Way Off Broadway Theatre: "Rumors"

Setting: Snedan's Landing, a secluded exclusive community along the Hudson River a short distance from New York City; the home of New York's Deputy Mayor Charlie Brock and his wife Myra, who are hosting  a dinner party for their 10th Anniversary, and have invited four other successful couples. 

At the start of Neil Simon's comedy Rumors, their first guests find that Charlie has shot himself [a flesh-wound in his ear] and is recuperating in his bedroom, Myra is missing, and while there is food and drink available, the servants are nowhere to be found.

So, questions and "rumors" begin: Why did Charlie shoot himself? Where is Myra? Is their marriage on the rocks? How will the guests manage on their own without the house staff? And how can they diffuse the situation to avoid scandal?

Complications abound to dizzying effect with the arrivals of each of the three other couples who have issues of their own, and the improvised sharing and invention of selective details about Charlie and Myra that get more confused by the moment. 

Arguably one of Simon's most accomplished farces, its success depends on split-second timing, sharply witty dialogue and action, occasional gunshots, and a careful building of the frenzy that impacts each character individually. 

Prattville's Way Off Broadway Theatre ensemble actors, under Jessica Scott's direction, take audiences on an unrelentingly improbable ride for two hilarious hours. -- Don't try to figure it out; just go along for the ride and enjoy.

The four couples are played by Lily Farnsworth and Evan Scott, Amy Medeiros and Mark Sanders, Janie Allred and Rodney Winter, and Blair Berry and Gage Parr...each with their own quirks that entertain effectively. And though some of them hit their emotional peaks a bit too soon, leaving them nowhere to go by the end, and others occasionally play the same energy as their on-stage partners rather than contrasting them, it's all in good fun.

Two police officers played by Jeremy Berry and Michael Moseley arrive near the end of Act I investigating an automobile accident, and things get even more complicated as the four couples invent an even more preposterous explanation of what has been going on at their party.

With surprises at every corner that create havoc for the characters and delight for audiences, this version of Rumors lets us all take a break from the day-to-day concerns of the world around us. Thanks for the laughs.

Cloverdale Playhouse: "American Son"

There were several moments during the opening night's sold-out performance of the Cloverdale Playhouse's rendering of American Son when the audience was riveted into complete silence by the intensity on stage.

Deftly co-directed by Julie Janson and Tiara Staples, an estranged interracial couple's attempts to find out what happened to their son after a "traffic stop incident" are met with resistance from the authorities; they are forced to face their own biases and responsibilities both in bringing up their son and the challenges that race and gender bring into the equation.

Christopher Demos-Brown's tightly written 2016 script wisely does not choose sides; rather, it gives credence to each of the couple's points of view as well as to those of the nighttime duty officer and the Lieutenant in charge of the case. 

Each of the combatants here -- parents African-American Kendra [Taylor Finch] and Caucasian Scott [Ethan Montgomery], Caucasian Officer Larkin [Hunter Stewart], and African-American Lt. Stokes [Eric Ware] -- imbue their roles with conviction, creating an ensemble that lifts the action to focus on present day concerns with racial profiling all too common in our news headlines, where simple traffic-stops escalate to violence and catastrophic results.

We never encounter the 18-year old Jared in question, but Demos-Brown lets us see him through the various lenses of the on-stage quartet. -- Is he the misunderstood rebellious teenager his mother posits, or the wunderkind his father groomed for success, or the street-hood suggested by the Officer, or perhaps the unwitting bystander that the Lieutenant considers? -- Somewhere, the truth might be found.

While we might get caught up in both parents' concern for their son, and be frustrated by the Officer's resistance to revealing information to them, the compelling entrance of Lt. Stokes late in the action drives towards its devastating conclusion. The tension is palpable.

The dialogue each character delivers is rich in both overt and subtle gender or race biased assumptions, pitting them against one another and challenging audiences to confront their own positions. -- The 90-minutes we spend with them ought to encourage serious conversations beyond the theatrical experience.

Pike Road: "Oklahoma!"

Oklahoma! made history on its 1943 Broadway debut, and has been playing regularly across the country ever since. It ran for 2,212 performances, marked the first partnership of Rodgers and Hammerstein, won a  special Pulitzer Prize and many other awards, was one of the first "book musicals" which meaningfully incorporated song lyrics and dance numbers into the plot line and character development -- a practice that has been followed ever since. -- It has been performed in Montgomery a few times in the past ten years; and its newest iteration is director Michael Winkelman's vibrant Pike Road Theatre Company airing currently mid-run at Faulkner University.

And, despite a nostalgic, homespun, "aw, shucks!" feel, along with an old-fashioned presentational style, its popularity has not waned. Even the most jaded theatregoer responds to its wondrous musical score's litany of hit songs: the signature "Oklahoma!", of course, "Kansas City", "Surrey with the Fringe on the Top", "I Can't Say No", "Pore Jud is Daid", and "People Will Say We're in Love" among others...solos, duets, and ensemble pieces delivered by PRTC cast members with assurance so audiences are always engaged with music, characters, and plot.

Oklahoma's "Indian Territory" is on the brink of achieving Statehood in 1906; times are changing, and people there are eager to catch up with the present. The challenges they face on their inevitable social change are highlighted through personal relationships and dealing with those they consider "other": farmers vs. cowmen, youth vs. age, an immigrant peddler, a disgruntled hired-farmhand, and predictably two love-triangles whose participants try hard to figure out their relationships. -- Sound familiar?

The central love story between Curly [Andrew Clem] and Laurey [Rachel Pickering] is complicated by their resistance to admitting they love each other and by the obsessive stalking of Jud [Jason Morgan]. The young couple instantly capture our hearts, and it doesn't hurt that both of them are gifted with excellent voices and some nice on-stage chemistry. And Mr. Morgan's dark scowling becomes more and more sinister as the action proceeds

A comical counterpoint threesome is among flirtatiously impetuous Ado Annie [Ash Shanks] and her ardently naive boyfriend Will Parker [David Rowland], abetted by the Persian peddler Ali Hakim [Eric Arvidson]. The whole tenor of the production changes when these three strut across the stage with energy to spare and laughs galore. It's impossible to take your eyes off this couple.

With Ado Annie's shotgun-toting father Andrew Carnes [Sam Wallace] ever present to ensure everything is on the up-and-up, and with Laurey's Aunt Eller [Stephanie Coppock] as the most reasonable person in the story to wield her authority, you know that all will turn out for the best.

They are given ample support by the ensemble players whose infections energy pumps up every production number's dances choreographed by Karen Johnson..

There remains an imbalance between the recorded score and the singers over-amplified voices resulting in noise rather than clear lyrics, though both Ms. Pickering and Mr. Rowland manage to manipulate their voices to better effect.

The vibrancy of the PRTC's production of Oklahoma! makes it a guaranteed success.

ASF: "The Lehman Trilogy"

"They were all invincible until the were not."

Between their 1844 arrival to the USA from Bavaria and their 2008 bankruptcy, the Jewish immigrant Lehman brothers and their descendants built a financial empire through a combination of business acumen, intuition, ambition, adaptability, and family trust that was unrivaled in its time.

And the Alabama Shakespeare Festival is providing audiences a not-to-be-missed opportunity to witness a meaningfully accomplished production of The Lehman Trilogy that tracks this history with insight, humor, and a challenge for us to assess our own place in a complex society.

Ben Power's masterful adaptation of Stefano Massini's multiple-award-winning play, as deftly directed by Matt Torney, runs at about three hours with two intermissions; but have no fear, the time passes quickly under Power's three near-flawless virtuoso actors. Andrew Benator, Brian Kurlander, and Eric Mendenhall inhabit the roles of the three original brothers, their descendants, and multiple secondary characters with admirably attuned reflexes to one another, clear and rapid speech, quick pivots as they change from one character to another, and storytelling techniques that dazzle in their detail while making historical and personal moments ring true to life.

Their pursuit of "The American Dream" begins in Montgomery, forming the bedrock of what is to come, as they measure success with monetary profit in cotton and coffee, and precipitating a move to New York City, the epicenter of commerce.

As the generations evolve with the times -- from the Civil War and Reconstruction, to the 20th Century, the Great Depression, World War II profiteering, et al. -- the scope of their successes depends always on looking forward and anticipating the next steps by making adjustments to inevitable changes and taking risks before their competitors realize it.

Public business and the arc of global history are at the forefront, though we are also invited into the private history and the family's religious beliefs. They are rooted in the Jewish faith and its cultural practices, so we see the impact of prayers and rituals marking family events, major feasts, and holidays as the characters shift from strict adherence to mere signifiers as time goes on.

The Octagon Theatre's set by Isabel A. and Moriah Curley-Clay reflects a dry-goods store piled with cabinets and boxes, and strewn with bits and pieces of "goods" that remind us of the modest beginnings of the Lehman family no matter their amassed fortunes, and support the themes of control and profit. 

And, while the play has been criticized for paying slight attention to the Lehmans' engagement with slavery and some perceived stereotyping of Jews, The Lehman Trilogy purports to present a saga of multi-generational vicissitudes of capitalism that enthrall its audiences.

The end of the Lehman empire is well documented, so there should be no surprise at the end. Whether caused by accumulated hubris, the Lehmans and their descendants emerge as fully realized characters that fascinate in their complexity.