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See my review of this GB Shaw classic on Picture This Post. 
The Lyric seats 3,563.  Fortunately, our seats were closer than those at the Paramount in Aurora.   I’d never seen Superstar.  It was interesting to see so many attendees my age who were there for love and nostalgia, and the young and very young who were there because this musical is timeless.  No need to cover the book.  We know the story.  The telling was mesmerizing. 
There is no dialogue, only song and orchestration.  The cast was “beige”, a few white, and the rest black and tan.  Likely, this is authentic for the eastern Mediterranean setting.  Costumes, except for Herod, were “beige”, most looked like old workout clothes.  The set worked wonderfully for the all sorts of scenes: crowd, groups and solos.  The ramp coming from stage rear at an angle was used for entrances (King Herod with gold cape 50 feet long) and exits, and as a dining table for the last supper sequence.  The tableau was an homage to da Vinci’s The Last Supper. 
The music combines rock and roll with jazz, funk, and lyrical ballads ("I Don’t Know How to Love Him").  As usual, every performer and every instrument was miked, which gave a sameness to the sound.  The lyrics are difficult enough to understand because they are sung quickly.  And, when there was a crescendo of voices and orchestra, the person running the sound board did nothing to modulate the mikes – deafening.  I would have benefited from reading the libretto prior to the performance.  But it did not dawn on me that understanding would be so difficult.

Overall, I enjoyed the performance.  Now, I’ve seen every Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Wasn’t on my bucket list, but great fun. Yes, we did it again – saw our favorite musical.  It’s an hour drive west to Aurora, IL with little or no traffic.  Therefore, Saturday or Sunday matinees are our only options.  This was the Saturday matinee on St. Patrick’s Day, so a good plan to be away from Division Street bars and drunken amateurs.

The Paramount Theater opened for movies in 1931.  In addition to “talkies”, it also offered vaudeville, concerts, sing-a-longs and circus performances…all inside Illinois’ first air-conditioned building outside of Chicago. Acoustics and sight lines were so well designed there was not one bad seat in the house. 
The theater served the community for 40 years.  Then, like many grand, old movie houses, it fell into disrepair.  In 1976, restoration began, as part of the revitalization of Aurora, which had lost its cache as a good place to live on the Fox River.  Today, it is a beautiful venue, and Aurora has grown to the second largest city in Illinois.  Where city theaters are seeing their subscriptions decline, The Paramount had 36,000 subscribers to it 1888 seats.  Well done, all! 
The secret to their success is producing Broadway caliber musicals way out in the suburbs. They tapped a financially secure market that does not want the trouble of getting to the city, surviving traffic, and searching for parking space.  But they want good theater.  We enjoyed Cabaret; not so much the trip to the suburbs and not so much our seats in the middle of the balcony.  We are spoiled by our smaller venues in the city where you can see the performers, not just hear them. Shows how the puppeteer create a shadow image of on old woman with a profile mask held by a mouth piece.

It's been a while since I've reviewed for Picture This Post.  This production was a serendipitous choice recommended by my friend, Jay Kelly, who handles the PR for Manual Cinema.
 Theodora is told that she must give up her faith or become a prostitute.

My friend, Betsy, and I enjoy edgy classical music – and this qualified.  We put it in our calendars without much discussion and arrived at the theater each thinking the other had purchased tickets.  Neither did, but we did squeak in when a few no-shows materialized.  Northwestern is likely the best know school for performing arts in the U.S.  Now, they have built a monument to their success and the generosity of their alums – the Ryan Center for the Musical Arts. Original of Handel's score - note that almost all notes are on the top line or above the staff.

Handel’s oratorios are beautiful, but repetitive.  The style is bel canto, with lots of embellishment to the scored music.  Experienced performers usually create their own interpretations, but this production was students – and fine they were, with no additional embellishment.  The only questionable casting was the role of Theodora’s lover, Didymus.  This is trouser role for a mezzo.  Her voice was fine, but her slight build conveyed no gravitas to her grim role.

Theodora was written for three acts.  This production had two, and was over in less than two hours, including intermission.  Just the right length before the repetition drove us crazy.  A beautiful production with outstanding young performers. From left: Cynthia Meier, Patty Gallagher, Holly Griffith

How fortunate we are to have Cynthia Meier in Tucson.  There isn’t a role she touches that does not benefit from her nuanced performance.  She was the essence of “A” in Three Tall Women—mean spirited, dotty, afraid and funny.

Edward Albee leaves us no doubt about his parental relationships.  He was adopted by a wealthy family at age two, expelled from most schools he attended, and out of the home at 18. His first play, The Zoo Story was produced in 1958, at age 30.  He was openly gay and that created conflict with his family.  His most famous work, Whose Afraid of Virginal Woolf, illuminates Albee’s talent for fierce dialogue and unhappy marriages, as does this play.

Three Tall Women is a faithless homage to Albee’s mother.  In an interview with The Economist, he said, “(the play) was a kind of exorcism. And I didn’t end up any more fond of the woman after I finished it than when I started."  She is petty, vain, weak, penurious, scornful of her husband, and contemptuous of her son.  What’s not to love?  But in the audience, we become entwined in A’s self-love.

The first act is all A; ill, distracted, on the one hand disdainful of her caregiver, played skillfully by Patty Gallagher; then coyly seductive as she acknowledges her total dependence on this person.  With her is the lawyer’s assistant, played by Holly Griffith, who needs signatures on papers that A chose to ignore.  The assistant’s snotty recriminations that cut into “A’s” monologues were delivered in an officious manner.  Perhaps this was director Christopher Johnson’s intent, but they seemed flat, almost an afterthought to the give A time to pause.

In the second act, Meier, Gallagher and Griffith play A at three ages: Griffith in her late 20’s, Gallagher in her 50’s and Meier in a healthier old age.  As the two older women reminisce, the young A contends that she will never become them.  All’s well that ends well, if you, like Albee, feel that death is the ultimate freedom.  Likely he never felt free of his guilt until A’s death.

In a play written as a “tour de force” for a mature actress, Meier shone.

Playing at The Rogue Theater in Tucson AZ through March 25, 2018

Converting a novel into a movie or play requires radical simplification while remaining true to the plot and characters.  With a movie, you have fully fleshed film locations that speak thousands of words.  In the theater, you have several sets that must evoke location.  In the case of The Rogue, you have one set and clever wooden boxes that rearrange themselves into the truck, dining tables, stools, and stands.  Thus, 169,481 words make their way into two hours and forty-five on stage. Part of the Joad Family:  Bryn Booth as Rose of Sharon, David Greenwood as Pa Joad, Gabriel Morales as Winfield, Cynthia Meier as Ma Joad, Florie Rush as Ruthie.  Photo AZ Daily Star.

Frank Galati, a member of Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, adapted The Grapes of Wrath in ’88.  It was produced in Chicago, then traveled to Broadway where it won the Tony for Best Play in ’90.  It did not run even a year—this is not the fodder for the matinee crowd.  I was fortunate to see the Steppenwolf Chicago production.  Though memories of the production are dim, The Rogue production seemed more emotional, real, and benefitted from the small stage.

Galati included music in his adaptation.  The Rogue’s program says, “Music Direction and Original Composition by Jake Sorgen”.  So, I’m inferring that what we heard was all original to this production, though some pieces were old folk favorites.  Here, the music and the players melded into the production, playing non-speaking parts where a “crowd” was needed.  Vicki Brown, violin, and Jake Sorgen, guitar, made wonderful music together and formed much of the frame surrounding and supporting the plot.

The Okie story is told in vignettes:  at the Oklahoma sharecrop farm, leaving the farm, on the road and camping, at the campground by the picking fields, on the road – again.  It’s the eternal story of the disenfranchised poor—contrasted with the off-stage middle class, living some form of the American dream even in the Depression.  They are the farm owner who evicts the Joads, the law enforcement men who harass and arrest migrants, the growers who pit needy against needy to keep wages low, the nascent unions that promise help, but can’t or won’t come through for the pickers.  To leave Oklahoma was to leave hell.  To make a new life in California was a living hell.  In the audience, you felt shame and pain for this black part of American history.  You also felt the love among the Joads and how they were clannishly bonded until California broke their spirits. Cole Potwardowski, left, Matt Bowdren, David Greenwood and Aaron Shand.  Photo: AZ Daily Star.

The Rogue Ensemble were excellent in their roles.  David Greenwood, as Pa Joad, at last had a leading role where his vocal “twang” authenticated the character.  His phlegmatic style befits the family leader.  Matt Bowdren, as Tom Joad, and Cynthia Meier, as Ma Joad, shared the unspoken love of mother and oldest child, no matter how unpredictable the child.

There are 39 characters in The Grapes of Wrath—20 actors are listed in the program guide.  Director, Joe McGrath, did a masterful job of seamlessly blending the characters, choreographing the almost constant movement and delivering the meaning of the play clearly. Travel was signified by “constructing the truck”, situated on the small round circle stage right, propelled around by cast members using long sticks fitted into holes.  It all worked for the audience.  Lighting Designer, Don Fox, made effective use of back-lighting upstage to create silhouettes that added kuroko-like extra players to crowd scenes.

The Rogue Theatre again took a difficult play, challenged by the need for a large cast, and made it look effortless.  Kudos for a great production. How do you surround the audience with water on a stage?  I’ve seen it done in Japan with huge sheets of silk, undulating in the hands of kurogos; I’ve seen actual rain produced at the National Theatre in London; I’ve seen a play built around a large, shallow pool, Metamorphosis, produced by LookingGlass Theater.  But in The River Bride, in the Sonoran Desert, the water is all in the minds of the audience—and it is everywhere.

The River Bride is a charming Brazilian folk tale about the botos, pink river dolphins floating along the enchanted tributaries of the Amazon.  The characters are a family who live over the water, make their living from the water, and in the folk tale, taking their love from the water.  Their river home sits on stilts above the water, making it easy for the fishermen to come and go.  Though exits and entrances are made from the land, we never see land, ours is a water world, too.

The actors were excellent in their tightly drawn roles depicting love, fear, doubt, and how the choices we make can create a lifetime.  But the star of this production is the staging, the set, the lighting—all enable you suspend disbelief and spend a few hours in the magic of the Amazon. Check out my review of Music Theater Works production of DUKE ELLINGTON’S GREATEST HITS on Picture This Post. Based on the lurid story of Ruth Snyder, a New Yorker who, with her lover, murdered her husband and was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison in 1928, Machinal is an “expressionist” play.  That description was used in 1929 when Treadwell’s (an investigative reporter and feminist) play opened on Broadway.  It is characterized by extreme simplification of characters to mythic types, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity.

Considered a hit on Broadway, Machinal (derived from the French word for mechanical) ran 91 shows.  It was the first big role for Clark Gable, who played the feckless lover.  The show has been revived many times, and is popular with colleges and universities--perhaps because starkness makes for a low-budget production. It’s hard to be involved with a stage full of performers who move woodenly, rarely smile, and, since you know the punch line, hard to become involved in plot development. The movement direction by Elizabeth Margolius was well done and added dimension to flat (purposely) production.  The evening we attended, the understudy, Abigail Schwarz, a student at North Central College, played the Ruth.  She was outstanding.  North Central College collaborated with Greenhouse on the production.

We can assume that when the play was first produced, it alluded to homosexuality in the cabaret scene.  In this production, two homosexual couples, one male, one female, sit woodenly in wooden chairs, mumbling inane lines to each other, holding hands, on the periphery of the set.  Was this added just to appeal to a “special” theater crowd?  To show modern sensibilities that were not likelycast in an early 20th century play? IMHO, the special crowd might be offended because the characters seem so clumsily grafted into the play.

Expressionist theater makes for a rigid and rather boring evening.  If you are a student of theater, see it to learn about the genre.  Otherwise, skip it. From left, Star Dixon, Tristan Bruns, Nico Rubio, Connetta Jackson, Time Brickey, Jessica Tenbusch, Dani Borak CHRP Photo by Philamonjaro

Amazing show - taking tap into new playing fields of contemporary dance.  Performing only tonight and Saturday, Sept. 22 and 23, 2017.  The review appears in the culture and travel zine Picture This Post. My sister-in-law treated me to an evening of theater on a recent visit to St. Louis.  I’ve seen Joseph three times, and each production is better.  Way back in the mid-80’s my nieces came to visit their auntie in the big city and we went to see Joseph at the Studebaker Theater.  I remember the seats in the upper boxes looking directly down at the stage.  The girls were enchanted—and Joseph remains a great introduction to theater for young people.  To this day, the girls can sing every word of the score.

As years have progressed, the production has become saucier and now includes some hip-hop. All great fun.  Most all the performers were Actors Equity, appearing by special permission.  So, thank you all for bringing such an enjoyable production to neighborhood theater and thank you, Mary K for a memorable evening.

This is our third year attending the festival.  It’s all the things we love to see on stage, with plot and drama created by movement, puppets, mime.  It’s a festival, so some are great, some good and some, well, just toads. There was one spectacular performance:  Anatomy of Fear by Teatteri Metamorfoosi from Finland. It’s one actor relating his daily fears, mostly centered around work, where either he is, or is made to feel, inadequate by his manager.  The fear is represented by a slightly larger than life puppet – a doppelganger, manipulated by two superb puppeteers.  This is not done with strings; the puppet is the main character on the stage, brought to life by the puppeteers holding and working the puppet, mostly from behind, so it appears to have human movement.  Since the puppeteers are in total black (not even eyes showing) you soon forget their presence. Misiposa Nocturna: A Puppet Triptych by Portmanteau of Chicago – a wonderful local puppet company.  This time the puppets are about two feet tall, rendered in beautiful detail and manipulated by four puppeteers, who also manipulate the scenery.  Again, the puppeteers totally in black so you can lose yourself in the miniature staged creation, forgetting how it is wrought.  We have now seen this group three years running and they deliver each time. The Confetti Maker by Frank Wurzinger (Germany) – a one man Blue Man Group, with paper instead of blue goo.  Impossible to describe in a short paragraph, but if you are familiar with Blue Man, you get the picture - the one above is after the performance.  We loved it.  (Side note:  Blue Man Productions was recently purchased by TPG, who own Cirque de Soliel, so watch for major expansion.) Wojtec: The Happy Warrior by The Quarter Too Ensemble (UK) – this would have rated higher because the story is fascinating, but was lost in the frenetic presentation.  It’s a true story of a Syrian brown bear adopted as a cub mascot by a Polish Armament Division stranded in the Middle East in WWII.  When they are deployed to Italy and fight in the Battle of Monte Casino, the now full-grown bear accompanies them and serves as a carrier of ammunition to the troops throughout the attack. Memory of Dust by Theatre de l’Ange Fou from France and Spring Green WI was an hour-long performance of modern dance/poetry performed by Steven Wasson and Corrine Soum.  Not exactly our cup of tea, but would have benefitted from more poetry, which was lovely.  The performers are easily in their 70’s with the stamina of young adults.

We also attended the evening of performances by locals learning the craft.  We were underwhelmed and hope that next year’s crop is either better pre-judged or that the organizers open the stage to a broader geographic audience of new performers.

Overall, we enjoyed the festival and will always be there to be treated to unexpected greatness. We saw Hookman over a month ago – mostly because we try to see everything that Steep produces, not because we were attracted to the play.  To refresh my mind, I read through several reviews, and this one from "Picture this Post" by Brent Eichoff seemed to capture an uneven night of theater, “this genre bending play jams one part drama, one part coming-of-age story, one part horror, and one part comedy into its 70-minute running time. The result is a dizzying and at times uneven, but thoroughly enjoyable play addressing such topics as the safety of young women, date rape, and survivor’s guilt."

What I remember most is the guiltless viciousness (funny as well) of the protagonist’s college friends.  Lexi, a college freshman from the Left Coast is attending an Ivy League school on the Right Coast, likely on scholarship.  A stream of frenemies keeps up a riff of indifference, boredom, malice and faux support.  Guileless Lexi finds solace in the reappearance of her West Coast BBF, who was killed in a gruesome auto accident involving Lexi.  It’s interesting that male reviewer Eichoff captured nothing of the loss of a loving friend and the reality of shallow acquaintances.

The playwright, Lauren Yee, won multiple awards for her work, though she is just 21.  Yes, 21, and already has plays produced by The Goodman and Steep.  Imagine what the future hold for her and for us. Billed as a “thrilling new Sherlock Holmes mystery”, it was more a “tongue in cheek mystery” based on Sherlock Holmes characters.  The plot is complex, as you need in a mystery, the acting was fine, the conclusion tied up all the loose ends.  It just didn’t light my fire.  Thankfully it was one long act.  Sherlock Holmes mysteries are a genre—you know what to expect.  There were several clever character reversals, and I appreciated the twists.  I would call this standard matinee fare, and we attended the matinee. Maybe I don’t like the music of Johnny Cash as much as I thought, or maybe this wasn’t a great production.  Ring of Fire did not resonate with me, or the two fans attending with me.  It is not like the bio-pic, Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon that resounded with the music and personalities of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.  Ring of Fire is a vocal bibliography of most of the hits and some of the sleepers.

The cast of ten surprised me.  Groups like Arizona Theater Company have swung away from large productions because of the cost of talent.  You not only have to hire the cast, you must pay room and board for a several months.  The cast was good.  They did not try to mimic Cash and Carter.  Some of the numbers were fun.

Overall, a mediocre evening at the theater.  One good note is the new restaurant located next to the theater, Simplicit.  I had the poke bowl and reveled in the sushi/salad combo. Odd-see, the dog - star of the play - more photos follow the post

With the working crowd hopefully doing family things at home, we look forward to having the city to ourselves – wrong.  Weekend London is thronging with families and tourists.  Everything is packed.  We took the morning to relax, heading out to the Royal Court Theatre at Sloane Square for a one pm booking in their Café and a 2:30 curtain time.  Ed headed out for a batchelor visit to The British Museum where he enjoyed the Sunken Cities: Egypt's Lost Cities.

We were to take our local tube to Embankment, change for the District or Circle lines and voila, Sloan Square – wrong.  District and Circle Lines closed at Embankment all weekend for repairs.  We hopped on a bus heading for Sloan Square, and it gets slower and slower, then stops and the driver announces he is getting off to make way for the new driver who is on his way.  Hmmmm, so I ask how long a wait and am assured it won’t be more than five minutes, but there are diversions around Sloan Square, so we will be further delayed.  We hop a taxi, who takes a most circuitous route and we arrive 15 minutes late.  So much for public transportation.  Nice enough lunch, nothing to write home about.

The play, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1,2,3) by Suzan Lori-Parks premiered at The Public Theater in New York in 2014.  Ms. Parks won the Pulitzer Prize for theater in 2002.  The London reviews called the play imaginative, playful and theatrical.  We found the first two parts long and somewhat contrived.  However, Part 3 was wonderful, mostly because of the introduction of a talking dog.  The main protagonist is Hero, a slave who fights for the South, serving his master.  He fears freedom because he is literally worth more as a slave than as a freeman.  Hero is not much of a hero and the play ends with his fellow slaves leaving the farm to head North while Hero remains.  Parts 4 – 9 have not yet been produced.  A good, but not great, afternoon of theater.

Norah and I call our friend, Addie Lee, for a car home.  Lucky for Ed, The British Museum is a five minute walk from our apartment. Bus selfie - we think we are home free. Trotters and sulkies passing the bus and further tying up traffic on Saturday.  Never could find anything about them. Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square Norah enjoys the largest and sweetest apple cider at the Cafe. Good, but not great, theater. When the theater announcements talked about a naughty hand puppet, I ordered tickets. Hand to God is a funny/sad play in the vein of Book of Mormon, but not as satirical. It’s about a teenage boy and his recently widowed mother, each grieving in their unique way.

The Rector of their Lutheran Church (This takes place in the south, so I would have thought Baptist, but the playwright gets to select his religion.) suggests that Mom conduct a puppet therapy class for troubled teens. Mom lets her rage out having sex with a teenage boy in her class and her son, Jason, gets involved with his hand puppet in all the imaginable teen-age boy ways.  Eventually, the puppet takes over and mayhem results.  Funny, yes, and in the end, tender.

The stars, Curtis Edward Jackson and his hand, were wonderful.  He fully captured the dual role making both believable.  Skillful puppet work.  The rest of the cast were equally fine.  My favorite scene was the boy talking with a female puppet-class mate while their hand puppets are having rather explicit sex in their puppeteers’ laps.  Yes, it is that sort of play. A rousing Prince!

We’re going to see Stephens’ play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time while in London, so wanted to see this 2011 collection of three dark vignettes situated in Sipson, a relic of a town in the flight path of Heathrow.  Stephens is Associate Playwright for Steep; that’s the quality of professionals this tiny theater attracts.  The vignettes are loosely connected, dealing with foster children, sexual brutality, white slavery, pedophilia and those involved.  Not so bright and sunny, good writing and fine acting, but not a significant arc of drama.  But we will continue to toad-kiss frequently at this theater.