"Anything Goes" at Lyric Arts

There are a lot of great #TCTheater summer musicals this year (many of whom responded to my #Ham4All challenge - watch all the videos here): the Ordway's fan-freakin-tastic Jesus Christ Superstar, the gorgeous Sunday in the Park with George at the Guthrie, the recently closed infectious new musical Fly by Night at the Jungle, Old Log Theatre's better-than-Broadway Ghost the Musical, History Theatre's third run of the smash hit Glensheen, and the super fun Grease continuing at the Chanhassen through the fall. Here's another one to add to the list (especially for those of you who live on the north side of town) - Lyric Art's ebullient production of the Cole Porter classic Anything Goes. A wonderful cast, that catchy and familiar score, hijinks and humor galore, and tap dancing! It runs through August 6 so if you can get tickets (Lyric Arts' musicals sell well), I recommend a visit to lovely Anoka to see this great summer musical. Just one question remains - can they #Ham4All?

"Red Velvet" by Walking Shadow Theatre Company at Southern Theater

In just four days, I saw two plays in which an actor of color donned white face. A little strange, a little disturbing, but a very good sign that the #TCTheater community is telling some important and relevant stories right now. Mu's Charles Francis Chan Jr.'s Exotic Oriental Murder Mystery deals head on with the practice of yellow face and Asian American stereotypes in media, while paying homage to real life pioneers of Asian American theater. Walking Shadow's Red Velvet deals with art, politics, and race in theater while telling the story of a real life pioneer of African American theater who had a successful career doing Shakespeare in Europe in the 19th Century. Both plays provide astute social commentary through historical stories that are also engaging and entertaining, and are both well worth seeing.

"Little Shop of Horrors" at Artistry

I love Little Shop of Horrors. While I wasn't too familiar with the beginnings of it (it started as an Off-Broadway musical in the early '80s and was made into a movie in 1986), I was lucky enough to see the original Broadway run when it finally landed there in the early aughts. The campy and nostalgic story of a 1960s plant shop employee who sells his soul to the devil in the form of a man-eating plant is full of unique charm. It may not be a typical musical with its small cast, small band, and darkly comic subject matter, but it has become a classic, and I'm glad that Artistry (formerly known as Bloomington Civic Theatre) continues to include non-traditional musicals in its programming, even if the BCT Sunday matinee crowd didn't seem that into it. I overheard a comment in the ladies' room that "it's not Camelot," but that's exactly the point. Artistry's production is perfectly cast, features a fun and colorful set, and beautifully captures that campy tone - definitely worth the drive to the southern suburbs.

"Anatomy of Gray" at Lyric Arts

"This play is perfectly theatrical... it would be like if you took Little House on the Prairie and it has a little whiskey... and got together with The Wizard of Oz and Gunsmoke and A Prairie Home Companion and a Jane Austen novel and a medical textbook and spawned a theatrical love child! That would be Anatomy of Gray." I love all of those things (OK, except maybe for a medical textbook), so how could I resist Lyric Arts' current production Anatomy of Gray?! Director Scott Ford's description turns out to be quite apt, and I might also add a little The Normal Heart and even the similarly titled Grey's Anatomy to the mix. Anatomy of Gray is a sweet, funny, moving little play about the joys and sorrows of frontier life in the late 19th Century that poignantly reminds us that "we all come from love and loss."

"The Glass Menagerie" at Lyric Arts

Tennessee Williams is one of America's greatest playwrights, and his most auto-biographical play, The Glass Menagerie, is an American classic and one of my favorite plays. All of William's plays are beautifully tragic, and this story of a fading Southern belle and her two misfit children is no exception. Lyric Arts in Anoka is opening their 2014-2015 season with this classic, and it's a fine production, although it didn't quite touch me as deeply as others have in the past. They played up the comedy a little too much for my taste; while there are some great one-liners, I like my Tennessee Williams dark and gloomy. Still, the cast does a fine job, and there are some wonderful musical effects and an interesting use of video projections. And The Glass Menagerie is always a play worth seeing, with it's stark and tragic beauty.

The Glass Menagerie is a "memory play," in which Tom (a stand-in for Williams himself) is a character in the play and also narrates from some time in the future. The play is therefore cast in nostalgia, wistfulness, and regret. The aforementioned fading Southern belle is Amanda Wingfield, one of Williams' best characters. She lives with her two adult children in a small apartment in St. Louis in the late 1930s. Tom dutifully supports the family by working at a shoe factory, where he feels stifled and bored with life. Laura has a slight physical impairment that has caused her to become reclusive, wanting nothing more than to stay in the apartment, listen to records on the Victrola, and arrange her glass figurines, her menagerie. Amanda is constantly nagging her children - telling Tom how to chew his food and how to sit at the table, cajoling Laura into leaving the house to attend business school or entertain a "gentleman caller." Because she's unhappy with the way her life turned out (her charming grinning husband left her with two children to raise), she talks constantly of her glorious past and happy youth. She wants Laura to be as popular as she was, but Laura is nothing like her, and the time and place in which they live is nothing like the one in which she came of age. When a gentleman caller finally arrives, "the long-delayed but always expected something that we live for," there is hope for a moment. But the experiment fails miserably, Tom leaves the family to find his fortune in the world, and Laura is left with her glass menagerie. Part of the tragedy is that Amanda really does want her children to be happy and successful, as she wishes on the moon, but she has no idea how to help them achieve that in this modern, Northern, and utterly foreign world.

Tom (Ty Hudson) and Laura (Samantha Haeli)

The Wingfield home is sparsely furnished, with just a hint of the outer walls and terrace where the family goes to smoke and gaze at the moon. Melancholy music plays at just the right moments, as Tom's narration makes you feel like you're peeking into a faded photo album of days long past. The video projections play on four broken pieces hanging above the stage, like the Wingfiends' broken lives. I'm not sure it's entirely necessary to see a candle flame or blue roses when such things are mentioned, but the effect is relatively subtle. The most successful is the photo of the long gone Mr. Wingfield, whose handsome grinning face hangs eerily over the family. As Amanda, Patti J. Hynes-McCarthy is fluttery and flustered and never stops moving, which is just how Amanda should be. Ty Hudson's Tom is boisterous and angry, outwardly expressing his frustrations with the situation. Samantha Haeli has the physical limp, hesitant voice, and lack of selficonfidence that is Laura, and also shows her beginning to open up in her own awkward way. Finally, as that all important gentleman caller, Randy Niles portrays All-American charm and confidence (not unlike his character in Picnic), a stark contrast to the rest of the family.

The Glass Menagerie continues through September 21, with discount tickets available on Goldstar.

"The Laramie Project" at Lyric Arts

I believe in the power of theater to change the world, and The Laramie Project is a great example of that. Shortly after the brutal murder of a young gay man named Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, a theater company led by playwright Moises Kaufman went to Laramie and conducted over 200 interviews with the townspeople. In the midst of a media frenzy, they gave these people a voice, people who knew Matthew personally during his life or were affected by his death. They listened to them and told their story, as simple and profound as that. The result is a play called The Laramie Project, compiled from interviews, company members' journal entrees, and news reports. The play is not just about Matthew's life and death, and this unspeakable hate crime that sparked a national debate, but it also examines the anatomy of a town, a town that's just like any other town in America. It doesn't offer answers or reasons why, but it sheds light on what happened, allows these people's truths to be known and heard, and begins a dialogue that may eventually lead to healing. I believe that is the best that theater can be and do. Lyric Arts' new production, beautifully directed by Robert Neu and featuring a talented cast of 12 playing over 60 roles, does this story and the project justice. It's a story that continues to need to be heard.

Rather than a reenactment of events, the play is structured as a series of monologues, taken from actual interviews with the real people of Laramie. The theater company members also serve as characters in the play and as narrators, introducing each speaker. All of these interviews put together provide a narrative of events, as well as illustrate life in Laramie, a typical American college town, before and after the tragedy. The simple and bare sloped stage with 12 chairs allows space for the story to be told, as the actors move themselves and their chairs around the space in different formations.

the cast of The Laramie Project

There's not a lot of interaction between the characters, but the play still manages to give us several fully developed characters that we begin to care about. I hesitate to call out anyone in this beautiful cast because they all do a remarkable job creating several characters each, differentiated by a scarf, hat or glasses, or the tone of voice. But if I must mention a few, I will say that I was particularly moved by Ty Hudson as the charismatic bartender and one of the last people to see Matthew alive, Beth King as the strong but sensitive police officer first called to the scene of the crime, Corey Okonek as a friendly limo driver and Matthew's father, Emily Picardi as Matthew's spunky friend turned political activist Romaine Patterson, Jarome Smith as an enthusiastic theater student who was deeply affected by Matthew's story, and Debbie Swanson as two different college professors.

My first experience with The Laramie Project was a staged reading in October of 2008, the 10th anniversary of Matthew's death, directed by Peter Rothstein and featuring T.R. Knight and a cast of local talents. Matthew's mother Judy, who has turned her personal tragedy into a career in activism and righting the wrongs that lead to Matthew's death (including the passage of The Matthew Shepard Act in 2009), was in attendance that night. So I was fully aware what a powerful and important piece of theater this is, and I couldn't be more pleased that a community theater in Anoka is tackling this project and doing such a beautiful job. With the exception of some candlelight choreography at the end that went on a bit too long for me, the whole production is extremely well-done, from the simple set to the subtle intricacies of the costume changes to the sound and lighting setting the scene.

Two quotes from the people of Laramie stick with me. One is by Romaine, who said that the people of Laramie (and, I think, this country) need to own this tragedy and not just ignore it or pretend it didn't happen. Another character said about the perpetrators, "we don't grow children like that here, but obviously we do grow children like that here." At its best, theater can give us a forum to understand and explore the most difficult and important issues of our time, and that's what this play does. I highly recommend that people get out and see this important work of theater (playing at Lyric Arts now through Sept. 22); trust me, it's worth the drive to Anoka (discount tickets available on Goldstar).

"Death of a Salesman" at Lyric Arts

Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a classic American play. Premiering in 1949, it won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. It's a complex and layered look at the life of a man named Willy Loman who worked hard his whole life for his family, but never quite achieved what he wanted. The director of the new production at Lyric Arts in Anoka, Robert Neu, writes in the program notes: "Death of a Salesman is about the American dream, for better and for worse. Willy's dream, while he can hold on to it, seems possible and beautiful. The ultimate dissolving and corruption of that dream destroys Willy and forever changes his family." It's the great American tragedy - you work and work and work to pay the bills and buy the things you need, and at the end of it all, what do you have to show for it? A downer, yes, but beautifully written and a thought-provoking look at life that's still relevant more than 60 years later. This is the first play I've attended at Lyric Arts (I've previously seen a few musicals there) so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but they do a very nice job with this complex work of theater.

An interesting feature of this play, and part of what makes it so powerful, is that we get a look inside Willy Loman's mind as he remembers scenes from his past and talks to ghosts. He's at the end of his career as a traveling salesman, and he's tired and slowly beginning to lose his mind. His wife Linda loves him desperately and wants to help him but doesn't know how. His two grown sons are a disappointment to him, and because of that mostly stay away. When the whole family is under the same roof again, issues from the past resurface. Willy remembers happier days when the boys were football stars with bright futures ahead of them, as well as the event that changed all of that. This tragic story could only have a tragic ending, and it's devastating to watch the inevitable unfold.

I was quite impressed with the cast; Death of a Salesman is not an easy play for a community theater to tackle. Warren Sampson is believable and sympathetic as Willy, playing his moments of sanity mixed with ever increasing desperation. Martha Wigmore conveys Linda's love for her husband and her feelings of utter helplessness. As the playboy younger son Happy, who like his name seems to have not a care in the world, Max Lorei is all youthful charm. But the standout in the cast is Ty Hudson (who also had a nice turn in one of my favorite shows of last year, Summer and Smoke at Theater in the Round). As the elder son Biff, he gives a very real performance that culminates in a gut-wrenching physical scene when he confronts his father with equal parts hate and love.

The play takes place mainly in and around the Lomans' Brooklyn home, a cozy set (designed by Brian J. Proball) with vintage appliances and an upstairs loft where the boys sleep. Scenes from the past are differentiated from the present by slight changes in lighting and costumes and a lighter attitude among the characters.

Death of a Salesman is playing now through April 12 at Lyric Arts Main Street Stage in Anoka. If you live on the north side of town, it's worth the drive to see this classic piece of American theater.

"Summer and Smoke" at Theatre in the Round

Tennessee Williams is one of my favorite playwrights. He has created several memorable women (or perhaps versions of the same woman), among them Amanda Wingfield, Blanche DuBois, and Maggie the Cat. I have recently become acquainted with Alma Winemiller in Theatre in the Round's sublime production of Summer and Smoke, and I am utterly charmed by her complexities and heart-broken by her plight. Like all of Tennessee Williams' women, Alma is a genteel Southern woman with clear ideas of the way life should be, whose story turns tragic when reality doesn't live up to her expectations. 

I love a good unrequited love story, and this is one of the best I've seen. The kind that makes you think maybe things can work out for these two crazy kids, and then dashes your hopes to the ground as reality sets back in and it all falls apart. The prim and proper minister's daughter Alma is in love with the boy next door, the playboy doctor's son John, who grew up to be a doctor himself. Alma is not the type of woman John usually keeps company with, but he's drawn to her. Alas, theirs is a love that can never be. She wants him physically, but she can't admit that even to herself because it doesn't fit into the world she's created for herself. He wants her soul, but he doesn't even know what that means because in his clinical, earthly world the soul doesn't even exist. This creates an attraction and tension between them that can never be relieved, and it's unbearably tragic to watch it all unfold. There are some light and funny moments in the play as well, especially in the first act. But Tennessee Williams did not write comedies (one misguided Broadway production of Streetcar notwithstanding), so we know there's no chance for a happy ending for our couple.

John and Alma
(Casey Hoekstra and Joanna Harmon)

The show is all about Alma and John. Yes there are other people onstage and several of them have nice moments (including Karen Bix as Alma's childlike mother, Ty Hudson as Alma's sweet but boring suitor, and Tara Lucchino who almost succeeds in making me like Alma's rival for John's affection), but the success of the play hinges on the performances of Joanna Harmon and Casey Hoekstra as Alma and John. And boy do they deliver. Joanna, a member of the inventive physical theater company Live Action Set, plays Alma with a nervous fluttery energy that never subsides. She puts her training to good use in this very physical performance; you can see the tension in Alma's body as she interacts with various characters. Casey, a graduate of the U of M/Guthrie program making his Twin Cities stage debut (to which I say welcome and please come back soon!), plays John with a relaxed intensity, all slow knowing smiles as he lounges and watches Alma. Whenever either was off stage I waited for their return, and the best scenes are the ones with the two of them together. Their relationship is so intense and complex, perplexing and familiar. One particularly intense love scene took place literally a few feet in front of me on the intimate Theatre in the Round stage, which made me wish I had one of those fans from the Winemiller's sitting room!

The busy and multi-talented Randy Reyes directed the play and did a beautiful job with the intricate dialogue and intense scenes. With a set design by Rob Jensen, the small stage is packed with set pieces that manage to create three distinct settings, two of which interact with each other as John and Alma stare out their windows across the yard at each other. The details are impeccable as the audience gets a close-up view due to the unique in-the-round stage (the usher led me right through the Winemiller's living room to my seat on the opposite side, and I was close enough to peek over an actor's shoulder at an authentic-looking photo album). The costumes (by Carolann Winther) are evocative of the time, place, and character, from John's white suit to Alma's conservative clothes to Rosa's vibrant red dress.

I've been to Theatre in the Round several times in the past few years for Fringe shows, but it's been a while since I've seen a Theatre in the Round production. Currently celebrating their 61st season, they are the longest running theater in Twin Cities. Even the Guthrie has only been around a mere 50 years! They were recently featured on one of my favorite shows MN Original (a weekly series on tpt that showcases local artists of all types of media). You can watch that feature online to learn about the interesting challenges presented by the in-the-round design. I will definitely be back to Theatre in the Round before next year's Fringe; they have several interesting shows coming up this season, including the Pulitzer Prize winning play Rabbit Hole in January. Unfortunately Summer and Smoke has already closed, so if you missed it, I apologize, because you missed a good one.