Cloverdale Playhouse: "Noises Off"

Put the cares of the world on hold for a few hours, sit back, and relish the behavior of the Cloverdale Playhouse actors as they go through three acts of hilarious laugh-a-minute antics in the ever popular sex-farce Noises Off [1982] by British playwright Michael Frayn.

Mike Winkelman serves both as director and scenic designer in this robust comedy featuring a collection of Playhouse veterans and actors appearing there for the first time. The Company includes: Sydney Burdette, Anne Gunter, Jacob Holmberg, Sarah Housley, Laura Johnstono, Kevin McCormack, Chris Paulk, Christopher Roquemore, and John Selden. --Winkelman's sure comic hand challenges the acting ensemble to discover and enthusiastically embody the assorted eccentricities of their characters. And full-house audiences are eating it up.

We watch as a mediocre English regional acting company try valiantly to mount a mediocre sex-farce called "Nothing On": during a significantly under-rehearsed pre-tour dress rehearsal in Act I, followed by Act II's run of the same scene we saw in Act I, except from backstage [watch the set change between the Acts to admire the Playhouse's stagecraft], and then we return to the Act I scene near the end of their tour where everything has run amok.

But, we are also treated to the foibles and personal relationships within the touring Company. So, we have Cloverdale Playhouse actors portraying English actors who are playing roles in a bad play. -- Don't worry; you'll figure it out [though more comprehensive program notes could help]. -- No further specific plot or character spoilers here...they might ruin the fun; and you ought to experience it for yourselves.

As farce requires split-second timing and a lot of physical commitment from the actors, we can anticipate slamming doors [there are several of them, and they don't always work], pratfalls, misplaced props, sexual innuendo, and broad characterizations to carry the load. -- And we watch as Winkelman's exquisite troupe's frustrations give way to downright sabotage and anarchy as both the production of "Nothing On" and their personal lives deteriorate around them.

Two major credits here go to Winkelman's stunning transforming set, and a remarkable ensemble of actors who individually and collectively provide a side-splitting, face-aching evening of the best entertainment around.

Pike Road Theatre Company: "Into the Woods"

Ten years on from its first River Region presentation at the Cloverdale Playhouse, and again at Faulkner University a year later, Stephen Sondheim's and James Lapine's Into the Woods [1986] is again gracing the Faulkner stage, this time in the Pike Road Theatre Company Artistic Director James Keith Posey's masterfully sung iteration.

Sondheim's challenging musical score and lyrics [here accompanied by overly loud pre-recorded orchestrations], matched with Lapine's sophisticated dialogue, provides a suitably dark version of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, staying true to the original instead of some popular sanitized versions.

Many of the iconic stories are here -- Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk -- as well as the childless Baker and Wife; and, of course, there are Giant and a Witch.

But there's more: Sondheim and Lapine intertwine their stories, bringing everyone "into the woods" where mysterious forces abound. You see, the Baker and his Wife are childless because the Witch cast a spell that can only be resolved if they bring her "a cow as white as milk [Jack sells his milky white cow for magic beans], a cape as red as blood [Little Red's cape is blood red], hair as yellow as corn [Rapunzel's long locks are blonde], and a slipper as pure as gold [Cinderella's slipper that she loses at the King's Festival]". -- And we get caught up in their stories and misadventures while we're entertained by attempts to secure a happy-ever-after result.

Many lessons about tolerance, shared responsibility, honesty, consequences of our actions, and fantasy vs. reality are shared throughout the 2-hour and 45-minute production that the ensemble cast deliver with convincing performances and stunning singing voices, top among them are Brandtley McDonald and Kristen Vanderwal as the Baker and Wife ["It Takes Two"], David Rowland and Cameron Williams as two narcissistic Princes ["Agony" brings down the house], Riley Tate Wilson as Jack ["Giants in the Sky"], Grayson Hataway as Cinderella, with Mr. McDonald, Mr. Wilson, and Olivia Roden as Little Red Riding Hood ["No One is Alone"].

There are several surprises from Michael Buchanan in the dual roles of the Narrator/Mysterious Man, and from a "transformed" Witch in the person of Sarah Carlton.

And much can be made of the musical's warning to us all that "Children Will Listen" to what adults tell them either through their words or their actions.

Theatre AUM: "Red"

A compact bio-drama about the temperamental abstract artist Mark Rothko is a tantalizing one-act two-hander pitting Rothko [Jay Russell] against his eager assistant and novice artist Ken [Michael James Pritchard] as he prepares a series of murals commissioned to decorate the new elegant "Four Seasons" restaurant in New York City's Seagram's Building circa 1959.

Doubtful of placing his "art" in a place where a well-heeled dining public might not even look at the murals, Rothko questions his own hypocrisy for accepting the commission -- for money? for fame? for what? -- using Ken as a sounding-board; but Ken has ideas of his own about how art movements evolve and the artist's responsibility to art and the public.

John Logan's Red is astutely directed at Theatre AUM by Michael Krek who balances his actors' rapid-fire dialogue [a kind of Socratic method Q&A] with moments of thoughtful stillness as their characters introduce a wealth of heady subjects: they disagree about the nature of art, the definition of an artist, and the very act of creating. With forays into Classical drama's tension between Apollonian [reason] and Dionysian [emotion] co-existence, Darwinian survival of the fittest, Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy", and Oedipal impulses, both Rothko and Ken debate and try to protect their opposing aspirations.  

And Mr. Russell and Mr. Pritchard are more than up to the task of validating their roles with dynamic characterizations. Each challenges the other's aspirations and assumptions in ways that keep audience attention, allowing both combatants to score points off the other and forcing us to face the question that bookends the show: "What do you see?" in any painting might leave the value of art up to the individual who views or experiences it.

ASF: "Dear Jack, Dear Louise"

Popular award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig its best known for witty comedies [Lend Me a Tenor], musicals [Crazy for You], and outlandish spoofs on the classics [Baskerville], so his romantic comedy Dear Jack, Dear Louise -- a two-hander that opened last week in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's intimate Octagon Theatre -- would seem at first glance to be a departure from the norm. 

Not so...it bears the stamp of his oeuvre: snappy dialogue, fast-paced action, and characters audiences are meant to root for.

Based on the true story of how Ludwig's parents met through the exchange of letters during World War II -- Jack [Pete Winfrey], a shy doctor is serving Stateside in Oregon at the beginning of the War and later posted to the European front; Louise [Oriana Lada], an outgoing Brooklyn born actress/dancer aspires to Broadway stardom. -- Opposites attract, don't they? And we know from the outset where this is going.

What begins as a dutifully polite exchange of letters [their fathers, who were friends, thought it would be a good idea for them to "meet"], develops over 3+ years into an endearing love story. In time, the language of their correspondences gradually loosens up as they share thoughts and concerns, until they admit they like each other and want to meet in person...and this becomes the central device that thwarts their meeting for a variety of reasons; and it sustains the tension because we have come to like them.

There is plenty of humor here too. Though the disappointments of not meeting either because letters took a long time to be delivered, or Jack's commanding officer delays granting him leave, or his posting overseas makes it impossible, or Louise's taking an acting job with a touring company complicates things, they take it in good humor despite the growing frustrations as their mutual feelings develop into love.

Ludwig hasn't penned the letters as stand-alone complete epistles as A. R. Gurney did in his Pulitzer Prize winning Love Letters; instead he presents snippets of Jack's and Louise's letters that enables his characters to comment quickly as if in face-to-face conversations. A naturalistic device that brings them into close contact with each other and to us, the audience.

Mr. Winfrey and Ms. Lada are almost always on stage together with a few brief times out of our sight, and the chemistry between them is palpable, even though they never look at each other during the two acts. -- Director Risa Brainin stages them so we can see their faces and register their feelings. She also establishes a rapid-fire pace with the dialogue that the actors deliver with alacrity so every moment speaks to the truth in their personalities and situations.  They speak with little commentary, but nonetheless invite us into their lives.

The impact on War on the private lives of both Jack and Louise resonates with us, and while Dear Jack, Dear Louise is more than a nostalgic paean to a more innocent time [listen to the sound track of many Big Band hits], the period costumes by Val Winkelman use fabrics, cuts and finishes, and a warm muted color palette that transports audiences to the 1940s, and helps in accessing the universals of a romantic love story.