Tag Archives: Beth Killion

Raising Cain at the Cain Center With Million Dollar Quartet

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Review: Million Dollar Quartet at Cain Center for the Arts

By Perry Tannenbaum

By some cosmic coincidence, the publication of Rolling Stone’s special edition listing of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in late 2004 anticipated the great flowering of jukebox musicals on Broadway almost immediately afterwards – with hardly a hiccup since. A good 40 years after my last look at Billboard and Cashbox’s weekly Top 100s, the idea of collecting chart-topping hits recorded by the great kings, queens, and groups of pop or rock for live theatre must have been in the air.

Suddenly it gained new traction as a bankable concept. Songlists associated with Elvis Presley, John Lennon, The Beach Boys, and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons all got the Broadway treatment in 2005. Bob Dylan, Johnnie Cash, Dusty Springfield, and Earth, Wind & Fire were among those basking in the lights of the Great White Way the following year.

So it was hardly a surprise that Cain Center for the Arts, up in Cornelius, was sold on Million Dollar Quartet for their first co-production with neighboring Davidson Community Playhouse. After all, the original concept and book were inspired by hitmakers Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash – all of whom are enshrined in the top 100 of the Rolling Stone 500 list.

The new Cain-DCP collaboration is making history with history: the four rock legends actually did converge in Memphis, at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records studio, spontaneously jammin’ together for one magical evening in December 1956. Phillips wasn’t sure people would believe it, so he snapped a photo of the quartet. Meanwhile, some rascal in the soundbooth rolled the tape.

Was Million Dollar Quartet inevitable by the time it premiered at the Nederlander Theatre in 2010? Maybe it was nudged a little by the Rolling Stone list or the efflorescence of jukebox musicals in 2005, since the Mutrux concept was first put on its feet in Daytona Beach the following year.

The Complete Million Dollar Quartet album, 47 tracks compressed into 78 minutes, had been available commercially in the US since 1988, after gathering bootleg-edition cache for more than three decades. And the whole scenario of the Sun Records session remained the subject of fevered speculation; if anything, boosted by the commercial release, years after the best tracks – and then the complete session – had been kosher in Europe.

About the only logical argument against memorializing the historic Memphis summit meeting was the lukewarm music captured on tape.

Rolling Stone gave it three stars out of five.

Some might find even that middling rating overly generous. Aside from the wretched sonic setup, the fragmentary and impromptu song list was hardly formidable. “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man,” “Peace in the Valley,” and “Down by the Riverside” were readily available from the 1956 tape, but Mutrux nixed other staples such as “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In,” “Black Bottom Stomp,” and “Just a Little Talk With Jesus.”

Apparently, Mutrux had to tread softly among The King’s hits, for “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Love Me Tender,” both on the Complete Million Dollar album, are MIA in the musical, though both were approved for All Shook Up in 2005. So were “Hound Dog,” “That’s All Right,” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” which thankfully – and with full propriety for 1956 – were made available once again.

“Blue Suede Shoes,” a bone of contention between Perkins and Presley – Carl made the big hit recording, but Elvis made his big national live TV splash with it on the Ed Sullivan Show – was an absolute must for Mutrux and co-writer Colin Escott. It was the sort of historic tidbit that could add edge to a chance meeting whether or not it actually came up for conversation, but the writing team had grander plans.

Cleverly sidestepping the question of which of the two disputants would sing the song in their musical, Mutrux has all of the Quartet members on vocals – at the top of the show before Phillips’ narrative unfolds. It’s a perfect fit, beginning with an anthemic cry: Carl sings, Well it’s one for the money, making his entrance. The stop time after that cry allows Johnny to materialize beside a second mic for his Two for the show.

No contest about who makes the biggest entrance after Three to get ready. It’s Elvis, kicking “Blue Suede Shoes” into its 4/4 locomotive gear. Jerry Lee will get his chance, late in Act 2, for a barbaric yawp of his own, his You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain from his iconic “Great Balls of Fire,” when this session reaches full blast.

Now it’s fair to say, even though they aren’t on the Memphis tapes – and didn’t get released until 1957 – that Lewis’s monster hits, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and maybe even “Great Balls” were already in the oven getting baked. Chronology for Johnny Cash’s Sun Records hits, “Folsom Prison Blues” and “I Walk the Line,” is indisputable; they aren’t on the Million Dollar album, either.

Cash’s borrowings are shrewdly selected, stealing “Sixteen Tons” from Tennessee Ernie Ford, a hot hit in ’56, and “Riders in the Sky” from Burl Ives and Vaughan Monroe, already seven years old. Likewise, Perkins is only flashing back a little when he pilfers Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” and Bill Haley and the Comets’ “See You Later, Alligator,” both of them ’56 hits.

Even truthier than Perkins’ dispute with Presley, the singer-guitarist actually did record his forthcoming single, “Matchbox,” in December 1956 – but a day before the Million-Dollar bootleg. And Jerry Lee, still months away from his first Sun release, was an unknown sideman for Perkins at that session. So the script is almost accurate in setting up the Sun Studio get-together as Elvis and Johnny crashing Carl’s recording date.

And Elvis did bring his current girlfriend to the party, though here the writers change her name. They give their Dyanne two sexy songs her real-life counterpart never sang, “Fever” and “I Hear You Knockin’,” again authentically from that era. No less importantly, they have her standing by to console Phillips when his grand plan for the evening falls through.

Inside and out, Cain Center can be viewed as a somewhat downsized Knight Theater, beautifully accommodating around 400, about a third of the Knight’s (and the Nederlander’s) capacity. With its rousing opening, Million Dollar Quartet instantly proved to fit perfectly at the new Cornelius arthouse. Sound was perfectly potted for these ears, and not a single word was lost in our back-row seats on the sold-out opening night.

The same can rarely be said of touring shows at Belk Theater. Or at Theatre Charlotte, which sports half of the Cain’s capacity.

And we liked what we heard as much as what we saw, thanks to director Scott Albert and his cast, costume designer Beth Killion, scenic designer Chip Decker, and lighting designer Gordon Olson. Nor was it surprising to learn that Matty Montes, who portrays Carl Perkins, was also our music director. He plays a mean ax.

Nearly forty years after first discovering the Queen City/Metrolina theatre scene, I found it fairly groundbreaking for DCP artistic director Steve Kaliski to assert in his curtain speech, on a stage so grand, what my first Creative Loafing front-page feature pointed out then: people here greatly underestimate our local theatre talent pool. We can cast all four of these iconic rock giants with local actors, even if they are tasked with accompanying themselves and each other instrumentally as they perform.

All four pairs of blue suede shoes were filled very handsomely, thank you very much. You could actually look forward to a Montes’s instrumental licks as avidly as his vocals. Same can be said even more prodigiously for Ian Benjamin as Jerry Lee, the role that catapulted Levi Kraus to a Tony Award.

Kicking away his piano bench in the flamboyant style of The Killer would oblige Cain Center to take out some serious insurance, yet Benjamin had most of Lewis’s other wild antics covered. He lacked the finely tuned right heel in Jerry Lee’s arsenal, but he had the signature pumping piano action and zigzag runs securely in hand, as well as his outré mic handling. After bringing down the house with “Great Balls of Fire,” Benjamin also proved he could work the crowd he had rattled so triumphantly with his so-predictable “Shakin’” encore.

If you know Jerry Lee’s Sun catalog – or his sensational marital history – you’ll understand why Benjamin gets to be the most sensuous and bawdy member of the quartet. If not, you’ll be reminded. Although there were no photos of The Killer wearing suspenders for me to find with Google, Killion follows in the Broadway production’s footsteps by outfitting Benjamin with a pair.

We see why after Lewis leers at Dyanne in a way that risks Elvis’s rage and his girlfriend’s rejection. But Julia Freeman as Dyanne will not be intimidated. Au contraire. With her “Fever” and her “Hear You Knockin’,” she gives Lewis and then Presley the vamping of their lives.

But it’s with Lewis that she leans suggestively over Jerry Lee’s piano and tugs at those suspenders. Fever, indeed!

For their respective partisans, Eli Fischer as Elvis or Connor Nielsen as Cash may emerge as the apex among the vocalists. Though his bass register doesn’t reach as richly down to San Antone as Johnny’s, there’s an uncanny sameness between Nielsen and The Man in Black up higher in his mid and upper range, conveying the penetration and distinctive off-key astringency of that voice as well or better than I’ve ever heard it before.

Sometimes the visual resemblance was also uncanny. With Elvis or Johnny, just listening obviously wasn’t enough to satisfy Albert in his director’s chair. Most audience members wouldn’t require any actor playing Cash to be as true to his look as you have to be to either the look of Elvis or the less universally imitated Jerry Lee. Nielsen, we can suspect, put in that extra film study.

Fischer may have had the most daunting task as Elvis, considering the charisma he must live up to. Even if this is pre-Army Elvis, Mutrux conscientiously points out that Presley has already played Vegas. That’s more than sufficient excuse for Fischer to layer on all of the signature moves we associate with The King, from his scandalous Ed Sullivan days to his polished King of Vegas years.

So Fischer’s mic handling and stage movement must be on a par with Benjamin’s. We’ve seen enough sliding on two knees to celebrate World Cup goals for that onstage move to strike us now with the same excitement it packed back in the ‘50s. With that move masterfully conquered, this Elvis doesn’t need to sing better than this Jerry Lee, but he does. And anachronistically, when he tosses his scarf and sweat hanky into the front rows, he slays better than The Killer as well.

To say that Fischer’s “That’s All Right” and “Hound Dog” are electrifying is more than fair. But to say that they steal the thunder from Benjamin’s prime Jerry Lee exploits would be very presumptuous. Things get very hot at the Cain.

Come on over.

Keston Conquers Again in “The Color Purple”

Review: The Color Purple at Theatre Charlotte

By Perry Tannenbaum

Across the span of nearly 40 years of reviewing, reporting, and pontificating on the performing arts, quite a few events and performances have etched themselves into my mind. On rarer instances, an audience response will be equally unforgettable, such as press night on April 10, 2008, at Ovens Auditorium, the first time Wicked came to town, greeted by a series of deafening ovations that have never been matched.

Every time my Apple Watch notifies me that an audience topped the 100dB mark the previous evening, I wish I’d had one at Ovens that night to know what the high-water mark is.

Even more unique was the night of September 15, 2012, at Dale F. Halton Theater. There, the student actors and musicians of Northwest School of the Arts performed The Color Purple. My wife Sue and I went with a bit of trepidation.

We had already seen this musical on Broadway and in its touring reincarnation at Belk Theater. More to the point, we knew the pitfalls of an all-youth cast colliding with roles that demanded fully mature players. At the Halton, we were already reminded of how wrong that could go when the recent college grads who recruited for CPCC Summer Theatre clashed with the likes of Fiddler or Spamalot.

Of course, we had already built up considerable trust in Corey Mitchell as a stage director nearly three years before he snagged the first Tony Award given to a theatre educator. But there are tough hombres in Alice Walker’s Purple, including poor Celie’s abusive father and husband, Pa and Mister.

And if you remember either the film or the Oprah-produced musical, there are two certifiable divas besides Celie, our tormented protagonist: the hard-headed Sofia and the glamorous Shug Avery. Could Mitchell find all the outsized talents he needed enrolled at Northwest to fill all these roles?

Sure did. And he had more: scenery on loan from the original Broadway production.

But the audience! When Northwest junior Keston Steele, starring as Celie, had finished singing her “What About Love?” solo, Sue turned to me and asked, “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

For the entire audience, it seemed, had sprung to its feet – a standing ovation in the middle of a show! And the answer to Sue’s question is still no.

So you can imagine that when we walked into the old Queens Road Barn on opening night of the current Purple and received my playbill, I was pre-sold. Our Tony Award winner was back directing Theatre Charlotte’s new version, and the name of Keston Gary topped his cast list as Celie.

Had to be the same Keston, right? That’s honestly the only name I had remembered.

While I wasn’t the only person in the Queens Road Barn who remembered Gary’s pre-marital, pre-motherhood exploits at CP, it’s unlikely that anyone else in the crowd was in the same suspense: would history repeat itself?

So there was that unique suspense for me, especially when Gary belted out “What About Love?” as zestfully as Steele. Would the audience rise? Would the Barn’s roof blow off? That same silly suspense struck me once again when Gary followed up with the musical’s supreme affirmation, “I’m Here.”

While Gary’s singing merely equaled Steele’s, her acting – seasoned by marriage and multiple motherhoods – markedly surpasses it. At their depths, Gary’s servility and submissiveness as Celie are borderline cringeworthy. Maybe a few notches beyond what a white director would dare.

It’s a grim reminder, to be sure, that feminism was a more central concern for Walker here than racism, which only affects Sofia’s story. As a result, we can revel more in the light and inspiration that Shug and Sofia bring to Celie with their special brands of savvy and sass. This Celie needed to travel a longer road, in my eyes, to straighten up her hunched shoulders and stand up for herself.

Twenty years after I saw The Color Purple on Broadway, it’s nice to see Mitchell leaning harder into the story’s demeaning subjugation. But it’s harder for me to be sure whether Mitchell is seeing Celie’s sexual awakening as more overtly lesbian than ever before, or if I am.

The rousing “Miss Celie’s Pants” certainly hadn’t landed on me in nearly the same way as it did on Queens Road. Sung by Gary with her mentor Shug, Sofia, and a bevy of other women, you can take this eye-popping number partly as a gay pride celebration or as a proto-Hillary rally.

K. Alana Jones as Shug sports a free-thinking saloon singer’s confidence, seemingly at home with anybody’s body of her choosing. In that respect, Shug’s bisexuality aligned more closely with Walker’s. Shug always got the kind of delayed runway entrance traditionally reserved for Broadway legends, so costume designer Justin Hall, with assistant Beth Killion, needed to be sure that Shug’s rigs radiated class.

With all the fine tunes crafted by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, the book by Marsha Norman doesn’t get enough space to make the connection between Shug’s fashion sense and Celie’s eventual emergence as a dressmaker. At Theatre Charlotte, we can infer that Shug is Celie’s dressmaking muse.

Once Jones does enter as the blues singer, she scores well in the uplifting “Too Beautiful for Words” and the raunchy “Push Da Button.” One can only smile at the thought of high schoolers rehearsing that latter gem.

As Sofia, Germôna Sharp gives Celie – and any other wallflower in town – a more militant brand of inspiration with her “Hell No!” [my italics]. Fortunately, I had somehow forgotten the battered Sofia’s marvelous dinner-table reawakening, so I could take fresh delight in Sharp’s hallelujah suddenness. Not long afterwards, Sharp gets to team up with Nehemiah Lawson as Harpo, her genially clueless husband, in their raunchy “Any Little Thing” reconciliation.

After his bravura psycho dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, it was nice to see Lawson less crazy and cocksure. Harps is more befuddled and human, actually evolving with the times. Watching this character arc, from “Brown Betty” to “Any Little Thing,” amid more toxic excesses of testosterone was a nice reassurance that not all men are monsters. Or at least, beyond redemption.

You could say Harpo’s leavening presence gives Arnold Grevious as Pa and

as Mister more license to be as monstrous as possible. Yes, there are moments at the beginning of Purple when Walker seems to be taunting us: “You think white patriarchy and misogyny are bad? Come over to my place!”

Neither Grevious nor Williams gives any hint of mellowing toward Celie for a long time. Meanwhile, Mister needs to be appealing to Shug in some way that might surface in his bossy “Big Dog” showcase with his field hands. More to the point, he ought to appreciate Shug’s strength as well as her beauty and talent, so Williams can give promise of evolving as he lays out Walker’s red carpet for her diva in “Shug Avery Comin’ to Town.”

Williams also gets the luxury of penitence, beginning with “Celie’s Curse.” No such epiphanies happen for Pa: we just watch Grevious becoming older and feebler. So don’t give that old rattlesnake a single vocal and see if I care!

No, Tim Parati’s scenic design for Purple, the first we’ve had in Charlotte that was totally missing its Broadway lineage, won’t floor anyone, though J.P. Woodey’s lighting helps us not to mind. But Keston Gary is far from the only onstage luminary capable of knocking you onto your butt.

Apart from Chicago and New York, I’ve been maintaining for years that Charlotte has the vastest store of Black theatre talent around. Purple at the Barn proves me right once again. Call yourself fortunate if there are still seats available.

Let “The Drowsy Chaperone” Hypnotize You

Review: The Drowsy Chaperone at Theatre Charlotte

By Perry Tannenbaum

My advice for best enjoying The Drowsy Chaperone at Theatre Charlotte is to listen to the Man in the Chair – and yield to his pitch-dark hypnosis. Yes, before the lights even go up at the old Queens Road barn, he’s in his chair speaking to his audience and conjuring up what we should hope and pray for: “I just want to be entertained. Isn’t that the point?”

As the show unfolded, brilliantly directed by Billy Ensley with what must be the local cast of his dreams, I realized that, as a critic, I shou

ld heed that hypnotic suggestion devoutly. Discard my usual pointy critical and analytical tools. What’s more, I came to believe more and more strongly that, if actors and directors of previous Drowsy Chaperones I’d seen had followed that simple mantra, I would have fallen in love with the show long before last Friday night.

When the lights came up a few minutes deeper into the Man in Chair’s monologue, we saw him locking the front door of his humdrum apartment with four or five assorted deadbolts and chains. It’s a bit of an abrupt swerve, but we’re suddenly aware that this Broadway musical devotee is a recluse and a bit paranoid. Each time the phone rings, we’ll see that the Man in Chair fails to answer, yet another confirmation of these traits.

By the time the title character of the fictional “Drowsy Chaperone” is a few wobbly notes into her showstopping “As We Stumble Along,” we already should know that the Man in Chair is gay, which accounts for Lisa Smith Bradley delivering the song as a living fetishization of Ethel Merman and Judy Garland – Merman’s vibrato wedded to Garland’s glitter, slacks, and drug dependency.

Yet when we’re watching Kyle J. Britt as our genial host, we need not attribute his reclusiveness or paranoia to being a gay man. As a Broadway musical fanatic, this Man in Chair identifies more readily as a New Yorker with Innerborough hangups. Meanwhile, Bradley is sufficiently over-the-top as both gay icons – especially Merman – to be accused of impersonating a female impersonator.

We might say that Ensley & Co. have decided that being gay in 2024 isn’t nearly the leaden weight it was in 2006 when Drowsy Chaperone premiered in the Big Apple or in 1996 when Angels in America tore the QC apart and made us a laughingstock. Pretentiousness, solemnity, and subtlety really are inimical to this delicate relic. Britt handles it with audiophile care as removes the vinyl disc – a rare original cast recording of his favorite 1928 musical – from its LP sleeve and gives both sides a loving once-over with a Discwasher brush before lowering his treasure onto a turntable.

The same can be said of size and scale, which may also have muffled my enjoyment of productions at Belk Theater in 2007 and Halton Theater. There’s something so right about our little séance in the dark at the Old Barn on Queens Road that it cannot attain in a more modern and spacious hall where the Man in Chair must project his spell into a distant balcony. The homeliness of the Man’s urban dwelling also sits better on Queens Road than in the bowels of a bank building on Tryon Street.

To be honest, it’s Broadway Lights and the late CP Summer Theatre that should apologize for not matching the unpretentiousness of Josh Webb’s scenic design. Of course, it would be nice if Webb’s scenery could transform spectacularly into Broadway splendor when the stylus of our host’s turntable comes down – with its signature thump – onto the vinyl and the mythical “Drowsy Chaperone” comes to life. In the less-is-more world on Queens Road these days, these shortcomings are comedy assets, part of the overall charm.

On the other hand, our time travels to 1928 get a softer landing thanks to the costumes by Beth Killion, notable for their flair, their formality, and their discreet dashes of color. We’re awaiting the wedding of Robert Martin and Janet van de Graaf, so there are actually multiple levels of time travel here, for Bob Martin actually co-wrote the Drowsy Chaperone book with Don McKellar – and starred in the original Broadway production as Man in Chair – while he was married to the real-life Van de Graaf.

In fact, this originally Canadian work, which eventually layered on music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison, was gestated at Martin’s stag party in 1997, nearly 70 years after these fictional nuptials. More reasons not to view this lark as a gay cri de cœur.

Rare as his vinyl treasure may be, Britt comes across less as a scholar or a critic than as a fanboy, occasionally panting like an eager puppy as he presumes to approach his fantasy idols more and more closely. More than once, the principals will obligingly freeze for him. Nor does this Man in Chair seem to favor the men over the ladies with his adoration, only tipping the scales just before the final bows. Charmingly enough, there are overtones of scholar and critic as he dishes tasty trivia about the fictitious “Drowsy” cast members or advises us to be on the lookout for some truly dreadful lyrics.

These glamorous, theatrical, servile, and criminal characters are all blissfully ignorant of the nerd who has conjured them up, preoccupied with their conflicting efforts to carry off the planned wedding or ruin it. The bride herself, Lindsey Schroeder as Janet, seems to be grandly ambivalent about becoming Robert’s wife, sacrificing her glittery stage career and the adoration of millions, while suppressing her basic instinct to “Show Off.” Love is at comical war with vanity. Carried away by the swiftness of this whirlwind romance, Andy Faulkenberry as Robert also has his doubts.

Aside from Janet’s drunken chaperone, politely labelled as Drowsy, there are a butler Underling, an eccentric Mrs. Tottendale, and Robert’s best man George shepherding the loving lambkins to the altar. Only Zach Linick as George seems to be afflicted with any degree of competence or reliability. More importantly, he and Faulkenberry make up a formidable tapdancing duo. (Thank-yous to choreographer Lisa Blanton.) Allison Rhinehart as a frilly, bustling Tottenham and Darren Spencer as the gray and starchy Underling are no less inevitably channeled toward blithe entertainment.

Counterbalancing the fragile determination of the bride and groom, compounded by the flimsy protection of their good friends, we have an exquisite mix of bumbling baddies trying to sabotage the wedding. These are led by Joe McCourt as Broadway producer Mr. Feldzeig (Feldzeig Follies ring a bell?), under pressure from his mobster backers, who consider Janet to be the cash cow of the Feldzeig franchise. The sneering McCourt is bedeviled by Gangster 1 and Gangster 2, armed emissaries – Titus Quinn and Taylor Minich – masquerading as hired chefs to ensure a catastrophe.

Ah, but it isn’t simply muscle aimed at swaying the maiden and returning her to showbiz. Somehow, a predatory Lothario is among the wedding guests – although he has never met anyone else there. Mitchell Dudas is this egotistical Adolpho, far more arrogant than Feldzeig, a mixture of Erroll Flynn and Bela Lugosi with a thick Iberian accent. Feldzeig has no trouble at all convincing Adolpho that he was born to seduce the bride-to-be.

Equally dumb, Autumn Cravens as Kitty is a ditzy chorine, constantly nagging her boss and wedding escort Feldzeig to let her fill Janet’s shoes in his next Follies. Effortlessly, Dudas will outperform Cravens in thwarting Feldzeig’s schemes. Love conquers all, but it would be a huge spoiler to say how many times when we reach this very happy ending.

Just one more wild card is needed to tie up all the festivities. Be on the watch for Trinity Taylor as Trix the Aviatrix, who descends from the skies at just the right moment with a voice of thunder. For a few moments, she even upstages Britt and Schroeder who are so fabulous.

It would be a mistake to miss the craftmanship lavished on this plot with its stock characters by Martin and McKellar, brought out so brilliantly by Ensley and his dream cast. For instance, think how perfectly 1928 was chosen: between Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, Babe Ruth’s 60 homers, The Jazz Singer of 1927 and the Wall Street Crash of 1929. A brief last window of bliss before global misery. In the real world, the parade of yearly Ziegfeld Follies revues would be halted after 1927 – until 1931.

“Ripcord” Brings Mortal Combat to Senior Living

Review: Ripcord at Davidson College

By Perry Tannenbaum

We’ve had more than a couple of engaging David Lindsay-Abaire moments in the Charlotte metro over the years, beginning with the Actor’s Theatre production of Fuddy Meers in 2002. Wonder of the World continued the company’s love affair with Lindsay-Abaire in 2004, and when the playwright’s Rabbit Hole took the 2006 Tony Award and the 2007 Pulitzer, Actor’s Theatre took full custody for the 2008 Charlotte premiere.

Since then, the edgy Lindsay-Abaire has largely disappeared, along with – not coincidentally, I’d contend – Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte. The exception proved the rule when Carolina Actor’s Studio Theatre mounted a fine production of L-A’s Good People in 2013, for CAST made its exit years before ATC’s demise.

Tiding us over until the current run of Ripcord in a Davidson Community Players productionat Duke Family Performance Hall, Lindsay-Abaire has graced us with numerous softer, cuddlier visitations. For he wrote the book for the musicals that brought the animated Shrek to life in a trinity of darling fluff, beginning with Shrek the Musical before hatching its twin afterbirths, Shrek Jr. and Shrek TYA. A full-length revival was staged at ImaginOn by Children’s Theatre as recently as 2022.

With the touring edition of Lindsay-Abaire’s newest Tony Award winner, Kimberly Akimbo,due for a Knight Theater rendezvous next April, many Charlotte theatergoers may rightly feel that the time is ripe for catching up with this notably successful writer. They will find a very fine production at the Duke, nestled inside the Davidson College student center, although Ripcord isn’t Lindsay-Abaire at his edgiest.

On the other hand, Ripcord isn’t nearly as humdrum as its main locale, Bristol Place Senior Living in New Jersey, would lead you to presume. That’s because roommates Abby and Marilyn have radically clashing temperaments, turning the apartment into a tinderbox. Fundamentally, Abby is misanthropic grouch who treasures her privacy – but instead of forking out the extra cash that would put her in a private apartment, she has pragmatically made herself impossible to live with.

Sunny, cheerful, and chatty, Marilyn is totally averse to the quiet and solitude Abby thrives on, breezing into the suite in a jogging outfit while her sedentary counterpart vegetates on an easy chair. She doesn’t see Abby as a mortal enemy. She’s oblivious to most of the insults that Abby hurls at her and impervious to the rest. Marilyn needs to play with others and blithely treats Abby’s hostility as playful banter.

Such insouciance totally flabbergasts and infuriates Abby, opening avenues to comedy and drama. Lindsay-Abaire slyly chooses both. So do director Matt Webster and his cast, decidedly tipping the scales toward comedy. You can easily despise both Pat Langille as the Pollyanna senior Marilyn and Karen Lico as her adversary.

Abby’s inability to dim Marilyn’s sunniness is frustrating enough for her to enlist the assistance of eager-to-please Scotty, the resident aide who cares most about the women. You can definitely empathize with Scotty when Abby confides in him and keeps pestering him to get Marilyn transferred to a single apartment that has become vacant downstairs.

Strangely enough, Scotty’s patience isn’t as boundless as the saintly Marilyn’s, which gives Lowell Lark some leverage to work with in the role. As a peacemaker, he gently informs Abby that she likes it upstairs, where it’s sunnier and there’s a nice view of the nearby park. As a dealmaker, he won’t commit to speaking to management on Abby’s behalf about moving out her roomie, but he could get in a word for her about serving up some chicken and dumplings – instead of the usual tasteless gruel – if she’ll buy a ticket and come to a show he’s acting in.

Actually, “Beelzebub’s Den” is a haunted house, liberating us from the ladies’ institutional humdrum bedroom and bath on an excursion to the first of three breakaway scenes, two of them obliging set designer Kaylin Gess to create living quarters that quickly stow away in the Duke’s commodious wings. Lots of work for the seven-person set crew. Doubling as DCP’s lighting designer, Gess gets to supply the phantasmagoria at Beelzebub’s while Beth Killion provides the outré costume designs. Technical director Shawn Halliday also gets in on the fun, here and in the signature skydiving scene.

There’s fun for us watching the haunted house antics, but Abby is neither impressed with Scotty’s acting nor scared by any of the spookiness. Abby matter-of-factly tells that she doesn’t scare. Period.

Enjoy the fun, then, but the prime takeaway from Beelzebub’s is Abby’s pride in her fearlessness. In the very next scene back at assisted living, Marilyn will insist with equal certitude that nothing Abby can do will make her angry. Resistant to all the previous bets her quirky roomie has proposed, including whether she can balance a slipper on her head, Abby sees a betting opportunity here. If Abby can make Marilyn angry, she wins. If Marilyn can scare Abby, victory!

The high stakes are predictable: if Abby wins, Marilyn leaves; if Abby loses, Marilyn gets to take over the coveted bed near the window. Game on!

And no holds barred. Lico and Langille aren’t at the high end of Lindsay-Abaire’s specified age range for their roles, so the patina of seeing ancient biddies acting like kiddies isn’t happening in Davidson. But it is definitely the playwright’s intent for Langille to exceed expectations with her imaginativeness and for Lico to shock us with her meanness and cruelty.

With stakes set this high, this is war, and the warfare escalates each time an attack fails. Bombarding your roomie with phone calls and fake messages or drugging your roomie are not out of bounds as the battles begin. Enlisting your relatives and pranking your opponents’ kin are also legit strategies as the Abby-Marilyn War escalates. The avenues of comedy and drama widen along the way.

Langille and Lico obviously revel in hatching their devilish schemes and flouting our presumptions of senior citizens’ dignity and decorum. So the Odd Couple comedy, seasoned with a half century of aging, works well. But there’s also a theme of bonding that Lindsay-Abaire plants deeply in his script from the moment his antagonists strike their bet. Reviews of the 2015 Manhattan Theatre Club premiere indicate that director David Hyde Pearce missed it with his sitcom reading, and Webster also misses some of the early hints.

Yeah, Scotty the peacemaker and dealmaker subtly evolves into the common enemy – inevitably, the uniter, if both women survive! – when Abby and Marilyn solemnly agree to keep their bet a secret from him. Lark has his best moments when he suddenly appears at an inopportune time, threatening to blow the renegade gamblers’ cover.

The deeper mojo is in the bond formed between the two combatants, a literary staple stretching past Robin Hood and Little John all the way back to the Homeric epics. We’ve all seen two boxers sincerely hugging one another after pummeling each other for 12 or even 15 rounds. That’s genuine emotion, the rawest kind, not ritual or fakery. It comes from a gradually growing appreciation of your opponents’ gifts and grit as the battle grinds on. At its keenest, the upswell of emotion also comes from the realization that your mortal enemy has pushed you to a level that you never believed possible – and that part of extra specialness of your opponents’ performance comes partly from you.

So there are many fine moments that Lico and Langille have once the game is on, though digging into them would disclose too many comical and dramatic spoilers. Equal to any one of them is the spot where, the bet having been won, the combatants begin praising each other for their devilish deeds. At that point, Webster, Lico, and Langille are all catching Lindsay-Abaire’s drift.

Supporting actors are also a treat, starting with Rigo Nova as the Zombie Butler, our host at Beelzebub’s. Transforming into Derek, Marilyn’s son-in-law, Nova is almost as surreal in his geniality and self-doubt. Victimized by one of Marilyn’s pranks, John Pace wears his victimhood well as Abby’s drifter son after donning a clown suit back at the haunted house.

Kimberly Saunders is also spectacularly silent at Beelzebub’s as the Woman in White, but her surprise appearance as Colleen, Marilyn’s daughter, is an immediate joy – for she is foiling Abby’s first wicked prank just by walking through the doorway. Soon she’ll be rubbing her hands with glee at the prospect of joining her Mom in some awesome payback. Mischief is more fun when the whole family is in on the plot.

Make the Speech and Slam the Door – Again?

Review: A Doll’s House, Part 2 at The Mint Museum

By Perry Tannenbaum

If you make a brief study of Henrik Ibsen’s original script – going beyond the Wikipedia write-up – you can get a good understanding of how playwright Lucas Hnath went about imagining his 2017 sequel, A Doll’s House, Part 2. Crack open the 1879 original, published the same year it was premiered, and you’ll find that Hnath plays fast-and-loose with the text, even before Ibsen’s characters speak. The architecture of the house is changed when Nora Helmer returns 15 years later to the place where she delivered the feminist “door slam heard around the world.” That iconic door is now emphatically displayed, rather than concealed, in Hnath’s reimagining of the scene where Nora liberated herself by simply walking out on her husband Torvald and their children.

This time, she knocks insistently rather than daintily ringing a doorbell offstage. Once she enters, received by her antique nanny Anne Marie, she notices several items are gone, including her piano, an old cuckoo clock, a cabinet with trinkets, and a portrait of Mom. But only the piano was actually there when Ibsen set the scene, and Hnath is treating Henrik’s stage directions as cavalierly as a modern stage director.

At the Mint Museum on Randolph, where Charlotte Conservatory Theatre is presenting the Queen City premiere, director Matt Cosper accurately gauges Hnath’s irreverence toward the papa of mod drama. But that doesn’t hinder Cosper from pushing the envelope a little further, by unleashing Gina Stewart to be the most skittish and hyper-fretful Anne Marie we can imagine – with a bit of hyperventilating slathered on. As the limping, desiccated nanny of yore becomes Nora’s sounding board once again, every juicy and exotic disclosure that Kellee Stall makes in the role about her tribulations and triumphs over the intervening 15 years becomes exponentially more scandalous, outre, and delicious by virtue of the old crone’s overreactions.

Cosper gives Stewart some extra business to accent her energy and curiosity, some laundry drudgery for starters as Nora is knocking on the door. Then as the wanderer opens up to her, Anne Marie is hungrily chewing on munchies or nibbling on the luxurious chocolate bonbon Nora has brought her, visibly devouring each scrap of news she hears. There’s a nibbling squirrel in both Ibsen’s Doll’s House and Hnath’s, but this time it isn’t Nora.

So exactly how has Nora thrived over these past years? For Stall arrives in a dress so resplendent, thanks to costume designer Beth Killion, that she evokes the majesty of a Macy’s Parade float or the Chrysler Building. Stretching the suspense, Nora asks Anne Marie to guess. This is fun, she remarks, bringing back more memories of Ibsen’s opening scene.

In Anne Marie’s first guess and in Nora’s subsequent revelation, we get keen glimpses into how deeply Hnath dived into Ibsen’s creation. Once you skim the Wikipedia write-up, after all, you realize that Nora is based on the marital turbulence of a writer, Laura Kieler, whom Ibsen knew well. By revealing Nora as a successful writer, Hnath is taking his cue from Ibsen, and by stealing Ibsen’s story, he exacts revenge on Kieler’s behalf, for the Norwegian novelist always resented the Norwegian playwright’s use of her story. (In real life, Mr. Kieler had his missus committed to an insane asylum.)

It’s kind of tasty.

Never guessing that her dear Nora had literary talent, Anne Marie guesses that she became an actress – a shrewd and prescient guess that will mirror Hnath’s thinking when Nora and Torvald thrash out their failed marriage. For the great fault – or fault-line – in Ibsen’s play has always been the wide gulf between the cheery and complaisant little magpie who charms Torvald in Acts 1 and 2 only to become an unbending and defiant crusader against her husband and society after the second intermission.

Famed New York Times theatre critic Walter Kerr pointed out this chasm in his analysis of the 1971 Broadway revival of the play, and he celebrated Claire Bloom’s approach to Nora as an effective way to bridge the gulf. What Kerr inferred from Bloom’s performance is pretty much what Hnath has Nora saying out loud in her final showdown with Torvald: the cheery, charming Nora that her husband remembers so fondly was largely a mix of playacting and manipulation, subterfuges that the new Nora disdains.

Shawn Halliday is as stodgy and respectable as the Torvald Helmer of old, but Hnath has given him fresh insights and self-delusions to play with – and to help Hnath in texturizing Nora a bit further. Ironically, the woman who went on to writing books that have espoused the end of marriage, inspiring other wives to walk out on their husbands, has soured Torvald on the idea of marriage simply by walking out and staying away.

“You sorta killed that for me,” he confesses.

There’s also 15 years of hurt for Halliday to harp on – and for Stall to coolly deflect. Cosper allows Halliday to play the victim card way past the brink of comedy as he turns his chair away from Stall, like a pouting child who will not speak until Nora explains why she has returned. With the exception of the elaborately decorated front door, Tom Burch’s simple set design veers as much toward hospital waiting room as it does toward a doll’s house. But when the two simple white chairs, seemingly stolen from a patio or a beach, come into the action on a matching white rug, the smallness of the Mint stage accents the husband-and-wife role reversal beautifully, especially Master Torvald’s regression.

Clearly, the best of Torvald’s grievances goes straight to her walkout. Disarmingly, he admits that Nora had made some good points before she left, but if they really hadn’t had a serious conversation on a serious subject during their whole marriage, it should have been imperative for them both to attempt to have an adult conversation right then, on the spot, aimed at building the marriage that should have been.

Nora doesn’t wish to have the what-about-the-kids conversation, but Hnath doesn’t let her off the hook. The passage of time allows him to bring Emma Helmer, Nora’s daughter, to maturity as essentially a fresh creation. It’s another plum role, and Laura Scott Cary makes a scintillating debut in it, offering Nora the most devastating pushback she gets all evening.

When Emma claims she bears no ill will toward her mom, Cary is so intelligent, poised, and tastefully dressed that we can’t be sure if she’s telling the truth. A wee bit doll-like? It would be easy to presume that Emma has been molded by the strictures Anne Marie and Torvald live by, perhaps processed through the smarts and spirit she inherited from Nora. Yet Cary lets us see with steely clarity that she is not intimidated by her notorious mom. Better yet, she lets Nora see that her absence, more than anything else, has cemented her daughter’s belief in the benefits of marriage and family.

Poof, Nora’s claim that marriage will be an extinct institution within 30 to 40 years, which instantly draws laughs from the audience as Hnath leverages history, now deflates before Nora’s eyes in the confines of her old doll’s house. Quite a supreme irony for someone who has picked up a torch on a mission to change society.

Every time somebody onstage lets loose with an f-bomb, we’re reminded that Hnath’s historical perspective fuels this dramatic comedy. Ibsen denied that he intended A Doll’s House as a feminist play, but Hnath hardly needs to bother making this claim. If anything, he might need to defend himself against the charge that, as exemplified by Anne Marie and Nora, he’s telling us that women don’t know what they want. No, you will not find the answer to why Nora returns in this review. The best way to find out what is driving Nora – and to experience all the shocks she delivers and receives – is to watch how Hnath’s rewarding sequel unfolds at the Mint Museum Randolph. Perhaps the better question to ask, after seeing this beautifully balanced Charlotte Conservatory Theatre production, is whether Nora will ever take yes for an answer

“Pippin” Is Mostly Magical at Theatre Charlotte

Review: Pippin at Theatre Charlotte

By Perry Tannenbaum

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There was plenty of magic to do last Friday night as Theatre Charlotte opened their new production of Pippin at the Queens Road barn. Opening night was happening in the wake of a dazzling Broadway Lights reveal at Belk Theater of a star-studded touring version of Into the Woods just three nights earlier. That compounded the new challenges already added by the 2013 Broadway revival of Stephen Schwartz’s 1972 hit, layering on new illusions, flying effects, circus acrobatics, and fire.

Behind the scenes, budgets and available talent are also stressed and stretched. Theatre Charlotte is embarking on an unprecedented series of four consecutive shows, hosting performances of Detroit ’67 (opening May 26) and I and You (June 16) at the old barn through June 25, after an excursion to the Uptown Mint Museum, where Picasso at the Lapin Agile will pay a visit beginning on May 5, the weekend after Pippin shutters. At home and on the road, TC’s running crews are booked for the next 10 weekends.

At first blush, it was tough for me to escape the notion that Woods witch Montego Glover’s wardrobe alone – not to mention her paycheck – was more expensive than this entire pipsqueak Pippin production. But the five-piece stage band directed by Lindsey Schroeder is tight, the ensemble directed by director/choreographer Lisa Blanton is brash and teeming with pro-grade talent, and the dance stylings by Sterling Masters-Deeney (home from a 12-year stint with the Broadway company of Wicked) are besprinkled with Fosse hands and pizzazz.

Before he composed Wicked, Schwartz wasn’t exactly sold on serious storytelling, so it isn’t difficult to swap out the narrative frameworks of Godspell and Pippin. Not for directors and most of the design team, anyway. For the acting troupe, most of whom are billed as Players; and for those designing the new Pippin effects and teaching performers how to execute them; it’s a different story. A granny on a trapeze? The original Javert from Les Miz learning parlor tricks? Tall orders.

Community theatres have scaled-down prep schedules as well as Slimfast budgets, so there were a few times – particularly when fire is involved – when you’ll need to brace yourself for disappointment. Otherwise, the acrobatics, the sawed woman, and the levitation stunt overachieved magnificently. Who knows, maybe by the second weekend, the kinks will be ironed out of the flame-throwings.TC95-Pippin-275

With Nehemiah Lawson as the Leading Player and Bart Copeland in the title role, both emerging from the ensemble of Theatre Charlotte’s Something Rotten, the bulk of Schwartz’s music and lyrics is in good hands. Lawson is a powerful presence and an excellent dancer, and the costume Beth Killion has designed for him strongly suggests black magic wizardry. Yet Lawson sometimes undercuts his own authority when he appears to be striving to precisely execute the choreography instead of taking over his moves, manhandling them, and making them his own.

The flimsy book by Roger O. Hirson is already lax in reminding us that the Leading Player is in charge of all the other players and their storytelling, so Lawson’s occasional spasms of fidelity don’t help. Yet his scenes with Sophie Lanser as the flawed and recalcitrant Catherine, Pippin’s true love, are beautifully calibrated in their give-and-take, and his climactic tantrum when Pippin rejects martyrdom is fairly breathtaking.

As Prince Pippin, Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne’s son, Copeland is disarmingly wholesome, earnest, and at ease. His dancing prowess seems to improve before our eyes as he ages and becomes more worldly-wise, with an added grace that may stem from Copeland’s not taking himself seriously as a dancer. That kind of modesty works well for the major Pippin role that hasn’t won two Tony Awards (Ben Vereen in 1973 and Patina Miller in 2014), particularly when you’re a protagonist who finds himself beaten down in life no matter which path he follows toward fulfillment, his ”Corner of the Sky.”TC95-Pippin-154

While we savor the blithe amorality of Darren Spencer as Charlemagne, more aristocratic zest emanates from two female royals. Reveling in her corruption as Fastrada, Charlemagne’s current wife, Alyson Lowe gets to scheme against both her Emperor husband and her stepson Pippin, slyly maneuvering to install her valorous dimwitted son Lewis on the throne. Louann Vaughan draws the sunnier role as Charlemagne’s mom, exiled from court by the conniving Fastrada.

Her sunnier song, “No Time at All,” is the catchiest, a carpe diem song from Granny that espouses hedonism to Pippin as a better path than ambition. It also draws some of the most surprising staging as Berthe proves she hasn’t sunk into stagnant retirement. She’s as much of an opposite of Catherine as the cold-blooded Fastrada, for Lanser quickly forms a domesticated trio with Copeland and Logan Campbell as the widow’s son Theo, bonding together in the precious “Prayer for a Duck.”

Common farmer she may be – and maybe, according to Leading Player, the lowliest actor in the troupe – but Lanser reminds us she isn’t a doormat, aggressively seeking out a replacement husband when she’s on script in the Leading Player’s story and then pugnaciously inserting a song that he has not approved. Catherine needs Pippin and her “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man” is a long way from worshipful.

Matt Howie is the only other cast member who speaks, giving Pippin’s half-brother Lewis a surprisingly sweet tinge. After seeing him in numerous productions, most recently in Something Rotten, I’m not sure he can help it. Among the dozen dancers in unnamed roles, captains Georgie DeCosmo and Mitchell Dudas consistently excelled. Charlton Alicia Tapp also stood out as a slick ballroom lizard, and lithe Riley Gray breathtakingly took acrobatic honors ascending and descending the silks.

The Road Gets Bumpy, but Theatre Charlotte’s “Christmas Carol” Prevails at CP

Review: A Christmas Carol at Halton Theater

 By Perry Tannenbaum

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Almost a year ago, fire struck the Theatre Charlotte building on Queens Road, gouging a sizable trench in its auditorium and destroying its electrical equipment. Repairs and renovations will hopefully be completed in time for the launch of the company’s 95th season next fall, but meanwhile, actors, directors, designers, and technicians are soldiering on at various venues for 2021-22, their year of exile cheerfully branded as “The Road Trip Season Tour.” Ironically enough, Theatre Charlotte’s Season 94 began in September with a downsized musical, The Fantasticks, at the Palmer Building, a facility that once served as a training ground for firefighters. For their 14th production of A Christmas Carol, Theatre Charlotte has moved along to Halton Theater, the permanent home of Central Piedmont Theatre.

Timing is a bit awkward on the campus of Central Piedmont Community College, where a new theater that will be friendlier to dramatic productions – replacing the demolished Pease Auditorium – is slated to open in April with The Diary of Anne Frank. Graced with a generous orchestra pit, the Halton is more hospitable to big splashy musicals (when its sound system responds favorably to our crossed fingers). In fact, this transplanted production of A Christmas Carol, in Julius Arthur Leonard’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ iconic novella, reminds us how well-suited the old “Queens Road barn” was for such spooky and creepy fare. Not only were the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future at home there, but so were such confections as Arsenic and Old Lace, Assassins, Blithe Spirit, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The Halton occasionally seemed oversized when You Can’t Take It With You took up residence there at the beginning of Central Piedmont’s current season, and you can imagine how their spectacular 2015 Phantom of the Opera emphasized the grandness of Andy Lloyd Webber’s grand guignol.

Encountering the vastness of the Halton in transplanting Theatre Charlotte’s cozy Christmas Carol, director Jill Bloede has been characteristically resourceful in executing its many daunting scene changes. At times, we could see cast members whisking set pieces off to the wings in a smooth out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new routine. But there were occasions when changes of scenery necessitated a complete closing and reopening of the stage curtains. Veiling the tediousness of that maneuver, Bloede has summoned repeated parades of a small band of merry carolers, coached by Jim Eddings, to cross the stage while the curtains are closed – so you would probably be right in thinking there are more carols sung this year than in Christmases past on Queens Road. My welcome for the carolers on opening night veered toward the unredeemed Ebenezer Scrooge’s grumpy attitude as the evening progressed, yet opening night is destined to be enshrined in Theatre Charlotte lore as the night of the infamous doorknocker scene fiasco.

One of the first indications that Scrooge’s house will be haunted, after a ghostly “Ebenezer Scrooge!” exclamation blows in on the Halton’s sound system, is the brief scene at the threshold to Ebenezer’s home. Here is where Scrooge sees a fleeting glimpse of his deceased partner, Jacob Marley, bringing his doorknocker to life. The precision needed to carry off such a simple scene only became apparent when it went awry. Either the Halton curtains were tardy in arriving at their centerstage spots, where they would fully frame Scrooge’s front door, or the actor who was to lurk unseen behind that door arrived early – and was very clearly seen, garishly aglow. Portraying Scrooge, Hank West seemed sufficiently poised to extemporize while the stage curtains and the lurking Marley came into proper alignment. But the carolers took their cue and entered before West could properly proceed, and the panicked actor behind the door fled. West finished out the brief scene as well he could without any eerie lights beaming through the doorknocker, but the special effect was lost – the only real reason for that scene.

Legions of Theatre Charlotte veterans – and new initiates in years to come – will no doubt keep the memory of this snafu alive for generations, heartily laughing all the more at the incident because it didn’t typify the production. Scenic design by Chris Timmons and lighting by Gordon Olson didn’t expand quite enough to comfortably acclimate at the Halton, nor did the company splurge on smoke or fog effects during its financial woes, which might have deepened the spell of the spookier Marley and graveyard scenes. Don’t expect any snow to flutter down on the vast Halton acreage, either. With balmy temperatures likely to prevail throughout the opening weekend, it’s Beth Killion’s set of period costumes that most successfully instill a chill into the air.IMG_8525

We’ve seen some of this cast before, notably West as Scrooge, Chip Bradley as Christmas Present, and Mary Lynn Bain doubling as Fred’s wife Elizabeth in the present and Belle, Scrooge’s old flame, in the flashbacks. All of these enlarge on their past performances to some extent, maybe West most of all. His meanness is more startling in person than it was in last year’s video version, streamed online, and his sorrow and penitence are also magnified. The graceful arc of Scrooge’s redemption is only slightly bumpier this year with West’s adjustments to the new space, Bloede’s script edits for this intermission-free edition, and a body mic. Projected into a larger hall, Scrooge’s newly minted intentions needed to sound more like settled resolves and less like agonized pleas. Bradley enlarges to a similar degree upon Present’s outsized cheer, the more the merrier in his case – until he issues his climactic admonitions, now sharper in their contrast. Bain seems most content to let her mic do her amplification, but she is stronger this year in the climactic flashback scene when she returns Ebenezer’s engagement ring.IMG_8694_dcoston

All the newcomers to TC’s Carol are quite fine, a testament to Bloede’s ability to attract talent when she holds auditions. In contrast with the veiled youthful mystery of Anna McCarty last year, Suzanne Newsom brought a nostalgic melancholy to the Ghost of Christmas Past that was quite affecting in its serenity, while Mike Corrigan appeared for the first time as Bob Cratchit – very different with his more muted brand of meekness from Andrea King last year but no less kindly or comical. For richer or poorer, Josh Logsdon and Rebecca Kirby were a fine pairing for the Fezziwigs, Aedan Coughlin doubled well as Young Ebenezer and Ghost of Christmas Future, and Riley Smith brought all the optimism needed for the sanctity of Tiny Tim. With Mitzi Corrigan and Emma Corrigan on board as Mrs. Cratchit and daughter Belinda, there’s plenty of family authenticity around the humble Cratchit hearth – or there will be when Mitzi returns from personal leave due to a death in her real family. Vanessa Davis spelled ably for Corrigan as Mrs. Cratchit at the premiere performance, augmenting her regular role as Mrs. Dilbur.

Assuming that Thom Tonetti was already in character as Jacob Marley during the notorious doorknocker scene, I’ll say his opening night adventures most typified the Theatre Charlotte crew’s tribulations in acclimating to a new space. Marley’s entrance into Scrooge’s home wasn’t dramatized with smoke and lights, and Tonetti didn’t enjoy the benefit of having his prophecies and imprecations magnified with thunderous jolts from the soundboard. During the flashbacks, the actor certainly earned some sort of sportsmanship award, appearing as the younger Jacob opposite the truly younger Coughlin.IMG_8645_dcoston

Steadying this production and assuring that its professional polish never deteriorated into community theatre chaos for long, West ultimately triumphed over all missteps and obstacles, bringing us the compelling Scrooge we expect in all his goodness. It’s still a strong story, and 24 of its most ardent Theatre Charlotte believers are moonlighting at Central Piedmont, giving this 87-minute production the old college try. A drama within a drama, to be sure, both ending happily.

Originally published on 12/18 at CVNC.org

Enjoying Is Easier Than Understanding “The Pride”

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Review:  The Pride

By Perry Tannenbaum

Back in the late 1950s, Philip has decided that his deep feelings for Oliver are a repugnant disease rather than a natural attraction. But in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride, there is another Philip, 50 years later in 2008, who is also crazy about Oliver. Since there are no longer any prohibitions or taboos against homosexuality, Philip now wishes to have a strong and exclusive relationship with Oliver, who still loves him.

Yet as we quickly see in the Queen City Theatre Company production, now at Spirit Square through Saturday, there is still a catch. Exclusivity is under siege. When we first encounter the modern-day Oliver, Philip will walk in on him moments after a casual hookup has gone sour with a sex worker who has dressed up in a Nazi uniform for their sadistic tryst. Finding his wayward partner in this compromising state hardens Philip’s resolve to move out of the apartment they’re sharing, so he leaves.

More radical measures are necessary in 1958. Philip goes to a Doctor who will crush the so-called perversion that lurks inside. Obviously, there is something sinister about this Doctor, augmented by Emily Eudy’s lighting design. We might find a more pointed message embedded in Campbell’s curious 1958-2008 juxtapositions: he means us to see that the sexual adjustment Doctor is a kind of Nazi – because he and the sex worker both reinforce Philip’s feeling that his relationship with Oliver is wrong, and because they are both played by the same actor.

And there you have The Pride in a nutshell, a colorfully told pair of stories, liberally sprinkled with humor, which yields up its messages obliquely through its strange juxtapositions. Because the same actors do both Philips and both Olivers, we likely assume they’re the same souls in two different eras. If they stand before us more than speculatively, reincarnated in our current millennium, then those 1958 blokes need to hurry up and die in order to reach their late 20s or early 30s just 50 years later.

Trouble is, for anybody who wishes to “get” The Pride, Campbell is as content to leave the question of what we’re seeing as open as the question of what our takeaway should be. Enjoying the show comes more easily, for director Glenn T. Griffin has brilliantly cast his men. Steven Buchanan brings an urbane twinkle to the free-spirited Olivers, yet there is a predatory edge to his persistent pursuit. We see something more intense than resistance from Cory Collins as the two Philips in reaction to the Olivers, closer to absolute loathing – some of it directed toward himself.

So this tightly-wound, comparatively starchy guy will snap unexpectedly, and Collins, Buchanan, and Griffin conspire to stage that moment superbly. What often cools the momentum established by Buchanan and Collins are the scenes with the two Sylvias. In 1958, she’s Philip’s wife, instrumental in bringing her husband close to Oliver, a children’s book author that she’s illustrating for; and in 2008, she’s an actress and Oliver’s close confidante.

Wearing two different Barbi Van Schaick wigs that help us to quickly differentiate between the two eras, Katie Addison is credible enough as the two Sylvias – but she’s only fitfully intelligible. Sifting through Addison’s British accent is so difficult that I could fully lose my grasp on what was happening when she was onstage.

No such problems when Michael Harris came along for his two bizarre roles. When Harris’s arms and wrists go limp as he switches from Nazi role-playing to the sex worker’s everyday personality, it’s an absolute hoot, amplified by Beth Killion’s radically contrasting costume designs. On the other hand, Harris was slightly terrifying as The Doctor, hardly better than Nazis in his steely contempt for gays.

This is how it was in most of the ostensibly civilized world 50+ years ago, and this is what we could be going back to in the era of HB2.

Writing Tips and Serial Seductions

Theater Review: Seminar @ Spirit Square

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By Perry Tannenbaum

We all know that politics, connections, and strategic socializing often figure into securing Hollywood production budgets and achieving Hollywood stardom. We’re apt to think of the proverbial casting couch as Tinseltown’s exclusive domain. But can the same tools also work in the literary world, where writers aspire to lucrative publication and enduring prestige?

 

You better believe it, playwright Theresa Rebeck tells us in Seminar, a surprisingly steamy — and sometimes dark — comedy that brings Three Bone Theatre to Spirit Square for the first time. The veneers of artistry, aesthetics, and collegiality rapidly disintegrate in successive encounters with a famed writer and his very exclusive fiction-writing class. Izzy, Douglas, Martin, and Kate all scrape together $5,000 apiece for the privilege of being praised, critiqued, berated, and mentored by Leonard in weekly sessions at Kate’s posh Upper West Side apartment.

Kate has been honing her story about a narrator obsessed with Jane Austen for so long that cleverness and craft are all that remain. Izzy’s writing, on the other hand, is so laced with sensuousness and sexuality that it rouses mighty urges in every man in the room — and she knows exactly what she’s doing. Douglas arrives with a fine literary pedigree, key connections, and a manuscript that is already under consideration by The New Yorker.

Martin has had the toughest time scraping up the necessary cash for tuition, so tough that he has been evicted from his apartment. He wouldn’t need to pay any rent if he could crash in one of Kate’s many extra bedrooms, but he’s oblivious to the possibility that Good Samaritan impulses might not be the primary reason why Kate says yes. There are more than a couple of things that Martin is oblivious to, and he’s very guarded about showing his writing to anyone, so he’s a useful person for Rebeck to have around for expositional purposes. So much must be explained to him until he becomes central to the story.

Meanwhile, it’s Izzy and her serial seductions that stir the pot and drive the plot. There’s actually an admirable amount of balance in Rebeck’s script, but in the Broadway production directed by Sam Gold, the important character seemed to be movie star Alan Rickman as Leonard, while the students often seemed to be mundane minnows swimming in his orbit.

Leonard is a revered writer who is still globetrotting on reporting assignments despite his literary decline, so Rickman’s aging celebrity was not amiss. And Rebeck delves so deeply into the mysteries of teaching and mentoring writers that our fluctuating assessment of Leonard’s efficacy emerges as more important than any other subject Seminar tackles. But Rickman’s aura, for better or worse, made Leonard appear above the politics, the exploitation, and the literary logrolling.

With Michael Harris in the role (and probably in the best form of his life), the fault lines in Leonard’s character — and his redeeming humanity — are more readily evident. Three Bone director Steven Levine doesn’t have the luxury of imposing a huge gulf between Leonard and his students from a celebrity standpoint, so we also discover who Leonard’s costar is a bit earlier in the game. Rickman’s fame — and stage presence — really didn’t allow for an equal in the Broadway production.

A subtler aspect of Rickman’s magisterial stature on Broadway was the stylish domain where Leonard held court. Ryan Maloney’s set design for Kate’s living room, flowing silk sheets for walls and simple furnishings, has an unmistakable elegance, not a word I’d apply to any of Three Bone’s previous efforts in NoDa over the past four years. But it’s Maloney’s evocation of a ratty artist’s apartment later in the action, complete with its telltale writer’s clutter, that had me flashing back to the Broadway production.

Outside of ivied university walls and politically correct quads, taboos against student-teacher hookups obviously don’t apply, but with Three Bone’s comparatively leveled playing field, it’s easier to see that Izzy is playing the guys to her advantage — and actually less apparent that Leonard is playing her. Karina Caparino augments the difference by emphasizing Izzy’s wantonness and her frolicsome spirit. The Asian who played Izzy on Broadway was a little brainier, cosmopolitan. This Izzy is Bohemian with more raw and exposed emotions.

That chimes well with Harris’s more vulnerable approach to Leonard. I found myself paying far closer attention to Leonard’s big monologue, where he addresses his past disgrace. For me, it was less of a rueful confession and more of a bitter outcry of victimhood this time around, accentuated by some deft lighting cues by designer Carley Walker. Unexpectedly, it’s the previously meek Martin who pushes the esteemed writer to open up.

Michael Harris and Scott Miller in Seminar.

So yes, I can declare that Martin, in his painful — at times, infuriating — evolution demands a performance on a par with Leonard’s, and Scott A. Miller certainly delivers. I’m sure it isn’t a coincidence that Levine elicits an outing from Miller that’s as extraordinary as what we see from Harris, arguably eclipsing Miller’s stellar work earlier this year at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte in the title role of Danny, King of the Basement.

I’m only wondering how Levine did it. It’s easy to suppose that Levine enabled Miller and Harris to look inside themselves and find things they had never discovered before. That’s a typical mythology applied to directors. But here I suspect that Levine opened up new depths in Rebeck’s text, for I must admit that I thought it was a far slicker piece when I left John Golden Theatre in 2012 than I did at last Thursday night’s opening.

Beth Killion’s costume designs for Douglas aren’t as loud as those I saw on Broadway, making the well-connected student less of an object of derision. I found that new twist as enjoyable as the others, but with three of Charlotte’s best actors bringing their A games to this local premiere, Paul Gibson’s shortcomings as Douglas were more glaring than they might be otherwise. To mesh better with this ace cast, Gibson’s cue pickup needs to be swifter and his delivery surer. When he settled down — conquered his opening night jitters? — Gibson offered us a nuanced rendering of Douglas’s sense of entitlement and his nonchalant insider’s knowledge, not cartoonish at all. But his difficulties had come when he needed to dominate.

Our hostess Kate has more complexities than Izzy, and she can be even more irritating than Martin with her stubbornness and preciousness. Becca Worthington is better at Kate’s priggishness than she is at projecting the embarrassment of her privileged wealth, but there are hidden dimensions to this Kerouac hater that go undetected by Martin until the scene changes — and Worthington is marvelously attuned to those devastating surprises.