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?
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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.”
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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.
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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
