| THEATER TIMES REVIEWS JUNE 2006 |
The Black Rider
Ahmanson Theatre
Cornerstone at REDCAT
South Coast Repertory
Pasadena Playhouse
Old Globe Theatre
Ahmanson Theatre
Cornerstone at REDCAT
South Coast Repertory
Pasadena Playhouse
Old Globe Theatre
'The Black Rider:
(A Musical Fable)
music and lyrics by Tom Waits, text by William S. Burroughs, direction, set and lighting design
by Robert Wilson Original musical arrangements by Greg Cohen and Tom Waits
costumes by Frida Parmeggiani
Ahmanson Theatre closed June 11, 2006
WITH Vance Avery, Sona Cervena, Virenia Lind, Matt McGrath, Joan Mankin, Mary Margaret O’Hara,
Robert Parsons, Nigel Richards, Dean Robinson, Gabriella Santinella, Ricahrd Strange, Monika Tahal, Jake
Thornton, John Vickery THE MAGIC BULLETS (orchestra) Bent Clausen, David Coulter, Thomas
Bloch, Terry Edwards, Caroline Hall, Jack Piner, Rory McFalane, Kate St. John
Those traveling to the Ahmanson through June 11 should make sure they read the
entire title of the play they're headed into. ‘The Black Rider, The Casting of Magic
Bullets, A Musical Fable.’ That final word is the double-edged key. On the dull side,
Director/Designer Robert Wilson is signaling that this collaboration with
composer/lyricist Tom Waits and writer William S. Burroughs is, at heart, a simple
story with a benign moral. The other side of the story, however, cuts deep. Every
storytelling style from the gospels to Guignol has used fables to help one generation
instill obedience in the next. In German culture, however, fables mutated into
something wild and horrific. Watery allegories and archetypes, sufficient for bedtime
tales elsewhere, were twisted into grotesqueries. Characters who made mistakes
weren’t simply taught a lesson, they were damned for eternity. Poor marksmen didn’t
just lose contests, they shot their only loves. Villagers, who cheerfully walk the roads
of neighboring nations amid chirping birds, cross into this world in isolation, their
mouths frozen in silent terror, the sound of the wind replaced by wailing.
The more seamless a culture’s surface of uniformity and obedience, the deeper its artists must go to reach
the root cellar of childhood memory that forms their collective unconscious. Consequently, Germans have
produced some of the most severe, hauntingly beautiful and unforgettable images in Western art. This rich,
fetid soil is where Robert Wilson and his collaborators have come to play.
And it is at the dark heart of ‘The Black Rider.’
The story of ‘The Black Rider’ has been told many times. First, as a written story in the 1810 collection
‘Gespensterbuch’ (‘The Book of Ghosts’), then in Carl Maria von Weber’s 1817 opera, ‘Der Freischütz’ (‘The
Free-Shooter’), and again in Thomas de Quincey’s “The Fatal Marksman,” published in 1823.
The bare bones story involves a young man, inclined towards the arts, who must prove himself a hunter to
win a woman’s hand away from the man her parents want her to wed. Hopeless with a rifle, he is aided by
the Devil, who provides a surefire remedy in the form of magic bullets. The price for a second helping of
bullets, needed for the crucial contest, is the young man’s soul. The bullet misses the man’s intended target,
hitting instead his intended bride, who had been targeted by the Devil in order to quickly exact his payment.
The soulless hero goes mad and is sent to an asylum.
The story could hardly keep a roomful of youngsters from fidgeting, were it not told with some engaging
embellishment. ‘The Black Rider' is an explosion of imagination. In its sound, sights and style, it is children’s
theater put on by madmen. Their achievement is nothing short of the stoppage of time for two hours,
producing in it a timeless work of art. It is as otherworldly as if that audience had been transported into a
Weimar art museum, whose hosts are refugees from ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Rocky Horror,’ and the house orchestra
is Marlene Dietrich’s wheezing back-up band.
The show begins by reversing time. A casket-sized black box up-ends itself to create the doorway through
which our cast will appear. To introduce them, an imposing figure (John Vickery) appears in the house in
cowled black cape, shouting through a scratchy megaphone. Wings of vivid eye shadow wrap nearly to his
short blond Oskar Werner hair. As welcoming as a camp commandant, he makes his way to the stage,
introducing an extraordinary gallery of circus freaks, created by a more extraordinary company of players.
The actors – lead by Matt McGrath as the hero, Vance Avery as the Devil, Mary Margaret O’Hara as the
beloved, and Nigel Richards as the other suitor – have somehow found the humanity in these arch, over-
stylized characters. Just as impressive, they have responded to Wilson’s overbearing directorial cues to
become so much of a unit that their individual contributions are all the more vivid. The commitment of these
performers verges on obsession. The reward for giving the director his due, is that the surreal piece about
losing one's soul, has one. In the wrong hands, Wilson’s style could strangle the life out of a production
with these goals. It's unclear if the show could be mounted as successfully without Wilson in charge.
Perhaps the insurance is the contribution of his collaborators, who strike the same dissonant chord while
adding additional layers to it.
Nearly a century ago, European painters were pursuing a style they called Expressionism. Their mission
was to create work that insinuated the artist’s emotions into the art. One of two collectives based in
Germany was ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ (The Blue Rider). A key figure in the ‘Reiter,’ Russian-born Wassily
Kandinsky, said they were “rejecting representational approaches and concentrating on the emotional
influence of the human soul.” ‘The Scream,’ by Norway’s Edvard Munch a decade earlier, greatly influenced
the ‘Reiters’ and can be seen on the faces in ‘Rider.’ Their style, also present here in set elements, “used
the motif of a work remembered from a dream, or drawn by a child.” The German Expressionists did not
survive World War I, but their ideas were adopted by film-makers from Robert Wiene ('The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari,' 1919) onward. They are celebrated in 'Black Rider,' which became a huge hit during its (German-
language) premiere run in Hamburg in 1990.
Tom Waits, whose interest in songs about cars, coffee shops and bloodshot moons has faded like invisible
fiancés in his rear-view mirror, has pursued his art wherever it would take him. He sacrificed mass appeal
as quickly as it appeared he could have it. After 'Ol' '55,' the song he wrote for the first track on his first
album, was a hit for the Eagles, he soon abandoned such vehicles and began wandering the artistic
landscape, giving voice to the disenfranchised. Like rough-hewn shanties for stranded sailors "a thousand
miles from the sea" (to quote Randy Newman), he provided songs for that netherworld where, to borrow
from another contemporary, Robbie Robertson, "nobody here really knows where they're going: at the very
same time, nobody's lost." This collaboration, getting only its second North American production, boosts
Waits words and music to new heights. Some songs – “November” and “Briar and the Rose” for example
-- are among the most beautiful and poignant he has written. Others have the gravel content to cut armor.
Burroughs, who died seven years after the work’s Hamburg premiere, lived long enough to hear the
syringe-sharp language he loved punctuate the air around a 'Black Rider' audience. As a rare surviving
embodiment of the mid-Century American Beat Movement, he brought the aura of literary rebellion to the
mix. His novels such as 'Junky,' 'Queer' and 'Naked Lunch' established him as a keen, uncompromising
writer of that era. As with the others, 'The Black Rider' gives him new artistic credentials for access to any
period hereafter.
No doubt ‘The Black Rider’ will produce the gamut of responses from love to loathing. For the fortunate, the
series of grand, skewed stage pictures, the harsh and haunting songs, and the sad cautionary story of
sacrificing the soul to ease the heart, will unfold like enveloping dimensions of a new artistic heaven. After
the ambitious vision of 'Black Rider's' creative artists and performers, the emotional truths pursued in
realistic theater may seem rather pedestrian. Or, this may all sound like fingernails on a blackboard. But
they're reaching for something. Going deep beneath the realism means traveling in the dark without a map.
That's where a culture has to go to find its heart and its soul.
music and lyrics by Tom Waits, text by William S. Burroughs, direction, set and lighting design
by Robert Wilson Original musical arrangements by Greg Cohen and Tom Waits
costumes by Frida Parmeggiani
Ahmanson Theatre closed June 11, 2006
WITH Vance Avery, Sona Cervena, Virenia Lind, Matt McGrath, Joan Mankin, Mary Margaret O’Hara,
Robert Parsons, Nigel Richards, Dean Robinson, Gabriella Santinella, Ricahrd Strange, Monika Tahal, Jake
Thornton, John Vickery THE MAGIC BULLETS (orchestra) Bent Clausen, David Coulter, Thomas
Bloch, Terry Edwards, Caroline Hall, Jack Piner, Rory McFalane, Kate St. John
Those traveling to the Ahmanson through June 11 should make sure they read the
entire title of the play they're headed into. ‘The Black Rider, The Casting of Magic
Bullets, A Musical Fable.’ That final word is the double-edged key. On the dull side,
Director/Designer Robert Wilson is signaling that this collaboration with
composer/lyricist Tom Waits and writer William S. Burroughs is, at heart, a simple
story with a benign moral. The other side of the story, however, cuts deep. Every
storytelling style from the gospels to Guignol has used fables to help one generation
instill obedience in the next. In German culture, however, fables mutated into
something wild and horrific. Watery allegories and archetypes, sufficient for bedtime
tales elsewhere, were twisted into grotesqueries. Characters who made mistakes
weren’t simply taught a lesson, they were damned for eternity. Poor marksmen didn’t
just lose contests, they shot their only loves. Villagers, who cheerfully walk the roads
of neighboring nations amid chirping birds, cross into this world in isolation, their
mouths frozen in silent terror, the sound of the wind replaced by wailing.
The more seamless a culture’s surface of uniformity and obedience, the deeper its artists must go to reach
the root cellar of childhood memory that forms their collective unconscious. Consequently, Germans have
produced some of the most severe, hauntingly beautiful and unforgettable images in Western art. This rich,
fetid soil is where Robert Wilson and his collaborators have come to play.
And it is at the dark heart of ‘The Black Rider.’
The story of ‘The Black Rider’ has been told many times. First, as a written story in the 1810 collection
‘Gespensterbuch’ (‘The Book of Ghosts’), then in Carl Maria von Weber’s 1817 opera, ‘Der Freischütz’ (‘The
Free-Shooter’), and again in Thomas de Quincey’s “The Fatal Marksman,” published in 1823.
The bare bones story involves a young man, inclined towards the arts, who must prove himself a hunter to
win a woman’s hand away from the man her parents want her to wed. Hopeless with a rifle, he is aided by
the Devil, who provides a surefire remedy in the form of magic bullets. The price for a second helping of
bullets, needed for the crucial contest, is the young man’s soul. The bullet misses the man’s intended target,
hitting instead his intended bride, who had been targeted by the Devil in order to quickly exact his payment.
The soulless hero goes mad and is sent to an asylum.
The story could hardly keep a roomful of youngsters from fidgeting, were it not told with some engaging
embellishment. ‘The Black Rider' is an explosion of imagination. In its sound, sights and style, it is children’s
theater put on by madmen. Their achievement is nothing short of the stoppage of time for two hours,
producing in it a timeless work of art. It is as otherworldly as if that audience had been transported into a
Weimar art museum, whose hosts are refugees from ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Rocky Horror,’ and the house orchestra
is Marlene Dietrich’s wheezing back-up band.
The show begins by reversing time. A casket-sized black box up-ends itself to create the doorway through
which our cast will appear. To introduce them, an imposing figure (John Vickery) appears in the house in
cowled black cape, shouting through a scratchy megaphone. Wings of vivid eye shadow wrap nearly to his
short blond Oskar Werner hair. As welcoming as a camp commandant, he makes his way to the stage,
introducing an extraordinary gallery of circus freaks, created by a more extraordinary company of players.
The actors – lead by Matt McGrath as the hero, Vance Avery as the Devil, Mary Margaret O’Hara as the
beloved, and Nigel Richards as the other suitor – have somehow found the humanity in these arch, over-
stylized characters. Just as impressive, they have responded to Wilson’s overbearing directorial cues to
become so much of a unit that their individual contributions are all the more vivid. The commitment of these
performers verges on obsession. The reward for giving the director his due, is that the surreal piece about
losing one's soul, has one. In the wrong hands, Wilson’s style could strangle the life out of a production
with these goals. It's unclear if the show could be mounted as successfully without Wilson in charge.
Perhaps the insurance is the contribution of his collaborators, who strike the same dissonant chord while
adding additional layers to it.
Nearly a century ago, European painters were pursuing a style they called Expressionism. Their mission
was to create work that insinuated the artist’s emotions into the art. One of two collectives based in
Germany was ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ (The Blue Rider). A key figure in the ‘Reiter,’ Russian-born Wassily
Kandinsky, said they were “rejecting representational approaches and concentrating on the emotional
influence of the human soul.” ‘The Scream,’ by Norway’s Edvard Munch a decade earlier, greatly influenced
the ‘Reiters’ and can be seen on the faces in ‘Rider.’ Their style, also present here in set elements, “used
the motif of a work remembered from a dream, or drawn by a child.” The German Expressionists did not
survive World War I, but their ideas were adopted by film-makers from Robert Wiene ('The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari,' 1919) onward. They are celebrated in 'Black Rider,' which became a huge hit during its (German-
language) premiere run in Hamburg in 1990.
Tom Waits, whose interest in songs about cars, coffee shops and bloodshot moons has faded like invisible
fiancés in his rear-view mirror, has pursued his art wherever it would take him. He sacrificed mass appeal
as quickly as it appeared he could have it. After 'Ol' '55,' the song he wrote for the first track on his first
album, was a hit for the Eagles, he soon abandoned such vehicles and began wandering the artistic
landscape, giving voice to the disenfranchised. Like rough-hewn shanties for stranded sailors "a thousand
miles from the sea" (to quote Randy Newman), he provided songs for that netherworld where, to borrow
from another contemporary, Robbie Robertson, "nobody here really knows where they're going: at the very
same time, nobody's lost." This collaboration, getting only its second North American production, boosts
Waits words and music to new heights. Some songs – “November” and “Briar and the Rose” for example
-- are among the most beautiful and poignant he has written. Others have the gravel content to cut armor.
Burroughs, who died seven years after the work’s Hamburg premiere, lived long enough to hear the
syringe-sharp language he loved punctuate the air around a 'Black Rider' audience. As a rare surviving
embodiment of the mid-Century American Beat Movement, he brought the aura of literary rebellion to the
mix. His novels such as 'Junky,' 'Queer' and 'Naked Lunch' established him as a keen, uncompromising
writer of that era. As with the others, 'The Black Rider' gives him new artistic credentials for access to any
period hereafter.
No doubt ‘The Black Rider’ will produce the gamut of responses from love to loathing. For the fortunate, the
series of grand, skewed stage pictures, the harsh and haunting songs, and the sad cautionary story of
sacrificing the soul to ease the heart, will unfold like enveloping dimensions of a new artistic heaven. After
the ambitious vision of 'Black Rider's' creative artists and performers, the emotional truths pursued in
realistic theater may seem rather pedestrian. Or, this may all sound like fingernails on a blackboard. But
they're reaching for something. Going deep beneath the realism means traveling in the dark without a map.
That's where a culture has to go to find its heart and its soul.
The Violet Hour
by Richard Greenberg, directed by Carolyn Cantor
Old Globe Theatre May 20 through June 25, 2006 (opened May 25)
WITH: Lucas Hall, Seavering; T. Scott Cunningham, Gidger; Patch Darragh, Denis McCleary; Christen Simon,
Jessie; Kristen Bush, Rosamund. PRODUCTION David Korins, set; Robert Blackman, costumes; Matthew
Richards, lights; Paul Peterson, sound.
Late one afternoon around 1920, something in a Manhattan display window caught the
eye of a passerby. Her reaction, haloed in glancing sun, caught the eye of a
photographer who froze the moment, converting it to art. Eighty years later, with the
setting of the century center stage, the photograph caught the eye of Richard
Greenberg, who was about to write a play for California’s first significant theater
space to open in the new millennium. A shopper deciding whether to go in or go on
and an artist freezing that turning point for all time helped inspire ‘The Violet Hour,’ a
play that celebrates the transforming powers of a single theater and a single evening,
even as it fills them both. Greenberg’s play, which bookends -- or cradles -- its action
between finding lost theater tickets and determining to really use them, is currently
receiving a near-definitive production at the Old Globe’s main stage under the watchful
guidance of director-to-watch Carolyn Cantor.
The play takes its name from the title of a ponderous book that Denis McCleary (Patch Darragh) has
submitted to an embryonic publishing house launched by college and army buddy John Pace Seavering
(Lucas Hall). McCleary explains his title as “that hour when the evening’s about to reward you for the
day." Seavering is still settling in to his office, which is high enough to enjoy each twilight sky, made up of
the stuff McCleary describes as ‘violet light you walk between that hastens you places.” On this evening,
preparing for a play that has been dismissed by everyone as “predictable,” Seavering is at the turning point
of deciding the first book he will publish. Not only is McCleary pushing for his to be chosen, Seavering has
a secret lover – the well-known and known-to-be-troubled black singer Jessie Brewster (Christen Simon) –
who has written an image-correcting autobiography she needs to see in print. With the help of another
former classmate, Gidger (T. Scott Cunningham), who is trying to shoehorn his eccentric personality into
the secretarial position, Seavering spends the two hours before heading to the theater juggling the
competing would-be authors. A third advocate, a seductive agent for McCleary’s book, is his lover,
Rosamund Plinth (Kristen Bush). Plinth, a Midwestern meat-packing heiress with the Easternmost in tastes,
needs a calling card like ‘published author’ to introduce the impoverished McCleary to her father.
In the way the photographer used equipment to freeze the coming of a decision, Greenberg uses it to
freeze the aftermath of one. Early on, Gidger announces the delivery of a strange machine in the
anteroom. He's soon back to warn that it is now spewing pages of text. He manages to get Seavering
aside long enough to read him some startling passages that forecast the history of the 20th century –
particularly as it impacts Seavering and his circle.
Under the steady hand of Cantor – a director who wowed us with a powerful 2005 Pacific Playwrights
Festival reading of David Lindsay Abaire’s ‘Rabbit Hole’ – the Old Globe’s cast of five is equal to the quintet
who premiered the play to inaugurate South Coast Repertory’s Julianne Argyros Stage in 2002. One
significant improvement and one lesser presence still make this a net gain on the acting. Hall and Darragh
read younger here, giving them additional room for variance as the play arcs into darkness and back again.
As Brewster, Simon may be too young for Seavering's older, been-around lover, but that doesn't diminish a
fine performance. Kristen Bush's Rosamund unfortunately pales in comparison with Kate Arrington’s
beautifully detailed portrait. An unfair comparison, perhaps, but there it is.
The big improvement is in the role of Gidger. At SCR, Mario Cantone played Gidger like a contestant on Gay
Survivor dodging a vote-off by being loudest and most stereotypically in your face. While Cantone has
gone on to fame in a wildly successful one-man show, Gidger has gone on to Cunningham’s care.
Cunningham gives us a real person who gets plenty of honest laughs without being certifiably insane.
The differences in the sets are also worth noting. Chris Barreca created an historic work at SCR. More
elaborate, it used frosted glass on an inner office to allow the mysterious machine to cast an ominous
shadow over the proceedings. Here the inner walls are solid and there is no image of the machine. The
SCR set was also consciously designed to recall New York's Flat iron Building, with Seavering’s office
occupying an upper space in the vortex of the sharp end. This gave the feeling of being in the prow of a
great forward-moving ship. Here, the set is a perfect cube set into flat, black proscenium-masking, like a
date on a calendar. It is turned a perfect 45 degrees (like a baseball diamond) so that we are looking
across the room's diagonal. Rather than forward motion we have the equally valid sense of being stuck in
time.
Greenberg has plenty of fun as Gidger and Seavering discover surprising changes that will come later in
the American Century: The demotion of The Great War to the first of two global catastrophes and the
appropriation of the word ‘gay’ by homosexuals provide two of the lighter moments. But Greenberg doesn't
shy from the darkness that gives any violet hour its definition. The light of inspiration for artists like
Greenberg contains the full spectrum. In it he sees the horror of mortality, and provides a glimpse in a line
as funny as it is frightening when Seavering sizes himself up and suddenly erupts, "These aren't clothes.
They're costumes!" Hall's portrayal shows Seavering's brief terror at the shadow of himself as a historic
figure. He's Hamlet as he realizes hes not holding Yoric's skull, but his own. Seavering sees that the
effects of decisions will be enormous. Lives will be ruined. Deterministic existence is a horrible yoke
compared to the vacuum of free will. But can anything be done?
Remembering the occasion of the play’s writing adds a wonderful dimension to this celebration of
theatergoing. The final curtain of ‘The Violet Hour’ signals the opening curtain of the play that Seavering and
his fellow characters will now attend. Before one curtain can fall and another can go up, he must make his
decision. The characters will head to the theater and the audience will leave it. And so Greenberg created
his cycle of life and theater, separated by a time of changing light, of violet hours when -- if we pay
attention -- we will find the rewards of our day, and the reasons not to fear the inevitable end of our
plays. - ctg
by Richard Greenberg, directed by Carolyn Cantor
Old Globe Theatre May 20 through June 25, 2006 (opened May 25)
WITH: Lucas Hall, Seavering; T. Scott Cunningham, Gidger; Patch Darragh, Denis McCleary; Christen Simon,
Jessie; Kristen Bush, Rosamund. PRODUCTION David Korins, set; Robert Blackman, costumes; Matthew
Richards, lights; Paul Peterson, sound.
Late one afternoon around 1920, something in a Manhattan display window caught the
eye of a passerby. Her reaction, haloed in glancing sun, caught the eye of a
photographer who froze the moment, converting it to art. Eighty years later, with the
setting of the century center stage, the photograph caught the eye of Richard
Greenberg, who was about to write a play for California’s first significant theater
space to open in the new millennium. A shopper deciding whether to go in or go on
and an artist freezing that turning point for all time helped inspire ‘The Violet Hour,’ a
play that celebrates the transforming powers of a single theater and a single evening,
even as it fills them both. Greenberg’s play, which bookends -- or cradles -- its action
between finding lost theater tickets and determining to really use them, is currently
receiving a near-definitive production at the Old Globe’s main stage under the watchful
guidance of director-to-watch Carolyn Cantor.
The play takes its name from the title of a ponderous book that Denis McCleary (Patch Darragh) has
submitted to an embryonic publishing house launched by college and army buddy John Pace Seavering
(Lucas Hall). McCleary explains his title as “that hour when the evening’s about to reward you for the
day." Seavering is still settling in to his office, which is high enough to enjoy each twilight sky, made up of
the stuff McCleary describes as ‘violet light you walk between that hastens you places.” On this evening,
preparing for a play that has been dismissed by everyone as “predictable,” Seavering is at the turning point
of deciding the first book he will publish. Not only is McCleary pushing for his to be chosen, Seavering has
a secret lover – the well-known and known-to-be-troubled black singer Jessie Brewster (Christen Simon) –
who has written an image-correcting autobiography she needs to see in print. With the help of another
former classmate, Gidger (T. Scott Cunningham), who is trying to shoehorn his eccentric personality into
the secretarial position, Seavering spends the two hours before heading to the theater juggling the
competing would-be authors. A third advocate, a seductive agent for McCleary’s book, is his lover,
Rosamund Plinth (Kristen Bush). Plinth, a Midwestern meat-packing heiress with the Easternmost in tastes,
needs a calling card like ‘published author’ to introduce the impoverished McCleary to her father.
In the way the photographer used equipment to freeze the coming of a decision, Greenberg uses it to
freeze the aftermath of one. Early on, Gidger announces the delivery of a strange machine in the
anteroom. He's soon back to warn that it is now spewing pages of text. He manages to get Seavering
aside long enough to read him some startling passages that forecast the history of the 20th century –
particularly as it impacts Seavering and his circle.
Under the steady hand of Cantor – a director who wowed us with a powerful 2005 Pacific Playwrights
Festival reading of David Lindsay Abaire’s ‘Rabbit Hole’ – the Old Globe’s cast of five is equal to the quintet
who premiered the play to inaugurate South Coast Repertory’s Julianne Argyros Stage in 2002. One
significant improvement and one lesser presence still make this a net gain on the acting. Hall and Darragh
read younger here, giving them additional room for variance as the play arcs into darkness and back again.
As Brewster, Simon may be too young for Seavering's older, been-around lover, but that doesn't diminish a
fine performance. Kristen Bush's Rosamund unfortunately pales in comparison with Kate Arrington’s
beautifully detailed portrait. An unfair comparison, perhaps, but there it is.
The big improvement is in the role of Gidger. At SCR, Mario Cantone played Gidger like a contestant on Gay
Survivor dodging a vote-off by being loudest and most stereotypically in your face. While Cantone has
gone on to fame in a wildly successful one-man show, Gidger has gone on to Cunningham’s care.
Cunningham gives us a real person who gets plenty of honest laughs without being certifiably insane.
The differences in the sets are also worth noting. Chris Barreca created an historic work at SCR. More
elaborate, it used frosted glass on an inner office to allow the mysterious machine to cast an ominous
shadow over the proceedings. Here the inner walls are solid and there is no image of the machine. The
SCR set was also consciously designed to recall New York's Flat iron Building, with Seavering’s office
occupying an upper space in the vortex of the sharp end. This gave the feeling of being in the prow of a
great forward-moving ship. Here, the set is a perfect cube set into flat, black proscenium-masking, like a
date on a calendar. It is turned a perfect 45 degrees (like a baseball diamond) so that we are looking
across the room's diagonal. Rather than forward motion we have the equally valid sense of being stuck in
time.
Greenberg has plenty of fun as Gidger and Seavering discover surprising changes that will come later in
the American Century: The demotion of The Great War to the first of two global catastrophes and the
appropriation of the word ‘gay’ by homosexuals provide two of the lighter moments. But Greenberg doesn't
shy from the darkness that gives any violet hour its definition. The light of inspiration for artists like
Greenberg contains the full spectrum. In it he sees the horror of mortality, and provides a glimpse in a line
as funny as it is frightening when Seavering sizes himself up and suddenly erupts, "These aren't clothes.
They're costumes!" Hall's portrayal shows Seavering's brief terror at the shadow of himself as a historic
figure. He's Hamlet as he realizes hes not holding Yoric's skull, but his own. Seavering sees that the
effects of decisions will be enormous. Lives will be ruined. Deterministic existence is a horrible yoke
compared to the vacuum of free will. But can anything be done?
Remembering the occasion of the play’s writing adds a wonderful dimension to this celebration of
theatergoing. The final curtain of ‘The Violet Hour’ signals the opening curtain of the play that Seavering and
his fellow characters will now attend. Before one curtain can fall and another can go up, he must make his
decision. The characters will head to the theater and the audience will leave it. And so Greenberg created
his cycle of life and theater, separated by a time of changing light, of violet hours when -- if we pay
attention -- we will find the rewards of our day, and the reasons not to fear the inevitable end of our
plays. - ctg
Matt McGrath
Vance Avery
CRAIG SCHWARTZ
Vance Avery
CRAIG SCHWARTZ
The Casting of the Magic Bullets'
Demeter in the City
by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Shishir Kurup
lyrics by Sarah Ruhl; music by Shishir Kurup and David Markowitz
REDCAT at Disney Hall June 8 through 18, 2006
WITH Jonathan del Arco, Heleya de Barros, Anne René Brashier, Kristin Findley, Grace Gu, Peter
Howard, Ananya Kepper, Christine Mantilla, Karla Menjivar, Sadé Moore, Eric Quintana, Itamar Stern, Yuri
Teminio, Bahni Turpin, Sonny Valicenti, Chelsea Wafer, Jonetta Ward, Danièle Watts PRODUCTION
Shigeru Yaji, set; Ivy Y Chou, costumes; Geoff Korf, lights; Colbert S. Davis IV, sound; Scott Horstein,
dramaturg; Jennifer Li, choreographer; David Markowitz, musical director; Sibyl O’Malley, assistant director.
Some years ago I read about a woman breaking a bond as fundamental to human
nature as the atom is to nature. The story exploded in me like the splitting of an
atom. The story reported that on the previous afternoon a middle-aged woman had
shot her only son and then drove to a railroad crossing to have Amtrak decapitate
her. This horrific crime of mother taking her child and herself from the world began
with another kind of separation. Something the police never discovered. Last
weekend I thought about this incident for the first in a long time. It happened while
watching the Cornerstone Theater Company’s engrossing production of a new
musical, ‘Demeter in the City,’ by playwright/lyricist Sarah Ruhl and composers
Shishir Kurup and David Markowitz (at REDCAT through this June 18). Ruhl, with
strong support from Kurup’s direction and cast, successfully melds the Greek myth of
Demeter’s separation from her daughter Persephone, with community interviews for a
wide-ranging exploration of contemporary life that touches on the ills of social
services, discrimination, campus politics, drug abuse, education quotas, the court
system and motherhood.
Demeter (Bahni Turpin) is standing in dim light downstage center when the house opens. Women, in
variations of floral house dresses and sweaters, wander alone or in pairs the ramparts and steps of
Shigeru Yaji’s unit set. Although Demeter’s body is frozen with hands upturned, her face reacts with
sadness as a woman passes with a swaddled baby, then carefully hands it to another, then another, and
so on until the show begins.
Ruhl incorporates the topical interviews – with young mothers, Young Republicans and veteran case
workers – into a fluid story about the tragedy of separating mother and child. People who are
uncomfortable joining choirs for the purpose of being preached to will find that, in fact, the net effect of this
social examination is balanced. A callous official removes Demeter’s baby when drug paraphernalia is
found in her home. This surprising indictment of L.A. Social Services as invasive and destructive flies in
the face of perceptions that the government is underfunded, over-worked, and ineffectual. Later a judge
bemoans the problems of not removing a child. In what we assume is an authentic quote, he recalls that a
child returned to a similar home was murdered within months. Similarly, Demeter’s tragic loss of her
daughter and failure to clean up in the court-allotted 18 months in order to get her back, produces a young
woman, Persephone (a very impressive Sadé Moore), who, while bitter about the loss of her mother, is a
brilliant achiever. She retains her awareness and values while being open to reasoned discussion,
seeming to confirm the wisdom of removing her from a cycle of poverty and drugs. Cornerstone does too
much research to spout easy answers, even though we in the audience may hunger for them like seals at
training camp. While the script threatens to leave its heart in many of the issues along the way, it
ultimately remains true to its Greek myth.
Turpin is wonderfully natural in the role, which helps keep it from feeling like heavy myth. Her
conversational delivery is so engaging that it’s easy for the audience to get lost in her story and unwittingly
raising a hand to ask a question. In addition to the strong showing by Moore, there is a nice comic turn by
Peter Howard (who was so memorable as Jacques the defrocked Hollywood agent in ‘As You Like It’
earlier this year) and a slyly forgivable Young Republican shill created by Sonny Valicenti, who turns out to
be Hades, unable to resist Moore’s Persephone.
Near the end, Turpin's Demeter gets to let out all the pent-up sadness and anger against the system, the
fates and herself. The actress makes it a rich moment, powerful enough to recall those feelings of
implosion after reading about the poor mother who took her son's and her own life. It's powerful theater in
a vividly realized production. And if that weren't enough, there's nearly a dozen songs that fit in beautifully
with the storytelling and the sometimes off-beat tone. It's a wonderful way to enjoy the REDCAT space at
the Disney Hall. Unfortunately the show only runs through this Sunday. - ctg
by Sarah Ruhl, directed by Shishir Kurup
lyrics by Sarah Ruhl; music by Shishir Kurup and David Markowitz
REDCAT at Disney Hall June 8 through 18, 2006
WITH Jonathan del Arco, Heleya de Barros, Anne René Brashier, Kristin Findley, Grace Gu, Peter
Howard, Ananya Kepper, Christine Mantilla, Karla Menjivar, Sadé Moore, Eric Quintana, Itamar Stern, Yuri
Teminio, Bahni Turpin, Sonny Valicenti, Chelsea Wafer, Jonetta Ward, Danièle Watts PRODUCTION
Shigeru Yaji, set; Ivy Y Chou, costumes; Geoff Korf, lights; Colbert S. Davis IV, sound; Scott Horstein,
dramaturg; Jennifer Li, choreographer; David Markowitz, musical director; Sibyl O’Malley, assistant director.
Some years ago I read about a woman breaking a bond as fundamental to human
nature as the atom is to nature. The story exploded in me like the splitting of an
atom. The story reported that on the previous afternoon a middle-aged woman had
shot her only son and then drove to a railroad crossing to have Amtrak decapitate
her. This horrific crime of mother taking her child and herself from the world began
with another kind of separation. Something the police never discovered. Last
weekend I thought about this incident for the first in a long time. It happened while
watching the Cornerstone Theater Company’s engrossing production of a new
musical, ‘Demeter in the City,’ by playwright/lyricist Sarah Ruhl and composers
Shishir Kurup and David Markowitz (at REDCAT through this June 18). Ruhl, with
strong support from Kurup’s direction and cast, successfully melds the Greek myth of
Demeter’s separation from her daughter Persephone, with community interviews for a
wide-ranging exploration of contemporary life that touches on the ills of social
services, discrimination, campus politics, drug abuse, education quotas, the court
system and motherhood.
Demeter (Bahni Turpin) is standing in dim light downstage center when the house opens. Women, in
variations of floral house dresses and sweaters, wander alone or in pairs the ramparts and steps of
Shigeru Yaji’s unit set. Although Demeter’s body is frozen with hands upturned, her face reacts with
sadness as a woman passes with a swaddled baby, then carefully hands it to another, then another, and
so on until the show begins.
Ruhl incorporates the topical interviews – with young mothers, Young Republicans and veteran case
workers – into a fluid story about the tragedy of separating mother and child. People who are
uncomfortable joining choirs for the purpose of being preached to will find that, in fact, the net effect of this
social examination is balanced. A callous official removes Demeter’s baby when drug paraphernalia is
found in her home. This surprising indictment of L.A. Social Services as invasive and destructive flies in
the face of perceptions that the government is underfunded, over-worked, and ineffectual. Later a judge
bemoans the problems of not removing a child. In what we assume is an authentic quote, he recalls that a
child returned to a similar home was murdered within months. Similarly, Demeter’s tragic loss of her
daughter and failure to clean up in the court-allotted 18 months in order to get her back, produces a young
woman, Persephone (a very impressive Sadé Moore), who, while bitter about the loss of her mother, is a
brilliant achiever. She retains her awareness and values while being open to reasoned discussion,
seeming to confirm the wisdom of removing her from a cycle of poverty and drugs. Cornerstone does too
much research to spout easy answers, even though we in the audience may hunger for them like seals at
training camp. While the script threatens to leave its heart in many of the issues along the way, it
ultimately remains true to its Greek myth.
Turpin is wonderfully natural in the role, which helps keep it from feeling like heavy myth. Her
conversational delivery is so engaging that it’s easy for the audience to get lost in her story and unwittingly
raising a hand to ask a question. In addition to the strong showing by Moore, there is a nice comic turn by
Peter Howard (who was so memorable as Jacques the defrocked Hollywood agent in ‘As You Like It’
earlier this year) and a slyly forgivable Young Republican shill created by Sonny Valicenti, who turns out to
be Hades, unable to resist Moore’s Persephone.
Near the end, Turpin's Demeter gets to let out all the pent-up sadness and anger against the system, the
fates and herself. The actress makes it a rich moment, powerful enough to recall those feelings of
implosion after reading about the poor mother who took her son's and her own life. It's powerful theater in
a vividly realized production. And if that weren't enough, there's nearly a dozen songs that fit in beautifully
with the storytelling and the sometimes off-beat tone. It's a wonderful way to enjoy the REDCAT space at
the Disney Hall. Unfortunately the show only runs through this Sunday. - ctg
Bahni Turpin
MICHAEL LAMONT
MICHAEL LAMONT
The Real Thing
by Tom Stoppard, directed by Martin Benson
South Coast Repertory ended June 25, 2006
WITH Martin Kildare, Pamela J. Gray, Bill Brochtrup, Natacha Roi, David Barry Gray, Amanda Cobb,
McCaleb Burnett PRODUCTION Ralph Funicello, set; Angela Balogh Calin, costumes; Peter Maradudin,
lights; Karl Fredrick Lundeberg, music/sound; Nicholas C. Avila, asst. dir.
I had a real problem driving to ‘The Real Thing’ at South Coast Repertory last
weekend. No music CD. A glance around found the shoe box crammed with cassettes
salvaged from the house my mother left last year. I slid in a collection of old pop
songs my late pop had taped off the radio one day. As I headed down the 405, I
recreated his earlier afternoon of exquisite randomness and spontaneity, conjuring in
the process a kind of sonic hologram. There he sat, pipe clenched in his teeth,
straddling the ottoman that supported his portable cassette-recorder and transistor
radio, missing the beginning of songs, cutting off the ends, and frequently hitting stop
after the dj started talking. It was perfect. Whether or not manipulative, simplistic
pop music should be considered ‘real’ music alongside the art of jazz and classical is
open to debate. But its strange power is not. Its casual pervasiveness can't help but
connect people. In ‘The Real Thing’ (continuing through June 25), playwright Tom
Stoppard uses the gap between high-brow and low as just one point of perspective to
measure what truly affects us and what does not.
Czech-born Stoppard is among the most revered writers of the English language, and 'The Real Thing' is
one of his most popular plays. It is one of only two produced at SCR in the past 30 years: ‘Arcadia’ in 1998
and ‘Real Thing’ once before in 1987. ‘Rosencratz and Guildenstern,’ ‘The Real Inspector Hound/After
Magritte’ and ‘Jumpers’ were produced between 1970 and 1975. Affection for the script is not surprising
as it is Stoppard's most openly affectionate. Ultimately, it is a love story. A brainy one to be sure, but a
love story.
With his rare talent for writing dialogue that elevates the conversational to literature, Stoppard pursues the
reconciling of contradictions with the ardor of a sportsman. Especially contradictions in his own thinking.
“I write plays,” he has said, “because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting myself.
I put a position, rebut it, refute it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Forever. Endlessly.”
There are several of those eternal conundrums driving 'The Real Thing.' The central character, a
playwright named Henry, believes in objective value. “It is not better because someone says it is," he
insists. "It’s better because it’s better!”
Henry's confidence is ripe for shaking and Stoppard sends the appropriate tremors through his world. The
characters in 'The Real Thing,' primarily actors, writers and agitators, straddle the 'camino real' dividing
classical music and pop, playwriting versus agitprop, political commitment versus dilettantism, stage drama
versus real life and, of course, true love versus simple lust or cloying neediness.
With the script a proven commodity, an individual production of ‘Real Thing’ hangs on the actors playing
Henry and Annie -- the woman he leaves a wife for, marries, and then suspects of infidelity. Here Bill
Brocktrup’s Henry is appropriately glib. But he layers the play's inherent cleverness with a topping of
cuteness from the opening badinage with his first wife, Charlotte (Pamela J. Gray), and their actor-friend
Max (Martin Kildare). The two actors are co-starring in Henry’s new play, 'House of Cards.' It's a
weakening of Henry that he never recovers from. He continues to wear his lines jauntily rather than
having them at the core. Here, Henry’s embrace of pop culture reads as one who can't grasp higher levels
of art as opposed to someone who has reason to prefer them. Things get more grounded when Annie
appears.
Annie, played here by Natacha Roi (seen last season in Lucinda Coxon’s demanding ‘Vesuvius’), works
well in this role. She is ravishing, but not glossy or superficial. Stoppard requires Annie to win the hearts
of all four of the play’s male characters and Roi does it projecting an earthy, hearty, heady range of
nurturing and naughtiness that promises all four just what they need. Her trickiest assignment, the parrying
with young play-within-the-play co-star Billy (David Barry Gray) that leads to a fling, is about as
successful as it can be given Stoppard’s contradictory demands.
A shout out to the backstage crew for getting that big turntable to reveal a completely new set after not
letting a pin drop during the change. It's the kind of hard-won invisibility that has its reward in going
unnoticed. We noticed how unnoticeable it was.
Benson again displays his knack for getting the best from his cast. These people properly explore the
feelings we know to be real because of how they affect us, and subtly distinguish them from the
affectations that pass for emotion. It's a good way to see a great play.
Mention should be made of Amanda Cobb’s contribution. So nice that she was able to stretch out in the
recent Pacific Playwrights Workshop of ‘Leitmotif.’ Here, she adds depth to a quick scene meant to bring
together her separated parents – Charlotte and Henry – as she sets off with a young man. To her father’s
claim, “She’s too young to travel with a man,” her mother responds, “She's too young to travel without
one.”
And so Stoppard pins another contradiction, suggesting perhaps that we are always too young to travel
alone.
Back in the car, I decided to enjoy the randomness of radio directly. And who comes on to underscore
Stoppard's theme of music, love and truth but George Clinton: “You've got a real type of thing going down,
gettin' down. There's a whole lot of rhythm going round.”
by Tom Stoppard, directed by Martin Benson
South Coast Repertory ended June 25, 2006
WITH Martin Kildare, Pamela J. Gray, Bill Brochtrup, Natacha Roi, David Barry Gray, Amanda Cobb,
McCaleb Burnett PRODUCTION Ralph Funicello, set; Angela Balogh Calin, costumes; Peter Maradudin,
lights; Karl Fredrick Lundeberg, music/sound; Nicholas C. Avila, asst. dir.
I had a real problem driving to ‘The Real Thing’ at South Coast Repertory last
weekend. No music CD. A glance around found the shoe box crammed with cassettes
salvaged from the house my mother left last year. I slid in a collection of old pop
songs my late pop had taped off the radio one day. As I headed down the 405, I
recreated his earlier afternoon of exquisite randomness and spontaneity, conjuring in
the process a kind of sonic hologram. There he sat, pipe clenched in his teeth,
straddling the ottoman that supported his portable cassette-recorder and transistor
radio, missing the beginning of songs, cutting off the ends, and frequently hitting stop
after the dj started talking. It was perfect. Whether or not manipulative, simplistic
pop music should be considered ‘real’ music alongside the art of jazz and classical is
open to debate. But its strange power is not. Its casual pervasiveness can't help but
connect people. In ‘The Real Thing’ (continuing through June 25), playwright Tom
Stoppard uses the gap between high-brow and low as just one point of perspective to
measure what truly affects us and what does not.
Czech-born Stoppard is among the most revered writers of the English language, and 'The Real Thing' is
one of his most popular plays. It is one of only two produced at SCR in the past 30 years: ‘Arcadia’ in 1998
and ‘Real Thing’ once before in 1987. ‘Rosencratz and Guildenstern,’ ‘The Real Inspector Hound/After
Magritte’ and ‘Jumpers’ were produced between 1970 and 1975. Affection for the script is not surprising
as it is Stoppard's most openly affectionate. Ultimately, it is a love story. A brainy one to be sure, but a
love story.
With his rare talent for writing dialogue that elevates the conversational to literature, Stoppard pursues the
reconciling of contradictions with the ardor of a sportsman. Especially contradictions in his own thinking.
“I write plays,” he has said, “because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting myself.
I put a position, rebut it, refute it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation. Forever. Endlessly.”
There are several of those eternal conundrums driving 'The Real Thing.' The central character, a
playwright named Henry, believes in objective value. “It is not better because someone says it is," he
insists. "It’s better because it’s better!”
Henry's confidence is ripe for shaking and Stoppard sends the appropriate tremors through his world. The
characters in 'The Real Thing,' primarily actors, writers and agitators, straddle the 'camino real' dividing
classical music and pop, playwriting versus agitprop, political commitment versus dilettantism, stage drama
versus real life and, of course, true love versus simple lust or cloying neediness.
With the script a proven commodity, an individual production of ‘Real Thing’ hangs on the actors playing
Henry and Annie -- the woman he leaves a wife for, marries, and then suspects of infidelity. Here Bill
Brocktrup’s Henry is appropriately glib. But he layers the play's inherent cleverness with a topping of
cuteness from the opening badinage with his first wife, Charlotte (Pamela J. Gray), and their actor-friend
Max (Martin Kildare). The two actors are co-starring in Henry’s new play, 'House of Cards.' It's a
weakening of Henry that he never recovers from. He continues to wear his lines jauntily rather than
having them at the core. Here, Henry’s embrace of pop culture reads as one who can't grasp higher levels
of art as opposed to someone who has reason to prefer them. Things get more grounded when Annie
appears.
Annie, played here by Natacha Roi (seen last season in Lucinda Coxon’s demanding ‘Vesuvius’), works
well in this role. She is ravishing, but not glossy or superficial. Stoppard requires Annie to win the hearts
of all four of the play’s male characters and Roi does it projecting an earthy, hearty, heady range of
nurturing and naughtiness that promises all four just what they need. Her trickiest assignment, the parrying
with young play-within-the-play co-star Billy (David Barry Gray) that leads to a fling, is about as
successful as it can be given Stoppard’s contradictory demands.
A shout out to the backstage crew for getting that big turntable to reveal a completely new set after not
letting a pin drop during the change. It's the kind of hard-won invisibility that has its reward in going
unnoticed. We noticed how unnoticeable it was.
Benson again displays his knack for getting the best from his cast. These people properly explore the
feelings we know to be real because of how they affect us, and subtly distinguish them from the
affectations that pass for emotion. It's a good way to see a great play.
Mention should be made of Amanda Cobb’s contribution. So nice that she was able to stretch out in the
recent Pacific Playwrights Workshop of ‘Leitmotif.’ Here, she adds depth to a quick scene meant to bring
together her separated parents – Charlotte and Henry – as she sets off with a young man. To her father’s
claim, “She’s too young to travel with a man,” her mother responds, “She's too young to travel without
one.”
And so Stoppard pins another contradiction, suggesting perhaps that we are always too young to travel
alone.
Back in the car, I decided to enjoy the randomness of radio directly. And who comes on to underscore
Stoppard's theme of music, love and truth but George Clinton: “You've got a real type of thing going down,
gettin' down. There's a whole lot of rhythm going round.”
Bill Brochtrup
Natacha Roi
HENRY DiROCCO
Natacha Roi
HENRY DiROCCO
T. Scott Cunningham (top)
Christen Simon
Lucas Hall
CRAIG SCHWARTZ
Christen Simon
Lucas Hall
CRAIG SCHWARTZ
Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure
by Steven Dietz directed by David Ira Goldstein World Premiere
Pasadena Playhouse May 10-June 11, 2006
Premiered in association with the Arizona Theater Company
WITH Laurence Ballard, Erin Bennett, Mark Capri, H. Michael Croner, Roberto Guajardo, Jonathan Hicks,
Preston Maybank, Kenneth Merckx Jr., Victor Talmadge, Libby West PRODUCTION Bill Forrester, set;
David Kay Mickelsen, costumes; Dennis Parichy, lights; Roberta Carlson, composer; Brian Jerome Peerson,
sound
When Sherlock Holmes was asked to explain how he could solve the most baffling
mysteries he said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth.” This answer was a verbal variation on the
detective’s penchant for disguise. Holmes’ mind was such a high-powered Hoover,
and his airtight memory so able to capture and retain even the tiniest fact, that he
could quickly review his knowledge of any subject – including human behavior – and
confidently separate impossible and improbable from fact. Without such encyclopedic
knowledge such a quick study might lead to the forensic equivalent of Steven Dietz’
new ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.’ The play is currently at the Pasadena
Playhouse through June 11 in the second-half of a co-world-premiere with the Arizona
Theater Company.
What Dietz adds to the burgeoning history of Holmsian stage and film adaptations is the kind of musical hall
melodrama that was popular when author Arthur Conan Doyle created his Baker Street sleuth. He justifies
the limited scope of the writing in a program note that, in his opinion, "the popularity of Sherlock Holmes
seems to revolve around one simple and enduring fact: it's fun to see someone get caught.” That may be
true for “America’s Most Wanted,” but in modern theatre the reason we like mysteries is the detection, not
the detention. It's to say crossword puzzles are popular because we like inking in squares. What's more,
an enigmatic character such as Holmes, who becomes more mysterious with every mystery he solves,
cries out for a character study by a dramatist with a detective’s obsession for investigation. Especially
when Dietz has appropriated the two characters who most fully engage his intellect and passion:
Professor Moriarty, the one criminal nemesis who avoids Holmes' capture, and Miss Irina Adler, the one
woman who captures Holmes' heart.
According to press releases, 'The Final Adventure' “is based on the original 1899 play by William Gillette and
Arthur Conan Doyle.” Gillette was an American actor who created Holmes' stage persona, inventing the
deerstalker hat and Meershaum pipe accessories. He performed the role for several decades. That 1899
play draws on two stories: 'A Scandal in Bohemia,' which introduces Adler, and a “Memoir” from late in the
series that features Holmes' fatal showdown with Moriarty.
Dietz’ frequent director, David Ira Goldstein, is again his accomplice in crime. The tone ranges from too silly
– as in some of the buffoonery assigned the King of Bohemia (Preston Maybank), the character who
launches the story by enlisting Holmes to find Ms. Adler – to cartoonish – as when Moriarty and his
henchmen set their trap with all the suspense of the dog-burglars in ‘101 Dalmations.’ It seems doubly
frustrating to sense the missed opportunities while watching a production with actors in key roles who are
clearly capable of delving deeper.
At the heart of any Holmes escapade are Sherlock and Dr. John Watson. As Holmes, Mark Capri is a fine
fit for this role: not too quirky, not too gritty; a profile like Barrymore and a voice like Irons. He strikes a pose
easily – perhaps a little too consistently – but has the range for more than is asked here ('The game’s afoot!'
etc.). Victor Talmadge is even more appealing as the narrating Watson: owlish, earnest, enjoying the game,
devoted to his wife and to his friend. He has the calm sense of importance in the proceedings. For it is
only through him that Holmes' genius will be recorded correctly.
'Scandal in Bohemia' begins with the sentence, ‘For Holmes, she would always be the woman.’ In this
production, that woman is created by Libby West, an actor capable of leaving that kind of impression. That
she is supremely beautiful is not what attracts Holmes. Rather, it is the ways her superior intellect plays
out across that beauty, or is masked by it. West gives Adler the studied diction of a performer whose
career relies on enunciating for the rounders at the back of the hall. Her speech is one aspect of her
detailed, perhaps obsessive intellect. Unfortunately, Dietz’ goal is simply getting someone ‘caught,’ and not
taking a moment to explore storylines that might interest modern audiences. For example, the way Holmes
and Adler would no doubt throw themselves into a romantic parry and riposte so long denied with less
interesting lovers. Similarly, the Holmes vs. Moriarty stand-off is pretty tepid as we must only spend so
much time before the need to re-stoke the plot with guns switching hands and feigned unconsciousness.
With all that said, however, it’s quite likely this will be a big crowd-pleasing hit. Five theaters have already
lined up to do secondary productions. We certainly wish the Playhouse and its cast huge success.
Holmes' cases may be open-and-shut affairs, but his productions seldom are. -- ctg
by Steven Dietz directed by David Ira Goldstein World Premiere
Pasadena Playhouse May 10-June 11, 2006
Premiered in association with the Arizona Theater Company
WITH Laurence Ballard, Erin Bennett, Mark Capri, H. Michael Croner, Roberto Guajardo, Jonathan Hicks,
Preston Maybank, Kenneth Merckx Jr., Victor Talmadge, Libby West PRODUCTION Bill Forrester, set;
David Kay Mickelsen, costumes; Dennis Parichy, lights; Roberta Carlson, composer; Brian Jerome Peerson,
sound
When Sherlock Holmes was asked to explain how he could solve the most baffling
mysteries he said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth.” This answer was a verbal variation on the
detective’s penchant for disguise. Holmes’ mind was such a high-powered Hoover,
and his airtight memory so able to capture and retain even the tiniest fact, that he
could quickly review his knowledge of any subject – including human behavior – and
confidently separate impossible and improbable from fact. Without such encyclopedic
knowledge such a quick study might lead to the forensic equivalent of Steven Dietz’
new ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.’ The play is currently at the Pasadena
Playhouse through June 11 in the second-half of a co-world-premiere with the Arizona
Theater Company.
What Dietz adds to the burgeoning history of Holmsian stage and film adaptations is the kind of musical hall
melodrama that was popular when author Arthur Conan Doyle created his Baker Street sleuth. He justifies
the limited scope of the writing in a program note that, in his opinion, "the popularity of Sherlock Holmes
seems to revolve around one simple and enduring fact: it's fun to see someone get caught.” That may be
true for “America’s Most Wanted,” but in modern theatre the reason we like mysteries is the detection, not
the detention. It's to say crossword puzzles are popular because we like inking in squares. What's more,
an enigmatic character such as Holmes, who becomes more mysterious with every mystery he solves,
cries out for a character study by a dramatist with a detective’s obsession for investigation. Especially
when Dietz has appropriated the two characters who most fully engage his intellect and passion:
Professor Moriarty, the one criminal nemesis who avoids Holmes' capture, and Miss Irina Adler, the one
woman who captures Holmes' heart.
According to press releases, 'The Final Adventure' “is based on the original 1899 play by William Gillette and
Arthur Conan Doyle.” Gillette was an American actor who created Holmes' stage persona, inventing the
deerstalker hat and Meershaum pipe accessories. He performed the role for several decades. That 1899
play draws on two stories: 'A Scandal in Bohemia,' which introduces Adler, and a “Memoir” from late in the
series that features Holmes' fatal showdown with Moriarty.
Dietz’ frequent director, David Ira Goldstein, is again his accomplice in crime. The tone ranges from too silly
– as in some of the buffoonery assigned the King of Bohemia (Preston Maybank), the character who
launches the story by enlisting Holmes to find Ms. Adler – to cartoonish – as when Moriarty and his
henchmen set their trap with all the suspense of the dog-burglars in ‘101 Dalmations.’ It seems doubly
frustrating to sense the missed opportunities while watching a production with actors in key roles who are
clearly capable of delving deeper.
At the heart of any Holmes escapade are Sherlock and Dr. John Watson. As Holmes, Mark Capri is a fine
fit for this role: not too quirky, not too gritty; a profile like Barrymore and a voice like Irons. He strikes a pose
easily – perhaps a little too consistently – but has the range for more than is asked here ('The game’s afoot!'
etc.). Victor Talmadge is even more appealing as the narrating Watson: owlish, earnest, enjoying the game,
devoted to his wife and to his friend. He has the calm sense of importance in the proceedings. For it is
only through him that Holmes' genius will be recorded correctly.
'Scandal in Bohemia' begins with the sentence, ‘For Holmes, she would always be the woman.’ In this
production, that woman is created by Libby West, an actor capable of leaving that kind of impression. That
she is supremely beautiful is not what attracts Holmes. Rather, it is the ways her superior intellect plays
out across that beauty, or is masked by it. West gives Adler the studied diction of a performer whose
career relies on enunciating for the rounders at the back of the hall. Her speech is one aspect of her
detailed, perhaps obsessive intellect. Unfortunately, Dietz’ goal is simply getting someone ‘caught,’ and not
taking a moment to explore storylines that might interest modern audiences. For example, the way Holmes
and Adler would no doubt throw themselves into a romantic parry and riposte so long denied with less
interesting lovers. Similarly, the Holmes vs. Moriarty stand-off is pretty tepid as we must only spend so
much time before the need to re-stoke the plot with guns switching hands and feigned unconsciousness.
With all that said, however, it’s quite likely this will be a big crowd-pleasing hit. Five theaters have already
lined up to do secondary productions. We certainly wish the Playhouse and its cast huge success.
Holmes' cases may be open-and-shut affairs, but his productions seldom are. -- ctg
Libby West
Mark Capri
TIM FULLER
Mark Capri
TIM FULLER
The show
begins by
reversing time.
A casket-sized
black box
up-ends itself to
create the
doorway
through which
our cast will
appear.
begins by
reversing time.
A casket-sized
black box
up-ends itself to
create the
doorway
through which
our cast will
appear.
With his rare
talent for writing
dialogue that
elevates the
conversational to
literature,
Stoppard pursues
the reconciling of
contradictions
with the ardor of a
sportsman.
Especially
contradictions in
his own thinking.
talent for writing
dialogue that
elevates the
conversational to
literature,
Stoppard pursues
the reconciling of
contradictions
with the ardor of a
sportsman.
Especially
contradictions in
his own thinking.
A shopper
deciding whether
to go in or go on
and an artist
freezing that
turning point for
all time helped
inspire ‘The Violet
Hour,’ a play that
celebrates the
transforming
powers of a single
theater and a
single evening,
even as it fills
them both.
deciding whether
to go in or go on
and an artist
freezing that
turning point for
all time helped
inspire ‘The Violet
Hour,’ a play that
celebrates the
transforming
powers of a single
theater and a
single evening,
even as it fills
them both.