Julius Caesar at IRT

-by Allison Carter

Read the review here.

‘IRT’s Julius Caesar wears a fresh coat of paint’
-by Tom Alvarez

Read the review here.

[4 May 2010; [broadcast 6 May 2010

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS AT IRT

By BILL LISTON

For INDIANA PUBLIC RADIO

Around the World in 80 Days opened on the main stage of the Indiana Repertory Theatre last Friday night, and it was a busy night for the five actors who did all the work.

Everyone of a certain age, I suppose, knows the plot.  In 1862, Phileas Fogg bets some of his friends in the Reform Club in London that he can travel around the world in 80 days, and off he goes, accompanied only by his manservant Passepartout.  The story comes from Jules Verne’s novel of the same name, published in 1872, and the tale was made even more famous by the film of 1956 starring David Niven.

Truth to tell, there isn’t much of a play, in the traditional sense: there is little if any characterization, and the whole plot depends on whether or not Fogg will surmount all the problems, foreseen and unforeseen, that he encounters.  You’re safe in believing that he will win his bet.

The stage is bare, with a floor of red and tan wood.  Sometimes it looks like a rich carpet, and at other times it looks the deck of a sailing ship.  In a sense there is no set, and that’s the fun of the play.  The actors have to make it up as they go, transforming it from the Reform club to Fogg’s house to various ships, trains, elephants, and strange cities as they go.  Thanks to scenic designer Kevin Depinet, all the illusions work.

Jeff Cummings, a veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and many other theatres, does an excellent job in the role of Phileas Fogg, a real British gentleman of the Victorian era.  Much of the fun of the play is seeing others of the cast coming back time after time in new roles, but always clear in their functions.  One of these is John Lister, a graduate of Ball State University, who goes along on the whole trip as Detective Fix, but he doubles as other characters when a stout and sturdy man is needed.  All the cast-members are Chicago actors and new to the IRT, and you will hope that they come back.

Mark Brown is the playwright who adapted Jules Verne’s novel, and William Brown is the director; they both do good work.

Around the World in 80 Days continues on the main stage of the Indiana Repertory Theatre through May 16^th.  Call (317) 635-5252 for ticket information.

–For Indiana Public Radio, I’m Bill Liston

Cheryl’s review:

I have seen all 3 of the ‘Going Solo’ performances. “Pretty Fire” was amazing, and I had a hard time believing that it was not Millicent who had experienced these stories. “The Year of Magical Thinking” was very emotional, and would be very hard to watch if anyone has experienced the loss of a spouse or a child, but the acting was phenomenal. “The Year After Paul McCartney” was great…very enagaging, funny, 90 minutes goes by without knowing. As a new theater visitor, I have such a new appreciation for these wonderful actors who do not have the luxury of ‘outtakes’.

Have you seen one of our recent productions?  We’d like to hear about your experience.  Write you review of PRETTY FIRE HERE and your reviews of Oxford Financial Group presents BECKY’S NEW CAR HERE.

NUVO Newsweekly

Indianapolis Star

Indy Theatre Habit

Indianapolis Theatre Examiner

Fun City Finder

StageWrite

Richard J Roberts

IRT Dramaturg Richard Roberts is on his annual theatre trip to NYC and he’s sending back thoughtful reviews of what he’s seeing.

I was planning to wait on line for tickets for Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park this morning, but it was raining and only supposed to rain more as the day went on, so I gave up on that idea. My first replacement choice was God of Carnage, but the only available seat was in the last row, and I knew I wouldn’t enjoy myself sitting way back there. My second choice was Blithe Spirit, where I got a house seat on the aisle that the ticket guy told me had just been released by the producer one minute before I walked up to the window. Timing is everything.

This afternoon I walked the High Line. It’s an elevated track built on the lower west side in the 1930s to take the trains directly into the warehouses for shipping. It was abandoned in the 1980s and left to gather dirt and grow weeds. About ten years ago someone had the bright idea to turn this eyesore into a long, narrow urban garden 25 feet in the air. The first half or so just opened this last weekend. The weeds have been replaced with beautifully designed perrennials, trees, and grasses that vaguely suggest weedy abandon among the old rails. This lush greenscape is bordered by concrete walkways that feather into the planting beds and a variety of industrial railings. Very, very cool.

I also went to the Park Avenue Armory for an art installation. The Armory is located on the Upper East Side, a grand Victorian edifice with a huge barnlike arena for practicing army drills. At the front of the building are a few ornate reception rooms designed by Tiffany and Stanford White and the like with a lot of heavy wood paneling and cast iron chandeliers with miltary motifs. Ernesto Neto’s instillation is called Anthropodino. It is a series of tunnels and caves made of white tulle stretched over a skeleton of plywood bones. Above this structure is suspended a huge cloud or canopy of more stretched white tulle, from which are suspended three dozen or so long teardrop shaped bags which stretch from the ceiling almost to the floor. The bags contain huge quantities of various kinds of spices, so the installation is an olfactory as well as visual experience. It is also sensory, as scattered about are various “play” areas – a ginormous bean bag, a vat of plastic balls, oddly textured and mounded rugs, different surfaces to lounge in and try to walk on. Unusual and whimsical.

CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS
After five days of famine, the last three days have been a feast. I met Bill McKinley for a drink and a chat and then went with him to a rehearsal studio on 42nd Street where we met his friend Chris Marlowe, a musical director. While we were chatting, Lilias White walked by, and then Sally Mayes came out of the studio and Bill introduced me to her (they did Kiss Me, Kate at Starlight together years ago). On the High Line I saw Steven Weber, and then walking past Lincoln Center on the way to the cinema I saw Amy Irving.

EVERY LITTLE STEP
Every Little Step is a new film documentary that follows the auditions for the recent Broadway revival of A Chorus Line, from the first non-Equity open call to the final callbacks. Interspersed with these scenes are old film clips of Michael Bennett and new interviews with Bob Avian, Baayork Lee, Donna McKechnie, and Marvin Hamlisch talking about the creation of the musical and the special challenges of each role, as well as snippets from the original taped stories that inspired the play alongside moments from the final script. A wonderful movie, full of humor and tears and passion and some thrilling and fascinating audition scenes, a must-see for any lover of musical theatre.

BLITHE SPIRIT
This revival is certainly a crowd pleaser. Director Michael Blakemore has crafted a rather straightforward production of this classic, but he and his actors have found fresh line readings and have heavily mined the potential of silent reactions. The design work is not particularly inspired. The set by Peter J. Davison is a large, beautiful, elegant room painted a dull color and furnished a bit shabbily, which merely suggests cheapness rather than some idea about the play. The special effects at the end of the play are half-baked, some sizzling and some fizzling. The costumes by Martin Packledinaz are actually quite nice, especially Madame Arcati’s extravagantly patterned and overly accessorized getups. The lighting by Brian MacDevitt gets the job done.

The performances have garnered some pretty mixed reviews from the critics, but I found them effective, if not dazzling. Jayne Atkinson is a fine Ruth, charming and gracious at the beginning and descending into a grim frenzy. Rupert Everett is just what’s called for as Charles: handsome, sophisticated, witty, but with an underlying edge of panic that surfaces from time to time and eventually overwhelms him. Christine Ebersole offers a unique take on Elvira; rather than the standard femme fatale, she plays a beautiful but dizzy blonde, childishly self-centered and more than a bit vague. It is an unusual approach that works well for both the character and the actress.

Angela Lansbury as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit

Angela Lansbury won her fifth Tony Award as Madame Arcati, tying her for the record with Julie Harris. She is utterly delightful, utilizing every old English music hall trick in her capacious handbag, batting her huge eyes and shrugging her hunched shoulders and dancing across the stage like a punch-drunk flamingo. Her interplay with Deborah Rush as Mrs. Bradman is hilarious; at every innocent question, she bristles more and more, cutting her dead with a knife-edged dryness, then sweetly fluttering back to the rest of the gathering as if nothing awkward had happened. At 80-something years old, she has an abundance of energy and a lifetime of stagecraft at her disposal, and the audience eats her up with a silver-plated spoon. A very funny evening in the theatre.

* * * * *

That’s all, folks. Thanks for listening!

Richard J Roberts

IRT Dramaturg Richard Roberts is on his annual theatre trip to NYC and he’s sending back thoughtful reviews of what he’s seeing.

Morning at the Guggenheim for an exhibition of drawings, plans, and models by Frank Lloyd Wright. Some stuff I’ve never seen before, and the models are especially interesting. And it’s always great just to enjoy the architecture of the Guggenheim itself.

HAIR
This shapeless, formless, structureless musical is a dramaturg’s nightmare. But it has historical significance, a moving story, and a lot of great songs, and it captures an era brilliantly. This production, directed by Diane Paulus (who directed the delightful Kiss Me, Kate I saw last summer at Glimmerglass Opera) is a wild untamed beast of energy, bursting off the stage and into the audience with joyous abandon. It manages to feel like both a spontaneous drug-hazed improvisation and a lavish Broadway spectacle at the same time, richly deserving its Best Revival Tony.

The set by Michael Pask is simple but colorful, with the band sitting on an old flatbed truck and some scaffolding and an open floor space scattered with Oriental rugs. Painted directly on the stage’s brick back wall is a huge Peter Max type sunset that constantly changes colors as the lighting strikes it. The costumes by Michael McDonald look as though they were pulled out of your favorite hippie’s closet. The lighting by Kevin Adams is spectacular, creating vivid, dreamy, dayglo moodscapes on stage and covering the walls of the theatre itself with a series of pulsating shapes and images. The choreography by Karole Armitage maintains a freewheeling, improvisatory feeling but is very effective.

Will Swenson is outstanding as Berger, wacky and wacked out, full of off-kilter humor and surprises. Gavin Creel is very good as Claude, the conflicted emotional heart of the show. The entire cast, which is mostly onstage for the whole show, creates an uninhibited, polysexual, love-in, be-in vibe, and they never stop swaying, dancing, running, constantly moving from the stage to the aisles and back again.

Because of the randomness of the barely-there plot, I found myself drifting from time to time during the show. But the cast’s exuberance and the production’s generosity of spirit kept bringing me back. I laughed and I cried a lot. The end of the play is devastating, but after the curtain call when the cast invites the audience on stage to dance, the room erupts with joyous energy, and the sun shines in.

CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS
I forgot to mention I saw William H. Macy last night in the theatre district as all the shows were getting out. And tonight, just before curtain time, I saw Hugh Jackman with his wife and daughter. And I didn’t get a close enough look to be certain, but I think Stephen Root was in the audience at Billy Elliot.

BILLY ELLIOT
This is one of the most unusual musicals I have ever seen. The storytelling is extraordinarily complex and richly layered. Despite the huge scale of the spectacle, the show often feels more like an intimate play than a flashy musical. There are really two stories going on here, the story of the British coal miners’ strike, and the story of Billy’s desire to dance ballet. Rather than cutting back and forth between these two plot lines, director Stephen Daldry and choreographer Peter Darling interlock them, telling both stories at the same time. While uniformed police and striking workers clash in abstractly choreographed violence, little girls in tutus dash about amongst them, giggling and screaming as they learn how to pirouette. A bunch of chairs line the stage, and they are used in lots of realistic and non realistic ways throughout the show. Characters sit in chairs having a conversation about one thing while at the same time partnering dancers from another scene about something completely different. It’s absolutely fascinating – a show that would definitely reward repeated viewings.

As a musical, the show is book and dance heavy and song light. Lee Hall (who wrote the movie) wrote the book, which often goes off on odd but interesting tangents, and the lyrics, which are direct and simple rather than poetic, as befits the uneducated, downtrodden characters. I’ll be interested to see how the cast album bears up to repeated listening. At first shot, the score seemed the least compelling aspect of the production – not that it is bad, just not that memorable. As opposed to The Lion King and Aida, where every song proclaims its composer, only one song here instantly sounds like an Elton John tune. This is perhaps a good thing, showing his ability to get out of his own pop idiom and really focus on the needs of the story at hand.

Like the show itself, the set by Ian MacNeil is unusually complex and interesting. A union meeting hall that is sliced away on an angle with sections that suddenly slide open to reveal other rooms. A huge central spiral stair tower that raises and lowers to reveal Billy’s bedroom and the family kitchen. A couple of gigantic set pieces for spectacular moments of fantasy or surprise. And when it wants to, the whole thing can disappear to create a vast black void. Very, very cool. The costumes by Nicky Gillibrand get the job done. The lighting by Rick Fisher is often dark and shadowy as befits this sometimes stark story.

Tonight Trent Kowalik played Billy. He was amazing. A good singer, a fine actor, a thrilling dancer. A huge, complex role that in many ways carries the show. To watch a 14-year-old kid do what he does, stuff that would challenge an adult with years of experience, and do it so well, is extraordinarily moving. Haydn Gwynne is caustic and dryly funny as his ballet teacher. Gregory Jbara is frightening and then endearing as the rough, angry father who ultimately cracks open. David Bologna or Frank Dolce – I’m not sure which kid I saw – is absolutely terrific as Billy’s cross-dressing best friend – a performance that is totally out there and utterly charming. The company is huge – around 40, including a dozen or more kids – and every one is a triple threat.

Billy Elliot is political and inspiring and incredibly innovative and funny and intense and deeply moving and spectacularly entertaining, everything you could want in an evening of theatre.

Richard J Roberts

IRT Dramaturg Richard Roberts is on his annual theatre trip to NYC and he’s sending back thoughtful reviews of what he’s seeing.

A fun day in Greenwich Village, including a cupcake at the famous Magnolia Bakery and a drink at the Stonewall Inn.

MARY STUART
One of my favorite historical figures is Queen Elizabeth I, but despite the fact that she is the antagonist in this play, I still love it. Friedrich Schiller wrote the play in 1800. It focuses on the conflict between Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, her Catholic cousin who some felt should have been queen instead, and includes a fictional confrontation between the two queens – in reality, they never actually met. It’s one of my favorite plays that never gets produced, so I was thrilled to have the chance to see it. The text for this production is billed as a new “version” by Peter Oswald. Whether that means translation or adaptation, to my ears it was clear and easy to follow, poetic in all the right places, and struck a nice balance between feeling like a period piece and still feeling fresh and modern. At two hours and 45 minutes, the production is too long – like many plays written more than 200 years ago, it could be distinctly improved by some judicious pruning. I felt they lost their audience in the last half hour.

Beautifully directed by Phyllida Lloyd, the production is starkly dramatic. The simple but imposing black brick set is by Anthony Ward. He also designed the striking costumes, with the women in Elizabethan corsets and ruffs and long dresses and the men in contemporary business suits, all in basic black. This contrast points out how the women are both constricted and glorified by the male dominated power structure of the time. The expressionistic lighting is by Hugh Vanstone. A rain shower drenches the stage at the top of the second act.

The production stars two of Britain’s powerhouses. Janet McTeer is Mary Stuart, proud, reckless, a wildcat trapped in a cage. Harriet Walter is Elizabeth, also full of pride but neurotic, the most powerful woman in the world yet plagued by insecurities. McTeer plays the imprisoned Mary at full throttle, flinging herself about the stage with abandon. Walter’s Elizabeth, in contrast, feels trapped and weighted down by her power. Both are rich, eloquent performances, beautifully spoken, passionately felt. The supporting cast is very good, including Brian Murray as Shrewsbury and John Benjamin Hickey as Leicester. A fine evening of classic drama.

Richard J Roberts

IRT Dramaturg Richard Roberts is on his annual theatre trip to NYC and he’s sending back thoughtful reviews of what he’s seeing.

A long walk through the city

ROCK OF AGES
I grew up listening to Jerome Kern and Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Lowe. I never connected to the music of my own time, except Elton John in high school and Billy Joel in college. But the eighties – Michael Jackson (and even more so, Janet), Madonna, George Michael, the Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, Erasure – that was my time. Heavy metal, not so much, although there is a certain passion and over-the-top-ness that is appealing. So I might not have gone to see this show if it weren’t playing on Monday night, when the choices are extremely limited. It is a hoot and a half. If you don’t like metal, you’d hate it. If you are open to the music, you’ll have a good time. The audience around me screamed like it was Metalpalooza.

It’s your typical boy meets girl, aspiring headbanger loses naive wannabe actress in a halter and a mini, older but wiser victim of the music meat grinder gets fired waitress turned stripper at the train station just before she leaves town kind of story, set against a background of crass urban redevelopment vs. old-school rock’n'roll integrity, with a song list that is basically the Greatest Hits of Heavy Metal: “Nothin’ but a Good Time.” “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” “I Want to Know What Love Is,” “Here I Go Again,” “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” and a couple dozen more. Pretty standard fare for Broadway. OK, I guess it is the only Broadway show I’ve seen where cocktail waitresses roamed the aisles serving drinks during the show and they passed out lighters to hold aloft during the power ballads.

Neither Constantine Maroulis nor Amy Spanger performed tonight. Hmmm, they both seemed perfectly healthy yesterday at the Tonys. Oh well, I never watched American Idol anyway, and I hear she misses a lot of performances, and their understudies, Jeremy Jordan and Savannah Wise, were fine. The supporting cast is outstanding in zany, over-the-top roles. Mitchell Jarvis plays Lonny, the sound man and narrator, a bizarrely flamboyant combination of kitsch and panache, lots of surprising choices, nothing held back. James Carpinello is Stacee Jaxx, the quintessential hair band front man, making ever line and gesture a sexual innuendo, and one of the most amazing bodies I’ve ever seen. Wesley Taylor is brilliantly inventive, a walking non-sequitor, as Franz, the son of the developer villain (“I’m not gay, I’m just German”). The show is a hilarious satire, but there is an underlying sweetness in the performances that keep it from ever turning mean.

Cleverly directed by Kristin Hanggi, the show is full of witty self-referential moments. The set by Beowulf Boritt, a seedy club that transforms into a lot of other places, is cluttered (in a good way) and flexible. Gregory Gale’s costumes are sexy and funny. The rock arena lighting is by Jason Lyons. The pelvis-heavy choreography is by Kelly Devine. Definitely not for everyone, and no great contribution to the canon of musical theatre, but still a ridiculous amount of fun.