FOOTLOOSE - THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
Nov 15, 2004 - Nevada Rep joins with UNR's Lyric Opera Theatre for an exuberant "Footloose"
By Jack Neal
New performing arts cooperation is taking place on the University of Nevada Reno campus. After years of you go your way, I'll go mine, someone at long last has taken a sharp look at working together and reorganized the music, dance and theater departments into a more total performing arts experience that benefits both students and the public.
"Footloose," the stage musical as opposed to the movie musical, is one of first collaborative efforts for what the university calls its School of the Arts headed by Larry Engstrom. It's not a perfect beginning, but it is an auspicious one. Kudos to all involved. "Footloose" may have its problems, the musical itself to name one, but it is nonetheless a very pleasant way to spend an evening.
Tanya Jean Kluck has directed; she's from the Lyric Opera Theatre portion of the deal. Sue Klemp is the show's producer; she's from the Nevada Rep portion of the deal. Damon Stevens is the musical director; presumably he's from the Music Department portion of the deal. Their combined efforts have paid off close to handsomely for a terrific step in the right direction.
"Footloose," itself, is another matter. The show can't make up its mind. Is it going to be a lighthearted kid's thing - "Let's put on a show" - or is it going to wallow in in a maudlin story about why the kids of Bomont, Texas, can't dance? (An accident five years before the musical's action killing the preacher's son on the way home from a dance.) With the book's angst (Dean Pitchford wrote it), "Footloose" is anchored in too much weight to be the buoyant dance outing the title suggests.
Add to that touch of trouble the show's centerpeice, Ren McCormack, a high school senior who loves to dance, moves to Bomont from Chicago with his mom because his dad has run out on them, and - well - you get the picture. There's trouble in Bomont, Texas.
Despite all that baggage "Footloose" does have its up times at Bomont High. Lots of 'em.
The choreography by JoAnna Wagner is upbeat and inventive enough to be interesting to watch without taxing the show's large cast of gypsies too much. These exciting youngsters give the show a very good old college try with dance skills not yet at the professional level "Footloose" requires to really take off and soar.
Tanya JEan Kluck's staging is good once scenes get going. It just takes time to move Larry Walters' attractive - but heavy - sets into place so the show can move along. Which makes "Footloose's" pacing an issue. It's too stop and go. Damon Stevens musical direction is quite good. He leads a solid seven-piece band, and a chorus and soloists into producing well disciplined sounds. Unfortunately, over-amplification sends some of the women's voices into painfully ear-piercing ranges.
Maggie Beauchamps' costumes are Texas down home and good for teenage dancing. Michael Fernbach's lighting is excellent, and the cast is just as willing to please as it can be.
Mark Lorentzen (Ren) is the kid from Chicago who dances his way deep into the heart of Bomont, Texas. Lorentzen can sing, dance and act, and is just grand doing all the things he needs to do. Bradford D. Kai'ai'ai is a stern Reverend Moore and pulls off the show's major downer role with seasoned style. Jennifer Crenshaw plays the reverend's beleaguered daughter, Ariel, (she just can't please dad) and is a magnetic performer who shines it on with every dance step she takes and every song she sings. As Ren's mom, Ethel, Kimberlee A. Pechnik is supportive of her son and excellent each moment she's on stage. As Ariel's mom, Vi, Christina Sleigh is outstanding and a compelling character actor.
There's a slew of magnetic youngsters in this show who deserve mention. Nick Nealon (Chuck), Mark Emerson (Travis), Mike Simpson (Lyle), Lauren Ashley Durant (Rusty), Susan Lingelbach (Urleen), Andie Anderson (Wendy Jo), Mary J. Pinkerton (Irene), Donald Petit (Willard), Russell D. Jones (Jeter), Eric Boudreau (Bickle), and John Simpson (Garvin), plus, of course, everyone else. Every last one just gotta dance, gotta sing. The joy they bring to the show is exhilarating.
THE QUICK-CHANGE ROOM
Oct 5, 2004 - "The Quick Change Room" opens Nevada Rep's season with humor and poignancy
By Jack Neal
"The Quick Change Room," Nagle Jackson's provocative play about change, operates on several levels. One is humor. The play has lots of that. Another is poignancy. The play has lots of that. But it's mainly about what happens when a society crumbles, as the Russian society did (and is still doing), in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse.
In a deceptively entertaining manner "The Quick Change Room" explores the trials, tribulations and sometimes the grim hilarity of change.
On the play's lighter side, watching the off-stage room where actors - some of them neurotic - make fast costume changes before rushing back on stage has delicious possibilities. Playwright Jackson, who won a Pulitzer Prize for this play, explores those possibilities gaining lots of laughs along the way.
On the play's heavier side, watching the disintegration of a classical Russia theater company after the fall of the Soviet Union and the human tragedies brought about by that change, is ripe for a theater piece of poignancy. Jackson explores those possibilities gaining lots of empathy along the way.
At its most profound "The Quick Change Room" raises many questions.
What happens to a theater company in the tradition of performing the classics when communism is replaced by capitalism? What happens to a society when the bottom line is no longer quality, but making a quick buck? What happens when members of a theater company - including backstage dressers - are no longer needed because of downsizing to make management rich? More important to Jackson's point, does capitalism play on the more vulgar tendencies of society to the detriment of the human spirit?
Director Bob Dillard has coaxed and revved up his speaking cast of ten into high gear for a formidable presentation of Jackson's formidable play. That there are some moments when more punch is needed to make the production all it might be is but a minor drawback for Dillard's genuinely solid approach. The play says so much, much of it being said in overlays of meaning, it's hard to cover all bases with equal portions of wit and power.
The cast is without major weaknesses and has many strengths.
As the head quick-room dresser, Alison E. Swallow creates a marvelous character study of a sensitive and kind artist who loves her work and her colleague friends. Annie V. Scanlon is excellent as the assistant dresser whose life beyond the theater is caught in the sadness of just trying to survive. As an aging actress being shunted aside for her younger, sexier protégé, Kris Walleck delivers a modulated performance that's compelling and touching. Playing the protege willing to do anything to become a star, Jenifer Crenshaw is attractive enough to get what she wants and she gets what she wants in a very convincing manner.
Dave Seibert is the traditional company's artistic director who's being eased out by circumstances he attempts to resist. His performance is subtle and affecting. Playing the opportunist capitalist who steals the company from its more seasoned roots, Ryan Palomo has the strength of performance and the weakness of character that makes his new world of greed go 'round, and 'round, and 'round.
Bradford D. Ka'ai'ai' is the amoral actor who makes life a nuisance for backstage personnel and a lots of fun for an audience. He's also the adaptable one who cares less about art and more about being in the limelight at stage center. John Simpson is more than adequate as the young communist who quickly discovers how to make unconscionable money in a strong armed way.
Dave Seibert's set design is good looking, "divine decadence" Sally Bowles might say, and allows the play to flow. Justin Peeks's lighting is a major plus for this both light and upbeat and dark and downer play. Bill Ware's costumes work well through the play's transition from art to travesty. Lucina Z. Alipio and Jenifer Crenshaw's choreography makes the production's finale the glitzy tasteless fun it's intended to be.
SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR
Apr 24, 2004 - Nevada Rep's interesting, non revealing "Six Characters in Search of an Author"
By Jack Neal
Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is a reality-challenged play. What's real and what isn't? Stepping through the veil which separates illusion from reality is what sets the art of Pirandello into an especially high realm of human revelation.
Subtlety is the name of Pirandello's game and that's what's missing from the Nevada Repertory Company's presentation of "Six Characters in Search of an Author."
The play opened Friday night (4/23/04) on stage, literally, at the Redfield Proscenium Theatre. Or is it the Redfield Studio Theatre? Nevada Rep, under the formidable guidance of director Jim Bernardi, is adroit at establishing the blurred vision right off that's so important in getting what this marvelous and complex play is up to.
Three acts, some stunning performances and two hours and twenty minutes later the "getting" part of what the play is really up to doesn't jell into a moving illusion/reality-bourne experience. To its diminshed credit this production, through this thoughtful but flawed presentation, comes off as at least entertaining avant-garde theater, but not the fascinating revelation of the human condition "Six Characters" can be, when it's given a more understated, focused view.
The play within a play involves a cast rehearsing a Pirandello play interrupted by six fully-developed characters abandoned by their author without the script that would free their spirits. The action intensifies as the six characters team with the pre-existing cast (the six characters dictate a script the cast is to act) to present their lives as the six characters perceive their lives really are.
Not satisfied with illusion, but demanding reality, the six refuse the melodramatic playing of their lives they believe they see as little more than "throwing back our images, twisted and distorted." The revelatory moment when an audience grasps what Pirandello is up to never materializes in this production. Art imitates life, which in turn imitates art. "A character is somebody," Pirandello wrote. "A man is nobody."
As a collection of players, the six characters as actors are compelling. As a collection of players the pre-existing cast as characters are too miscast to complete Pirandello's complex picture of what it means when "all the world's a stage." There has to be a reasonable expectation that the cast could actually attempt to be a life it plays, not just parody a life. The impact of "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is damaged when artifice and melodrama replace the power and drama of life as it may really exist, whether in reality or the illusion of reality which can become reality.
All of that having been said, this Nevada Repertory Company presentation of "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is worth seeing because it is, among many other good things, provocative.
As the Stepdaughter in search of her life, Jenifer Crenshaw is at all times magnetic and superb. Miss Crenshaw gives a tour de force performance that is itself worth whatever effort it takes to experience this Pirandello play. As the Father and Stepdaughter's stepfather, Blair Anthony gives an entirely gripping encounter with illusion imitating reality. Mr. Anthony is believable in a role that constantly flaunts believability. As the Son, John S. Simpson presents a strong portrait of a demonized young man. As the Mother, Annie V. Scanlon - a highly competent actor - plays at a too overly-distraught level to make her pivitol role all it needs to be.
As the director of the pre-existing cast, Brian Barney gives a strong, assured performance. It's a performance, however, that's dented by those players in the pre-existing cast who are too out of touch in both look and demeanor to give "Six Characters" the pathos and the dramatic punch it must have to succeed more than just superficially.
JUST SO
Feb 28, 2004 - The Nevada Repertory Company's "Just So" could be "just so" soon
By Jack Neal
The quaint British, African-animal musical "Just So" opened Friday night (2/27/04) as part of the Nevada Repertory Company's regular season. That it was not yet quite up to par, is but one of the drawbacks for community theater where there are no out-of-town tryouts to work out kinks.
Once the kinks are ironed out that can be ironed out in a short run, this frothy little show embracing a menagerie of Rudyard Kipling's charmed fables, could and should be a winner.
With music by George Stiles and book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe, the same duo that penned "Honk," "Just So" is loaded with cleverness, which is in part what punctures the souffle of its nearly 90-minute first act. It's too loaded with cleverness. As cute as it is, it's just too long. That's as much a conceptual problem as it is a performance one. The score, as charmed as it is, is a challenge and too repetitive; and many of the performances of this challenging score are a bit too much of a stretch for some of the singers.
But there are so many marvelous things sbout the show, it's impossible - especially after a much more engaging (and at 45 minutes, a much shorter) second act - if not to fall head-over-heels for the show, at least be touched by the sweetness of its characters and the fun of its story.
Making many good things happen is the show's director and choreographer Richard Jessup. Jessup has become a nomadic director of musical shows for many of the highways and byways of theater in Western America. With "Just So" he returns to his Reno roots. It's an auspicious return. His staging and choreogaphy is designed to make best use of a largely student cast (from the University of Nevada Reno) with all the variations in skills such casts carry as both baggage and the exhilaration of discovery.
There isn't a moment that comes off as anything less than creative. That some of those moments are not ready to come off as theatrically complete is something a few performances under the belt will, for the most part, solve. Cutting the show's long first half may not be something that's in Jessup's legal power to do. Even if he could, it might be more disruptive to the show's overall impact than helpful, given the problems of re staging and re-rehearsing a non-professional student cast.
And what's a mother to do with a show that's loaded with elephants, jaguars, leopards, zebras, giraffes, kangaroos and one fabulous kokokolo bird? Why it's to hire the incomparable Lorraine Hanson and have her design costmes that enchant. Hanson's inventions are as east of the sun and west of the moon as Kipling's animals are delectable figments of childhood imagination. Completing the picture of fantasy come to life are Rosary Fitzgerald's makeup designs, Erika Lore Frank's scenic designs and Michael Fernbach's lighting designs.
The large cast works tremendously hard to please, and it does.
As Kokokolo Bird, Jenifer Crenshaw is a wonder of flutter, feathers, sarcasm and song. Crenshaw does sing, in fact, like a bird. Her "Wait a Bit" is close to a showstopper. "Why are those things you admire in others," she sings, "the hardest to find in yourself? He made me feel I could soar. Now only one thing seems for sure, I'll have to wait a bit more." It's a choice touch of pathos and Crenshaw makes the most of it.
Courtney Ross-Powell is the show's Elephant Child and she plays beautifully in tandem with Crenshaw's Kokokolo Bird. A gifted singer, all of Ross-Powell's singing moments are sweet as they can be. Her "There's No Harm in Asking" gives the show a lovely launching pad for the adventures to come.
Ramon de los Santos is a sensational Cooking Stove; as is his cohort (Parsee Man) a sensational baker, played and sung with lots of chutzpah by John Simpson. Andie Anderson (Kangaroo), Annie V. Scanlon (Dingo Dog), Tiffany Parks (Jaguar), Katy Shelor (Leopard), Mary Pinkerton (Zebra), Keely Sulprizio (Giraffe), Patrick Coughenour (Pau Amma) and last, but not in the least bit least, Cecil Averett (Rhino) are all in their own way captivating as are all the others.
Special mention goes to Scott House, the dad and eldest magician of the piece, who keeps the proceedings afloat. House is an old pro, just what "Just So" needs. Carol House is the show's music director and her work - within the confines of the cast's ability to sing - is first rate.
BREAKING THE CODE
Oct 5, 2003 - Nevada Rep's splendid "Breaking the Code" is a memorable season opener
By Jack Neal
The importance of Hugh Whitemore's stunningly revelatory play, "Breaking the Code," isn't that it's a tragedy involving mores, the law and the social acceptance of a brilliant mind (or any mind for that matter), although each of those things in collusion are important enough to make this probing play a major achievement. Mathematician Alan Turing, who broke the Nazi's Enigma Code thus paving one important way for the Allies to win World War II, was also a homosexual who broke society's code and was punished by the same British government that had called him a hero just a few years before.
The play's importance rests with the attempt, in this tragic man's-inhumanity-to-man setting, to put social beliefs into a context that taps somewhat into the discomfort people have for homsexuality who have not been raised or sensitized to understand it. That is not to imply that brutalizing gay people is okay as long as the people doing the brutalizing don't understand what being gay is about. Brutalizing anyone is not okay. But "Breaking the Code" takes an important step away from the poor-me syndrome that most plays and films about the victims of prejudice rarely explore. Because of this into the-looking-glass view, the impact of Whitemore's play about Turing's life takes on a dimension one-sidedness never allows.
Based on the Alan Turing biography by Andrew Hodges, "Alan Turing: The Enigma," the play is a cold examination of hypocrisy. It is a play of smoldering ideas about the cost in human terms of an emotional wreck who was also a genius. When Turing discovers that Dillwyn Knox, his mentor in the Enigma Code business who presses him to keep his gay liaisons absolutely discreet, has been the lover of John Maynard Keynes, Turing is devastated by the hypocrisy.
Whitemore's words and scenes are taut and dramatic. Turing's character has been superbly brought to life. One moment he's deadly serious, the next he's wickedly funny. Seemingly at once he's the dazzling intellectual envisioning microchips as the future purveyors of great philosophical feats. The next he's a maladjusted school boy gnawing finger nails, longing for love and stammering out words that rarely flow trippingly from his tongue.
In an engrossing and realistic performance Bradford D. Ka'ai'ai infuses his portrait of Alan Turing with the torture, paranoia and eccentricities Turing himself must have experienced on a daily basis. Kai'ai'ai is superb every inch of the way, but is especially affecting in the play's final, haunting moments. Did Alan Turing, the trusted friend of Churchill, die of a suicide, when - to illustrate a point for a class - he dipped an apple into potassium cyanide? The "cyanide" look alike was supposed to have been sugar. Did the lab technician preparing the experiment make a mistake, or did Turing replace the sugar with the real thing at the last minute? Whitemore has Turing raise the apple to his lips with "the ghost of a smile." His last words are: "Dip the apple in the brew, let the sleeping death seep through." It's as chillingly poignant a moment of theater as Kai'ai'ai's performance is penetrating and terrific.
Bob Dillard's seamless direction is first-rate. Not a second is wasted. Not a line is lost. David Seibert's simple scenic design and Larry Walters' effective lighting designs pick up on the whirring and spinning of wheels in Turing's mind for a blending of scenes that move as fluently as a beautifully edited movie. Patrick Coughenour and Gloria Rosenbaum's costumes are just right and impeccably correct
In this high-octane atmosphere the supporting roles are all, without exception, equally compelling and marvelously brought off. David Seibert as Knox, William Tanner as the police officer, Drew Simbeck as Turing's teenage love, Kris Walleck as Turing's mother, John S. Simpson as the young man who gets Turing into trouble, Susan Lingelbach as the woman who loves Turing, Doug Mishler as the government's overseer of it's prize discomfort, and Doug Milliron as Turing's Greek brief encounter are all as wonderful as they are wonderfully cast.
THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS
Jul 19, 2003 - New Riverfront Theatre opens with Cami Thompson and "Best Whorehouse in Texas"
By Jack Neal
Want an Excedrin headache?
Try opening a new theater on a shoestring with a revival of a Broadway all-dancing, all-singing show that's being rehearsed while your theater's being put in place. Add to that a demanding star who knows what it takes to succeed in show business and get her way, a cast of 30 - most of them green and young - joyously intent on dazzling the customers, four hundred costumes changes, countless scene changes (most of them major), and - presto - it's not just another op'nin', another show it's a recipe for disaster.
To everyone's credit, Bob Barsanti's Riverfront Theatre opened its new digs Friday (7/18/2003) under the plaza in front of Reno's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts with "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" starring veteran actress and songstress Cami Thompson, and - while not yet in grand shape and evenly paced - it delivers as entertaining in spite of it all. That it will get much, much better as the kinks are ironed out is not in doubt. That there are some permanent kinks that require more than time to iron out is also not in doubt.
Cami Thompson is a formidable star with a huge following of Reno fans. Her star power and the show's good-natured appeal should keep the box office humming nicely during the show's brief run of nine performances.
Big-voiced and brassy, Thompson is well-cast as the hard-boiled madam of the Chicken Ranch Brothel. Unfortunately, what should be a natural for Thompson is not yet finding its way as completely as it should into her Miss Mona characterization. Miss Mona is a tough-edged whorehouse CEO with a heart of gold and a questionable taste in clothes.
Miss Thompson's Miss Mona is too much a Las Vegas nightclub act with a lavish wardrobe to boot. Thompson's act is a marvelous one - she's a spectacular song stylist - and her clothes (lots of changes, some of them showstopping) are to die for, but her performance, at least on opening night, was more intent on selling Thompson song stylings than selling Miss Mona as a lovable, aging broad in a silly souffle of a musical comedy. But Thompson really can sing and director Bob Barsanti has given her "24 Hours of Lovin'" (taken from Miss Mona's sidekick, Jewel) and added Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" (from the show's movie version) to the singer's list of songs. She sings all she sings with an inimitable presence that serves Thompson well. I love Thompson's multifaceted talent, and when she finally inhabits Miss Mona, she'll be fabulous.
Playing opposite Thompson as Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd, Miss Mona's love interest, is Gary Creamans. He delivers a vigorous performance and provides suitable support for his costar. It's nice to see Eve Loomis back on a Reno stage, even if her role as a red-hot mama is greatly diminished because of her aforementioned lost song.
Most of the show's character roles including the Mayor (Brian Hurley), Deputy Fred (Hal DuBiel), Melvin P. Thorpe (a terrific Bill Tanner), the sleazy TV watchdog of local morals, TV news announcer and Trixie Sparks (Jackie Fisher), and the Governor of Texas (Lloyd Steinman) are delightfully, if broadly played. And why not? The musical itself is broad and not just-a-little foul-mouthed as it satirizes Texas and Texas mores. Sweetly managed, the most unassuming performance is that of Randi Thompson as Doatsey Mae, the waitress-with-the dreams. John Simpson (CJ Scruggs), Jill Snyder (Angel), Lori Marble (Shy), Dale Fast (Senator Wingwood), and Gillian Palmer (Miss Wulla Jean) all score, as do all in the cast, in wonderfully set up personas and roles.
As for Miss Mona's girls and the Aggie football team, they are all in fine shape. The girls are healthy types who wear their garter belts with elan and belt out a strong "Hard Candy Christmas," while the guys of Aggies' fame bring home the championship trophy with a rock-'em, sock-'em, lustily delivered "Aggie Song" and near-full-monty "Courtyard Shag." The production is smashingly choreographed by Hal DuBiel whose energetic moves and steps are hard to do and fun to watch.
Although, as of opening night, the production had not found its rhythm, Bob Barsanti's adroit helming had, for the most part, brought it to brisk life - except, of course, when it stops cold. What the show needs and doesn't have is music, music, music to fill the voids of its many scene changes. Unless you're Norma Desmond, silence in a musical is deadly. An excellent four-piece band, headed by pianist Peter Supersano, provides most of the show's music (some of it is recorded), but the band hasn't been programmed to fill those pesky voids.
The production features a beautifully designed house-of-ill-repute set with twin staircases leading to an upper balcony and the cribs. Deborah Morrison's costumes are amusingly Texas tacky. Rick Patton's lighting (simplified because the theater's lighting is not yet complete) burnishes the raunchy proceedings, nonetheless, robustly. With serviceable music and lyrics by Carol Hall and a lightweight book by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson, "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" is, in spite of its title and the built-in travails of opening a new theater, good, harmless fun.
back! back, I say!