Sizwe Banzi is Dead At the Court
Theatre By
Dan Zeff Chicago – The Athol Fugard mini festival
is concluding with a stunning revival of the 1972 one-act drama “Sizwe Banzi Is
Dead” at the Court Theatre. It’s the third Fugard drama this season, following “’Master’
Harold and the Boys…” at the TimeLine Theatre and “The Island” at the Remy
Bumppo Theatre. The
earlier two productions were solid presentations of Fugard’s exploration of the
evils of apartheid in South Africa, but “Sizwe Banzi Is Dead” is the real
capstone of the threesome, 100 intermissionless minutes of brilliant acting in
the service of engrossing and disturbing storytelling. Fugard,
who is white, was actually co-author of both “The Island” and “Sizwe Banzi”
with black actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona, who were also the complete
casts for both plays. “Sizwe
Banzi” is set in a black township in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The first 40
minutes is a virtuoso monologue by a black man named Styles. He begins by recounting
the farcical preparations his white bosses make in anticipation of a visit from
the American owner of the automobile plant where Styles has a menial job. The
monologue then shifts to Styles’s establishing himself as a professional
photographer in a ramshackle and cockroach-infested studio. Enter Sizwe Banzi a diffident young black man who wants to have his portrait
taken. Up to this point the play has been largely comic, though a grim picture
emerges of the racial oppression black South Africans endure on a daily basis. The
narrative then shifts to Sizwe Banzi, a diffident and frightened black man who
makes the acquaintance of another black man named Buntu. Sizwe confides to
Buntu that he is in trouble. His passbook, which all black Africans must carry,
has a stamp that doesn’t allow him to live or work in Port Elizabeth. Sizwe
must leave the city to return to his wife and four children in a desolate and
drought-stricken village 150 miles away. One
night Buntu and Sizwe stumble onto the body of a man who apparently died a
violent death. Buntu urges Sizwe
to swap passbooks with the dead man, thus acquiring the government stamp that
would permit Sizwe, using the dead man's identity, to live and work in Port
Elizabeth. Sizwe would have to give up his own identity forever, but he would
be allowed to earn a living wage and save his family from possible
starvation. Sizwe agonizes over a choice
between destitution and personal pride. The choice turns out to be no choice at
all. By
the end of the play, the audience is exposed to the dehumanizing effect of
apartheid, especially its Kafkaesque bureaucratic snares. Sizwe and Buntu sound
notes of fierce anger and defiance before Sizwe yields in humiliated
capitulation. But before the high drama of the conclusion the play has offered plenty
of rueful humor, including one of the few drunk scenes I’ve ever seen on a
stage that worked. Both Sizwe and Buntu go into the audience to josh with the
spectators, injecting a light and whimsical touch to a narrative that
ultimately turns tragic. The
cast of Chike Johnson and Allen Gilmore crawl into the skins of the three
characters in the play to create indelible performances. The two are physically
contrasting, Johnson solidly built like a football running back and the slender
Gilmore wearing a woebegone expression as the injustices of apartheid erode his
sense of self. The
acting is all of a piece with the script, projecting a sense of immediacy and
authenticity that leaves the viewers with the feeling that they are witnessing
the only way the play could possibly be performed. That means director Ron OJ
Parson flawlessly has his finger on the play’s emotional and theatrical pulse throughout
the evening. I don’t know how much the perfection of the performances emerges
from the actors and how much from the director, but it doesn’t matter. The
staging is seamless—funny, poignant, bitter. It’s a stirring reminder of how
monstrous apartheid was in the everyday life of black South Africa, a condition
receding into the historical past now that apartheid has been gone, at least
officially, since 1994. The
production gets a boost from Jack Magaw’s functional setting, with photos of
black South Africans looking down from the rear of the stage mutely observing
the plight of the characters. Christine Pascual designed the costumes, Lee
Keenan the lighting, and Nick Keenan the sound. “Sizwe
Banzi Is Dead” is an exceptionally rich playgoing experience and the acting is
superb in its commitment and artistry. It’s all there—humor, outage,
frustration, poignancy, and fear. A most powerful and rewarding evening. “Sizwe
Banzi Is Dead” runs through June 13 at the Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis
Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m.,
Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 3 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $32 to $56.
Call 773 753 4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre.org. The
show gets a rating of four stars. May 2010
***************************** The Illusion At
the Court Theatre By Dan Zeff CHICAGO—“The
Illusion” at the Court Theatre is a 1636 play by the French dramatist Pierre
Corneille as filtered through the theatrical and intellectual sensibilities of
Tony Kushner in 1988, in Kushner’s pre “Angels in America” period. The modern version is filled with striking
visual effects, an off kilter blend of comedy and seriousness, and enough
themes to occupy a classroom of philosophy majors. The title defines the nature of the play. The audience is
exposed to illusions, indeed so many layers of illusions that the
Corneille-Kushner piece occasionally seems a clone of Scheherazade’s “1001
Nights” intricate ribbon of connected tales.
The play begins in the cave in southern France, where a
magician named Alcandre (Chris Sullivan) presides, assisted by a gnome-like
deaf and dumb servant (Kevin Gudahl). Onto the premises comes Pridamant (John
Reeger), a lawyer who 15 years earlier had kicked his son out of his house. Now
Pridamant senses his death may be near and he wants to reconcile with his son
to assuage his feeling of guilt. The father has exhausted all normal avenues to
tracing his son and comes to the magician as a last resort. Alcandre reveals three illusions involving the son (Michael
Mahler) to Pridamant. All three portray the son as a young man and all three
are love stories. In each, the son has a different name and in each he woos the
same woman (Hilary Clemens), also with three different names. The woman’s maid
(Elizabeth Ledo, three names, too) plays an essential role in each illusion.
The other constant characters in the illusions are two aristocrats (Kareem
Bandealy and Timothy Edward Kane) who compete with the son for the love of the
woman. The first illusion is a light and fanciful love scene but the
illusions turn darker until the end, when the son (we never learn his real
name) is presumably killed. There are stories within stories, some comical and
some serious. The dramatic temperature is often interrupted by long passages of
purple prose, and occasionally poetry, which achieve nothing in terms of
character or narrative and tend to wash over the listener like beautiful white
noise. There is one late scene portraying a nasty conflict between the woman
and her cruel father that just takes up stage time. Near the end of the play the author pulls the rug out from
the audience, revealing just how much “The Illusion” is really about illusions.
Alcandre then delivers a long disquisition on love as the only true reality and
the spectators are sent home pondering the elusive meanings of everything they
have seen. The ensemble acting is uniformly excellent. Kane is
particularly good in his comic turn as a blowhard aristocrat with a broad
coward streak when matters of love threaten to turn violent. Elizabeth Ledo, who never disappoints, is
outstanding in conveying the many personalities of the lady’s maid. Reeger
delivers a vivid and complex portrait of a father who wants the reconciliation,
though, at the end, maybe not so much.
In broad terms, “The Illusion” deals with fantasy versus
reality and the illusions created by the theater. Parsing all the subtexts in
the play lends itself more to a university seminar room than a theater but
unquestionable Corneille and Kushner give the spectators plenty to chew on if
they are so inclined. Under Charles Newell’s resourceful directing the production
is almost continuously engrossing, except those passages of lyrical blather.
Collette Pollard’s cave design encloses a vast space that lends the theater interior
its necessary aura of mystery, abetted by John Culbert’s lighting and the sound
design by Josh Horvath and Nick Keenan. The costumes by Jacqueline Firkins
create the proper seventeenth century look for the show. The production of “The Illusion” does the Court Theatre
proud. The play may not be satisfying to viewers who require plain speaking
naturalism in their theatergoing, but the success of the Court staging masks
the fact that in less competent hands, “The Illusion” could be confusing and tiresome.
The play is a challenge, well met by Newell and his people, on stage and behind
the scenes. “The Illusion” runs through April 11 at the Court Theatre,
5535 South Ellis Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.,
Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $32 to $56. Call 773 753 4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre.org. The show gets a rating of 3½ stars. March 2010 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com. ********************* The Mystery of Irma Vep At the Court Theatre By Dan Zeff
Chicago – “The Mystery of Irma Vep” at the Court Theatre tries
to parlay two jokes into a full evening’s entertainment. At its best, the show
is a hilarious hoot. When it’s not at its best, the spectator has to wonder why
the Court selected such a trivial and obvious work for its subscription season.
Fortunately, the hoot moments trump the dead spots. Playwright/actor
Charles Ludlam debuted “Vep” in 1984 as a production by his Ridiculous Theatre
Company. The show was a considerable hit, possibly for its novelty of having
all eight roles played by two performers (joke one) and for its spoofing of
horror books and movies (joke two). The novelty no longer exists, so the play
is forced to ride on its hit or miss artistic merit.
The play wallows in Ludlam’s campy gay sensibility. The action starts out in
the drawing room of a Gothic manor house in England out of “Rebecca”, shifts to
Egypt in the second act (a salute to the movie “The Mummy”), and then returns
to the manor house for a heavy dose of werewolves, vampires, and
cleaver-wielding homicidal maniacs.
Much of the entertainment value of “Vep” resides in the quick costumes changes
that take place off stage as the actors morph from character to character,
including three females, a mysterious Egyptian, and a one-legged handyman in
the service of the manor house’s proprietor, Lord Edgar Hillcrest.
Under Sean Graney’s high velocity, often imaginative, and anything for a
laugh directing, the production comes at the audience full tilt with an
avalanche of sight gags, puns, double entendres, self references, and send-ups
of pop culture and high culture from Ibsen and Shakespeare to “Gaslight” and
“The Ten Commandments” (the movie), The show is a trivial pursuit lover’s
dream. Some of
the visual gags are built into Ludlam’s script but Graney frequently takes
matters into his own hands. He opens the second act with Lord Hillcrest and the
mysterious Egyptian working their way from the top of the audience, through row
after row of patrons, allowing the cast of Erik Hellman and Chris Sullivan to
employ their improvisation skills to hilarious effect. The discovery of the
mummy’s sarcophagus (humorously mispronounced by Sullivan’s Egyptian) is great
comedy and the show builds to a rip roaring conclusion highlighted by Sullivan
turning into a werewolf before our eyes, thanks to some intentionally tacky
special effects. In
between the inspired moments the play is larded with sluggish action and self
indulgence. The lampooning of old melodramas and horror stories and movies is
an easy target, both as satire and celebration. Throwing in lines from
“Macbeth” and Oscar Wilde may enhance the “nudge nudge wink wink” factor but
they can’t carry the show for two hours. The play requires constant invention
and imagination to keep the play afloat. The Court effort doesn’t lack for
comic creativity but invention does flag, especially in the ponderous first
act.
Hellman
and Sullivan certainly give it their best shot, Hellman slender and
fragile-looking and Sullivan hulking and coarse. They are both at their best in
the Egyptian scenes but they keep the energy level high throughout. In an
unconventional coup de theater, Graney brings the backstage crew onstage for
the final scene, demonstrating how the actors changed costumes away from the
audience’s gaze in a matter of moments. The exposure of the play’s artifice
surely would have pleased Ludlam (who died in 1987 at the age of 44 from AIDS).
It finally comes down to the maxim, If you like this sort of thing, this is the
sort of thing you will like. Go with an open mind and you likely will laugh a
lot more than you will fidget. Whether this is the sort of ephemera that should
occupy a slot on the Court schedule remains in the eye of the ticket buyer.
The physical production is a full partner in what success the evening provides.
Applause goes to Jack Magaw for his scenic design, Heather Gilbert for her
lighting, Alison Siple for the costumes, and Michael Griggs for the
sound.
“The Mystery of Irma Vep” runs through December 13 at the Court Theatre, 5535
South Ellis Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30, Friday at
8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30. Tickets are $32
to $56. Call 773 753 4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre.org. The show gets a rating of three stars. December 2009 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com
************************* The Piano Lesson At
the Court Theatre By Dan Zeff CHICAGO—For
more than 20 years the Court Theatre and the Goodman Theatre have been local
custodians of August Wilson’s
10-play cycle of plays about African American life during the twentieth
century. The two theaters presented most of the cycle even before the
individual plays reached Broadway. Now Chicagoland audiences are getting second looks at the
Wilson epic. The Court is currently reviving “The Piano Lesson,” which won one
of Wilson’s two Pulitzer prizes (“Fences” won the other prize and was revived
recently at the Court in a stunning production).
Each play in the cycle is set in a different decade of the
last century. “The Piano Lesson” takes place in 1936 in the playwright’s
favorite locality, Pittsburgh. Like many other plays in the cycle, “The Piano
Lesson” blends realism with the mystical and the fantastic. It explores how the
past can dominate the present, with slavery casting a long shadow over
characters generations removed from this country’s slave history. The play’s action takes place in the home of a railroad
worker named Doaker where he lives with his widowed niece Berniece and her
11-year old daughter. The central object in the home, and in the play, is an
old piano carved with images of the family’s history by a slave ancestor. The plot is driven by the conflict between Berniece and Boy
Willie, her brother come up from Mississippi with his friend Lymon to sell a
truckload of watermelons. But mainly Boy Willie has traveled north to sell the
piano he co-owns with Berniece so he can buy some farmland in Mississippi. Berniece refuses to sell the piano, claiming it preserves the
family’s heritage. Boy Willie sees the piano as a way to liberate him from the
family history of slavery and sharecropping. Buying the land in Mississippi
would validate him as a man free from the economic and psychological domination
of the white man. The confrontation is a stalemate between brother and sister
that could turn violent. The play is populated by complementary characters, all
colorful in the inimitable Wilson style. Wining Boy, another family member, is
a fast talking irresponsible boozer and hustler. Avery is a middle-aged
elevator operator with a dream of starting his own church and making Berniece his
wife. Lymon is a simple but sympathetic young man on the run from the law in
the South who wants to settle in Pittsburgh and chase women.
All the on-stage characters are black, but one white
character hovers over the narrative, the ghost of James Sutter. Back in slavery
days, Sutter’s ancestor bought the piano in exchange for Berniece’s great
grandmother (also named Berniece) and her nine-year-old son. The older
Berniece’s husband carved the family history on the piano. The father of
Berniece and Boy Willie stole the piano from the Sutter family and tried to
escape in a railway car, but he died,
along with three hobos, when a lynch mob burned the car. The dead men became
known in local legend as the Yellow Dog Ghosts, credited with drowning fire
perpetrators in various wells. The latest Sutter to drown in a well is James, now haunting
the piano for no clear reason. Members of the household have seen the ghost,
who remains invisible to the audience. Like other plays in the cycle, “The Piano Lesson” is expansive
in length (almost three hours) and filled with pungent and lyrical dialogue,
dramatic monologues, earthy comedy, and sudden bursts of song. Boy Willie is
one of the great figures in the boundless Wilson gallery of imaginatively
conceived men and women—a character of limitless energy and determination,
fearless and proud, funny, and fixated on owning his own land to claim his
manhood and make his mark in the world. The man dominates the Court production
in Ronald Conner’s robust performance. The entire Court ensemble under Ron OJ Parson’s directing
turns in first-rate work. Give A. C. Smith an outsized emotional role and
nobody in Chicagoland theater can beat him. As Doaker, Smith is passive for
much of the play, but when Wilson turns the character loose, Smith is riveting,
especially when he tells the gripping story behind the Yellow Dog Ghosts. There
is also fine work by Tyla Abercrumbie as Berniece, Brian Weddington as Lymon,
Alfred Wilson as Wining Boy, and Allen Edge as Avery. The superior acting only partially masks weak spots in the
play. A short romantic interlude between Lymon and Berniece doesn’t work. The
injection of stomping song and dance interrupts the flow of the narrative yet
we wouldn’t want to be without these joyous interludes. The play is overstuffed with plot strands.
For example, Boy Willie and Lymon pick up a young woman named Grace, a
character who contributes nothing to the story. When Berniece points a pistol
at Boy Willie, “The Piano Lesson” briefly descends into melodrama. But the major difficulty is the incompatibility of the
supernatural with the play’s naturalism. The final scene is an exorcism of
Sutter’s ghost featuring frenzied sound and lighting effects. The tumult of the
exorcism drowns out essential dialogue and stimulated giggles from the opening
night audience when the mood should have been shock and terror. At the end of
the scene, the play just stops. A viewer unfamiliar with the script likely will
leave the theater perplexed about just what happened during and after that
furious battle with Sutter’s ghost. Still, the play’s flaws are overwhelmed by
the bountiful language and the vibrancy of the characters. The good news for
Wilson fans is that the Court will open its 2009-2010 season with the great
man’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Keith Pitts designed the detailed interior of Doaker’s home
and Christine Pascual designed the Depression era costumes. Richard Norwood
(lighting) and Nick Keenan (sound) designed the slam-bang special effects that
simulate the invasion and dispatch of Sutter’s ghost. “The Piano Lesson” runs through June 7 at the Court Theatre,
5535 South Ellis Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.,
Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $32 to $54. Call 773 753 4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre.org. The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars. May 2009 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com
. ************************* Radio Macbeth At
the Court Theatre By Dan Zeff CHICAGO—“Radio
Macbeth” recreates a broadcast of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” in a 1940’s radio
studio in some unnamed city by an unidentified group of actors. The concept
revival is being presented at the Court Theatre by the SITI Company, one of the
more enterprising permanent theater troupes in the country. The 90-minute production abridges the text and eliminates all
the visuals so essential to a traditional staging of the tragedy. There are no
grotesque witches murmuring over a boiling cauldron, no dagger coated with
Duncan’s blood, no mist drenched Highlands, no swordplay and violent battle
scenes.
Instead, the play is performed by seven actors in the period
clothing of the 1940’s (why this period was selected is not explained). The set consists of the empty studio late one
night, with a few tables and chairs and microphones as the only props. For visual impact, the production relies on
dramatic lighting, vivid sound effects, and mostly important, the power of
Shakespeare’s text, even in an abbreviated version. The SITI version may be difficult to follow for spectators
unfamiliar with the original “Macbeth,” though one presumes that everyone in
the typical Court audience has at least a passing knowledge of the story. The spectator disorientation could be
compounded by the actors playing multiple roles, including several different
players who recite Macbeth’s lines until the actor who takes on the role makes
a late appearance on the stage. Thus the viewer can’t attach one actor to one
character throughout the evening. The audience also has to deal with an elusive subtext in the
production. Along with the tragedy itself, there are emotional undercurrents
within the acting company, especially surrounding the actress who plays Lady
Macbeth. But these hints of tension are never explored, leaving the viewer to
speculate, an annoying distraction. At the end of the production the actor who
plays Macbeth is left alone on the stage, staring with a haunted look into the
middle distance. What that final image is supposed to signify is anyone’s
guess. If the viewers can set accommodate the side issues of the
radio performance, they will enjoy a solid presentation of a condensed version
of “Macbeth.” The SITI ensemble is very comfortable with Shakespeare’s language
and the intensity of the story is captured nicely, at least for those who can
follow the plot from previous exposure to the play. The production injects a few neat theatrical touches. For
example, at the end of the play the climactic battle between Macbeth and
Macduff gets so heated between the two actors that a third actor borrows “hold,
enough” from Macbeth’s speech to defuse a confrontation that could turn violent
between the performers. The production’s lighting ranges from pitch dark and shadowy
to startling bursts of brilliant illumination that bathe the entire stage. The
soundscape is a mix of electronic music and noises that would enhance the
atmosphere of a radio broadcast and certainly enrich the staging at the Court. All seven members of the ensemble do well, led by Ellen
Lauren as Lady Macbeth and Stephen Webber as Macbeth. They are supported in
about two dozen roles by Akiko Aizawa, Will Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Barney
O’Hanlon, and Makela Spielman. They are all good, even Aizawa with her Japanese
brogue, but Spielman gets especially high marks for an eerie rendering of the
single witch preserved in the adaptation.
The production is co-directed by Darron L. West (who is also
the sound designer) and SITI artistic director Anne Bogart. James Schuette
designed the set and costumes and Brian H. Scott designed the lighting. “Radio Macbeth” may be a struggle for beginners to the play
and the mysteries surrounding the radio broadcast occasionally carry a whiff of
the pretentious. But for most of the evening the audience is exposed to some
first rate Shakespeare, and customers open to a new take on the tragedy should
come away well satisfied. “Radio Macbeth” runs through December 7 at the Court Theatre,
5335 South Ellis Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.,
Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $32 to $56. Call 773 753 4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre,org. The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars. November 2008 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
********************** Caroline, or Change At
the Court Theatre By Dan Zeff CHICAGO-The
opening night audience at the Court Theatre gave “Caroline, or Change” a
raucous ovation at the curtain call. The spectators left the theater on an
emotional high, and rightly so. This is an inventive, highly personal musical.
The show may be some kind of quirky masterpiece, but it also carries a
considerable load of thematic difficulties. Tony Kushner (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (music)
created the show out of Kushner’s memories of growing up in a Jewish household
in Deep South Louisiana. The work opened off Broadway in 1963 and transferred
to Broadway, where it had a modest and unprofitable run. It’s no surprise the
show didn’t fly on Broadway. If ever there was a non-Broadway vehicle, it’s
“Caroline, or Change.” The musical is really an
upstairs-downstairs narrative about two families under stress. Caroline is a
39-year old African American maid working in the Gellman home in Lake Charles,
Louisiana. The time is late 1963. It begins the day John F. Kennedy is
assassinated but the more enduring news of the day is the rising voice of the
civil rights movement. Caroline struggles to raise four
children on a starvation salary, cooking and cleaning, and washing for the
Gellmans. Three of her children are at home and the oldest is fighting in
Vietnam. Caroline’s realm is the laundry room 16 feet below sea level. There,
in the oppressive heat, she washes and
irons the Gellman laundry, accompanied by a singing washing machine and a singing
dryer (nearly all the show is sung). Caroline is an angry woman, embittered
by her hard scrabble life of poverty, grinding work, racism, and memories of an
abusive husband who abandoned his family years before. Above stairs is the Gellman family. Eight-year
old Noah still grieves for his mother, who died of cancer shortly before the
start of the musical. He visits Caroline daily, seeking the warmth and
affection he can’t locate in his aloof father and his new stepmother, a woman
from the North trying to adjust to the South and to Noah’s animosity. The
Gellman part of the show plays like a Philip Roth satire about middle class
Jewish life. The household is visited by the father’s parents and mother’s father, Mr. Stopnick. Together they
come across as a collection of American Jewish stereotypes, like Mr. Stopnick,
an old time leftist radical calling for the black people to rise up against
their capitalist oppressors. The show is on solid theatrical and
dramatic ground as long as it stays with Caroline. The “change” of the title
has two meanings. It refers to the special changes in the air as civil rights
demands turn militant. Then there is the change in coins that Noah leaves in
his clothing pockets for Caroline to find. The small amounts would ease the
maid’s impoverished life but instead she retains the money in a bleach cup, in
spite of the request by Noah’s mother for Caroline to keep the money to teach
the boy a lesson. A
dramatic pivot in the second act comes when Noah accidentally leaves a $20 Hanukkah
gift from Mr. Stopnick in a pocket and Caroline refuses to return it. The $20
means new clothes and dental care and Christmas for her children. The boy
explodes in a fury of hateful curses against the maid who responds “Hell’s so
hot it makes flesh fry/ and hell’s where Jews go when they die.” The fierce
exchange underscores one of the musical’s themes, the uneasy relationship
between blacks and white Jews at the drawn of the civil rights era. The second act portrays the breach
between Caroline and her teenaged daughter Emmie, one of the new breed of young
black people who reject their parents’ defeatism and look optimistically to a
new day of black liberation from intolerance and oppression. Normally, the end
of the show would give us a new Caroline, a woman who sheds her bitterness and
joins heart and mind with Emmie to face a brave new world for black people in
the South. But Caroline cannot and will not change. Her life is too steeped in
hard times and backbreaking labor. She ends the story still armored in her
resentment. That’s who she is, for better or worse. Kushner and Tesori give Caroline a long
second act soliloquy of enormous emotional potency, a real showcase for the
powerhouse voice of E. Faye Butler, who superbly captures Caroline’s bitter
outlook on her world. The number could have been a fitting conclusion to the
show, which meanders on for more several minutes, almost like the creators
weren’t sure how to end their work. But the final image of a grim Caroline
standing behind her three children, the hopeful next black generation, is a
stunner.Kushner
leavens his realistic story with offbeat fantasy bits, like the singing washing
machine and dryer, a singing Moon, and a black girl trio who collectively play
the character of Caroline’s radio (she’s too poor to have a TV set). Tesori’s
score dips into rhythm and blues, blues, rock music of the early 1960’s, and
even traditional Hanukkah songs and Christmas carols. The musical is a triumph for Butler but
the honor roll is a long one, starting with Charles Newell, who provides
endlessly inventive directorial flourishes. He works terrifically within John
Culbert’s set, an imaginative multi level design with a pit at center stage
representing Caroline’s hellish laundry room. The excellent small orchestra,
led by Adam DeGroot’s virtuoso clarinet playing, sits above the action, while
the Gellman element of the story is played out on the stage level. There is distinction everywhere in the
supporting cast. Melanie Brezill delivers a magnificent vocal and acting
portrayal of the rebellious Emmie. Kate Fry, as usual, is exemplary, this time
as Noah’s mother, locked into an unhappy relationship with her stepson in a
land she neither likes nor understands. Dennis Kelly as Mr. Stopnick, Iris Lieberman
and Peter Kevoin as Noah’s grandparents, and Rob Lindley as Noah’s father are
all well up to the mark. And
then there is Malcolm Durning as Noah (he alternates with Jack Mulopulos). I
can’t remember seeing a more complex or physically demanding role for a child
actor, but Winnetka sixth grader Durning sings and acts, and even dances a
little like a real pro. He is a lynchpin of the production. Jacqueline
Williams is excellent as Caroline’s friend Dolly, a woman moving on with her
life who wants Caroline to do the same. The ensemble is rounded out by Harriet
Nzinga Plumpp, Starr Busby, Rebecca Lynn Davis, Donica Lynn, Byron Glen Willis,
and Donavan Epison and Micah Pejon Williams as Caroline’s two younger children
(alternating with Gregory Franklin. The outstanding design credits are
completed by Robert Denton (lighting), Jacqueline Firkins (costumes), and
Joshua Horvath and Rick Sims (sound). “Caroline, or Change” runs through
October 19 at the Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis Avenue. Performances are
Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8
p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $32 to $60. Call 773 753
4472 or visit www.CourtTheatre.org. The show gets a rating of 3 1/2 stars. Sept. 2008 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
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First Breeze of Summer
at the Court Theatre
By Dan Zeff
CHICAGO—The major Chicago theaters have been presenting at least one African American play on their subscription schedule for several seasons. Typically the plays are new or recent works of varying quality but consistently serious in their purpose of exploring African American history or contemporary life.
These theaters rarely have revived black plays from a golden age of African American theater, roughly from the late 1960’s through the 1980’s. The Court Theatre is reaching back to this era with a revival of Leslie Lee’s 1975 drama “First Breeze of Summer.” The Lee play originally opened, to much praise off Broadway and then transferred to Broadway under the sponsorship of the Negro Ensemble Theatre, the driving force in black American theater for more than two decades.
“First Breeze of Summer” holds up pretty well a generation after its premiere. Lee’s play is long and leisurely for the first two-third of its 2 hours and 30 minutes of running time, when it erupts into an emotional frenzy. The drama isn’t a masterpiece, but it deserves a hearing, especially in the fine Court production directed by Ron OJ Parson.
“First Breeze of Summer” portrays three generations of an extended black family in a small Northeastern city during one hot June week in the 1970’s. The heart of the play is the family matriarch, an endearing old woman called Gremmar. The action takes place in the home of Gremmar’s son Milton with frequent, and stagy, flashbacks to Gremmar’s life as a young woman named Lucretia.
Lucretia has three illegitimate children by three different fathers, two black and one white, all of whom desert her. She is left to make her way in life, burdened by the multiple handicaps of being unmarried, black, and lumbered with three children (one of whom dies in infancy). Her first lover is an angry but sympathetic young black man, followed by a rebellious young white man, and concluding with a naïve black preacher. Somehow, the sexually active and occasionally manipulative Lucretia survived to become a lovable, pious old woman, though the play never says how.
“First Breeze of Summer” isn’t plot-driven, but we do meet a lot of interesting and entertaining characters, including Gremmar’s two surviving children, Lucretia’s three lovers, and her two grandchildren (Lou and Nathan). The sensitive Lou undergoes a spiritual crisis that touches off the extravagant emotional fireworks of the play’s final half hour, though why he freaks out is a frenzied blur that lacks preparation for audience credibility.
Throughout the play we observe the generational conflicts, jealousies, and resentments common to all families, at least on the stage. Lee’s play touches on race, but it’s not an angry play with a racial agenda. And as in most family plays, once the emotional explosions have been detonated, a mood of reconciliation takes over, symbolized in the first breeze of summer that breaks the stifling heat wave.
The best scene in the play comes when the local preacher leads Gremmar’s family in a living room revival meeting that erupts into some glorious testifying and gospel singing, much to the jubilation of the older characters and the embarrassment of the two grandsons. The exultant energy of the scene could have been extracted from an August Wilson play.
The final scenes turn operatic in their high-pitched emotionalism, and the contrast with the preceding scenes is too abrupt. The scenery chewing at the end doesn’t invalidate the display of strong characters and vigorous dialogue that make the play work but it’s still a problem.
Gremmar and Lucretia dominate the narrative, but they are complemented by a full-blooded set of supporting characters, starting with Milton, a plasterer struggling to carve a niche in the middle class for himself and his family. Milton’s outsized personality fills up the stage, thanks to the volcanic performance by A. C. Smith. No actor of any race in Chicagoland theater surpasses Smith in roles calling for intensity and displays of towering feeling.
The Court production employs the cream of local African American performers, starting with A. C. Smith and Pat Bowie as the benevolent Gremmar. There is fine work by Cynthia Kaye McWilliams as Lucretia, Taj McCord, Jonathan Eliot, and Ronald Conner as the three fathers, and Calvin Dutton and Brian Weddington as the grandsons. They are ably complemented by Marsha Estell, Jacqueline Williams, Alfred Wilson, and Ebony Wimbs.
Jack Magaw designed the realistic and functional bi-level set. Marc Stubblefield’s lighting is effective in the flashback scenes. Christine Pascual designed the costumes and Joshua Horvath and Ray Nardelli the sound plus the original music.
“First Breeze of Summer” runs through June 15 at the Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $32 to $54. Call 773 753 4472.
The show gets a rating of 3 stars. May 2008
For more information visit www.CourtTheatre.org
Contact Dan: zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
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Titus Andronicus
at the Court Theatre
By Dan Zeff
CHICAGO—The noted literary critic and scholar Harold Bloom once wrote that Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” was unplayable unless the production treated the script as a parody of Elizabethan tragedy. Bloom commented that he didn’t think he would want to see “Titus” again unless it was directed by Mel Brooks.
Bloom’s problem with “Titus Andronicus,” and the problem many scholars and audiences have with the work, is the story’s outrageous violence. There is rape and mutilation and barbaric cruelty that more closely resemble one of today’s “Saw” movies than a classic tragedy.
Shakespeare set “Titus Andronicus” in a never-never land of ancient Rome. The violent deaths start in the opening minutes and don’t cease until the final blackout. All the killings and mutilations result from a cycle of revenge, beginning when the captive Goth queen Tamora seeks reprisal from the execution of her son by Titus. That triggers carnage that is climaxed by Titus killing Tamora’s two sons and serving their flesh to their mother in a pie at a banquet in her honor. By this time the audience doesn’t know whether to giggle or recoil in revulsion.
Only one character in the play is up to Shakespeare’s standard, a Moor named Aaron. He’s one of the many villains, but he at least luxuriates in the droll self-awareness of his villainy. The other characters are mostly one-dimensional bloodletting machines.
The Court Theatre is reviving “Titus Andronicus,” and director-adapter Charles Newell clearly recognizes that the play presents considerable problems of credibility to an audience. So Newell imposes a concept on the story as a play within a play. The evening opens at the meeting of an unidentified elite brotherhood gathered to induct new members. The brotherhood consists mostly of young males, all dressed alike in uniforms, with a pair of handsomely gowned women as special guests.
As part of the induction ceremony, the brotherhood selects “Titus Andronicus” to be performed. In the early staging of the play, there is much joking around and breaking of character as the actors casually read from paperback editions of the script. This approach does earn some laughs, but it carries difficulties that trouble the production throughout the evening, which runs about two hours without an intermission. With most of the actors being the same age and dressed identically, it’s almost impossible for the viewer to figure out who is who in the story. Everyone looks the same. Gradually the central characters become more clearly delineated, but any spectator unfamiliar with the plot likely will be lost for the first half of the evening.
The tone dramatically shifts from comedy to stark seriousness with the rape and mutilation of Lavinia, Titus’s daughter, by Tamora’s two sons. From then on, the savagery of the play takes over, enhanced by the members of the brotherhood being absorbed into their roles so we can’t be sure if they are following Shakespeare’s script or acting out the violence on their own (for example, was the woman playing Lavinia actually raped by a couple of brotherhood members offstage?).
The sheer horror of the escalating tide of butchery does give “Titus Andronicus” a perverse fascination, like watching a bloody train wreck. But the play turns so powerful toward the end that one wonders why Newell didn’t direct the tragedy as written instead of putting the audience off balance with the initial facetious style. I’ve seen “Titus Andronicus” twice, and while it was no fun to watch, the show does hold the stage, and the Court ensemble demonstrates the potential to make the work a sledgehammer viewing experience without all the directorial improvements.
Newell deserves some credit for his audacity in imposing his concept on the play. The abrupt change of tone may be open to question, but the production is strikingly theatrical. And nobody can claim that Newell is tampering with a masterpiece. “Titus Andronicus” is a potboiler that probably would never be revived if it didn’t have Shakespeare’s name attached to it. Ultimately how well this version succeeds resides in the eye of the beholder.
The performances are generally first rate. Timothy Edward Kane is superb as the fiery and anguished Titus. Kevin Gudahl, the only actor who plays his role straight from the beginning, is very strong as Marcus, the closest character to a good guy in the story. Phillip James Brannon makes a commanding Aaron, though I didn’t pick up on some of his lines. Hollis Resnik is fine as the regal and vicious Tamora, and there are very good performances by Matthew Brumlow and Matt Schwader (as the monstrous and craven Emperor Saturninus). For some reason, several members of the cast rotate among the supporting roles, so some audiences may see Anish Jethmalani as Saturninus. Other members of the cast, all commendable, are Daniel Behrendt, Eddie Bennett, Erik Hellman, Andy Nagraj, and Corey Rieger.
But the performance of the night belongs to Elizabeth Ledo as Lavinia, who opens the story as something of a party girl in a heavy romantic relationship with one of the brotherhood members. But then she morphs into Lavinia, and after the character’s rape and mutilation, Ledo must play the character silently, but with such an expressive sense of violation and suffering that it’s heartbreaking to watch her. It’s a stunning piece of acting that sticks in the mind long after the brutal excesses of the play have drained away.
Leigh Breslau designed the modernist two-level set. Miranda Hoffman designed the costumes, Brian Scott the lighting, and Joshua Horvath the sound.
“Titus Andronicus” runs through February 10 at the Court Theatre, 5535 South Ellis Avenue. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30, Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $32 to $54. Call 773 753 4472.
For more information contact: www.CourtTheatre.org
The show gets a rating of 3 ½ stars.
Jan. 2008
Contact us : zeffdaniel@yahoo.com