Number 24: Spring Foolfest Special Edition
by Carl F. Gauze
Of course we have seasons in Florida. And we don’t need groundhogs or
leaves to tell us they’re here – right now we have monster RVs blocking the
highways and byways – a sure sign of Race Week Season. When they clear out,
millions of motorbikes arrive, with metal and leather and love bugs you don’t want
plastered on you windshield. Then it’s spring break, evidenced by Canadians
swimming half naked in pools we consider too cold to chill wine in. And then?
Why – -fire season! You can just smell it in the air. While we hunker down
and wait for the cold fronts to pass, the fine folks at Sak present a fine
collection of funny folks, some local and some in town for some event or
other. And then there are the regular folks who hang around and entertain
us. Here’s a report:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Frank Hilgenburg
Starring Lauren Harn-Rohner, Roger Greco, Jim Cassidy
Theatre Downtown, Orlando, Fla</b><p>
Big Daddy (Cassidy) has a problem. Well, two, really – there’s that pesky terminal cancer, and then there’s disposing of 50 square miles of fertile Delta farmland. Plan A passes it to son Gooper (Michael Funaro), nice enough as a lawyer but a real suck up as a son, and with his wife Mae (Gloria Sicoli) they’ve spawned at least 3 darling little hellions that Big Daddy despises. Plan B sends it to Brick (Greco), who can drink like Billy Carter but won’t sleep with his hot looking wife Maggie. He mourns Skipper, his best buddy from school who died from medical malpractice a few years ago. Brief moments in the sun faded as injuries wiped out their football careers leaving only their strong friendship to prop each other up. Maggie (Harn) flirts around in her slip and gets half the audience interested, but Brick’s preserving Skippers memory in a brain full of alcohol. God, he’s such a dumb jock. Thus, big Daddy’s dilemma – leave Gooper the goods, let Brick drink it up, or buy a cat and leave it all to the ASPCA.<p>
Loud and over bearing, Big Daddy rules the roost. Sure, everyone lied to him about the cancer to get through his birthday party, but he’s still the boss. In his perma-wrinkle suit, he blasts his way past everyone including his clucking wife Big Mama (Joan Gay). What he’d really like is either a grandson by Brick or at least some sign of sentient thought on Brick’s part – children are the only immortality here, and if you don’t pop a few out, people might think you’re gay, or impotent, or worse. <p>
There’s a lot to see on stage – Harn’s desperate sexuality, Cassidy’s attempt to over power death by sheer force of will and loud talking, Greco’s thorazine and bourbon inspired impassivity as he clings to a faded past. Big Mama (and Daddy) reminds me of several older southern moneyed couples I know – he’s piously rude, and she’s rudely pious. For a drama about death and familial decay, it’s seriously funny with good support from John Kelly as Doc Baugh, family physician, and Harold Longway as the useless and uncomfortable Rev. Tooker. Theater Downtown always seems to do it’s best work when Southern decay and debauchery are on stage, and this is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.<p>
For more information, please visit
www.theatredowntown.net </a></i>
Augusta
By John M Goring
Directed by David A McElroy
Starring Michelle Nicole Falana, Michael Paulauski, Marylin McGinnis
Orlando Black Essential Theater and Southern Winds Theater
At Church Street Theater, Orlando, Fla</b><p>
Love comes in many forms – sometimes freely entered into, sometimes obligated by blood or place. Both loves appear in the small life of little Michael (Paulauski) – the obligatory love of his cranked up mother Lizabeth (McGinnis), and the freely given love of bible thumping housekeeper Florence (Falana). Florence occupies all his quality time – teaching him chores and mutant bible stories, and providing the loving entertainment we all need as children. Mom is more formal, more concerned about appearances. When Dad died from heroic war wounds (you’re and automatic hero from war wounds, even if garnered in a bar fight), mom went into the full metal southern belle mode – hats and gloves and lunching with the ladies and sleeping with the men – sort of a classy Tennessee Williams ingénue who hates wrinkled sheets. Florence keeps a whole separate life, down in the funky side of town. Her sister Abby (Cheryl Beckman) works in a factory and takes sick, but there’s no money for a doctor. She has a sort of boyfriend; sleep around Lester (Carlos Jackson) whose main roll in this story is to drive people around in his beat up truck. Florence has a gift – the ability to hold her own moral high ground with white folks, never losing pride even when it appears she has. This is the force that drives her, along with an abiding religious faith. When little Michael turns to the family bible (so old, yet so unworn) to alleviate Florence’s financial problems, Mom learns a few lessons about love and doing the right thing with money. But she’s still a bitchy small town white woman.
Augusta the city is a place lost in time – the big city where things are always better, a rural southern Oz, a place to flee to when things get so bad the only cure is to make them worse. Augusta the play is a happy ending of sorts – Abby gets some specialist care for her mystery aliment, Florence keeps her job cleaning and sitting Michael, and mom comes to some sort of increased awareness of the poverty around her. It’s a touching view of those who live on the wrong side of the tracks – tracks not so distant from the ones right outside the theater walls.
Hamlet
By Wm. Shakespeare
Directed by Jim Helsinger
Starring Christopher Patrick Mullen, Sarah Hankins, Kate Ingram, Paul Bernardo
Orlando UCF Shakespeare Festival, Orlando, Fla</b><p>
God’s Bodkin, this Hamlet (Mullen) is loonier than a fruit bat! It’s the stress – daddy’s murdered, mommy’s (Ingram’s) fooling around like trailer trash, and there’s ghost on the parapet that makes him talk like a bad magic act. All this piles up, and without hard evidence to oust his usurping uncle and step dad Claudius (Bernardo), Hammy makes a strategic foray into lunacy. Not that many other people have seen the ghost except buddies Horatio (Brent Landon) and Marcellus (David Hardie), but who else spends long nights out on the tower listening to Pink Floyd and fighting the balmy north-northwest winds blowing off the Vik? The ghost has a message – Daddy’s death was murder most foul, Gertrude is a slut, and Hamlet needs to work on his vengeance. Who says death heals all wounds? Hamlet dates Polonius’ (William Metzo) daughter Ophelia (Hankins), but ditches her for his Project Nutcase and when he over reacts to the curtains, the accidental death of her father drives her over the edge. Her brother Laertes (Richard Width) has aspirations of his own – he wants to run this bung hole of a country, and when Claudius talks him out of a revolution, they both conspire to poison Hamlet in a poorly rigged sword battle, leaving most of the cast dead.
And isn’t this the high point of Shakespearean tragedy? The only people left standing to take a bow are the minors, and everyone else gets a really solid death scene. The setting is an ill defined present – both swords and semi automatic weapons kill people, a too-soft Pink Floyd fills the spaces between scenes, messages arrive by video tape, and actors have bar codes on their doublets. The ambiguity of the space-time continuum is no matter – this Hamlet is a triumph of character. There’s no doubt as to WHY everyone does what they do, why they go crazy, why they kill and die and proclaim. As the play proceeds, Hamlet morphs costume to reflect his internal state – the neater his outfit, the closer to sanity in fact or in scheme is he. The family around him gradually changes from the pure white robes of good guyness to the black cloaks of assured horse opera style death, while Hamlet wears black when out of power, then gray becoming white as he regains control of the situation, only to fall back to black as another power vacuum arises in the Kingdom. He’s Gandalf with better lines.
All the keys and codes of who is what, when, where, and why are present, and visible even to this TV generation. Kabuki players arrive to reveal Claudius’s guilt, dressed in the red robes of a Cardinal, proclaiming guilt but leaving the messy details of punishment or forgiveness to others. A hallucinogenic opening of strobes and quotes and people moving in the dark presages the insanity to follow, and when the ghost appears in a puff of pyro smoke, it hangs over the stage as an ominous cloud, diffusing it’s madness and ire to the entire crew. Is this intentional stage play, or merely a weakness in the ventilation system of the new Goldman Theater? No one will admit either way, but set a powerful mood for the last half of the first act. Above all, this is a Hamlet not buried in obscure language, but a Hamlet with clearly defined agenda, clear to all except those on stage. <p>
for more information on UCF-Shakespeare, visit > http://www.shakespearefest.org/
You Bet Your Honkey
House Full of Honkeys
Foolfest 2002
Sak Theater, Orlando, Fla.</b><p>
Nothing like a smarmy game show host (Steve Herman) to oil up an evening of improv. It’s a novel format – two audience members are selected and compete for ACTUAL CASH MONEY (a hot $112.00, tax free). They don’t even have to have friends – the Honkeys do all the work. After a rather pointless exercise to divvy up the cast, each contestant ends up with a non matched set of three helpers, who run through various improv games that leads to a winner in a manner convoluted enough that you’re better off not hearing the details. We start with “should have said” – the EmCee (Take THAT, Microsoft spell checker!) rings a bell at random points in a story causing the teller to back up and change his line. Then there’s some simultaneous story telling – two players lock in embrace and tell some tale, each having to say the exact same words. Cute. Other games ensue, but the pinnacle of this People’s Glorious Economic Struggle arose with the Irish jig version of accounting. The sordid tale descended into a water fight, and everyone loves a water fight, especially if they’re not in it. This was even better than the Sam Elliot impersonator. <p>
But in the end, someone had to lose. That’s the game show biz. The player with the lowest improv point count was sent back to the stands with a consolation prize – a “Fabio After Dark” CD. Some consolation. Before the winner could claim the big buck, there was one more hurdle – an improv musical trundles out, and the surviving contestant had one last task – write a one word title for the show that matched the Emcee’s – and by golly, she did! Who says you can’t make up the story as you go along?<p>
for more information on the Honkeys, visit > http://www.honkeys.com/ <p>
The Cowards – Spandex!
With Dave Pearce, Mark J Richardson
Foolfest 2002
Sak Theater, Orlando, Fla</b><p>
All right, class, let’s review our Canadian geography lessons. Canada’s main exports are lumber, wheat, nickel, and acerbic comedians. These Cowards, long time Canadian Fringe faves, once again brave the lower 48 for another round of Foolfest. They’re still deadly funny, but best of all, they have a completely new set of jokes. Ok, they re-did “ Smack Grandpa”, but it’s so good you’ll want to hear it again. There’s lots of time to think out there on the lonely prairie, and long winters turn a man’s thoughts to surrealism. “Two Frigin’s Guys” argue the limitary merits of Sid Caesar vs. Julius Caesar. Sure Julius conquered the Gaul’s, but who conquered the Strip? And what of Zorro, high Lord of the Zoroastrians? HA! So THERE! Building on this solid ice flow, the Cowards slip into cruise song stylists Hooker & Blow on the Christmas Cruise of the SS Old Folks, regaling that 60 something crowd with the sorts of songs you’d have to be trapped at sea to suffer through. Persistent humor dogs the evening, coupled with Dr. Demento level songs – “Marne the Carney”, “Hot for your Mom”, and a Neil Sedaka request mailed in from a car wreck. Cowards are better than a beer filled Norse Jam fest-a-thon. You might even consider driving to Canada to see them. But not till the ice breaks up.<p>
for more information on the Cowards, visit www.cowards.net <p>
Bassprov
By Joe Bill and Mark Sutton
Foolfest 2002
Sak Theatre, Orlando, Fla</b><p>
What’s more improvisational than sitting around drinking cheap ass beer and trying to outsmart a fish? You don’t need that much new material – there’s always women, fish, women, beer, cars, ex-wives, and beer. It’s men in their natural habitat, and with a pair of unrelated ideas from the audience, there’s about 45 minutes of interrupted casting and philosophizing. They might be rednecks on boat, but it’s not just debating the pay per view pricing for mass murderer execution and how to raise you kid by doing drugs with them (The family that tokes together stays … umm…umm… stays high together.) They drag Shakespeare down to their level, threaten Elizabeth Barret Browning and detail how hooker DNA passes from mom to daughter. The guy in the Stone cold Steve Austin shirt likes Shakespeare, but only the light comedies, and can draw a metaphorically fine line between failure as a carpenter and failure as a husband. The one in the Tipper Gore tees shirt knows pain – he’s lost a wife to lesbianism but he’s made out in an El Camino, and how many of us can claim that refined victory?
Bassprov is effortlessly brilliant – there’s not a slow spot or a conversational diversion that wanders into a dead end, not a cast that fails to drop bait near some deeply human tragedy. Tempering the humanity lurks an overarching fear that one of these guys will accidentally pop a spinner bait into a lip, and that will hurt for a week. We all think we could do this, but, really – how many of us really can think and fish at the same time?
Goga
Foolfest 2002
Sak Theater, Orlando, Fla</b><p>
Half a dozen women, half a dozen ideas, half an hour or so of strangeness emote from Goga, one of Foolfest’s more enigmatic performances. Goga seems to be in the vanguard of Audience Free Improv – random ideas flow and evolve, but the transitions and motivations remain obscured behind the feminine mystique. You can get away with almost anything on stage so long as it’s internally consistent – a woman that cheats on a lover by carrying other people around, people achieving sexual gratification by bumping into others accidentally, relationships achieved and consummated despite brittle bone syndrome – they’re all there, they all hold to an internal logic, and occasionally achieve a level of absurdity true amazing to see. However, severed from motivation, whether built internally or prodded by external audience input, Goga often seems weird for weirdness sake. No that that’s bad, goodness knows, but it’s an enigmatic exploration of a space that remains obscure even after their thorough perusal. I laughed, I wondered, but sometimes it seemed more like peer pressure, just without the lifelong nicotine addition aftereffects.
for more information on Goga, visit http://www.e-goga.com/ <p>
For information on Fool Fest 2002 at Sak, visit www.sak.com
The Bourgeois Gentleman
Adapted by Nick Dear from Molière
Directed by Dean Adams
Starring Wayne Fowks, Erin Salem, Anthony Trujillo, Deanna Russo
Rollins College, Winter Park, Fla</b><p>
Of course money buys class. What is class, after all, but the repeated application of cash to an activity no one else is interested in? Monsieur Jourdain (Fowks) has a few spare francs, courtesy of a hardworking daddy. He’s picked up fencing and dancing and singing and philosophy and spelling and…and… and there aren’t enough hours in the day to cover his vast span of interests! Fashion ranks high on his list, even if he does look like Elton John after visiting David Johansson’s dressmaker, and he’s ready to try on some adultery with Countess Dorimène (Russo) if deadbeat Durant (Trujillo) can make the arrangements. Arrange he does, borrowing money from Jourdain to buy trinkets to court this well to do widow himself. If you can’t sleep your way to the top, maybe your kids can, and daughter Lucile (Laura Kimbrell) won’t be allowed to wed Cléonte’s (Robert Haslett’s) superhero looks until he pulls off some mixed identity stunt that you thought only Shakespeare would try. Can money buy happiness? No, but if you spend it right, you might make the tabloids. C’est l’argent!
Making fun of the rich, timeless entertainment for the proletariat, never looked so good. This shockingly vulgar “Gentleman” lives it up in a late ‘70 pre-synthpop world – Swan Lake is set to the Hustle, a few punks with two-toned hair compete with the peacock dance set, and a slow first act explodes into a brilliant comedy after the intermission. You’ll love the vinyl fetish maid Nicole (Salem) in her green panties, and Dorante looks dangerously flammable in a polyester shirt I may have owned myself in a different universe. The whole production has the feel of a hetro Rocky Horror lodged on candy colored dance floor with free disco biscuits in the VIP lounge. Who says the French have no sense of humor? <p>
Toxic Audio
Sak Theater, Orlando, Fla.
Fool Fest 2002</b><p>
Never underestimate the power of the human voice to deceive, especially when attached to Team Toxic Audio. It’s hard to tell where the drum kit is, but bets have it that leader Rene Ruiz swallowed it back in high school on one of those bets that so often turn tragic. There’s a bass somewhere as well, possibly in Jeremy James’ back pocket. Of course they all sing, with lithe Paul Sperrazza’s Yma Sumacs range and Shalisa James’ power pop product sound doing their best to hide the deceptive instruments. Either way, these 5 people have cleverly concealed the makings of a jazz quartet and a pretty good wedding band on their persons, and played to an enthusiastic and appreciative house for the opening of these years Fool Fest. The set was a bit short to fit into a tight time slot but a good selection of favorites fit between their traditional opening “Voices Carry” and there power closer “Turn the beat around”. Michelle popped out some high-energy jazz scat, and the guys are still making fun of those local Back Sync Boys. Are boy bands still touring, or are they all in rehab by now? I lose track, but this crew will outlast them all.
Toxic pulled off their on key high humor show despite some audio problems – there must have been a loose connector somewhere adding some asynchronous pops to the rhythm, and the levels often verged on painful. Minor issues in the long run, leaving the crowd to applauded advice to Put the Lime in the Coconut to cure syncopated sneezes and wheezes, a pair of improvised audience suggestion, and a pretty decent yard sale record player version of “Dream a Little Dream”. They’re playing around town this month, keep your ears open for them.<p>
for more information on Toxic Audio, visit www.toxicaudio.com <p>
And for information on Fool Fest 2002 at Sak, visit www.sak.com
An Evening of Estrogen
Jill Shargaa and Rene Bray
Sak Theater, Orlando, Fla
Fool Fest 2002</b><p>
An interesting structure for a 2-person comedy act – Jill Shargaa comes on stage, does a few jokes and song parodies, then introduces Rene Bray. Bray does a short stand up routine, and then she introduces Shargaa again, who finishes up with a whole bunch of her material. You sort of expect the tag team approach to go on for a while. Shargaa had the better energy, mixing a few raunchy jokes with her trademark clever song parodies. A few were well developed – “Born To Be Mild”, “Eola” and a rousing “Orlando” done to ‘Oklahoma”, and a few that were so short they whizzed by before you could catch them. Everything was punctuated by her personal double exclamation point move, so if you didn’t laugh, you knew just were you stood.
Brey’s routine took a more conventional approach, relying on some abusive audience interaction. A group of UCF blonde bimbos and some spiky haired dudes erred by sitting in the front rows and took the brunt of her humor, well deserving what they got. Will these people never learn? You can never win a battle of the wits with a stage comedienne – not only is she smarter than you with more heckler practice than you have, but she has the microphone. Nothing you say will go beyond the 3rd row. Smile and take your abuse – don’t they teach you ANYTHING in college these days.
Overall, the energy was high, there were a few good dildo jokes you can steal for use around the water cooler, and if you’re out of the splatter zone, it’s a hoot.<p>
For information on Fool Fest 2002 at Sak, visit www.sak.com <p>
for more information on Jill Shargaa, visit > http://www.shargaa.com/
The Nuclear Family
Sak Theater, Orlando, Fla
Fool Fest 2002</b><p>
I dunno, it said “Improv”, but NF seemed to have all the suggestion in hand when they went on stage. Still it LOOKED like Improv, it FELT like Improv, so let’s just pretend. Three guys, 30 wigs, and dreary suburban life peels away to give us a tuneful glimpse into the dark under belly of the Kline family. Mom (Jimmy Bennett) has a killer voice, belting it out like a Broadway pro and not an improvisational comedian. If the songs he sang were really made up on stage, I am mightily impressed, as the arrangement and chorus were better than some regular musicals I’ve attended recently. Even if he made it up last week and rehearsed a few times, it’s noteworthy. Mom’s bored and convinced hubby Harold (John Gregorio) is seeing other women. Of course, as the town’s only forensic pathologist, he sees lots of women, most of them in no good condition to party down. While mom’s out robbing a bank on a lark, Dad’s real sideline is strangling underage Mexican hookers. That leaves little Sammy (Stephen Guarino) to pursue his special project – telekinesis. He’ s learned to levitate – not himself, of course, that would be Buddhism and that would be wrong, but other objects – guns, knives, girl’s blouses, evil Afghani soldiers. Uncle Sam is interested, and Sammy goes off to save the world while his sidekick Beautiful waits patiently for him to return and finish up that clothesectomy.<p>
I thought the whole thing worked amazingly well – a long form Improv musical that combined a reasonably coherent plot, pretty good humor, and really outstanding singer songwriter work. Of course, they are from New York, and I’ve heard they have actors there who don’t have to wait tables.
for more information on The Nuclear Family, visit
http://www.clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/thenuclearfamily </a></I>
And for information on Fool Fest 2002 at Sak, visit www.sak.com
Merchant of Venice
By Wm Shakespeare
Directed by Bobbie Bell
Starring Mark March, Paul Wegman, Kimberley Nelson, Stephen Pugh
Seminole Community College Fine Arts Theater</b><p>
Leverage is a two-edged sword, and Antonio (March) is feeling the heat.
He’s diversified into an uncertain market, but he’s cash poor and not in
good condition to lend a few kilo ducats to his good friend Bassanio
(Pugh). Bassanio needs the scratch to woo orphaned but wealthy Portia
(Nelson). Her daddy left her with one of those bizarre bequests – to
wed, the suitor must correctly select from a gold, a silver, or a lead
coffer, only one of which has her picture. No picture, no tux needed.
Given the string of bizarre losers she entertains and dodges, you gotta
wonder what brand of oatmeal daddy had for brains. No matter, Antonio
goes to his despised Jewish competitor Shylock (Wegman) and makes a deal
- if he can’t cover his debt, lose that pound of flesh. Shylock doesn’t
like Antonio because he lends to Christians at below market rates, and
his daughter Jessica (Rachel Stump) ran off with Antonio’s friend
Lorenzo (Dan Benoit). Putting up body parts against a loan appears a
reasonably common deal in those times, and when time comes to settle up,
all Antonio’s boats seem to be missing. Well, when the facts are against
you, argue the law, and when the law is against you, argue those
Shakespearean facts. This being a comedy, we have no need to fear that
good-looking Antonio will bleed; everyone will get a girl, and best of
all, Shylock loses everything including his religion. But, just because
he converts to Christianity doesn’t mean anyone will treat him any
better, but it sure made the Elizabethans feels good.
There’s some razzmatazz about the play being set in the near future in a
neo-fascist Italy, but other than the cast dressing in sincere suits and
nice dresses, the play is pure 16th century. Wegman’s Shylock writhes
and turns as he attempts to rescue some pride from the daily abuse
that business heaps on him. One of the great ironies of those days revolves
around the Jews being banned from almost any business except money
lending, and then everyone was ticked off when they controlled most of
the money in society. Backing up Shylock was an all around competent
crew, with special notice going to Lancelot Gobbo (Rick Paulin), servant
and punk rocker to Shylock and then Lorenzo. Antonio always seemed on
the edge of an accounting scandal, and Jessica seemed a perfect little
JAP, except for her strawberry blonde locks. Well, maybe she had them
done at the mall.
“Merchant” is always a challenge to present with it’s strong antisemitic story line and sheer nastiness buried in an otherwise pleasant
romantic comedy. The SCC team did the story well, and its well worth the
trip up to darkest Seminole County for the experience.
The Lonesome West
By Martin McDonaugh
Directed by Rus Blackwell
With Don Fowler, Joe Swanberg, Frank Mc Clain, Heather Leonardi
Soul Fire Traveling Medicine Show at Zoë & Co, Maitland Fla</b><p>
The problem with the Irish is that you can’t live with them, and you can’t eat
them for breakfast. A conniving and desperate lot inhabit the backwoods
around Galway, a parish so hard scrabble that murder and suicide outrank
impure thoughts and betting on horses in the daily grind of Father Welsh
(McClain)…or is it Walsh? … no, Welsh, I’m sure. Even Coleman Connor’s
(Fowler) dad got it the bad way – he insulted his son’s admittedly
sub-standard hairstyle, and an ‘Accident’ booted him from this mortal coil.
That’s what brother Valene (Swanberg) swears anyway, in exchange for
Connor’s claims on half the inheritance. With nowhere else to go, Connor
hangs on even as his obsessive and paranoid brother collects plastic
religious figurines and refuses to lend him the price of a bag of chips.
Woman or any other pleasures are rare, and only flirty Girleen (Leonardi)
brings a drop of sunshine into this clouded hovel – she sells poteen and
promises poontang, not that these two hosers are getting anything without
hard cash. She’s sweet on the Father, but he quits the priesthood by walking
into the cold cold lake leaving her with even less to look forward to than
the brothers. Walsh bet his eternal soul that these two lunkheads could calm
down and like each other. If he wins, the Holy Ghost might promote him to a
few weeks in purgatory. Boy, did he make a bad bet.
It’s Desperate Living at it’s Irish best, with the Connor brothers duking it
out nearly every time they cross the stage, and if you can listen through
the peat smoke thick brogue, there’s plenty of sly and not so sly humor.
Walsh suffers a crisis of confidence every 5 minutes or so – does God exist?
If he does, why is his under-12 soccer team doing so much damage to the
opposition, and if not, what is he doing freezing in this Irish bog when he
could study alcoholism somewhere were the booze comes in bottles with labels?
Makes you think, it does. Walsh’s death does prompt a little soul searching
in the brothers McScruffy, and confession of personal cruelty coupled with
even peticide pale next to the biggest sin of all – Connor’s been watering
Valene’s booze for decades! It’s not a scene for the weak of heart. Girleen
is pretty broken up; the Father is up the pipe, and what’s left after
reconciliation? Well, a good fight is always nice, and love is what you make
it in the cold mists off Western Erie.
The Laramie Project
Written by Moises Kaufman
Directed by Katrina Ploof
Mad Cow Theatre – Orlando, Fla</b><p>
It’s tough being gay in cowboy country. Matt Shepard knew that, and died at
the hands of two rednecks short of beer money and looking for a thrill.
People die at the hands of their fellow man every day, yet Matt achieved a
fame beyond his stature, propelled to martyrdom and sainthood by a media
feeding frenzy founded on the very existence of gay people in the remote
wild west. Fame notwithstanding, Matt remains a cardboard cutout as the
people who knew him parade across the stage – a bit naive, short, HIV
positive, a shy but promising student, that’s about it. His role is not to
reveal himself, but to reflect the opinions of the world around him. Gay in
Laramie? Time to Come Out! Bigoted and proud of it? Maybe he did something
and deserved his fate. Religious? Those people should rot in hell, or maybe
rot in heaven. A tough cop or a loving parent? Matt might help you see the
world in the sharpened focus of your own prejudice. A political agenda to
pursue? Matt would certainly endorse your position, if only he were alive so
you could ask him.
When Matt died, a set of theater folks from New York ventured out into the
hinterlands to explore the situation. Hundreds of interviews reveals Laramie
as a close knit small town with a limited economic base and the sort of
ideas that aren’t out of line with any other town – sometimes tolerant,
sometimes bigoted, and rocked by a brutal murder of one of their marginal
own. Seventy or so locals fly across stage and build a character out of
snippets of text – we never see Matt, only Matt’s environment. Matt’s
killers appear (John Cannon), the media in a blood lust frenzy (Dawn
Wicklow), even the voyeuristic Moises Kaufman (Sam Hazell) intent on seeing
how life is lived west of the Hudson and north of the Hollywood freeway. All
are real, all are engaging, and all are forced to see something of their own
world in a different light cast by horror arriving unannounced. There were
moving moments, such as the hospital director (Rick Stanley) breaking into
tears announcing the death of Matt or when one of the killers is
excommunicated by the Mormon Church that had ordained him a minister. There
were funny moments, as one of the older local women admits to doing her
housekeeping in the nude, or the local barkeep making his own tape of his
Hard Copy interview, “just in case”. But mostly there’s a sense of sadness –
a young man dies, and the world makes a circus of the results. His is not to
rest in peace, but to rest as a poster boy for everyone with an axe to grind
- “Matt Shepard – he changed the world by leaving it.” I guess that’s better
than fading out as just another AIDS statistic.<p>
For more information, please visit <a href = “http://www.madcowtheatre.com”</a>
Spunk! Three Tales of Zora
Based on stories by Zora Neil Hurston
Adapted by George C Wolfe
People’s Theatre at Studio Garage</b><p>
There’s a special magic to seeing a blues song signed for the hearing
impaired. You know the words, and the hand gestures bring a new depth to
misery. There’s a blues soundtrack to the American Black experience – a
combination of social slights and outrageous abuse coupled with the
continual optimism of a fundamental Christianity. It’s enough to make white
folks remark, “Those people are always singing – nothing ever seems to
bother them.” Down in old timey Eatonville, Florida, people eaked out a living
in a world separate and distinct. Three tales of that time cross the stage
while Guitar Man (John Ellis) strums a blues melody and the Blues Speaking
Woman (Boni Sherman) narrates the inner feelings of the good folks of this
small enclave of Black independence.
The opening story places hard working Delia (Canara Price) in a home paid
for by the sweat of taking in laundry. Mean old hubby Sykes (Benjy
Westmoreland) doesn’t approve – not so much that he goes out and makes some
money, mind you, but enough to whip poor little Delia till she gets her back
up and stands up to him. He’d just as soon she leave so his girl friend can
take over (the house, not the laundry), so to move things along he brings
home a pet rattler. Psychological warfare rises to outright terrorism when
he sneaks the snake in the dirty whites – it misses Delia but God provides
some justice and Mr. Snake gets revenge for his unfair imprisonment. Should
Delia make that long trek in to Orlando for a doctor? Hmm – it’s a long way,
better think about it a spell…
We next percolate up the road to visit 1930’s Harlem high life where a pair
of zoot suit cowboys take turns one upping each other – Jelly (Barry White)
in his electric orange get up attempts to show up Sweetback (Westmoreland).
Fact is, neither has anything to his name except vain pride and a sporadic
living hustling domestic help on their days off. These two frayed hustlers
never top one another, but engage a beautiful ballet of insults and
threatening gestures until a fine looking woman shows up (Price) She’s too
street smart to swallow this day old bait, and it looks like another hungry
night for out hustlers.
The last tale covers love lost and reconciled. Missy May (Price) and Joe
(Dallas Davis) are newly wed and deeply in love. A new ice cream stand
appears in town run by entrepreneur Otis D Slimons – he’s done well in
Memphis, Philly, and Chicago, and now slides on down to rural nowhere to ply
his trade. He looks pretty sharp to Missy Mea in his gold jewelry and big
belly. If only Joe could look like that… When she makes a deal with the
devil, Joe finds out and has good reason to put her away, and it’s a long
path to reconciliation, and reconciliation is based on everyone’s discovery
that Slimons is just another hustler, working hard to impress the rubes
because no one will fall for him in the big city.
Spunk! feels like a black light opera – the music sets a nice counter point
to the action, sometimes moving it along, sometimes just a diversion from
the bitter sweet stories. Dramatically, the themes are the hardworking woman
and the conniving black man, marital infidelity and good times. The tales
are funny, even when the mush mouthed background comments become
indecipherable. Occasionally, the characters drop into the affectation of
“and then I said …”, nearly always an adaptor’s attempt to preserve original
text at the expense of dramatic presentation. Despite these minor flaws,
Spunk! is a funny and lively view of days gone by from Eatonville’s finest
author
For more information, please visit <a href =
“http://www.peoplestheartre.org”</a> www.peoplestheartre.org</I>
Eleemosynary
Written by Lee Blessing
Directed John DiDonna
Starring Peg O’Keefe, Marty Stonerock, Torrey DeVitto
SoulFire Traveling Medicine Show, at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Orlando
Fla</b><p>
Intelligence can be such a burden. Dorothea (O’Keef) has it, but a
pre-arranged wedding squelched her college hopes. She passed it along to her
daughter Artie (Stonerock), but with so much mom level baggage she jumped
the first bus out of town. Again, it passed down to baby Echo (DeVitto), who
grabbed it and ran to conquer the logodaedalic world of spelling bees. True,
Dorothea raised her to speak Latin before she got into grade school, but it
was distant Artie who suggested words – it was a thing they could do
together by phone, avoiding the difficulty of personal touch. They’re all
three facets of one persona – Dorothea the impulsive Id, revelling in an
eccentricity that permits everything and requires nothing. Artie controls
and reconciles, a super ego that works through the negative space of her
non-presence in the life of both Dorothea and Echo. And Echo? She’s the ego
who experiences the world and her place in it with neither the frustration
of Dorothea nor the fear of Artie, using spelling as a weapon of war. None
of them can forget a thing, and that hurts. Still, they all test very well.
On a simple dreamy set that makes the most of a difficult space, the story
is non-linear yet coherent, beginning with Dorothea approaching death, and
then pulling back as the intertwined lives recount. Sharply incised
characters enhance each other’s contrast like primary colors on the plane of
an abstract painting. O’Keef reminds me of several fascinating women “of a
certain age” I’ve known over the years. Funny and fascinating, they revel in
odd diets and odd religious beliefs and odd theories that make physicists
squirm; yet if you can accept them you’ll never be bored. Stonerock seems
smothered and lost, trying to do what mom wants but only in abstentia. She
abandons her daughter, leaving Dorothea what she always wanted; a blank lump
of material to mold into her own self image. Ultimately, that’s what the
crucible of spelling produces – a young lady who has no qualms about
thinking, remembering, and wielding what her nurture and nature gave her. It
took three painful generations, but you’ll leave with a much-enhanced
vocabulary.
BecauseHeCan
By Arthur Kopit
Directed by Aaron Babcock
Starring Michael Aiello, Rick Spencer, Peni Lotoza
Theater Downtown, Orlando Fla.</b><p>
It’s the summer of paranoia, the world hangs in dread of an arbitrary shift
in numbering sequence, and people are worried. Joe Elliot (Spencer) works
for a big publisher, and knows that nothing sells like fear. He’s no
computer guru, but a saleable manuscript leads him to do a little research online about the imminent end of the digital world. He teaches a writing class
on the side, and meets green haired Costa Astrakhan (Aiello). Astrakhan is a
script kiddie who wants to make some girl in class, but falls for Elliot’s
wife Joanne (Lotoza) instead. She sleeps with him a few times then dumps
him, and Elliot boots him for plagiarism. Bad move – he’s put a key logger
or some other lamer code on their computer and now sets out to destroy their
lives. A few mysterious interviews with Scully and Mulder, oops, Slake and
McAlvane (Nonalee Davis and Brian Veiga), doesn’t really put the fear of god
in Elliot till they show him his kiddie porn empire, which no one ever told
him about. With money, job, and lives destroyed, he and Joanne have nowhere
to turn. Perhaps Astrakhan will save them – then they’ll HAVE to like him.
Does Astrakhan scare you? He’s capable of mean spirited vengeance yet not
really any different than most IT types at work. Spence’s Elliot never seems
really concerned about what’s happening, and isn’t the sort of person who
would go into full paranoia mode when repeatedly interviewed by agents who
take him to a warehouse, flash their badges and refuse to give their names.
Plus, he seems pretty coherent as he downs bottle after bottle of cheap
scotch. Joanne projects an earthy sexuality, and shows a bit of fire as a
Mrs. Robinson going down the tubes, but it’s not enough to bring the whole
show alive. Both are innocents at home, and only the federal agents project
the menace implicit in the plot.<p>
Creepy but not scary, mysterious but never tense, we get a vague glimpse
into the fearsome world of identity theft. It’s easy enough for someone to
dig up your SS number, vehicle ID, and figure out your passwords (guess what
90% of men use for a password? Yup – so do I), and yes, unscrupulous people
can do serious damage. Astrakhan does it with ease, and even begins to
explain the reasons people hack – it’s not really the end product, but the
feeling of power one gets from mastering and defeating a complex system. Not
everyone seeks that thrill, but it’s there for those who do. Astrakhan does
a lot more damage than seems appropriate for being dumped – besides ruining
Joanne’s life; he really reams Joe just because he got caught plagiarizing
in class. He’s not an evil hacker, but an evil person who happens to hack.
He extracts vengeance, but that doesn’t mean vengeance needs a hex editor.
For more information, please visit
www.theatredowntown.net </a></i></a></a></b>
