Theater

A naked, crashing, crying kind of gravity

Filed under: Theater

The presidential aspirations of Hillary Clinton have forced an American conversation about gender. But where that conversation is loudest--among the talking heads on the major television news networks--it is also the most inane. And it is without gravity. Could such a primal thing as the relationship between gender and power really be handled with any integrity on television, in short segments and interrupted by ads hawking beer, cereal and luxury vehicles?

Romeo Castellucci knows something of gravity--the naked, crashing, crying kind. And for three days last week he gave gravity to every person who bought a seat at the Walker’s McGuire Theater.

Photo: Steirischerherbst/Manninger

The program for Hey Girl! warned of “nudity and simulated violence.” On opening night, two women sat waiting for the show and wondering they were in for. “I don’t know,” one said to the other, “but it’s going to be loud and awesome.” Hey Girl!, Castellucci’s portrayal of the grace and horrors of womanhood, was both of those things.

Photo: Steirischerherbst/Manninger

More significantly, with barely a word spoken, Hey Girl! was the conversation America is not having about gender and power. That conversation begins with a question: How do we define Woman?

Castellucci suggests an answer in the shaved pubic areas of Hey Girl!’s two lead performers. From the theater seats the women appear sexless below below their breasts. But nothing about Hey Girl! is sexless. And what might have seemed a Barbie-like gender ambiguity in any other context is something far more sinister here: it is the long echo of Aristotle’s assertion that the “the female is, as it were, a mutilated male.”

Is this what the pundits mean when, pulling from the bottomless bag of English adjectives, they pick “shrill” to describe Hillary Clinton? Is “shrill” what is left when the “male” qualities are stripped away and the female politician stands naked before her audience?

Photo: Steirischerherbst/Manninger

Castellucci, of course, did not intend a commentary on America’s presidential competition. But his is a kind of theater where, in his words, “the viewer is confronted with questions that automatically feed a debate.”

Hey Girl! is 80 minutes of visceral, hypnotic theater--where a woman emerges from flesh-colored goo, perfume boils on sword, and a laser bores into a woman’s head. There is exploding glass, ear-splitting static, decapitation, and a naked woman painted silver. All of this in service of an abstract narrative that has a young woman alternately whispering, convulsing, and asserting her way through the sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrible, always powerful symbols of womanhood and women’s experience in the world. “She will need to harden herself,” Castellucci writes of the two nameless women in his piece. “Half Joan of Arc, half Juliet, she will be torn between the desire to fight for her freedom and a powerlessness that condemns her to wait to be saved.”

Photo: Steirischerherbst/Manninger

Hey Girl! is a universe inhabited by two nameless women--one white and one black. The white woman is born naked from ethereal goo at the start of the performance. The black woman walks on stage a half-hour later, crying under a giant mask of the white woman’s face. She is stripped naked--gently--by the white woman and placed in chains. Her birth is less graceful. It comes when the white woman releases her from her chains. There is an ancient arrogance here: the notion that some are born free and others are gifted their freedom. If you can call Castellucci a feminist, he succeeds in Hey Girl! where the early stages of feminism failed: he refuses to isolate the struggles of gender from the struggles of race--and our presidential contest comes tumbling onto Castellucci’s stage once more.

But he intended something more than a meditation on what he calls the “slavery, violence and servitude that still too often afflict women.” Of his main character, he says: “This anonymous girl, so far from being an icon of feminism, represents all of mankind. She is just someone hidden behind the archeology of the feminine form.”

It is easy to forget that this world of enormous gravity--this meditation on the “slavery, violence and servitude,” of women’s experience--is the construction of a man: a visual artist from Italy. But perhaps, as a man, he is uniquely qualified for the task. When Jack Holland, author of the seminal Misogyny: The World’s Oldest Prejudice, was asked why a man should attempt a study of Misogyny, he shot back: “Why not? It was invented by men.”

Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at February 19, 2008 9:38 AM | Comments (0)

 

Romeo Castellucci: Driving Theater Arts With Imagery

Filed under: Theater

Trained as a visual artist, Romeo Castellucci's work on stage draws on the rich legacy of Italian painting in creating images for the audience. But he doesn't stop, always reaching to challenge perceptions -- of what's appropriate, of what's traditional, of what's being perceived from moment to moment.

Variety has called him "contemporary theatre's most audacious and inventive image-maker," and the visuals from his work are what make an immediate impression -- nudity, simulated violence, audacious character presentation. Yet significantly more than audacious sights populate his performances, including Hey Girl, which opens at the Walker on Friday and runs through Sunday.

The performance follows a girl's journey through birth and adolescence to womanhood. Inspired by a moment where he saw a random group of young women waiting for a bus, Castellucci began conceptualizing a way to incorporate their imagined experience into his work.

"Their silence and the space around them inspired the title. It's such an impersonal way of addressing someone, 'Hey Girl,'" Castellucci says. To the director as a passerby, these women were anonymous. The unnamed woman in the title contrasts with modes of address that invoke someone's name, whether a friend or a symbolic historical figure (such as the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc and Shakespeare's Juliet, whose images all appear during the show).

Contrary to the artist's customary process, elements were added one at a time. "Usually, I meticulously plan everything out. This time, we began with an idea, went to the stage, and improvised from there," adding more material each time it was rehearsed, he said. "It was like working on a sculpture, the way Hey Girl came together."

And how does he expect audiences to react? Despite the play's startling visuals, Castellucci says to shock is not his instead. Instead, he says he merely wants viewers to permit themselves traffic down all potential emotional avenues. The United States has been more rewarding in this respect.

To Castellucci, performances don't need a unified message or a political program, and in his opinion, recent European theater has been overly programmatic. "In Europe, there is almost a pedagogical expectation in theater. American audiences are more open to experiment, to letting a piece just make them feel," he says.

Much is made of Castellucci's latest effort as a meditation on femininity. It is that, but much more. A musing on the seductive peril of symbols, a rich visual tapestry -- but more than anything, he says, this is meant to be the portrait of a real person.

And the artist is in there, too. Castellucci quotes Flaubert: "'Madame Bovary, c'est moi.' -- and Hey Girl, it's me."

Posted by Jeff Shaw at February 13, 2008 7:09 PM | Comments (0)

 

I Have Seen The Other Side ...

Filed under: Theater

... and it is funny there.

They've individually performed in lots of venues as actors, stand-up comics and practitioners of the improvisational arts. Now, they've formed like Voltron into a collective entity bent on ruling the sketch comedy universe. Or maybe they just want to make you laugh. They're called The Other Side Project, and they debuted at the Bryant Lake Bowl last night.

Pass the Scooby Snacks, Fake Doctor Bob: Pilgrim Elvis is in the Mood to Party. Click here for more photos.

The ensemble, composed of eight actors and one video person, ran through an hour-long series of sketches with wild characters, meta-humor that punches right through the fourth wall, and even one nostalgic nod to a classic Looney Tunes bit.

To begin, we're introduced to a series of outlandish characters -- Fake Doctor Bob, Tom, The Guy With Claws For Hands and the inspired Pilgrim Elvis -- but the focus shifts from colorful figures to self-referential humor and back several times throughout the evening. Since I'm a language guy, it should come as no surprise that I think the show is at its best when at its wordiest. Benjamin Denson's long, well-crafted diatribes during a routine about a blind theater attendee are gems, as are several moments of a mock apology sketch.

That's not to say shorter, scatological dialog was absent. Let's face it, bodily functions are funny, and any joke where the punch line is a simple "... and fuck you" is all right by me -- especially when the line works in context. The show delivered on that score as well. One of the characters we're introduced to is "Menstrual Maggie," and yes, it is what you think.

The Other Side's video backdrop adds a lot, whether material is incorporated seamlessly into the show or used to present standalone routines during set changes. One or two of the night's most sneakily humorous moments were sight gags on the backdrop, and another highlight of the evening is a purely pre-recorded hunk of hilarity that lampoons reality programming in a fresh way (no, really).

As is the risk with any inaugural performance, there were some timing kinks to work out. At times, punchy lines got lost in the shuffle. But the show has energy, enthusiasm and a Thursday night slot to bring mirth back to uptown.

NEXT UP
The Other Side Project performs at the Bryant Lake Bowl again on Thursday, Nov. 29 at 10 p.m. Tickets are $10.

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

The Other Side Project on MySpace
The Bryant Lake Bowl

Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 26, 2007 7:50 AM | Comments (1)

 

Jeune Lune's "Deception" extended

Filed under: Theater

My earlier post about Theatre de la Jeune Lune's production of "The Deception" covers the solid word-of-mouth about the show. I won't belabor that point; I'll just inform you that the production has been
extended, with four more shows added, and the production now finishes Dec. 2.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 20, 2007 9:24 AM | Comments (0)

 

Jeune for the Jeune: a Deal on "Deception"

Filed under: Theater

I'm not in the habit of recommending shows that I haven't seen. But a couple of people I respect have told me that Theatre de la Jeune Lune's production of "The Deception" is something I must check out. So I'm going to see one of the last performances of this production, which runs until Nov. 25, and I'm passing along a few tidbits about it to you as well.

Besides the glowing word-of-mouth reviews, two other factors compel me to pass on this third-party pseudo-recommendation: first, including tonight's show, there are a mere seven performances left, so it's a time-sensitive issue; plus, there is a pretty incredible ticket deal for the under-25 set that I think is worth talking about.

City Pages' theater critic, Quinton Skinner, first tipped me off to the show. He says it's visually stunning, an assertion this video trailer supports:

There are photos on the Jeune Lune site that also give you an idea of what the set looks like. From Quinton's review, you can learn more about this darkly humorous tale of deceit and love.

What about this ticket deal, then? Jeune Leune offers "Anytime Rush" tickets for people under-25 that are just $9 with ID. Here's how they explain it:

In an aggressive policy shift to help develop a next wave of theatre lovers, Jeune Lune has instituted “Under-25” prices of $9 for all shows this season. Under this new program, anyone under the age of 25 — student or not — can buy tickets in advance or at the door for about the price of a movie. The hope is that this kind of pricing will encourage younger audiences to more often include theater-going in their ever-expanding entertainment menu.

If you're less than a quarter century, that's enticing. I'm not, but I certainly support efforts like this to get more people out to enjoy shows. I plan to head out and enjoy this myself next week, and maybe I'll see a host of folks -- over 25 and under -- there as well.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 14, 2007 9:54 PM | Comments (0)

 

"War With the Newts" Slideshow

Filed under: Theater

Quinton Skinner's review of "War With the Newts" includes descriptions like this one:

Sandbox Theatre's hauntingly original, ensemble-created piece adapts Karel Capek's 1936 novel, in which an enterprising sea captain comes across a race of semi-intelligent amphibians who prove adept first at harvesting pearls, then at producing armaments and explosives, which eventually leads to the ruination of humanity and the submergence of the earth's surface under water.

You want to know more. Of course you do. Fortunately, Sandbox's website has a brief slideshow where you can see some of the surreal, haunting imagery than Skinner describes.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at November 8, 2007 1:21 PM | Comments (0)

 

Got Claw?

Filed under: Theater

Are you a heel or a babyface? The New York Times has taken notice of the History Theatre's production of The Baron, a play centered on the life of local patriarch Jim Raschke and his years in the American Wrestling Association. "People used to show up at wrestling matches for catharsis...It's good against evil, classic melodrama," remembers the man once feared as Baron Von Raschke, wielder of "the Claw."

Posted by Sarah Askari at May 16, 2007 3:39 PM | Comments (0)

 

Feed yourself, help starving artists

Filed under: Theater

On Wednesday, May 9, if you find yourself at 7 Corners low on carbs and low on karma points, stop into the Chipotle at Washington and Cedar. Between 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., proceeds from purchases made at that location will benefit Mixed Blood Theatre. The Mixed Blood Theatre Company is a multi-racial theater whose performances address cultural issues through diverse casting and avant-garde productions. Quinton Skinner's review of their current production, Messy Utopia, can be found here.

Posted by Corey Anderson at May 4, 2007 10:06 AM | Comments (0)

 

Rip it like Euripides

Filed under: Theater

In the latest high-culture appropriation of hip hop (remember MTV's Carmen?), North Hennepin Community College Theatre Ensemble is putting on a rap version of The Bacchae, an old-school Greek tragedy written by ancient MC Euripides, who rocked the Dionysia and sonned the competition circa 406 B.C. In the play, young god Dionysus gets mad at his royal fam for denying his propers as a deity—Moms was Zeus's trick. But Dionysus gets his get-back: According to the NHCC press release, "Young, arrogant King Pentheus returns home to find the women of his kingdom gone wild with seemingly reckless religious rituals of the mysterious god Dionysus," whose magic "is both intoxicating and dangerous."

Working from the C.K. Williams translation, director Janice Marie Wolf says she got the idea for a hip-hop Bacchae when she first heard the music. "The choruses were originally done in a rhythmic way in Ancient Greek, so there was always a rhythm to it," she says. "This semester, when I heard my students rapping, I handed them this and said, 'Could you rap this?' And that was it." The show opens Friday, April 20; call 763.424.0788 or visit www.nhcc.edu for more information.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at April 16, 2007 9:07 AM | Comments (0)

 

Gordon Parks, 1912-2006

Filed under: Film , Film , Film , Film , Film , Film , Film , Film

Gordon Parks "once took a ride tailed by the cops with some young L.A. [Black] Panthers with guns in their laps," writes Greg Tate in today's Village Voice obituary. "One asked him if he would still choose the camera over the gun, as he'd declared in his 1967 memoir, A Choice of Weapons. Parks reiterated his belief. Two weeks later the Panther was dead." Parks, who was the first black staff photographer at Life in the '50s and the first ever to direct a studio film (The Learning Tree, in 1969), lived life alongside his subjects, from blacks in the Twin Cities to Malcolm X. Born in Kansas in 1912, the future writer, jazz musician, poet, painter, choreographer, and composer moved to St. Paul as a stunned teenager after the death of his mother, according to his autobiography Voices in the Mirror, and was promptly thrown out into the subzero weather by his brother-in-law. He spent a week homeless, "bouncing between Jim Williams's pool hall during the day and the trolley cars at night," writes Michael Tortorello in a 1998 City Pages appreciation. "One morning, hungry and broke, Parks drew a knife on one of the conductors, and then, in shame, offered to sell it to him in exchange for breakfast"...

Parks played piano in a local brothel, bused tables at the Minneapolis Club, and reluctantly dropped out of St. Paul Central High School before moving to Chicago, New York, and back again. He was working as a porter on the North Coast Limited in the '30s when he became inspired by the great Depression-era documentary photographers, whose pictures he found in train magazines. Parks invested in a used camera, what he would call "his weapon against poverty and racism," and began taking photographs for the Minneapolis Spokesman/St. Paul Recorder. 50 years of work in a half-dozen mediums followed, though he's still best known for directing Shaft--he once told City Pages it was "nowhere near blaxploitation." (Parks's film biographer, Craig Rice, says he applied to film school the day after seeing the movie.)

"I don't make my poetry or my music just for people in Harlem or Kansas or any one place in between," Parks told Rob Nelson in a 1996 City Pages interview. "I think it's about reaching as many kinds of people as you can." He stayed prolific to the end, publishing two books on Atria in 2005: A Hungry Heart : A Memoir and Eyes with Winged Thoughts: Poems and Photographs. He died last Tuesday at age 93 in New York. (Read the New York Times obituary and the one in the Kansas City Star.)

In an interview with the Spokesman-Recorder last year, Parks said: "I let my heart persuade me toward whatever I needed at the moment; that's where I went. That's why I was successful, or why I failed."

(View a video at MNStories.com, a discussion at MNSpeak.com, and more Parks photography here, here, and here.)

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 13, 2006 5:35 PM | Comments (1)

 

Chicago loves Craig Wright's Grace

Filed under: Theater

As rave reviews go, they don't get much more ravier than this, about Jungle Theater grad Craig Wright's latest play Grace. Writes Chicago Sun-Times critic Heidi Weiss: First question: "Why isn't Craig Wright the talk of Broadway, with his name right up there in bright lights alongside those of, say, Edward Albee, David Mamet, Martin McDonagh, John Patrick Shanley, Richard Greenberg and the rest? By any measure his plays are as sharp and provocative as theirs. Yet at least until now, his work has been consigned to the regional circuit -- by no means a lesser place, but somewhat less noticed.

"Second question: Will 'Grace,' the sublimely acted, hypnotically directed drama that opened Wednesday night at Northlight Theatre, be his big commercial breakthrough? It certainly deserves to be.

"This is a darkly comic, eerily tragic, wholly timely play. It dives headfirst into questions of faith and religion (not necessarily the same thing at all). It explores the nature of those often deeply painful partners: love and change. And it leads us into the realms of time and space through the use of purely poetic language. What's more, Wright does all this in ways that are at once profound and dangerous, epic and personal. And, as he demonstrated in an earlier work, 'Orange Flower Water' (seen at the Steppenwolf Garage), he is one of most searing and incisive observers of male-female relationships, faithfulness and broken faith."

Posted by Jim Walsh at February 3, 2006 9:55 AM | Comments (0)

 

Reeling in the bargain

Filed under: Theater

Tonight is pay-what-you-can night for Children's Theatre Company's production of "Reeling." It's an homage to 1920's silent movies, with music, action, laughs, and those cherished pratfalls. The ticket minimum is a dollar, though of course pay-what-you-can is not synonymous with stiff-the-theater. Still, if you're light in the wallet and have a tyke to take to this all-ages show, this is your ticket. Showtime is at 7:00 p.m., thrifty ones.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at January 25, 2006 2:15 PM | Comments (0)

 

Withering satire soldiers on

Filed under: Theater

The Brave New Workshop's Caleb and Katy McEwen will be appearing this weekend in Chicago SketchFest 2006. They landed coveted headliner slots for Friday and Saturday, January 6-7, to perform their two-person revue Shut Your American Pie-Hole; or Discount Family Values. The show, which opened September 9, 2005, at the BNW, is an acerbic and frequently daring shot at the wiggly concept of "family values." SketchFest is the largest sketch comedy festival in the U.S.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at January 4, 2006 2:59 PM | Comments (0)

 

Dead of winter

Filed under: Theater

Local theater troupe Live Action Set, the group behind this year's most-attended Fringe Festival show, Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban, is in search of participants for its Zombies on Ice performance, which will take place on Medicine Lake in Plymouth as one of this year's many Art Shanty Projects. The first show is January 13 at 3:00 p.m., and 50 to 100 participants are still needed to fill the roles of zombies, make-up artists, and zombie team leaders.

Those interested need not be skilled at playing the undead on a frozen body of water: Galen Treuer of Live Action Set says the only thing you need is an ability to "propel across the ice in a jerky, zombie-like manner," and the desire to have your frozen and snot-encrusted face "made up in the gruesome style of violent decay." Of course, a love of blood-red icicles dripping from your numbed little nose doesn't hurt anything, either. Anyone desiring to play the winter dead should contact Treur at gtreuer[at]gmail.com.

Posted by at December 20, 2005 4:45 PM | Comments (0)

 

August Wilson saluted at Penumbra

Filed under: Theater

Penumbra Theatre has announced a tribute to the life and work of the late playwright August Wilson. The event, open to the public, will take place at Penumbra's St. Paul home on October 26, and is slated to run from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m. The fitting tribute includes readings by cast members who have previously performed in Wilson's plays. Excerpts from his ten-play dramatic cycle based on the 20th century African American experience will be read in the order in which the works are set, beginning with Gem of the Ocean and finishing with Radio Golf. More than 35 actors have agreed to participate, including Lou and Terry Bellamy, James Craven, Marvette Knight, T. Mychael Rambo, Regina Williams, and Sonja Parks. Penumbra has produced more of Wilson's work than any other theater, including his first play, Black Bart and the Sacred Hills. Penumbra also has plans to produce Gem of the Ocean during its 2006-2007 season.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at October 12, 2005 9:15 PM | Comments (0)

 

Ivey Awards take place, no casualties reported

Filed under: Theater

The first-annual Ameriprise Financial Ivey awards went down Monday night, and the State Theatre's main floor was nearly full of members from all levels of the Twin Cities theater community. It's fair to say that there was some ambivalence

about a corporate-sponsored theater awards show designed to honor what considers itself a largely grassroots scene, but the show struck a decent balance between recognizing indie productions and nodding toward the big institutional theaters (which, despite possessing big names and artistic cachet, by and large do not possess printing presses churning out the Benjamins). Here are a few post-show awards:

--Best Speech: Dominique Serrand of Theatre de la Jeune Lune, who reminisced about CTC founder John Donahue telling him long ago that TJL was "the new girl in town," then pulled the applause lever by sympathizing with Katrina victims and in the same breath musing that maybe the South will finally quit voting for the Republicans.

--Shortest Speech: Nathan Christopher, who took the Emerging Artist award by basically shrugging sheepishly at the audience and then ambling off.

--Aw Shucks Moment Part One: Peter Rothstein, accepting an award for his production of La Boheme, thanked his eighty-two year-old mother, who has seen his every show and was in the audience.

--Aw Shucks Moment Part Two: Steve Hendrickson, taking an award for his performance in 10,000 Things' Cyrano, thanked his wife for sticking by him and told her he loved her in an auditorium full of thousands of people.

--Most Well Deserved: Penumbra Theatre founder Lou Bellamy took the Lifetime Achievement award, with a full-on video screen restrospective of his life and career followed by a stirring speech about connecting life and art.

--Best Case of Conquering Nerves: Lighting Designer Marcus Dilliard, who took the stage with a written-out speech and admitted that he would greatly, greatly prefer to be on the other side of the lights.

--Oddest Omission: While Helen Q. Huang won an award for costume design and Joe Chvala for his choreography, there was no award for set design. Joel Sass and Bain Boehlke spring to mind as obvious candidates.

--Best Suit: Zach Curtis arrived in an ornate, pin-striped, long, black, vested number that he insisted he bought off the rack.

The show opened with a musical number by the Ivey League (ha, ha, now I get it) that gave lessons in proper theater behavior for audiences (coughing and farting are apparently off limits). The show was, frankly, blessedly short, and the small orchestra even started playing over acceptance speeches that began to wander. The awards were generally apt if seemingly a bit arbitrary, but it was probably best to avoid fixed categories and the inevitable controversey that arises when the game is played with winners and losers. As co-host Justin Kirk put it, "This is Minnesota--no one is better than anyone else."

Posted by Quinton Skinner at September 27, 2005 11:32 AM | Comments (1)

 

Guthrie casts Hamlet

Filed under: Theater

The Guthrie Theater's Joe Dowling, after reportedly conducting a national seach and auditioning more than 150 actors, announced today that Santino Fontana will play the title role in Hamlet.

Fontana, a 2004 graduate of the University of Minnesota, is 23 years old, and Dowling cited his ability to portray "the insecurities of youth" in the role. The production of Hamlet will start previews on March 4 and run through May 7--forty-three years to the date of the theater's opening with Hamlet (directed by Tyrone Guthrie and starring George Grizzard in the title role). Fontana is a hometown pick who has appeared on the Guthrie stage before, in roles in Death of a Salesman, Six Degrees of Separation, and As You Like It. Dowling directs the fourth overall production of Hamlet at the Guthrie, one during each decade of the theater's existence except for the '90's (perhaps the gloomy drama didn't fit those halcyon days).

Posted by Quinton Skinner at September 21, 2005 7:04 PM | Comments (1)

 

Pass the Dutchie

Filed under: Theater

Just got home from seeing Amsterdam's ISH company perform 4-ISH at Children's Theatre Company. The show features about ten young people performing skate tricks, breakdancing, tapdancing on in-line skates, doing what can only be described as extreme-sports dancing, and showing off martial-arts moves. In other words, it is Nirvana for eight-year-old boys (though there were certainly plenty enough girls in attendance, who knew a cool-fest when they saw one).

The show features an extended DJ interlude that is totally credible, and a human beat box good enough to make one pine for the glory days of the Fat Boys. Some of it was lost on my four-year-old, but he came home raving about the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequence, which was a highlight for me as well. Speaking from the adult perspective (that is, as much as I am capable), it was a fun hour. If you take a kid, they will think you are the coolest adult in the universe. Until they get a little older and realize that you are the cause of all of their many problems.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at September 13, 2005 9:35 PM | Comments (0)

 

Great Dane and lesser parties

Filed under: Theater

Theatre Pro Rata is pulling off a nifty trick: staging repertory productions of Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guidenstern are Dead. Hamlet is, or course, Shakespeare's relatively well known brood-fest, while Rosencrantz is a farce by Tom Stoppard that tells the same story from the point of view of two minor characters from the original. Pro Rata is performing the shows on alternating nights, then doubling the fun on Sundays by performing one show as a matinee and the other in the evening. The cast includes

Joseph Papke and Guthrie stalwart Stephen Pelinski (albeit as the voice of the ghost, not in person). Hamlet opens this Friday at the Loading Dock Theater in St. Paul, with Rorencrantz following a week later.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at September 8, 2005 1:20 PM | Comments (0)

 

August Wilson dying of cancer

Filed under: Theater

One-time Twin Cities resident and titan playwright August Wilson has told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he is dying of liver cancer and has only months to live (link here). Wilson recently finished the tenth and final play, "Radio Golf," in his dramatic cycle about the experiences of African Americans in 20th century America. It is currently in production at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at August 26, 2005 1:37 PM | Comments (0)

 

Fringe numbers are in

Filed under: Theater

The 2005 Minnesota Fringe, with its 855 performances of 168 shows, is now but a memory (albeit of the evocatively blurred and pleasingly frantic variety). Ticket sales overall were slightly higher than last year, and the total of 67 sold-out performances was a record for the festival. Here are the Top Ten shows by total attendance:

1. Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban (Noah Bremer and Jon Ferguson with the Live Action Set).
2. Dick da Tird (Kevin Kling).
3. Adventures in Mating (Joseph Scrimshaw)
4. Kung Fu Hamlet (No Refunds Theatre Co.)
5. Corleone (David Mann and the Rogues)
6. Dance in the Dark (Sossy Mechanics)
7. Buckets and Tap Shoes (10 Foot 5 Productions)
8. I'm Sorry and I'm Sorry (The Candidatos)
9. Nibblers: A Musical With Sharks (Front Porch Theatre)
10. Why Actors Can't Love (June 1st Theater Company)

In all, 44,630 tickets were sold, and average attendance per performance was a very respectable 52.2. Keeping in mind that venue sizes vary quite a bit at the Fringe, here are the shows with the greatest number of sold-out performances:

1. Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban (7 sell-outs at the Soap Factory)
2. Corleone (5 at Minneapolis Theatre Garage)
3. Nibblers: A Musical With Sharks (5 at Minneapolis Theatre Garage)
4. Adventures in Mating (4 at Brave New Workshop)
5. Pentecostal Wisconsin (4 at Acadia Cafe)
6. The Princeton Seventh (4 at Bryant-Lake Bowl)
7. Why Actors Can't Love (3 at the Jungle)
8. Oedipus Wrecks: Shakespeare and Sophocles' Excellent Adventure (3 at Acadia Cafe)
9. Strapped (3 at Bryant-Lake Bowl)
10. The Virgin Diaries (3 at Via's Vintage Wear)

"Pentecostal Wisconsin" and "Corleone" both played to more than 100 percent capacity (latecomers were forced to condense into smaller versions of themselves). Playing at 95 percent capacity or above were "The Princeton Seventh," "Adventures in Mating," and Rik Reppe's "Glorious Noise."

Posted by Quinton Skinner at August 19, 2005 2:31 PM | Comments (0)

 

Total infringement

Filed under: Theater

Opening Fringe weekend has come and gone. City Pages will offer full coverage in this Wednesday's issue, but here are a few notes. I saw ten shows this weekend, which I wouldn't particularly recommend to anyone--although the recurring faces I saw at many venues suggested that some were pursuing even more punishing schedules than mine.

A few observations:

--"Why Actors Can't Love" at the Jungle is a must-see, in its own low-key way. I talked to a couple of fellow critic types

later after the show's premiere, and they were more conditional in their appraisal. I'm not. I think it's great. It features Maggie Chestovich and Jim Lichtscheidl as ex-lovers hashing out their past in a Chicago motel room. It won't change your life, but it's everything a Fringe show should be: entertaining, irreverent, funny, and short.

--Another unexpected treat was "Dead Wait," also at the Jungle. In it, the ghosts of Jayne Mansfield and Ron Goldman try to grok their fates in the afterlife. It features a nice performance by young actor Ryan Lindberg and haunting work by Wade A. Vaughn. The show stopper, though, is Catherine E. Johnson as Jane Mansfield--she's a dolled up sibyl on barbituates, using a seductress' voice to pronounce her invention of everything American, as well as to lament her gruesome passing.

--"The Princeton Seventh" has been selling out at Bryant-Lake Bowl. I saw about thirty people turned away on opening night, and only the Mafia clout of my City Pages press I.D. got me in the door. So how is it? Frankly, a bit irritating, although the performances are very good and the ending redeems things. I think I was more put off by its preoccupation with literary celebrity than many other audience members.

--If you're looking for a show to see with your mom, you could do worse than Holly Davis's "Going to 2nd Base With God." It's a one-woman show about being unsatisfied with middle-class family life, subsequent depression, and later spiritual rebirth. Davis is frank and funny at times, although the show runs too long at 80 minutes.

--Probably my best night out was "Thirst Theater" at Joe's Garage. The series of six skits were gripping, it goes out on a high note, and there is a full bar. The service even continues throughout the show, so you can get walleyed while consuming your culture. The night I went was beautiful, I saw a shooting star, and the action rarely flagged.

--Another big buzz show is "The President, Once Removed," written by Fringe darling Ari Hoptman. Its reception has been pretty mixed, ranging from "Ari is a genius who has magnanimously blessed us with his gifts" to "What is this pile of shit?" See, the deal is this: the play is a straight up telling of the rise to the Presidency and subsequent assassination of James Garfield. Hell, Chester Arthur is even thrown into the mix. If this sounds good to you, go see it. You'll like it. I did. The acting is excellent, the story is interesting, and I enjoyed the twist of there being no twist.

--A conditional recommendation goes to "Quarter Life Crisis" at the Brave New Workshop. It's funny, but at times it's funny in an annoying way. It's about a young couple out for dinner when their relationship implodes in several improbable ways. Writer Aaron Christopher also stars as a Dada waiter, and his character is a high point.

And with that, I am heading into seclusion. Mail to me will be forwarded to my scenic chalet tucked high into a forgotten corner of the Andes.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at August 8, 2005 1:49 PM | Comments (1)

 

Word from the Fringe

Filed under: Theater

It has begun. And while I can't fully relate to those whose approach to the Minnesota Fringe is to treat is as a Lance Armstrong-worthy feat of endurance, I do appreciate the cheaper, shorter ideal of the festival. Last night I saw Mic Weinblatt's "Spare Parts", a really funny noir spoof, and word has been good for David Mann's "Corleone" (a Shakespearean adaptation of "The Godfather". I saw it in partial form earlier in the year and found it a blast). Tonight I'll be checking out Fifty Foot Penguin's "The President, Once Removed", a White House comedy by Ari Hoptman.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at August 5, 2005 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

 

Actor Caught Playing Actor in Fringe Act

Filed under: Theater

Maggie Chestovich has that ineffable quality, sometimes called "presence" or "it" or "that ineffable quality," that makes you remember a performance long after the rest of the play has turned into brain ether. Originally from Falcon Heights, she's worked with most of the major theater companies in town--Children's Theatre Company, the Jungle, Frank, Ten Thousand Things, Playwrights' Center, the defunct Eye of the Storm--and has a particular gift for acerbic comedy. At this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival, she'll star with Jim Lichtscheidl in a premiere, Why Actors Can't Love, by local playwright Allan Staples. (Visit www.fringefestival.org for the performance schedule.) We caught up with Chestovich on a rehearsal break at the Jungle, where the show is being staged.

CP: So tell us about your character in this show.

Maggie Chestovich: She's an actress, about my age, which works out well for me. She was in a relationship with a man who was a writer, but it ended poorly for the both of them. And then he writes an article for a major magazine about their relationship, not using her name of course. So she confronts him about it.

CP: How common are romances between actors in this town, by which I mean things that start during rehearsal?

Chestovich: Well, in my experience, fairly common, but I'm not sure how across the board it is. I work with a lot of actors who are a bit older and in relationships. I guess I don't know a lot of people who have quote-unquote hooked up during a show, but there's always a certain amount of camaraderie, whether that becomes romantic I can't say. I'm certainly not going to tell you any rumors that I've heard.

CP: But the rumors exist.

Chestovich: Oh, of course.

CP: When you and your actor friends get together, do people talk much about moving to New York, or is the attitude more than this is good town to do theater in, so why leave?

Chestovich: People have different thoughts about it. This is very good town, there's a fair amount of opportunity, a lot less if you go Equity, but still. I think it's easier to try to make a living here. In New York, you have to get an agent. Of course it depends on your goals, what sort of work you want to do. I like this town, it's my home, I have my family here, and I feel connected to the theater community here.

CP: I know you're a music fan. What have you been listening to lately?

Chestovich: I just bought a car, and I've been very busy, so I've been listening to music in my car, a lot of what I call driving music. Weezer's blue album, Built to Spill, the Sideways score, and the new White Stripes.

Posted by Dylan Hicks at July 28, 2005 3:29 PM | Comments (0)

 

Mixed Blood efforts recognized

Filed under: Theater

Mixed Blood Theatre has won the eighth-annual Arts Access Award, a plaudit that recognizes individuals and groups that promote access to the arts for people with disabilities. In recent years the theater has staged several shows about physical and developmental disabilities, and taken aggresive measures to make the theater accessible to the disabled. The award is presented by VSA arts of Minnesota, an arts nonprofit.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at July 25, 2005 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

 

When will it end

Filed under: Theater

By plunging one's head, ostrich-like, deep into the soft and comforting sands of cultural denial, one might have avoided the mind-numbing implications of the Broadway "Tommy" musical, or the Abba-based "Mamma Mia!" Or, hey, maybe rock-meets-theater is your bag, in which case you'll be happy to learn about this. But, honestly, this is going too far. A Smiths musical? Adolescent self-regard and masturbatory alienation under stage lights? Sure, it sounds like they're putting the tunes into a sonic Mixmaster, but the entire endeavor smacks of a culture running on fumes. And, apparently, it was just too damned expensive to get the rights to the Bauhaus catalogue.

Posted by Quinton Skinner at July 18, 2005 2:27 PM | Comments (0)

 

Playwrights' Center creates National Advisory Board

Filed under: Theater

The Playwrights' Center has announced the formation of a National Advisory Board with a mission including, but not limited to "opening doors for the Playwrights' Center and its emerging writers." A number of doors will assumedly be opening with a good deal of force, since a quick glance over the board's membership yields such luminaries as Edward Albee, August Wilson, Jon Jory, and the Guthrie's Joe Dowling. --Quinton Skinner

Posted by Corey Anderson at June 13, 2005 2:53 PM