|
|
|
|
|
|
|
July 8 -
August 14, 2004
Parallel Lives: The
Kathy & Mo Show
|
Reviewed July 25
Running time 2:20 - one intermission
Performances at 1409 Playbill Cafe
Click here to buy the script
|
This material must have seemed very fresh nearly twenty years ago when it
was written, for today it still seems fresh, bright and - most of all -
funny. The original Kathy and Mo were Kathy Najimy and Mo Gafney, who combined to
develop and perform sketch comedy in San Diego in the mid 1980s. They took
their material to New York, won an Obie (Off-Broadway) Award, and then did
the show on public television. Here, however, Kathy and Mo are Kimberley
Cooper Kissoyan and Misty Demory, two talented and attractive comedic
actresses who make the material feel fresh once more.
Storyline: Some fourteen vignettes involving thirty different characters
are performed by two actresses. Each vignette has some connection to the
what was called "women's issues" in the 1980s, including the battle of the
sexes as viewed from dating in your teens, living together in your twenties,
flirting in a bar in your thirties or taking a field trip in a college
women's studies course in later years. With quick changes in wigs, eye
glasses, jackets or scarves, characters are donned and discarded at a quick
but not frantic pace.
Light sketch comedy like this is
one of the most demanding styles for an actor or actress, at least when it
is done well. It requires comic timing, physical dexterity, the ability to
create individual characters and a strong sense of trust in and duty to your
partner, which is the essence of ensemble work. When that ensemble numbers
just two, there isn't anywhere to hide any rough edges in the collaboration.
Add the challenge of doing it in a tiny, intimate space where the audience
area barely exceeds the playing area and where no member of the audience is
more than twenty-five or so feet away and there is total exposure.
In director Bridget O'Leary's
staging, Kissoyan and Demory don't flinch from that exposure. Instead, they
emphasize it with visible costume changes choreographed to the up-tempo
sounds coming from a pair of cd players at the sound board in the back of
the hall. There are no black-outs, just periods with less light. Demory even
makes the act of inserting padding in her bra a quick comic bit.
The material ranges from clever
to funny and is well structured to give a feeling somewhere between
television variety show sketch and improv theater. Two "Supreme Beings" put
the finishing touches on creation by determining how humans will reproduce.
Two teenagers compare reactions to the movie of West Side Story ("It's kind
of like Romeo and Juliet" - "You're right! I Never Thought of that.") Two
lackadaisical Catholics go to church and try to cover the sins of the
fourteen years since their last time in the confessional. Through it all,
two fine actresses make the most out of some fine material. The result is a
good natured, amiable good time.
Written by Kathy Najimy and Mo
Gaffney. Directed by Bridget O'Leary. Design: Marianne Meadows (set and
lights) Chris McKenzie (graphics) Vaskin Kissoyan (photography) Isabel
Church (stage manager). Cast: Misty Demory, Kimberley Cooper Kissoyan.
|
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
|
|
January 8 - February 10,
2004
Silent Heroes |
Reviewed January 31
Running time 1 hour 35 minutes
A joint production with Source Theatre Company |
|
The second half of Source’s four play series
of new works has proven to be the stronger half. Playing in repertory with
the already reviewed Interrogation Room, this is an emotional
exploration of the strains on six women whose husbands’ military careers
dominate their lives. The play may start off with six fairly stereotyped
“types” thrown together by a common circumstance, but it makes the most of
the pressure cooker into which it places them, starting strong and building
to a satisfying conclusion. What is more, Playwright Linda Escalera-Baggs
has the good sense to end the play at just the right moment.
Storyline: Six wives of Marine pilots gather
in a bare room at the Marine Corps Air Station at Beaufort, South Carolina
in the middle of the night, having been summoned because a training accident
has occurred. It appears that one of their husbands has died - but which
one? They support each other as much as they can while each desperately
hopes that her husband isn’t the one not coming home. As one challenges the
other who says she hopes it isn’t her husband: “Who do you hope it is?”
Escalera-Baggs’ decision to structure this as
a one act play pays off as the tension builds in an unrelieved, almost
geometric progression. Had the story been broken for an intermission she
would have had to devise a logical break point somewhere close to the middle
of her story and then, when the audience returned from its break, would have
had to start the emotional escalation all over again, almost from scratch.
Instead, there is no interruption and no relief as the tension builds.
The success of every play is very much in the
hands of the cast performing it but this one is all the more so because the
characters are presented at the moment of their most extreme emotional
exposure. Over-acting will make them appear corny or artificial.
Under-acting will rob the evening of emotion which is the sole stock in
trade of this story. Director Allison Arkell Stockman has helped all six
actresses find the proper balance and drawn some fine work from them,
especially from those with the most important roles.
Lisa Lias and Sheila Hennessey have the task
of getting the emotional escalator going. They have to establish the concept
and provide the basic information the audience needs while, at the same
time, showing the fear their characters try to hold inside. Misty Demory, as
a very pregnant wife, is the first to ratchet up the intensity. In addition
to her acting skills, either Demory really is pregnant or she knows very
well how a pregnant woman moves. She has the walk and she has mastered the
movements required to sit down and to stand back up. Saskia de Vries also
has command of the way her character would move. In this case, she is a
former “hippie” whose opposition to the then-recently-concluded war in Viet
Nam doesn’t sit too well with her sister military wives.
Written by Linda Escalera-Baggs. Directed
by Allison Arkell Stockman. Lighting designed by Marianne Meadows. Cast:
Dionne Audain, Kimberly Cooper, Misty Demory, Sheila Hennessey, Lisa Lias,
Saskia de Vries. |
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
|
July 5 – August 3, 2002
Independence |
Reviewed July 13
Running time 2 hours 5 minutes
Playing at the DCAC
Price $15
t
Potomac Stages Pick |
Some theater companies might be tempted to tackle Lee Blessing’s four
person, single-set play because it doesn’t seem to pose too much of a
technical challenge. This new small professional company, on the other hand,
seems to have taken it on because it poses a real artistic challenge. It
must be said that they have met the challenge. In the process they have
cemented their reputation as a major entry into the incredibly vibrant
theater community in the Potomac Region with just their second production.
Storyline: In the small town of Independence, Iowa, three sisters gather to
attempt to deal with the challenge of their mother’s increasing instability.
The eldest, a professionally successful lesbian broke away from the family
in an act of self-preservation years before. The youngest, a high school
student with a part time job at the local Popeye’s, will strike out on her
own as soon as she has her diploma. But the middle child must either succumb
to her mother’s manipulation or break free to establish a life of her own.
As the storyline above indicates, this is the middle child’s play. That
character is played by Melissa Schwartz and, under Bridget O’Leary’s
direction, it is Schwartz’s play. All the other characters are well
portrayed. But each ends up in exactly the same emotional place they were at
the start of the show. But Schwartz’s character makes a transition from the
feminine equivalent of a milquetoast to a determined if frightened adult
taking her first difficult steps toward independence. Thus, the title of the
show does more than identify the small town. Schwartz’s eyes tell a great
deal about what is happening behind them as they dart about, refuse to make
contact with others until forced to in order to take control or plead for
support and understanding.
The other three actresses may have less "dramatic arc" in the parts they
are given, but each creates a strong and unique character portrait.
Kimberley Cooper’s eldest daughter is strong and compassionate but
recognizes the limits of how much she can contribute to her mother’s needs.
Sara Barker’s high-schooler is flighty and self-absorbed on the surface but
clearly has already matured beyond her middle sister and made what she sees
as the right life choices. Lisa Lias creates a menacingly mercurial mother
whose mental illness has cost the family dearly and continues to pose nearly
insurmountable challenges.
The tiny theater the D C Arts Center created in the carriage house/garage
out back poses a challenge but, here again, Phoenix Theatre DC with Libby
Sallaway’s set design, set dressing and properties serves the project well,
aided a great deal by Cooper’s ability to stand before a blank wall and gaze
out a nonexistent window. Ayun Fedorcha’s action lighting is
straightforwardly effective although he separates scenes with flashes that
mark the end of each and the start of the next. With a nine scene play, the
pattern calls attention to itself a bit too often.
Written by Lee Blessing. Directed by Bridget O’Leary. Design: Libby
Sallaway (set and properties) Julia Robey (costumes) Ayun Fedorcha (lights)
Jesse Terrill (sound.) Cast: Melissa Schwartz, Kimberley Cooper, Sara
Barker, Lisa Lias. |
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
|
April 6 - May 11, 2002
The Blue Room |
Reviewed April 18
Running time 1 hour 45 minutes
Performances at the 1409 Playbill Café
|
This new theater company does a good job with
this new version of an old piece. When it premiered in 1998, the play
achieved notoriety, if not fame, from the performances of Nicole Kidman and
Iain Glen. True, most of the notoriety came from Ms. Kidman’s nakedness. But
reports from London and then from Broadway were that both she and Glen were
wonderful as she portrayed each of the women and he each of the men.
Phoenix, however, reverts to the more traditional staging usually accorded
to the 1900 play on which The Blue Room was based, Arthur Schnitzler’s La
Ronde. They use a cast of ten young actors, each of whom does a nicely
nuanced job with the brief appearances of their characters. Nakedness is
kept to a minimum for this production isn’t about titillation, it is about
erotic attraction.Storyline: Ten sexual encounters, none the result of
romantic love, are shown from the beginning of the seduction, persuasion or
purchase up to the moment of copulation - but then the action freezes and
the next event is set up. The gimmick is that the people involved progress
sequentially. The scene with the first man and first woman is followed by
the scene with the first man and the second woman which is followed by the
scene with the second woman and the second man and so on and so on until,
finally, the fifth woman is coupled with the first man, bringing the circle
of connection around.
This is not the first time that the La Ronde has been adapted for
more modern productions. It was the basis for John LaChiusa’s musical
Hello, Again which added the complication of different time periods.
This version, by David Hare, author of such elegant fare as The Judas
Kiss, is sleek and clean. Even its semi-teasing technique of omitting
the actual sex acts serves the purpose of keeping the focus clearly on the
motivation of the characters, not on any prurient interests of the audience.
(The duration of the omitted acts is announced over the sound system.)
Just as the attraction of the concept for writers is the challenge of
creating ten distinct characters in ten short scenes, for the actors and
director the challenge is making those characters seem alive and real in
such constrained circumstances. Each actor gets just two scenes and, since
the play is done in not much more than 100 minutes, each scene is only about
ten minutes long. That gives each actor a chance to quickly display
performance skills but not much opportunity to have the character grow in
any way or even seem to learn much from the encounters.
The play is presented in the small back room at the 1409 Playbill Café
where three rows of chairs accommodate an audience of 50 on two sides of a
very small playing space. This presents a big design challenge but this team
rises to it. Both lighting and sound are well used in the effort to create
multiple locations in the small space. They use the patio which is visible
through windows on one wall of the room to expand the space. The few set
pieces arranged in a number of combinations create the multiple settings
with a minimum of distraction. There just isn’t much room for a bed and
bedding is what much of the play is about. They are stuck with a small cot
that leaves no room for cuddling. Perhaps there is a message in that but it
does make the scene between the only couple actually married to each other
seem just a bit on the silly side, despite the fine performances of John C.
Bailey and Melissa Schwartz.
Written by David Hare. Directed by Allison Arkell Stockman. Design:
Niell DuVal (set) Shannon Dunne (costumes) Peter N. Joyce (lights) Richard
Brice (sound). Cast: Angela Cerkevich, Monte J. Wolfe, Kimberly Cooper,
James O. Dunn, Melissa Schwartz, John C. Bailey, Sara Barker, Lisa Lias,
Vanessa Vaughn, Cesar A. Guadamuz. |
| |
|
