Solas Nua - ARCHIVE
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March 13 - April 6, 2008
Portia Coughlan
Reviewed March 22 by
David Siegel |
Running
Time 2:00 - one intermission
A relentlessly fatalistic evening
Performed at the H Street Playhouse in NE
Click here to buy the script |
Loaded down with overtures to classic Greek and Irish myths, Shakespearean
characters and Biblical back-story, Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan is
one relentlessly fatalistic evening. It is a despairing drama with suicide
as the salvation for the main character. In its getting to that death the
piling on of “big” themes mortally wounds what could have been a fascinating
telling of the failings of family and heredity in a small Irish rural
community from women’s perspective. There are some lovely technical touches
throughout and there is a skilled cast, especially the women. In the title
role, Linda Murray, Solas Nua’s artistic director, is one lissome being.
With her high cheekbones, the moves of a trained dancer and lovely lilting
voice, Murray holds the center of this production as Portia Coughlan’s world,
her family, her dreams and her nightmares of the death of her twin brother,
Gabriel, take her down into madness and ultimate suicide. Barefoot
throughout the production, there are many times in which the way Murray
curls and crunches her toes and demurely sits or coils her legs or
especially how she moves her eyes from side to side that are more engaging
than some of the sharp lines she speaks. As directed by Jessica Burgess,
there are effective labors to soften this hard edged piece and traffic it
with movement and life. Overall, Portia Coughlan is a hard sit for
an audience.
Storyline: Haunted by the death of her twin brother Gabriel, 15 years
before, Portia Coughlan has become a ghostly figure, traversing the ever
shifting Irish landscape in search of the missing part of herself.
Irish playwright Marina Carr (b 1964) was nurtured at
the famed Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Her work often combines rural Irish
domestic drama with classical themes to depict grand-scale human tragedy as
well as the interior workings of individual lives. What is intriguing in
this script is that a beautifully rendered death of the title character is
at the very top of Act II and the remainder of the act is to provide
explanations for the death. The recurrent theme is one of character’s
inabilities to forgive or forget and get past their sordid lives. As for
the plot point of the long dead twin brother Gabriel, it is one of menace
and insanity complicated by its apparent incestuous nature. In general, the
male characters come off as either little more than testosterone in
different clothes or as timid and wounded men of little value as protectors.
There is little love or brightness in this script and it takes focused
energy to take all the draining despair. Director Jessica Burgess has
a tough task. But, Burgess keeps this evening from going too far into the
melodramatic or making the main character so odious that an audience will
“check out” from the production. Burgess does give her lighting designer
room to bring some color to the proceedings.
Linda Murray is lithesome in her movement and
presentation. The way she moves at times belies the lines she delivers. She
clearly exudes her slow maddening without being overly hysterical except
when the situation fits. (For example, the moments when she tries to shut out the voices she hears.) Her few feeble attempts at affection and
closeness with others do not look false. Murray’s fiery delivery of the
explanation for why she does not want to be the mother of her three children
are ones a psychiatrist has probably heard before. Other production
standouts include Charlotte Akin, who brings life and energy and thankfully
some humor, in her role as the town whore gone straight, and Rusty Clauss as
an embittered, brittle old matriarch living in a wheelchair who delivers
pungent, caustic remarks with spit and brio. When Clauss is finally “outed”
about her horrific hidden family secrets, she blanches and crumbles
credibly. Jonathan Church plays the husband as a cipher of passivity and
little zeal in anything. Bryan Cassidy and Declan Cashman, as Portia’s father
and mother, are solid enough and provide some fire and feeling. Grady
Weatherford is the safe and gentle older man who provides the only male
tenderness. Camille Loomis, the ghostly dead twin Brother Gabriel, is nicely
suited in her speechless role as she plays hide and seek with both the other
characters and the audience.
The H Street Playhouse black box space is presented
simply. A platform and an area that serves as a kitchen or as a bar are the
set on this mostly barren stage. There are also hanging plastic strips both
at the rear of the set and at the wings that are lit and played with
throughout the production for a sense of the descent into madness. The
costume work by Lynly Saunders provides each character with a distinct
outfit, generally in deep browns. Murray is fitted with an aqua colored wrap
that accentuates her figure without sexuality. Only once is there any real
sensual look to an outfit when, for just a few minutes, Murray wears a deep
rich red outfit. It presents a luxurious look, but is soon taken off as the
moment of showing love to her husband passes quickly.
Written by Marina Carr. Directed by Jessica Burgess. Design: Marie-Audrey
Desy (set) Lynly A. Saunders (costumes) Paul Frydrychowski (lights) Chris
Pifer (sound) Joe Dempsey (stage manager). Cast: Charlotte Akin, Declan
Cashman, Bryan Cassidy, Jonathan Church, Rusty Clauss, Camille Loomis, Frank
Mancino, Linda Murray, Stephanie Roswell, Adam Segaller, Grady Weatherford. |
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January 23 - February 17, 2008
Trad
Reviewed by
David Siegel |
Running Time 1:05 - no
intermission
A little charmer of a quiet play
Click here to buy the script |
A lyrical and intimate little slip of a play called Trad has found
its way to the small black box space at Flashpoint.
This is another uncommon offering from the always adventuresome, Irish
themed Solas Nua. As directed by Linda Murray, Trad is a life
affirming, one-hour fable about searching through family roots, walking the
Irish landscape and sifting through stifling traditions to seek out the
future of one family. It is the very personal tale of an improbably old father
(Chris Davenport) and his 100 year old son (Michael John Casey) who journey from their
village seeking out a possible heir who has never been seen and who may only
be alive in the imaginations of the two “muddled but not addled” old men.
The rhythm of well spoken words and the constant telling and retelling of
well worn, fantastic stories to explain the everyday woes of Irish villagers
take the center stage from the first beat of this production. The play
holds interest with some very poignant scenes that give real life to family
intimacies and memories. But the script is a bit thin and even feels padded
sometimes with actions that add to the time spent on the journey but not
much else. Don’t expect big things, or big moments, or big laughs … this is
a quiet piece; especially nice for a winter’s night when a more undersized
helping of entertainment is desired and you are in the Downtown DC area.
Storyline: A fable about tradition in a tradition bound place. A
one-armed 100 year old man sets off on an epic journey across the Irish
wilderness with his feisty one-legged father in search of the son he has
never met. A journey into Irish roots and identity.
Playwright Mark Doherty has developed a character study
set in rural Ireland held in check by oral tradition, vivid yarns and the
remnants of religion. The narrative explains how to live from the
perspective of a tradition-bound father with a son who is more open to new
notions of living. The son wants to look to the future as a goal, while the
father at first appears to be living always looking backwards. As they
shuffle their way over the landscape Doherty invents some appealing tales
and delightful daydreams to bring early and easy charm to the
production. Doherty is not a syrupy Irish story teller. The narrative
unfolds as the father fears the family “end of the line…no men left” and
castigates his son for having “no wife and no son -- what value have you
been?” When the father learns of his son’s dalliance with “a Mary” who may
have given birth to a child in the distant past, off they go to find this
heir to the family “blood and genes.” Director Murray does inventive work
here to bring this tidbit to life in such a small space. One scene that is
worth the entire show finds the father asleep in a cemetery where his wife
appears in his dreams from behind a scrim. They dance a mirror duet in slow
motion with a live guitar providing the music. It is breath-taking in its
beauty.
Chris Davenport as the one-legged father who lives
through anecdotes and tall tales is wizened enough and is playful enough
throughout the production. One comes to like this old fellow and await his
next tall tale. Michael John Casey as the one armed son who appeases his
father by acting as if he has not heard any story no matter how many times
he has heard them. Together they trek, talking all the time until they meet
up with a crusty cleric (Stephanie Roswell) who holds information they seek.
And oh, what a tall story is told by cleric! A fantastical allegorical tale
of virginal birth, of a young woman untouched by a man’s hands that gives
the birth of Christ a run for the money. A parallel secular allegory unfolds
to explain away the birth of Da's bastard grandchild. Just like Moses, the
father is not allowed to reach the goal, but passes away knowing that his
son, his grandson and his Irish traditions will continue through the
generations. As he tells his son “it is now your job to keep this going.”
Flashpoint's black box space is squeezed tightly with
only three rows of seats and the audience right on top of the actors. There
is no room for error. The set is essentially just an overturned dory along with a grey scrim backdrop and some sand on the floor. But from
that comes almost a radio style production in which the voices and the words
carry the audience along. Lighting by Marianne Meadows is most touching when
the scrim is lit to show apparitions behind the main set area. The live
music by Jonathan Watkins includes some pre-show music consisting of a
number of Irish ditties about sweet colleens, mermaids and whisky.
Written by Mark Doherty. Directed by Linda Murray. Design: Dan Brick
(set) Lynly Saunders (costumes) Marianne Meadows (lights) Chris Pifer
(musical advisor and photography). Cast: Michael John Casey, Chris
Davenport, Stephanie Roswell. Musician: Jonathan Watkins. |
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October 11 - November 4, 2007
Made in China
Reviewed by
David Siegel |
Running Time 1:45 - one intermission
v
A violent and profanity-filled male rage
Performances at the
Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE
Click here to buy the script |
A 15 round heavyweight boxing match with three actors in the center of a
cramped ring slinging verbal taunts and punches in controlled mayhem is the
Solas Nua production of Mark O’Rowe’s Made in China. O’Rowe’s
language and the linguistic skills he places in his characters are best for
those who can find themselves quickly learning that in this particular Irish
male world, words such as “f*ck” have no meaning other than just as a male
means of emoting. This is a male world in which there are few positive words
about a woman, unless she is your mother. But, this is also a production
that will take your breath away when the expected violence takes place. Some
of the violence is so close to the audience that one misstep or mistimed
action will bring real blood. Yet, the plot is thin, maybe even something
seen before; low-lifers trying to make it up one step higher in their savage
world. Do we care about them beyond being vehicles for our voyeur pleasures
in a world of nasty language and brute force? Not too likely.
Storyline: Dublin’s underworld, where three criminal foot soldiers battle
each other for pecking order, power and authority, all within the confines
of one claustrophobic room, where secrets are exposed to humiliate, violence
is talked about endlessly - or erupts - and the foreign language label of a
jacket (Made in China) sets off one final humiliation.
Mark O’Rowe’s Made in China was first produced
by the Dublin’s famous Abbey Theater in 2001. O’Rowe was in his early 30’s.
This is its premiere in the United States. O’Rowe’s language is raw but real
for those at least familiar with David Mamet and his brand of on-stage
“maleness.” This is not comic book vulgarity, but rather the descriptive
language of soldiers getting their brio ready. To O’Rowe language is
precise, however, not just crude. His characters argue over words and
nuance; are the things men wear “pants” or “trousers” or is the extra cloth
added to a pair of jeans to give it a bit more room a “gusset?” This is an
environment in which male rape is far worse than death since rape humiliates
the living forever, and where a karate lesson easily becomes the vision of
male sex with foreplay and thrusts. In O’Rowe’s world view, there is no
rest, and there is no certainty.
Directed by Colin Hovde, this is a furious emotional
rage of a production. Violence, whether physical or verbal, can flare
quickly or take its own sweet time. A weapon can even be a stolen woman’s
prosthetic leg. Verbal provocations are constant; they are little cuts to
draw blood and reactions. Under Hovde’s direction the erupting physical violence
does not seem like staged illusion, except for some well done slow-motion
scenes. Hovde has honed the production to a sharp point with a constant
derision of the feminine while male testosterone and willingness to inflict
pain to show dominance never stops. The ensemble includes a well-done
performance by Dan Brick. Brick just wants to belong, to be loyal to someone
or something. He brings forth his desires with head tilts and submissive
gestures; that is until he begins to grow into his own male strength to the
extent that, at the end, he too his willing to kill in order to belong. An
umbrella in his hands, at first a sign of weakness, later becomes a weapon.
But he pays a dear price for his newly learned maleness. Joel Rueben Ganz
plays his vicious character with harsh bravado. He struts around the small
space as the domineering Alpha of the group, but his viciousness hides a
deep humiliation that when made public fuels his actions to kill or be
killed. The move to daring fury seems real enough. Danny Gavigan wants to be
an Alpha, but does not have the absolute ruthlessness needed, until a last
desperate act when he is attacked. As for loyalty, it just doesn’t matter
for anyone at the end. Only survival is important.
The technical work at the Atlas Theatre black box
makes the audience feel part of this very small, tight wound world.
And, know this well, the audience is part of the production in the tight
space that is the Atlas Black Box, made more sinister by the 4-sided hollow
square that is the stage surrounded by two rows of audience chairs, allowing the audience to peer into the action and
at the reactions of each other. The set is set off with waist high plywood so
that the audience is looking inside a room through glassless windows. The
sound work by Chris Pifer includes the whacks of punches and kicks during
the more stylized action scenes. Marianne Meadows’ lighting for the slow
motion scenes further strengthens the sense of no escape from violence. No
credits are given for the fight combat but should be.
Written by Mark O’Rowe. Directed by Colin Hovde.
Design: Colin Hovde (set) Diana Khoury (costumes) Marianne Meadows (lights)
Chris Pifer (sound) C. Stanley (photography). Cast: Dan Brick, Danny Gavigan
and Joel Reuben Ganz.
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May 17 - June 24, 2007
Scenes From The Big Picture
Reviewed by
Brad Hathaway |
Running time 3:00 - one intermission
A day in the life of people in Troubles-torn Belfast
Performed at Catholic University's Callan Theatre
Click here to buy the script |
Potomac Stages is publishing two reviews this morning -
both are of productions featuring huge casts. One, Broadway's mounting of
the National Theatre of Great Britain's massive Coram Boy, playing in
Broadway's 1,425-seat Imperial Theatre, has a cast of 20 actors plus choir
and orchestra. There's no choir or orchestra here in the small black box, Callan Theatre in the basement of the Hartke Theater on the campus of
Catholic University, but the cast of this production outnumbers that massive
staging on Broadway by one. There the similarity ends, for the Broadway show
is a trip back in time to a unified story, while this one is a snapshot in
time at the intertwined stories of people living in a single neighborhood.
The time is the present and the neighborhood happens to be in Belfast in
troubled Northern Ireland. Troubled it is, but the focus is not "The
Troubles," that decades-long plague of uncivil warfare that wracked Northern
Ireland from the 1960s to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. That agreement
may have brought "The Troubles" to an official end, but not all the violence
has ceased and the wounds to the body politic have yet to heal. This is an
attempt to answer the question: what is life like for the people of Belfast?
Storyline: Life goes on, even as the impact of "The Troubles" swirls
about Northern Ireland. As many as 40 vignettes show the interaction between
individuals, pairs and groups in a Belfast community where lives are still
lived, love occasionally sparks but hate more often raises its ugly head,
and everyone's sense of duty to partners, friends, associates and just plain
acquaintances is often put to the test.
The play is by Owen McCafferty whose
Mojo Mickybo was
produced by Keegan Theatre earlier this year. Going to the other extreme
from that two-character play, Scenes From The Big Picture creates a patchwork of
impressions as many separate stories weave through two lengthy acts. The
play's title is a clue to its purpose. It is "scenes from" the big picture
and not the picture itself. It is as if an incomplete jigsaw puzzle provided
just enough filled in area to let you see what the picture might become when
completed. The pieces you do see interconnect just as lives of neighbors do.
The cumulative effect of many small stories isn't so much one large story as
it is a mélange. It creates the atmosphere of a place and a time. The play
is getting a huge production from tiny Solas Nua in collaboration with the
Tinderbox Theatre Company of Belfast. Belfast-based director Des Kennedy
brings it all together as he divides the large playing space into definable
areas to help keep the stories straight. He draws from his cast a series of
sharp performances.
The cast is entirely local, featuring some well known
veterans and some fresh new faces, each contributing something distinctive
to the mix. There's Nanna Ingvarsson and Brian Hemmingsen, anguished over
the fate of their missing son. There's John C. Bailey drowning frustrations
in Jameson. There's Joe Baker swaggering as a young punk. Some scenes are
hard and ugly enough to make you want to look away. The shooting - execution
style - by John Tweel is disturbing, but the stoic way in which Patrick
Bussink accepts the gunshots is even more so. No one performer gets enough
time in the spotlight to create a star performance, but every performer in
Kennedy's production makes a significant contribution when in the light.
In Robbie Hayes's set design, the actors not
participating in a particular scene are often sitting in chairs to the back
of the playing space fully visible to the audience. They help create a sense
of urban congestion with their presence. Kennedy doesn't have them just sit
there as actors waiting their cues, however. They watch the action on stage
or make a display of ignoring it, displaying the elaborate shell that many
inner-city residents adopt to permit some detachment from the plight of
their fellows. Strips of transparent plastic hang down from two
wheeled frames like the
cold-preserving curtains of the refrigerated food sections at a supermarket. Cast members move these frames about to create
different spaces and then enter and exit through them in a fluid motion that
keeps the performance flowing smoothly from one vignette to another. Place,
time and, more importantly, attitude is often established by Marianne
Meadows' choice of angle as well as hue for her lights and Lynly Saunders
predominantly dull brown costumes. The result is an atmospheric collection
of scenes.
Written by Owen McCafferty. Directed by Des Kennedy.
Fight choreography by Chris Niebling. Design: Robbie Hayes (set) Lynly Saunders (costumes)
Marianne Meadows (lights) Chris Pifer (sound) Amber C. Krause and Megan
Reichel (stage managers). Cast: John C. Bailey, Joe Baker, John Brennan, Madeleine
Burke, Patrick Bussink, Declan Cashman, Bryan Cassidy, Madeline Carr, Paloma
Ellis, Brian Hemmingsen, Nanna Ingvarsson, Joe Isenberg, Don Kenefick, Jason
McCool, Eric Messner, Ellie Nicoll, Kevin O'Reilly, Jon Reynolds, Stephanie
Roswell, Daniel Siefring, John Tweel.
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June 22 - July 16, 2006
Bedbound |
Running time 1:15 - no intermission
A stream-of-consciousness diatribe in high dudgeon
Performances
at the DC Arts Center
Click here to buy the script |
First it was Disco
Pigs that got our attention. A new production company giving voice
to the cascade of words written by Irish playwright Enda Walsh. Never mind
that you couldn't understand very many of the words - the mixture of the
gibberish of street jargon, baby talk and Irish brogue created energy,
emotion and drama in the hands of extraordinarily talented Dan Brick and Linda Murray.
Then it was Brick alone on stage directed by Murray in Walsh's
Misterman, a
dual-monologue of a split personality punk. Now they add the
not-insignificant but highly idiosyncratic talents of Brian Hemmingsen to
the mix as Brick directs him and Murray in this explosion of words you can
understand, assembled into sentences you can mostly understand, which tell a
story that may or may not be fully understood. It is an hour and a quarter
of expletives - many of which are the kind that a former President deleted.
Just what it all adds up to is somehow less important than the style and
energy with which it is delivered.
Storyline: Two intertwined monologues present the story of a man who is
inordinately proud of his accomplishments and his child, a woman stricken by
a debilitating illness. She struggles with accepting a life without
successes just as he, who had always hoped for a son who would grow up to
take his place as a great furniture salesman, struggles with the twin
burdens of accepting both the fact that his success won't be passed on to
the next generation and that the success itself may not have been all he
thought it was.
The first image of the evening in Dan Brick's design
is the explosive opening of a large black box that has dominated the small
playing space of the DCAC theater. The box falls open with a crash,
exposing the white interior walls on three sides and a shocking red wall
falling to the floor toward the audience. It exposes a white bed with two
fully dressed people partially covered by a sheet. One is Brian Hemmingsen,
a large man in a rumpled suit who couldn't fit in the bed or the box even
alone. He's obviously emotionally upset and his first few dozen words are
that same explosive expletive repeated over and over. The other is Linda
Murray, a frail young woman whose leg is bent back under her in a way that
indicates a lack of control over her own body and, by extension, her own
life.
They deliver their disjointed segments of monologues
not so much to each other as to the audience or to themselves. Hemmingsen
has the most words and he shouts them in a fit at times. At other times, the
smooth (or oily) salesman in his character comes to the surface as he
addresses the audience, stating his case for the often questionable actions
he took over his career. Murray's words are somehow more disjointed, more
stream-of-consciousness as she pops up in the bed to comment, not on what Hemmingsen is saying, but on what is flitting through her mind.
Bedbound was commissioned by Dublin's theater festival
in 2000. Walsh fulfilled that commission with a one-act, two-performer,
one-set piece filled with dense writing and a complex way of telling a
simple story. All three of Walsh's plays that Solas Nua has presented have
been one-acts. It is a format that he handles with great skill, for his
stories fit the genre without extraneous sub-plots. As this play proves,
simple is not the same thing as simplistic.
Written by Enda Walsh. Directed by Dan Brick. Design:
Dan Brick (set) Marianne Meadows (lights) Chris Pifer (sound) Agata Peszko
(photography). Cast: Brian Hemmingsen, Linda Murray.
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March 2 - 26, 2006
The Mai |
Reviewed March 12
Running time 2:30 - one intermission
An Irish play of family ties
Performed at the Josephine Butler Parks Center
2437 15th Street NW
Click here to buy the script |
This fairly new company strikes out in a new direction by mounting its
latest play not in a theater where the world of the play is created on stage,
but in an environment that matches the world of the play. A mansion is a
major plot point in Maria Carr's play. Solas Nua presents it in the ornate,
L shaped ballroom of a mansion which served as the Embassy of Brazil at one
time and the Embassy of Hungary at another. It is a lovely Italian
Renaissance Revival style building across the street from Meridian
Hill Park. Unfortunately, the impressive space is not well utilized, and the
resulting problems do damage to the production and the play itself.
Storyline: A woman called "The Mai" has spent the years since her husband
abandoned her building a mansion she hopes will entice him to stay if he
ever returns to her. When he does, the relationship is no better than it was
when he left. Her 100-year-old grandmother, two sisters and her aunts and
her daughters complicate and comment on her life.
Environmental productions, the staging of play in the
location where the actions is supposed to be happening instead of in a
theater, can enhance a theatrical experience. Certainly, the idea of using a
grand home to stage a play about a woman with a compulsion to create a grand
home is tempting. However, these productions pose special challenges to a
director and an entire theater company. Non-traditional blocking, attention
to sightlines and acoustics and decisions about the use of space can make
the difference between success and failure. In this case, despite the grace
and dignity of the room and the quality work by Marianne Meadows who subtly
lights the space with table lamps, the performance of the play suffers from
what might have been a superb setting.
A key problem is the decision to use the entire L
shaped room rather than just one segment. The audience is placed at a
diagonal in the junction of what is really two spaces. Entrances and exits
required the erection of temporary screens, which slice up the space and rob
an elegant room of its very elegance. Some of the dialogue echoing from the
leg of the room facing west toward the park is garbled and some of the
blocking of scenes in the leg facing north is awkward. As a result, what
might have been an experience akin to eavesdropping on interesting strangers
becomes a battle with distractions. The use of a cellist for a live
performance of the music which also is important to the story lends an
additional touch of class to the piece. However, placing her in the middle
of the action where she is visible as she sits through scenes waiting her
next cue, and where she can be seen playing as the actors mime playing their
undersized cello, adds yet another layer of distractions from which the play
never really recovers.
Kerry Waters plays the title character with a
sometimes impressive sense of determination, although she often succumbs to
awkward postures in order to accommodate strange blocking. Stephanie Roswell
is very good as her daughter who also serves as a sort of narrator as if the
events you see really are her memories of past events. Declan Cashman and
Elizabeth Bruce are a lot of fun as "The Mai's" cackling aunts. Ken Arnold,
as the long-lost husband returned for another go at the relationship for
obscure reasons, seems most uncomfortable performing in such close proximity
to the audience. The most intriguing of the cast is Rusty Clauss as the
100-year-old grandmother who smokes her opium pipe and revels in her stories
of unique past as the result of a brief dalliance between an Irish lass and
an African or Moorish traveler.
Written by Marina Carr. Directed by Linda Murray and
Caroline Kenney. Design: Scott A. Ford and Linda Murray (set) Lynly Saunders
(costumes) Marianne Meadows (lights) Chris Pifer (sound) Agata Peszko
(photography) Amy Boyce (stage manager). Cast: Ken Arnold, Elizabeth Bruce,
Declan Cashman, Rusty Clauss, Clare Johnson, Karen Novack, Stephanie
Roswell, Kerry Waters. Cellist: Karin Loya.
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January 11 - February 5, 2006
Howie The
Rookie |
Reviewed January 29
Running time 1:50 - one intermission
A pair of inter-related contemporary Irish monologues
Click here to buy the script |
Full Irish brogue and youthful urban attitude mark the monologues of "The
Howie Lee" and "The Rookie Lee" as each explains the events of a violent
weekend on the streets of Dublin in Mark O'Rowe's two-monologue play which
features performances by company newcomer Eric Messner and company veteran
Dan Brick. Linda Murray directs the two in their separate presentations
flanking the intermission. Performances are in the tiny secondstage facility
on the ground floor of the building next to the art gallery/cafe/theater at
the
Warehouse on 7th Street NW. With a blank stage
in the black-painted room and with mirrors on the back wall reflecting the
audience, the emphasis is entirely on the text and the performances of the
two actors. They both do impressive work.
Storyline: Two young men in contemporary Dublin are swept up in senseless
violence over such contentious issues as the passing of scabies from one
body to another and the death, intended or otherwise, of a pair of expensive
fighting fish. The causes of violent confrontations, however, is of less
interest than the lives that would be affected by them, as each man delivers
his story in separate but related monologues.
Messner has brought an impressive intensity to recent
appearances in the Potomac Region, most notably his work as the visiting
fireman in Olney's Omnium Gatherum.
As "the Howie Lee." who shirked his family duties briefly to pursue his
activities on the street with some disastrous consequences, he is the
epitome of a youthful punk. Brick, the managing director of this impressive
new theater company, has wowed its audiences in both of the companies first
two shows: the two-character Disco
Pig and his solo-piece
Misterman. Here he mellows a bit from the earlier roles, as is
appropriate for the character, but he is no less a pleasure to watch and his
"the Rookie Lee" is a strongly drawn, intriguing character indeed.
Both performances are in full brogue which requires
intensive listening for those in the audience whose ears aren't fully
attuned to the street patter of Dublin. Messner's is the thicker of the two.
Perhaps this is a reflection of Brick's recent experience finding the right
balance between the atmosphere required of the piece and the needs of his
audience, but it is also true that his somewhat less impenetrable accent is
right for his character as well. Messner's inflections are a reflection of
the cultural posture that is so much a part of the self image of his
character.
Marianne Meadows provides highly dramatic pools of
light at different spots on the small playing space. Most of the time, these
pools intensify the dramatic impact of the delivery of key points of the
story or the personal revelations of the two speakers. A few cues, however,
distract whether from the the timing of the cue, the precision focusing of
specific lights or of the accuracy of the actor's hitting their marks.
Similarly, the sound design sometimes enhanced a moment and sometimes
obscured a point. With the complexity of the interrelated stories being told
in such a unique voice, the audience needs every bit of help it can get to
follow and appreciate the piece.
Written by Mark O'Rowe. Directed by Linda Murray.
Design: Marianne Meadows (lights) Chris Pifer (sound) Agata Peszko (photography)
Amy Boyce (stage manager). Cast: Dan Brick, Eric Messner. |
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October 27 - November 20, 2005
Misterman |
Reviewed October 30
Running time 0:50 - no intermission
An intriguing solo show
Performed at the DC Arts Center
Price range: $13.50 - $17.50
Click here to buy the script |
Enda Walsh's Disco Pigs was Solas Nua's
first theatrical outing which brought the new company quickly to the
attention of the Potomac Region theater community. They return to his cannon
to present another intense piece that looks at life through Irish eyes.
While Disco Pigs used a vocabulary so strange to the American ear
that audiences gleaned more of the story from the behavior of the two-person
cast than from the dialogue, this one-actor play is much easier to decipher
but no less intense. It is performed by the same Dan Brick who was half the
cast of Disco Pigs. Here he is directed by the other half, Solas Nua's
Artistic Director, Linda Murray.
Storyline: On the surface, the young Irish lad who preaches the word of God
among his neighbors in the small town of Inishfree, off the west coast of
Ireland, seems harmless enough. When a neighbor's dog yaps and nips at him,
however, he beats the pup to a pulp. He charms his way out of that scrape
only to commit a more grievous act the next time he feels unjustly attacked.
This time, its fatal.
Dan Brick throws
himself into this part with the same passion he brought to Disco Pigs, but
the part requires him to hold much of that passion inside. He lets us
glimpse the yearning, the hurt and the fury of the fellow without letting
loose except in those few brief moments when his character completely looses
control. Then, he is a frightening force.
The play is performed on an almost bare stage with
just a suit of clothes on a hanger on one side of the playing space, a
curtain-draped door on the other and a simple rope swing in the center.
Almost unnoticed in the darkness of the space is a structure of pipes above
which provides a drenching rain which triggers one of Brick's best reaction
moments.
While the play is referred to as a solo show, it is
really a one-actor/one-tape recorder play so the audience hears what
the young man is hearing, either in fact or just in his head, as he holds
conversations with neighbors, courts a girl or visits his father's grave.
This puts a premium on the sound design of Chris Pifer which fills the tiny
space at the DCAC.
Written by Enda Walsh. Directed by Linda Murray.
Design: Marianne Meadows (lights) Chris Pifer (sound) Agata Peszko
(photography) Amy Boyce (stage manager). Cast: Dan Brick. |
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June 26 - July 27, 2005
Disco Pigs |
Reviewed June 28
Running time 1:00 - no intermission
Youthful energy and verbal games cast a spell
Click here to buy the script |
The new contemporary Irish arts organization, Solas Nua,
teams up with a theater company with deep Irish roots, Keegan Theatre, to
present two high energy performers in this fascinating theater piece on the
dark nights of Keegan's run of The Beauty Queen
of Leenane at the Church
Street Theatre. It is a piece by perhaps the most contemporary of
contemporary Irish playwrights, Enda Walsh, that plays with language with a youthful
insouciance, drawing the audience in not so much to the story but to the
world of two youngsters on the streets of a modern Irish city. Directed by
Keegan's co-founder Eric Lucas, Solas Nua's Artistic Director Linda Murray
teams with Dan Brick in a romp that begins with high spirits and manages to
maintain a sense of youthful innocence even as events turn ugly.
Storyline: Pig and Runt are two youths on the streets
of Cork who rely on each other for a sense of belonging and self worth. Both
are turning 17, but Runt, as most girls do, is maturing faster than Pig who
begins to be concerned that she won't remain his special friend for long. When she
attracts the attention of another boy, his fear and anger take a violent
and even fatal turn. The storyline isn't the
important thing in this piece, it is the energy of the relationship between
Pig and Runt and their special line of communication that is paramount.
Indeed, given the brogue as well as the verbal liberties taken by cast and
playwright, the storyline shouldn't really be reproduced in such simple
text. Rather, it should read something like: "Peegun Runt, too yuthsn tes
treats uva c'ntemp ryerrish sidy - reelion ee'other f'a snsobe long'n
and sulfwuort. Botr 17 butrunt, sssmost gurlsd, s' matrring fstn Pig. Hoo
begns t'be conced tha she won't ree minismate furlong."
You could linger over each word and phrase to understand
the literal meaning, but in the process, you would loose all the vigor of
the piece. Besides, the connection between the two characters is plain from
the moment they come storming on stage with the boy pushing the girl at full
speed in a purloined shopping cart. The changes in their relationship are
abundantly, even painfully clear and these changes are the essence of the
story. The ability of Brick and Murray to maintain the sense of
camaraderie while simultaneously showing their characters' separate rate of
maturation and the resulting sense of fear then dread then panic on Pig's
part contrasted with the excitement then confusion then consternation on
Runt's grabs your attention and refuses to let go. Brick
and Murray don't so much work their way through the piece as they attack it
with everything they are worth. Posture, mannerism, eye contact, volume,
stutter and glance - all help the audience understand without having to
understand a word. The story is absorbed rather than being analyzed. The
result is an exhausting but rewarding one-hour experience that will thrill
some and leave others wondering just what in the world they have seen.
Written by Enda Walsh. Directed by Eric Lucas. Design:
Billy Maloy (costumes) Dan Martin (lights) David Crandall (sound) Paul Ogba
(photography) Caitlin McAndrews (stage manger). Cast: Dan Brick, Linda
Murray. |
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