Three Men in a Book

... not to mention the boat, the dog, and an aggressively polite cat.

I fell a little behind in my recaps, what with work and life and all.

Step into the not-very-way-back machine to June 8: On the final day of the production, I got to see Synetic Theater's nifty little rendition of one of my favorite Wodehouse precursors, Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (subtitled To say nothing of the Dog!). As you can see from searching Amazon, there a few different editions of the 1889 classic; the one I have features a cover illustration by Alan Aldridge (who also seems to have designed the Hard Rock Cafe logo, among other achievements):

But I digress. Of course, the point of the story is digression. The narrator, "J," tells of the dire need he and his friends have to take a vacation from their hard working Victorian lives in the city. They take a boat trip on the Thames, a few days' adventure, the telling of which wouldn't normally last the 184 pages allowed in this Penguin edition with small type and narrow margins. So the narrator casts a line out and fishes in a number of tales from similar adventures in his and his friends' past experience.

It's a wonderful parlor story, told in a parlor; in the Synetic version (with a cast led by my favorite local farcemeister, Tom Story), the parlor furniture served amiably as boat and landscape, with a hint of the outdoors projected delicately onto a screen background. And when the story lay down for the night, the stage darkened under the glow of stars covering the entire audience.

My friend who is a Synetic subscriber and enthusiast was a little put off by all the dialogue of our three men and their dog. Synetic is known as the dance-and-movement company, and even Shakespeare's immortal text is lovingly elbowed aside for the alternative language of gesture. Why was Jerome's language so necessary when Shakespeare's could be abandoned?

It's probably because there wasn't much else to recommend the story itself. It's a series of amusing anecdotes without much in the way of higher passions and tragedies beyond the legends of the transporting of cheese, a prize fish caught by innumerable local fishermen, and of course the good dog Montmorency's encounter with a tom cat.

I was very happy that this latter anecdote was not excised from Synetic's production and that it was our Tom who enacted the part of the tom cat. Here is but a brief excerpt from the book:

I never saw a larger cat, nor a more disreputable-looking cat. It had lost half its tail, one of its ears, and a fairly appreciable proportion of its nose. It was a long, sinewy-looking animal. It had a calm, contended air about it.

Montmorency went for that poor cat at the rate of twenty miles an hour; but the cat did not hurry up--did not seem to have grasped the idea that its life was in danger. It trotted quietly on until its would-be assassin was within a yard of it, and then it turned round and sat down in the middle of the road, and looked at Montmorency with a gentle, inquiring expression that said:

"Yes! You want me?"

Montmorency does not lack pluck; but there was something about the look of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the boldest dog. He stopped abruptly, and looked back at Tom.

Neither spoke; but the conversation that one could imagine was clearly as follows:

The Cat: "Can I do anything for you?"

Montmorency: "No--no, thanks."

The Cat: "Don't you mind speaking, if you really want anything, you know."

Montmorency (backing down the High Street): "Oh, no--not at all--certainly--don't trouble. I--I am afraid I've made a mistake. I thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed you."

The Cat: "Not at all--quite a pleasure. Sure you don't want anything, now?"

Montmorency (still backing): "Not at all, thanks--not at all--very kind of you. Good morning."

The Cat: "Good morning."

Then the cat rose, and continued his trot; and Montmorency, fitting what he calls his tail carefully into its groove, came back to us, and took up an unimportant position in the rear.

To this day, if you say the word "Cats!" to Montmorency, he will visibly shrink and look up piteously at you, as if to say:

"Please, don't."

Tom Story as Jerome (and the Cat); Alex Mills as Montmorency. Photo by Koko Lanham, ShowBizRadio.com

Sweet gallery of photos from this production by Koko Lanham at ShowBizRadio.com.

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

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

Funny Forum

What better remedy for the dreary November in one's soul than a farcical trip to the Roman Forum?

Catching up now with my excursion to the invited dress for Shakespeare Theatre Company's new production of the classical classic A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In the Zero Mostel/Nathan Lane role of Pseudolus, we have Bruce Dow deftly maneuvering his girth and mirth with Jackie Gleasonesque ease.

Clearly Dow is the star to be promoted, but you know my eye is always going to seek out Tom Story in any production I attend locally (he'll be in a Round House production early next year). I should have paid more attention when the show was being put together and wormed my way into the meet-the-artists reception.

Tom Story with guest at Meet the Artists reception, Shakespeare Theatre Co. (via Facebook)

And of course Tom's performance as the high-strung ("I'm Calm") head-slave Hysterium (played by Jack Gilford in the Zero Mostel film) hit all the right points of giddy, goofy, poignant, overwrought wackiness. I just love him!

The revelation for me in this show was Lora Lee Gayer as the delightfully dim virgin Philia. She performed this role earlier this season at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, NY, alongside (coincidentally) Tom Deckman as Hysterium. (Playing my six degrees of Clay Aiken game: Tom Deckman played the Historian and Prince Herbert in Clay's Spamalot run, 2008-2009.)

Lora Lee Gayer as Philia, Bay Street Theatre (via LoraLeeGayer.com)

Lora Lee Gayer (via LoraLeeGayer.com)

Rehearsal at Shakespeare Theatre Company: Lora Lee Gayer (Philia), with Steve Vinovich (Senex). Via Facebook

I wish I had a picture showing Lora Lee's "I'm Lovely" pose--elbows out and the backs of her hands delicately cradling her cheek, with that perfectly deadpanned look of innocence. With a show that's otherwise overflowing with over-the-top performances, this oasis of utter simplicity (in every sense of the term) was probably the funniest part of the night. Stare and pose. I was roaring.

Lora Lee tweeted during the Sag Harbor run:

Lora Lee Gayer ‏@LLcoooolG
Nathan Lane came to see our production of "Funny Thing Happened.." It's like having Thomas Edison watch you screw in a light bulb.

I would guess Mr. Lane thought the performance well "screwed." *g*

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum

Shakespeare Theatre Company, Sidney Harman Hall, Washington, D.C.

Book: Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart

Music and lyrics: Stephen Sondheim

Director: Alan Paul

Cast:

Pseudolus, slave to Hero: Bruce Dow

Senex: Steve Vinovich

Domina, wife of Senex: Julie Johnson

Hysterium, slave to Senex and Domina: Tom Story

Hero, son of Senex, in love with Philia: Nick Verina

Philia, a virgin: Lora Lee Gayer

Marcus Lycus, buyer and seller of courtesans: Danny Tutigliano

Miles Gloriousus, a warrior: Edward Watts

Erronius, an old man in search of his kidnapped children: Harry Winter

Proteans: Matthew Bauman, Nick Flatto, Blakely Slaybaugh

Courtesans: Ashley Marinelli (Tintinabula), Chelsey Arce (Panacea), Ashley Blair Fitzgerald and Sarah Meahl (The Geminae), Lisa Karlin (Vibrata), Jennifer Frankel (Gymnasia)

Performed November 21, 2013 - January 5, 2014

eta 12-14-13: Thanks to STC's e-mail blast, we have a pic of Lora Lee as Philia, in her "I'm Lovely" pose:

hosaa starts practicing this in the mirror...

Discovering ReDiscovery Readings

Sadly, it looks like The Laramie Project at Ford's is not the next event on my calendar, after all. Bad government, bad! Hoping to reschedule. It would have been a bitch to get there on Sunday anyway, since Metro will be doing track work in the middle of my route.

While waiting for the government to shut down this past Monday night, I got to head down to the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh venue for a staged reading of a play called Rutherford and Son. No, I never heard of it either. I'll confess that the main reason I wanted to go to this reading was because it was directed by Tom Story, one of my favorite local actors. I might have mentioned him a time or twelve.

I met up with one of my Shakespeare Reader friends, and we huddled in the frosty theater, down close but not too close. Front row is great for a Clay Aiken concert, but nowhere else do we want to be looking up the performers' noses or getting rained on by saliva-soaked soliloquies. Anyway, we sat and waited for the reading.

And waited. And waited. Well, Tom did a great job introducing all the actors, but then he brought out a scholarly prologue, which whipped us into a torpor. The scholar was clearly thrilled to be on stage, but preceded her speech with speeches describing what would be in the speech. She needed an editor.

I will say something of the actor's behavior during this sequence, though I didn't witness it myself: one of the actors on stage, behind the scholar's back, apparently was doing a bit of eye-rolling and watch-checking. Another audience member mentioned it during the intermission, declaring that behavior a "hoot." I would have found it rude, had I seen it.

If you're on a lecture panel with someone else, who is giving the speech of a lifetime (or several), there has to be a polite way of encouraging them to wrap things up for the sake of those who've come for the main event on a weeknight.

So anyway, we had the historical and cultural analysis of the play but no plot summary unless you were able to squint through the four dense paragraphs in the four-page program. I did not. But I did read a Wikipedia version of the story, which called to mind the relationships of the Child Trumps to the Donald, as seen during Celebrity Apprentice. Those kids clearly know where their bread is buttered; while the Rutherford sons and daughters also were aware of the patriarchal power wielded by the elder Rutherford, most of them survived by fleeing.

I really enjoyed hearing the stripped-down version of the play. I was surprised by how much acting the actors actually did, given that they only had five hours to rehearse. My friend said that it was like a radio play. (I will confess here, also, that the preliminary academic torpor, combined with the soothing effects of a nice stuffed flounder and a bright sauvignon, made it impossible to fully enjoy the first half. After intermission, with a drink and a pee, we're on to Act Three.... Twooo and a Half, my attention had been revived.)

So, squinting at the back of the program, I see:

Works for the ReDiscovery Series are chosen by Artistic Director Michael Kahn and presented by members of the artistic staff. Guest artists join actors from the Shakespeare Theatre Comapny and the Washington theatrical community to investigate these great but lesser-known plays of world literature.

The actors participating were:
Robert Hogan (Rutherford)
Fred Arsenault (John)
Gretchen Hall (Mary)
Eric Martin Brown (Richard)
Colleen Delany (Janet)
Catherine Flye (Aunt Anne)
Chris Genebach (Martin)
Jennifer Mendenhall (Mrs. Henderson, a fleeting but powerful presence)

There are three more TBD readings scheduled this season, so I hope to see them, too.

Love, hosaa
watching art get made

The Darks and Lights of Winter

The Winter's Tale at Shakespeare Theatre Company is a rocky rollercoaster ride of emotions, beginning with the king's irrational jealousy.

In my opinion, the production relied a little too heavily on the lighting to show Leontes's (Mark Harelik) inner turmoil--the actor could convey it just fine. But unlike Othello, Leontes has no one feeding him bad information about his divinely warm (and very pregnant) wife, Hermione (Hannah Yelland). So Harelik's fiercely uncompromising passion in throwing away this wife (along with her son and the daughter to come) made the character almost wholly unlikable.

Hannah Yelland as Hermione, Mark Harelik as Leontes and Sean Arbuckle as Polixenes in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of 'The Winter’s Tale', directed by Rebecca Taichman. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

The darkness of Act I is a stark contrast to the lightness of pastoral Act II--and in this production, the transition between those contrasts is eased at the end of the first act with the abrupt and very funny image of the gloriously goofy Clown (Tom Story) crossing upstage, running and screaming like a frightened child.

If you've been here before, you already know about my obsession fascination with Tom Story. 

Tom Story via About the Artists

I realize I haven't seen all he's done, but I love his ability to mold that serene moon face into a range of expressions. From the first act seriousness of a palace aid (Cleomenes) without much to do except look serious, he transmogrified into the happily clueless son-of-a-shepherd, oblivious to the pickpocketing rogue Autolycus (the other half of Harelik dual-role assignment).

Actually, a very funny bit between them ensued during the IDR (invited dress rehearsal) when the zipper on Tom's turned-around fanny-pack wouldn't close after Autolycus stole the money in it. As Autolycus pulled and pulled on the stubborn zipper, the young shepherd's obliviousness grew increasingly implausible, and the smile just kept blossoming on his giddy face. At last, Tom moved the plot along with a sweet "You must abandon it, sir." Snort! I hate to say it was my favorite part of the play, but the moment called to mind the best crackups with Harvey Korman and Tim Conway from the Carol Burnett Show. (And it happened again when Tom as clown was imitating the rogue's wildly ridiculous lisp.)

This levity, this lightness, was all in keeping with the pastoral Act II. Sets, costumes, lighting all conveyed such contrasting warmth against Act I's frosty shadowy harshness. But the seamlessness of the transitions were as magical as the Queen's rebirth at the end, from discarded wife to treasured love.

Overall the production is as good as it gets at Shakespeare Theatre Company, which is pretty damn good. It did run long, but I imagine an earlier start time than the IDR had will keep people from dropping dead at 11. (Us old people, that is.) 

I thought it was interesting that the staging of this production, with actors not in the scene simply sitting to the side but not going off stage, was so similar to the Wandering Souls' engaging (and economical) 2009 production of The Winter's Tale. The Wanderers' 90-minute production remains one of my favorite Shakespearean experiences ever.

The only thing I would have liked would have been a longer why-I'm-forgiving-you speech from the queen Hermione, but Shakespeare apparently didn't provide one. 

Heather Wood as Perdita, Mark Harelik as Leontes, Hannah Yelland as Hermione and Todd Bartels as Florizel (background) in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of 'The Winter’s Tale', directed by Rebecca Taichman. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.

Just another one of those irrational emotions the Bard gives his characters and expects the audience to accept. But as I said, Harelik's Leontes was so thoroughly irrationally enraged with jealousy that I personally couldn't have loved him after such abuse. Just me?

The Winter's Tale, Lansburgh Theatre, opens May 14, 2013

Director: Rebecca Taichman

Set Designer: Christine Jones

Costume Designer: David Zinn

Lighting Designer: Christopher Akerlind

Cast:

Mark Harelik (Leontes, King of Sicilia; Autolycus, a rogue)

Hannah Yelland (Hermione, Queen of Sicilia)

Sean Arbuckle (Polixenes, King of Bohemia)

Heather Wood (Mamillius, Prince of Sicilia; Perdita, Princess of Sicilia)

Brent Carver (Camillo)

Ted van Griethuysen (Antigonus; old shepherd)

Nancy Robinette (Paulina; drunken shepherdess)

Tom Story (Cleomenes; young shepherd, a clown)

Todd Bartels (Dion; Florizel, Prince of Bohemia)