Reading: "Thirty-Six" at Shotgun Players

 I've been a big fan (and sponsor) of Shotgun's Champagne Staged Reading Series for many years now, and while a few of the readings have disappointed for one reason or another, they generally pull off something pretty special.

In this case, I had a chance to read the script for Leah Nanako Winkler's Thirty-Six a few weeks ago when I had some time on my hands. It's a rather amazing piece, but I have to say that I had doubts about how it would work as a staged reading. I mean, there would be challenges with staging it fully as a play, but in a staged, script-in-hand reading, it seemed almost impossible.

I've seen a couple of Winkler's plays before, and enjoyed them. Ferocious Lotus did a production of Two Mile Hollow a few years ago, and somewhere I saw a version of Hot Asian Doctor Husband, but I don't have blog posts to document either one; alas. In any case, this play steps out of the Asian-American milieu that I associate with Winkler's earlier plays, and into some very interesting territory.

The Play

The name of the play derives from a list of 36 questions published by the New York Times several years ago, ostensibly designed to improve intimacy and even lead to love between couples. In this play, Winkler has one of the characters, David, reading off the questions from his phone to Jenny, his Tinder date who has no interest in the questions (or intimacy, beyond the immediate hook-up). As David persists, we eventually get a lot of insights into both of the characters and the world they inhabit.

Part of the staging difficulty revolves around the whole Tinder hook-up thing, because the script contains a lot of rather graphic stage directions around the couple having sex. And while modern theater certainly wouldn't shy away from something like that, I found it difficult to imagine how one would stage that for a reading.

But the script manages to steer around the trite dialog opportunities, or at least faces them head-on and self-consciously. The characters realize the situation they are in, and acknowledge when they are and aren't following the expected path.

The Reading

I should not have doubted. Director Michelle Talgarow staged the reading very cleverly, with the two characters seated at tables on opposite sides of the stage. They interact, but they never actually approach each other physically. And upstage center sits a third character, called "The Mechanic" who reads the extensive stage directions to great humorous effect, as well as reciting the thirty-six questions when those come into play. It was a very effective way of defusing what could have been very tricky logistical issues with staging the scenes as a "straight" reading.

I should add that the audience for this reading was very lively and interactive: they were into the show from the start, and clearly that made the endeavor more fun for everyone. I can't imagine how the reading would have played out if the audience had sat there passively, instead of laughing, cheering, hooting, etc. 

The actors were terrific, of course. Lauren Garcia (Jenny) and Soren Santos (David) really nailed the roles and managed to interact with each other from across the stage in ways that were quite wonderful. Nic Feliciano as the Mechanic was delightful, with wonderful timing and expression for the stage directions. That definitely made the whole thing work.

And I would be remiss not to acknowledge the Intimacy Director, Natalie Greene. One might think that in a reading where the actors don't even come near one another, intimacy direction would be pointless, but in fact, I think it was the opposite. The actors managed to create or simulate intimacy in a very effective way that was safe and respectful (and funny!), and I suspect the attention of an experienced intimacy director contributed to that.

And lastly I will add that it was not lost on me that this was all happening on the set of Shotgun's current mainstage production, The Triumph of Love, designed by Malcolm Rodgers. Having the characters deployed across a simulated, Classical-style, 18th-Century garden added a rather ironic romanticism to what is not a traditionally romantic play. That was a nice touch.

The Bottom Line

I like this play. I have no idea how it would play out in a full staging, but I think it would be fun to see. Meanwhile, the staged reading seems to have been a huge success, at least judging by the audience reaction on opening night! Sadly, as is always the case with these things, there were only two nights, and they are past now. So you'll probably need to wait to see whether Shotgun or someone else locally stages the play. I will certainly go see it when that happens!

Revisiting an Old Friend

 I know.

I don't do this anymore. I got tired of the effort it took to produce even a modest-length "review" of the plays I saw, when very few people were even reading the results. I felt bad because I knew a few people, at least, had come to expect my posts, and in truth, I missed writing them.

And then came The Plague, and the Master of the Revels closed all the theaters. In fairness, I had stopped blogging about theater well before COVID-19 was even a twinkle in some Chinese bat's eye. But it soon became clear that not only was my attempt at "Too Much Theater" impossible, but we would all get to experience "Not Nearly Enough Theater" for far too long.

And now things are opening up again, and we're seeing shows in person (the less said about the lessons we learned with online performances, the better, though maybe I'll blog about that someday). But that's not what brought me back here. It was rereading a play.

Searching for a Reading

Last summer, when it appeared theaters were going to get to reopen for real, and we were all vaccinated and excited about life again, my wife and I got to be guinea pigs. A few years earlier at the Shotgun Players' annual gala we had bought the rights to host a private, staged reading, and the reading itself was scheduled for late April of 2020. Obviously, that didn't happen. We had planned to use the beautiful set that Nina Ball had designed for Shotgun's production of Henry V that was supposed to open right as COVID shutdowns hit--they were in tech rehearsals, and never got to open. It was terribly sad for the artists, of course, but I also took it personally as I'd been allowed to sit in on quite a number of their rehearsals, and really felt like a small part of the gang. Plus I really wanted to use that set!

My thinking had been that we ought to do a reading that would take advantage of Nina's brilliant little interpretation of Shakespeare's Globe Theater inside the Ashby Stage, and the play that came to mind was Bill Cain's Equivocation. We'd seen its world premiere at Ashland in 2009 and also when it played at Marin Theatre Company the following year. Terrific play, partly taking place in the Globe: Perfect!

But as the pandemic wore on, that play felt less pertinent in the moment, and we ultimately settled on a reading of Lauren Gunderson's wonderful play, The Book of Will. We had seen it twice in Ashland in 2018, and had been looking forward to it playing at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in the summer of 2020 before it got canceled. So it was both a chance to give that play a deserved shot in the Bay Area, and also a celebration of the role theater plays in our hearts during difficult times. It was kind of the ideal show to use to reopen the theater after more than a year away, and it, too, is largely set on the stage of the Globe.

So that's all good, but also not the reason I'm writing this.

Old Play, New Context

When we were planning the reading of Equivocation for 2020, I read through the script for the first time in several years. (I have two copies: the OSF script used for the premiere and also the published version--I really like this play!) The play revolves around the premise that in 1605, while Shakespeare was working on his new play about King Lear, the government tries to hire him to write a new "history" play, but this time about current history, specifically the Gunpowder Plot.

This leaves our playwright in a quandary. The king is, after all, the patron of his theater company, and with theaters having been closed by outbreaks of the plague for several years, a commissioned work would be welcome revenue. But the company is divided over whether to accept the task. The play will have to delicately balance the official government line with portrayals of the conspirators and their views. The playwright struggles both with his company and with the government, all while the story of the Plot is still coming to light. Art, truth, and expediency all seem to conflict. Can he write a play that is true and still get it approved? Are we being manipulated? Is he being manipulated?

A Little History Lesson: A House Divided

The years 1605-6 were busy ones in England, but really, for several centuries the whole country had been in nearly constant upheaval. Must of that period is familiar to theater-goers through Shakespeare's "history plays" that cover the period from the early 1300s to the mid-1500s. Throughout those years, England was wracked by questions of succession, usurpation, and the legitimacy of its kings. Even when the Tudor era put an end to the Wars of the Roses, religion came to the fore, and for several generations the country ping-ponged between Catholicism and the Church of England.

Despite a fair degree of adherence to actual history, Shakespeare's history plays both bend history to fit dramatic needs, and also carefully select themes that will pass the approval of his contemporary censors. Not only does Shakespeare have to craft his plays so his audience will enjoy them, but he also needs to make sure the current monarchs will permit the plays to go on.

With the death of Elizabeth I in 1603 and the succession of James I (brokered by Sir Robert Cecil, the Secretary of State), Protestantism seemed well established in England, though there remained devoted, mostly closeted, Catholics (and indeed, Shakespeare may have been one). Jesuit priests were officially banned from the country, for example. And the Protestant King James was not universally loved, both because he was Scottish and because he was deemed a bit of a lightweight in the ruling department, perhaps more interested in the trappings of the office than the job itself. So in November of 1605, a group of English Catholics conspired to blow up the House of Lords (and the king) during the opening of Parliament, an event known as the Gunpowder Plot. Though the plot failed, the event was used to justify further restrictions on Catholics, and to this day the anniversary is commemorated as Bonfire Night.

So, then: a deeply divided nation, tenuous leadership, and a scandalous attempt to overthrow the government. And even in the aftermath, conspiracy theories that agents of the crown might have aided the plot, knowing they could exploit the event for political gain.

The Play, Then and Now

Cain originally wrote Equivocation in the aftermath of 9/11 and the ongoing Iraq War, and the themes of government coercion and propaganda, lies, torture, and conspiracy theories all resonated strongly. Exploiting a national tragedy to unite divisive factions, even if the story doesn't quite ring true, was a big theme of the play.

The parallels with 9/11 were quite clear at the time, with a big, violent event used to pull the nation and the world together, with threats of further terror used to justify curtailing travel, increasing surveillance, and eventually, invading foreign countries. One can easily equate the incidents and the responses to them--that was certainly palpable when I saw the play in 2009-10.

So in late 2019 I re-read the play to make sure it would still feel timely a decade later. And boy, was I surprised to find that it resonated in whole new ways! The play hadn't changed, but the social context for the audience was very different.

In pre-pandemic America, the notion that the government might be trying to rewrite (or even, pre-write) history was all too credible in the land of "alternative facts" and "fake news". An unqualified new head of state, pulling the levers of the Deep State, manipulating stories and perhaps even staging them--all terribly familiar in the Time of Trump. Cain's exploration of the role of Truth is even more fascinating that it had been a decade earlier, and honestly, the ambivalence of the answers are even more poignant in the current environment.

It was truly eye-opening to see how a play that had been so rich and timely when it first came out was in many ways even more on-point in a dramatically different world ten years down the road.

And that was all before January 6, 2021. I mean, how much more pertinent can we get? An actual insurrection attempting to overturn the results of a presidential election is right up there with putting gunpowder in a tunnel under the Parliament. And the spin doctors casting doubt on everything and everyone--motives, actions, words--everything is up for grabs.

All I can say is that I continue to be amazed at how prescient Cain was in his writing. But really what that means is that he wrote something really good: a piece of work so deep and complex and real that it provides a framework for gaining insights into future conditions that change over time.

Nerdy Shakespeare Notes

Aside from the deep issues addressed in Equivocation, there is a whole layer of "inside baseball" material for the Shakespeare enthusiast. On top of his background as a Jesuit, playwright Cain has strong credentials from his work with Shakespeare's plays: founder and artistic director of the Boston Shakespeare Company, he has also directed Shakespeare plays from coast to coast. So this play is full of playful nuggets that appeal to Shakespeare nerds.

In addition to the delightful digs about Shakespeare's acting ability and his penchant for killing off his characters (and particularly, kings), Cain intertwines history with his own story in at least three different ways. One obvious one is the character of his daughter, Judith. There is no evidence of them having anything like the relationship depicted here. A second is the family rivalry with the Cecils. Although scholars have long linked Robert Cecil's father, William, to the character Polonius in Hamlet, I believe Cain's linkage of the younger Cecil to the Scottish Play is entirely novel. In any case, the snarky digs and clever creations make Equivocation a treasure trove for a Shakespeare nerd.

Why Do We Do This?

I will admit that a few bits of the play seem less timely, or at least less urgent, than they did before. The debate over torture and its use and abuse as a tool of investigation is no longer front-page news, for example. But the bigger dynamics at play--government versus private interests, art as a tool for finding (or obscuring) truth, artistic integrity, fathers and daughters, entrenched dynasties--all still work delightfully.

And ultimately, this is what all literature, all stories, all art should be about--holding up a mirror to our current selves so that we can investigate who we are and what we think, feel, and believe. And that's not a one-time offer. Revisiting a book or a play or an artwork isn't just a way to reinforce something already known or have the same experience again. To paraphrase Heraclitus, you can't step into the same story twice. It's reopening the learning. It might reinforce, but it might replace or adjust or augment what came before. There is always value in revisiting stories.

My first viewing of Equivocation was a milestone for me--both the play and the production were eye-opening, and it's been a touchstone subsequently as I think about plays and the theater. Reading it, and hopefully seeing it again lets me both re-evaluate what I recall I got from it the first time and experience new reactions as well. Even if it's the same story, I'm not the same person, and this is not the same world, and there will be new thoughts to think.

Of course, not every piece of art deserves all this much attention. Part of the ongoing reimagining of theater today deals with pruning some works from the canon and introducing new and different ones. I'm all for new works and new voices, but it's important to remember why some of the classics are genuinely classic, and why some modern works are better than others. Some repay ongoing study with rich rewards, and I'm pleased to find that Equivocation seems to fall in that category.

Reading: "Botticelli in the Fire" at Shotgun Players

Busy times since we got back from New York City a couple of weeks ago. It took me most of that time to catch up on blogging all the shows we'd seen there, but meanwhile I was seeing a bunch more stuff at home, which I now need to catch up on quickly because we're headed off to our annual trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival tomorrow, and there will be lots, lots more.

So, let's see if we can't get some of the backlog trimmed, starting with the second of Shotgun's Champagne Staged Reading Series for the year, Botticelli in the Fire by Jordan Tannahill. This show is apparently having (or just had) a very successful run at DC's Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Shotgun snagged the rights to do a staged reading, and I caught the second of two performances. As usual, it's four days of rehearsal with a little technical support in the way of lights, sounds, etc.

The Play

I have to start by saying that this show was interesting, but didn't totally grab me. We have the story of Sandro Botticelli, artist, courtier, and man-about-town. He's currently working on a radical masterpiece, a portrait of his patron's wife in the form of Venus rising, naked on a huge shell. It gets a little complicated, because he's also carrying on a rather torrid affair with the wife while she "poses" for him. This is particularly problematic because a) his patron is the notoriously ill-tempered Lorenzo de Medici, b) his libertine lifestyle provides lots of leverage for an angry patron to use against him, and c) he is particularly fond of his young protege/boyfriend, Leonardo. The atmosphere is ripe, too, because of the religious purges led by Friar Savonarola, the bonfires of the vanities.

So Botticelli finds himself literally caught between his desires and the fires. The volatile Medici certainly has echoes of some current cultural figures, not least of which is a certain wealthy reality-TV-star-turned-politician. I suspect that a more developed production of the play might manage to highlight some of the larger themes, where the reading was dominated by the personal relationships.

The Production

In addition to my usual awe at seeing what these artists can produce in so little time, I was delighted to see the return of local favorite Patrick Kelly Jones to the stage after a hiatus of a couple of years, and also an appearance by Marilet Martinez, who I thought had relocated out of town. So that was extra fun for me.

The production itself was somewhat hampered by having to work on the set of the current mainstage play, Dry Land. Although the lockers in the locker room were shrouded, it was definitely not the right setting for a renaissance artist's workshop. The play is written as contemporary, however, so it can't really be authentic renaissance, but it still shouldn't be a locker room.

And for whatever reason, the whole production seemed less polished than some of the other recent readings at Shotgun.

Bottom Line

There is a lot of interesting material here, but I didn't feel like the reading gave us a clear picture of all this play could be. That said, the conflict of classes, of patron and artist, and of the artist against some of his base desires, should be ripe for exploration on stage. The language seemed interesting and some of the peripheral characters probably have more to offer than we could get from the reading.

All in all, I'd be interested in seeing more of this play, though I can't say with full clarity that I see all it ought to be. I'll be intrigued to see whether this shows up as a full staged production somewhere nearby.

Reading: "Hurricane Diane" at Shotgun Players

Readers of this blog will recall that I am quite a fan of the playwright Madeleine George. Last year I was a production sponsor for Shotgun's production of her wonderful play, The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, which the year before had been part of Shotgun's Champagne Staged Reading Series. And my introduction to George's writing was Shotgun's earlier production of her play Precious Little. One thing all of these Shotgun/George collaborations had in common was director (and sometimes, actor, Nancy Carlin).

So it comes as no surprise that Shotgun got the first chance to do a public reading of George's latest play, Hurricane Diane, and that they would once again tap Carlin to direct it. As one would expect from this writer, it is not a simple play, but it is both funny and moving, and has a lot to say on a lot of topics.

And as with all of Shotgun's staged readings, this is a remarkable achievement, as they take a group of actors and a director, give them only a few days to rehearse, and then put on two nights of rather elaborately staged readings, script-in-hand.

The Play

Madeleine George does not think small. This new play is loosely based on Euripides' classic tragedy The Bacchae. So those are pretty big shoes to fill. In this play, Dionysus (or as she calls herself these days, "Diane") comes to earth after a bit of a hiatus, only to find that modern humans have lost their connection with the planet they live on, and are therefor close to destroying it. So she sets out to recruit her four bacchae who will help her recover her following and the planet. And of course she sets out to do this in suburban New Jersey.

Appearing in the guise of a landscape designer, Diane sets out to reconnect four women who live in a suburban cul-de-sac with the blessings of the natural world. Pam, Carol, Renee, and Beth are all neighbors more concerned with how they measure up against HGTV Magazine and maximizing resale value of their homes than with any connection to the natural world.

So Diane comes to each and tries in various ways to reconnect them with the glory of nature, rather than the draw of the manufactured world. She has varying levels of success with each. The process inevitably involves the women connecting with themselves, as they struggle with their social conditioning against the forces of Diane and nature.

The Performance

As usual, it's hard to assess acting in a staged reading. This reading featured three actors I know quite well: Sarah Mitchell (Carol), Cathleen Riddley (Renee) and Megan Trout (Beth). The other two actors were less familiar to me: Maria Affinito (Pam) and Amy Lizardo in the central role of Diane. I did overhear one audience member say she had been smitten with Affinito (or her character; it was a little hard to tell from context). In general everyone was fine, and I thought the use of a single table to represent the generic suburban home of each of the women was clever.

All told I thought it was a little hard to judge this play (unlike, for example, Watson, where I walked out of the reading knowing I needed to see it fully staged). There is a lot going on, and some very clever dialogue. I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with The Bacchae to really grasp all the nuances of this riff on it, so I need to do that homework one of these days.

Bottom Line

It's good. I'd like to read it again and do some more detailed thinking about it, but I know there is something more to this that I'm not yet appreciating, and I need to figure out whether that's just me or the play needs fuller staging or what.

Meanwhile, as usual, I saw this on closing night, so regardless of what I say, you can't see it now. I will keep my eyes on this play, though, and I suspect we may see it produced somewhere about.

Reading: "Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties" at Shotgun Players

This is one of the stranger theater pieces I've seen in a while. As usual, Shotgun puts up a remarkable production of a staged reading in extremely short time (four days of rehearsals, then two readings). We caught the second of the two (sold out!) nights last night.

The Play

Written by Jen Silverman (who wrote The Roommate, which we saw last season at SF Playhouse), this is yet another exploration of queer gender roles, though this one is set in the somewhat likelier locale of New York City, rather than Iowa. And the level of familiarity and comfort that Silverman shows with the setting and the characters makes for a much livelier and more credible show. Where The Roommate struggled at the outset to seem plausible, Collective Rage grabs you from the opening lines and never lets go. All five Betties (yes, the five characters in the story are all named Betty).

In various groupings (and occasionally alone), the Betties explore their lives, their orientations, and their various insecurities. Although they are self-consciously caricatures of the archetypes they represent, all five Betties are well-developed and represent recognizable attributes.

It's really quite fun and funny, and in the course of the reading I heard consistent laughter from all over the audience. Not always at the same scenes or at the same lines, but there was something that tickled just about everyone, regardless of gender or orientation, etc.

I will just add that they play should perhaps carry a trigger warning for men named "Richard." Betty 1 is pretty harsh every time she mentions her husband by name, which is early and often.

One element of the story that really worked was the play-within-a-play inspired by Betty 3 going on a date to the "thea-tuh"  and seeing "Summer's Midnight Dream" and being inspired to become an actor, director, producer, etc. The little riffs on the cobbling together of a rough "Pyramus and Thisbe" is both hilarious and very effectively done.

The Production

Insert the usual disclaimer here that anything that is not pure disaster is quite a triumph for one of these readings, given the limited time and resources allotted to each. Still, this production exceeding whatever limited expectations I had by a huge margin. Aside from the slight distraction of the actors carrying scripts and a few minor blocking and prop-positioning issues, this felt like a production ready to roll. Director Brady Brophy-Hilton (assisted by Quinci Waller) deserves credit for pulling the cast together and making sure a few really key aspects of each character and some shared affectations of the whole crew came through, which is really tough for a reading such as this.

The cast was uniformly terrific. In addition to the fact that all five actors were clearly excellent choices for their particular Betties, each had a terrific persona and stage presence that evolved over the course of the reading and played well off the others. I think it's pleasantly telling that I don't feel the need to single out any of the actors--all were good, and each had at least a few really good moments where their particular characterization shone through. Again, really unexpected in a reading like this.

I guess I will call out the actors, because they all brought something to their roles. Elissa Beth Stebbins (Betty 1, and the only one of the cast I recall seeing at Shotgun before) managed to be remarkably sharp and consistent with her rage toward the aforementioned "Richard." I have to admit, hers was the only Betty from whom I felt real rage. Ayelet Firstenberg (Betty 2) managed to be both kind of ditzy and schizophrenic (complete with pantomimed hand puppet). Livia Gomes Demarchi (Betty 3) undergoes probably the most dramatic (pun slightly intended) change, though perhaps the one that makes the least sense. Rinabeth Apostol (Betty 4) achieves kind of a tough goofiness, which is a difficult combination, and still gets to be vulnerable. Lea Robinson (Betty 5) has a wonderfully understated presence, combining the self-assurance of a martial arts instructor with the shyness of a gender-queer person of color trying to get along in a complex world.

Probably the highest praise you can give for a staged reading is a great ovation at the end. I can't recall the last time I saw an audience keep up their applause so long and loud that the actors for a reading had to come back out for another bow, but our group demanded it. It was well deserved.

Bottom Line

Everyone I talked to after the show expressed delight at having seen it, and many mentioned that they would like to see it again. High praise, indeed, for a reading. Although several people mentioned that it would be fun to see it again as a full production, the more we talked about it, the more we thought it might in some ways work better as a less polished, rougher reading.

I suspect that a fully-developed production would be able to tease out even more ideas and laughs from the script, and the interactions of the characters might develop more depth. This is definitely a complex and rich script, and it would probably benefit from a fairly minimalist production. Somewhere between the staged reading with three chairs as props and a full-on staging, there might be a sweet spot for this.

It's a pretty rare combination to find a truly funny play that also has real, interesting messages worked through it. The combination of clever theatrical riffs and genuine insight into a group of characters should be a real winner.

I look forward to seeing this play produced somewhere before too long.

Reading: "The Niceties" at Shotgun Players

For a variety of personal reasons, I was not in the mood to go to the theater this week, but by the same token, it was a chance to see friends and be in the warm embrace of a show, so I decided to go to the latest installment of the Shotgun Champagne Reading Series.

As usual, the cast had very limited time to prepare. This time, three days of rehearsal instead of the usual four. Luckily, there are only two actors in the play, and it has only one set, so it's not too complex in that regard. The material, however, is complicated, so they had plenty to work on.

The Play

The reading this time around was The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess, whose work I was not familiar with. The scene is a professor's office, with an undergraduate student coming to office hours to discuss a draft of a History paper. Sounds thrilling, no?

We start with some nitpicking about punctuation and grammar and parallelism and some little cutesy bits about words we like and why, etc. But then the discussion turns to the substance of the paper, and things rather quickly unravel. The professor takes issue with the thesis of the paper and the types of evidence used to support it, and things spiral into a discussion of racism and privilege and micro-aggressions and the whole gamut of topics that, depending on your perspective, fall under either the category of Social Justice or Political Correctness.

Ultimately the topic under discussion, though, is power: who has it, why, and how do they exercise it? In the give and take of the struggle over the paper, the legitimacy of academia, the university, tenure, professorship, grading, and academic disciplines all come under the microscope. So do personal goals and security, ethics, and basic questions about the purposes of life, education, and career. It's a big grab.

So clearly this play is ambitious. In many ways it's up to the task. There are some very clever passages and exchanges on both sides of the dialogue. But it's also, particularly in the first act, rather long, repetitive, and more of a rant than a discussion. The student, particularly, seems to have a lot of awfully well-rehearsed responses to just about everything the professor says, making it all feel like kind of a set-up, which is quite at odds with the way the relationship presents at the outset. If the student is so tuned in to all the issues as we come to see, then it's rather implausible that she stumbled into the situation in the first place.

But these are matters that could be addressed with some solid editing.

The Reading

First off, terrific casting. Zoe, the student, is played by Leigh Rondon-Davis, who passes easily for an undergrad, though she kind of slipped out of her teenage naivete rather too soon and too rapidly. With more time to rehearse, I think Zoe could have modulated her tone a bit more at times, adding to the give-and-take of the dialogue. Veteran actor Anne Darragh portrayed Janine, the professor. with a mixture of studied disdain, genuine befuddlement, and exasperation. She also seemed a little unclear which character she ultimately wanted to play, as her early presentation is a little dotty, suggesting that either she is already uncomfortable about the encounter (which doesn't seem right for the script) or not quite the academic powerhouse she later claims to be. Again, that just seems to be a product of short rehearsal schedules, but it makes it a little tougher for the audience to get its bearings in the melee.

Under the direction of Lisa Marie Rollins, the overall play unfolds at a good clip. The small office on the mostly open stage feels constraining, forcing the characters to persist; there's nowhere else to go. So when they do get up to move, it's pretty effective. At over two hours in length (with an intermission), the play feels a little long, but again, that's more about the length of some of the rants, rather than the setting. The office just always seems plausible.

Bottom Line

I can't quite decide whether the play is just trying to do too much all at once, or whether a more practiced, nuanced production would be able to pick out the different threads and make them more discernible. The dialogue certainly hits on lots of timely issues, but in fact tries just a bit to hard to pin down the exact moment in time, which doesn't seem necessary. It really doesn't matter whether it's 2016 or 2017, for example, but a few bits of dialogue seem to rather gratuitously pin it on one side of the 2016 presidential election.

There are also just a few too many shortcuts taken in the script. Janine, particularly, seems to let several really questionable points just go by with assertions by Zoe that just seem entirely unfounded, and that doesn't do justice to either side. A play that is essentially a dialogue like this needs to be scrupulously fair to both parties, and it feels like this script needs a bit more work in that regard.

But ultimately it's a truly interesting effort, and probably merits more work and another look. I'm sure a lot of the elements of the play would be more clearly portrayed in a full production, and some work on the script could make it truly excellent, rather than merely provocative.

But as usual, a really interesting evening from a Shotgun staged reading.

Reading: "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" at Shotgun Players

This is not going to be my usual reaction/review of a play or reading. Completely unexpected to me, a few weeks ago I got an email from my friends at the Shotgun Players, asking whether I'd like to participate in a very small role in the final play of their staged-reading series. Given that a big part of the just-ended repertory season was Shotgun's unique presentation of "Hamlet," it's only appropriate that they would follow that up with Tom Stoppard's riff, "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead".

As it turned out, the rehearsal and performance schedule meshed nicely with my calendar, so I decided to go for it! So my professional theatrical debut was a little role in this fun production. As such, I won't pretend to any sort of detachment: I had a blast, got to know the cast and crew much better, and felt like we all did a very credible job. So in lieu of any kind of "review," I thought I'd write up a few thoughts on my experience.

The Play

In modern parlance, you'd like of have to call "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern" a mashup. In many ways, it reflects Samuel Beckett's classic "Waiting for Godot," in that it primarily consists of two characters, rather befuddled, trying to figure out what they're doing, where they're going, and why. Stoppard chooses for his characters the two minor roles from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" who are childhood friends of Hamlet, sent for by the new king to try to elicit the cause of Hamlet's melancholy.

Amidst all their confusion, the title characters keep glimpsing scenes from Shakespeare's play, providing a framework for Stoppard's creative tapestry. He fills in the holes between R&G's brief on-stage appearances with new dialogue where the two muse on their purpose and destiny.

The other creative derivative from "Hamlet" is the troupe of players who eventually perform the play within a play ("The Murder of Gonzago") before the royals. Led by a player known as The Player, this ragtag band of struggling tragedians plays a recurring and clownish role in "R&G," with The Player serving as a connecting foil among all the other characters in the show.

Like "Hamlet," "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern" ends with much carnage, but it also contains some really good discussions of the role of art and artists, the meaning of life and death, and the laws of probability.

All told, it's a fun play, with lots of the clever dialogue one expects from Stoppard, but it's extra fun if you're really steeped in "Hamlet" as many in the Shotgun community are this year.

This Production

Taking advantage of the audience's familiarity with Shotgun's "Hamlet" allowed director Nick Medina (a cast member of that show) to pull some extra laughs out of the script by using or playing off of Shotgun's actual staging, costuming, and sound cues (and performing on the very set). Add a few more members of the cast (Kevin Clarke and Cathleen Riddley) to the ensemble, reprising and parodying some of their roles from the play, and it makes for much merriment.

Eli Wirtschafter and Caleb Cabrera (who was the understudy for "Hamlet") took on the roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, respectively, with Sarah Mitchell as The Player. Those three have the bulk of the lines in the play. The rest of us alternated between being the band of goofy tragedians who would eventually put on "The Murder of Gonzago" and reproducing bits of "Hamlet" as needed.

For example, in my role as Polonius, I had brief scenes trying to get some sense out of Hamlet (Jacinta Sutphin), fawned over and facilitated the king and queen (Clarke and Riddley), and transferred the king's irritation through to my daughter, Ophelia (Leigh Rondon-Davis). Or while The Player negotiated with R&G, the band of tragedians would clown on the sidelines.

The Experience

The other side of the curtain. That was one of my big impressions: standing behind the curtain while other players were performing in front of it, listening intently for my cue to go back in. I was a little surprised by how much mental energy went into just making sure I knew where I was, though I will say that by the third (and final) night of the reading, I felt like I had it down. Given that we had only a few days of rehearsal, I was glad to achieve even a little level of comfort.

Rehearsing was great. Everyone else in the cast was either a seasoned theater pro (either onstage on as crew) or at least reasonably experienced: way more than me, to be sure. So it was pretty easy to follow their routines, watch their approaches to the activity, and follow along as best I could. The whole group was extremely welcoming and supportive of having a rookie in their midst, and helped me find my feet pretty quickly. Given the limited amount of rehearsal time we had available, I was impressed with how focused and organized it all was.

My other great memory is of hanging around backstage with the cast and crew. Because of the demands of the just-finished repertory season, there were crates and cases and props for five plays everywhere, making things a bit snug. Some of the cases were cleared out between our performances, so by the end there was much more room available to us. But just hanging out with "my fellow actors" (ha!), getting to know them better, chatting about this and that, was by far the most fun: even more fun than the performing. I can certainly see how the cast of a real play, over the course of a run, would develop pretty tight bonds. Although I knew virtually everyone in the production at least casually, after these few days together I definitely feel like we're now friends, and I have a much greater appreciation for how hard it is to do what they do for a living.

Although I enjoyed the experience, and would happily do it again, I can't imagine trying to make a career of it. I've always respected actors and theater crews, but I have a much deeper understanding and respect now.

Finally, I feel a little bad that I didn't give more of my friends and family the chance to see my performance. I knew my part was very tiny, and I only found out about it shortly before the readings. Plus, all the shows were sold out before I even got in the cast. So for all those who upbraided me for not tipping you off, I apologize, and promise to do better should the occasion arise again.

Bottom Line

I never really had a desire to perform on stage, but having had a little taste of it, I can certainly understand why it appeals. People keep asking me whether this is the start of something new for me, and I can honestly say I don't think so. I wouldn't turn down the chance to do a little more, but I definitely don't see it becoming a big part of my life. It was very nice to have had the opportunity to see what it's like, even a little bit, though. I'm grateful to the folks at Shotgun for thinking of me and giving me the opportunity, and especially grateful to the pros in the cast and crew for letting me play along while they worked.

Reading: "Cherokee" at Shotgun Players

The fourth of six plays in Shotgun's Champagne Reading Series was this week, Lisa D'Amour's play "Cherokee". I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, because I had read the script a couple of years ago, and I understood that it had been produced, workshopped, and changed since then.

[And of course, the obligatory disclaimer: I am a production sponsor for the reading series as well as a board member at Shotgun.]

The Play

One reason I thought this would work well as a reading is that it's not complex in its setting. Most of it takes place in a campground in North Carolina, so atmosphere is probably more important than set design per se. And it's a small cast, so you don't need distractions.

So, two married city couples go camping. They anticipate that getting away will help them find some new paths. One character explicitly spells out what she hopes everyone will get from the experience. Needless to say, what they get is not what they expected.

Along the way, one of the campers goes missing, and a local part-Cherokee who works at the nearby casino shows up and facilitates their inner journeys. Much introspection ensues, and at some point or other, each character finds (or reveals) some part of them that perhaps they were not even aware of.

One of the fun aspects of the play is the way it injects aspects of theater into the play itself, not only with an actual play taking place inside the play, but also with some theatrical and improvisational exercises worked into the plot. There is good use of a "Yes, and..." exercise.

The Reading

I always have enormous respect for these staged reading teams. Over a very short period, with little chance to reflect or rehearse, they put together a very credible interpretation of a play. And this one is rather longer than a lot of the plays in the series, clocking in well over two hours, plus an intermission. But it didn't seem long.

For whatever reason, this show had a bit less polish than some of the others in the series. Might be the greater length, or cast members having less free time to work on the script. But it definitely worked. I can see where a fully-realized production might bring out some nuances that one can only anticipate from the reading. Some of the interpersonal interactions could be very revealing, but there certainly wasn't time to develop that kind of depth.

All the actors were good. I thought Sam Jackson as Traci and Algiin Ford as Mike definitely seemed the most comfortable in their roles. Rebecca Castelli as Janine was a special treat, as she has taught several youth classes that my daughter was in, and I hadn't realized she was going to be acting in this production. It was neat for us to see her working in a whole different context.

Ultimately, while everyone in the play gets to explore and discover new aspects of their identities, they will ultimately take their own paths. For some the "Yes, and..." is "Yes, and I will keep doing this," and for others it's "Yes, and I'm going home." I liked that.

The Season

During the talk-back session after the reading, there were quite a few good takes on the play and the material. There was a fair amount of allusion to Shotgun's production of "Caught," which is currently running. The Reading Series directors deliberately choose plays that work with similar or complementary themes and subjects to the corresponding main-stage productions.

And for the first time, I think I saw the thread that ties the whole season, main stage and readings, together. All the plays deal with discovering and experimenting with identities and roles, both internal and societal, and how one can change those or choose not to. And of course, lots of exploration of how those identities and roles are presented (or hidden).

It's been a good season of these explorations, with more to come, and of course, all the main stage productions will soon be back, running in repertory, so there will be lots of chances to compare and contrast and look for new themes.

Reading: "The Island" at TheatreFIRST

I'm not going to go into great detail about the reading I went to tonight. It was a benefit fundraiser for TheatreFIRST, kind of kicking off their new regime. But it is worth talking about the reading, too.

The Reading

This was a staged reading of Athol Fugard's 1973 anti-apartheid play, "The Island," with Carl Lumbly and Danny Glover recreating the roles they played in a full production of the play in 1977, this time under the direction of Delroy Lindo. The reading itself was fairly unspectacular, a very simple staging, and the actors with scripts in hand. But the power of the play came through to the packed house, and the star power on stage helped to pack the house in the first place.

Without going into too much detail, the play chronicles a slice of the lives of two black political prisoners in South Africa under the apartheid regime, and among the things they do is work on a two-man version of the trial of Antigone for a kind of prisoner talent show. For much of the play, this seems ridiculous, and the humor is used to good effect, but when it comes to actually performing it, the true subversive nature of the play comes through. The message of the disconnect between the legal and the just, the law of man and the law of god, resonates with these victims of apartheid.

So that was really cool, and the talk-back session afterward with the two actors (plus local actor Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, who read the stage directions during the reading) and the director was fascinating and wide-ranging over topics of art, politics, and social justice.

But all of this is really about promoting...

The Company

New Artistic Director Jon Tracy made no bones about this being a shameless ploy to attract money for the new direction of the TheatreFIRST company, but he made it well worthwhile by using the reading to provide an example of what TheatreFIRST is going to be about.

You can read all the details and mission statements and such at the TheatreFIRST website, but suffice it to say here that TheatreFIRST's new direction involves including a diverse body of artists at all points: artists, company, staff, board, etc., and creating new works written, directed, and performed by those artists and others locally. They aim to tell stories that don't normally get told, using artists that might not otherwise get heard and seen.

It's a very ambitious undertaking, and my description probably doesn't do it justice. But for all the talk of diversity and inclusion in theater (or mostly, about the lack thereof), this company intends to put their money where their mouth is.

I'm kind of excited to see what will come of this endeavor. They have grand ideas, and a lot of support from within the theater community. The proof will be in how they are accepted by the theater consumers, and how well they are able to expand that audience to include more people who, like many theater makers, are currently unrepresented or simply not present in any meaningful numbers.

Stay tuned. It's always exciting to see what happens when big ideas get a real try-out.

Reading: "brownsville song (b-side for tray)" at Shotgun Players

I'll be brief. I feel a little guilty blogging about this at all, because I got caught up at work and was late to the reading. The staff was kind and let me in at an appropriate momentary break, but I missed probably the first 15-20 minutes. Luckily I had done at least part of my homework, and had read at least the start of the play.

And as always, I'm blown away with what these artists can do in only four days of preparation.

The Play

I guess you could sum it up as an inner-city family drama, focused on a grandmother raising her grandson (the Tray in the title) and granddaughter, Devine. Tray is trying to get a scholarship so he can go to college, based in part on his skill as a boxer. His coach hires a tutor to help him with his scholarship application, and the tutor turns out to be the stepmother who abandoned him (and his sister) some years back. So that's awkward.

The play jumps around in time a bit, but it does so quite effectively, revealing layers of the story, adding complexity to what initially appear to be fairly simple situations. That part is nicely done, and the language and characters are compelling.

Ultimately, I guess the message is that you can live a righteous life and try to do all the right things, but it doesn't mean things turn out the way you'd want. It's not all bleak, but it's not exactly a happy story, either.

The Players

Once again, Cathleen Riddley, this time as Lena, the grandmother, amazes. She gives a heartfelt, stirring performance, ranging from hard-as-nails protecting her grandchildren to a fun and loving grandma, and several other distinct emotional states. All the more amazing because she is also playing the lead role in Shotgun's current mainstage production, "Grand Concourse" (which I'm going to see tomorrow night) and part of the "roulette-style" casting of "Hamlet" running in repertory at the same time. Any of those is tough on its own. To do all of them is amazing, and to do all of them well, just incredible.

Lenard Jackson as Tray does a terrific job throughout, with a difficult, ranging part, both physically and verbally. And he had good chemistry with his little sister, played by Malia Lee.

The Takeaway

You know from the outset that things aren't going to go well. And I'm really unhappy that I missed Riddley's performance of the opening scene. It's powerful to read, and I can only imagine what she put into it on stage.

The play hits on a lot of contemporary issues, including how to live a clean life under difficult circumstances, and how to (perhaps) redeem yourself after you make grave errors. There is much here about family, both biological and by choice, and about choices and redemption and forgiveness.

Definitely a worthwhile evening, and it strikes me as a play that would be worth seeing in a full staging, as I'm sure there are nuances and layers that could be probed with more time to prepare and present. Plus, I missed the start, and would like to see it whole. My bad.

Reading: "Animal" at Shotgun Players

Nights like this make me appreciate good actors. Tonight was the first of two nights of staged readings of "Animal," by Clare Lizzimore. [Obligatory disclaimer: my wife and I are production sponsors of Shotgun's Champagne Reading Series, of which this is the second for the year.] With a minimal four days of rehearsal, a group of actors takes a raw script, does some basic blocking, and with a little bit of set and props, some lighting and sound cues, they perform two staged, script-in-hand performances of a play.

I like to read these plays in advance, so I have some idea of what to expect. I don't always do that with fully-staged plays, but with readings I like to study up. When I read "Animal" a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't terribly impressed. There was some good writing, but the interplay of the characters didn't really come across to me. So my expectations weren't too high.

But really, within the first couple of scenes, I was riveted. These actors were able to convey so much more about the characters and the play than my (admittedly somewhat cursory) reading had done.

Quick Summary

Rachel (played quite brilliantly by Jessma Evans) is a young woman in trouble. She is seeing a psychiatrist at her husband's behest, but clearly she does not want to be there. As the play progresses, we watch Rachel's home life spiraling out of control, while we struggle (along with her) to get a grip on what's happening, who the people in her life are (or who they seem to be).

This is a difficult play on a difficult subject: mental illness. The reading was followed by a really good talk-back session that touched on aspects of both the play and mental illness in general, as well as connections with Shotgun's current full production of "The Village Bike," to which it makes an interesting companion.

Mental Illness on Stage

In the course of the talk-back discussion, it occurred to me that there are really two truly difficult aspects of portraying a story of mental illness on stage. The first is actually conveying the nature of the illness, which is almost by definition impossible to describe. The ill person is almost by definition an unreliable narrator, so the playwright needs to concoct scenes and characters which are both believable and evocative of the illness, and in this I think Lizzimore succeeds quite brilliantly. The cleverness of the writing is really enhanced by having faces, bodies, and voices attached to the words, and the audience finds itself taking the disquieting, disorienting journey with the main character.

The second key challenge is coming to some kind of resolution (or not) at the end. Although the play ends on a decidedly upbeat note, there is still a lot unresolved, and some truly pregnant words from the therapist that tinge the hopeful elements with a realization that there is no sure, clean answer.

All told, it's a very powerful, honest portrayal of this very difficult subject. Some of the scenes are very painful to watch, but as the audience attested in talk-back, there were elements almost anyone, especially a parent, could relate to.

Strength of a Reading

Among the other topics discussed were the difficulties and benefits of a staged reading such as this. As someone pointed out, there has to be a lot of trust within the cast and crew, as they don't have a lot of time to get comfortable or to establish routines. Indeed, they have to make discoveries even as they perform. And there has to be a lot of trust with the audience, too, as they have to fill in some of the elements that in a full production would be handled with music, lights, or blocking.

But with all that, there is also the freshness of discovery, of having to commit to your first impulses, and not being able to fall back on habit or routine. Cast and audience get to discover a lot as they charge in together, which makes the performance even more intimate that a regular play.

Those are the things that inspired us to sponsor this reading series, and this reading really delivered. If you can make it to closing night tomorrow (Tuesday), I would highly recommend it.

I won't go into the comparisons with "The Village Bike" here, because I don't think I can do so without a whole lot of spoilers. Suffice it to say that if you've seen "Bike," you'll see lots of interesting points of interaction. And if you haven't, perhaps this will inspire you to see it: It's a good pairing.

Two thumbs up, as those movie guys used to say.