in search of a meaningful life as a madman's indulging servants.

But I could barely take my eyes off Page, who, in this stripped-down staged reading (no costumes, no sets, minimal but meaningful stage business), delivered a fully realized character. You want ferocity? Duck. You don't expect mayhem in a polite weeknight reading, but he did all the choking and stabbing required. Hot holy hoo-hah!

Patrick Page, via PatrickPageOnline.com

I skip momentarily over the next STC event to note:

The Lyons ~ Round House Theatre, December 19, 2013

(L-R) Naomi Jacobson, John Lescault, Marcus Kyd, Kimberly Gilbert - cast of The Lyons. Courtesy of Round House Theatre, via Facebook

Well alrighty. More dysfunctional family black comedy at RHT. Sigh. At least this one had more comedy going for it than the Beauty Queen, and I am genuinely beginning to admire the range in Kimberly Gilbert, who I've now seen in three productions this season.

Kimberly Gilbert, courtesy of Round House Theatre via Facebook

I could use a thematic break, though. A sister-audience-member I spoke with at Ford's Laramie Project mentioned that she was also considering dropping her RHT subscription if this is the artistic direction the theater is taking for its future.

That said, the Lyons matriarch "Rita" (Naomi Jacobson) did have me thinking about my own mother, who I don't think was nearly as disregarding of the feelings of others as Rita is in this play. And that said, when plot lines and characters come this close to home, I prefer to experience them from some safer distance. Give me Lady Macbeth or something.

Now let's skip back to my audience-hood experience:

Meet the Cast reception for The Importance of Being Earnest, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Sidney Harman Hall, December 12, 2013

Thanks to another dear friend, who is a supporter of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in a more tangible way (donor) than I am (slobbering fangirl) I got to sit in on the introductions of the cast for the forthcoming production of The Importance of Being Earnest.  

Director Keith Baxter introduces the cast of The Importance of Being Earnest. Uncredited photos courtesy of STC

This was a first for both of us, and we didn't realize that the main benefit of this event was the fantastic food and beverages served in the upstairs lobby after the presentations. We got the last few nibbles after the Shakespearean hordes had invaded (absolutely yumm-o), and then mingled with the cast.

The well-cast role of "Jack Worthing" went to one Gregory Wooddell, who was too handsome and charming for us to come within five donors of him at the reception.

Gregory Wooddell, cast reception. Courtesy of STC

We did, however, speak to a young "Ensemble" cast member, Logan DalBello, a local boy (Takoma Park) making his way on the theater scene. Very sweet kid.

Logan DalBello speaks with guests at meet-the-cast reception for The Importance of Being Earnest. (Hosaa's elbow seen at far right.) Courtesy of STC, via Facebook.

Logan told us humbly that he was absorbing the older, more experienced actors' wisdom "like a sponge." It reminded me of the advice that Edward Duke once told me he'd been given by Sir Ralph Richardson during the filming of Invitation to the Wedding: "It would be better," Sir Ralph told young Edward, pointing at some indistinct location behind him and well off-camera, "if you stood over there." Logan laughed, though I'm sure he had no idea what the hell I was talking about.

The other cast member we got to speak with was the lovely young thing set to play "Cecily." (It was dark in the theater during the introductions, so I didn't get a chance to write down any names; STC hasn't posted the cast list yet, and my memory fails me now.) In my clumsy attempt to be engaging and topical, I interrupted her while she was answering my question about how she prepares for a new role. ("Organically," she seemed to be saying.) My urgent comment was about there not being an iconic reference for "Cecily" like there was for, say, "Maria" in The Sound of Music, tripping up purists into any form of appreciation for the likes of Carrie Underwood.

Sorry I mentioned it. And very sorry I interrupted poor "Cecily."

So, back to my Edward Duke obsession. During his introductory remarks, director Keith Baxter mentioned that he'd been in the production of Private Lives with Joan Collins. My ears pricked up! OMG! He must have known my Edward!!

Baxter was not actually in the performances I saw at National Theater back in 1992 (we got Simon Jones in the role that Baxter played), but perhaps it was on Broadway or in London.

Anyway, I was very anxious to collar him at the reception and find out anything he could tell me about Edward. In the rush and crowd, I asked him about the "Joan Collins production of Private Lives," and Baxter seemed to think I wanted to talk about Joan Collins. So I blurted out as quickly as I could, "Were you in the show when Edward Duke was in it?"

He didn't seem to remember at first, but then he did say, "Oh, yes. Lovely man." He then went on to express an opinion about Miss Collins, which was irrelevant to me, but he seemed determined to provide some juiciness to our brief discussion. I was just in heaven dreaming about the "lovely man" that Edward Duke was, that he should be so remembered by a fellow actor some 20 years later.

Yes, I'm that fangirly. Still.

Which brings me back to the earlier event I have yet had a chance to recap, which isn't strictly speaking an entertainment.

Champions Gala, National Inclusion Project, October 12, 2013

This year marked the 10th anniversary of the organization co-founded by Clay Aiken, who, according to the Web site, remains Chairman of the Board. Galas are normally out of my price range, especially when it involves travel. I went to last year's because it was local, and even sprung for the VIP ticket for the meet-and-greet and group photo (and bad luck on that, hosaa was not seen in photo).

The event was held in Charlotte, so within driving distance for me. The cheap seats with a reduction in goodies got me in for $75. It was an inspiring evening, though unfortunately Clay didn't sing as much as we all wanted him to (he did sing quite a bit, apparently, at the VIP event the night before).

Clay Aiken sings "You Are the Song" to thank donors and volunteers on the occasion of the National Inclusion Project's 10th Anniversary. Photos courtesy of National Inclusion Project via Facebook

And even sadder for many attendees, the one song he did sing at the end of the evening seemed like a goodbye song. He'd also hinted about changes of life direction and won't we all still support the NIP if he's not around?

WTF? Is he leaving NIP? Is he leaving show biz? Is he - dying?

Well, some people were/are more upset/angry/scared about all that than I was/am. My Edward Duke obsession taught me patience. In the pre-Internet days, I could go years between news items about Edward. When he was cast in Sullivan and Gilbert, for instance, I heard about it from friends who saw him performing in Toronto and sent me a copy of the program.

It was a full two years from that afternoon that Edward let me hang out in his dressing room during Private Lives' Act II before I heard the next tidbit about him. A friend called me at work to report reading his obituary in The New York Times.

So you see, I've lived through the anxiety of silence, and I've lived through a worst-case scenario.

I don't know what to make of Clay Aiken's future just yet. All I know is that it's been fun and interesting to watch him build a future after that first Wild Card scenario 10 years ago. I'm just hanging onto my seat in the audience. That's one subscription I'm not letting lapse!

Love, hosaa
waiting