An Old Sweet Song

Review of And a Nightingale Sang at Westport Country Playhouse

C.P. Taylor’s memory play And a Nightingale Sang, running through June 27 at Westport Country Playhouse, gives us Helen Stott (an incandescent Brenda Meaney), looking back at life in Newcastle, England, during WWII and at her family’s experience of day-to-day existence under the Blitz. From her first words, Meaney establishes a presence of such frankness, poignancy, and strength that we are willing to follow her wherever she might lead. Meaney's acting belongs in the highest ranks. For her performance alone, And a Nightingale Sang is worth seeing.

Brenda Meaney (Helen), Matthew Greer (Norman)

The device of Helen’s direct address adds a pleasingly modern dimension to Taylor’s well-made drama. As the narrator, one moment Helen is introducing characters, the next she is explaining the subtext, and then for a time she melts into the action. Leisurely-paced and short on surprises, Nightingale is most powerful when Helen—whose limp has kept her (in her view) a spinster—tells her own coming-of-age story, which took place in her early middle years. David Kennedy’s direction, however, falls short of conveying the terrors of war, and thus this production slants a bit too far towards the comfortable and the bittersweet.

The opening scene serves mainly to establish characters and introduce the working-class Stott family. Pretty younger daughter Joyce (Jenny Leona) is trying to decide whether to accept the marriage proposal of Eric (John Skelley), a soldier who is about to ship off to France; Joyce’s mother, Peggy (Deirdre Madigan), is desperately trying to get out of the house to visit one of the priests who, she fears, is having a war-related crisis of faith. Meanwhile Peggy’s father, Andie (Richard Kline), has just lost his beloved dog (whose dead body he has brought into the house in a cloth sack) and is trying to round up funeral goers. In the background, George (Sean Cullen), the father of the family, plays merrily on the piano and provides a humorous commentary on the cacophonous events. We immediately see that everyone in the family depends upon Helen for her good sense, kindness, and alacrity with a cup of tea. The war first intervenes at this point, in the form of sirens signaling a possible attack.

Deirdre Madigan, Sean Cullen, John Skelley, Brenda Meaney, Matthew Greer, Richard Kline

Because Helen’s memory drives the plot, the strongest storyline revolves around her love affair with Eric’s soldier friend Norman (Matthew Greer), the only man who has ever looked at her, much less declared his attraction and affection. Some of the sweetest moments occur here, as well as some of the play’s few genuine revelations. Greer is appealing, touching, and appropriately mysterious, while Helen’s emotional and sexual awakening brings to mind a more emotionally stable Laura, of The Glass Menagerie, if the Gentleman Caller had fallen for her and in doing so, changed her life.

Deirdre Madigan (Peggy), Richard Kline (Andie), Sean Cullen (George)

In the Stott household, humor, whether intentional or not, often pierces the darkness of the war, and Kennedy and his cast play up this element with crisp expertise. Indeed, these remarkable actors lift the script beyond its own limitations. Every performance shines. Sean Cullen brings a boyish twinkle to George Stott and sings and plays the piano as if he were born at the keyboard. As Peggy, Deirdre Madigan captures the conventionality of a staunch Catholic of her time and then layers this with unexpected nuance. Jenny Leona brings both fragility and fire to the role of Joyce. And Richard Kline, as Andie, delivers his fatalistic pronouncements, honed on the battle fields of WWI, with dry wit, while also conveying the vulnerability of a man who has come to love his pets as much as his family: Tibby the cat reminds him that he is still needed.

As the soldier, Eric, John Skelley keeps us on his side even when his behavior is at its most churlish. Eric—one minute a fun-loving guy, the next minute a lout— is a tricky role, but Skelley, under Kennedy’s guidance, helps us to see a youth made by war to act the adult before he is ready.

Jenny Leona (Joyce), John Skelley (Eric)

The scenic design, by Kristen Robinson, and the lighting design, by Matthew Richards, are to be commended too. The set is a large brick open space that serves most often as the Stott’s home, but that also remains abstract—like memory—so that two chairs brought downstage can become a park bench or a front parlor, and the characters can move through the central open space and enter a dance hall or a hotel or a homely flat. Richards’ lighting serves to create the effect of memory: when the spotlight isolates and illuminates Helen, we know we are in her mind, and when the light broadens, we know we are back in the scenes of the past.

With such a strong design team—including sound design by Fitz Patton—one only wishes that Kennedy had chosen to make the moments when war breaks into the Stotts’ domestic concerns more jolting, terrifying, and real. Sirens should be louder, bombs should shake the theater walls, and flashing lights should blind. However, the terrific cast nearly makes up for this missing dramatic element: they bring to the stage their own brilliance, in all senses of the word.

And a Nightingale Sang
By C.P Taylor
Directed by David Kennedy

Cast: George: Sean Cullen; Norman: Matthew Greer; Andie: Richard Kline; Joyce: Jenny Leona; Peggy: Deirdre Madigan; Helen: Brenda Meaney; Eric: John Skelley

Scenic Design: Kristen Robinson; Costume Design: Michael Krass; Lighting Design: Matthew Richards; Sound Design: Fitz Patton; Dialect Consultant: Elizabeth Smith; Props Master: Karin White; Choreographers: Lisa Gajda and Mary Ann Lamb; Casting: Tara Rubin Casting; Production Stage Manager: Marcie A. Friedman; Assistant Stage Manager: Samantha Flint

Westport Country Playhouse
June 9-27, 2015

A Play with Class

Review of Good People at TheaterWorks, Hartford

David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, superbly directed by Rob Ruggiero at TheaterWorks, opens with Margie (Erika Rolfsrud), a Dollar Store employee, losing her job. She has been late one too many times over the past eight years. As she tries, first humorously and then with rising rage and desperation, to negotiate with her boss, the young Stevie (Buddy Haardt), we come to understand quite a bit about Margie and about Lindsay-Abaire’s aims in writing this play.

Set before gentrification comes to the Irish-American working class neighborhood of South Boston (“Southie”), the playwright’s hometown, Good People explores the complicated role that luck plays in a person’s ability to escape impoverished circumstances. America’s increasingly shaky belief in a classless society is based on the notion that hard work and determination are all one needs for success. Margie is here to tell us otherwise.

Audrie Neenan, Erika Rolfsrud, Megan Byrne

In the following scene, set in Margie’s kitchen, we meet her brassy friend Jean (Megan Byrne) and her landlady, aptly named Dottie (Audrie Neenan). The talk centers on jobs: who has one, who hasn’t got a chance of finding one, how Margie can get herself another one, fast. Here we learn why Margie has lost numerous minimum-wage positions: her adult daughter, severely disabled due to a premature birth, requires constant supervision. When Jean remembers that at a catering gig she met one of their high school friends, Mikey Dillon (R. Ward Duffy), who got out of Southie and became a doctor, she’s certain that he’s Margie’s ticket to solvency: after all, Margie and Mike were an item for awhile in high school, and surely he’ll help someone from the neighborhood.

Erika Rolfsrud, R. Ward Duffy, Chandra Thomas

What unfolds between Margie and Mike—when she visits his office to test the limits of his loyalty to old friends; when Jean and Dottie react to this meeting during one of two funny and telling scenes set in a bingo hall; and during a searing scene in Act Two—dramatizes the play’s themes and provides an evening of thought-provoking, high-tension, nearly brilliant theater. I say “nearly” only because some of Lindsay-Abaire’s scenes go on a bit too long. While one could listen all night to these uniformly terrific actors speak his sharp, gritty, and at times hilarious dialogue, the plot, to its credit, creates a momentum that can’t afford to sag.

Erika Rolfsrud (Margie)

Lindsay-Abaire couldn’t hope for a better rendering of Good People than Rob Ruggiero’s terrific production. As Margie, Erika Rolfsrud gives a stunningly strong and nuanced performance. Margie is tough, but she must also convey anxiety without coming across as a victim (an epithet she would despise). She is brilliant and at the same time unapologetically uneducated. She has a mean streak and knows how to use it: watch her deploy the phrase “lace-curtain Irish” when talking about Mike’s rise in the world, and see her satisfaction when her words hit their target. Yet if the actress doesn’t also display warmth and humor, she loses the audience and the production falls apart. Rolfsrud nails every note.

The rest of the cast is no less remarkable. As Mike, R. Ward Duffy is coiled as tightly as a camouflaged snake. Mike knows how Margie can needle, shame, and possibly destroy him. He’s plenty arrogant, but he is also persuasive in his belief that hard work leads to success and, conversely, that the lack of success proves inadequacy. Mike is Margie’s natural enemy, yet Duffy and Rolfsrud’s arguments have a sexual spark that makes us believe in their intense youthful affair, and in Mike’s uneasy kinship with his background.

Megan Byrne (Jean), Audrie Neenan (Dottie)

As Dottie, Audrie Neenan provides more than comic relief: her character’s comments on the surrounding events bring to mind one of Shakespeare’s fools. Her foolishness is real enough, and a riot, but her wacky utterances unwittingly convey the resignation of a life defined by Southie. Megan Byrne, as Jean, carries some of Lindsay-Abaire’s sharpest and most humorous dialogue, and her timing is perfection: she can deliver a zinger with one raise of an eyebrow or dart of an eye.

Buddy Haardt, as Stevie, who quietly endures Jean’s scornful certainty that he is gay because he plays bingo, gives us an understated, gentle performance that adds moments of rest amidst the women’s sharp repartee. And Chandra Thomas, as Mike’s wife—the least well-written role in the script—finds moments of subtle humor and genuine pain without overplaying.

Of special note in this production is the use of film-like, photographed projections (by Scenic Designer Luke Hegel-Cantarella) to create distinctively different neighborhoods, and to simulate, also, the movement between them: our movement along with Margie’s. We watch the Dollar Store and run-down strip malls roll by, and later the appearance of trees and large houses tell us we are in another world.

Buddy Haardt, Erika Rolfsrud, Megan Byrne, Audrie Neenan

Beautifully rendered, too, is the sound design by Mike Miceli, especially in the bingo scenes. Of course, much of the credit goes to Lindsay-Abaire for writing these scenes as he has, but Ruggiero and Miceli—along with these terrific actors—have brought out the script’s sharp music. As the characters talk about Margie’s mounting difficulties, the marking of cards echoes the characters’ larger hopes, and the bingo caller’s voice drives the tension.

Ruggiero’s Good People is one of the most gripping, layered, and provocative productions seen at TheaterWorks in the past eight years, which is a high compliment indeed. The performances invigorate and inspire, and the play’s complex ideas resonate long after the evening ends.

Good People
By David Lindsay-Abaire
Directed by Rob Ruggiero

Scenic Design: Luke Hegel-Cantarella; Costume Design: Harry Nadal; Lighting Design: John Lasiter; Sound Design: Mike Miceli; Casting: McCorkle Casting LTD.; Production Manager: C. Nikki Mills; Stage Manager: Kate J. Cudworth; Dialect Consultant: Gillian Lane-Plescia

TheaterWorks
May 22-June 28, 2015

The Art of Lying

Review of The Liar at Westport Country Playhouse

The name David Ives conjures memories of his first huge hit, All in the Timing, which was, but for Shakespeare’s plays, the most produced play in the country in 1995-96. Likewise, in the 2013-14 season, productions of Ives’ Venus in Fur also came second only to productions of Shakespeare. And speaking of Shakespeare, Ives has created much of his remarkably successful career by translating, adapting, rescuing, re-tooling, or—and he says this himself—respectfully ripping off the tales and ideas of other authors (duly cited, of course).

So it should come as no surprise that Ives’ play The Liar is an adaptation of a classic comedy from 1643 by Pierre Corneille (itself based on a Spanish play of apparently deserved obscurity). For the most part, we come to Ives seeking hilarity. The Liar, a French farce beautifully directed by Penny Metropulos and performed by a stellar cast, does not disappoint. Ives retains Corneille’s verse form and provides laughter in every line. Far from becoming tedious, the verse only augments the fun—especially when Ives twists syllables to rhyme, or adds in enough anachronisms to keep the language zany and surprising. The cast, for its part, enables one to forget about the verse within minutes, except when the playwright wants us to notice it.

Rusty Ross (Cliton), Aaron Krohn (Dorante)

Of course, The Liar concerns, well, a liar. Its main character, Dorante (the skilled and unexpectedly sweet Aaron Krohn) spins lie after lie as his very mode of being. Whenever he’s in a tight spot, or when simply making conversation, the most elaborate, overblown fictions spring from his imagination. For instance, when wishing to impress a friend, Alcippe (the very funny Philippe Bowgen), with his amorous triumphs, Dorante describes his night with a certain lady with outrageous and delightful double entendres. Amidst the verbal riches we all—except Alcippe—may forget that the latter is engaged to the lady.

Indeed one beauty of The Liar is that Dorante’s extravagant stories keep us from growing weary with the plot of unmasking a truth we already know. Another beauty is that the women, far from being ornamental objects of the men’s desire, are, if anything, wittier, cleverer, and more determined in their goals than are the men.

Kate MacCluggage (Clarice), Monique Barbee (Lucrece)

As Lucrece, the initially quiet friend of the more garrulous and showy beauty Clarice, Monique Barbee has arguably the more difficult role and plays Lucrece with sensitivity and grace. As Clarice, Kate MacCluggage’s charisma derives from her palpable joy in acting and her expert fun with the language (MacCluggage was marvelous as a witch in the Long Wharf/Hartford Stage production of Bell, Book, and Candle in 2012).

Also expert is Rebekah Brockman, who gave us such a poignant Thomasina in the Yale Repertory Theatre's Arcadia this past fall. Brockman plays identical twin ladies’ maids: Isabelle, sensual, and Sabine, sanctimonious (and especially quick with a hard slap). The object of Isabelle’s desire and Sabine’s scorn is Cliton, Dorante’s hapless servant (Rusty Ross), as compulsively honest as Dorante is compulsively mendacious. Completing the cast is Brian Reddy, very funny as Dorante’s father, and Jay Russell as Philiste, friend and advisor to the hotheaded Alcippe.

Jay Russell (Philiste), Philippe Bowgen (Alcippe)

Matching the wit of the script and the sparkle of the cast is a set design by Kristen Robinson that is at once very French, very modern, and delicious to look at: the light green trees put one in mind of pistachio sorbet. The furnishings—black and white, spare and elegant—make for precisely choreographed set changes performed by the cast to French music (designed by David Budries) that sounds like a mix of hip-hop and 1980’s electronic dance tunes. The lighting design (Matthew Richards) heightens our sense of a disco-inflected present. And Jessica Ford’s costumes—as crazily beautiful for the men as they are for the women—complete our transportation to a colorfully unreal world.

On several occasions, characters break the fourth wall to address the audience, making us complicit in their acts of lying. In one of these memorable addresses, Dorante even dips into the subject of existential despair, dodging out of it with a comforting lightness of touch. Certainly, The Liar can be enjoyed as simple, silly farce, but the philosophical questions the play elicits make it a comedic and ironic meditation on the truth, and so very French.

Dorante (read Ives via Corneille) deeply understands not only the necessity of lies as we construct the facets of our social selves, but also the more profound ways in which lies make life not only pleasurable, but bearable.

The Liar
By David Ives
Adapted from Le menteur by Pierre Corneille
Directed by Penny Metropulos

Fight Director: Michael Rossmy; Voice & Text Consultant: Elizabeth Smith; Set Design: Kristen Robinson; Sound Design: David Budries; Lighting Design: Matthew Richards; Costume Design: Jessica Ford; Props Master: Karin White; Casting Director: Tara Rubin Casting, Laura Schutzel, CSA; Production Stage Manager: Megan Smith

Westport Country Playhouse
Westport, May 5-23, 2015

Tough Dance with Romance

Review of Elevada at Yale Repertory Theatre

“Romantic comedy” doesn’t usually spring to mind in connection with Yale Repertory Theatre. In addition to revivals of classic works, Yale Rep has typically committed itself to world premieres, experimental scripts, and works that defy genre typing. Sheila Callaghan’s Elevada, directed by Jackson Gay (who directed These! Paper! Bullets!, last year’s rollicking reinvention of Shakepeare) in fact fills the latter three categories. A new comedy about four lonely people who need to find love—the usual rom-com stakes—Elevada is, above all, hard to pin down.

Hence the title, which derives from the early history of the tango. As the program tells us, the tango originated on the Argentinean waterfront, and, as the dance became popular, high society folks came to “dingy dance parlors” to learn it, devising a high step (the elevada) to keep from soiling their hems with the grime underfoot. Callaghan is interested in how we, in the technologically insulated twenty-first century, perform our own versions of the elevada—how we avoid messy genuine feelings that can lead to the greater morass of disappointment and grief. And she proposes, and exposes, several familiar methods.

Khalil (Alfredo Narciso), Ramona (Laurel Casillo)

For instance, the play opens with a blind date between the agonizingly shy Khalil (the marvelous Alfredo Narciso) and Ramona, who appears to be an extreme extrovert (beautifully played by Laurel Casillo). Khalil has made millions in the dotcom world of social media at the expense of learning how to be social himself. Ramona is bubbly, quirky, talkative, frank about herself and, it seems, genuinely interested in Khalil. The fact that, on a first date, she casually brings up the subject of death should give us a jolt and clue us in: Ramona is not quite as open as she seems. Although we seem to be in a romantic comedy, our attractive and attracted opposites will go to some dark and unusual places before the play’s end.

Khalil (Alfredo Narciso), Owen (Greg Keller)

Because a good deal of Elevada’s pleasure comes from surprise, I’ll resist discussing the sources of the darkness, and move on to the play’s two other characters: Khalil’s roommate, Owen, one of the most hilariously philosophical recovering addicts one is likely to meet, and Ramona’s sister, June, who is a crackerjack realtor and, beneath her armored exterior, a vulnerable mess. Owen, played by Greg Keller, gets some of the playwright’s weirdest and wittiest language, and he makes the absurd locutions sound perfectly natural.

June (Keira Naughton), Owen (Greg Keller)

Keira Naughton has by far the most difficult role: June is everyone’s straight woman, the overbearing older sister, the woman closed off from her own longings. Many actresses shy away from roles that run the risk of being disliked. Yet Naughton plays every note of this complex woman, so that when June’s longings break through, and—ultimately—when joy replaces her desperate need to be needed, we can fully rejoice in her transformation.

How Khalil, Ramona, Owen, and June metaphorically dance with one another in a series of mainly two-person scenes makes up the plot of Elevada. And though, scene-by-scene, this plot is satisfying, the play doesn’t always quite hold together, dramaturgically. In a minor example, early on Khalil and Ramona take an actual dance lesson together, but we see them learning to pole-dance, not the tango—why? In fact, the tango itself arrives too late in the action to make the metaphor of the play’s title resonate fully. More importantly, a penultimate revelation lowers, rather than heightens, the stakes of the entire story. Perhaps were the play closer to ninety minutes than its running time of two hours, the main revelation would feel more earned.

Ramona (Laurel Casillo), June (Keira Naughton)

However, these missteps don’t come close to ruining the evening’s pleasures. The greatest of these pleasures lie in Callaghan’s brilliant yet believable language and in Gay’s sure direction and pacing. Many of the scenes are wonderfully silly, but even these have their own wisdom. And the sheer fun of such scenes deepens the darker scenes.

Gay is helped in the production’s theatrical power by a tremendous group of designers. Kurtis Boetcher’s sets are spare and evocative; Shawn Boyle’s projections are haunting; and Steven M. Rotramel’s costumes communicate every layer of these multi-dimensional characters. In addition, Lighting Designer Tyler Micoleau and Sound Designer Kate Marvin make the set changes a crucial part of the evening: these are choreographed dances in themselves.

Laurel Casillo as Ramona

A romantic comedy that leaves one with much to think about, long after the curtain closes, is rare indeed. Elevada, with its uniquely witty and poetic language, its suspense, its complicated sadness, its warmth, and—finally!—its dancing, just possibly creates a new genre for our seemingly unromantic, and often superficial, era.

Elevada By Sheila Callaghan
Directed by Jackson Gay

Dancers: Frankie Alicea, Luis Antonio, Evan Gambardella, Melissa Kaufman, Rebecca Maddy; Choreography: Kyle Abraham and Kevin Williamson; Set Design: Kurtis Boetcher; Projection Design: Shawn Boyle; Sound Design: Kate Marvin; Lighting Design: Tyler Micoleau; Costume Design: Steven M. Rotramel; Casting Director: Tara Rubin Casting; Production Dramaturg: Catherine Sheehy; Stage Manager: Emily DeNardo; Photos: Carol Rosegg

Yale Repertory Theatre
New Haven, April 24-May 16, 2015

Little Shop with Errors

Review of Little Shop of Horrors at Music Theatre of Connecticut (MTC)

Little Shop of Horrors, a campy rock musical with a cozy cast of eight—plus a talking plant—is understandably enticing to any Artistic Director of an intimate theatre. But beware! If the director isn’t careful, this fanciful show can—like the exotic Venus fly trap, Audrey II, who consumes the lives of the characters—overpower the space and dominate even the most skilled and charming actors.

Such is the case with the current production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Music Theatre of Connecticut (MTC). In a 200-seat house, the audience is snuggled right up to the outsized and often demented action, which is all part of the fun. But where director Kevin Connors, musical director Thomas Martin Conroy, and vocal arranger Robert Billig make a serious mistake is in their collaborative sound design. Each of the very strong singers is electronically amplified, and each has been encouraged to sing full out. Not only does this make for a show that is simply too loud, but the clever lyrics (written by Howard Ashman, who also wrote the book) are often garbled, through no fault of the singers themselves.

Audrey (Elissa DeMaria)

We need those lyrics, not only for their wit, but also because, as with any fine musical, the songs advance the plot, elucidate the relationships, and raise the stakes of the story. For those not familiar with Little Shop, picture the legend of Dr. Faustus set to the sounds of doo-wop, early Motown, and 1960’s rock and roll. In Skid Row, a sweet schlemiel, Seymour (Anthony DiCostanzo), works at a failing flower shop under Mr. Mushnik (Lou Ursone), his irate boss. The only light in his life is his fellow florist, the lovely Audrey (Elissa DeMaria). Audrey regularly comes in with a black eye or broken arm, courtesy of her sadistic boyfriend, Orin (Tony Lawson), a dentist.

Seymour (Anthony DiCostanzo)

Just before the shop is about to go under, Seymour produces a strange plant that he’s been tending, and this plant begins to draw customers’ attention. Voiced by Peter McClung, Audrey II, as Seymour wistfully names his botanical discovery, also begins to draw blood—first Seymour’s, and then . . . well, you know, it’s your basic Faustian pact. Will Seymour give into Audrey II’s burgeoning appetite in exchange for fame, money, and the ability to provide his beloved the perfect house and garden she longs for? Or will he resist, and risk living on Skid Row forever?

Helping to fill in this bizarre and comic plot are a Greek chorus of three Supremes-like singers—Chiffon (Inuka Ivaska), Crystal (Kristian Espiritu), and Ronette (Gabrielle Lee)—and a three-piece band playing Alan Menken’s marvelous score: Thomas Martin Conroy on keyboards; Dan Asher/Henry Lugo on bass; and Chris Johnson on drums.

Seymour (Anthony DiCostanzo) and Audrey (Elissa DeMaria)

The problems with sound are especially unfortunate because nearly every actor has been cast well and performs expertly. DiCostanzo and DeMaria are especially winning, both in their separate roles and as a lovestruck, star-crossed couple. DiCostanzo looks wonderfully nerdy yet sings like an angel, which is just right for the role. DeMaria has the difficult task of performing broadly but never losing our sympathy, and she makes playing Audrey look easy. As Mr. Mushnik, Lou Ursone, a fine singer and dancer, has wonderfully comic moments, especially in his appeal to adopt the suddenly famous Seymour (“Mushnik and Son”). Ivaska, Espiritu, and Lee, though especially hampered by the decision to amplify their already big voices, execute their moves with the requisite fire and sass.

Orsin (Tony Lawson)

In the only questionable casting, Tony Lawson stretches credulity as Orsin. Lawson’s performance itself is suitably funny and frightening. A combination of early Elvis and James Dean, he hits his girl and loves to cause his dental patients anguish (“Dentist!”). But where Lawson has a physical softness about him, Orsin needs to come across as sharp and strikingly seductive.

While the costumes, designed by Diane Vanderkroef, are just right in nearly every case, director Connors should have caught the problem, late in the show, where Chiffon, Crystal, and Ronette all appear in the same glittering dress. Each of the three women is shaped very differently, and one style does not fit all. Vanderkroef could have achieved the same effect with identical fabric, cut to flatter.

Chiffon (Inuka Ivaska), Ronette (Gabrielle Lee), Seymour (Anthony DiCostanzo), Crystal (Kristian Espiritu)

In designing the set, David Heuvelman faces a challenge: important action occurs inside the flower shop, while the actors need as much external playing space as possible. Heuvelman accomplishes this, but his set is far from visually arresting. In particular, if a curtain is going to be pulled across the shop to represent the degraded world of Skid Row, it must be expertly painted. Unfortunately, it’s not. Skid Row is a character in itself, inspiring not one but two songs (“Skid Row (Downtown)” and “Somewhere It’s Green”), and as such, should be a place darkly, stylishly realized.

A musical that’s hard to listen to and lacks an evocative design can hardly be considered a success. However, MTC’s Little Shop of Horrors must be commended for its actors, who bring style, sweetness, and commitment to this wacky, twisted tale.

Little Shop of Horrors
Book and Lyrics by Howard Ashman; Music by Alan Menken
Based on the film by Roger Corman; Screenplay by Charles Griffith
Directed by Kevin Connors
Musical Direction by Thomas Martin Conroy

Vocal Arrangements: Robert Billig; Orchestrations: Robert Merkin; Choreography: Steven Midura; Set Design: David Heuvelman; Audrey II Design: Erin Flanagan Lind & Corey T. Lind; Audrey II Puppeteer: Will Strong; Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Lighting Design: Tyler H. First; Stage Manager: Jim Schilling

Music Theatre of Connecticut (MTC)
509 Westport Avenue, Norwalk
April 17-May 3, 2015

A Hard Hit

Review of Playing the Assassin at Hartford’s TheaterWorks

Not often do the words “profound” and “football” find their way into the same sentence. Yet TheaterWorks’ current production of David Robson’s Playing the Assassin, directed by Joe Brancato, brings to light profoundly searching questions about football and the other contact sports so central to much of American entertainment and big business. In the context of a gripping conflict between two men, the play asks, in the words of one of its characters, why “seeing grown men hurt each other” makes people “happy,” and what that means for NFL professionals, trained and encouraged to hit as hard as they can, but excoriated and ostracized if they cause serious injury.

As Robson tells us in the program notes, the play was inspired by an obituary headline: “Jack Tatum, Whose Tackle Paralyzed Player, Dies at 61.” In 1978, Tatum, playing for the Oakland Raiders, hit wide receiver Darryl Stingley, of the New England Patriots, so hard that Stingley was paralyzed from the neck down. In Playing the Assassin, Robson creates a similar situation and asks us to decide whose life was most damaged. The answer, we learn, is as complex as the human heart.

Lewis (Garrett Lee Hendricks) and Frank Baker (Ezra Knight)

Frank Baker (the extraordinary Ezra Knight), a former NFL safety once known as the most dangerous defensive player in the league, meets in a hotel room with a CBS executive named Lewis (the sharp and shape-shifting Garrett Lee Hendricks) to prepare for a publicity stunt. Lewis has brokered a reunion, to be aired before the Super Bowl, between Baker and Lyle Turner, the player paralyzed by Baker’s tackle twenty years before. Their first encounter since the accident promises an up-tick in Super Bowl viewing numbers. “It’s a great human interest story,” says the smooth-talking Lewis.

Baker, however, has well-founded doubts. Years of interviews have taught him that after the initial gush over his NFL fame, the real question is always “So how do you feel about that guy you paralyzed?” Baker knows his legacy will be that he stepped over the invisible line (as he calls it) between doing what one is trained to do and perpetrating an act of violence. “Show me the line,” Baker insists, “Show me the line!” —his defiance barely masking twenty years of torment about the incident.

Lewis remains business-like for as long as he can, but soon (under the pressure, we assume, of Baker’s good-natured bullying and angry obstinance) his nerves begin to fray. In a series of surprises that have audiences audibly gasping, the stakes rise, masks drop, and the supposed pre-interview chat, with its multiple revelations, nearly veers into Greek drama.

If perhaps the number of revelations asks of us just a bit too much suspension of disbelief, Joe Brancato’s expert direction and the remarkable performances of Knight and Hendricks enable the production to glide over our doubts. Brancato controls the pacing (at a taut 82 minutes) so that, as the characters alternate trust and distrust, their lies and truths are sharply delineated. The tension relaxes only in brief humorous moments before tightening again. A director’s hand should be invisible, and Brancato’s is; only afterwards, when we sit back in our chairs for the first time, do we realize his powerful skill.

Knight and Hendricks execute this pacing to perfection. Knight, in the showier role of Baker, creates a bull of a man who uses his bulk to entertain, manipulate, intimidate, and threaten. At the same time, Knight has the difficult task of embodying someone at once strong and broken. For all his energy, Baker describes himself as “a walking Walgreens.” Knight, playing every emotional key from jocular to murderous, is astounding in making us feel both the danger and the damage.

Hendricks matches Knight in physical and emotional virtuosity, providing the perfect counterpart. Slim where Baker is bulky, graceful where Baker is rambunctious, Lewis knows exactly what moves to make in order to close the deal—until he doesn’t. Hendricks’ Lewis has to contain many layers, and to keep the audience unaware of most of them until late in the action. A few of the script’s most startling moments verge on melodrama, but Hendricks keeps the character of Lewis believable and quietly charismatic.

Set designer Brian Prather deserves special praise for creating a hotel room that is at once realistically tony, increasingly cage-like, and ultimately red-hot when long-held rage is finally released. In many respects, this two-hander is perfect for TheaterWorks and the intimate space enables the audience to see every small object along with every muscle twitch and eye movement. Playing the Assassin delivers expert and compelling theater that deserves to be experienced more than once.

With its strong performances, timely themes, and taut, physical production, Playing the Assassin is a winner!

Playing the Assassin
By David Robson
Directed by Joe Brancato

Set Design: Brian Prather; Costume Design: Charlotte Palmer-Lane; Lighting Design: Ed McCarthy; Sound Design: Emily Auciello; Fight Choreographer: Ron Piretti; Production Manager: C. Nikki Mills; Stage Manager: Kate J. Cudworth

TheaterWorks, March 21-April 26, 2015