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Thursday, November 11, 2004
Children’s theater: Synchronicity’s ‘How High Is Up?’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “How High Is Up?� Through Nov. 21.
When it comes to putting on a children's show, Synchronicity Performance Group isn't about to trot out the same old, same old. No “Jack in the Beanstalk� or “Goldilocks� for these hip theater artists who aim to surprise and engage.
In repertory with “Language of Angels,� Synchronicity closes its season with the American premiere of British playwright Brendan Murray's “How High Is Up?� Based on a Vietnamese folk tale, the magical play is about a little girl who wants to stop time in order to save her beloved grandmother from the inevitable journey into the afterworld. Ultimately, it puts the idea of mortality in a Buddhist framework that’s bittersweet, whimsical and life-affirming.
“No day without night,� says the grandmother, Ba Gia (Jackie Prucha), to Little Star (Zany Pohlel). “No spring without winter.�
But that doesn't stop Little Star from crisscrossing heaven and earth to try to hang on to her loved one. Someone tells the child that in order to get her wish she must prevent the Moon (Nyrobi Moss) from dancing with the Sun (Justin Welborn), whereupon she goes on a quest on the back of the Bird Who Has No Wings (Steven Westdahl).
The cocky and oxymoronic avian flies by flapping his imagination, instructing the girl that “worries always weigh you down." Eventually, Little Star's quest takes her to the Magician of the Pouring Rain, the Magician of the Roaring Wind and the Magician of the Silent Snows — to no avail.
Each wizard (all played by Prucha) tells the wandering Star: “If time stands still, the kettle will never boil.� While Welborn's Apollonian Sun preens like a peacock and Moss lights up the Moon with sass and brass, Westdahl's bird is delightfully cocksure — a welcome diversion from the story's sad undertones.
Prucha, for her part, brings wisdom and authority to the numerous characters she inhabits. Ladling water over her topiaries, Ba Gia is serene and graceful. The Pouring Rain has a twitchy constitution and a spray bottle in each hand. Psssst. Psssst. The Silent Snow is a slender icicle of a woman who speaks in clear, silvery tones. Lovely, lovely.
Director Clint Thornton has a natural gift for imbuing his children’s productions with playful, low-tech details: The actors gently drop white lace handkerchiefs on potted plants to capture the quiet dance of snow falling on evergreens, and Prucha raps on a sheet of tin to evoke the sound of thunder.
“How High Is Up?� has an unflinching attitude toward death that I thought might be unsettling to little ones. But after talking to a young audience member and the mother of a 7-year-old, I remembered that children are blessed with brief attention spans and buoyant spirits. We adults should be so lucky. “How High Is Up?� is a meditation on the freedom of letting go.
THE VERDICT: A Buddhist aura informs this bittersweet tale for children.
10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Saturdays; noon and 2 p.m. Sundays. Through Nov. 21. $10. Synchronicity Performance Group, 7 Stages’ Back Stage, 1105 Euclid Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-325-5168, www.synchrotheatre.com.
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Tavern takes on ‘Winter’s Tale’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “The Winter’s Tale.â€? Through Dec. 6.
William Shakespeare's late romance "The Winter's Tale� is most famous for the Monty Python-like stage direction "He exits, pursued by a bear.�
That man-eating bear is just one of the difficulties of putting on this rarely produced shaggy monster, which also includes a king’s dizzying shifts from suspicion to evil to remorse, and a statue that comes suddenly to life.
Nevertheless, the New American Shakespeare Tavern delivers a big plum cake of a production, stuffed with magic, fantasy, comedy and heartbreak. The play is really two in one, beginning with Shakespeare’s familiar tragic themes of jealousy, paranoia and royal authority, then shifting to a pastoral world of rustic shepherds and young lovers.
As King Leontes, an Othellian figure who acts as his own Iago, Maurice Ralston carries off convincingly the crucial moment when Leontes falsely accuses his queen, Hermione, of an adulterous relationship with Polixenes (Troy Willis), the visiting king of Bohemia. But when Leontes returns in the last act after a long absence, Ralston's laconic delivery hampers the emotional fulfillment of the final reconciliation.
As Hermione, Laura Cole ably travels from despair to resurrection. Sent to prison (where she delivers a baby) in the first act, she aches in her desolation, evoking Ophelia, Cordelia and Desdemona. In the play’s final moments, she magically portrays the statue that slowly returns to life, healing and restoring her family.
Heidi Cline exudes strength as the outspoken Paulina, who accuses and nettles Leontes to the point of insubordination. Alternately deferential, outspoken, comic and grieving, Paulina may be “Winter’s Tale’sâ€? most complex character.
At midpoint, the play abruptly swerves from Leontes’ sorrow-drenched court in Sicilia to the pastoral world of Bohemia, where Jeff McKerley's sensitively calibrated servant Antigonus takes Perdita, the infant daughter of Hermione and Leontes. Leontes, wrongly convinced that the baby belongs to Polixenes, has ordered that she be left in the wilderness. Antigonus is chased and eaten by the bear in a scene that cannot be anything but crude slapstick to modern audiences. Tony Brown's bear strikes the right note of scariness and absurdity.
The infant Perdita is found and raised by two shepherds (Marc McPherson and Kirk Harris Seaman). After the passage of 16 years, Perdita, winningly played by Amee Vyas, falls in love with Florizel (Matthew Felten), the son of Polixenes, and they flee to Sicilia, eventually finding happiness. In a visually exciting scene, Vyas glows as the queen of a sheep-shearing festival, festooning flowers upon male celebrants and taunting them with sexual innuendo.
McKerley, after his first character has become a bear’s picnic, bounces back to portray Autolycus, one of Shakespeare’s most vital rogues. McKerley imbues the pickpocket, ballad singer and peddler with broad comic gusto, although his physical stunts and vocal mannerisms can push too far.
Director Jeff Watkins makes full use of the opening allowed by Shakespeare’s simple, one-sentence directions for shepherd and satyr dances. Accompanied by period string instruments, the company leaps into rural-accented dances, choreographed by McKerley.
Although “The Winter’s Taleâ€? is loaded with theatrical problems, the Tavern’s veteran ensemble keeps its strange multicolor dream world spinning, not crashing.
THE VERDICT: A tale of wonders to warm chilly nights.
7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 5. $19.50-$24.50. New American Shakespeare Tavern, 499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-874-5299, www.shakespearetavern .com.
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‘Pulp’ fiction at Actor’s Express
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THEATER REVIEW: “Pulp.” Through Dec. 18.
Patricia Kane's “Pulp� should get an award for holding a mirror to lesbianism, a culture that's long been marginalized, if not ignored, by mainstream theater.
To its credit, Kane's comedy cabaret, now onstage at Actor's Express, is refreshingly free of the themes and stereotypes normally associated with contemporary feminist literature.
That's because the playwright found her inspiration in the Sapphic bodice-rippers of the World War II era, a forgotten paperback genre that was apparently populated by lipstick-wearing lesbians who looked to the glamour queens of Hollywood's Golden Age for tips on how to dress, converse and whip their pants-wearing suitors into states of rapture and desire.
The women of “Pulp,� set in a discreet Chicago watering hole known as the Well, walk and talk like Joan Crawford, Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck. And when they aren't slinging cocktails or catty put-downs, they take to the stage to belt torch songs that echo the sounds of Lena Horne, Betty Hutton, Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby.
Some musicals and revues are so much fun that you forgive their lack of rigor. (I am thinking of Dad's Garage's recent “Debbie Does Dallas� and Horizon Theatre’s ongoing “Cafe Puttanesca.�) But “Pulp� relies too much on repetitive gags, predictable puns and cheap laughs. And though Andre Pluess and Amy Warren’s smoky jazz and swing tunes are true to the period and often quite likable, they appear to be thrown in at random and never quite gel with the story.
The satire centers on Terry Logan (Wendy Melkonian), who’s been kicked out of the Women’s Army Corps for unseemly behavior and soon encounters like-minded Eleanor “Pepperâ€? Rousch (Hope Mirlis) on a Chicago-bound train.
Pepper, a bartender at the Well, introduces Logan to the pleasures of the women's lair, and soon the butch newcomer is ensnared in a torrid but tentative affair with leggy siren Eva “Bing� Malone (Katie Kneeland). Bing is a bully who taunts nearly everyone — and has a mysterious relationship with the owner of the women's hideaway, the beautiful and enigmatic Vivian Blaine (Jennifer Levison).
Levison is a marvelous boîte singer who recalls Broadway's Donna Murphy, but her talent is wasted here. When she sings, you find yourself wishing that she were doing a solo act; when she stops, the magic flies right out the door.
Melkonian — who played the title role in Actor's Express’ “Gypsy� and Fannie Brice in Jewish Theatre of the South's “Funny Girl� — has the kind of perky demeanor and painted-on smile that makes her a counterintuitive choice for the role of the mannish Logan. She's still frozen in Fanny Brice mode.
Except for Levison and Mirlis, who imbues Pepper with a charm that is wholly sweet and lovable, the cast seems to be on autopilot. Meredith Woolard's blond, cornfed Winny doesn't make a very convincing drag king, and Kneeland’s perpetually petulant Bing curdles quickly.
Director Kate Warner, who recently found comedic gold in the musically threadbare “Debbie,� can't seem to smooth out the rough edges of “Pulp.� For this show-within-a-show conceit, the Well's stage is so far removed from the Express audience that there is no connection.
Considering the politics of the hour, American theater could use more lively discussions on homosexuality. But Kane seems afraid to provoke or challenge; instead, she distances herself from the subject and cloaks her characters in reductive language. These are stock figures from a nostalgic time and place.
In the end, “Pulp� turns into a predictable romantic comedy with a bit of music and a lesbian twist. The show has a heart, but it doesn't have much to say. Or if it does, Warner and her uneven cast haven't figured out what.
THE VERDICT: Ready for a spoof of a lost lesbian genre?
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Through Dec. 18. Also 5 p.m. Nov. 21 and Dec. 5; 2 p.m. SundayNov. 14 and Dec. 12. $21.50-$26.75. Actor’s Express, King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. N.W., Suite J-107, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, www.actors-express.com.
