A “Birthday Party” Version of “The Handmaid’s Tale”

Written by Rachel Bublitz and directed by Paige Conway, Cleveland Public Theatre’s Funny, Like an Abortion depicts the state of restrictions and criminalization of abortion in the future—a variation of George Orwell’s 1984.  The blurb states that the play is about “loyalty, friendship, and the value of freedom.” The questions might be, “loyalty to whom/what,” “what kind of friendship,” and “whose freedom”? Indeed, the government of this script asks people to be loyal to their draconian laws, asking people to turn in their friends “and sacrifice their freedom to feel safe and happy and to build true relationships with others.  

Director Conway uses active, physical acting to entertain the audience, especially when conversations and arguments get heavy. Andrea de la Fuente, as Monroe, who hosts this abortion party for herself, speaks as she juggles three pill bottles. Maggie Adler, as Jade—Munroe’s only friend she can trust—dances and trampolines. Both characters choreograph to anticipate each other’s movement to touch each other. Once, de la Fuente carries Adler (who is taller) on her shoulder.  Toward the end, the audience becomes aware that they are perhaps one person with two conflicting decisions.

Both de La Fuente and Adler successfully tackled their difficult roles as real/meta-real characters. Sometimes, catching their lines was difficult because their actions were very demanding. Their movement reflects Conway’s directorial approach; as she states in her program note, when we lack the words, “we move.”

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Scenic designer Laura Carlson Tarantowski created Monroe’s tiny room realistically with futuristic and dystopian elements such as hidden “cameras” and speakers. A couch, one exterior door, and two openings (one to the bathroom area and the other to the kitchen with a refrigerator), a side table, and a mini trampoline, and bookshelves with a lot of “stuff.”  Props designer Lisa L. Wiley prepared many paper gift bags, which are aligned downstage, adding another level of chaotic festivity to the scenery. The proscenium arch has a unique “art deco” with hangers—eerily suggesting what is to come.  

Lighting designer Libby Zamiska controls the intensity and tones of lighting to impart a sense of supernatural and magic realism. Sound designer Angie Hayes prepares the music selections for Conway to make this show a piece with different dimensions of the universe.  

Costume designer Amanda Rowe-Van Allen chose a distinctive color scheme of golden, red, and green. The legs of Monroe’s pants are two different shades of red. Monroe’s t-shirt has an appliqued and sequined pop cat’s face in juxtaposition with her serious situation.

Sound Designer Angie Hayes mixed sounds and different music pieces to create the aura of a fairground, playground, birthday party, or circus.

The teach-in section toward the end of the show synthesizes a chaotic series of actions that introduce different methods of abortion—including old wives’ tales—nicely to make the show’s “point” clear and direct—anti-abortion policies and laws that deprive women of choices would result in many dangerous, harmful and tragic results.  

Funny, Like an Abortion is a didactic comedy with so many heavy issues about humans losing their freedom, happiness, and fundamental rights as the nation becomes more dictatorial, oppressive, discriminatory, and punitive—as seen in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. A stuffed animal—a moose—symbolizes a flight to Canada, resonating with “Canada” portrayed as a safe haven for refugees from Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale in season 5. 

Almost two years have passed since the Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion.  More and more states tried to introduce and legislate a six-week abortion ban. In February 2024, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. What the play does not mention—but is important to remember as an absurd argument of those who try to “protect” fetuses at any stage is that they would never consider providing healthcare, decent housing, health insurance, and decent means to rear children.

Funny, Like An Abortion was originally developed for PlayGrounds’ 25th and 26th Festival of New Works, with Jim Kleinmann as Artistic Director. With its clear message and physical theatricality, this play is truly impactful. The Ohio Statehouse needs to view this show in order to fully exercise its mission with dignity and humanity.

Director & Line Producer: Paige Conway
Stage Manager: Yesenia Real
Scenic Designer: Laura Carlson Tarantowski
Lighting Designer: Libby Zamiska
Costume Designer: Amanda Rowe-Van Allen
Sound Designer: Angie Hayes
Props Designer: Lisa L. Wiley

Executive Producer: Raymond Bobgan

Photographer: Steven Wagner

World Premiere.

Funny, Like An Abortion

April 25, 2024 – May 11, 2024

Creating a Personal Story through 27 Songs: “Always… Patsy Cline”

Created and originally directed by Ted Swindley (playwright, director, and founder of Stages Repertory in Houston, Texas) and directed by Victoria Bussert, the Great Lakes Theatre production of Always…Patsy Cline captures the audience’s heart—especially those who grew up listening to her on radio and records.

According to the site’s blurb, the musical offers the “touching true story of Patsy Cline’s friendship with a fan, Louise Seger, which started in 1961 and continued until the premature death of the renowned country star.” The musical is told through Cline’s music, featuring 27 songs, including her unforgettable hits, such as “Crazy,” “I Fall to Pieces,” “Sweet Dreams,” and “Walking After Midnight.” Constant interactions between Cline and Louise are inserted between these songs—with Louis explaining the situation, circumstances, and personal stories to the audience.  Dramaturgically, Louise serves as an important confidante and a story-mover from their encounter in 1961 through Patsy’s death in 1963 in a plane crash at the age of 30.  

Victoria Bussert conducted extensive research to direct this show. In her program note, Bussert writes that she was fascinated with the strong connection between Patsy Cline and her fans without current social media platforms available to today’s stars, including Taylor Swift: Patsy Cline’s “interactions with her fans were primarily through live performances, radio appearances, and fan mail.”  Always… Patsy Cline used these three venues.

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  Great Lakes Theater Always…Patsy Cline Created and originally directed by Ted Swindley Directed by Victoria Bussert Harmony France as Louise Seger Christina Rose Hall as Patsy Cline Photo by Roger Mastroianni

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  Great Lakes Theater Always…Patsy Cline Created and originally directed by Ted Swindley Directed by Victoria Bussert Harmony France as Louise Seger Christina Rose Hall as Patsy Cline Photo by Roger Mastroianni

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  Great Lakes Theater Always…Patsy Cline Created and originally directed by Ted Swindley Directed by Victoria Bussert Harmony France as Louise Seger Christina Rose Hall as Patsy Cline Photo by Roger Mastroianni

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  Great Lakes Theater Always…Patsy Cline Created and originally directed by Ted Swindley Directed by Victoria Bussert Harmony France as Louise Seger Christina Rose Hall as Patsy Cline Photo by Roger Mastroianni

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Scenic Designer Jeff Herrman and lighting designer Trad A. Burns created a live music stage with the cyclorama (its colors change throughout the show), barn-like structural cut-outs, a neon sign “Aways… Patsy Cline,” a mid-century style kitchen (with a sink area with a country-style valance, red vinyl chairs, and a round plastic/alumni steel table), a jukebox, and a blue party bar.  About 20 audience members are seated at tables just in front of the apron, giving the atmosphere of a honky-tonk in Houston, Texas.

Costume Designer Dustin Cross designed numerous costumes for Patsy Cline (Christina Rose Hall) that almost “mirror” Cline’s cowgirl outfit and some gorgeous cocktail dresses and gowns.  Hall appears in a new costume with a new song, entertaining the audience (who came to see a Patsy) with her persona as Patsy Cline while adding a fashion-show spirit to the musical.  During just less than 24 hours (of the script time, the Aristotelian format), Hall tries to demonstrate various aspects of Cline’s life, which is not easy.  Yet, the show is a dramatized revue, keeping  “heavy issues” like domestic problems between Cline and her husband and show-business and record companies’ exploitation of artists minimal. At the end of the show, the audience gets the joy of seeing an impersonation/resurrection of Patsy Cline, whose songs are (seem to be) all about unrequited love.

Harmony France, as Louise, serves as a storyteller and “master of the ceremonies” who creates a liaison between the audience and the character of Patsy.  Hall and France are strong singers and animated storytellers, taking the audience on their travels to the 1960s.

The live band led by Matthew Webb consists of Alfredo Guerrieri (Bass), Evan Kleve (Fiddle), Trevor Matthews (Guitar), and Andrew Pongracz (Drums).

Like Shakespeare and Greek plays (and Titanic), we know what happens to real Patsy Cline, so in a way, this bright revue constantly coexist with something morbid, reminding me of George Brant’s Marie and Rosetta (2016), a show (with music) that illustrates Sister Rosetta Tharpe and a young protégé Marie Knight at Rosetta’s first rehearsal for a touring show, which turns out to be Rosetta’s “posthumous” tour.

https://www.greatlakestheater.org

Photographer: Roger Mastroianni

Through May 19, 2024

Hanna Theatre, Playhouse Square

The Presence, Absence, and Illusion of “Significant Other”: Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other, directed by Colin Anderson

The Dobama Theatre production of Joshua Harmon’s Significant Other offers a “significant” educational moment for us to reflect on the loneliness, isolation, and depression of those who are not included in compulsory heterosexuality—I believe this term, popularized by Adrienne Rich, is still relevant today when people try to believe that facing and fighting against have become so “passé.”  

Harmons’s script and Anderson’s direction capture the state of loneliness in the sea of “Friendship(s)” accompanied by parties, drinks, dinners, and events.  In heterosexual normalcy, one loses their friends one by one as their friends marry and start their families—and if this “one” is a gay man—who is reaching 30—this sense of loneliness is compounded.   

In the program note, Artistic Director Nathan Motta writes: Due to stigma and discrimination, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men carry a heightened burden of loneliness.

According to a study by the National Institute of Health, 61% of gay men surveyed reported experiencing loneliness. Gay men are twice as likely to have a major depressive episode and are reported to have fewer close friends than straight people or gay women.

Travis Salway, a researcher with the BC Centre for Disease Control in Vancouver, who spent over five years studying suicide by gay men, states that while “the defining feature of gay men used to be the loneliness of the closet,” now, millions of gay men who have come out of the closet “still feel the same isolation.”  A recent textile exhibition of Jesse Satterfield’s “Cruising Dystopia: Wallflowers of the Week” at Bounce Hub also dealt with related issues and challenges.

What we see in this show is a struggle with the character of Jordan (Scott Esposito), who goes through a series of “crises” as he realizes he does not have any friends whom he can confide with, hang around with, and have fun with, as he reaches his “middle age.”   Harmon casts another question about what Jonathan believes “true friendship” with Vanessa (Mary Francis Miller), Kiki (Kat Shy), and Laura (Kat Nash) in particular; would that real friendship or a superficial fabrication?  Harmon does not give us an answer, but he depicts friendship among this group as somewhat shallow, fragile, and self-absorbed. Their ping-pong, intoxicated conversation is a series of gossip, mumbles, complaints, and brags, while Jordan’s relationship with Laura is more intimate and genuine.

Scenic Designer Richard Morris creates a multi-leveled box set that illustrates multiple locations—Jordan’s NYC apartment, a breakroom of his workplace, the wedding venues of Kiki, Vanessa, and Laura, and different bars that the characters visit.  Lighting designer Adam Ditzel used multi-color lights illuminated through the big windows with grids to evoke a bar/lounge atmosphere.   Gobo patterns reflected on the stage floor add subtle feelings to the characters.

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Anderson and Sound Designer Jim Swonger used familiar songs from multiple decades in the past 30 years—Celine Dion’s ‘All By Myself” and “Because You Loved Me,” Deth Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance,” COBRAH’s “Brand New Bitch,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal,” and Ira Wolf’s “Sunscreen” to create a soundscape abundant in the feeling of insecurity, loneliness, longing, self-destruction, nostalgia, and memories.

Costume Designer Suwatana Pla Rockland designed 56 costumes, not including accessories. Rockland used a color scheme expressing the characters’ personalities and emotions. For example, Kiki wears a bright pink dress, while Laura wears orange and white colors, including her conventional-looking wedding dress.  Vanessa completes the color scheme by wearing a green dress.

Scott Esposito’s Jordan is excellent in demonstrating the character of Jordan’s nervousness and sense of insecurity through nonstop compulsive talking. Esposito honestly expresses his genuine feelings—loneliness, depression, and fear– only to his declining grandmother (Catherine Albers) in several moving and intimate scenes. The multigenerational kinship and love are a “respite” in the show filled with near-30-year-old people’s cacophony.

Multiple roles performed by Michael Glavan and Adam Rawlings add volume to our society’s illustration in which friends and spouses are easily replaceable and expendable.  

The play uses three weddings as punctuation, just like Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, which uses three birthdays as points of progression and change. Jordan’s sense of insecurity and loneliness multiply at each wedding, while his self-absorbed “friends” are totally oblivious to Jordan’s feelings.   

Developed during a residency at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Playwrights Conference in 2013, Significant Other premiered in NYC by Roundabout Theatre Company in 2015. Eleven years after its creation, this play continues to convey painful but important messages when we reflect on “inclusion” and “belonging. “

CAST

Scott Esposito Jordan

Kat Nash Laura

Mary-Francis Miller Vanessa

Kat Shy Kiki

Michael Glavan* Will/Conrad/Tony

Adam Rawlings Zach/Evan/Roger

Catherine Albers* Helene

Swings: Michael J. Montanus, Roxana Bell

Steve Wagner Photography

https://www.dobama.org

Through May 19, 2024

Performative and Theatrical Allegory: Everybody

Adapted  by  Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Kent State University School of Theatre and Dance’s production of Everybody, written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Paul Hurley, offers a contemporary dramatic allegory that speaks about today’s world with much awareness of race, gender, class, and intersectionality. 

Jacobs-Jenkins’s Pulitzer finalist play—his unique adaptation of the Medieval morality play Everyman—provides much space for each production team member to explore and reflect on their situations and ideas as presented in this adaptation. Loosely using the play-within-a-play format, the production gives the audience multiple layers of fiction and non-fiction, luring them to the creative team’s “devising” world that gently and sometimes provocatively criticizes this “divisive” and super individualistic and profit-oriented world.   

Jacobs-Jenkins’s Everybody premiered at Signature Theatre in New York City in 2017, directed by Lila Neugebauer. Although the script may be perceived as too preachy, Jacobs-Jenkins’ script emphasizes the collective, collaborative, and egalitarian approach to theatre-making that has been neglected in show business for centuries.

Using a solid ensemble acting technique without fixed assignments for the main roles, the performers—students in the School of Theatre and Dance—draw lots to know which characters they will play. This approach, which depends on unpredictability, reflects our lives—unpredictable and filled with many coincidences. This existential stance reflects Hurley’s directorial concept, which values “the elements of surprise.”  

Scene designers Quentin Ball and Tegan Wilson created both a “theatre” and another meta-space inhabited by town people—everyone. The opening to the vault for Everybody is an ingenious creation (constructed by the Technical Director Jack Libengood) that gives the audience a feeling of “finality.”  A huge black door with red trims covers Wright Curtis Theatre’s trap room until it is lifted toward the end of the play. This door matches the color tone of this theatre—black and red. Thus, the audience is surprised when this door opens since many think it is part of the auditorium. Above the mezzanine, five electric panels are hung, symbolizing the five senses.

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The backstage has two openings to reveal the interior scenes, including a room filled with “stuff,” a place with a grill—so it could be a backyard–and a room with a picture frame that symbolizes everybody’s “family.

Lighting designer MK Doherty contributes to the change in the atmosphere as the character enters different paradigms, from reality to meta-reality, interiority, and alterity. The contrast between the lighted and dark scenes (representing dreams) adorns Jacobs-Jenkins’ provocative and evocative language, including the argument about “racializing others.”

Costume designer Abbie Hagen, with her research and creativity, designed costumes for many allegorical characters. One of the most imaginative costumes is that of “Stuff,” played by Srikar Bellana, Zoe McConaha, or AT Sanders. Attached to the long train is “stuff” that everybody has accumulated over many decades. Hagen intentionally selected objects people have valued and loved over the years. He took a multigenerational approach to choosing objects so that everyone in the audience would see something they recognized, regardless of their age or background.

Hagen started her research by investigating people’s “greed.” Hagen made a list of the kinds of objects people liked to keep and treasure, the sorts of things they would struggle to let go of even if they were no longer useful.  Hagen’s “objects” include vinyl records (the 1950s and 1960s ), floppy disks (1970s), cassette tapes (1980s), VHS tapes (the 1980s and 1990s), CDs  (the 2000s), and a laptop computer (in the last 20 years) directly related to different decades.  Hagen also sprinkled in toys and collectibles from different periods like “slinkies” (which first gained popularity in the 1940s and have remained a familiar toy ever since), Barbie dolls, beanie babies, and baseball cards. Some have retro/pastiche effects;  Hagen selected a “squishmallow” plush toy because of its recent rise to popularity amongst young people and college-aged students.  

These objects became a big part of the larger function of this costume, representing all of the debris—the result of the lived life—that pollutes the environment lived by the next generation. This obsession with “things” and “stuff,” rendered “on” this structural train, reflects all of us—everybody—who prioritize our material gains and collection rather than caring for others and nature.

Hagen’s skeleton costumes for the dancers (choreographed by Jennifer Black) in the redemption/recognition scene is a powerful, artistic, and entertaining rendition of the Dance Macabre.

Sound designer Jack Drinan prepared pre-recorded narrations spoken by Everybody and their alter ego (and other characters), enabling the performers to complete their challenging and complex tasks as multi-role players.

Alex Funk’s introduction as the Usher character puts this play in the “play-within-a-play” mold, destabilizing dramaturgical ontology. In resonance with the mechanicals’ introduction to their play “Pyramus and Thisbe” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the audience is didactically informed of Everyman as this play’s “origin.” The Usher’s cautionary instructions about the audience’s cell phone and any potentially disturbing materials align with a “morality” play that is didactic. Madison Shannon plays the same combination of multiple characters—Usher/God/Understanding—in a different color and tone.

Rebecca Poole’s Death is mischievous, aloof, and uncompromising, emphasizing the nature of “death” in our lives.  

Aadam Newborn and Carter-Zion Hubbard both play the character of “Everybody” or “Strength,” depending on the result of the daily lots. Jacobs-Jenkins’s approach to the character of Everybody and their journey is void of strong Christian doctrine, as seen in the medieval play Everyman. Instead of being redeemed by confession and self-retribution, Everybody becomes aware of the importance of love and caring through their own soul-search, orchestrated by the character of Love, played by Gigi Motta or Mary Savocchia.

Director Hurley maximizes the use of the entire theatre space, including its multiple stairways between the seating areas, creating a microcosm where the performers and audience coexist as mortal creatures.  

The performers are seated in different seats in the auditorium, playing their “third” role—as an audience member—till they take up their respective characters. The observers become suddenly observed, preventing the spectators from relaxing as passive observers of the death and life drama. The production illuminates Jacobs-Jenkins’s teleology (not theology) of  Everybody’s self-discovery, which unfortunately comes too late in their life.

Photographer: Bob Christy

https://www.kent.edu/theatredance/everybody

Cast of Characters

Usher/God/Understanding ………………………………………….Alex Funk^, Madison Shannon^

Death……………………………………………………………………………………………….Rebecca Poole

Girl/Time ………………………………………………………………………………………….Claire Zalevsky

Love ……………………………………………………………………………….Gigi Motta, Mary Savocchia

Everybody/Strength* ………………………………………. Carter-Zion Hubbard, Adam Newborn

Friendship/Kinship/Senses* ……………………….Abigail Rose, Sawyer Swick, Audrey Warren

Cousin/Stuff/Beauty* ………………………………….Srikar Bellana, Zoe McConaha, AT Sanders

Mind ………………………………………………………………………..Kaylee Coleman, Arianna Sieloff

Dancers ………………………..Bella Gibbs, Lily Gortz, Piper Lash, Gigi Motta, Mary Savocchia

U/S Girl/Time…………………………………………………………………………………..Kaylee Coleman

U/S Death ………………………………………………………………………………………….Arianna Sieloff

U/S Dancers ………………………………………………………………………………………… Abigail Rose

The Cleveland Women’s Orchestra’s 89th Anniversary Concert

Severance Hall, Cleveland, Ohio, April 21, 2024

Yuko Kurahashi, a member of the Cleveland Theatre Review Circle

The Cleveland Women’s Orchestra’s 89^th Anniversary Concert, conducted by Eric Benjamin, featuring Donna Lee (Piano), was packed with the energy, creativity, and imagination of the creators (composers) and performers. 

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s (1805-1847) “Overtures in C” brings out a pastoral scene at the beginning and an energic feeling of celebration later in the piece.  Ruth Crawford Seeger’s (1901-53) “Andante for String” (1931) offers haunted and eerie feelings, close to Arnold Schoenberg’s (1874-1951) dissonant works.  I wonder if Seeger wrote this piece influenced by music written in reaction to the atrocities and destruction during WWI.  Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1982) wrote “Piano Concert No. 1 in D” in 1924.  A playful and joyful piece with counter-points, one may feel like peeking inside a French artistic scene in the 1920s—Piccaso, Cocteau, Poulenc, and Gertrude Stein, chatting in a café perhaps–in its structure, melodies, and chords.  I want to give a subtitle like “A Day and a Night of a County Fair,” since the first movement, “Allegro,” has a sense of active physicality– jumping and trampling–evoking an atmosphere of a circus or entertainment performance which people must have enjoyed at a county or town’s fair.  The movements are slightly marionette-like, something Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) could have used for his dance pieces. Donna Lee’s lucid, poetic, and imaginative interpretation of this piece (Allegro, Adagio, Allegro non-troppo)  served as the centerpiece of this concert.

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Lee graciously offered another piece as an encore: Lili Boulanger’s (1893-1918) “Prelude in D-flat Major,” a haunting and tragic tone scale that envelops the entire concert hall.

After the intermission, the orchestra opened its second half with “Fanfare to L Péri” by Paul Dukas (1865-1935).  This piece featured talented brass musicians playing Dukas’ celebratory piece about Alexander the Great in search of immortality. 

Jenni Brandon’s  (b. 1977) “We Are Home” was performed by the Cantus of the University of Mount Union, conducted by Beth Polen. Premiered in 2014, this piece went through collective creative processes, including the collection of stories and poems about home. The piano and the percussion accompany the choir, giving this piece a sense of eternity and celestiality.     

Juliette Nadia Boulanger’s (1887-1979) “In Paradisum” is an exquisite and spiritual requiem, again performed by the Cantus of the University of Mount Union with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra.

The concert finishes with Debussy’s “Nocturnes” (Nuages (Clouds), Fêtes (Festivals), Sirènes (Sirens)), a work that renders an impressionist painting. The piece transforms into different forms and shapes—like clouds—taking the audience to a dream-like world. I am convinced that Sondheim took several sections from “Nuages” to create an opening piece for his Sweeny Todd, set on Fleet Street covered in fog.

Eric Benjamin is an “inviting” conductor who can warmly “invite” all the musicians into one circle during the concert.  He is also an excellent “host,” giving the background of each piece in a way that the audience truly appreciates its value on one hand and the reality that they have rarely been recognized on the other. 

Seven Cab Drivers and One Funeral: August Wilson’s “Jitney”

August Wilson wrote Jitney in 1979, and its first production was in 1982 at the Allegheny Repertory Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA. Since then, the play has seen its revivals on Broadway (the 2017 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and the 2000 Drama Desk Award) and at regional theatres. The Beck Center for the Arts production of Jitney, directed by Jimmie Woody, speaks volumes about this work’s historical significance on one hand and its relevancy today on the other.

Set in a car service office—run by Becker (Darryl Tatum) in the Hill District between 1970 and 79, the story of Jitney follows immediately after Two Trains Running, which covers the decade between 1960 and 69. Jitney illustrates the story of the multigeneration of taxi drivers and how they impacted their communities. This play’s background is the modern transportation mode (automobiles) that gave mobility and freedom to Blacks and their lives. Yet, behind this appearance of “improvement” is permeating gentrification that pushes original residents out of the area, as they need to close their businesses and schools.

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The central issues of the play are multiple.  Yet, the most revealing one is a father-son relationship that August Wilson visited and revisited through his works. The paradox is that Becker functions as a leader and father for his employees but cannot play a satisfactory role as a father to his real—prodigal—son Booster (Patrick D. Warner), who has just been released from prison. Vietnam Vet Youngblood (Aamar-Malik Culbreth) finds his father figure in Doub (Pete Robinson), who teaches him and others the importance of patience, decency, and civility. Just like in Fences, the “father” needs to die dramaturgically. The strong resonance between the characters of Troy in Fences and Becker in Jitney is one of the attractions of the play for August Wilson fans.

Like Fences, there is one strong female character Rena (Thailand Hodge), a girlfriend of Youngblood who tends to make hasty and impulsive decisions. Though she is outside the story of seven adrenaline-drive male drivers, Hodge portrays, particularly in Act II, a young woman who becomes a responsible adult and partner who can stand up for herself, asserting what she and her family need.

Scenic designer Richard Morris built a super-realistic set in the center’s Studio Theater  Two seating sections surround the performing space, avoiding the flatness often generated by a conventional proscenium stage. The office has a desk, different types of chairs, a couch, and a refrigerator.  The floor has checkered patterns, suggesting a linoleum floor popular in the 1970s 

The exterior and interior world of the taxi service’s office is a door with opaque glass. The continuing entrances and exits of the characters provide the punctuation and expectations needed for this 2-hour & 15-minute run. Colleen Albrecht’s lighting design emphasizes the contrast between brightness and darkness, giving dramatic moments charged by the characters’ emotions. Inda Blatch-Geib’s costumes illuminate so much about the 1970s with the checkered pants and bell bottoms.  Each character shows their distinctive personality through the color schemes and tones.

The incessant ringing of the phone designed by Angie Hayes serves, like the door, the threshold between the small but intact world of Becker and his drivers and their clients. Woody and Hayes’ choice of music emphasizes the atmosphere of the 1970s decade—The O’Jays’ “Darlin’ Darlin’ Baby,” George Benson’s “Affirmation,” Deniece Williams’s “Free,” The Isley Brothers’ “The Pride,” and more.

This story takes place some years after the 1968 riot that damaged African American neighborhoods, their vibrant businesses, and their prospects. The ending of the play—very Shakespearean—provides some hope for the characters to continue working as cab drivers in the Hill District. However, the escalation of the neighborhoods’ gentrification and urban development plans is yet to come.

April 5 – May 5, 2024: Studio Theater

For more information visit beckcenter.org.

Download the press release for Jitney, here.

Photo Credit: Steve Wagner

Written by August Wilson  

Directed by Jimmie Woody

Presented through special arrangement with Concord Theatricals

CAST:

Becker—Darryl Tatum

Rena—Thailand Hodge

Youngblood—Aamar-Malik Culbreth

Doub—Pete Robinson

Fielding—Royce Ruffin

Turnbo—Bryant Lyles

Shealy—Kym Williams

Philmore—Greg White

Booster—Patrick D. Warner

Requiem to The Old Man or the Old Country?: Cleveland Public Theatre’s “Requiem”

The Cleveland Public Theatre production of Requiem, written by Hanoch Levin, directed by Raymond Bobgan, and featuring Peter Lawson Jones, is a powerful work that explores the significance of connectivity and caring for others under devastated and anti-humanity/anti-ecology circumstances.

An allegorical character, The Old Man (Peter Lawson Jones), is a modern-day “everyman” who, just before his own death, realizes his selfish and inconsiderate behavior, especially toward his own wife (The Old Woman), performed by Venetia Whatley, whose facial expressions (Suwatana Rockland applied excellent stage-makeup on this performer) tell everything. The Old Man’s redemption comes too late for the couple (The Old Woman dies), but philosophically, he completes his journey to become a better human before his own death.   

Hanoch Levin (1943-1999) was a renowned Israeli playwright who dared to challenge authority through his plays, stories, and poems.

Premiered in May 1999, just before his death, Requiem (Ashkava) has been performed in Israel and abroad.  According to theatre scholar Shai Bar Yaacov, the central themes of many of Levin’s plays include “the meanness of existence, the constant hierarchy of suffering in human relations, the futile search for meaning or compassion in a grotesque and distorted puppet-like existence, and the total lack of any hope of transcendence or escape.”

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These themes are very much Beckettian and Sartrian existentialist, illuminating the meaninglessness of meanings, words, and existence in a world where people are trying to destroy each other.  The narrative and presentation are yet extremely realistic; actually, Levin based this play on three of Chekhov’s stories: “Rothschild’s Fiddle,” “The Hollow,” and “Greif.”  As Chekhov did in his works—stories and plays—Levin depicted, in Requiem (and other plays), how people deal with or avoid dealing with problems, solving or compounding human misery and suffering.

In Requiem, people are preoccupied with their own survival.  Those who survived seem to have forgotten how to care about other humans. That’s why The Old Man and The Mother communicate well with the Cherubs rather than humans.

Peter Lawson Jones’s Old Man is compelling, illuminating this allegorical character’s amalgam of cantankerousness, aloofness, yearning for connectivity (with others), pathos, and bathos. The production’s excellent ensemble-based performers–Hosea Billingsley (The Driver), Katie Boissoneault (Shadow Person), Julia Boudiab (Happy Cherub), Jordan Ficyk (Shadow Person), Brooke Lynlee (Shadow Person), Nnamdi Okpala (Funny Cherub), Corin B. Self (Prostitute with a Reckle/Pumpkin Shaped Drunk), Kat Shy (Prostitute with a Mole/Zucchini Shaped Drunk), Yuval Tal (The Mother), Venetia Whatley (The Old Woman), and Eric Wloszek (Medic) all support this 80-minute storytelling.  

Scenic designer Cameron Caley Michalak used a turn table (with a non-rotatable center) to depict the characters’ travels through different spaces and times. Multiple boards suggest windows, doors, and other identifiable or nonidentifiable objects.  Projected on the back wall—designed by Benjamin Gantose and Catherine Anne Pace—are abstract images that might imply buildings, houses, walls, and different parts of the city—which may epitomize many places in war-torn countries and regions such as Syria, Ukraine, and Gaza.

Suwatana (Pla) Rockland’s costumes evoke the folkloric atmosphere with contemporary punk rock and cyberpunk renditions. This “punk” costume, the mini skirt and a blouse for the character of the drag (another passenger on the Toroika/bus), a khaki worker’s outfit for the Old Man, and a Russian peasant style skirt and a babushka scarf (Rockland pulled this from her personal collection), Rockland’s costumes illuminate both the feelings of “now/here” and “somewhere/there.”  Black hooded jumpsuits worn by the Shadow People (puppeteers) came from Rockland’s research on different trees since they need to demonstrate a symbiosis with the objects they manipulate, such as the trees, branches, and leaves.

Composer and music director Ryan Charles Ramer (Keyboardist) leads a three-person “orchestra” on the balcony—Sunmer L. Canter (Bassoonist) and Maria Pez (Cellist). Ramer’s music is sometimes melancholic, folkloric, and allegorical, suitable for this Chekhovian philosophical storytelling piece. Puppet designer Ian Petroni’s “puppets” (handled by Shadow People) provide a carnivalesque atmosphere with effective stage effects. 

The Old Man may represent a country/nation whose sole focus has become making money and getting rich by promoting mechanical reproduction, high-tech warfare, and resultant mass “murders.”  That country could be capitalist, communist, oligarchic, dictatorial, or a combination. The production of Levin’s Requiem is so much needed today.

Cleveland Public Theatre

March 14-April 6, 2024

Producer and Director: Raymond Bobgan

Line Producer: Anastasía Urozhaeva

Stage Manager: Colleen McCaughey

Assistant Stage Manager: Angela Warholic

Lighting and Projection Designer: Benjamin Gantose

Technical Director: Joshua Smith

Set Designer: Cameron Caley Michalak

Costume Designer: Suwatana (Pla) Rockland

Video Scenery Artist: Catherine Anne Pace

Composer and Music Director: Ryan Charles Ramer,

Puppet Designer: Ian Petroni

Translators: Lee Nishri-Howitt and Leland Gregory Frankel

Photographer: Steve Wagner

Looking for “Something Clean” with Privileges: Dobama Theatre’s Something Clean

Dobama Theatre’s regional premiere of Something Clean by Selina Fillinger and directed by Shannon Sindelar challenges a difficult question about the sense of guilt dealt with by the family of the perpetrator in a rape case. Loosely using the Brock Turner case—the sexual assault of a young by Brock Turner, a Dayton, Ohio native and a champion team swimmer at Stanford University Fillinger’s script sheds light on the mother of the assaulter, illuminating how she copes with the “chaos,” depression, fear, and guilt. 

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We rarely take a glimpse of the (inside of) the lives of those who are involved with sexual assault cases beyond the media coverage. Thus, the play gives a fresh and intriguing internal “story” about the assaulter’s family and what they have gone through. So the play is extremely moving, making the audience feel for the parents of Kai  (never on stage), who is scheduled to be released within a week. Derdriu Ring’s Charlotte—the mother of Kai—exquisitely portrays the woman/mother/wife—who forever keeps “why my son ended up raping a girl?”  The rift between Charlotte and her husband, Doug (Robert Ellis), is wide and unsolvable.  Both have not told their true feelings for years—perhaps before the incident.  Charlotte finds her refuge in her volunteer work at a rape crisis center, where Joey (Isaiah Betts), a 24-year-old African American gay man, works as a coordinator. Bett’s performance as a dedicated volunteer and former victim of a sexual assault is compelling, illuminating his commitment to his work, anger at his mother (who refused to believe what happened to Joey), and vulnerability/ambiguity about his current relationship.

Scenic Designer Naoko Skala created multi-level spaces—the kitchen, the dining room, and the bedroom of Doug and Charlotte Walker’s home, the main office, the kitchen, and a break room of the crisis center, and a campus dumpster in an open space. The Walkers’ home, furnished with Ikea-like pieces of furniture, is chic and clean but lifeless.

Different color lighting, designed by Jeremy Paul and projected on the rear wall and visible through several “cut-out doors,” provides real and surreal feelings for a series of vignettes throughout this 90-minute show without an intermission. Transitions between each vignette are atmospherically heightened by eerie and mystic tunes designed by Angie Hayes. Costumes by Lainey Bodenburg capture the characters’ “everyday life” and their tensions. For example, Charlotte always wears an ill-fitted light beige coat (perhaps to protect her “inner self”) and a white sweater as if they would protect her fragile state of mind and body.

The question about the parents’ (Charlotte and Doug’s) privileges, self-pity, self-centeredness, and unintentional deception and exploitation lingers after the show, leaving some of the audience members disturbed and unsettled; indeed, we genuinely sympathize with Charlotte and Doug losing privacy, trust, and hope because of the “chaos” created by their son. We feel for their pains, find their newly found connection beautiful, and hope they will enjoy a few minutes of peace and tranquility before their son’s return. They finally find a way to be close and care for each other— but by using one of the intimacy approaches that Charlotte learned from Joey, who leads intimacy training.  It is also unsettling to watch Charlotte find salvation and courage (to move on) by playing a caring, loving surrogate mother for Joey, whose real mother never accepts him.  As the character of Joey says, it’s all about “race,” to which Charlotte and Doug may want to continue to turn a blind eye.

This show was in collaboration with the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. 

March 8-30, 2024

Dobama Theatre

Steve Wagner Photography

Their next show is Significant Other by Joshua Harmon, directed by Collin Anderson (April 26—May 19. 2024)

イノセント・ピープルの再会 １９４３－２０１０

倉橋祐子 (a member of the Cleveland Critics Circle)

畑澤聖悟作、日澤雄介演出の『イノセント・ピープル　〜原爆を作った男たちの65年〜』は、第二次世界大戦中、ニューメキシコ州ロスアラモスでマンハッタン計画の核爆弾を開発にかかわった五人の男たちとその家族の６７年にまたがる“歴史”である。その男たちの専門は科学、物理、数学、技術、医学、電気工学とまちまちで、戦後の職もそれそれ違い、住む州もばらばらだ。それでも数年に一度は技術者ブライアン・ウッドのところで集まるのが恒例で、そのうち1963年、1976年、200３年、2010年の再会を扱っている。６7年の間、朝鮮戦争、ベトナム戦争、中東戦争と、新しい戦争がおこり、このマンハッタン計画参加者の家族が巻き込まれていく。

稲田美智子がデザインしたセットは、観客に黙示録を想起させる多層階の「荒れ地」を表現、現実と核汚染のメタファーが 交錯。ブライアンの中流階級のロスアラモスの家は、原爆投下後をかんじされるほどの荒廃した空間である。黒ずんだテーブルクロスや黒いレモネードも不気味で、この芝居のテーマを反映している。照明の 榊󠄀美香は、時間の経過、登場人物の心身の状態、さまざまなシーンの雰囲気を強調プロジェクションデザイナーの高橋啓祐は、時代と場所の情報を不穏な方法で映し出し場面の間は放射線を思わせる映像と音響効果が使われている。

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衣装デザインの堀口健一は、意図的に歴史的な正確さ　（ヒストリカルアキュラシー）にこだわらず、1940年代から2000年代の日本の都会ではやったであろうと思われるドレスやスーツを選んでいる。 ビル・ウッド（池岡亮介）が１９７６年の独立記念日に着るぶかぶかの、軍服とも制服ともつかない紺色に白線が入った衣装は、海兵隊の礼服のつもりであったとは思えるが、ニューメキシコ州の7月を考えると違和感を感じた。

音響の佐藤こうじは、空間の静寂を大切にし、音楽は時々効果的に使っている。終戦の時の軍隊行進曲は1945年のアメリカの祝賀ムードを際立たせていた。

出演者の演技はいろいろなスタイルと特徴がいりまじり、オーパーアクティングも目立ち、アンサンブルとしてはところどころしっくりいかない場面もあったが、山口馬木也が演じたブライアン・ウッドは説得力があり、この人物の葛藤や自責の念をうまく表現していた。 山口は違う年齢のブライアンを身ぶりや姿勢をかえることによって演じ、三原一太が演じる外向的で浮ついたキース・ジョンソンといいコントラストになる。内田健介が演じる引退した海兵隊士官のグレッグは、ベトナム戦争後も過去の栄光とその当時では通じた人種差別をいつまでも引きずる人間。一番繊細で罪悪感に悩まされる高校教師ジョンを森下亮が熱演。一見お人好しに見えるが暗い過去をもった医師カールは阿岐之将一が演じる。

旧い世界観に振り回される男たちに対抗するのは、配偶者と娘（そして孫娘）といった女性たちである。ブライアンの妻であるジェシカ・ウッドを演じる川田希は、この人物の人類に対する思いやり、平和への希望を強調、広島と長崎に投下された核爆弾の使用を正当化する主流派にチャレンジのできる強い人間を誠実に伝える。ブライアンとジェシカの娘シェリルを演じた川島海荷の演技は堅実で説得力がある。シェリルはアーサー・ミラーの『みんな我が子』にでてくる、父親を責めることばかりにエネルギーを費やすクリス・ケラーを遥かに超えた人物で広島出身の日本人平和活動家と結婚し、広島で人生を築いていく。堤千穂が演じるリンダも最後までジョンを支え続ける。罪の意識やその否定行為に追われ、疲れ果てていく男たちのカウンターポイントとしての女性の存在は大きい。

日米の登場人物の違いや、時代でかわるパワー・ダイナミクスを浮き彫りにするために、日澤雄介は日本人の登場人物に仮面をかぶせるというブレヒト的なアプローチをとり、前半のセリフ「日本人ってみんな同じ顔していて、しかも感情によって表情が変わらない」をビジュアルに表現している。ナバホ族の土地所有権とプロトニウム搾取の問題も含まれ、教育劇としての価値がある作品。

「イノセント・ピープル」の初演は「劇団昴」で2010。2013年にも昴再演。今回のCoRich舞台芸術制作の「リメイク」の舞台でも一人の登場人物に一人の役者を起用しているが、今後は様式的な演出を利用して、複数の役柄を小数人の役者が演じるアンサンブル・アクティング試みも期待できるかもしれない。

核爆弾の製造に関わったアメリカ人を描いているとはいえ、この戯曲は日本のから見たアメリカ人とその人々を操る“システム”（機関）の芝居で、日本人キャストが日本語で演じるからこそ意味があるのだろう。

公演期間：3/16〜3/24, 2024（東京）東京芸術劇シアターウエスト

https://stage.corich.jp/stage/272741

寺山修司の復活／再創造

流山児事務所プロデュース『田園に死す』は、前衛演劇の大物であった演出家・作家、監督　寺山修司（1935～1983）の同名映画　(1974)から着想を得た、ユニークな身体演劇スタイルの追想劇である。 脚本・演出を天野天街が手がけた本公演は、ポストモダンでパスティーシュ、そしてアルトー的な野心作であり、寺山がいかにノスタルジア、恐怖、不安、性の目覚め、苛立ち、曖昧さをもって自身の青春時代を記憶し、記録しようとしたかを探求する。 この戯曲には、サーカス、　合掌、合唱、イヨネスコ、ブレヒト、ヴェデキント、そしてシェイクスピアまで、さまざまな演劇スタイル、演劇技法、またやイズムの「材料」が数多く使われている。寺山が読んでいたであろう明智小五郎はもちろん  「マクベス』の3人の魔女、『不思議の国のアリス』、ピランデルロの『作者を探す6人の登場人物』、「シネマパラディソ」そしてイヨネスコの作品を思わせるシーンもある。

この映画自体、映画の中の映画という形式を使っているが、この戯曲も映画の中の映画／戯曲という形式を使っており（非常に複雑）、記憶の不安定さをと強調している。 言葉と動作の執拗な反復は、話し言葉の正当性に挑戦する。

寺山は青森県弘前市で育った。寺山修司の幼少期と青年期は、母（寺山が9歳の時　基地にはたらくために移っていった）と父（太平洋戦争で戦死）を違う形で失い、辛く苦しいものであった。 しかしこの芝居は寺山がその背景があったこそいかに多作で創造的なアーティストになったかを物語る。

スズナリの小さな舞台（芸術監督　流山児祥）は、両側に床から天井ちかくまでのついたてが幾重にも並び、舞台奥には障子戸が。床には畳が敷かれ、伝統的な日本家屋の雰囲気を醸し出している。総勢26人の出演者がステージを満杯にし、集団パワーを強調する。言葉遊び、歌（音楽　A.J. Seazer）、ダンス（振付　夕沈）そし力強い朗読は、集団的で、魅惑的で、舞台を不穏な限界（リミナル）時間/空間に変貌する。「時間」は、このしばいのなかで、旧い壊れた柱時計に象徴されている。 シルエットの基本とした映像（浜嶋将裕）とパルスライト効果 （小木曾千倉）が劇的シネマトグラフのランドスケープをうみだす。

『田園に死す』は、極めて主観的な記憶のレーン（メモリーレイン）劇であり黒澤明の『生きる』に匹敵するかもしれない。

天野の演出は、「寺山」を過去と現在に何人も存在させ最後のシーンでは大石厚雄が演じる40に近い信次（寺山）が　“今日”スズナリの狭い階段を登っていく姿を照らし出し、1983年に47歳で亡くなった寺山修司に、2024年に新たな「生」を与えているようである。

2024年3月14日～24日、下北沢、ザ・スズナリ