Hobo in the back row theater review of Eric(a)
When presented with the question "How do you know what makes you masculine?" in response to the same question he posted on a transgender forum, playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett faced a conundrum: He wasn't sure. He had a grocery list of items certainly, but most, if not all of them were not exclusive to males of the species, and none of them were necessarily tangible in the sense of a satisfactory answer.
How do we know what makes us masculine or feminine? Why do identify with one gender? Why do people of the opposite sex identify with the opposite gender? The playwright approaches these questions with the play
Eric(a), a one man/woman show about a transgender female to male man named Eric. Having begun living as a man three years previous, Eric has to establish himself in the eyes of a very conservative Utah society as the male he always felt he was.
The play itself is presented as if Eric is a speaker at a symposium for gender equality. After faltering with his intellectual defense to be transgender, passing out fliers with particular points that he wishes to discuss that focuses on genetic, sociological, and psychological implications of gender, he begins to explain his life: how he always felt like a boy while growing up in his parents conservative LDS household, and while spending 25 years in a traditional LDS marriage. Finally taking the plunge to live life as a man, Eric falls in love for what is really the very first time and it's that event that ties the whole play together.
Eric is played masterfully by Teresa Sanderson in a performance that was both incredibly moving and amazingly believable. It's often said the best actors own their roles and she certainly does here. She's able to take the audience on an incredibly sincere roller-coaster of emotions and help them to identify with a character that they may have little to nothing in common with. By the end of the play you want Eric to go out there and find love with the woman he's fallen for, reestablish connections with family that has rejected him, and generally just be excepted for the guy that he feels he is.
Teresa Sanderson's performance also owes a lot to the lyrical script crafted by Mr. Bennett. The playwright obviously did the legwork on the script, developing it for almost 2 1/2 years before it finally hit the stage with this premiere by Plan-B Theatre Company. There's a sincerity to the language and speech of Eric that can (and did) only come from extensive interviews with transgender individuals, and hearing their story, as well as just spending time online in forums and reading books on the issue. While the play itself is set in Utah, it doesn't take away from the script. I think anybody who was raised in a conservative household will be able to identify with Eric's childhood, and aside from dropping a few place names, there is almost nothing that a non-Utah audience wouldn't get. Perhaps because Mr. Bennett through all the beautiful language endeavors to make Eric simply a human being.
When all is said and done, Eric is simply human. The question of his maleness, or the fact the character was/is biologically female doesn't matter. Eric, like all of us, has that voice of self doubt, and it's that voice that he struggles with. Everybody can identify with that.
Plan-B Theatre Company's
Eric(a), by playwright Matthew Ivan Bennet, directed by Jerry Rapier and featuring Teresa Sanderson is premiering this month at the Rose Wagner Theater Studio theater and is worth more than the price of entry.
Ticket's and Showtimes.
Labels: Theater Reviews
Bob Juan Casanova.
This past weekend I took the opportunity to journey to Salt Lake to see some friends and take in some theater. I had two close friends both doing shows and another individual I like and respect doing one as well. Part of me going on this venture was to take in a lot of theater, and that I managed to do. I saw three plays in two days time and I intend to write a short review for each.
Now I love the theater, particularly when it's something I've never seen and never heard of. The opportunity to watch something that's new or original is something I hate to pass up. Living in a virtual desert of theater, nearly anything that has come out in the theater world the last ten years is new or original to me. Even in the last 15 years I'll only have heard of the big stuff. So an original work by a local playwright is an opportunity not to be passed up.
I don't get out to see many shows, and there are local playwrights releasing productions a few times each year through the various theater companies through out the valley. I miss a lot of these, but time and money concerns are different now and I can actually take the opportunities to attend them more often now than I have in the past.
Bob Juan Cassanova, an original work by Robert Easton, directed by JC Carter and produced by ATG Theater company had a short run earlier this month at the Midvale Main Street theater. It featured JayC Stoddard in the title role of Bob, Rachyl Bonnell as Cute Girl in Audience, Jennifer Hamilton as Bianca, with Lindsay Marriott and Alice Gonzalez portraying a bevy of roles each.
Bob Juan opens with Bob out on a date with a lovely young woman. The action pauses as Bob addresses the audience and bemoans his loveless love life. He then flashes back to his first and most importantly truest love, that of Bianca. While waxing poetic for Bianca, and lamenting that one of the actors didn't show up for the show he jokingly calls for any actors in the theater, Cute Girl in the Audience volunteers to fill in and remains something of a fixture through out the rest of the performance. Bob weaves a tale of a exciting and disappointing escapades in the world of love for the audience. While Bianca is a repeated bust as far as his love life goes he has encounters with married women, high school seniors, actresses and beautiful Puerto Rican's in libraries plus a bevy of one date let downs that only leave him more and more jaded about life. Lending a sympathetic ear through out, Cute Girl in the Audience finally gives Bob hope in the end as they are apparently together, though the audience is left to wonder if this will be perhaps another one of his short encounters.
JayC Stoddard does a great job as Bob and handles the lengthy monologues and soliloquies with surprising ease. He also carries a constant up beat energy that the play needs to move forward. Alice Gonzalez also does a great job, bringing a strong presence to the stage in all the scenes she's in. Rachyl Bonnell is a sincere actress, but come off being a bit nervous on stage. I'm not sure if this was a character choice or not but it certainly didn't read that way. Both Jennifer Hamilton and Lindsay Marriott handled their parts well, Ms Marriott especially so, keeping each character distinct through out.
Unfortunately despite the good performances the script is lacking. It's not all bad, the monologues are handled quite well, but the dialogue between the characters is rough in many spots and a lot of the women's dialogue needs a bit of work. The biggest problem with the play is that it just doesn't go any where either in character development or plot. The play starts with Bob in a static state in his love life, and while it gives us a hint that things may be looking up, the audience can't know if this is going to be another one of Bob's failures or not. It seems like it might be as I got the impression that Cute Girl in Audience was only interested in Bob because she felt sorry for him. The character comes across as very likable during the performance, but he doesn't seem to learn anything from each new encounter to the next. This is really too bad, this is a play that most of us can identify with, we've all been unlucky in love, I myself could 100% relate to the main character through out much of the piece, but it doesn't do anything with that idea.
This is rare as I can give some thoughts to the playwright and suggestions for any possible rewrites that he may have in development and he may actually see suggestions. All of which are subjective of course. I've put a considerable amount of thought into each of these:
I don't know how much is based off of fact in the play, but my first suggestion is to trim the number of women. Bianca is great, you need to keep her as she does fit the theme of unrequited love and can fill that niche through out most of the play. Focus on two more significant encounters: the married woman, the actress, the high school senior these are all optimum scenarios as they provide the most interesting instances for possible conflict. As the play stands now there's a lot of women, many of whom were not that interesting when compared to the potential drama of others. Narrowing the focus to 3 or so significant lovers will help us connect with Bob even more. Making them significantly thematic also helps a great deal. The affair with the married woman that has the potential to be intensely dramatic and the near dream like quality of dating the actress are all wonderful things to play with especially if the narrative of unrequited love for Bianca is touched upon several times through out the play as it currently is.
The next significant suggestion is to make Bob solely a character and not the narrator, give it to the Cute Girl in the Audience. She ends up with Bob at the end, and she can see who he's become. This can be her relating the story of how she come to be with this great guy and how his unlucky though quirky love life led him to her. Making somebody else the narrator will allow Bob to grow as a character. The play as it's currently written is told as flashbacks with some audience interaction, Bob starts and stops in the same place narratively because he is the narrator and really has no place to go. We don't really see his arc, he's in the present and that doesn't allow us to see his arc. Placing somebody else as the narrator will allow us to watch Bob grow as a character and likely sympathize with him more.
The last thing would be to add a few characters. This doesn't mean adding more romantic encounters, but by adding another actor to fill in parts of the high-school buddy, the jealous husband, or even the quirky but understanding best friend you can show these things in the narrative. How did the jealous husband react? How understanding was the best friend when Bob lost Bianca again? A lot of the play is Bob telling us about one encounter or another. Yes some of the significant events of his love life are shown, but often times the lead up or the aftermath of each of those encounters is told back to us through a monologue by Bob. This is disappointing as an audience member. I want taut, intense drama during these scenes, not to be told how horrible things ended up.
Now, even though I have criticized the script at length, I didn't hate the play. Yes it has issues, no play is perfect and like the actors, the playwright can come away from this with a positive experience and the knowledge of where to go from here. The strength of the play is in it's potential. There's some good stuff here and the play itself was fun to watch. I can't wait to see (hopefully) where it goes from here.
Labels: Theater Reviews
Dracula
This past weekend I took the opportunity to journey to Salt Lake to see some friends and take in some theater. I had two close friends both doing shows and another individual I like and respect doing one as well. Part of me going on this venture was to take in a lot of theater, and that I managed to do. I saw three plays in two days time and I intend to write a short review for each.
Dracula has become the iconic vampire. Though he wasn't the first he's the one we think of when we think of vampire's. His mannerisms and exotic eastern European voice, his cape and ability to change from man to bat. The most ingrained version of Dracula, of which there's been literally hundreds, is that of Bela Legosi. Perhaps it's fitting that the Heritage Theatre's production of the play, directed by Nick Hutchinson, uses the first play adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. This version of the play was originally produced in 1927 and featured that mentioned iconic actor as the lead. It has a tremendous amount of history behind it and sadly that history also makes the play feel a bit dated. There are certain modern sensibilities that the play itself ignores, in fact the way the two acts of drama are structured leave the audience a bit let down at the end as the second act is incredibly short.
But I get ahead of myself. This particular adaptation finds one Dr. Seward (John Belliston) meeting with the youthful fiance of his daughter Lucy (Tokiah Jade), Jonathan Harker (Nathan P. Cunningham). Harker and Seward are worried because Lucy has come down with a mysterious malady that leaves her weak and seemingly drained of blood, and had previously killed another young woman in the community. Dr. Seward has sent for an old colleague of his, Prof. Abraham van Helsing (Daniel B. Kaminsky) to help further diagnose Lucy, as he's completely at a loss. Helsing arrives and suspects there may be a vampire on the loose. The idea seems preposterous to Seward but he's willing to consent to Helsing as everything else has that has been attempted to cure the girl has failed. The two primary candidates for the vampire are one of Seward's patients, R. M. Renfield (Josh Weinfurter) and a newly arrived Count Dracula (Mike Gardner) who has just bought a nearby estate. It soon becomes obvious who the culprit is, though Renfield seems to be in league with the vampire (and is slowly turning into one himself).
The plot unfolds with Dracula seducing the maid Miss Wells to help him continue to prey on Lucy. Now that Helsing is here and knows what Dracula is the vampire, the Count has difficulty gaining access to his latest victim. He uses Miss Wells to take away the protection that has been put up around Lucy and then performs a sacrament to bind her to him. The second act unfolds very quickly. The three men have been about the country side destroying all of Dracula's lairs they could find, after deducing how the vampire is hiding during the day. They've destroyed all except one that they are unable to locate. Harker, Seward and Helsing decide to use the guilt laden Renfield as bait to lure Dracula into Seward's library and hopefully kill him. Their attempt fails as he flies out the chimney so they let Renfield go in hope that he will lead them to his master. Renfield flees through a secret passage and descends a long flight of stairs. There the three men discover a vault hidden deep under the asylum where they quickly locate and dispatch Dracula.
The play is short, and honestly the pay off is a bit of a let down. This isn't the casts fault, but lies completely at the feet of the playwrights. That said there were a few issues with the play that were noticeable. Unfortunately all the action takes place in Seward's study as the small stage doesn't lend itself well to busy scene changes or even small isolated sets. The set itself is busy, and the placement of a divan creates some awkward blocking at times that is only exacerbated by the small stage and the number of people on it during a few of the scenes.
There's a lot of fresh, new actors on stage as well, it takes several of the actors, including Miss Jade and Mr. Weinfurter a bit to really sink into their roles and I don't think they've dug as deep as they could into the characters, particularly Mr. Weinfurter's portrayal of Renfield. While the young actor does a good job there's a spark missing and I couldn't help but feel he hadn't really got into the meat of the part. Both John R. Belliston and Daniel B. Kaminsky are both narrow in their portrayal of their characters through much of the play. Both actors are very capable, but I couldn't help but feel they were both holding back a little bit. Mike Gardner's Dracula was fun, but was not sinister enough. While definitely charming I never felt that he was a genuine threat to any of the other men on stage. I can't help but think Mr. Gardner could really bring that out a lot more. There were sinister moments from his role to be sure but only during the scenes with Lucy and Miss Wells, and one scene with Renfeild, which is the first time I felt like the monster was a genuine threat. In general there were many moments I felt the cast failed to click both with the parts and with each other. I get the impression that the actors weren't in the moment but simply reciting (or struggling with) lines and waiting for their ques. This isn't present through the entire play, just during a few key scenes, though it is enough to be noticeable at times.
The production and has 4 more weeks of performances so may be worth your time and effort to go see if you like Dracula or you just want a fun little Halloween experience. The script is completely safe and the show itself is very family friendly. I will admit I'd have enjoyed something a little grittier, and perhaps the cast find that click to bring the insanity of Renfield or the menace of Dracula to the spot light and really make the other parts shine.
Dracula is being performed at The Heritage Theater in Brigham City every Friday, Saturday and Monday until November 4th.
Labels: Theater Reviews
Into the Woods
This past weekend I took the opportunity to journey to Salt Lake to see some friends and take in some theater. I had two close friends both doing shows and another individual I like and respect doing one as well. Part of me going on this venture was to take in a lot of theater, and that I managed to do. I saw three plays in two days time and I intend to write a short review for each.
Into the Woods is one of Steven Sondheim's more popular musicals. And why not? It takes several classic fairy-tales and weaves them into a humorous and darkly whimsical narrative with memorable catchy music and scenes. It's popular because it's accessible to a fairly wide audience, and despite dark implications there's nothing risque apparent in the play on the surface.
For the those unfamiliar with the plot, take all your favorite fairy-tales: Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzle, Little Red Riding Hood, and hints and suggestions of several others and tie them all together with an unfortunant baker and his wife and a witch who has decided that she wants youth and beauty and you get some idea of the play. The play starts off with a long prelude introducing the entire cast of characters, as being told by a Narrator (Gary Pimpelten). These include the aforementioned Jack (Jacob Tonks), Cinderella (Ashley Gardner Carlson), The Baker (Jonathan McBride), the Baker's Wife (Stephanie Purcell) and the Witch (Julie Silvestro Waite), as well as Little Red Riding Hood (Angela Chatelain Avila). Each of the characters starts on the journey you'd expect, except for the Baker and his Wife, who are told by the Witch that they are infertile because of a curse she placed on their father for stealing her magic beans. She'll undo the curse, but only if they fetch her four items: A cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, the slipper as pure as gold. I think you can see where this is going.
The majority of the first act is the Baker and his Wife fumbling about the woods for each of the objects, but we're also introduced to a few other characters as well: The Wolf, played by an impressive Doug Irey (who does double duty as Cinderella's Prince later in the play) tries to lure Little Red Riding Hood off the path to her grandmother's house in "Hello Little Girl." I don't usually call out technical aspects unless they are egregiously flawed, but in this case the Wolf's performance was not only fun, but his make up fantastic! Make up and hair designer, Yancey J. Quick created a seamless and visually impressive looking Wolf, and I think that may have been half the fun with the character. There's a Mysterious Man (played by the Narrator's Gary Pimpelten) who is seems to be out to sabotage the Baker and his Wife as they go about their quest. We also meet the Rupunzel (Katie Jones) who is locked high in a tower, her Prince (Jake Miskimins) who sings with the duet "Agony" with Doug Irey (now as the Prince) where both men agonize that which they seemingly can't have: Rapunzel and Cinderella respectively. Both actors have strong voices that compliment each other quite well and they manage to bring out the humor effortlessly in the piece.
The Baker and his Wife manage to get each item, first by swapping the magical beans for the Cow with Jack, whose mother responds as you'd expect. Jack ventures to the Giant Kingdom and reflects on the things he's seen in "Giants in the Sky", Jacob Tonks who portray's Jack as a sweet but some what naive strange youth has a apt voice for this part, though there were a few moments where he was perhaps a little on the soft side. The Baker manages to kill the Wolf and release Red Riding Hood, her Grandmother and three little pigs and is ultimately presented with Red Riding Hood's cloak as his reward. His Wife, after convincing him that he does need her help in "It Takes Two" manages to get the remaining two items, the slipper from Cinderella and a bit of Rapunzel's hair. By the end of the first act everything is what you'd expect in this far off kingdom. Cinderella is with her Prince, her sisters blind and lame. Jack and his mother are wealthy and happy. The Witch is beautiful even though she's lost her powers. The Baker and his wife are soon to have a baby. The entire cast performs, what in my opinion is one of the funnest first act closers of any musical "Ever After." The casts voices shine. Their strength definitely lies in their singing capacity and this was a great closer. Unfortunately the choreography was a bit off at times. This is not one of those musicals where the choreography is as big of a part of the over all whole and it's a pretty minor nitpick honestly.
The second act begins sometime later. Everybody is "Happy" until the giant's wife (the giant having been killed by Jack in the first act) shows up seeking revenge. Where the first act is a bit dark, though lighthearted the second act is dark. There's a bit of humor but the long list of character deaths before the end makes it a bit depressing. That being said, this is also where some of the most beautiful musical numbers of the play are located. At one point during the Giant's rampage Jack, The Baker, Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and the Witch lay blame at each other in "Your Fault." This is one of the most difficult songs in the show and the principle actors have it down pat. It was fun to watch, and listening to the lines being tossed back and forth, weaving in and out of each other let's anybody with even a little musical background know how genuinely impressive this number is to pull off well. The cast pulled it off quite well. Unfortunately there were moments (and this is true of the entire play) where the orchestra was a bit too loud. This was the case during parts of this number and some of the lyrics were lost due to the energetic pianos playing in the background. The play grows darker after this with a great performance by Julie Silvestro Waite sing "Last Midnight". With death's happening all around them, The Baker, Jack, Red Riding Hood and Cinderella come up with a plan to deal a blow to the Giant once and for all. This is, musically, the most beautiful number of the show. "No One Is Alone" was simply gorgeous and incredibly moving. Jonathon McBride and Ashley Gardner Carlson both have fantastic voices and this number let's their talents and hard work shine.
Over all The Grand Theatre's production of Into the Woods is well worth an evening (or Saturday afternoon). It has a strong cast and while the orchestra was a bit loud at times, they do a great job as well. The production runs Thursdays through Saturdays until the 27th with a 2:00 p.m. matinee on Saturdays.
Labels: Theater Reviews
Arm Chair Theater-goer's review of The DAC's Romeo and Juliet
I love the theater.
The longer I stay away from it, the more I long for it. It's been two years since I've done a play and several more since I've done anything with a large production value. Still going to see a show now and then is wonderful, and I don't do it nearly enough though I hope to continue to remedy that in the future. Going to see Shakespeare is always... hit or miss.
Shakespeare is a popular playwright to turn to. All of his works are in the public domain, generally require big casts so will guarantee a large audience of friends and family members at the very least and his name is recognizable so there's that pull as well. Shakespeare however has no easy plays. He writes in what is early modern English and there is much innuendo and nuance to his words lost on modern audiences, NOT because we are dumb, but because the words are used in entirely different ways now or are not used often at all. Presenting a Shakespeare play in such a way that it is accessible to the modern audience is hard. There's a reason that there are "Shakespearean Actors" these individuals have taken a great deal of time to actually find the nuance in the language and let that translate naturally from the character they are portraying. It's a challenge. It's a lot of work, especially for community theater, so it's a tremendous kudos to the cast of Davis Arts Council's production of
Romeo and Juliet that they gave the kind of nuanced performance that made the play accessible to the audience.
The Davis Arts Council's production of Romeo and Juliet presents the play in such a way that the intents of the characters are clear. It's not an actor on stage speaking the lines, it's Benvolio, Juliet, Tybalt and Mercutio speaking the lines. So rarely does a non-professional production pull off any Shakespeare play that it's a sheer joy to see one so well done. Though the company for this production may be non-professional, it's abundantly apparent that most of the actors have trained and are considerably experienced, some working in professional shows through out their lives. It takes that kind of serious dedication to pull off a good production of any play let alone Shakespeare. It's also to the director Mark Fossen's credit as he has pulled the very best from his actors.
For the one of you who's not familiar with Romeo and Juliet, I'm disappointed, but here's a quick refresher. The Montague's and the Capulets have been feuding now for generations, while the Prince Esculas and his family try and maintain the peace of the city. Romeo pines after one girl after the next, his current love is Rosaline and in an effort to cheer him up some of his cousins and his best friend Mercutio decide to take him to a party at the House of the Capulets in disguise. Romeo's recognized by Tybalt who swears that he'll kill Romeo for this insult but not before Romeo falls for Juliet. Well you should know the rest of the story, the woo each other in the moonlight. Get married. All hell breaks loose and Mercutio is killed by Tybalt. Tybalt is killed by Romeo in revenge, and Romeo is banished but not before him and Juliet have a night together. Then after a series of complete misunderstandings and messages not arriving, and people being in the wrong place at the wrong time the couple is dead, the Prince's kinsmen is dead and for good measure Lady Montague is dead. That's the play in a quick nutshell.
There's some truly impressive performances in this show. First off Benvolio and Romeo were both strong actors. There was a naturalness to Romeo's lines and soliloquy's that was refreshing. Nathan Krishnan made a wistful Romeo and it helped the character that the director, to his great credit, played up the humor. Mr. Krishnan aptly portrayed the character as lost and forlorn, while not creating a dark aspect that is typical to the role. His counterpart, Sarah Young's Juliet was fantastic! Portraying Juliet as a naive girl that she is, but with a growing desperation towards the end that makes logical sense for the character arc. April Fossen who played the Juliet's Nurse kept the heightened humor alive through the first half the play and the ease of which she played the part was impressive. Casting against type, J. J. Peeler's Mercutio was a joy to watch. Ms. Peeler grabbed the part with an intensity and humor and wit that not only drove the action in those scenes but helped set the pace for the scenes that followed. Daniel Beecher's Friar Lawrence is also well done. I'm not sure of Mr. Beecher's background but he's an extremely natural and talented actor and was an absolute joy to watch.
The fight choreography was well done. There were moments where my suspension waned, but when swinging around long metal sticks caution is the better part of valor. Regardless the fights were exciting and well paced, and did not slow the overall production to a halt as can be the case with fight scenes. The comedy aspect, as I mentioned before, was played up considerably in this show, which was a fantastic (and in my opinion the correct) choice by director Mark Fossen. Romeo and Juliet is funny, both the Nurse and Mercutio are comedic roles and more over the balcony scene itself is a funny scene, though so many refuse to let it be. Most productions let the balcony scene languish in the poetry of Shakespeare's language. It's beautiful language. I love it. But it sounds so much better when it's being delivered by actors that understand the meaning of the words with a punchy wit than the long drawn out speeches that takes it's typical form. They do it well here. There's a playful between both Romeo and Juliet that really make them seem in love (or at the very most like they have a massive crush on one another.)
Not everything is golden. The few criticisms I do have are mostly nitpicks and eyebrow raises. The choice to have younger kids playing Sampson, Gregory, and Abram seems a little off to me. But then again it does ramp up the tension at the beginning, making one wonder what exactly these young bravado's are getting themselves into. There's also the nit pick of Ms. Peeler playing Mercutio's death a little bit comedic. But that's easy to overlook after such a strong, impressive performance otherwise.
I could gush all day about this play, and probably find several more things to nitpick, but I'll leave it to rest here. If any of you are in Layton, and happen to read this review before 7 p.m tonight, go see this show at the Ed Kenley Cential Ampitheater. It closes tonight so it's your last chance.
Labels: Theater Reviews
