“Wild Goat”– Steel Beam Theatre – 5/17/09

Oh, good God. Or Gods, given the subject matter. What a dirty trick to play on the actors.

Dyskolos (The Grouch) by Menander dates from 316 A.D, when it won first prize at the Lenaian Festival (sort of an ancient Greek fringe festival). It is a reasonably straightforward (and short) farce in which a noble youth is stricken by Pan with love for the daughter of the title character, a misanthropic farmer who verbally and physically attacks anyone who speaks to him. The youth needs to get past the father to the girl. Hilarity ensues, but is kept relatively down-to-earth, grounded in realistic human reactions. No characters turn into something weird that might cause an audience member sitting near me to disdainfully mutter “Jesus Christ!”

Book by Jack Helbig, music & lyrics by Mark Hollmann (Urinetown), Wild Goat is “inspired” by Dyskolos. Meaning that some of the characters and an incident or two are retained and the rest is invented by the show’s creators. Similarly, they seem to have done away with the first “n” in Menander’s name, figuring that it wasn’t all that necessary and that a play could get along just as well with Meander. And meander they do.

Let me do the cast first (in a polite way), because the cast was magnificent. Highly talented and working their asses off.

Amy Steele as the daughter (here named Myrrhinne, pronounced Maureen by one of the narrators) is a stage-lighter. The stage lit up when she was on it. Steele has a lovely sense of stage movement. When most of the characters are pulling on a large rope, she was the one throwing her whole body into the motions.
Nancy Kolton as Xanthippe (a bossy widow) has the belting dowager thing down pat. Powerful voice and perfect casting. She really knows her way around a character.

Stephanie Herman plays a bratty sister, an airheaded Aphrodite and a goat. She makes a terrific, funny goat, which is one of the few times I’ll be using “funny” in connection with this show. Herman got every nuance possible out of every character she played.

Michael Buonincontro as the noble youth is a fine singer, strong actor and excellent dancer.

Tony Calzaretta started out making me think of Ed O’Neill on Married with Children, which was very disconcerting but I got over it. He has an extremely strong voice and does everything that could be done with the part.

Terry A. Christianson and Michael J. Henry as the Narrators (and others) are highly entertaining.

There is some gorgeous choral work, courtesy of Musical Director Jeremy Ramey. Director Donna Steele and choreographer Cynthia Hall get everything they could possibly ask for from this cast. So let’s get on with discussing what this terrific cast is asked to do.

The audience laughed exactly three times during the whole show. Several musical numbers were enthusiastically applauded; most were applauded dutifully because of the little “ding” button cuing that the song had ended.

Composer Hollmann made his bones with Urinetown, with its central story of a twenty-year long drought and water-profiteering. What is the story grafted onto Dyskolos? The ancient Greeks are suffering from a twenty-year long drought. I’m not kidding. The Grouch has the only water and sells it at exorbitant prices. When someone complains, they are told, “You’re lucky he isn’t charging you to pee.” This is the kind of self-adoring crap that killed Mel Brooks’ later movies, throwing in “It’s good to be the king” whether it belonged or not. The onstage water drought isn’t as damning as the backstage imagination drought.

The music is disappointing. And this is from someone who loves Urinetown with an obscene passion. The first several songs just lay there. They’re well sung; they’re tuneful; but the lyrics are mediocre. Two songs in a row finish with a kick line. The Grouch’s ballad of parental justification, “Someday You’ll Understand” comes close to being good. The melody is lovely and it’s well-sung by Calzaretta. But the lyrics are “meh”. “Grounded” is the first song to approach the liveliness of Urinetown’s score, mainly because it’s a first cousin to the “First Act Finale” of Urinetown, using the same rhythmic device. The “Wild Goat” number with Herman in a goat costume was cute.

The second act opener, “Drip Drop” is Wild Goat’s variation (ripoff) of “This Plum is Too Ripe” from The Fantasticks – very jazz-bluesy and entertaining, even if moving the story along musically is a forlorn expectation.

“Easy”, for the quartet of Greek Gods who are flung willy nilly into the action for no other reason than to stretch Act Two to half an hour, is the last good song of the show, albeit not the last song. The problem is that the script can’t decide if it wants to be a farce or have deeper meaning – so the songs try to walk on both sides and end up going nowhere. Good music comes when the script has a strong point of view that the composer can build on.
Most of the score is neither fish nor fowl. Let’s get to the script. The script is not fish.

Jack Helbig is the playwright. The word means a “wright” (builder) of plays. Jack Helbig constructed this play. The building materials (a classical comedy by Menander; a Tony winning collaborator like Mark Hollmann) are top drawer, but Helbig’s tools are deficient and his workmanship is shoddy. He literally has no clue about play construction. Menander’s original goes off on tangents (a fussy cook trying to borrow a pot from the Grouch), but Wild Goat is all over the map.

The Well Incident, which wraps up Menander’s show, here is the Act One climax – which means we have a long way to go with little material available. Menander’s Well scene is, in script construction terms, “Act III” – where incidents take a crucial turn that shoot toward the climax. In a musical the “Act III” point should happen midway through Act Two. “Luck Be a Lady” in Guys & Dolls is where Sky changes the direction of the plot by winning souls in a crap game. It’s the “Act II” climax that spins into “Act III”. If Helbig applied his Wild Goat construction to Guys & Dolls, Sky would sing “Luck Be a Lady” ten minutes before the end of Act One. Hence the bickering Married with Deities who are tossed into the Act Two mix just to fill up time that was wastefully spent in Act One. The construction is inept.

Punchlines are identifiable as such only because the rhythm of setup-build-punch is so familiar to theatregoers, not because anything funny is ever said. The use of narrators is structurally klutzy here; narrating to set up the play is fine (but lazy). Using Reader’s Theatre to tell the entire story means you’re incapable of doing so through dialogue and stagecraft.

Anachronistic jokes are occasionally thrown in with no setup and no payoff. “Men are like busses!” the Grouch says. “If you miss one, another’ll be along in a minute.” “What’s a bus?” asks the daughter. “I’ll tell you later,” the Grouch snarls wittily, to the absolute indifference of the audience. Avoiding a punchline is not a punchline in and of itself. Helbig thinks that repeated mentions of the phrase “dramatic irony” are funny.

Helbig can’t build a story, can’t tell a joke and can’t fashion an intelligible musical basis out of a farce for the composer to work from. The dearth of anything remotely humorous was breathtaking. Wild Goat is like the perfect script – in the Bizarro World.

Am I being hard on Helbig & Hollmann? You bet. When the lights came up, I was furious on behalf of the actors – so proud to be in a World Premiere by a Tony Winner, throwing their hearts, souls and considerable talents into the plan, but being given nothing to work with. It was like watching a World Series championship baseball team showing up for the game and being given a softball, a two-by-four for a bat, some sandbags for bases and told to go play ball. It was a rotten thing to do to them. The actors, production staff & musicians were top-notch. They deserved better than this.

The show (originally titled Complaining Well) has been bouncing around in staged readings since the late 1980s, until Hollmann hit it big with Urinetown and acquired coattails for Helbig to ride upon. According to a feature article in the Daily Herald, “Helbig got permission to totally reconceive Complaining Well, while Hollmann offered to write a new score for the show if he liked the new treatment.

“‘It was delightful to go through the script and put big Xs through the scenes that were awful,’ Helbig said. ‘There was a real sense of liberation to cutting away anything that I did not like.’”

Would that I could have borrowed his pen and script for half an hour.

Information here: http://www.steelbeamtheatre.com

“Sunday in the Park with George”– Big Noise Theatre Company – 5/9/09

Confound it. What’s a critic to do? I’ve been thinking about this since I saw the show a week ago and there’s no way out of it. I find myself in the position of having to give a good review to a show I don’t like. Not a good review – a rave review.

Critical complaints customarily settle upon injustices perpetrated upon a brilliant play by a clueless theatre group. This is a case of a magnificent, transcendent production of an indifferent work. It’s like using your best china and finest chef to prepare a twinkie – if you want to go to all that effort and expense for a twinkie, great – but it had better be the best chef and the goddamnedest china in town or it’s still just a twinkie. Big Noise’s production transcends twinkie.

Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine is playing through tomorrow at Big Noise Theatre Company in Des Plaines. It concerns the painting of “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat in 1884. Synopsis here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_in_the_Park_with_George.

Despite its innovation, Sunday in the Park with George is an overwrought soap opera about a Disconnected, Tortured Artist and the Woman Who Loves Him. Intricate, pointilized music about the artistic process alternates with passionate, sweeping arias about how tough it is to be an artist and have to deal with people, dagnab it. And the more passionate the music became, the less I cared about the people singing it. “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” is a magnificent work. You look at the dots and marvel what effort and ingenuity it must have taken. But you don’t want to spend the afternoon hearing about it. It’s not interesting. “But,” you say, “Sunday in the Park with George won the Pulitzer Prize!” So did Seascape, Edward Albee’s piece of shit about talking lizards. Sometimes you get a consolation Pulitzer for crap when you deserved it for an earlier work.

But the production. Oh my God. Get out there tonight or tomorrow and see this show. The backgrounds and settings are computer animated. Techwise, this is one of the greatest productions you will ever see anywhere, amateur or professional. Seurat’s painting comes to life on the stage and in it, seasons change. Boats pass. The friggin’ daylight changes with the time of day. There are not many people in local theatre about whom I will use the term “genius”. Rick Frendt, the director and computer animator, is a fucking genius. If you despair about what is possible in community theatre, this production won’t just cheer you up, it will leave you enraptured.

The music is gorgeous and beautifully rendered by Musical Director Ryan Brewster’s ensemble. Jonathon Lynch’s choral work is strong and breathtaking. The singers are rarely overpowered by the musicians because, for once, the singers are stronger.

Scott Sumerak is brilliant as Georges and George. His fine acting and stellar singing go a long way toward making the characters nearly likable. Correction – I don’t think the characters are meant to be sympathetic. We can empathize with them, but we certainly don’t sympathize. I don’t, anyway. So Sumerak really is on the mark, with no quibbles.

Jeny Wasilewski (Dot and Marie) is luminous. A perfect match for Sumerak, she lights up the stage whenever she is on it. My surprise is that I liked her even better as Marie than I did as Dot.

The rest of the cast works as a powerful ensemble. Mark Anderson, Sarah Jane Blevins, Emilie Frake, Ron Goldstein, David Laub, Julia Macholl, Steve Malone, Ashley Stricker, Ann Stuart, Mia Vaananen, Mike Weaver and David Whitlock each seem capable of carrying a show on their own, which is exactly the way a good ensemble should work. They work as a well-oiled machine, which in the case of this script is particularly important.

At the climaxes of both acts, I had tears in my eyes. Let me repeat that because it doesn’t happen often: the sheer stagecraft of Big Noise’s efforts was work of a transcendent theatricality that put tears in my eyes – twice – for a show I don’t like.

Normally, with a very difficult show, the script and score will overpower the theatre company. In this case, the theatre company very handily whips an intricate but “eh” show into shape and triumphs. Taking a servicable piece of work and turning it into a piece of essential viewing is something Big Noise can be very proud of. And if, unlike me, you're very fond of Sunday in the Park with George, this is your dream production. Repeat: essential viewing. See it quick.

Information here: http://www.bignoise.org

The Best Man - Geneva Underground Playhouse - 5/15/09

The Best Man by Gore Vidal, the first production for the new Geneva Underground Playhouse, is like a good term paper written the night before it’s due. Rushed and sloppy, but surprisingly watchable for being done in haste. First, a synopsis, lazily culled from Wikipedia but with the Geneva cast’s names inserted:

“William Russell (Steve Lord) and Joe Cantwell (Thom Holtquist) are the two leading candidates for the presidential nomination of an unspecified political party. Both have potentially fatal vulnerabilities. Russell is a principled intellectual. A sexual indiscretion has alienated his wife Alice (Cindy Pierce). In addition, he has a past nervous breakdown to live down. Cantwell portrays himself as a populist ‘man of the people’, but is a ruthless opportunist, willing to go to any lengths to get the nomination. Neither man can stand the other; neither believes his rival qualified to be President.

“They clash at the nominating convention and lobby for the crucial support of dying former President Art Hockstader (Eric Schwartz). The pragmatic Hockstader prefers Russell, but worries about his indecisiveness and overdedication to principle; he despises Cantwell, but appreciates his toughness and willingness to do what it takes. In his opening-night speech, he endorses neither.

“One of Russell's aides digs up Sheldon Marcus (Dean Sasman). He served in the military with Cantwell, and is willing to link him to homosexual activity while stationed in Alaska during World War II. Hockstader and Russell's closest advisors press Russell to grab the opportunity, but he resists.” And here we’ll end the quoting, to preserve the Mystery.

Hands down, the best performance belonged to Schwartz as the feisty ex-President. Part of this lies in the fact that Vidal sketches the character in all shades of gray, whereas Russell and Cantwell, while not cartoony, each hang out in the white & black lobbies, respectively. The other part lies in Schwartz’s assurance. He creates a friendly but no-nonsense man who wants what’s best for the country and isn’t overly enthused about the choices he sees before him. Hockstader has a lot of funny lines and Schwartz snaps them out expertly. It is a fine job.

Sasman was very funny as a mouthy, nervous dweeb who holds the most powerful men in the country in check. A prospective President and an ex-President are in the room with him because they need his information and these titans cannot shut the man up.

Holtquist tended to play Cantwell as Evil rather than as just a mean bastard who shouldn’t be president. I would have liked to have seen more shading in the role, but for the choices he and the director made, he was extremely good. Or, rather, extremely bad; villainous.

Steve Lord as Russell was problematic. The forcefulness of his convictions was hobbled by the fact that his grasp of his lines was not tight. They sat in his hands like a cat that just heard a can opener in the kitchen. This was sad because Lord obviously had the talent to do the role. Maybe a couple more weeks of rehearsal would have helped, because at times he was assured and then he was very good indeed. More on this in the Director Section coming up.

Rick Pierce as Russell’s campaign manager often had a deer in the headlights look that shouted loud as can be to God and all his angels, “I have no idea what I’m supposed to say next! I will sacrifice a virgin to you if you give me my line.” He occasionally called someone by the wrong character name. Given the dearth of male actors in the area, I can understand the need to put him onstage, but in a major role in a witty, erudite play?

Dana Knudson (Cantwell’s campaign manager) and Jerome Urbik (a senator) were both very good actors, but the play is set in 1960. Goatees and masses of curly hair did not exist on politicians in 1960, except maybe in Cuba.

Millie Collins Schwartz was a stitch as a political big wig representing the Woman’s Viewpoint – meaning staying at home and cooking your husband a fine meal while bringing him his slippers and pipe (possibly between your teeth). The joke is that she is anything but that type of woman, wielding enormous clout and getting her own way at every possible turn.

For the most part, Carol Bair Calzaretta’s direction was clean and to the point. She did the best she could with a tiny tiny stage and an enormous couch. Scene changes were handled relatively well. There were little issues, like having an antsy Russell proclaiming, “I can’t sit still!” just as he plants himself on a couch and sits still. The major thing needed was an adjustment due to the line situation, since they evidently did not have a sufficient rehearsal period. The major confrontation between Russell and Cantwell consisted of Lord and Holtquist standing at opposite ends of the couch and battling from there, never breaking the pose. And I know why – to increase the tension by emphasizing words over movement. Problem: Lord knew the words well enough to say them, but not well enough to put the tension behind them. This rendered the planted feet ineffective; they needed to circle each other like wolves.

At this point, you have one performance left to see. I think you should go. The Best Man is an excellent, witty, intelligent script and needs to be seen. Its strength was demonstrated by the fact that the faults I’ve listed did not render the show unenjoyable. You should go check out this new theater company and give them a break, because things will pick up as they find their footing. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, it is possible they had an off night. If the lines and resulting confidence of performance are there, you’re going to see a good production of a rarely done, terrific script

Information here: http://www.genevaundergroundplayhouse.com/