"Two Trains Running" at Marin Theatre Company

 Well, this is late. The holidays and vacations and such caught up with me, and I got way behind on blogging the limited shows we went to see. But this one was very good, and deserves mention.

The Play

As I've noted elsewhere, I'm a fan of August Wilson's work. I haven't yet seen all of his ten-play cycle representing African-American life in Pittsburgh during each decade of the 20th century, but I'm working on it. In this case it was a repeat, as we'd seen Two Trains Running at Ashland in 2013.

Set in a run-down restaurant in 1969, the subject at hand is urban renewal. The owner of the restaurant, Memphis, wants to sell his restaurant before it is torn down, but worries that the city will not meet his price. Meanwhile, local mortician and entrepreneur West offers to buy it from him. Meanwhile, Wolf is running numbers on the restaurant pay phone, Holloway is dispensing philosophy and playing chess, while the recently-released-from-prison Sterling is scheming ways to get ahead (and get with the restaurant's sole employee, Risa). And then there is Hambone, who appears to be mentally challenged, feeling aggrieved about a promised ham that he has never received.

As with most of Wilson's cycle, the play is an ensemble piece that highlights the characters who seem both timeless and very much of their time.

The Production

This was really nicely done: well cast and directed, the ensemble works well together to transport us to 1969. Director Dawn Monique Williams keeps the pace moving without rushing it. Within the very strong cast, Lamont Thompson as Memphis stands out with a nuanced portrayal of a man who seems a bit detached from everyone else while focusing on his own crusade, but who actually keeps a close eye on all in the circle of the restaurant. Eddie Ewell as Sterling and Khary L. Moye as West play two sides of a very similar role, both always on the lookout for any angle to get ahead, but currently in very different circumstances.

The whole group does a great job of making the production feel authentic.

Bottom Line

Having recently seen Wilson's The Piano Lesson in New York with a cast of well-known stars, it was refreshing to see again how well Wilson's plays work without the star power. The words and settings are always believable, and the scripts are rich with opportunities for any actor. Marin has done a fine job with this one. Unfortunately, it closed on December 18, so no further opportunities to see it. But a very solid offering.

"The Piano Lesson" at Ethel Barrymore Theatre

 Another day, another Pulitzer-Prize winner. Honest, we didn't set out to see plays based on that this trip. It just turned out that four of the seven plays we wanted to see were all winners at some point. For this final show of the trip, we went to see the star-studded revival of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson. We're big fans of Wilson's work, though we haven't quite made it through all ten of the plays in his "American Century Cycle", which has a play set in each decade of the 20th century. The Piano Lesson is set in 1936.

The Play

Siblings in conflict over their shared inheritance--shades of Topdog/Underdog a few days earlier! Only in this case, we have a piano, elaborately carved to represent family members, that is the legacy shared by Boy Willie Charles and his sister, Berniece. Berniece and the piano live with her uncle, Doaker, in Pittsburgh, where Doaker works for the railroad. Boy Willie and his friend Lyman have coaxed a truckload of watermelons up from Mississippi, intending to sell them and use the profits to buy some farmland back home. But Boy Willie needs more money, so he wants to sell the piano. Berniece doesn't want to.

As the story unfolds we learn of the importance of the piano in the family's history. The piano was a gift from a slave-owner named Sutter to his wife, purchased in exchange for two of his slaves, breaking up their family. The wife loved the piano, but missed the slaves, so one of the remaining slaves carved likenesses of them and their whole family history into the piano. These slaves are the ancestors of the present-day Charles family, and it was Boy Willie's father who stole the piano from the Sutter family, which resulted in his death. To complete the circle, it is the Sutter family from whom Boy Willie plans to buy the farmland.

The play revolves around the family members trying to deal with their different attitudes about their past and the value of family and remembrances. 

The Production

The show has a very strong cast. Samuel L. Jackson plays Doaker, and his past history with the play (originating the role of Boy Willie at Yale Rep and understudying it in the original Broadway run) gives him a definite sense of being the patriarch. Jackson's wife, Latanya Richardson Jackson, herself an award-winning actor, directs the production. John David Washington (Boy Willie) and Danielle Brooks (Berniece) bring a lot of strength and fire to the conflicted siblings. Michael Potts as Wining Boy is very strong both musically and in his acting. And Ray Fisher as Lymon is a likeable, if ineffectual, pawn to everyone else. I'm always a little worried when actors more known for their movies show up on stage, but this cast is terrific--they definitely have the chops to play in a big house.

The set is pretty simple, allowing the actors to maintain the focus, with the exception of the extremely intricately-carved piano, which is a spectacular piece and basically serves as a character itself.

Bottom Line

Good play, great cast, well produced. It was a very good ending to our week in New York. I highly recommend it. We saw a preview performance, so I suspect it will keep getting better. The show is scheduled for a 17-week run, so you have some time to catch it.

"Fences" at CalShakes

If it seems like forever since I saw a play, that's only an illusion. I did see "Hamlet" again this week at Shotgun, but decided I've probably blogged about it enough for now. Maybe later in the year when it's running in repertory with everything else we'll revisit it.

Meanwhile, we'd been wanting to see "Fences" at CalShakes, and suddenly realized that it was closing today. So we went to the closing performance this afternoon at 4:00. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've been to the Bruns Amphitheater when the show was not at night. It was still light out when we left at the end.

Of course, buying tickets at the last minute pretty much guarantees sitting in the back corner, or splitting the group into random single seats. We chose the back corner, which was nice because it was in the shade from the start. I love outdoor theater, and it felt pretty good for this play, since much of it takes place outside the house. On the other hand, I have a feeling some of the production design gets lost in the daylight.

I'll also note that this was my first time out to CalShakes since their new artistic director, Eric Ting, took over. I didn't notice any major changes, but I have my eyes open. I suspect I will go to at least one of the two remaining shows this season, too.

The Play

First off, this is an August Wilson play, and I really like his writing, so I was bound to like the play. And the central character is a former Negro League baseball player, so it hits on another of my favorite things.

As part of Wilson's set of plays set in Pittsburgh in each decade of the 20th century, "Fences" hits a really great spot: the late 1950s, into the early 60s. The character Troy Maxson was a talented baseball player, but too old to reach the Major Leagues once the color barrier gets broken. Perhaps his criminal record plays a part as well. In any case, as an illiterate black man in a changing world, he find steady work where he can: collecting garbage. His own fight against the color barrier in the trash-collector union is a factor in the play, but mostly it's about his relationships with his wife and his sons, including his struggle to deal with their attempts to succeed beyond what he could achieve.

It's a strong, tightly-written play, well structured and presented, and a terrific platform for the actors to really dig into the heart of the relationships. Aldo Billingslea and Margo Hall as Troy and his wife, Rose, are very good. Their chemistry works well as a couple married 18 years who encounter and deal with a number of crises. They both give a lot of depth to their characters.

Minor Gripes

On the whole, I thought it was a terrific production, and I rather wish I could have seen it at night with the full lighting design and such. I was a little puzzled by some of the set design, particularly the interior walls that are absent in the opening scenes, then inexplicably rise and remain for the rest of the show. I realize it's because there were things to see in the rear of the house early on, but truly, they weren't that critical; they could have left the walls out entirely and it would have improved my sight lines, for sure.

And finally, I have to mention the microphones. As I have noted previously, I am not a fan of mikes on actors in plays. I realize that the crowd at CalShakes is older, and that an outdoor stage with no back makes it difficult to project into the audience. But there is wind, and it was really distracting a number of times in this production. Wind on microphones is a known issue, and there are solutions, but we got a lot of it today. Also, I don't know whether it was issues with the mikes or some other aspect of the sound system, but there were times when characters' voices just about disappeared for a while. And that's not supposed to happen.

All in All

That's really it, though. Good performances up and down the cast. Nice set design and costumes that made it feel like the right period. And of course, a terrific August Wilson play, with the wonderful language and structure that I'm accustomed to, well-delivered by the cast.

I wish I could recommend that you go see it, but as noted at the outset, this was the closing performance. But good stuff from CalShakes.