Leepin' Lizzards! It's Annie.

(above) Cheryl Hoffmann and J. Michael Zygo. Photo: Phil Martin

The so called “Great Depression” visits San Diego in an all singing and dancing production of “Annie” in Broadway San Diego’s ongoing season presentation of musicals at the Civic Theater.

If you haven’t seen “Annie” and get a kick out wonderfully hokey choreography in the old hoofer tradition, Peter Gennero’s work is forever danceable.

With musical numbers restaged by his daughter, Liza Gennaro, the show is a colorful story and full of tunes you will hum on your way out. If for only the virtue of song and dance, this show is worth an evening with ever, some might say overly, optimistic little orphan Annie, borne out of Harold Gray’s news paper comic strip.

Billed as the “30th Anniversary Tour,” the show’s lyricist and original director, Martin Charnin, returns to stage the show anew (Mike Nichols was brought in to “doctor” the original Broadway production) with music by Charles Strouse and a libretto by Thomas Meehan.

Mr. Meehan’s librettos for the stage include “The Producers,” “Hairspray,” “Young Frankenstein,” among others, and has been a collaborator with Mel Brooks on several of his screen plays. Meehan is a contributing writer to the New Yorker magazine.

The orphan girls sing “It's the Hand-Knock Life” in the show’s first production number as they scrub the floor of their orphanage run by the abusive alcoholic Miss Hannigan, always a wildly hilarious turn for a skilled comic actress and one of the most sure-fire comic characters in modern musical theatre. A pre-New Deal Hooverville also scores a scene and musical number, too.

In case the kids in the show or the audience need a reference for the kind of desperation people were in during the Depression all they need do is look Third Avenue and “C” Street as the exit the Civic Theater. There they will see rows of the sleepless homeless on the concrete sidewalks. Art imitates life so easily these days. It is a hard knock life for them.

Sushi: Still fresh after 28 years

Sushi
Still fresh after 28 years

Sitting at the bottom ledge of the Icon building at Island and 11th Ave. in downtown San Diego, Sushi reopened November 8th with its own "home" space in the prophetic remains of the rein-Carnation Building. For the uninformed, the old Carnation bottling plant, long abandoned, became a beehive for artists' spaces in the 1990s and the better part of the building then claimed by downtown real estate developers for condos.

For over two decades, those "in the know" not to attend Sushi's work was intellectual and cultural decomposition.

Lynn Schuette, Sushi's founder, returned to serve at San Diego's premiere performance art organization as Executive Director to bring the institution from its amorphous semi-dormant state into its concrete setting and return to an eclectic season of programming.

Upon entering Sushi's performance space cement dust greets my nostrils and the sight of poured and cement brick room surrounded by lighting trusses ensconce the square dance floor as does chairs upon which a headset awaited each of us. A loft for the technical center and office quarters unobtrusively overlooks the 50' by 51' performance space that gives lighting designers approximately 14' height throw distance.

Jordan Fuch's "Thicket" consecrated our city's only center devoted to urban arts.

A modern dance composition, lights reveal "Thicket's" dancers in various poses of repose in autumnal colored costumes with a contemporary casual pant and t-shirt design detailed with semi-forms of flora. Nature has come to our urban setting. The figure's pelvic gestures gently reckon their awakening.

The headsets supply "Thicket's" soundscore. We also hear sound of the dancer's real-time movement on the floor and their accelerating breath. Nature's murmurs in various rhythms as growing sonic of white noise reaches crescendo mixed with real-time breathing continues. The white noise resembles the sound of the "universal static electrical storm" or jet engines our ears are accustomed to hearing and contrast the natural acoustics of the outdoors: apocalyptic notions intrude the room.

I find myself free to let my hard to focus concentration flutter about the performance space from dancer to dancer that move in asymmetrical and random patterns. Synchronous elements are not features in the work and this proves a relief to me. Fuch's dance movements facilitate a body's mechanics. The theme continues in the dancer's lifts with no attempt to appear effortless, rather, they work functionally with each other.

Not inclined to observe nature below my shin, I am not predisposed to the dance’s content. Nor am I overly familiar with the vocabulary of contemporary dance.

I will walk away from the work with my own subtle personal impressions without obligation to delineate all that I take-in; rather, report what I can herein, which is meager. Coming up with tidy answers is not necessarily the artist’s mandate nor an observer has well met expectation. The personal and private experience is always stimulated in Sushi’s programming: that I can rely upon.

My mind is more concerned with the space’s architecture, scent, the feel of sitting in an open cool concrete space in which sweating supple bodies move in abstract patterns with sensual embraces and confrontations. The pressure of ‘the literal’ is not hovering over my head in this performance experience.

The space has theatrical potential for epic staging. It is ideal for staging Brecht’s works; moreover, Sushi’s new cavern is suited to present the works of companies like Antenna Theater. Antenna erected and staged an interactive performance installation “Etiquette of the Undercaste” that led “visitors through a maze of thirteen rooms where they experience poverty and powerlessness first hand. Upon entering the installation, the visitor ‘dies’ and is ‘reborn’ into a life characterized from birth by a succession of ever-worsening circumstances, ultimately leading to homelessness.”

Sledgehammer Theatre would be a likely rental for the space had it still a robust attack on its work. Maybe we’ll see them conquering this space in the season’s to come.

No matter who or what groups of artists inhabit Sushi, it will take superior efforts and a large production budget to optimize the space’s potential.

Reprieve is my keyword for the evening's work.

# # #

In attendance was Mr. Larry Oviatt, a 28 year supporter of Sushi, who worked on The Campaign for Sushi Committee dedicated to the institution's reinstallation. Now on the Art Department faculty at Cal-State Northridge, Mr. Oviatt no longer lives in San Diego. Also on the inaugural Board of Directors for Diversionary Theatre, I have never seen an individual consistently dedicated to alternative arts organization prosperity, certainly not in San Diego.

# # #

"Thicket," closed.
Dancers: Toby Billowitz, Jordan Fuchs, Carolyn Hall, Storme Sundberg; Choreography, Jordan Fuchs with dancers; Music and Sound Design, Andy Russ; Costumes Design, Joy Havens; Lighting Design, uncredited.

sushiart.org

Sushi Performance and Visual Art
PO BOX 152761
San Diego, California 92115
619. 235. 8466
619. 235. 8552 fax
info@sushiart.org

Compass Theatre’s Directions to San Diego's Gay Love Canal

"Backwater Blues"
Compass Theatre’s directions to San Diego's Gay Love Canal

To theatre critic friend as the house lights came up for intermission, "I want to leave. Do you want to leave?"

"No. I can't do that," she whispers.

Five people line up Compass Theatre’s one bathroom. I jog across 6th Ave to the yogurt store and ask permission to use their rest room: given. The exercise felt great and prepared me for more punishment. The actors perpetrate Act Two of "Backwater Blues." The show cease and desists an hour plus later. I sit in the theatre dumbfounded attempting to find words to describe what I just witnessed.

The parking lot:
I exhale, "I was going to leave at intermission."
"So was I," husband of critic says with eyebrows up.
Encouraged, I continue, "We could have left together."
"That would have been creepy. The writer was standing right there." critic wife advised.
I affirm, "My time is valuable. It's an honest thing to do.” To husband, "At least I would have spent an hour getting to know you better rather than allowing myself held hostage by a bad show."

Other parking lot discussion: critics humorously deciding if "Backwater Blues" was the worst musical they had seen or their new worst musical of record. I join them.

Who can blame them?

# # #

Derivative situations with one dimensional characters; carbon copied musical compositions that spring on us in matter of seconds with a new story topic and consistent off-pitch singing fill the two hours plus of amateurish play making and humiliation for the six unwitting (or unconscious) actors. When emotion finally instigated itself in performance, the actors were held back by canned music.

"Backwater Blues" is the premiere musical in Compass Theatre's QPlays series that opened October 29th. By the way, "Q" is not for quality, rather for Queer and in the case of "Backwater Blues," the term queer must be applied in the 19th Century use. The series of QPlays offerings of "Hairdresser on Fire" and "Backwater Blues" does nothing to edify the Queer experience of this century. These works and the Compass Theatre’s production values only mock and degrade gay-themed works it feebly attempts to illuminate.

Mr. Tower, career corporate worker now retired, is an industrious writer and devoted community theatre worker with numerous community theatre awards to his credit. He has a lot of material in the "pipeline.” Considering he and Compass Theatre producer Dale Morris are old friends, we're bound to be subjected to more pabulum

Brian Redfern’s unskillfully painted set design set the tone for the evening. Opening with a long corny recorded pre-curtain speech, "Backwater" only runs downhill from there.

A quartet of touring Broadway musical actors' bus has broken down in Toad Lake, located somewhere between Mayberry, USA and the Republic of Hee-Haw in Tower's reworked musical previously presented by Bob Korbett. Our evening's hosts are a company of somewhat Rubenseque (save blithesome Shaun Tuazon) gay men of stock characters: Stalwart Leader, Queeny Lead Singer, Nasty Fag and "Straight" But Leaning New Guy.

Here are some examples of "Backwater's" stage events: The "Nasty Fag" character, Rock, is reported stealing in Toad Lake and the Lesbian (I hope) sheriff comes to the gay men's rented apartment to investigate. Grace Delaney as the sheriff had trouble pronouncing the name of the town she represents several times in the opening scene. She broadly scratched her head when asking investigative questions. Numerous times. If we doubted whom the character was she sported a toy aluminum star pinned on to her jean shirt she wore with only one shirt-tail tucked into her trousers. Ms. Delaney did not sing on pitch, but we learn that in Act Two during her solo number.


(L to R) Trevor Bowles, Anthony Simone and Shaun Tauzin appear in “Backwater Blues” Photo: Compass Theatre


Another example: We see the suspect actor, Rock (Anthony Simone), stealing the company's electric piano straight out of the apartment door. Please note there is no motivation provided for neither this behavior, nor any of the other thefts this character perpetrates that grows in value to the tens of thousands of dollars. In the next scene the Queeny Solo Singer enters the empty stage alone, pauses, has a brief thought and looks about the room (Is he looking for the missing piano?). He doesn't notice anything unusual, gives his shoulders a Betty Davis shrug and continues.

In Act Two after a charge of Grand Theft Auto from a fellow company member, Rock is finally confronted about his bizarre series of thefts. After a dramatic pause, Rock utters, "I only wanted to get a start." This answer is sentimentally accepted without question by the other characters. I noted Mr. Anthony Simone did not sing on pitch in his solo number. Also, Rock is the only bad guy in the show and the only African American actor in the company.

Where is the reality? Plausibility? How about the common sense Dyonysius gave a freshman creative writing student. Someone please tell me. I stayed for Act Two to my regret out of politeness. I should have quietly left for my integrity and more valuable us of time.

Keeping their nostril above Toad Lake’s toxic waters was Andy Collin’s with a trained vocal quality and choreographer Alisa Williams. Ms Williams’ story telling within the musical numbers made sense of things and gave the show a palatable corny reference. Afloat was Shaun Tuazon. He sang on-pitch and naturally fulfilled his character as a male version of the classic stereotype of the Ruby Keeler kid from Hicksville bursting with energy and talent to break into show business. His presence occasionally surfaces as the only non-toxic radiant matter of sincerity and honesty in “Backwater Blues.”

# # #

Regarding the frequent off-pitch singing in this production: why did not the company seek to remedy this? Why cast a deficient sing in the first place? If a company casts a singer with a pitch problem, a musical director’s skills and vocal coaching can support the actor and work to remedy the defect. The quality of the product is at stake. Obviously, Compass did not care about quality in producing “Backwater Blues.”

Were "Backwater's" creators' rendering a work modeled after favorite musical memories or a pastiche or applying faulty perceived musical formulas from past successful musicals or a serious attempt to write a book musical? My guess is Tower and Newcomer gave it all four shots. What they ended up for a book was stapling cardboard copies of today's assimilated gay male features onto 1940s stock movie characters and the old “let’s put on a show” plot. I’ll leave musical considerations alone.

The challenge is, I believe, for artists is to stand fearless before the blank page (or canvass) with pen (or brush) in hand and bravely inspired with one's cumulative conscious and unconscious attack a target with guidance of crystalline aesthetic intent. Intent can change during the process. The fury and indifference of process frustrate especially when recalcitrant. One can even realize the purpose for attacking was veiled for another design: but the process and results must hold aesthetic value. In either event, originality, at least in form, is what our stages demand not sloppy and lazy repackaging of narrow minded perceptions of yesterday's Western commercial excrement. One must also have organic talent.

Co-writer David M. Newcomer's program bio reads: "One of the things the David has hoped to accomplish with "Backwater Blues" is to get away from gay stereotypes, and portray gay men as real people with real lives and loves." We should note Mr. Newcomer studied music and drama at the Royal Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Lake Wales, Florida. Compass Theatre website also lists the same credit for Mr. Newcomer at this writing. Irresistibly curious about a Royal Conservatory of Performing Arts in Lake Wales, Florida, I "Googled" the institution without success. That’s another story.

Another small venue in town growing in popularity is the Swedenborgian Church Hall that now has a playwright in residence, Mr. Kevin Six. Mr. Tower is Compass Theatre's Playwright in Residence as appointed by producer Dale Morris.

These gentlemen are serious.

What is the standard for such an appointment? For example, in context for playwrights grant applications the term holds great esteem and deemed a sign of outstanding artistic and commercial accomplishments in professional theatres.

When an audience of lemmings pays money and fall into their seats for two hours of a fiasco like "Backwater Blues,” it is actors who suffer knowingly or not. Driven by the desire to tend ego, build a resume or get away from the boyfriend, what-ever, the actors bear the brunt of this “car wreck.” Witnessing actors working for chicken feed or nothing, using their clothes for costumes, their talents and goodwill, grossly misdirected to fill the Compass stage with this musical tripe is not a polite pleasure. The actors pay the theatre bills and it’s Producer.

# # #

But wait: there is hope for 2009. Mr. Ruff Yeager, a former Chicagoan like Mamet, is directing Mamet's "American Buffalo" next year at Compass. He's cast Walter Murray and Matt Scott in this three-character Boléro set in a Chicago junk shop. Ruff’s work has a history commitment to quality not only with existing plays but also with original work.

Backwater Blues
Through November 26
Cast: Trevor Bowles, Andy Collins, Grace Delaney, Tom Doyle, Anthony Simone, Shaun Tauzin Book and Lyrics, Michael Thomas Tower and David M. Newcomer; Music, Michael Thomas Tower; Director, Lindsey Duoos Gearheart; Choreographer, Alisa Williams; Musical Director, Rick Shaffer; Set Design, Brian Redfern; Costume and Prop Design, Deborah Duoos; Stage Manager, Marissa Vaughn; Wardrobe and Prop Supervision, Anna Mc Millan.

compasstheatre.com

Everything Will Be Different

“Everything Will be Different” by Mark Schultz is a psychological study of a teenage girl and the events that precede her suicide. We know this from the evening’s onset. The victim of covert incest by her recently widowed father, Charlotte struggles to find her sanity in a world he is savagely distorts. She seeks to order her world in attempts at sexually pleasing men (failed) in order to gain physical beauty, attention, acceptance and, hopefully, love or at least a bit of comfort. Fantasy is her most effective narcotic.

Lynx founder Al Germani directed the show with taut signature ensemble. Mr. Germani, a professionally trained dancer and actor who then also pursued a career in psychotherapy is in league with Mr. Schultz’s artistic sensibilities.

Singling out a particular performance might be unfair to his dutiful ensemble company, a cast ranging in ages from the teens into their 50s. However, in the central character of Charlotte, Michelle Procopio’s portrait of her endures and manifests a hundred shades of emotion to reveal the child-woman valiantly fighting for her identify to the psychological battering by her alcoholic father and her own, now distorted, psyche.

Walter Ritter as Charlotte’s guidance counselor provides a voice of reason in the story and does so without didacticism nor condescension. Even when the actor threatened with Charlotte’s fantasized pornographic “documentation” of his “seduction” of her manages the character’s career-tumbling and jail-threatening prospect without stridency nor bombast. He, at wit’s end, negotiates a logical surrender of the items from the psychotic Charlotte. Easily a role for over kill, his Gary Smith becomes a four dimensional, well-intentioned and wise counselor pushed to the edge of life and livelihood suicide if he doesn’t stop the volatile Charlotte.

Franklin is Charlotte’s cohort and a genuinely well adjusted kid in an ever changing environment of social pressures. Kevin Koppman-Gue’s fresh-faced moment-to-moment undemanding friendship with Charlotte lays victim to her gossip of him as a supposed gay. He is not. Her gossip leads to his face battering by their group’s “alpha male,” Freddie (a likely toxic narcissist careless dropped from his mother’s womb). Joshua Manley’s bellicose presence as Freddie has a disturbing teen authenticity; you might still hear the echo of his skate board in the parking lot after he enters the scene if listening careful enough.

In semi-comatose alcoholic stupor, Harry waits for daughter Charlotte’s return under Bill Kehayias’ dutifully understated performance. Occasionally lifting himself out his armchair to accost Charlotte, Kehayias plays him so damaged and stymied with fear of his daughter’s abandonment there is no flicker of hope in his heart of darkness the light of which is woefully insufficient for himself let alone his self-mutilated daughter.

Psychological conflicts are elegantly rendered to create audience response. One can see the dynamics of Charlotte’s entangled mind. You feel helpless as she uses her only weapon, the violence of gossip, to get what she thinks will satisfy her: the opportunity to perform a sex act on a male adolescent friend. There is no predication for shock value in this play.

The design style for “Everything Will be Different” is minimal and aptly provides focus on the human figure. Germani, also the show’s designer and videographer, employs oversized video projection of characters above the performance space, which dominate Charlotte’s endeavors.

A colleague tells me Mr. Germani is a taxing director with which to work. The same is said about Des McAnuff. In San Diego, evoking potent work from actors with day jobs is daunting proposition. To cast, secure and sustain a working relationship with actors in this economic situation requires unique skills. It appears to me actors who successfully work with Mr. Germani have done so with a residue of substantial respect for him and became more seasoned artists for the wear.

High standards demand high risk when creating psycho-social contemporary drama especially in order to affect today’s nescient commercial image-drubbed audience member.

Likewise, if such audience members exit Lynx angry at the work they are pointing their finger in the wrong direction. Rather, they have the opportunity to discuss why they are upset. Therein are more substance of the theatre-going experience and the lasting pay-off of the evening’s investment.

One local female theatre critic became enraged at the piece. Great! Personally, I guess some transference was at work and unresolved issues of rejection were hit for that observer: I know some of mine were irritated.

“Everything Will be Different” encourages me in believing small San Diego theatre companies are capable of producing works of integrity. I hope the folks at ION Theatre catch this work. They may become inspired to carry over the quality and values in consummate ensemble acting to their company.

“Everything Will be Different”

Through November 23^rd , 2008

Cast: Michelle Procopio, Bill Kehayias, Walter Ritter, Kevin Koppman-Gue, Joshua Manlely; (on video) Ailicia Randolph and Joan Westmoreland; Playwright: Mark Schultz; Director: Al Germani with set, light and media design by Mr. Germani.

Phone: (619) 889-3190

Tuesday at 9pm, tix $10; Friday, Saturday, Sunday at 8 pm, tix $20 - $15

Note: no performances on Halloween (10/31) and Election Night (11/4)

Lynx Performance
Theatre Space
2653 Ariane Drive
San Diego, CA 92117-3422

lynxperformance.com

Match Flame of the Vanities

The original "The Elephant Man" proved to be a hit in every sense of the theatrical term including advertising, staging and casting. The show stacked up seven Tony(tm) nominations, including the title role for Philip Anglim. The Tony(tm) winners for "The Elephant Man" include Carole Shelly (Best Actress), Jack Hofsiss (Director) and Best Play (Bernard Pomerance and producers). Word on the street at that time was Philip Anglim's the show was a vanity.
New York theatre "buzz" in the 70s was rabid with schadenfreude. A sign of the times? "Avenue Q's" 2004 Tony Award(tm) winning score sports a song titled "schadenfreude," so take it as you will.

Seema Sueko as Anna in Mo'olelo Performing Arts' "Night Sky."


It's tough to see those couched around you lauded for a show you carried on stage and off. Whether a blow or a balm, Mr. Anglim chose a terrific play, a role fit to his talent and skills and the right director with the right take on the show that capitalized on his abilities. The actor purchased the North American rights to the show. In the end, he limped all the way to the bank.
Today we have Seema Sueko's Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company's production of "Night Sky" by Susan Yankowitz. The show inaugurated the La Jolla Playhouse's Resident Theatre Company Program with parsimonious amounts of ingenuity and recessionary size vacancies of risk. For Ms. Sueko, who plays the lead, it is not a well-chosen vehicle.


Considering the significance of the opportunity and commitment in context of the La Jolla Playhouse's ongoing contribution in the American Theatre dynamic and Mo'olelo's aspiration to produce "edgy" work one would think Artistic Director Seema Sueko would hit the ground with an audacious choice and start running. The Playhouse program rewards the most vibrant of "homeless" theatre companies in San Diego. What went wrong? Is it Mo'elelo or is it San Diego?

Artistic Director Seema Sueko chose the play and cast herself in the lead role of Anna, instructor of astronomy. Ms Sueko's performance as a Type A Prof proved pat with a narrow emotional spectrum and lacked spontaneity. Her performance appeared choreographed. With a character obsessed with control, it would have been savory to see Anna's vulnerability in earnest and elevated into the spiritual especially given this play’s "movie-of-the-week" tone.

Support
I left Mo'olelo with a sense the Ms Sueko led her company through a project with the deliberateness of someone who kept her pants up with a belt and suspenders. Not that one should drop their pants. For example, Siobhan Sullivan's direction lacked imagination taking a conventional mid-west regional theatre approach to interpreting the work. Ms Sullivan's passion for the material was not evident.

"Night Sky”’s supporting cast turned in dutiful performances, but there is no telling what the actors were truly capable of in their role in this loosely explored production. The play is hardly an enthralling study of the aphasic experience. The show demanded fully realized performances with touch-and-go ensemble work to carry the evening.

The show's set design held more promise. David F. Weiner's architectural rendering of brain forms used a series of successive horizontal lines and levels, not unlike the "slices" of an MRI. But Mr. Weiner's choice of black for the unit set repeats design's age-old practice of using the color black to allow a unit set's flexibility with multiple scene locations. C'mon folks, let’s get a little bit wild or at least show a little moxie. Why not flip the color pallet and play with a clinical white? Throw the old forms behind.

Jeannie Galiotos' costume designs were serviceable. The show's light designer (Jason Bieger) gives away his potentially most stunning design element of the evening, a starlight curtain, as soon as the audience enters the room. (Today starlight curtains appear to be standard lighting fixtures in theatres the way strobe lights are found in discos.) The lighting design is another element of leaden obviousness eagerly served up in Ms. Sueko's show.

Who's producing whom?
The company lists among its Creative Team biography's Thomas Baker, PhD. Is he responsible for the project's tepid results? His biography identified him as the Executive Director of the San Diego Brain Injury Foundation, a Mo'olelo board member and as having produced an instructional video. What qualifies him as a theatrical producer? (If Dr. Baker is an "Executive Producer" in the sense one's name is listed in monetary contribution categories why pass him off as creative staff?)

###

It should be noted that the company emphasizes its Green approach as evidenced by two pages of "puff piece" program notes written by its intern and a recent award for their efforts. Mo'elelo produces exemplary artwork; email blasts, newsletter updates and weekly updates of exactly how many seats are available for a particular performance. Ms Sueko personally answers new requests for inclusion to their email list.

The audience needs Mo'olelo's emphasis on the work. "Night Sky" is disappointing for the rich potential the company possesses. The program bio's list enough fodder for a "blow the roof off" experience. The company has the potential to reach out and change hearts and minds of paying audiences, new and typical alike. I believe this is Mo'olelo's desire.

In my theatre circles, if we refer at all, we refer to a failed show as a "flop" or a "dog," and add one or two supporting words to justify our opinion and leave it at that.
Nevertheless, questions of how and why a project doesn't work provide interesting discussion and reinvigorate one's artistic values even if the discussion occurs in a closet.
I know from experience that actors are not driven by charity to establish a theatre company. An actor must produce work of merit (or married to the owner of Seagram's). It takes more than performance skill to create the critical mass of workers and volunteers required and Ms Sueko proves this point to be true: Seema is a terrific producer.

At least a sliver of monomania ignites a theatre company's creation as Charles Ludlam informed us in his play "Stage Blood." If any actor-manager from the past fifty years could demonstrate, sovereignty can produce inspired work it was Mr. Ludlam (he, too, wore a dress) and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company. Congratulations, Charles, for sublime work on the page, stage and revealing this plot point.

“Night Sky.” Closed.
Cast: Seema Sueko, Tom Andrew, Bibi Valderrama, Justin Snavely, Nicole Gabriella Scipione, Brian Mackey. Director: Siobhan Sullivan, Stage Manager: Tareena Devona Wimbish, Scenic Design: David F. Weiner, Lighting Design: Jason Bieber, Sound Design: Paul Peterson, Costume Design: Jeannie Marie Galioto.


“Dying is Easy”

The most effervescent intermission chats I’ve had so far this year was in the company of actors Walter Murray and Gail West. Gail reminded us of Charles Ludlam’s platitude about playing comedy: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.” (Spoken with the substance of overwhelming defiance and indignation with surgical steel-like articulators and rich textured tone. Try it sometime: it’s refreshing.)

Ms. Gail West

Ludlam and company guided their work by such platitudes with Obie Award winning results. Thanks for the reminder Gail. Gail and I played opposite each other as husband and wife actors, Mr. and Mrs. Carlton Stone, Sr., in Ludlam’s “Stage Blood” when Diversionary Theatre performed in the now named Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre.

The show was an artistic hit. The San Diego Reader (Jonathan Saville) called it the best show in town. I was expecting a flop.

As the Artistic Producing Director of a fledgling gay theatre company in 1988 San Diego it took fighting City Hall to rent the space. Once there, we had to fight Marie Hitchcock’s attempt to get us thrown out of the space based on her moral standards. (I even threw a puppet in the show to appease her! Not really.) More details on this show down another time.

Walter and Gail recently appeared in "Caliban’s Island" at Talent to aMuse Theatre Company.

October 2004’s most unconvincing performance award goes to…

OJ Simpson upon hearing guilty verdicts for 12 counts of armed robbery read aloud in a Las Vegas courtroom. OJ wasn’t up for a Vegas caliber performance that day. I witnessed a weary older man feigning empty responses of incredulity. When a celebrity drops from star treatment of a “Dream Team” in LA to playing a virtual solo in a room off the “strip” it’s gotta be a tough act to pull-off.

Punch me, please!

If you threw a great punch and could fly across a room when it was returned and you hung with a bunch of buddies who got into the same, what might you do?

Some chicks found a remedy and could have taugh the Blues Brothers a few things. Babes With Blades in Chicago is a company of stunt actresses have been performing together for over nine years. Check out their most recent offerings.

Sorry -- I didn't mean to call you women chicks.

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/theater/64291/land-of-the-free
More at http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/theater/15106/an-affair-of-honor


Young enough to play “But soft…”

And naive enough to do it anyway. I guess I wanted to give the Romeo speech a go as I knew I’d never play him. Now at age 52, I was right right on that call.

Estelle Parsons was playing “Miss Margarita’s Way” on tour at the Boston University Theater and while there held a master acting class in one of the empty dressing rooms.

“Who wants to do a monologue?” she rasped.

Immune to silence, I usually went first when this question was asked and so I gave it a go. It was a shy Romeo, amazed that he was amazed at the beauty he was experiencing and the overwhelming rush of getting turned-on by it. Looking back, I identified with his fascination and awe at the beauty of another young creature in the night. I was doing poppers as a kid and maybe that was my unwitting sense memory reference. In those training days we “used anything” that “got us there.”

I didn’t know what I was doing with the character except giving myself over to the language with full facility and honesty.

“Terrific!” was the word that Ms. Parsons uttered and then explained what I was doing to my realization.

Ms. Parsons is 80 and knocking out eight performances a week as the leonine mom, Violet Weston, in “August: Osage County” and enjoying rave reviews.

Get more insight on one of our country’s great actresses in Smith Galtney’s Broadway.com interview.

http://www.broadway.com/buzz/buzz_listing_w_photo.aspx?type_id=18









Preening is not the beginning nor end unto itself. You gotta check-out this guy’s stuff.
http://www.avltheatre.com/forte/2008/06/theatretube_taylor_mac.html


Okay, let’s lose Tiny Tim!
What list would omit Dickens' “A Christmas Carol?” Consider the list your “middle of the road” meat and potatoes for regional theatre fare.

http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/ATtopten.cfm

Shakes, Mold and Off-Stage Wars: “Troilus and Cressida”

Danny DiVito, actor turned director, performed as a company member in a NYC basement theatre that ran its electricity off of a hot subway rail (every time a subway went by the lights flashed and the theatre rumbled). I refrain from commenting on San Diego’s Starlight Bowl similarities. Suffice it to say that during DiVito’s performances did not stop for the subway.

Though it is not subterranean, Compass Theatre reminds me of the basement theatres in which I performed in NYC during the early 1970s.

Occasionally the project of a company’s faithful, this type of house’s lobby is coffin-sized and transformed into an abstract of theatre splendor with the de rigueur 8 by 10s of the actors. Sometimes holiday lights are used to frame pictures, or aluminum foil is a design motif.

Upon entering the playing space the scent of mold greets the nostrils. The stage’s ceiling is home to a variety of pipes and is high enough for an actor to wave his arms dramatically without hitting a light instrument. We get to choose where we’ll sit for the evening from 49 beat-up seats loosely screwed to uneven wooden platforms.

Paradoxically, Compass Theatre – formerly 6th @ Penn - and its brethren are essential to the Theatre’s growth.

Such is the home of Shakes’ “Troilus and Cressida,” Thurs through Fri till Oct 5th. Director Welton Jones, for Union-Tribune Theatre Critic, directed the show for steady pace. He and fine Theatre Generalist George Weinberg-Harter collaborated as dramaturges to cut “Troilus” for clarity in plot and to our 2008 attention abilities. The result is a two-hour evening.

PLOT
The setting for the story is the long running Trojan War. Troilus, a brother of Paris, falls in love with Cressida. She loves him, too, but plays hard to get. The plot covers the heroes from Greek mythology including Ulysses, Achilles and Ajax and their plans to try to end the war. The themes cover betrayal and jealousy. In theory, rape, pillage, sodomy, maiming, beheading and looting is the war life of the populace. San Diegans rest assured the obscenities transpire off-stage.

EXECUTION
Mr. Jones keeps the action moving, rather description and discussion of the off stage events and war strategies at a more than steady. The speaking and playing of the text comes up short even with the cuts. Worse, the sensual war battered setting of “Troilus” is essentially absent for actors and audience.

EPHEMERAL
This is a company of wildly divergent acting styles and skills best brought together by the costume design and color palette. Watching “Troilus” is like watching work attempted in a gym: the results are incremental and personal. The evening is enjoyed neither for its whole nor a sum of its parts: it is savored for its moments.

Mr. Jones performed transformational work with some San Diego’s small theatre’s frequently seen actors. Though sustained select moments in various scenes, Jones elicited deliberately understated passion and focused readings from stalwarts Ed Eigner, Gerard Maxwell and the prevailing George Weinberg-Harter. I relished these moments. Experiencing them enabled the taxing evening worth while for they signaled a sea change in the work of actors normally chosen to hand-in work as a “type” or pawn their schtick by directors unable - or worse - unwilling to guide them into new living characters.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY
The greatest miscalculation of attack on this so called “problem play” is action. If we observed the characters inextricably enmeshed with the toils of war and its attendant madness (in both maintaining and suppressing sanity), filth (say, cleaning bandages), starvation (fighting for food) and individuals’ struggle for survival (cruelty against one other) would have given Shakespeare’s characters a context in which to develop a sense of reality. A director could have realized comic opportunities from such circumstances as well. For the better part of the evening we observed characters speaking and moving in senseless stage crossings: madness unto itself. Surprising also is that Mr. Jones, a widely traveled, well read and seasoned theatre writer did not recognize this absence of reality-based action.

THE 15
The fifteen minutes of highlights included:
• Padarus’ (Weinberg-Harter) amusing provocation of the slow Troilus (Michael Zlotnik) to bed valley mall voiced Cressida (Brenna Foley).
• Weinberg-Harter’s song renditions (also of his composition) pricked us with comic relief.
• Laura Kaplan as Cassandra almost shook the balls off the men in this role -- she should have. Maybe she’ll try an entrance while pulling out her hair and screaming. It’s worked for Diana Rigg. An actress needs her own metaphoric set of balls to make this character work against a set of testosterone driven pissing contestants.
• Shelley Williams’ costume designs shot the best stab at setting the period and tone for the show, proved economically convertible and her palette enriched the evening’s experience.
• Ed Eigner’s performances as the Prologue, Menelaus and Priam, though not greatly varied, proved royalty in substance.
• Gerard Maxwell’s Act 2 monologue.
• Christian Lopez’s set design with its midget periaktoi and mix of painted murals and architectural pieces.

Michael Zlotnik received terrific notices for his work with New Village Arts in Odet’s “Awake and Sing.” He is not a “personality actor.” This was my first exposure to his work. Intelligent, diverse in choice, physically possessing in his characters and vocally flexible are some of the skills this young actor already can count among his skills. A word to hungry young actors: this guy has London training. He is the type of actor directors’ value in the canyon (not for long) of casting between community theatre and “Class A” Regional Theatre. Lucky are those directors that engage this thespian’s time upon the stage.

Palin and Performing Arts (non-partisan, Wasilla, Alaska)

Valley Performing Arts is Sarah Palin's hometown chief live theatre. The VPA's 2008-2009 theatre season is listed and photos from past seasons can also be viewed at Valley Performing Arts.

* * *

Please Note: I received permission from the photographer to post a production shot from the Valley Performing Art's go at "Run for Your Wife." When the photographer construed political influence in the nature of the above posting he withdrew his permission and redefined the rights of ownership to Valley Performing Arts. Valley Performing Arts' response to my request to post the photo from "Run" met with the following response:

Tom,

VPA is a non profit, non partisan group. As such, we do not endorse any candidate nor do we want to imply the entertainment style or preferences of a candidate. If you want to link to our web site and show the theater group in Wasilla which happens to be the home town of one of the candidates this year that is acceptable. But our preference then is to let your readers look at our present lineup and go back through the seasons and photos as they desire. As there are many plays that could be chosen and there is much spinning that can be done with any selection, we prefer the complete neutral position by not promoting any play.

Regards

Kevin

(Kevin O'Connor
General Manager)

Channel 10 Theater Nominations

San Diego’s local ABC affiliate, Channel 10, announced the nominees in the category for Best Theater. The nominees include New Village Arts, Cygnet Theatre Company, San Diego Civic Theatre, Lambs Players, North Coast Rep, LaJolla Playhouse, The old Globe; even the Broadway Theatre in Vista received a nomination. The question is: Which company didn’t receive a nomination for Best Theatre? http://kgtv.cityvoter.com/contests/10news-com-s-a-list/1997/arts-and-entertainment/theater

Writing at Catholic Community Services

You don’t have to be Catholic to get the services and I don’t show them my scars for extra attention. It’s around 9:50 a.m. and I’m waiting for the food dispensary program to open while working on “La Belle et La Bête: 2008 (A Vulgar French Fairy Tail).” This is a cabaret piece for five actors; a titch raunchy and always fast moving and joy writing. Blue Lips has informed it along with the late Ethel Eichelberger’s combustion style humor.

Southern California structures cheat on roofs compliments of the mollifying temperature so writing in the morning sun while for my can goods is pretty darn good for this September morning.

Then a 30-something hipster signs-up on The List posted on the gate. After circling the courtyard he sits next to me. I forgot to sign-in and remedy that immediately.

“You no sign up? Ha-ha-ha.”
I don’t take the Hipster’s invitation.
I want to keep writing ‘cause I’m hot on the scene where Beauty’s sisters, Pathalogia and Toxilia, slam him for cleaning the house and breaking their drug pipes.
“Yes. I forgot about that.”
I look in his eyes. He asks me where the bathroom is. “I don’t know.”

He continues speaking and for some reason I continue listening.
“You the only guy writing here. You wake up, you do something.”
“I’m glad I got up and got here in time.”
“I write too. Empire in New York.”
“Yes.”
“Here – you read this letter. You read.”
His name is Bui and the letter is printed on formal letterhead from an Empire State Building address.

He speaks. I listen.
“You see what I’m saying? You see what I’m saying?”
“Yes,” I assure.
I continue to listen.
“You see the fire I’m breathing?”
“Yes.”

La Bête patiently waits in the foyer.

Ensemble Lamb's Players

George you are correct. Lamb's Players was neglected in my survey. I will followup with the company and obtain a better sense of their company dynamic/cohesion and post-back.

What's in a title? and Post Facto

What’s in a title?

Like today’s parent filling the family’s SUV – watching the dollars roll by – the sweat rolled onto the trusty Panasonic dual-cassette answering machine in that “mother-in-law” apartment as I recorded the box office message, take after take. An unrelenting Santa Ana stymied the city and burnished tempers. Recording the message was one of some 15 tasks to accomplish before tech rehearsal that evening in preparation to open Philip Real’s “Lunch and Dessert” comedy duet.

That 10’ by 12’ studio on North Ave. cost $335 (now $780) per month to rent and housed my foam mattress-on-the-floor-style living a refrigerator with half-dozen eggs, some beer and tofu with brown rice. Outside, flats for the show were drying and stage props gathered dust and neighbor complaints until they were loaded into West Coast Production Company, arguably the most popular gay disco in town, where its dance floor became our stage.

My other duties included finding rehearsal space, writing legally binding contracts, directing the two one acts, selling ads for the program, working as publicist, planning the next production and fighting for its next venue, placing media ads, setting up the box office and working with Greg Stevens, a dynamic emerging set designer I had recently met in a support group. The mandate: manifest the best work possible and pay off the contracts. Surplus monies, if any, after expenses -“office space” not included- would go toward the purchase of a Mac Plus, then the state-of-the-art computer for desktop publishing and word processing. I did not pay myself a salary or a stipend, I was “temping” at General Atomics. The project: premier production of Diversionary Theatre. The title for these plumber to host duties: Artistic Producing Director.

San Diego theatre holds some curious names and titles these days.

The first moniker that caught my eye was “debut” for actors’ first performance at the Old Globe, San Diego’s flagship theatre. In 1984 I found this title self-important. I have since changed my mind, having observed the Globe’s work over 15 seasons. I now understand value in an Old Globe “debut.” It means privilege. Production values at the Globe are consistently high in choice of playwrights, directors, lyricists and composers (dead and living) and designers. There is new work on the Globe’s stages every season. As one New York-based actor said, “…the Globe is Broadway West, without the mess.”

The Globe uses a Resident Artist title to recognize and reward artists of distinction. The Resident Artist’s body of work is prominently represented at that institution. The artists’ biographical profiles clearly reveal the title is earned by consistent excellence in work not only at the Globe, but nationally and internationally and in TV and Film. San Diego residency played a factor in some designations.

The La Jolla Playhouse uses no such designation with actors though I regularly note returning actors in their productions. Increasingly, San Diego-based actors appear in their productions. The bottom line is type, skill and talent in their casting policy at LPH. More long-term relationships with playwrights are found at the Playhouse.

The “haute pelican” recognizes its former Artistic Director Des McAnuff as Director Emeritus, and the Old Globe its Jack O’Brien as Artistic Director Emeritus. These are appropriate and dignified titles, but hardly designations that characterize their leonine producing and artistic accomplishments. These Dyonysian titans forged and established a successful show business model that put to rest the industry’s conflict of “Apple versus Orange” (it really meant “not invented here”). Des and Jack’s work contributed significantly to the change in the standard American Regional Theatre season to include a musical and/or new musical, a developmental play program and university actor training affiliation.

The number of “foot noted” titles for actors and designers in our city’s theatres is growing and begs the question: What is the theatre’s motivation in designating the title?
Small young companies that dub an actor with such titles are suspect of aggrandizing an actor -- after all we are discussing the Theatre and actors. Acting jobs exist in an ever-changing environment of hiring demands. An opportunity to mollify a potential employee is a smart move.
For example, artist titles per three popular theatres and their years of operation
are: Identifying actors with training and/or professional experience combined with similar artistic values provide ideal motivations to consider an actor for special designation, especially if the title includes guaranteed periods of employment opportunities with above standard salary. If these factors dominate decision-making the titles are well given.

Companies awarding artistic titles for general work rather than artistic work are, well, not artistically motivated. This is a “bait and switch” transaction potentially harmful to the recipient.

Ensemble

In successful ensembles there is a shared technique at a similar skill level. The European tradition in ensemble companies includes continued company classes and eating together at the company canteen. Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival, though not titled an ensemble, holds company classes and characterizes itself with an ensemble sensibility.

One of the main features of the ensemble is the group’s artistic cohesion surpasses per- show casting, to seasonal casting. An “as cast for season” demonstrates thoughtful consideration of the artist and company’s desires and needs.

A San Diego company that approaches this model is New Village Arts. This company appears to possess an interdependent artistic standard. NVA artists are encouraged to stretch into other Theatre disciplines such as design, playwriting and directing. Little wonder NVA produced a successful production of “Golden Boy,” originally produced by the Group Theatre, a noted ensemble theatre company of the 1930s.

However, with NVA’s recent resignation of co-founder Francis Gerke, will the company maintain its artistic equilibrium? Another season will tell.

A Standard

This past year of theatre-going throughout the county revealed a disappointing level in acting quality in our smaller houses: mediocrity at epidemic levels. The fact that an actor is an Equity member doesn’t provide immunity. The San Diego theatre companies filling the void between community theatres and Class A Regional Theatres and Union touring companies vary wildly in terms of quality of casting and acting skills within a production. An audience’s willingness to disbelieve extends only as far as good acting suspends it. Then again, if one is hungry, a full tummy feels comforting whether it’s full of hamburger or tofu.

Whatever the title, local actors must be supervised to produce their best work on a persistent basis: not good enough work. Good enough work is self-satisfying for the company and serves the audience McTheatre.

NEXT TIME…

• Acting: the step from community theatre standards to professional quality work. Does an actor make the transition with a leap, baby steps or a hitch-kick?

• The “casting pool”

• And the benefits of a titled actor in San Diego.


Webies

• Musical Lovers check out “The 10 Worst Musicals Of All” at www.telegraph.co.uk

• Find an international theatre directory at www.curtainrising.com

• You’ve seen him in “Brazil,” “Time Bandits” and “Topsy-Turvy,” checkout his theatre_broadbent.org

Post Facto, yet worth noting.
(items that missed the hard copy)

Twained Out Loud

Sitting silently reading your book, you sip your custom coffee drink hand-crafted by an underpaid barista. You gently pool about in dialog with your author’s character or facts; now its time to give a voice to that consciousness.

“Write Out Loud” is San Diego’s copy-n-paste of “Selected Shorts,” the long running Public Radio International program presented at New York’s Symphony Space. The program plays, appropriately, at the Cygnet Theatre’s Rolando space. Kudos to Walter Ritter and Veronica Murphy, WOL’s Executive and Artistic Directors, respectively, for pushing San Diego’s literary consciousness up a notch.

The upcoming August 23rd matinee opens WOL’s second season with “Ever the Twain Shall Meet”, an afternoon of--guess who? Mr. Twain’s career rendered voluminous tomes and continues to be in discovery. Recently revealed is “Is He Dead?”, which ran a successful Broadway run to audience and critics’ delight. Twain’s work is hard to resist for the over-40 crowd. Those 30-ish might find the work a good prep for 40. Good conversation is always in need of wit and tart.

WOL also serves yummy cookies and kick-ass coffee at their interval. A matinee to take your date to? Consider “Ever the Twain Shall Meet” as worthwhile conversation.

Reservations 619-297-8953


New Village Art Challenge: Willy Step Away from that Espresso

Imagine William Shakespeare challenged to spin all his plays to an audience in one evening. Could he do it? We'll never know.

Three actors take on the challenge in “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” at New Village Arts in Carlsbad. Though NVA's “Sailor's Song” hit the occasional off-key notes, “The Complete Works” is a good bet. Why? 'Cause this is a troupe of actors San Diego North County esteems as their (our) own from their very first play reading. NVA's Shakes offerings have been sure shots for lazy summer nights.

Worth the drive? Nestled in Carlsbad’s quaint So Cal stucco and awning style with numerous cafes and bistros and just the right temperature breeze to waft you to the theatre. Okay, I'm sounding like a press release, but this was my experience when recently visiting NVA. Plus, Joshua Everett Johnson, the actor one keeps an eye on for the next best character creation, fools along with Adam Brick and Tim Parker. Maybe Johnson has 20 or 30 delights to offer up with this show?

www.NewVillageArts.org

Meandering thoughts before and during a play.

I can tell by the set it's going to be a long night.
What? Act one done already?
She always does that.
Wow, he tried something new!
What would John Lahr say?
No dramaturge listed in the program.
Okay, so a woman plays the Gentleman Caller: What’s the payoff?
The original production blew me away. Is this the same play?
Plastic wasn’t yet invented.
How would Des stage this?
Why did the Artistic Diector's father greet me at the door?
Stop gesturing.
Here comes the bend in the plot.
He’s phoning it in.
A full page Director's note in the program.
Take the chicken out of the freezer to thaw.
That hem is pinned.
Actors wearing black against a black set. Again.
Hmmm, new toupe.
Now sparks will fly.
React-react. React. React.
Attention ladies and gentlemen: the actor is on auto-pilot.
Lovely set considering the company’s small budget.
React-react. React.
S-p-o-n-t-i-n-e-i-t-y.
Stop gesturing.
Stop gesturing.

The Espresso is a monthly publication, however, I am in San Diego theatres on a weekly basis. With Espresso-Refill the publication "replenishes" our reader's interest with commentary news and information on San Diego's quality in crafting a living art form in its theatres.
It is a given that theatre's and its workers are deemed with task of transforming their audience. The Espresso finds this challenge especially important as the Theatre searches to draw new audiences (and their monies) away from a potential audience's comfortable chosen electronic dominated environments.
The interest of Dyo's Graffiti is identifying and sharing observations of stage works that surpass the current strife of mediocrity seen on local stages. Exploring with a "shop talk" POV Dyo's keen interest is to corroborate quality one-of-a-kind rich shared experience for an audience and its theatre workers.

Newcomers
Lofty words? No. For the uninitiated this means; when a paying member of an audience leaves a theatre her or his mind heart and spirit should have been altered in some way, you are the arbiter of these results.
You may find yourself stunned and somewhat unfocused once the houselights come up. You may not speak to your theatre companion for a while as you continue to process the work you’re “returning from” and that’s okay.
These results resonate after hearing the traffic report the next morning. Images from the previous evening haunt pleasantly or otherwise, a word or phrase “sticks” in your ear causing you to reconsider its meaning and meaning in context of your experience. There is always that hoped for “Leaving the theatre humming a tune” from the musical that just brought down its curtain. This, too, happens.

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