My Life in the Theater: AN ILIAD

We saw this last week at the Performance Network Theater in Ann Arbor. The play sold out for its entire run and it was easy to see why. John Manfredi is amazing in a one-man show that tells the story of THE ILIAD, but also makes a case for the history of war-which coincides with the history of mankind.

AN ILIAD was written by Lisa Peterson and David O'Hare, based on the work of Homer, of course. It won a 2012 Obie award.

If it comes your way, you won't regret seeing it.

My Life in the Theater: A Walk in the Woods

I saw this play by Lee Blessing twenty years ago at least when it was far more timely than it is now.  It concerns two men, one from the US and one from the USSR negotiating SALT talks in Geneva. Because it focuses solely on that subject rather than on the men or anything else, it seems pretty dated now. It was a decent production at the Quoridian Theater in Bethesda, Maryland. Its original production was in 1986 when this subject was highly relevant.

MY LIFE AT THE THEATER: NEXT TO NORMAL

NEXT TO NORMAL won the Pulitzer Award for Drama in 2010 despite not being nominated. It is a spectacular musical, unlike any other. It deals with the affect of mental illness on a family-and the difficulty of treating it despite all the pharmaceuticals we have to treat it with. Amazing performances, great set, great play. Loved it.

We saw it at the Meadowbrook Theater in Rochester, Michigan. Yes, local theater is great. Say what you want about Detroit, we do have local theater and plenty of it.

My Life in the Theater: GEM OF THE OCEAN

August Wilson wrote GEM OF THE OCEAN a year or two before he died. It is part of his cycle of plays about the lives of African-Americans throughout the 20th century and actually is the first in the cycle despite being written near the end of Wilson's life. It is set 1904 in Pittsburgh and concerns a woman who is a healer and the man who comes to her for healing. The Cyngnet Theater in Old Town (the oldest section of San Diego) put on a very fine production and any faults lay in the somewhat didactic text. My favorites are PIANO LESSON and FENCES. But it is nice to see another piece of the 12-play cycle.

My Life in the Theater: Clybourne Park

We saw this at the San Diego Repertory Theater last week. It was an outstanding production of a thoughtful, funny, sad, truthful play about racism. Hard to think of a better play in the last five years and the acting by the company here was sublime. Local theater can be such an enriching experience.

MY Life in the Theater: Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood

We saw this play by Barret O'Brien in 2003 at the Southern New Plays Festival in New Orleans. If we are at a conference, we often seek out plays in the area and this was how we saw this play. Mr. O'Brien seems to be a prominent New Orleans playwright, an interesting phenomena that we have seen locally. A writer will find a local theater eager to perform his plays.

This play was included in the American Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2003. It was the story of husband and wife actors both nominated for Oscars. Sorry that I don't remember more but I think we enjoyed it.

My Life in the Theater" The Misanthrope

Saw this one at the Attic Theater in Detroit in 1991. I am sure I have seen it several other times over the years. It endures because its themes endure I guess. Or that's what is says in the director's notes. The Attic Theater was such a great resource for Detroit. I am very sad it has never returned.

Lavinia Moyer helmed the Attic 1976-94, through years that saw great promise, artistic success and, finally, financial despair for the nonprofit. The Attic for many years was considered the city of Detroit's most artistically sound resident theatre, but a fire at its Greektown-area location began years of financial instability that saw the company move to various spaces, including a partially-renovated Strand Theatre in downtown Pontiac, MI (1992-94).
The Attic later limped along artistically and financially at a space in Trapper's Alley, in Detroit's Greektown, before presenting sporadically in Pontiac (after being shut out of the Strand by the city of Pontiac).
The Attic Theater Moyer knew -- one of beneficient subscribers and promise and donations and returning artists and Equity actors -- is gone now. Too bad for us.

FRIDAY'S FORGOTTEN BOOK LINKS WON'T BE UP UNTIL AROUND 12:00 EST due to my location. 

My Life at the Theater: FAITH HEALER, BRIAN FRIEL

We saw a terrific production of this play at the Abreacht Theater in Detroit (this is the director, Charles Reynolds). It's done in a series of four monologues by a faith healer, his wife, his manager, and then him again. The performances were outstanding. I have to say the Irish know how to tell a good story and this one stands out. There are some mysteries here and you can make your own interpretation of events.

My Life in the Theater: A Little Night Music

Strangely enough this is the first Sondheim production I have seen and we saw it last week at the Performance Network in Ann Arbor. It was terrific. Now I am keen to see more. Music and lyrics by Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler based on a Bergman film SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT.

My Life at the Theater: A Skull In Connemara

Nice little prologue here courtesy of I don't know who but thanks.

We saw this at the Abreacht Theater in September, 2012. I am a sucker for Irish plays and this little theater put on a good production. Martin McDonagh is the playwright.  For one week each autumn, Mick Dowd is hired to dissenter the bones in a local cemetery to make room for new arrivals. As the time comes for him to dig up the bones of his dead wife, rumors begin to circulate about her sudden death seven years before. Really nice production.

My Life in the Theater: AN IDEAL HUSBAND

We saw Oscar Wilde's AN IDEAL HUSBAND at the Shaw Festival in summer, 2010. It was an excellent production, the staging and costumes were terrific.

Here is a cute video that shows how the stage got changed between THE WOMAN and THE IDEAL HUSBAND that summer. The Shaw Festival has three theaters, each showing 2-3 plays. The Stratford has four theaters, each showing 2-3 plays. The Canadians really take these festivals seriously.

Amazing how these theaters put on so many plays at once. AN IDEAL HUSBAND first played in 1895. Its wit and the topic plays well more than 125 years later. It has been filmed three times, most recently in 1998 with Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Rupert Everett and Jeremy Northam.

My Life in the Theater: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

We have probably all seen the movie version of this with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor where the book's subtext of Brick's homosexuality is submerged beneath illusions of something else. We saw it in 1992 at the Hilberry Theater, which is the graduate repertory theater associated with Wayne State University in Detroit. A young actor, Thorsten Kaye, played Brick, the Newman role. I thought it would be fun to see whether he had any success after his years in Detroit and see he is currently on the tv show SMASH. He seems to have had steady if not spectacular success since 1992.

Here is a clip from the original Broadway version with Ben Gazarra and Barbara Bel Geddes

My Life at the Theater: ONE TOUCH OF VENUS

We saw this episodically charming musical at the Shaw Festival at Niagara on the Lake in 2010. The show was written by Ogden Nash and S.J. Perelman, with the music by Kurt Weil. The clip above is from a Broadway version. It has also been made into a film with Ava Gardner. The book isn't particularly riveting but a lot of the music and staging was fun. It's the story of the goddess, Venus, brought to life.
For musical theater lovers, there are some lovely songs.

My Life at the Theater: Love and Anger

George F. Walker is a renown Canadian playwright whose work should be performed in the U.S. more often. I saw this play at the Attic Theater in Detroit in 1992. Sad to say, I have little memory of it. It originally opened at the Factory Theater (Toronto) in 1989 to positive reviews and standing ovations. It examines a variety of moral issues through the metaphor  of class conflict as embodied in the lives of society's downtrodden. But it is also a comedy.

Walker wrote 19 comedies in 20 years at the time that this one was in Detroit. He is known for making the bizarre believable.
The Attic Theater was big on socially relevant plays as I look through my programs from the years it existed. The Attic was the baby of Lavinia Moyer who still directs theater in Detroit.

My Life at the Theater: THREE SISTERS

I have never seen the movie shown here (is it a parody?) but we saw the play THREE SISTERS by Anton Chekhov at the Stratford Festival in 2008. I must confess I far prefer Chekhov's stories to his plays, which seem overly lethargic, dramatic, enigmatic. For me, a play is immediate and I have little patience with enigmatic characters on a stage. Especially a cast full of them. When reading a play, you can stop to mull a line over but on stage, the action or inaction continues.

But I am sure there are some great fans of his plays.

My Life at the Theater: HENRY V

We saw this at Stratford Shakespeare Festival this summer. A nicely mounted production but not my favorite play by any means. The actor playing Henry played Lenny in THE HOMECOMING last season and oh, my I liked him better in that. He was transfixing in that play.

I have to admit Shakespeare's history plays leave me cold except for Richard III.Am I a philistine?

My Life at the Theater: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

We saw THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY at the Abbey Theater on September 29th. What a special place to see this scary work by Oscar Wilde. The young actor playing Dorian was in his first play and he was marvelous. Sweeping around like the narcissistic prig he was. The production never showed the painting. They used a huge frame with a blank background. At first, I found it jarring, but eventually it came to seem like a good decision. Horror is scarier imagined, I think.

For anyone who's interested, I have an interview at Tom Pluck's Belly Up to the Bar. It's because I am widely known for my drinking prowess. 

My Life at the Theater: Dubliners

This was performed at the Gaiety Theater in Dublin two weeks ago. It was an amazing production where more than half of the stories in Joyce's  DUBLINERS were magically brought to life almost solely through his words and a few changes of costume. Seeing it in the city of Dublin was just terrific.

Adapted by Michael West and Annie Ryan
. Four performances of this classic were not nearly enough. I have to assume it will play elsewhere. It would be a travesty if it were not.

My Life at the Theater: THE SALT WOUND

We saw this in Edinburgh at the fringe festival in 1994. The play is by Stephen Greenhorn and deals with a fishing community and the trials and tribulations such families live through.

The Edinburgh fringe festival prides itself on showing small and experimental plays that could not get major productions. I see this one has been produced again. And that Mr. Greenhorn is still writing for the stage and screen.

My Life at the Theater: A Hard Heart

I saw this at the Clurman Theater in New York in 2007. I can think of few plays I liked less than this one. It was cynical without being interesting. Opaque and yet preachy at the same time. I'll leave it at that. I can't think why we chose it. Maybe the tickets were free?