Category: Outside NYC Reviews

In 1838, Hans Christian Andersen wrote The Steadfast Tin Soldier, his first fairy tale which was completely original rather than based on folklore.  While the story is certainly perfect for children, the mood is melancholy and full of unrequited love.  In a boy’s toy collection, a tin soldier has only one leg.  He falls in love with a paper ballerina.  There are adventures and misadventures in the plot, including travelling in a paper boat and being eaten by a fish.  All in all, an oddly interesting choice for a theatrical adaptation.

Mary Zimmerman won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Director for the play Metamorphoses.  She conceived and directed this unspoken adaptation which has been nicely scored by Amanda Dehnert and Andre Pluess.  Picture a stage which is a timeless and colorful homage to an imagined theatrical past.  Before the show begins, various cast members cleverly open the doors of a large advent calendar which functions as the curtain.  I arrived as December 17th was opened.  The playful start was an amusing way to set the mood of the piece that was to follow.

Lasting one hour, The Steadfast Tin Soldier is filled with visual delights which become apparent from the first scene.   In order to create perspective, the young boy is a large three piece puppet playing with his toy soldiers.  Alex Stein portrays the titular character dressed in a red uniform.  The absent leg is black fabric with the word “missing” written down the leg.  His physicality draws you in to his handicapped world.  Seeing a ballerina dancing on one leg, his heart is captured.  I thought Mr. Stein’s performance was ideal.

As with every show I have seen at the Lookingglass Theatre Company, the scenic design (Todd Rosenthal) is memorable.  The story adaptation is fun and, intentionally, a little heartbreaking before its transcendent finale.  This show is for people who have a sense of wonder.  I was transfixed by the relatively simple storytelling and the joy brought to the stage by the five actors.  I expect this version of The Steadfast Tin Soldier will become a classic to be enjoyed for years.  The evening is a delightful mix of magical and mesmerizing.  A welcome holiday treat for all ages.

www.lookingglasstheatre.org

Prague has some very interesting attractions for theater lovers.  The Mucha Museum is a study of the Czech graphic artist Alfons Mucha who rose to overnight fame in Paris designing an Art Nouveau theater poster for an 1894 performance of Gismonda starring Sarah Bernhardt.  That same evening I saw Billy Rayner perform his stylishly entertaining cabaret act in the Royal Theater, an atmospheric 1920’s modern day Kit Kat Klub.  Some nights there is a burlesque show.  (Full disclosure:  Mr. Rayner is my godson and his mom is one of my dearest college chums and proprietress of Chez Palmiers should you be in need of peaceful lodging combined with Basset Hound realness while traveling to New Orleans.)  Another option for English speaking theatergoers is the Cimrman English Theatre.  I caught their production of Conquest of the North Pole (Dobytí severního pólu).

As I’ve come to learn on this trip, Jára Cimrman was first introduced in a 1966 radio program.  A fictional character, his persona was originally meant to be a modest caricature of the Czech people, their history and culture.  Cimrman is so significant that in 2005 the country voted him The Greatest Czech, only to have his win disqualified due to… well, he’s not real.  From that fact alone, I expected somewhat edgy, insider humor from this particular play.

The Jára Cimrman Theatre is one of Prague’s most frequented houses of the Cimrman canon.  The legend is both a major character and a prolific “author” of a number of plays, books and films.  Mr. Cimrman is also famous for proposing the Panama Canal to the United States and also writing an opera of the same name.  He has a long list of amazing accomplishments including the invention of yogurt and advising Mendeleev, after reviewing a first draft, that the periodic table of elements should be rotated to its current orientation.  The play I attended was at the Cimrman English Theatre whose mission is translate this uniquely Czech cultural icon into another language.  In 2017, this troupe toured in the United States, introducing this intrinsic part of Czech folklore to Americans (and likely also to ex-patriots who fled after the 1968 Soviet invasion).

As is typical in Cimrman plays, the first act takes place in a lecture hall where academics comment on many things, including the story to take place in the following act.  The devotion to Cimrman and the lines of his plays are revered similarly to Monty Python where people can recite the words verbatim.  Act II tells the story of four men in a cold water swimming club who decide, without any knowledge or preparation, to conquer the North Pole in 1908.  As you might imagine, silliness ensues.

The sold out audience with whom I attended Conquest of the North Pole laughed a great deal.  I chuckled as well but not as often nor as heartily.  Perhaps there is an element of Czech experience from this outrageous icon that is truly native to their culture.  The play itself felt like our television show Saturday Night Live.  There were funny bits, slower bits and a loose, entertaining quality to the staging.  However, as a visitor to this country writing a blog on the weekend of its 100th anniversary of independence, I could readily understand and identify with the oft-repeated tag line that Czechs are “adaptable.”  After a century of invasion and control by the Germans and then the Soviets, adaptability would seem necessary for survival.

I feel fortunate to have learned about this fascinating persona and briefly experience its mystique after five decades of influence within the Czech culture.  Since we don’t really know if Cimrman is an American for sure (birth certificate controversy pending), perhaps as Americans we can also be adaptable and adopt him for the intellectual and moral void sorely missing from our current governmental leaders.  Perhaps we also need Cimrman to rebloom the humanitarian essence of our national values.  After all, isn’t it remarkable that when Alexander Graham Bell introduced the telephone he found three missed calls from Cimrman upon making his first connection?

www.zdjc.cz

www.leroyal.cz

www.chezpalmiers.com

Who goes to Warsaw on vacation and books a ticket to see a British sex farce?  I do.  The Teatr Capitol has staged Kiedy kota nie ma… (translation:  When the Cat’s Away) in its repertoire in Polish which is helpfully performed with English supertitles.  This play was written by Johnny Mortimer and Brian Cooke.  They were the pair responsible for a number of popular 1970’s British television series including Man About the House and George and Mildred.  In the United States, these comedies also became hits as Three’s Company and The Ropers.  This play puts George and Mildred Roper on stage in this classic format.  The first such farce I saw was Run For Your Wife in London in 1991.  There are no standard issue transvestites in this one but that could have helped.

Silliness is to be expected.  Silliness was on display.  In the performance I caught, Viola Arlak played Mildred Roper, a woman who is trying to spark some amorous interest in her twenty five year marriage to George Roper (Piotr Cyrwus).  He’d rather eat pickled onions in bed and avoid her not so subtle advances.  Mildred surprises him with a trip to France in order to spark some desire which she badly needs.  He has no interest in a trip to France, certainly not with his wife.  Ms. Arlak was my favorite performer giving a very funny characterization of the exasperated Mildred with the right degree of exaggerated and calculated desperation mixed with a large slice of ham.  Mr. Cyrwus is a gifted physical comedian channeling a slobbishly frigid Gumby-like simpleton.

Mildred’s sister Ethel (Maja Barelkowska) comes over to dinner with two suitcases but without Humphrey (nicely played by Jacek Lenartowicz).  She believes her very randy husband is having an affair with his secretary.  Sister Ethel is definitely not interested in her husband’s daily lovemaking requirements which begin when he arrives home from work at 4:00 and end an hour and forty minutes later when sports come on the telly.  What about the weekends, Mildred wants to know.  (Twice!!)  Needless to say, Mildred is aggressively jealous and humps the couch and other items as proof.  Two wet fish spouses are married to two middle aged hormonal sexpots.  It’s not Shakespeare but there are laughs.

The two ladies wind up going to France together and Humphrey convinces George to invite his secretary and her suicidal friend out for a double date.  Why is she suicidal you may ask.  She’s distraught because her boyfriend of four years decided to stay with his wife.  #MeToo this is not.  When the Cat’s Away, #themicewillplay.  Guess who comes home unexpectedly?

This production was an moderately enjoyable diversion.  The material is not top drawer farce and the pacing could have used more frenetic energy to sell the ridiculously over-the-top comings and goings.  The actors did break up laughing at one point ala The Carol Burnett Show which the audience clearly loved, as did I.  Was that spontaneous or a piece of direction?  Who cares, it was fun.  Also amusing were some of the English translations.  This one elicited a guffaw from me:  “For a man facing death, you’re fuckingly cheerful.”  Who knew the last syllable “-ly” was an valid option?  That is why the theater is so vital.  We can learn so much.

www.teatrcapitol.pl

After a successful home win at Notre Dame against Vanderbilt, I decided to take a drive and check out the Elkhart Civic Theatre, a community troupe in Indiana which performs in the historic, and quite nice, Bristol Opera House.  Ripcord, written by David Lindsay-Abaire, is their first production of this year’s season.  I saw this playwright’s Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway play Rabbit Hole in 2006.  In that piece, a tragic event looms like a dark cloud over a family but there are also elements of comedy.  In Ripcord, the same duality exists but not quite as heavy, nor as deep.

Directed by Demarée Dufour-Noneman, this slightly dark situation comedy might be appropriately titled Golden Girls With a Vengeance.  Two ladies share a room in the Bristol Place Senior Living Facility.  Abby Binder (an assured Jenny DeDario) is, frankly, a pain in the ass and cannot seem to get along with others.  Enter Marilyn Dunne, the chatty one with the seemingly sweet simple demeanor.  The two concoct a bet.  Can Abby be scared?  Can Marilyn get mad?  Down the rabbit hole they go as the pranks intensify.

Marilyn may have a sweet nature but there is a strong fortress of self-protection lurking underneath the somewhat batty exterior.  She is well-played by Stacey Nickel who ensures that we have empathy for her as well as mild repulsion.  All of this is light as air dark comedy.  There is meanness for sure but it skims along quickly and is forgotten as we move onto the next series of hijinks.

The Elkhart Civic Theatre has given Ripcord a solid production.  The pacing is just right for the material and the set design effectively accomplishes a lot of scene changes with its modest budget.  The skydiving scene was cleverly executed.  In multiple roles, Keith Sarber was memorable, notably as Benjamin, the character who helps ground the plot toward its Golden Girls finale.  All in all, an entertaining production of this play by everyone backstage and onstage.  Kudos to the company for having bios in the program for the crew.

John Shoup is this theater’s Artistic and Technical Director.  In his letter from this season’s brochure, he eloquently encapsulates this company’s DNA.  “You see, this is theatre – for and by the community.  Over the years, thousands of people have had a hand in creating characters and whole worlds that once existed only in a playwright’s imagination – here, in this place, on our stage.  This is where we become family, whether it’s for a few weeks or a few generations.  This is where we do what we love – and share what we love – in the hope that you will love it, too.”

Is there a better way to express the passion and purpose of localized community theater?  I look forward to seeing another production at the Elkhart Civic Center one day.  Because I love it too.

www.elkhartcivictheatre.org

The program informs you that “You’re Invited” to the birthday celebration of Mrs. Suzanne Wellington on June 30, 1961.  Mr. Beau Coutier and Mrs. Ellie Coutier are hosting the party at their home in Ashford, Georgia.  The telephone rings.  The caterers have been in a traffic accident.  Heavens to Betsy!  What shall we do?  Leftover jello salad in the fridge can be repurposed!  No need to panic, however, as the booze appears to be plentiful.  Although Virginia Woolf has not been invited to this party, in Southern Gothic her spirit is alive and well.

When entering the theater at the Windy City Playhouse, as an invited guest you are entering the Coutier home.  You sit on the perimeter (or stand) in the kitchen, living room, dining room, whatever suits your fancy.  This is immersive theater and you are free to move around.  The 28 audience members are silent but visible witnesses to the comings and goings of four couples who have scintillating melodrama bubbling close to the surface.  Introduce alcohol and let’s find out who’s a thief, who’s a philanderer and who gets a dish best served cold.

The ingenious set design by Scott Davis is a remarkable time capsule.  The kitchen in particular is classic formica and stainless steel 1950’s perfection.  (I want to buy the table when the run is over.)  As voyeurs, follow various parts of this story, some of which occur in different rooms simultaneously.  You already surmise that our birthday girl gets sloppy drunk.  She’s not alone.  Everyone has significant personal dramas, some self-induced, some the product of living in the South during this era.

The skilled performances are impressively focused  given that the audience is in such close proximity.  Drinks are even handed out should you want to toast Mrs. Wellington.  My pick for Best in Show would be the charmer politician Charles Lyon (played by an ideally cast Victor Holstein).  Or maybe the slightly simple Beau Coutier (Michael McKeough)?  Can’t forget his jittery wife Ellie (Sarah Grant).  Never mind, all eight actors shine brightly (or vividly flame out in a supernova implosion) as needed.  Written by Leslie Liautaud, Southern Gothic is a terrific entertainment given a memorable staging by director David H. Bell.

www.windycityplayhouse.com