ASF: "The Sound of Music"

Rodgers and Hammerstein's beloved The Sound of Music -- their last collaboration in 1959 -- is currently on the boards at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Artistic Director Rick Dildine's inventively stunning production.

Eschewing elaborate stage scenery and a grand orchestral score -- Mr. Dildine's production substitutes strikingly minimalist set pieces and a pair of baby grand pianos placed strategically at center stage -- the story of the Von Trapp family on the brink of the Nazi takeover of Austria, is both a heartwarming family musical drama that celebrates the courage of individuals who stand up for their principles, and a prescient warning against the dangers of complacent people among us who even today compromise principle for the empty promises of dictators.

The multi-award winning musical has been revived several times, and of course is well known from the 1965 film. It has given us so many familiar songs: "Do-Re-Mi", "My Favorite Things", "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", "Climb Every Mountain", and Edelweiss" among them. And the story of Maria (a young woman preparing to be a nun who is sent to be a governess to the seven children of a wealthy widower) as she navigates between her world of devotion to God and the calling of the secular roles of marriage and family, has become a part of musical theatre's indelible legacy.

Maria [Courtney Bassett] struggles with her vocation and is given common-sense advice from the Mother Abbess [Ann Arvia] to experience the world before making her final vows. And when she meets Captain Von Trapp [Gil Brady] it quickly becomes evident that they are a good match, garnering the approval of his children. -- She is the tonic the family needs to soothe them from the loss of their wife and mother, and they are transformed before our eyes.

But things are complicated by the intrusion of the Nazis whose sense of German nationalism led them to annex Austria in what is known as the Anschluss. The insidious presence of Nazi uniforms and insignia grows by degrees as the play progresses [one unexpected image toward the end drew audible gasps from the audience], and several characters in The Sound of Music walk the thin line between acceptance and rejection of a regime that appears benign but turns malignant. -- Friend and concert organizer Max Detweiller [Kevin Ligon] tries to ingratiate himself with the powers in Berlin and argues that Nazi rule is inevitable; and Captain Von Trapp's elegant fiancee Elsa Schraeder [Sandra DeNise] is afraid of the consequences of going against the Nazis, so she gives up on their marriage. Even Von Trapp's eldest daughter Liesl [AnnEliza Canning-Skinner] gets a rude awakening when her boyfriend Rolf [Cameron Edris] joins the ranks of the Nazi guard.

Make no mistake, it is the music that is the center of this production. In the hands of pianists Michael Rice and Joel Jones, the score of The Sound of Music is precise, colorful, and dramatic; there is no need for a full orchestra here.

Mr. Dildine brings many new faces to the Festival stage, whose professional credits are impressive; their combined talents carry us through the two acts, balancing credible characterizations and storytelling with impressive singing voices. Ms. Arvia's rendition of "Climb Every Mountain" brings Act I to a powerful conclusion; Ms. Canning-Skinner and Mr. Edris are pleasantly adolescent in "Sixteen Going on Seventeen", Joy Lynn Jacobs as Sister Margaretta produces the most striking voice in the Chorus of nuns, and Mr. Brady's "Edelweiss" is delivered as a heartfelt anthem to his Austrian patriotism.

Yet, much of the play's focus is on Maria and her impact on the family. Ms. Bassett is so likable as a young novice nun who is still attracted to the world around her, and she stands up to the regimented life that Mr. Brady's Captain imposes on his household, played here by two separate casts of local children. What all of them need is love, and Ms. Bassett is the perfect means to that end. The children respond to her gentle manner that changes them all. -- "My Favorite Things" breaks the ice, and is followed by rousing versions of "Do-Re-Mi" and "The Lonely Goatherd", and the children's own singing of "So Long, Farewell". -- Ms. Bassett's charming demeanor and fine lyric soprano captivate the audience at every turn.

Jeffrey Toddhunter's period and character driven costumes (and there are several quick costume changes) enhance John Coyne's inventive set pieces: a series of huge French doors and a "rolling floor", along with judicious use of items that fly in to depict specific locations, and allow the action to flow seamlessly from scene to scene.

Two and a half hours go be quickly as Mr. Dildine's production is kept at a pace that keeps us engaged in every moment, in admiration of the Rodgers and Hammerstein score, the ample talents of the acting ensemble, and the provocative book by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse that draws attention to mankind's ability to courageously hold on to principles in the face of losing everything.

Theatre AUM: "Child's Play"

In Kevin D. Ferguson's powerful and provocative Child's Play at Theatre AUM, young Cindy Stillman [Piper Mann alternates with Sophia Kessler] has stopped talking. The reason is a mystery, but as in real life any drastic change of behavior is often the result of some traumatic event, Cindy is sent to therapist Vera Heigl [Amy May] to discover the cause and help her to "find her voice". Suspicions of abuse [a topic that is too often reported in the news] arise quickly; and as the perpetrators are likely to be authority figures or family members the victim trusts, Vera must secure Cindy's confidence in her in order to accomplish her goal. -- As a kind of TED Talk narrator of the drama, Vera too needs to find her own voice, as she is suffering from burn-out, and is helped along the way by her colleague Roger [Tony George], whose romantic inclinations she resists at first.

Director Neil David Seibel continues Theatre AUM's relationship with the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University in Virginia that incubates new plays via its MFA program and where award winning playwright Ferguson is the resident dramaturg.

Mr. Seibel guides his mostly veteran ensemble actors through the contrasting naturalistic and fantasy episodes of this two-act drama; and with an inventive student design team [set and props: Olivia Tippett, costumes: Kate Saylor, lighting: Emily Aveldanez, sound: Marcus Godbee, make-up: Olivia Crutchfield] keeps audiences engaged in Cindy's suspenseful journey.

Ms. May plays Vera as a compassionate therapist whose refrain "In this part of our time together, you can do almost anything" gently secures Cindy's trust, and Ms. Mann engages in "play therapy" -- drawings that audiences see as projections, and sandbox toys that come to life -- showing her nightmares that give progressive clues to the events that triggered her silence.

These dreams particularly shed light on Cindy and her family's dynamics: when a Dragon [Sam Penn] threatens and almost shatters the idyllic fairy-tale life of the Princess [Faith Roberts], the King [Ryan Gerrells], and the Queen [Olivia Crutchfield], and a Ninja Girl [Kate Saylor] attempts to rescue the Princess, we can't help but notice the correlation as Cindy is projecting her own family in her nightmares.

Her compassionate and loving stepfather Peter [Kodi Robertson in a sensitive and understated performance] and her perfection-driven mother Julia [Brittany Vallely] both want things to go back to normal, but their own relationship is fraught with divergent versions of the truth.

Fear, secrecy, and safety with the loved ones who ought to be trusted are gradually revealed to be the crux of Cindy's affliction that bring the play to its shattering climax. -- Mr. Seibel and his company address the subject of child abuse with a sensitivity and honesty that are to be commended. And Theatre AUM sheds light on a topic that encourages audiences to address uncomfortable matters that are unfortunately too much in evidence in our own community.

Cloverdale Playhouse: "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead"

Disclosure: The reviewer is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cloverdale Playhouse.

An instant hit at the Edinburgh Festival in 1966, Tom Stoppard's absurdist tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is now showing at the Cloverdale Playhouse. -- Director Sarah Walker Thornton's ensemble of actors is in top form, turning Shakespeare's Hamlet on its head in delivering Stoppard's witty dialogue with split-second comic timing; and the themes are as resonant today as they were more than 50 years after the play's debut..

Stoppard's conceit is to make two minor characters in Hamlet the focus of his inventive study of the universal existential considerations we all share: our purpose in this life as well as contemplations on our inevitable death.

While this might appear as pretty heady stuff, Stoppard employs many comic devices as Rosencrantz [Jacob Holmberg] and Guildenstern [Marcus Clement] question their condition: they've been summoned to the Danish court, but why? Awaiting answers, they pass the time playing games [much as Vladimir and Estragon do in Samuel Beckett's absurdist masterpiece Waiting for Godot], and are distracted by the appearance of the Player [Mike Winkelman] and his troupe of itinerant actors.

Oh yes, Shakespeare isn't forgotten here. In fact, Stoppard includes a number of verbatim scenes from Hamlet in R&G to flesh out his story and further frustrate his protagonists, much to audience delight. It doesn't hurt to have some knowledge of Shakespeare's original [there is a brief synopsis in the program], but Stoppard's play stands on its own.

Playing on J. Scott Grinstead's evocative "backstage theatre" set, and dressed in Danny Davidson-Cline's fine-tuned comically interpreted "Elizabethan" costumes, Ms. Thornton's acting troupe at the Playhouse take audiences on a two-plus hour romp that makes them exercise both their intellectual and laugh muscles, and invest in the lives of the hapless duo at the center of the action.

Mr. Holmberg and Mr. Clement are on-stage virtually the entire running time. Adept at finding the nuances of Stoppard's linguistic genius, and demonstrating enviable comfort with the plot twists and turns the author throws at them, they are one of the best "double-acts" Montgomery is likely to witness. When Mr. Winkelman's expert portrayal of the bombastic Player threatens to steal the show [in a good way as Stoppard intended], they somehow manage to retrieve the audience's attention and support.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are insignificant pawns in the political intrigues in Hamlet, but here there stature -- Everyman figures out of their element trying to figure out their place in society and, indeed, in the universe -- becomes the stuff we can all recognize in ourselves. Though their deaths are inevitable [no spoilers here; the title of the play is straightforward], these two fellows make us invest in their predicaments, care about their welfare, and cheer them on till the end.

There are so many laugh-out-loud moments in the Cloverdale Playhouse's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and so much enjoyment in the visual and linguistic delights on display, that we wish to stay in their company long after the final bows.

WOBT: "Blithe Spirit"

A staple on stage for decades, English playwright Noel Coward's brilliant 1941 comedy Blithe Spirit has made the rounds at several local theatres, the latest being done at the Way Off Broadway Theatre in Prattville.

In it, novelist Charles Condomine [Brady Walker] and his second wife Ruth [Cathy Ranieri] invite eccentric psychic Madame Arcati [Michon Givens] to conduct a seance at a small dinner party. What she doesn't know is that the skeptical Condomines and their other guests Dr. and Mrs. Bradman [Matthew Givens and Zyna Captain] merely want to find out from her some "tricks of the trade" for a new novel about the occult that Charles is writing.

When she accidentally conjures the ghost of Charles's first wife Elvira [Jillian Rabb], the comic situations abound, especially as Charles is the only one who can see or hear her. Despite their many attempts to exorcise her, and Mme. Arcati goes into a number of trances to effect the outcome, Elvira has no intention of leaving.

Without giving away the many plot complications, or Coward's clever way of resolving the dilemma, there are plenty of uncomfortable events and hilarious three-way conversations where the two wives vie for Charles's affection; and the inept maid Edith [Lindsay Sellers] plays an important role in the unravelling.

Coward's urbane wit is present on every page in the mouths of all his characters, and actors must speak his glittering fast-paced dialogue with the utmost confidence, making every bon mot seem easy and natural no matter how outrageous the situation.

Though there are some strong performances that elevate Coward's wit, there was a lot of hesitance delivering the lines and struggling to pick up cues; and some lines were spoken so softly that they could not have been heard distinctly beyond the first row of the audience. -- The result unfortunately muddled much of the plot, character relationships, and clever turns of phrase, so much of the comedy fell flat. Too bad, since this company appeared to be committed to their roles.

ASF: "Every Brilliant Thing"

"If you've never been depressed, you weren't paying attention": so says the narrator/actor of Every Brilliant Thing currently playing at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. -- Devised by playwright Duncan MacMillan and actor Jonny Donahoe in 2013, it was a hit at the Edinburgh Festival, made into an HBO special in 2016, and has had several successful stage productions in this country and abroad.

ASF's new Artistic Director Rick Dildine's first directing credit here brings MFA Class of 2002 alumnus David Lee Nelson to play the role of a young man who, remembering his childhood at seven years old, was told by his father that his mother had done "something stupid". The boy doesn't comprehend depression or suicidal tendencies; he just knows that his mother is in the hospital, so he sets out to compile a list of things to cheer her up for her to read: ice cream, water fights, Kung Fu movies, hammocks, staying up late... The list grows over the years, reaching countless thousands, becoming as much an antidote for him as for his mother; and for us.

The action takes place with the 150 audience members seated on the Festival stage where they become participants in his story, calling out pre-arranged "brilliant things" on the list, or being gently conscripted into playing characters in the young man's life and memory.

Mr. Nelson is an ideal narrator, making audiences instantly comfortable with his self-deprecating and genial manner that takes a difficult topic and subjects it to scrutiny with a seriousness edged with humor. He energetically moves around and through the audience, calling out numbers to which they respond with items on his list; or they become his father, teacher, and others who flesh out the story.

In just over an hour, we travel some 30 years through his and his mother's ups and downs, never forgetting his mission to give hope to her and to any one of us who suffers or knows someone who suffers as she does. The close proximity of actor and audience gives no escape from the issue at hand; we forget that we are at a performance and willingly get involved, becoming a kind of support group for him.

Though the topic is serious, there is a lot of laughter on the Festival stage, laughter that provides a cathartic psychological relief from all-too-familiar connections we all have with depression. -- And, as he says, there's always hope.

Theatre AUM: "Female Voices"

A tradition at Theatre AUM is its annual showcase of theatre students' talents in the form of selected monologues and scenes. -- This year's theme is Female Voices featuring 21 student actors in almost 40 selections that highlight the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, as well as the Christine Blasey Ford/Brett Kavanaugh hearings, and show that the concerns of women [and men] today have been unresolved for centuries.

Performed on an open stage with minimal furniture and props, each of the pieces is announced by the actors, all of whom are dressed mostly in black that varies from concert attire to cocktail party outfits and more casual dress to achieve neutrality or social commentary to punctuate the pieces' intentions and words.

Female playwrights range from 17th Century Englishwoman Aphra Behn to contemporaries that include among others Sarah Ruhl, Caryl Churchill, Lorraine Hansberry, Pearl Cleage, Wendy Wasserstein, and Paula Vogel, all of whom confront issues that need attention. -- The mistreatment of women based on gender, social position, race, and sexuality are brought to the fore with selections that address such topics as violence, guns in schools, the Holocaust, abortion, locker room talk, fear, and the consequences of past actions -- the still unresolved issues that are covered everyday in both mainstream and social media.

Whether in a serious or humorous mode, the performances in this 1 hour 40 minute program focus on the historical perception of women as submissive to men's demands, and to women's resistance to being ignored, underrated, and abused.

Often delivered as in-yer-face address to the audience, we are made to reflect on their rage, accept our own discomfort in their condition, and resolve to make things better.

The varied strengths of the AUM actors are given attention, and audience members might remember or connect with any one piece. -- The thing that ties it all together by the end is an affirmation of the value of women in a society that still relegates them too often to second-class status, and the hope that in future there will be greater equity.

ASF: "Sometimes...Patsy Cline"

Sometimes...Patsy Cline had an all-too-short three-performance run last weekend at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Showcasing the impressive vocal talents of Jacqueline Petroccia [seen previously at ASF in Because of Winn Dixie, A Christmas Carol, and Always...Patsy Cline], this intermissionless songfest entertained its appreciative audiences.

Ms. Petroccia traced her journey from New Jersey girl to Country Western star, abetted by a few photo projections and bits of narrative linking songs to her story.

Some 24 cover-songs by Patsy Cline and others who influenced her [Bette Midler, Rosemary Clooney, Karen Carpenter, Hank Williams, among them] highlighted both her vocal range from alto to operatic soprano, as well as her command of Country Western, Blues, Broadway, Gospel, and novelty numbers that accented her refusal to be pigeonholed into one style.

Ms. Petroccia's versions of songs from Broadway's Gypsy, Clooney's "Mambo Italiano", excursions into operatic heights, as well as renditions of Cline's "Crazy", "I Fall to Pieces", and "Sweet Dreams of You" highlighted the entertainment.

Backed by a fabulous five-member on-stage band led by her husband, Ms. Petroccia instantly connected with her audience and kept them engaged for the entire 75-minute program.

Her powerful and expressive voice didn't need the excessive amplification provided her, but her vocal precision, clear diction, and sensitive interpretation of lyrics made for a delightful afternoon in her presence.