August 2016 – Reel Time With Richard Ades

In a world where men hide and women preside…

Shana Kramer, Cat McAlpine and Kyle Jepson (from left) in MadLab’s world premiere of Scritch Scritch by Christopher Lockheardt. (photo by Michelle DiCeglio)

By Richard Ades

Scritch Scritch is pretty enjoyable, if a bit puzzling.

Christopher Lockheardt’s world-premiere comedy begins as Rebecca (Kyle Jepson) is observing her 32nd birthday. While she and her mom (Mary Sink) celebrate, Rebecca mentions that she’d like to get married and have children, but she has no idea where to find a husband. Oddly, though most mothers with grownup children are eager to become grandmothers, Rebecca’s mom urges her to remain single.

Another puzzling development arises before the little party breaks up: Rebecca begs for stories about her long-lost father, but her mom refuses to talk about him.

The mystery deepens when Rebecca’s friend Daley (Shana Kramer) drops by, and the two hear the scratching sounds that give the show its title. Deciding Rebecca’s home has attracted a mouse, they call in an exterminator (Cat McAlpine), who quickly determines they have a much bigger problem: “You have a man in the house.”

In this world, it seems, men are considered pests who don’t fit in with society because of their dirty, noisy and annoying ways. Therefore, they must be trapped using lures such as beer and remote controls and “poisoned” with multivitamins, nutrition being lethal to their male constitutions.

But wait a minute, you’re probably asking yourself if you’re anything like I was at this stage in the play. Wasn’t Rebecca just saying she wants a husband but doesn’t know where to find one? Why, then, would she want to exterminate the presumably available man who’s taken up residence in her house?

The answer to this is something I didn’t figure out until later, so skip over the rest of this paragraph if you want to remain equally in the dark. Rebecca doesn’t know that husbands are men! Not only that, but she doesn’t know fathers are men, which becomes apparent much later.

There are a few things Mom (Mary Sink, right) hasn’t told her daughter (Kyle Jepson) about the facts of life. (photo by Michelle DiCeglio)

The play is easier to understand once you know this, so I’m not sure why playwright Lockheardt wanted to keep it a secret. Or maybe he didn’t mean to but simply failed to make it clear.

At any rate, even if you don’t totally understand the peculiarities of the play’s female-centered society, you’ll catch on that Lockheardt is poking fun at male stereotypes such as their supposed love of drinking beer, eating junk food, playing loud music and generally making a mess. There’s nothing particularly original about these observations, and they don’t completely explain why they’ve made men pariahs. After all, Rebecca’s friend Daley has some of these same tendencies, proving that gender stereotypes don’t always hold true. Still, they’re good for a few chuckles.

Helping to sell the flawed script is a cast that gives punchy performances under Jim Azelvandre’s direction (with assistance from Becky Horseman). Jepson and Sink’s portrayals are enough alike that it’s easy to believe Rebecca and her mom are related. As the eccentric exterminator, McAlpine is humorously deadpan, and Kramer adds loads of energy as the fun-loving, wise-cracking Daley.

Though the play is a comedy, it does have some somber and even touching moments, especially toward the end. These are nicely handled by the cast and augmented by Rob Philpott’s lighting. As with the comic moments, they would be easier to appreciate if the mindset behind the play’s matriarchy were a little less confusing.

So how can a work this flawed be more or less enjoyable? Maybe it has something to do with the play and the production’s laidback nature and lack of pretentiousness. Since they don’t seem to take themselves that seriously, it’s hard to take their missteps all that seriously either.

Scritch Scritch continues through Sept. 3 at MadLab Theatre and Gallery, 227 N. Third St., Columbus. Show times are 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $15, $13 students/seniors, $10 members. 614-221-5418 or madlab.net.

Fitzgerald’s Gatsby reborn as a dancing lesbian

The cast of Broken Whispers includes (clockwise from front): Miriam King as Daisy, Amy Lay as Gatsby, Nikki Fagin as Jordan, Robbie Nance as Nick and Andy Ankrom as Tom. (Shadowbox Live photo) — The cast of *Broken Whispers* includes (clockwise from front): Miriam King as Daisy, Amy Lay as Gatsby, Nikki Fagin as Jordan, Robbie Nance as Nick and Andy Ankrom as Tom. (Shadowbox Live photo)

By Richard Ades

Is it possible to sprain your hands by clapping too hard? I came close to doing that during Shadowbox Live’s new dance-centered drama, Broken Whispers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Broken Whispers is Shadowbox’s take on The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s cautionary tale of envy and obsessive desire in the Roaring ’20s. Like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Fitzgerald’s masterpiece has come to define a troubling era. Just as Twain’s young narrator stands in for America’s conscience in slave-holding, pre-Civil War America, Gatsby narrator Nick Carraway serves as our conscience and guide in a decade marked by greed and irresponsible hedonism.

Does Shadowbox’s version match the brilliance and depth of Fitzgerald’s original? Not overall, but it reimagines the tale in a way that is brilliantly innovative.

Whispers differs from Gatsby in several ways, but the most obvious is that the title character has been changed from a man who made his fortune from bootlegging to a woman who made it from running a brothel. Despite this, it sticks remarkably close to Fitzgerald’s tragic plot.

Our guide and narrator remains Nick (Robbie Nance), a young man who’s struggling to establish a career selling bonds in New York. Though not rich himself, he’s pulled into the lives of the wealthy by his cousin, Daisy Buchannan (Miriam King), and her husband, Tom (Andy Ankrom), as well as Nick’s high-living neighbor, Gatsby (Amy Lay).

It’s through Daisy and Tom that Nick meets and starts a relationship with a woman named Jordan Baker (Nikki Fagin). And it’s through Gatsby that Nick becomes involved in a dangerous attempt to reclaim the past.

Gatsby once had a secret fling with Daisy, but it ended when Daisy married Tom. Now that Gatsby has made her fortune, she believes she can win Daisy back, especially since Tom is a serial cheater who often deserts her for his married mistress, Myrtle Wilson (Edelyn Parker).

Changing a beloved novel into a dance-centered stage piece, and changing the sex of its protagonist along the way, is a tricky endeavor. That director Stev Guyer accomplishes it so well is a tribute to the skill of his cast and many collaborators, especially choreographer Katy Psenicka, writer Jimmy Mak and music director Matt Hahn.

Gatsby (Amy Lay, left) gets reacquainted with the love of her life, Daisy (Miriam King). (Shadowbox Live photo)

First of all, the cast is great, especially when it’s expressing itself through dance. Psenicka’s choreography is stellar throughout, but if I had to pick my favorite sequences, it would be the two that define the rekindled relationship of Lay’s Gatsby and King’s Daisy. At first they dance lithely and joyfully to the tune of Foo Fighters’ Everlong. Later, suggesting a more intimate encounter, they perform moves that are both athletic and sensual to the strains of Sade’s The Sweetest Taboo.

In addition to dance, the actors rely largely on facial expressions and posture to define their characters, who are given only minimal dialogue. For the most part, they succeed.

Nance easily communicates the discomfort Nick feels as he’s forced into one morally questionable situation after another. As Tom, the philanderer who sometimes puts him in those situations, Ankrom wears the personality of a man who assumes his gender and wealth allow him to walk over anyone to get what he wants.

Like her literary counterpart, Lay’s Gatsby is self-contained mystery whose main attribute is her optimism that her eternal love for Daisy will be vindicated. Meanwhile, Fagin’s Jordan—unlike her own literary counterpart, whose motivations are hard to pin down—emerges as an instigator who takes perverse pleasure in others’ misfortunes.

My main disappointment among the characterizations is that King’s Daisy doesn’t exhibit as much charm as she does in the novel, perhaps because Shadowbox’s adaptation eliminates the flirtatious dialogue with which Fitzgerald defines her. This Daisy mainly comes across as a victim of Tom’s unfaithfulness, making it easy to understand her susceptibility to Gatsby’s advances but hard to understand why Gatsby is devoted to her in the first place.

As for the music, it’s just as impressive as the choreography it accompanies. Surprisingly, Shadowbox has opted to use relatively recent cover songs rather than actual music from the 1920s, but the songs are cleverly arranged and performed in a way that makes them seem almost era-appropriate. In the first song, Muse’s Feeling Good, vocalist Stephanie Shull’s voice even seems to be amplified in a way that suggests the tinny sound equipment of the period.

Shull is just one of the many fine singers featured. Others include Julie Klein, Noelle Grandison, Stacie Boord, Lukas Tomasacci, Guyer and Kevin Sweeney, who holds forth while manning the band’s keyboard. All are impeccable, but the closest thing to a showstopper occurs when Leah Haviland accompanies a Tom-Myrtle dance duet with the gorgeous Radiohead lament Creep.

Remember when I wondered whether you can sprain your hands by clapping too hard? This is why.

Haviland also sings the lead vocals when the band gives an inspired performance of the familiar George Michael hit Careless Whisper. Keyboardist Sweeney leads his fellow musicians through abrupt changes of tempo and rhythm as Fagin and other dancers perform the Charleston at one of Gatsby’s wild parties. Amazing!

Amazing in general is the amount of sound that comes from leader/guitarist Hahn’s four-piece band, which also includes standup bassist Buzz Crisafulli and drummer Brandon “Dreds” Smith.

Behind the scenes, Aaron Pelzak’s dark lighting sets the proper mood, while images projected on a video screen establish the proper place, allowing the production to skip over scene changes. A quartet of costume designers clothe the characters appropriately and often beautifully.

Seeing Broken Whispers is no substitute for reading The Great Gatsby. For one thing, the show only hints at the class consciousness and envy that are at the heart of the novel. But there’s no reason why you can’t do both. In fact, knocking off the novel—something that can be accomplished in an afternoon—may well add to your appreciation of one of Shadowbox’s most remarkable achievements yet.

Broken Whispers continues through Nov. 10 at Shadowbox Live, 503 S. Front St., Columbus. Show times are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, plus 7 p.m. this Sunday (Aug. 28). Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $25, $20 students/seniors/military. 614-416-7625 or shadowboxlive.org.

Wilde comedy pits blackmailer against a ‘dandy’ hero

Mrs. Chevely (Beth Josephsen) blackmails Sir Robert Chiltern (Ross Shirley) into supporting a scam in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. (photos by Richard Ades) — Mrs. Chevely (Beth Josephsen) blackmails Sir Robert Chiltern (Ross Shirley) into supporting a scam in Oscar Wilde’s *An Ideal Husband*. (photos by Richard Ades)

By Richard Ades

Wilde in the Park hasn’t been nearly popular as Shakespeare in the Park, but Actors’ Theatre’s production of An Ideal Husband shows it can be done.

I had my doubts at first. Set in London in 1895, the play opens with a party scene during which a stageful of upper-crust Brits trade some of Oscar Wilde’s wittiest comments about society, the sexes and sundry other topics. But on the muggy night I attended, they had to compete for viewers’ attention with noisy insects and other commotions from both inside and outside Schiller Park. Added to the fast pace of the repartee, that meant few of the satirical jokes got much reaction from the overheated audience.

Luckily, the situation improved once the plot kicked into gear. Even the insects quieted down, as if they were eager to learn what would happen next.

The gears begin to mesh when the nefarious Mrs. Chevely (Beth Josephsen) offers a shady proposition to the party’s host, Sir Robert Chiltern (Ross Shirley). Revealing that she knows a damaging secret about Chiltern, a rising member of the House of Commons, Chevely threatens to spill the beans unless he throws his support behind a scam involving the construction of a canal in Argentina.

Chiltern reluctantly agrees, fearing a scandal would wreck both his career and his marriage. However, his sudden about-face on the bogus canal raises the suspicions of his wife (Sonda Staley), a former classmate of Chevely who knows all too well what kind of mischief she’s capable of. Lady Chiltern asks for help from the couple’s close friend, Lord Goring (Amari Ingram), who has his own reasons for distrusting Chevely.

Lord Goring (Amari Ingram, left) hears a startling confession from his friend Sir Robert Chiltern (Ross Shirley).

In effect, Goring is called on to save the day, but we’re given little reason to think he’s up to the task. A “dandy”—which seems to be something like a fop but with fewer effeminate mannerisms—Goring is fixated on his appearance and clothes and restricts his conversation to the most trivial of concerns. Is such a person capable of saving Sir Robert from the conniving Mrs. Chevely? The answer to that question is left unanswered until the intrigue-filled second act.

A comedy like An Ideal Husband—a witty period piece with a dandified hero—could well have tempted its cast to farce things up. Instead, director Philip J. Hickman keeps portrayals sufficiently grounded that we actually care what happens.

Josephsen is blithely calculating as Mrs. Chevely, while Shirley and Staley earn our sympathy as the flawed Lord Chiltern and his upright wife. Ingram is mostly solid as Goring, though some of his lines could be delivered with more conviction. (Maybe he was distracted by a headset mike that occasionally malfunctioned on the night I attended.)

In an important secondary role, Robyn Rae Stype is amusing as Chiltern’s sister Mabel, who trades flirtatious quips with Goring. Funniest of all is Troy Anthony Harris as Goring’s dad, the Earl of Caversham, who never misses an opportunity to tell his frivolous son what a disappointment he is.

Supporting roles are nicely played by Joyce Leahy, Camille Bullock, AJ Copp and Ben Sostrom. All of the players are elegantly attired by Dayton Willison, whose costume designs are unobtrusively framed by Andrew Weibel’s white-on-white set.

Besides its absorbing plot, An Ideal Husband is an interesting portrait of the sexual roles and attitudes in the late 19th century. Lady Chiltern is clearly an early feminist, but some of her female friends are more than content to leave politics and other intellectual pursuits to the men.

Meanwhile, Wilde’s story of an ambitious politician who can’t resist the temptation of an underhanded deal remains, sadly, as timely as ever.

Actors’ Theatre will present An Ideal Husband through Sept. 4 at the Schiller Park amphitheater, 1069 Jaeger St., Columbus. Show times are 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are pay what you will (donations requested). Bring a blanket or lawn chair. 614-444-6888 or theactorstheatre.org