"God Girl" at the History Theatre

We all know that during the Women's Rights Movement of the '60s and '70s, women fought for equality on all fronts. But one such front that may be a bit lesser known is the ministry. One would think that institutions that are supposedly dedicated to faith and community might be more accepting of the idea of equality. As it turns out, not so much. In fact, religious institutions seem to be some of the last remaining bastions of male power. Minnesotan Kristine Holmgren was among the first wave of women to attend seminary in the '70s, and became one of Minnesota's first Presbyterian pastors. But it was not an easy road; she faced much discrimination and sexual harassment on her path. Lucky for us, she's also a playwright, and has turned her experiences into the new play God Girl, premiering at St. Paul's History Theatre. Her story makes for a compelling, engaging, inspiring, and relatable (judging by the extremely responsive audience) stage play.

The play begins with an introduction from Kristine's mother (a delightful Peggy O'Connell), who serves as a narrator and sounding board for Kristine (an extremely likeable Summer Hagen, portraying a character who's complex and real) throughout the play. She tells us that Kristine was always curious and loved the church, and never wanted anything other than to work in the ministry. The play mostly takes place during Kristine's first semester at an unnamed Ivy league seminary. She and her fellow female students, including Southern belle Cathy (Hannah Benedict) and sensible Unitarian Debi (Meagan Kedrowski) face daily harassment from their male classmates and belittlement from their professors. Kristine is excited to start her field internship with the well-known pastor McGovern (Sean Dooley, whose charm soon turns to creepy). At first he seems quite supportive and helpful, until it eventually becomes obvious that the attention is inappropriate from a married mentor and pastor. But Kristine and her friends "hang on for the blessing;" she endures what she shouldn't have to endure, completes her education, and begins the career she always dreamed of, paving the way for the women behind her.

the God Girls (Meagen Kedrowski,
Hannah Benedict, and Summer
Hagen, photo by Scott Pakudaitis)

Even though it takes place in the '70s, this play is not dated. It's so important to remember what this first generation of feminists went through. I attended college and received a degree in math (also a male-dominated field) a mere 20 years after this play takes place, but I faced none of the discrimination and harassment that Kristine and her classmates did. In fact the idea of women being told not to ask questions in class, or receiving multiple proposals from their male classmates, or being propositioned by their professors, is almost unthinkable today. Not to say that it doesn't happen, perhaps in more subtle ways, or that we don't still have work to do, but the world really has changed for women over the past 40 years. And it's thanks to the brave and determined women like Kristine.

But the play isn't all serious, there are some light-hearted moments and the always popular Minnesota and Unitarian jokes (a la Garrison Keillor). And the '70s setting means fun costumes - bell bottoms and flowered dresses mixed with conservative minister attire (by Kelsey Glasener), and a groovy soundtrack, complete with dancing scene changes, contrasting with Rick Polenek's stately church-like set.

I was lucky enough to attend the show on a day when there was a post-show discussion with the playwright and a few experts. She's so smart, thoughtful, and articulate that it gives me hope for the world, that women like Kristine Holmgren continue to lead the way towards a more egalitarian future. Bring your daughters (and sons) to the History Theatre to see God Girl, the all too true story of a real pioneer (as her mother rightly called her).

Pastor Kristine (Summer Hagen, photo by Scott Pakudaitis)

"Prints" by Torch Theater Company at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage

This has been a most excellent week of theater. I saw five shows (four plays and one musical), and each was so different from the rest but so wonderful in its own unique way. I truly experienced the breadth and depth of the Twin Cities theater community this week, from a lovely and intimate two-person musical, to an intensely dramatic historical play, to a funny and poignant play about small town Minnesota, to a wildly inventive new fairy tale. And capping it off is Prints, a sharp and funny new play written by local actor John Middleton and presented by Torch Theater Company (their first production in over a year), brilliantly acted by the company of eight, "corrupted from a true story" about the kidnapping of Minnesota beer tycoon William Hamm in 1933.* I couldn't have asked for a better conclusion to this most excellent week of theater.

The story in Prints features a mishmash of facts from the true story of the Barker-Karpis gang, along with completely made up bits designed to tell an entertaining story. And it works. We view the kidnapping through the eyes of two reporters who are asked by the kidnapped man's daughter Pearl to help investigate. They soon decipher that it must be the work of the infamous Barker-Karpis gang, and work with a corrupt cop and the Hamm family to try to prove it and find Hamm. The FBI gets involved and applies the brand new "Silver Nitrate Method" to pull fingerprints off the ransom note (this part of the story is true). Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the stage, the gang is holding poor Mr. Hamm hostage and trying to figure out how they're going to get out of this mess.

The highlights are many and include:

• The tone is pitch-perfect, as director Craig Johnson gets just the right mix of sharp humor and occasional darkness from his cast. Some audience members were laughing during the shooting scenes but I found them sad and scary.
• Speaking of, Zach Curtis is truly formidable as the unstable gangster "Creepy" Karpis, and is the one dark element that anchors the comedy and gives real weight to this crime story, despite the silly shenanigans going on around him. There's nothing funny about Creepy (at least not that you would admit in his presence).
• On the opposite end of the spectrum, Karen Wiese-Thompson cracked me up as the flighty socialite Mitzi Hamm with her every expression and gesture, and also brings a bit of pathos to the role of Ma Barker - a mother who loves her boys, even though those boys are gangsters.
• Playwright John Middleton and Mo Perry share a witty banter and sly humor as the reporters, in a His Girl Friday sort of way.
• Most of the cast play multiple roles, and slip easily and quickly back and forth between the different skins they inhabit, including Summer Hagen as Pearl, Creepy's girl, and FBI director Hoover; Casey Hoekstra as an uptight FBI agent and the nervous gangster Doc, who's on the receiving end of much of Creepy's brutality; Ari Hoptman as everybody's favorite bartender, the kidnapped man with a bag over his head, and a stand-up comic with jokes so bad they're funny; and Sam Landman as the corrupt Minnesota cop and one of the Barker boys. Just really beautiful and interesting and funny performances by everyone in every role.
• The writing is really fantastic - sharp and tight, with one particularly clever scene featuring two interrelated and overlapping interrogations by the two reporters.
• I love the range of accents, from gangsters who talk like we think gangsters talked, to women who talk like women in old movies, to Mitzi's occasionally returning German accent, to the very Minnesotan cop.
• The set by Michael Hoover (who I swear is the busiest set designer in the Cities) is a perfect backdrop. A brick wall with several doors, and a Hamm's label functioning as a scree upon which videos are played and behind which shadowed scenes take place. (Although the multiple levels seemed to be a bit tricky for the cast to negotiate as they tripped more than once, but never breaking character for a moment so that the stumbles almost seemed planned.)
• Finally, the period costumes (by John Woskoff) look pretty snazzy and help differentiate the multiple characters.

Welcome back Torch Theater Company, don't be gone so long next time! This is a great example of why the Twin Cities theater community is so stellar - a new play by a local playwright, an ensemble of individual talents who work well together, and an all around high quality production. Playing now through March 8 at the Minneapolis Theater Garage, with discount tickets available on Goldstar.

*This is not the first show I've seen on this topic, see also History Theatre's Capital Crimes: The St. Paul Gangster Musical.

"Tales from Hollywood" at the Guthrie Theater

To complete the Christopher Hampton trilogy that is the beginning of the Guthrie's 50th anniversary season, I saw Tales from Hollywood last night. And it is perhaps my favorite of the three plays, which also include the historical drama Appomattox and the small but intense relationship drama Embers. It's funny and clever, yet sad and moving, with staging that turns the Thrust stage into a Hollywood studio.

Like Appomattox, Tales from Hollywood is based on true events in American history. The time is the 1930s and 1940s, the place is Hollywood. The narrator and main character is real-life Austro-Hungarian writer Ödön von Horváth. The play begins by telling us that Ödön died when a tree branch fell on his head in 1938, and then goes on to re-imagine his life if he had lived and followed many of his fellow European writers to Hollywood to make a living writing for the movies. German writers Bertolt Brecht and brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann are among those writers who were forced to leave their native country at a time when the Nazis were burning books (and, of course, committing many more awful crimes). Ödön leads us through the experience of writing "scenarios" for movie studios when he could barely speak English, adjusting to life in a different culture, and dealing with being German (or Communist?) in post-WWII America.

The fabulous cast is mostly led by Guthrie newcomers, with many Guthrie favorites in the ensemble. Lee Sellers as Ödön is wonderfully sympathetic and a great guide throughout the story. He has no accent while narrating or talking to other Europeans, but speaks in accented and fragmented English while speaking to Americans. A nice touch, it always annoys me when, in American made movies, people in other countries are seen speaking English with an accent to each other when they should be speaking their native tongue. This works well to differentiate the fluency and comfort of speaking with one another from the awkwardness of trying to communicate in a second language. Another couple of Guthrie newcomers are standouts in the cast. Keir Dullea, as Ödön's mentor Heinrich Mann, conveys that lost feeling of an emigre who's not comfortable in this new life. Allison Daugherty is excellent as his tragic wife Nelly. Guthrie veteran Stephen Yoakam once again gives a dynamic performance as the slightly crazy Bertolt Brecht. And I had fun spotting some of my faves (Summer Hagen, Charity Jones, Bill McCallum, John Skelley, Anna Sundberg) in the background of the scenes, and wishing they had more to do.

The staging of this play is really unique, with lots of little movie tricks. The stage looks like a movie studio, with ensemble members directing huge spotlights. Some scenes are filmed by an old camera off the stage, with the image projected onto the backdrop of the stage, so you feel as if you're watching an old black and white movie. There's even someone doing sound effects just off-stage. Newsreel footage is also displayed on the backdrop, depicting the events being discussed. It's a pretty high-tech show, but in an inventive way that suits the Hollywood theme of the play.

Now that I've seen all three of the plays in the "Christopher Hampton Celebration," I was thinking about what they all have in common. The obvious answer is history. In Tales from Hollywood, it's the history of German emigres in the early days of Hollywood. In Appomattox, it's several centuries of history of the Civil Rights movement. In Embers, it's the personal history of one man who can't let go of the past. I may have some more ideas on that as I sit with it a bit, but for now I will just say that any of these three diverse plays is worth checking out, depending on what you're in the mood for.

"Noises Off" at the Jungle Theater

I've seen a lot of ridiculous shows lately (and I mean that in a good way) - Xanadu, Absolute Turkey, The War Within/All's Fair - and the Jungle Theater's Noises Off is another one. Not only is it a show within a show, it's a farce within a farce. Featuring a spectacular cast of favorites, intricately choreographed chaos, and over-the-top backstage drama, it makes for a very entertaining night at the theater.

Noises Off was written by English playwright Michael Frayn after watching one of his plays from backstage: "It was funnier from behind than in front and I thought that one day I must write a farce from behind." Six actors, one director, and two stagehands are putting on the fictional farce Nothing On. Act I shows us their final dress rehearsal, with the director watching from various parts of the audience. Act II is one month later, and the stage is turned around so that we get to see everything that happens backstage, while still hearing and catching glimpses of the onstage performance. It's a wild ride, and impossible to keep track of everything that's happening. Affairs, misunderstandings, drunkenness, tempter tantrums, and that's just backstage! Finally, in Act III the stage is turned around again and we get to see the performance, which has fallen apart. It's disastrous, painful, and hilarious.

the cast of Noises Off
as the cast and crew of Nothing On

I've never seen a playbill that has a second, fictional, playbill within it. We get to read about the cast of Nothing On, complete with bios. This fictional cast is temperamental, difficult, and possessing questionable levels of talent. Fortunately the real cast is nothing like them; they're all brilliant in their portrayal of these quirky characters. (Although to be fair, we don't know what's going on in the real backstage of the Jungle; I imagine that would be quite entertaining as well, but hopefully with less violence.) Cheryl Willis is the veteran actress and star of Nothing On, who mixes up her lines and has jealous affairs with her fellow actors. Ryan Nelson (a fave from Yellow Tree) is the actor who can't complete a sentence that's not written for him. Summer Hagen is the flighty blond whose exaggerated performance is exactly the same every time, even if everything around her changes and it no longer makes sense. The divine Bradley Greenwald, who has a seriously killer singing voice but who is equally good at playing silly, is the simple man who needs a motivation for everything his character does. Add to that the very funny E.J. Subkoviak as the exasperated director, the nimble Kimberly Richardson as the awkward stagehand, Neal Skoy as the other awkward and overworked stagehand, Stephen D'Ambrose as the revered and famous actor who's also a drunk, and last but not least, Kirby Bennett (whose Girl Friday Productions is producing a Tennessee Williams play I've never seen, Camino Real, next year), and you have one dynamite cast. Directing all this craziness is Joel Sass, who also designed the reversible set, both difficult tasks beautifully done!

If you've never visited the cozy Jungle Theater in the Lyndale/Lake area of Minneapolis, this is a good time to start. I've really enjoyed their season so far, and it looks like it's only going to get better with Waiting for Godot starring Nathan Keepers and Jim Lichtsheidl, and In the Next Room with a fabulous cast of women (and a few men). But don't wait for those shows, Noises Off is a very funny farce with a talented cast. Even though it's three acts long, you won't have any trouble staying awake for it with all the craziness going on in this fictional theater world. I've never thought about what actors do between their exits and entrances, but now I'll be imagining all kinds of crazy backstage shenanigans!

"The Birds" at the Guthrie Theater

My current favorite TV show is AMC's The Walking Dead, about a small group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse.  I'm not a fan of zombies or horror in general, but for me the show isn't about the zombies.  It's about this group of people who have to figure out a new way to live in a world where the old rules of civilization no longer serve.  The play The Birds* (based on the original short story by Daphne du Maurier, not the 1963 Hitchcock movie) is the same way.  It's not about the birds (which are never seen, although the sound of them is frightening enough), it's about these people who are trying to survive and have some kind of a life when the world has been taken over by killer birds (crazy idea, isn't it?).  The old rules of life no longer apply; as one character says, "all bets are off."

The play begins in an old farmhouse where Diane and Nat, who met a few days ago on the road as they were trying to get away, have taken shelter.  Nat is ill and Diane nurses him back to health.  They develop a sort of rhythm of going out and scavenging for supplies between bird attacks (every six hours, based on the tides).  An injured young woman named Julie shows up on their door and they take her in, and she becomes part of their group.  They enjoy a certain friendship, but it becomes apparent that they don't really know each other very well.  Can they trust each other?  They notice a reclusive farmer across the lake, but he doesn't seem friendly so they avoid him.  One day when Nat and Julie have gone to town, the farmer visits Diane and asks her to join him so he can "take care of her."  She rejects him and he leaves.  Meanwhile, Nat and Julie have grown closer, which upsets Diane.  She's a writer who is keeping a journal, and we occasionally hear bits of her journal in voiceover, which lets us see into her thoughts a little.  Diane goes to extreme lengths to ensure survival.  What bothers me most about The Walking Dead is that in the face of a zombie apocalypse, the survivors need to band together against the zombies if the human race has any hope of surviving.  Similarly, I wanted everyone in the play to work together; it's the only way they can survive.  But as Diane says, "what's so great about the human race anyway?"  The humans still have to deal with each other, which proves to be the more difficult task.

Diane and is really the core of the story; we experience the events through her eyes.  And Angela Timberman is a wonderful grounding force as she takes us through this journey.  She's so good at both comedy (see Annie, where she stole the show as Miss Hannigan) and drama (I still remember her in Third several years ago, which is one of those plays that has stuck with me); she definitely uses her drama chops here.  J.C. Cutler, last year's Scrooge, is her equal as Nat.  Summer Hagen also give a fine performance as the seemingly sweet but can-you-really-trust-her Julie.  Last but not least, Stephen Yoakam (magnificent in last summer's Burial at Thebes) makes a short but very memorable and creepy appearance as the farmer.

This was perhaps the most detailed set I've ever seen (designed by Guthrie newbie Wilson Chin).  When I walked into the Guthrie Studio Theater, I wanted to climb right up on the stage and explore the house.  Every corner was crammed with old photos and knick-knacks, children's artwork hung on the walls of the kitchen, and the walls were faded and dingy.  It not only looks lived in, it looks as if it's been lived in for a hundre years.  The play is performed with no intermission which I think was a smart choice.  With a story this intense and close, you don't want to let the audience out to walk around and breathe, but rather keep them feeling trapped along with the characters.

The Birds is playing now through April 8.  Check it out for a good old-fashioned thrill.  You might also come out of the show thinking about just what you would do to survive in a world where killer birds or zombies (or any number of natural disasters) have reduced the world to a dangerous, scary place.

*I received two complementary tickets to attend The Birds as part of the Guthrie's "Blogger Night."  And I owe them a big thanks this time because I forgot to RSVP, but when I called the day of the show they were able to get me in.  I love the Guthrie!