Auburn: "Scapin"

Director Chris Qualls has brought the Telfair Peet Theatre at Auburn University a two-act laugh riot in Bill Irwin & Mark O'Donnell's "freely adapted" version of Moliere's "Scapin" -- and Qualls and his energetic ensemble have brought a lot of their own inventiveness to bear.

The script is true to Moliere's comic intentions, and utilizes assorted conventions and character-types of the commedia dell'arte: lots of slapstick, prattfalls, broad gestures, brightly colored costumes, a fast pace & heightened energy, vocal & physical gymnastics, instantly recognizable characters (blustering parents, rebellious children, wily servants among them) fill the stage from start to finish, and are given significant variety through the discipline of the actors and improvizational techniques that keep everything fresh. -- Mr. Qualls and his able cast successfully capitalize on all of them.

An often put-upon servant, Scapin [Payne Hopton-Jones, whose focus and energy improved after a tentative start], is conscripted by both his own master's son and a neighbor's son to convince the parents to approve of their sons' marriages -- and to pay for them. With the help of another servant, Sylvestre [Emily Stephens effortlessly follows Scapin's ever-changing plot scenarios], these machinations grow more complicated and require adjustments at every turn.

Huge demands are made of all the actors; they must be in good shape in order to sustain the frenetic pace and continuous tumbling they are called upon to do. These actors show no signs of either effort or exhaustion -- all seems to flow so very easily, whether a traditional leap-frog that later becomes a series of leaps while standing fully upright, or bouncing to wondrous heights, or bending their bodies into pretzel shapes or gravity-defying postures...all the while speaking animatedly and rapidly at full volume without gasping for breath.

The actors are individually consistent in their roles, yet there are frequent surprises that regularly hit their comic marks: Tyler Baxter as Octave is a bundle of bubbly energy reminiscent of Richard Simmons, with an effervescent face to match the silliness in the role; he is matched by Kristin Hopkins as Hyacinth, a vision in pink whose comic timing of switching energy is admirable. Leander, as played by Chase Cox, is a cowering sort who can twist his body into almost cartoon-like positions; his love interest is Zerbinette [Taylor Galvin], an archly defiant and outspoken woman whose deep laugh and aggressive manner make her one to contend with. The gifted Kat Grilli plays Octave's father Argante with such vocal power and ease as the standout actor of the spoken word. And Leander's father Geronte is played deftly by Eli Jolley, whose Monty Pythonesque "Ministry of Silly Walks" almost steals the show.

There are some hidden treasures in this production, not the least of which is an understated musician, Lloyd, played by Phillip Beard; his eccentric guitar playing and sound effects punctuate the scenes, often at unexpected times. -- And frequent anachronistic references to contemporary music, television shows, Sarah Palin, and popular films garner rapturous applause.

Replete with audience involvement, mistaken identities, revelations of true identities, confusion verging on chaos, and a wild chase scene near the finale, the comic happy ending comes at last. In just short of two hours, this laugh-out-loud romp leaves audiences aching with laughter. Wow!

Wetumpka Depot: "Rumbling Waters"

The Wetumpka Depot Players continue their committment to serving the community with a charming production of "Rumbling Waters", a one-act history-drama designed to teach Alabama History -- more specifically, Elmore County & Wetumpka history -- to 4th graders.

Written and directed by Sherida Black, who gave a pre-show talk and introduced the woman who inspired her story, this 55-minute play contains a lot of concrete historical details [floods, fires, earthquakes, and other events are accurately referenced to actual families and individual historical figures, bridges, highways, and churches]. -- But this is more than a dry history lesson.

Set in flash-back to 1936, and narrated by Bertha [Teri Thompson] recounting her own family's history and the lessons she learned as a child about family, table manners, recognizing the good in people, folk stories, tolerance of differences among us, and recognition that the eccentricities we all have make indellible marks on us all.

In the opening classroom scene, what might be otherwise a dreary recitation of historical minutiae is made more palatable by inventive methods of teaching and learning: a competition between the boys and girls teams, and a simple song that teaches the Native American origin of the name Wetumpka [We-wa-tum-caw], target the 4th grade audience, and instruct adults as well.

Then come a series of scenes in which Bertha's childhood memories come to life. Bertha's Mama [Cheryl Jones] and Papa [Steve Phillips] have a brood of some 13 children, a snuff-dipping Black neighbor, Aunt Lula [Tunisia Thomas]. whose straightforward philosophy provides a solidity for the community, and a visiting Giant named Joe [Ryan Locklar] whose imposing presence frightens Young Bertha [Ellie Kate King], though his gentleness and compassion convert the little girl to his side.

Through Bertha's reminiscences, we are gently taught not only the details of history, but to be proud of our heritage. After all, quality is not determined by social status. -- These are all valuable lessons that ought to be shared. This production of "Rumbling Waters" -- if marketed well -- should receive the backing of Arts Councils and the community.

ASF: "The Fall of the House"

Another Southern Writers' Project World Premiere opened this weekend in the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's Octagon Theatre. "The Fall of the House", a haunting two act dreamscape by Robert Ford, links the past and the present and analyzes the consequences of our choices.

An often puzzling script that nonetheless intrigues audiences, "The Fall of the House" is fortunate in its sheer literacy and its extraordinary performances, and anyone who is fascinated with figuring out a mystery is bound to get involved in its intricate plot.

Alternating between two time periods -- the 19th Century and the present day -- the action begins with the mysterious end of the life of celebrated and obsessive American poet, Edgar Allan Poe [Gerritt VanderMeer], when he is met a few days before his death by an enigmatic former slave woman named Maddy [Erika LaVonn] who has a message for him and wants some answers from him.

Before any answers are provided, the scene switches to a present day courtroom interrogation of Janice Berry [Angela K. Thomas] an up-and-coming Black architect whose strangely designed house was destroyed, with tragic results for its inhabitants.

How these two stories are interwtined, as scenes shift between time periods, is the crux of the matter -- and a device reminiscent of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" that was performed at ASF some seasons back. But, rather than tracing the genetic history of the play's central characters [and spoiling much of the mystery], there are other things to consider in this tantalizing play.

Ford's themes are significant, ranging from a consideration of the nature of art, to racial stereotyping, to the power of memory, to the role of the writer, to the nature of love & beauty & dreams & madness, and to the value of endurance. So, audiences are made to think their way through the labyrinth as they are guided by the script and the performances.

Director Nancy Rominger balances Ford's script's two linguistic styles as she challenges her able ensemble cast to articulate the rhythms of both 19th Century polite speech and contemporary naturalistic diction. The sounds are distinct in every scene, and lend credibility to Elizabeth Novak's understated & authentic costumes and Bill DePaola's evocative screen projections that support the time-frames.

Other than the roles of Maddy and Janice, all the actors play mulitple roles and appear in each of the time periods in such rapid succession that one wonders how they managed the changes so quickly -- not as confusing as it sounds due to their precise and distinct impersonations. Mr. VanderMeer's dark and brooding Poe is balanced in the modern scenes by his officious Judge and understanding Social Worker. Margaret Loesser Robinson is a distracted Eliza Poe -- the cast-off wife of the poet's brother David -- and a solidly professional lawyer interrogating Janice. Jonathan C. Kaplan plays Eliza's cheating husband as well as the love-interest of Janice with a dexterity that enlivens each scene. And local student Ta'Myia Narcisse-Cousar as the young Janice and the little girl Linney draws our sympathy despite the fact that many of her lines were too soft spoken.

It is through Maddy and Janice, however, that the play's themes and intentions are most directly communicated. Ms. Thomas plays Janice's conflicts most credibly; whether she is confused by the interrogations and her adherence to the truth, or investigating a new romantic relationship with all its trepidations, or discovering both her true self and the ghosts of the past, she invests all with honest conviction.

Maddy's journey from the past to the present, with subtle transitions of time and behavior and appearance, is mesmerizing from start to finish in the person of Ms. LaVonn...her quiet intensity and enduring stance make for an admirable performance.

The phantoms of the past are always around us, says the playwright. Whether we acknowledge them is up to us.

Faulkner: "Camelot"

Alan Jay Lerner's & Frederick Loewe's celebrated romantic musical "Camelot" has been around since 1960, and shows few signs of its age. Based as it is on one of several versions of the Arthurian legend -- T. H. White's "The Once and Future King" -- the story of the young Arthur's becoming king of England by pulling a sword out from a stone and later creating a fragile Utopian society that he rules from the famous round-table at Camelot is a familiar one...and food for thought today. Life at the top is not necessarily as great as it appears, and there are underlying flaws in such naivete.

The Kennedy administration of the 1960s was nicknamed "Camelot" as it described the young and attractive first family engaged in promoting peace and harmony in the world while managing several crises at home and abroad. Similarly, the Obama White House has a confident and virile young leader matched with a beautiful and socially engaged wife, and grapples with war, health care, education, recession, and party politics.

What a shame the Faulkner University's pretty and musically stunning production only rarely capitalizes on these metaphors, choosing rather to focus on the romantic love-triangle that jeopardizes the fabric of Arthur's kingdom.

This choice does have a number of pay-offs. Loewe's resplendent score is adeptly managed by Marilyn Swears' capable five-piece ensemble, and several memorable songs -- the title song "Camelot" and "How to Handle a Woman" among them -- are delivered by actors whose vocal strengths are aided by their abilities of dramatic interpretation.

As the proudly near-perfect Lancelot, Chase McMichen's lines are frequently hard to hear because of microphone difficulties and a too-fast delivery, but his version of "If Ever I Would Leave You", in which he professes his illicit love for Queen Guenevere [Sophia Priolo, whose unspoken responses speak volumes here, and whose brilliantly clear voice is a major component of the production] provides the most passionate and convincing moment in the play. -- And, Act II's "What Do the Simple Folk Do" sheds fine insight onto Arthur's [Thomas G. Habercorn] and Guenevere's relationship that has been tracked from their awkward and naive first meeting to a now comfortable domesticity.

Yet, "The Lusty Month of May" is reduced to a tepidly innocent evocation of romance, and Mordred's satirical "The Seven Deadly Virtues" seems rushed and keeps Michael Morrow from displaying his considerable talent for playing cleverly sinister roles.

There are greater thematic issues here that go almost unnoticed in an attempt to give equal weight to every major character and scene; this coupled with slow scene changes make for an almost three-hour production from director Jason Clark South.

Merlyn the magician's influence on the young Arthur shows a lot of promise through Chris Kelly's strong presence and fabulous make-up designed by Madison Faile. His charge to Arthur to both "think" and "act" is meant to impact Arthur for life, but when they do emerge later in the play, they are given brief attention and fail to resonate sufficiently for today's audiences.

The script makes frequent references to the meaning of "civilization", and concludes that building rather than destroying, humility rather than pride, and rightness rather than convenience ought to inform a new set of laws that allow justice without revenge; despite the threat of a return to uncivilized ways, there is hope for the future just as long as someone -- this time in the figure of a small boy -- can remember the qualities Arthur strove for and preserve a kind of immortality. -- But, they are glossed over so quickly in the performance that the inherent messages that could challenge the audience to take heed are hard to distinguish.

WOBT: "Messiah on the Frigidaire"

Now in its eighth season, and with updated lighting equipment, Prattville's Way Off Broadway Theatre is currently showing Messiah on the Frigidaire, a comedy by John Culbertson co-directed by Stacey Little and Laura Morrison.

Set in a trailer park in a small South Carolina town, an image of what looks like Jesus [or is it Willie Nelson?] appears one night on the front-porch refrigerator of LouAnn and Dwayne Hightower [Dana Morrison and Wes Milton]. -- But, this shadow does not have the sensational appeal of other such apparitions with their bleeding or crying faces and associated "miracles": people who have been cured of disease or who have made life-changing decisions through associations with them.

So, what is this couple to do? Beset with failed dreams and disappointments in the ordinariness of their lives, Dwayne hatches a scheme to exploit their assumed good fortune by inventing a scenario that is published in the "National Investigator" newspaper, getting them into the national spotlight.

Conscripting neighbor Betsy Gridley [Hollie Pursifull] to pose as Regina Gomez, they soon have thousands of religious fanatic tourists responding to Regina's ever developing testimonials to the impact of the image of Jesus on the Frigidaire.

And a local preacher [Christopher Howard] and businessman [Zach McGough] support the enterprise in bilking the tourists as an economic stimulus for the town despite its obvious flim-flamming.

The comic potential is enhanced by recognizable character types and a good sense of Southern speech and mannerisms that the ensemble cast manage credibly. Numerous laugh-out-loud moments punctuate this two-hour production.

There are few surprises at the final outcome -- good will triumph over evil, after all -- yet along the way Culbertson's script shows us the humanity of the individual characters. They are not mere stereotypes, and there are more serious matters at hand, particularly for the threesome at the play's core.

Betsy's small-town reputation as the High School tramp follows her to adulthood, and Ms. Pursifull gives a feisty and outspoken portrayal; yet she is also shown to be the most stalwart of true friends and a person whose conscience will not allow her to continue the hoax when it injures others.

LouAnn's dilemma -- whether to stand by her man and his money-making scheme or to insist on doing the right thing even if it jeopardizes their marriage -- is given a sensitive conflicted characterization by Ms. Morrison...not an easy task to balance; yet her comfortable naturalistic voice and mannerisms keep her grounded in a truthful performance.

Dwayne's lackadaisical good-old-boy temperament is energized by the potential offered in a get-rich-quick scheme. Once a man who was "always thinking", he has become a victim of unfulfilled dreams and will grasp at anything to get himself out of this rut. Mr. Milton's frustrations in the role are almost tangible, and when LouAnn and Dwayne ultimately choose to do the right thing, their mutual relief and resolve shows them to be the classy people they dream of being, even thought they remain in the trailer-park.

So yes -- class is not determined by money or social level, everyone can enjoy life by just letting things happen, we all get distracted at one time or another, our potentials can be achieved by persistence, and love is a strong ally.

ASF World Premier: "Nobody"

After two years in development through the Southern Writers' Project, Richard Aellen's provocative play "Nobody" is being given its World Premier in the Octagon Theatre at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. A nearly full house rose to its feet at the conclusion of Sunday's opening performance. Spilling out into the lobby for a reception, conversations were intense and candid as the audience grappled with the play's themes and challenges...just one of the things that makes live theatre exciting and important.

Set in the late 19th and early part of the 20th Century, "Nobody" traces the lives of two actual African-American vaudevillians, out of work and almost out of hope. Bert Williams [James Bowen] and George Walker [Sean Blake] meet in San Francisco and decide to team up and make their mark in the business. Williams is introspective and wants a career as a "serious" actor, playing Shakespearean roles; Walker is a ladies man and more brash, intending to make a lot of money by dazzling audiences with his quick wit. Neither is quite ready for the reality that faces them: they will only be considered for playing the stereotypical and degrading "Coon" roles; that is, until they decide to play in minstrel shows in burnt-cork Blackface, billing themselves as "Two Real Coons," a choice that leaves few alternatives from then on.

Aellen's script makes good use of historical facts, merging them into his dialogue to establish authenticity, while telling a poignant story of the sacrifices to personal dignity made in order to achieve professional success. -- It is true, for example, that their major success was a production of "In Dahomey", the first major musical on Broadway with an all African-American company, including Paul Laurence Dunbar as lyricist and Will Marian Cook as composer, establishing all of them as household names, with Bert lauded as "the funniest man [white or black] on Broadway". It is true also that Bert was the first and only African-American to perform in the famous "Zeigfeld Follies"...and not in Blackface.

Their lives off-stage where they can drop the facades necessary for performance success help us to comprehend the struggles they faced in a world that regarded them as second-class citizens. Bert's wife Lottie [Erika LaVonn] and George's wife Ada [Angela K. Thomas] provide the strength to pursue the men's goals, often by gentle proddings or occasionally by defiant in-your-face confrontations. It is through them that we see the men's choices, compromises, and achievements even more clearly.

On-stage, they are forever trapped in degrading caricatures; off-stage it is different. They can afford expensive homes and clothes, taking their place in the upwardly mobile African-American community, and George has his pick of women [including a white showgirl named Eva (Margaret Loesser Robinson)] to satisfy his sexual cravings, giving them a sense of success that is, however, not enough, and the source of the conflicts that threaten their professional partnership and their marriages.

As a kind of Greek Chorus, the roles of Tambo and Bones are played by Gerrit VanderMeer and Jonathan C. Kaplan [they play assorted other roles as well] -- white men in Blackface, and a standard minstrel show double-act that exaggerated the behavior of Blacks, showing them to be simple, shuffling dullards and the brunt of degrading jokes. -- What Aellen's script does, however, is to show them as reflections of Williams and Walker and of societal changes; as the two real men achieve success, Tambo's and Bones' Blackface disguise deteriorates and their own confidence in telling jokes dwindles to meaningless dribble.

Performed on a bare set comprised of platforms, and an upstage area that houses a piano [Joel C. Jones] and drumset [Brett Rominger] and a vaudeville stage area, the play allows audiences to focus on character and conflict.

Songs that made the Williams & Walker duo famous are intertwined with the plot to showcase their abilities and to comment on the prejudices against them. "Bon Bon Buddy (the chocolate drop)", the "cakewalk", and "Jonah Man" all contribute to the one dimensional perception of Blacks in America while simultaneously showing us the effect they have on those very people they caricature. Characterizations emerge under Tim Rhoze's capable direction as thoroughly credible human beings caught in situations over which they have little or no control. And the title song -- "Nobody" -- incongruously shows both the stereotype and the determination to not be defined by it.

Wetumpka Depot: Congratulations

The Wetumpka Depot Players represented the State of Alabama at the Southeastern Theatre Conference's "Community Theatre Festival" last week. -- They returned with the "Mass Congeniality Award" for their efforts.
Congratulations to the Depot Players for excellence in performance and for so finely representing Alabama.