Number 22: 2001 Holiday Edition

by Carl F. Gauze

Well, the USOC really dissed O-town – something about Central

Florida being too provincial to host the Olympics. I really think someone

accidentally let them out of the air-conditioned limos and they figured out

how sweaty you can get without even running a Pentathelon, never mind a

Decathelon. Plus Disney’s on the ropes and our biggest defense contractor

isn’t likely to sponsor an event plugging world peace. Our Olympic hopes?

That’s your grandkids’ problem now. Let’s find something less bothersome to

do this weekend. <p>

Launch 2002

Playwrights Round Table

Theater Downtown

Orlando, Fla</b><p>

Visitors gone, decorations down, and all those ill-conceived gifts back to Wal Mart, and it’s time for a small peek into the near future of Orlando Theater. The Playwrights’ Round Table pulled together 7 short pieces and vignettes from upcoming plays for an intimate revue at the Theater Downtown. Opening the event was the rather pedantic “Struggle Between Souls”(written and directed by Mark Mannette.) A clean-cut Wall Street Journal toting fundamentalist Christian (Gregory Moravec) shares a breakfast table with the Wiccan Sandra (Patty Accorso). She looks a bit like that fortune teller woman down on Mills, and the interchange emphasized that neither side is very interested in learning about the other, but they both have axes to grind, honed on the cutting wheel of blind faith. You should love your fellow man, but nowhere does it say you have to tolerate him.

In the next piece, “Augusta,” (written and directed by John Goring) two black sisters part, possibly forever, as Abby (Cheryl Beckham) leaves for a medical procedure she might not survive. Older sister Florence (Jacki Marshall) fans herself so hard you actully start believing it’s hot, and hears the confession of her little sister’s love life gone bad. There’s a bigger story lurking outside this scene that deftly captures the women’s affection in a place and time not so very far removed from the here and now.

“Jezebels Laundromat” (written & directed by Todd Kimbro) starts in a few days, and represents a new height Kimbro’s continuing works describing the white trash south. Jezebel (Nikki Darden) opens a Laundromat, but lets her baby fall into a load of dirty whites and she ends up in the loony bin. Faithful Aunt Sweet (Marlo Hoffman) drops by to visit, asking the rhetorical question “Are you too crazy to know your stupid, or are you too stupid to know you’re crazy?” Drop by Impacte! next week and find out.

A show that’s been floating around Fringe festival for a while, “American Gondola” (written & directed by Terry Murray) has a psychotic aeronaut Kalb (Lou Hilaire) tricking business man Frank (Charlie Dent) into a spin around the clouds, only to find that sanity isn’t a requirement for a pilots license. Once up in the sky, a tense little drama unfolds as Kalb threatens Frank, only to fall out of the basket himself. For two guys and a few folding chairs, they put a real sense of menace in the air.

Joan Leslie reminisces about a century long life in central Florida in “Double Aught Granny” (by Steve Rowel, directed by Heather Leonardi). Alternately touching and funny, she describes her journey from country girl to flapper to single mom and beyond, wearing out 4 husbands and observing the changes Florida went thought to bring her to that dread question “How does it feel to be so old?” Sure, it begs a snappy answer, but she opts for the safe and friendly path. When you’re that old, you can pretty much have your way.

“Marry Me…. Or Else” (by Alice Kira, directed by Willie Teacher) captures a few moments in a bar as Dave (Willie Teacher) negotiates future life with his 2nd best girl friend Cindy (Meg Wozniak). He’s the bouncer, and when a very funny drunk (Mannette) stumbles up and compliments her breasts, Willie swings in to action and tosses him out the door. A knife is pulled, Willie reevaluates his life and makes Cindy the ultimate offer – he’s getting married right now, and if she acts fast she can have him. Otherwise he’ll take Julie. Gosh, how romantic. There must be a bit more of this rambling story lurking in a script off stage, but what appeared is interesting even if a bit disconnected.

As a wrap up, “People Like You” (by Jack McGrath, directed by Heather Leonardi) reappears, with a wonderfully nervous Jess (Leonardi) about to pop off to Peru to marry and archeologist she met on the Internet. But before she leaves, uberefficient Ms. Jones from Cyberlife Insurance drops in to sell some life insurance. Their computer predicts she’ll need it, and with a pending IPO the company is looking for some publicity. There’s an argument over whether Jess is really like people like herself, but no mind – it’s a battle between the certainty of statistics and the attempt of an individual to assert their Brownian right to act randomly. Despite being a bit dated (Hey, what’s an IPO again?) “People..” is a scream and well worth seeing anytime it appears.

Playwright’s Roundtable presents and critiques new works by it’s members and others, and not everything you seen in their workshops will make it to stage, but they offer an excellent opportunity to see the process of taking concepts and turning them into dynamic presentations.

For more information, please visit www.playwritesroundtable.org

Living Sculpture

Voci Modern Dance Group

Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gallery</b><p>

The harsh central Florida winter is fading fast, and we all look for an excuse to get outside these beautiful days. One nice option is to visit one of the lesser know sights in town, the home and gallery of Albin Polasek, an man with an exceptional gift for capturing the human form in stone. Polasek did most of his realist sculputure while the world preferred the abstract, but he has left a legacy of amazing figures on the south shore of Winter Park’s lake Osceola. For many years this museum languished, but we now have the chance to see some intriguing events in the gardens. The local dance group Voci occasionally drops by to practice its elegant mix of movement on the grounds, moving from place to place with a casual audience following the action. It’s a strangely relaxing environment, a place where the sounds of urban transportation mix with birdcalls and the soft rustle of Spanish moss on ancient oaks.

I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of Voci’s moves, but clearly they strove, fought, loved and lost as the 6 dancers took turns rolling on the grass, lifting one another, and moving with coordination and grace I never would have thought of. An earthy performance, Voci picks up leaves in their hair and mud stains on their knees while moving to a eclectic set of classical, African, and electronic tunes. It’s not a fixed stage, but a moving demonstration. As a piece ends the troupe subtly indicates motion applied not only to them, but the audience as well. It’s not clear what they have planned next ands sometimes the folding chair-toting viewers find them self surrounded by dance, only to have the movement gently flow around to other places. The statues seem pleased as Voci moves among them, sometimes in a gentle parody and sometimes ignore their stony audience members. Its low impact entertainment at it’s best.

For more information, please visit www.polasek.org</I>

A Couple of Blaguards

By Frank & Malachy McCourt

Directed by Michael Edwards

Starring Doug and Kristian Truelsen

Orlando Theater Project at Seminole Community College</b><p>

When born Irish, Catholic, and on a lane in Limerick, life takes a pretty determined course. Clothes are thin, daddy’s drunk or gone (not sure which is better), the loo is down at the end of the lane, and the church preaches God’s love and the certainty of eternal damnation caused by fun. Coupled with the ferocious Celtic chastity of Irish women, entertainment options reduce to drink, song, and looking for work while praying not to find it. Our two brothers, Frank (Kristian) and Malachy (Doug) grow up in this cultural stew of bleak prospects, part of a larger and ill defined family whose member’s propensity to random death made holding a Wake a fine art. The boys are molded by their feisty and cantankerous grandmother, a woman convinced that no greater glory exists than dieing Irish Catholic, a glory not eclipsed even by winning the sweepstakes. True as that may be, the sweepstakes winner will eat better and not freeze to death in the winter. Childhood is harsh and money scarce, and what do the Irish do when the going gets tough? Why, they emigrate to America, a land of opportunity and women who never learned the word ‘No’. It’s the Promised Land, flowing with love and sausages. Freed of the smothering Irish culture, the brothers each find a ready market for their blarney as teachers, actors, and general roustabout poltroons. Frank’s epiphany came in the army, stationed in Bavaria where he leaned about his own culture (Joyce, Yeats, and Wilde) from one of the Swarthmore girls you hear about but never meet. Malachy’s comes when he kills off the parakeets at the Biltmore and ends up a pioneer of abuse talk radio. And what joy does all this bring? Money, respect, sins of the flesh, and the realization that mom is a shrike and a perma-martyr, and dad really is a drunk Presbyterian ner’do well from the north of Ireland.<p>

A biographical two-man tour de Erie, “Blaguards” is an entertaining evening of song, stories, and caricatures of the Irish life, many taken verbatim from Franks famous book “Angela’s Ashes”. The Truelsen’s bring all the characters to life with a biting and sharp edge, alternately playing the relatives, the clergy, and the rest of the world set out to make Irish life miserable to Irish, and enchanting to the German, Jews, and protestant who missed growing up in such abject but picturesque deprivation. Doug’s portrayal of priests and Dublin’s mayor Dan Burke hit the mark perfectly, and Frank’s part comes alive in the second act as the pleasant but dangerously negligent tippler we associate with the Irish. After all, would a German glue the dead parakeets on their bars just to keep his job? No, of course not, he’d carve new one out of wood. It’s this cultural divide that makes Irish slackers the most entertaining of all.<p>

Joe’s NYC Bar – So This Is Christmas

Written by Christian Kelty & Garry Izzo

Temnos Productions

300 W Church, Orlando Fla</b><p>

Orlando has a sort of lame bar scene compared to the hard drinking towns up north. Is it the tourists, Baptist guilt over potential unauthorized fun, or the lack of German or Irish culture? Joe’s NYC at least give locals the experience of hanging out in the working man’s social club, a bar set in the shell shocked streets of New York. Mind you, this is a theater event, and even though some playhouses arrange a wee drop for the patrons, Joe’s is an O’Doul’s level drinking experience. Despite this, the atmosphere evokes the sticky sweet smell of a well-worn watering hole. In New York there’s one big topic on many a mind this holiday, and it provides a provocative jumping off point for a largely improvised evening of bar room philosophy.<p>

Down on the door end of the bar resides Leonard (Christopher Pruitt), a sort of calm point in the evening’s discussions. Familiar with ancient history, obscure points of theology, and reading the Post and smoking Marlborough Lites for a living, he provides some intellectual depth to the show. Behind the bar stands Gabriel (Kelty), estranged from his wife due to his workaholic obsession to serve this alcoholic collection of characters, each with a more or less tenuous opinion about the City’s disasters. The character who had the greatest resonance was drunken Richard, a man who nearly lost everything when he saw the first plane hit the tower from the Morgan Grenfeld conference room. Now it’s all gone – money, employ, and associates, even his autographed Babe Ruth baseball. Sure, he’s alive, but living in a life lacking its former trappings. Shallow? True. Like anyone we know? More than any of us will admit. Hooker Simone (Michelle Kepner) wanders in, discussing a relation she had with the wife of one of her now deceased clients. Strange how love works. And even St. Nick drops by for a quick one; he’s still cheerful despite dripping with 5 year-old’s pee, and taking requests for stocking stuffer. Everyone agrees sex is a good start, but then we get eclectic. Some want drugs; others want Gabriel to get back with his ex. Happy holidays.

This is how we deal with life – talking it out with those around us. While family is important, sometimes the semi-anonymous friends we casually make and lose are a safer sounding board. I’m not sure tonight has changed any of my feeling or opinions of the recent events, yet the events of Joe’s bar emphasize the apparently trivial yet ultimately significant minutia that are the healing process. Now, if they could slip a little spirit into the spirits, this would be a bar to hang out in.<p>

1776 – A Concert Musical

By Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards

Starring Philip Nolan, Tim Goodwin, Alan Bruun, Mark Lanier

Orlando Theater Project at Seminole Community College</b><p>

It’s the year of the patriotic holiday, and repetitive ghosts vaporize before this amusing musical civics lesson. Instead of frigidly quaint London, we alight in sweltering and unhealthy Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress debates in action while Washington gets his moustache waxed by the Brits. Obnoxious and unloved John Adams (Nolen) argues for independence, while his fellow delegates wish someone would hurry up and invent the window screen. Ben Franklin (Goodwin) suggests they get another politician to do the proposing, and after a little less politicking than needed to pass campaign reform, the decision to write up the Significant Document falls to retiring and reluctant Tommy Jefferson (Bruun). Take that, you vaporous British apparitions!

Sure, this crew populates today’s folding cash, but were they really demi-gods? No, of course not. Adams was a jerk, Jefferson a wuss, and Franklin worried about Jefferson’s sexual prowess as much as his legislative procedure. That’s the fun, the whole process of nation founding is secondary to the details of daily life, and “1776” puts it all in musical perspective. There the silly but memorable “Lees of Old Virginia” sung by Richard Henry Lee (Lainer) as he sets off to rally his home state in a volley of bad puns. Adams duets with his distant wife Abigail (Anne Herring) in “Tell Then” and “Yours, Yours, Yours”, reveling a strained relation eased by the exchange of pins for gunpowder. The best tune went to Edward Rutledge of South Carolina (Kristian Trueslen), describing in some detail the hypocrisy of northern antislavery forces, a group of people who profited form moving molasses, rum, and humanity between Boston, Charleston, and the Ivory Coast. Slavery stays as Franklin argues to Adams that national independence is a higher goal than freedom for all. It’s as good as a few hours in front of the history channel, without the annoying infomercials.<p>

The only disappointment in this 1776 is the vast amount of under employed talent on stage. Paul Wegman plays an uncomfortable judge James Wilson, a man who casts deciding vote for independence based on fear of notoriety more than any high ideals. Adam Williams gets a touching song as a Courier (Mama, Look Sharp), but Bobbie Bell, Chris Pfingsten, and an impressive list of other local Equity players get a few short lines and some supporting chorus work. Even newly elevated County Arts God Terry Olson settles for a single three-word line. Small roles perhaps, but filled by large actors. “1776” is not just an out of season perfomance, but a welcome respite from the limiting holiday repertoire filling our seasonal conscience. Nobody discovers the meaning of anything other than political compromise, and no one jingles through the snow. It’s to hot outside this Christmas. <p>

Flyin’ West

By Pearl Cleage

Directed by Joseph Pinckney

Starring Jacki Marshal, Michelle Nicole Falana, Brian Lynn McDaniel

Studio Theatre, Orlando Fla.

</b> <p>

Lincoln freed the slaves, but they had to find happiness on their own. Tough as nails Sophie Washington (Marshall) didn’t find it in the flesh pits of Memphis, so she picked up her 2 sisters and went west, settling in town-to-be Nicodemus, Kansas. Hard work pays off, and now the land speculators offer top dollar for this fertile flatland. She’s politicking hard to make Nicodemus a Negro Socialists Workers Combine, with the specific intention of keeping those dirty white dollars out of town. If the whites want to buy it, there must be a damn good reason the transaction will stiff the blacks. Middle sister Minnie (Christelsie Johnson) documents the history of the city, pries slave stories from elderly Miss Leah (Falana), and dates the astonishingly nice Wil Parish (Leroy Fleming). Little sister Fannie Mae Dove (Shanndora Hall) drops in from London for a visit along with hubby Frank Charles (McDaniel). He’s a mulatto Oscar Wilde type with a deep mean streak, spouting foppish poetry with a fakey English accent and slapping Fannie Mae around, threatening her unborn child. A losing night at poker wipes him out, and he wants to trade Fanny’s share of Kansas for another chance at London society. Hot headed Sophie is ready to use that shotgun she lugs everywhere until Miss Leah points out a path of non-violent action, a path that relies on the womanly skills of baking and seasoning. It’s the last slice of pie Frank ever eats.<p>

There’s a couple of times you think Sophie’s going to pull the trigger on stage, but if she didn’t have the gun I think she could take Frank two falls out of three in a bare knuckle brawl. She and Frank form an instant grudge, the sort you need a non-blood relation to drive home. And before Frank darkens her doorposts, she applies her native cantankerosity to Miss Leah, intending her to live to 100 on a diet of bad coffee, spit and vinegar. Frank’s no fool, either. He knows the whiles and ways of the white man, and exploits them until he makes the fatal mistake of playing cards with someone named “Doc.” You know he’s evil the moment he steps on stage, and you won’t be disappointed.

So how are freed slaves in a Jim Crow world supposed to merge with the white world? Sophie prefers the segregation model, but turned on its head – create small pockets of black paradise with a strong neighborhood association to keep out the undesirable elements and teach blacks the value of home ownership. Fair enough, but Charles takes the opposite path – he escapes to a world where his skin tone is more curiosity than a social mandate. In neither case does a colorblind society seem desirable or even possible, and there’s bad blood brewing. Yeah, everyone should work together, but let’s face it – Blacks aren’t a monolithic group, and everyone has there own idea on how to arrange their world. Sophie’s view extols the American ideal, and Frank’s has better restaurants. Personally, I don’t want to get between them.<p>

For more information, visit <A href = www.obet.org> www.obet.org</a><p>

Baby With The Bathwater

By Christopher Durang

Directed by Scott Borish

Starring Aaron Kirkpatrick, Michelle Knight, Lauren Pottinger, Brian Nolan

Impacte! Theater, Orlando Fla.</b>

You’ve got your dysfunctional parents, and then you’ve got the Dingleberry’s. John (Kirkpatrick) lives on Quaaludes and Nyquil, and Helen’s got that attractive Psycho Ex something or other look. They’ve just spawned a kid, and neither one seems completely sure how or why or whether it might have a sex or a name. All they know is it make noise and there’s no off switch. Fortunate, the inimitable Nanny (Pottinger) appears to save the evening, blowing into their miserable lives like the evil anti – Mary Poppins. While she won’t do windows, floors or laundry, Nanny is good for a quickie or silencing little Daisy (Nolan) by dropping him in his bassinet. Well, insanity fills the air, and Daisy breathes it deeply, developing a tendency to lie motionless for hours and then dash madly in front of the nearest bus. Nowadays, we call this a lifestyle choice. A few years in on the couch may help, but all that seems to do is make the shrink just as nuts as Daisy. Eventually, he finds a girl, marries, and has his own little spud. Knowing just how bad things can be, he does the right thing – he verifies the baby’s sex and gives it a name. Thus, the cycle is broken.

Loud and chaotic, this absurdist drama drives it’s charters a breakneck speed from emotion to emotion with nary a stop for breath. Love turns to potential divorce and back again in 15 seconds. These people are crazy to those watching, but at least they are consistent within the framework of their lives on stage. Clearly John and Helen mean well and realize they haven’t a clue as to what to do with a child. There are a lot of people like that, check out any random Publix in the nicer parts of town. Why did they have a child? Well, it might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but not even Pottinger’s hyper nanny can keep this boy on course. You feel sorry for the resultant of this parental equation. He’s messed up through no fault of his own; mommy and daddy were never bright enough to tell him he was a human, and as a representative of his species, there are some obligations to uphold. If your not sure about children, I recommend you start with a cat. All it can do is tear up your couch.<p>

Caffeine Goes P-nuts

Written By Todd Kimbro

Impacte! Theater, Orlando Fla.</b><p>

It’s another customer free night at the old Caffeine Crash, and Holden Glass (Ed Campbell) is plagued by a writer’s block so bad it robs him of his ability to speak prepositions. While the rest of the crew head over to IHOP to carol for Fresh and Fruities, he collapses from exhaustion, falling on his keyboard in a stupor but writing his next great screenplay consisting only of the word “yyyyyyy…” It’s enough to make a boy think he’s fallen into that old Charlie Brown Christmas Special, complete with bad jazz carols and a dog named Stoopy (Scott Borish). Holden’s friends are all there, 5 years old yet speaking with the sophistication of Noel Coward. Holden gets stuck with the no-win job of writing and directing the Christmas pageant, a job made worse by his compulsive need to rewrite until the cases wear off the verbs. Leading lady Tuni (Marcia Granquist) has the Lucy roll, demanding to play Baby Jesus and willing to fill out a Vatican form to get it. She steals Jeff’s (Joshua Horn) blanky in an attempt to get a head start on martyrdom, while Jasmine (Meghan Drewett) nicks the Christmas Kettle from a narcoleptic Salvation Army Santa. She’s willing to step up and deliver al the toys, as soon as she covers her own list.

While this isn’t exactly a show for the kiddies, Impacte! keeps the profanity down to a few implied bleeps, and I didn’t see anyone light up a cigarette on stage. There’s a very cute Kimbro song “Dog” sung by Stoopy, extolling the joys of shedding in peoples laps and sniffing their behinds during the holidays. The energy in this show is immense, with Linus and Lucy (I mean Tuni and Jeff) chasing each other at breakneck speeds around stage at great risk to each other and the audience. Everyone performs a wild free form boogie when the Charlie Brown Theme song breaks out, which isn’t a normal adult reaction to the music. I won’t say this put me in the Xmas spirit, but it has a loony internal logic that overcomes the smaryness of the holiday season. And, Holden does discover the true meaning of the Christmas pageant. When little kids get on stage, they’re not supposed to be good, just cute. Goof ups are required.

The Taming of The Shrew

By Wm Shakespeare

Directed by Jim Helsinger

Starring Eric Hissom, Jean Tafler, Richard Width, Sara Hankins, Edmund Kearney

Orlando – UCF Shakespeare Festival</b><p>

All right! A REALLY funny Shakespeare comedy production! Everyone’s in love with Bianca’s (Hankins’s) cleavage in coulrophobic Padua. What a shame; daddy’s (Kearney) put her off limits until older sister Kate (Tafler) hooks up. Kate’s more than a misandrist, she hates everyone. The boys are piling up like cordwood for Bianca; Gremio (Kermit Brown), Hortensio (Tom Picket Taylor) and new guy Lucentio (Width) even agree to pay Petruchio (Hissom) to wed Kate. He’s a bit flat this month and Kate’s rough trade excites him, so everyone’s agreeable except the ultra violent Kate. What, no swapped identity? If everyone knows who everyone really is, where’s the humor? Rest easy; Padua is a busy place and Lucentio actually swapped hats with his servant Tranio (Christopher Patrick Mullen) joining the Biancafest as an itinerant lute instructor. Does everyone have a girl? Good, now the only remaining trouble lies in Petruchio’s shabby bedroom. Kate’s not sure how she got there but she’s not the sort of girl to settle for the Martha Stewart gig without some serious negotiation. Can Petruchio survive? Using a combination of psychological warfare, Zen, and Itchy & Scratchy Kung Fu he brings this headstrong and froward woman into line. Sure, she can still out slug Tyson, but now she does it for her husband, whenever and wherever he asks. Certainly there will be rough spot in this relation, but the reconciliation sex will be wonderful.

Yeah, we’ve got sex, we’ve got fights, we’ve got clown abuse, we’ve got fart jokes, and we’ve got Eric Hissom and his magical codpiece. Everything is played for maximum comedy, and that takes one thing – timing! No one misses a beat; all the really boring monologues are read as fast and flat as possible just to avoid copyright problems; and someone stole the sound effects from Hanna Barbera. Servants wear Jell-O colored hair and aim punches for the family jewels. We even stoop to a pie in the face. This Shrew plays like a Henny Youngman routine- once you get people laughing, the next joke doesn’t have to be good, just in exactly the right place. Lean to the left when they mention Pisa, cheer when Lucentio does his Prince Charming smile, see how many oral sex sight gags you can squeeze into English Lit class, and pull a cow up from under a table. It all clicks.

The Bards’ tragedies typically do better than the comedies – the bad things in life are pretty constant, but the context needed for anything beyond physical comedy fades away as our language shifts. PhD’s in literature go to people who can explain all the toilet jokes in Elizabethan drama, and as a result you can sit thought most of His comedies and miss most of the good stuff. Helsinger tackles the problem head on – emphasize what is still textually funny, plow thought the Women’s Place stuff unapologetically, put in as many sight gags as possible and lose the swidgy language. It’s a roaring success for the OUCFSF’s (they’ve got to get a shorter name) new playhouse, and if you bring the kids, you can let them in on some good solid adult jokes without feeling sleazy. Not that sleazy is completely bad; it can make your English grades go up.

For more info, visit <a href=http://www.shakespearefest.org/>/www.shakespearefest.org/</a>

The Rise and Rise of Daniel Rocket

By Peter Parnell

Directed by Paul Luby

Starring Adam Williams, George Patages, and Ansley Goodrich

Staged Reading at Seminole Community College</b><p>

Childhood has its moments – dreaming about the opposite sex, dreaming about flying, dreaming about that whole beautiful life ahead of you. In the depths of 6th grade you might fantasize about Miss Rice (Delaney Kahn), or you might actually come to believe you can fly. On one level each are equally improbable, yet Daniel Rocket (Williams) has actually mastered the trick of developing lift from pure fantasy. When he’s on the ground, he works on his wings with the help of best friend Richard (Patages). Tonight he’s giving a private demo to Richard and the girl he wants, awkward Alice (Goodrich). A misplaced note convinces Alice unsuspecting Richard has vaguely sworn undying love. Daniel takes off into the sky, circles Alice a few times until she promises to wait for him, and disappears into the future. Twenty years is a long wait for the second act, and all his classmates pair up, including Alice and Richard, before he lands. When now-famous Daniel shows up for a replay of his first flight, Alice still has a soft spot, but not soft enough to leave her husband and child. And what really kept Daniel aloft these years was the thought of Alice, and without her, he crashes and dies of a broken heart.

With a minimal set and staging, Daniel Rocket was an effective parable of childhood captured and lost. Williams presents an annoyingly smart prodigy, and a fairly decent melodramatic death scene. Goodrich’s Alice was as outcast as Rocket in the first act, but faded into suburban acceptability by the second, contrasting nicely with Daniel’s celebrity and childlike enthusiasm. Supporting the action was a good set of tough but good-hearted bullies, Steven Hill, Steven Pugh, and Marcus Carrasquillo. Tough kids turned into burnt out adults still in search of something they could be good at – not a job and not a marriage, they are the blank millions of people living lives of mediocre desperation. They did preserve their mistrust of Daniel and his status as a miraculous celeb, and they react to him with the same pack animal grace of a fist to the jaw. If you can’t beat him, beat him up, they always say. Daniel’s class mates matured because they had nothing left in childhood, but Daniel never had to grow up, he had flight and the thought of Alice patiently waiting for him if he ever came back. It’s tough to start life with a great success; so often everything else is down hill and that can be a nasty shock.

Dear Elena Sergeevna

By Ludmilla Razumovskaya

Directed by Sergei Tcherkasski

Starring Kim Eddins, Dan Pasquini, Eric Johnson

Stover Theater at Stetson University, Deland Fla.</b><p>

It’s Elena’s (Eddins) birthday, and she has a surprise coming. Some of her soon-to- graduate students bring her a nice gift – some beautiful stemware and a bottle of champagne. It’s quite an impromptu party, and all they want in return is a little help with their grades, math in particular. It seems they need A’s to get into university and since none of them actually wrote any answers down on the final, they’re a bit worried. After a round of drinks, reasoning, whining and offering to get her mother in a better clinic, they resort to psychological warfare. They threaten and abuse her, ransack her apartment, and Volodya (Pasquini) even attempts to rape Lalya (Jamie Collyer), just to prove a point. Elena is idealistic to a fault, and she holds out till the end, then gives up, gives in and checks out. By this time, the student thugs have about had it as well, and eventually the whole student uprising collapses under its own ineptitude.<p>

It’s an interesting look at Russian dissident writing from the last gasps of Soviet empire. The writing is heavy handed, characters one dimensional and direct, and the point of the work to provoke reaction from the authorities rather than garner critical acclaim. The provocation is obvious, the players stereotypes of the Russian people, and the whole production has a gritty feel of oppression. Optimistic Elena sincerely believes the words of communist ideals – given enough citizens like her; the place could have been a workers paradise. Intellectual Pasha (Williams Phillips) can spell Dosteovsky, and doesn’t need any mathematics to represent the flower of Russian thought. Vitya (Johnson) drinks professionally – he can time lunges at the toilet with breathtaking precision and chugs vodka at Olympic levels. Volodya (Pasquini) doesn’t really need the grade. Fully connected with his place in the Foreign Service set he considers Elena a good extra credit project. He’s the oily set who actually runs the place, and is the heart of the problem. Lastly, there’s Lalya, a woman willing to sleep her way to the top, assuming she can find it. If they all work together, they can realize the highest ideal of communist thought – nobody gets ahead unless I do.<p>

It’s not entertainment for the masses – the story is dark, the dialog pedantic, and a droning television set buries dialog occasionally. It is interesting as a sample of Soviet life and thought, circa 1980. The general feeling is that the students have no leverage against someone willing to stick to an abstract ideal, but they will drop to the lowest levels of depravity to destroy a good person and possibly, just possibly conceal their own ineptitude. Is that any way to run a country? Certainly not for more than 60 or 70 years.<p>

Quilters

By Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek

Directed by Laura Rohnert

Starring Gloria Duggan<p></b>

What do you call people with arrows in their backs? Pioneers. And how did they cope with those arrows? Lots and lots of quilts. Quilts kept you warm, kept you busy, taught you to cope with the difficulties of settling a continent, socialized you and your family, and used up all those otherwise useless bits of cloth. Quilts were life, the key element to a woman’s existence on the prairie in this fabric-centric musical. Quilts involve everything from childhood to death, with the lives of the women and even a few men following the common thread of this utilitarian object in a series of loosely related tales. Sara Bonham (Duggan) reveals her life in a set of 16 quilting blocks, sometimes sad, sometimes joyful, and sometimes conveyed through interpretive dance. She has a flock of daughters, born from an almost continuous pregnancy that started a few weeks into puberty and carried on till death. Menopause wasn’t an option. These girls flitter across stage, reminding us of hardships that society has fought back and how they dealt with them. You think you’ve got it tough because someone parked you in – these people could freeze, burn, or starve to death on a daily basis.<p>

“Quilters” is not really a dramatic piece – few clear characters populate the stage, no tensions build or resolve. True, many significant events occur in Sarah’s life, but the common thread is her experience rather than her motivation. Her response is constant – persevere and make more quilts. Having said that, the piece is touching, funny, moving, engaging, and everything you would expect from a drama, but in a different form. The singing is grand, and some of the voices (particularly Michelle Spiro) are truly outstanding. Unfortunately, the lack of any vocals below alto makes things a bit sing-songey from time to time, and there’s nothing to hum in the parking lot except a few traditional religious songs recalled from Sunday school. <p>

Today we only have quilts for those rare Floridian cold snaps, or for a compromise with a partner who might be different temperatured. They come from Penny’s and match the wallpaper. In other times, this humble object carried a greater significance. Often, it was the only part of women’s work that remained past her mortal coil, critical for survival and one of the few creative outlets for people who worked themselves near to death in order to survive and better themselves. No wonder they cost so much in the antique stores.

For more information, visit www.theaterdowntown.net

Onion

Written and Directed by Todd Kimbro

Starring Christine Morales, Nick Spryzinski, and Erin Gallagher

Impacte! Productions, Orlando Fla.</b>

Can onions be considered art? Clyde (Spryzinski) doesn’t know, he just grows them. Dreams of college went up the pipe when daddy died and left him starving on an onion farm. When he caught his wife cheating with all the help, it provided a handy excuse for downsizing in a bad crop year. She got the kid; he got the dirt, so when cousin Emily (Morales) drops by, he’s happy for the company. They didn’t get on when they were small, but he’s lonely and an extended visit is fine. She spent a few years bumming around, applying to art schools, flunking math, missing grant deadlines, and joining Lesbian Artists Local 38. It’s a love / paint relation – Clyde doesn’t really understand the creative process, but feels the loss as Emily becomes a bit successful and a bit involved with her agent, Marguerite (Gallagher.) His anguish is summed up in the best line of the play – “How long have you been munching carpet?” It’s heartfelt, and Emily responds by bailing him out of foreclosure for another year while she heads off to Manhattan, a town where everything is made of something. Truer insight never flowed though a drama.<p>

Behind a flurry of furniture moving, “Onion” is Kimbro’s best work to date. It’s tightly written, well acted, and unburdened by unneeded plot complications. A series of southern fried art and symbolism is focused on a bed sheet slide screen on the back wall, keying the audience to anticipate the action. I particularly liked Spryzinski’s Clyde, a redneck of complex motivation and depth. He still stings from Emily’s remarks as a teenager, yet needs her as his only friend. While he struck his ex-wife in anger, you can’t argue she treated him pretty badly, and he loves his unseen daughter yet is ashamed of his lowly career. Morale’s Emily is vulnerable yet proud, fairly sure of who and what she is, but scared of success. Marguerite is a bit manipulative, unfaithful, but willing to exploit a talent that needs exploitation to boost it out of agricultural obscurity. It’s interpersonal relations at their most interesting.<p>

Are onions a suitable medium for art? No worse than soup cans, more tasty than a pure white square of acrylic, and cheaper than Nuevo Paint by Numbers, I’d hang a few on my kitchen wall. Kimbro’s bittersweet story might not bring tears to your eyes, but it succeeds in setting forth a nice set of people whose troubles are worth watching for a few hours.

Top Girls

By Caryl Churchill

Directed by Larry Tackett

Starring Tina Moroni, Kristine Ullo, Rose Anna Martinack

Valencia Character Company</b><p>

Men are scum. I know, I am one. But after Top Girls rehashes the particulars, you’ll reach a somewhat different conclusion – men REALLY are scum. Back in the glory days of the Thatcherite 80’s, Joyce’s (Ullo’s) boyfriend knocked up her sister Marlene (Moroni), who had bigger plans than staving in the sometimes idyllic British countryside. Joyce agrees to raise the resultant little Angie (Martinack). Angie’s a bit slow, destined to spend her life trampled by the boots of unrepentant capitalism, but she hates her step mum. Marlene goes off to career, travel, and a few odd abortions, becoming a fast riser and blocking the careers of much less qualified men. When Angie tricks Marlene into a visit, the two sisters have it out, eventually driving Angie up to London, where she seeks a better life with her favorite ‘aunt’. It won’t happen because Labour is out of power and Ronald Reagan rules the colonies. Class purity just didn’t cut it in the 80’s.

While this story is interesting enough, both as a conflict between class and family and as a feminist theater time capsule, the prelude is a tedious drunken fantasy dinner party Marlene hosts with women of past centuries. There’s Victorian adventurer Isabella Bird (Tatum Deroeck), Meji concubine Lady Nijo (Marlo Hoffman), Pope Joan (Catherine Goodison), and Dull Gret (Ullo), a medieval warrior woman who was very impressed with wine in a corked bottle. Oh, and Patient Griselda (Suzette Rising) shows up near the end of the party. We get about an hour of heart tugging but whiney complaints, presented as a confusing babble of overlapping chatter with no particular relation to the later story. The only respite was the physical humor of Ullo as Gret – biting the waitresses, eating soup with her hands, and chugging the Chardonnay. Ullo continued her excellent work in the second act, projecting a proud sober defiance that contrasted nicely with Moroni’s drunken overconfidence. Moroni reacts perfectly, showing the giddiness of an upper class member shed of the diatribe and unfortunate policies of failed Marxist thought. They’re both right in their own way, but it only makes Angie just a football with no future.

Spinning into Butter

By Rebecca Gilman

Directed by Chris Jorie

Starring Linda Landry, Anthony James Holsten, Christine Decker, Doug Truelsen

Orlando Theater Project at Seminole Community College </b>

People like this give liberals a bad name. In the tweedy atmosphere of

beautiful Belmont College, Negroes, Puerto Ricans and all those other

fascinating People of Color are a rare and treasured commodity. If only

they’d hang out with you, the world would be convinced you’re not racist.

Never be racist, it prevents tenure. They hired Dean Daniels (Landry) from

the hard streets of Chicago to improve Belmont’s minority element, but she

turned out to be white – all the black candidates wanted more money to live

in Vermont, or wouldn’t put up with the blowhard faculty.

Daniels really wants to help. She’s personally responsible for every bad

thing every European imperialist did to anyone, ever. Why? They said so in

grad school, and the PhD’s are all so much smarter than she. This Monday

starts bad – she gets a $12k scholarship for Newyorican student Pat Chibas

(Shirvan Badeesco), which ticks him off. It’s not the money, but the

horrible compromise he had to make – actually admitting he was Puerto Rican

to get a minority scholarship. Oh, the shame! Next, some creep tapes

threatening notes to a black student’s door. She calls the cops, while the

rest of the faculty poses. Ex-boyfriend Prof. Collins (Holsten) suggests a

campus-wide forum on race. Dean Strauss (Truelsen) offers a carefully argued

speech on why HE isn’t a racist, and Dean Kenny (Decker) wants a 10-point

bullet list by tomorrow on how to solve the race problem with no increased

spending. Daniels mistakenly tries to please everyone, and is fired for her

efforts. Meanwhile, the racial minorities flee campus for the safety and

sanity of NYU. And the sensible minority? Well, it never visited in the

first place.

Landry’s Daniels is the sinner with no chance of salvation – she says the

truth, and is crucified for it. Everyone hectors her. Trueslen’s pompous

Strauss evokes the pig headed self-assurance that made us liberate the

student union in the 70’s. He just rubs you wrong, and his position is

automatically bogus because he’s such a jerk. Deckers’ Kenny lies waiting in

the grass to devour the mouse of Dean Daniels. Run if she ever smiles at

you. And Collins? You’ve met his type – argumentative, logical, a strong

supporter of African American Theory. If he ever corners you at a faculty-student mixer, attempt suicide with the cocktail toothpicks – it’s less

painful. Even Chibas gets off a few tirades that make you want to send him

to study hall with no dinner.

This is a though provoking and difficult production. Daniels says many

things that make you uncomfortable – not because they’re not true, or that

YOU never thought them, but because we’ve all been taught to repress them in

the name of Playing Nice. The Belmont faculty comes across as a bunch of

underwater basket weaving buffoons – the worst academia has to offer. Even

at earthy SCC there were bitter twitters of laughter from the students in

the audience. The Belmont crew glorifies respect and tolerance to other

people yet won’t even treat co-workers politely. It’s harem politics – the

fights are so bitter because the stakes are so small. See it with your

friends, and then go out for expresso. You’ll be up all night.

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