As a Stranger, Give It Welcome

Last Friday night at Shotgun Players, as I stood on the front steps drinking champagne and waiting for the house to open, a middle-aged woman walked by, glanced at the building, and asked me if this was a theater. I told her that it was.

"I pass by here all the time but I've never gone in."

She had obviously just come back from a trip to the corner store. She was carrying a big jug of Arizona Iced Tea.

"How much do tickets cost?" she asked.

"I'm a subscriber," I said. "I honestly can't remember what I paid." As I said that, I realized it's a cop-out; I realized I'm embarrassed about theater ticket prices and have a whole lot of complicated feelings about money and class.

Nonetheless, she continued to look intrigued. Tentatively, she went up the front steps. I heard her ask another woman "What do tickets cost?"

"I think they start at thirty-seven fifty, and they're all sold out for the run," said the other woman, who looked exactly like you'd picture a late-middle-aged Berkeley theater-going matron to be. "But I have an extra one that I've been trying to give away. My friend isn't coming."

"For free?"

"For free."

And just like that, the woman with the jug of iced tea got to see an experimental production of Hamlet, for free, on a whim. The whole exchange made me even giddier than the champagne did and restored my faith in humanity. I hope she enjoyed the show. I hope this was a magical Friday night for her and the first of many theater adventures to come. I thought about her a few times as I watched the play, especially during the following exchange:

"This is wondrous strange!" says Horatio, upon seeing the ghost.

Hamlet replies: "And therefore, as a stranger, give it welcome."

Epic Plays, Small Theater: "Coast of Utopia" at Shotgun Players

While reading this profile of Blanka Zizka, artistic director of Philadelphia's Wilma Theater, I was most struck by the section that described Zizka's production of the Tom Stoppard play The Invention of Love.

Though the play had a successful run in London, no theater in New York took it up. "People kept thinking that Invention of Love was dry as toast," says New York actor Martin Rayner, who portrayed the elder [A. E.] Houseman. "Nobody wanted to touch it in New York. Blanka took it and made it this vibrant thing."

It would become the highest-grossing show in Wilma history, and it prompted Andre Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater -- who had passed on the play because he thought it too difficult and complicated -- to drive to Philly to see it. Not long after the lights went down, Bishop remembers, "Suddenly the play, which had made no sense to me in London, made total sense to me now. I don't honestly know how. The design was much simpler. The theater was smaller. It wasn't that the actors were better than the British actors. They were clearer. They had an emotional life."

The reason this passage struck me is because Bishop's experience seeing The Invention of Love at the Wilma mirrors what I've been telling people about the experience of seeing Stoppard's plays Voyage and Shipwreck (the first two parts of his Coast of Utopia trilogy) at Shotgun Players. The Wilma Theater has 300 seats; Ashby Stage, where Shotgun performs, has 150. I feel like 125 to 300 seats is really the ideal size for a theater: large enough to make you feel like part of an important communal experience, but small enough to still feel intimate.

And maybe that intimacy is especially important when staging one of Stoppard's challenging and cerebral plays. At least, I connected far more with Shotgun's production of Voyage, last year, than I did when I saw the play in its New York premiere at Lincoln Center Theatre in 2006.

In New York, I think there were something like 60 people in the cast, including famous faces like Ethan Hawke and Jennifer Ehle. The production was lavish, sparing no expense; it opened with an elaborate effect of ocean waves swirling and spiraling around Brian F. O'Byrne (who played the trilogy's protagonist, Alexander Herzen). But, aside from Billy Crudup's brilliant performance as Vissarion Belinsky -- he spoke some of Stoppard's most complex monologues as if he was actually coming up with the words on the spot -- I wasn't really able to connect with the play. The bigness, the lavishness, the constant emphasis on "we are doing something epic and highbrow," overpowered the story. My friend Lexi, who went with me to the show, thought that the opening special effect was the best part of the whole thing. But special effects should not be the reason that you go see a Stoppard play.

The Coast of Utopia features much discussion of intellectual topics, which can make it seem dense and confusing. But it also bears a Chekhovian influence -- there is poignant human drama amidst all of the storms and streams of talk. That element of it, though, got swallowed up by the massive Lincoln Center production. But in Shotgun Players' 150-seat house, the epic grandeur and the human intimacy of the play are balanced. Shotgun may have only 20 cast members instead of 60 (and face it, 20 actors is still a freakin' huge cast). Their set is bare-bones, their costumes are serviceable but perhaps not 100% historically accurate. But the play is clearer. It has an emotional life.

I wanted to love Voyage when I saw it in New York, because I love Stoppard and I love big intelligent plays... and, I guess, I respected that production, but I didn't love it. (Billy Crudup excepted.) It didn't even bother me that I had to miss seeing the other two parts of the trilogy in New York when I left to go study abroad.

Nowadays, I have immense respect for Shotgun for daring to tackle this epic trilogy in their mid-size East Bay venue. Moreover, I am connecting with what they're putting onstage -- getting caught up in the characters' emotional predicaments as well as their intellectual jousting.You can bet that I'm already looking forward to Salvage, the conclusion of the trilogy, which they'll produce next season. In the meantime, Voyage and Shipwreck are playing at Shotgun Players through the end of this weekend (May 5).

Image: Joseph Salazar as Mikhail Bakunin, Patrick Kelly Jones as Alexander Herzen. Photo by Pak Han.

"God's Plot" at Shotgun Players: Backstage drama, back in the day

God's Plot, Mark Jackson's new play at Shotgun Players, features several elements that, in recalling some of my favorite plays, are guaranteed to appeal to me.  There's the backstage-drama storyline about the first English settlers of a vast continent, producing the first piece of theater ever performed there (shades of Our Country's Good). There's an intelligent and strong-willed teenage girl with a crush on her handsome tutor (shades of Arcadia). There's a Colonial American story that intentionally resonates with present-day concerns (shades of The Crucible).  There's a scene where several aspiring theater-makers persuade a tapster to let them perform rent-free in his tavern, because "you'll sell a lot of beer" (shades of San Francisco Theater Pub).

Add in a beautifully designed set, live banjo- and-bass music, and dynamic and inventive staging (also by Jackson), and you have a production that I enjoyed very much.

According to the historical record, the first play to be performed in America was an original satire, Ye Bare and Ye Cubb, written by one William Darby, depicting England as a greedy mother bear refusing to share honey with America, her cub. The script has not survived, and it seems that the main reason we know of this play is due to court records: the playwright and actors were tried for sedition and blasphemy. This all took place in 1665, in a small, conservative village in Virginia.

God's Plot has fun imagining what Ye Bare and Ye Cubb might have looked like (complete with a funny/gruesome bear-baiting finale) and with making theater in-jokes.  But it also explores deeper themes that began in the colonial era and have continued to shape our country: our simultaneous desire for and fear of liberty; debates about the role of God and religion in public life; the contrast between the noble ideals we espouse in public and the petty self-interest that motivates us in private.

One can assume that, in the historical record, most of the people mentioned in connection with Ye Bare and Ye Cubb are men: the playwright, the actors, the tavern owner, the sheriff, the person who brought the suit to court, the local judge who presided over the trial, the Jamestown official who came to observe.  But Jackson has decided to tell this story from the perspective of a young woman: Tryal Pore, the judge's daughter.  "I have an eye on this town / Got my ear to the ground," Tryal sings (she narrates the show through song, the only character to address the audience in this way).  She observes the controversy aroused by the production of Darby's play and will do anything she can to be part of it.

I read one review that criticized the portrayal of Tryal for her anachronistically modern/feminist attitudes. Usually this sort of anachronism bothers me, too, but it didn't here.  I thought the play provided a convincing-enough explanation for where Tryal gets her freethinking ways: she's been influenced by Darby, her tutor. Moreover, she's not espousing women's liberation or any kind of organized political viewpoint, which I would find hard to believe.  Instead, she's criticizing her parents' hypocrisy and hoping for a roll in the hay (literally) with a hot guy -- in other words, she's acting like a hormonal teenager. And maybe it's anachronistic to claim that teenagers 350 years ago had the same drives as teenagers today. But I am inclined to believe that fundamentally, human nature remains the same from century to century. The religious leaders of the 1600s wouldn't have fretted so much about "sin" and "fornication" if they weren't deeply afraid that the young people of their community secretly wanted to sex each other up. (And of course, when you demonize fornication as much as the Puritans did, you only make it seem more alluring.)  Plus, America, especially colonial and frontier America, has often been thought of as an adolescent territory -- brash and restless and rebellious.  In that regard, it makes excellent sense that the central character of God's Plot possesses all those traits.

God's Plot continues at Shotgun Players through January 29. Tickets here.

Photo by Pak Han. L-R: Kevin Clarke (Judge Pore), Fontana Butterfield (Mrs. Pore), Juliana Lustenader (Tryal Pore), Josh Pollock (Banjo).

Notes on Two Theatrical Sequels

There's been a lot of talk about how 2010-2011 is the year of multi-part plays in Bay Area theater. Three theaters teaming up to present The Brother/Sister Plays, Shotgun producing both The Salt Plays and The Norman Conquests, Sleepwalkers producing the This World and After trilogy... there's a lot of theater to see and, as you can tell, I haven't always been good about writing up what I see. It's even worse when I've written an enthusiastic blog post about the first play in a duology or trilogy, and then neglect to share my thoughts after I see the second play. Herewith, some catching up...

Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet (at ACT, closed in November) -- I basically enjoyed this play, and after the harrowing drama of In the Red & Brown Water and The Brothers Size, it is nice to know that Tarell Alvin McCraney can write a coming-of-age comedy. As I recall, there were some hilarious lines in this play. True to its title, one of the best words to describe this play is "sweet." However, the ending of it was incredibly anticlimactic. It would have been anticlimactic if Marcus were just a stand-alone play (the characters spend all of Act II worrying that a Katrina-like hurricane is going to hit their bayou town, but the hurricane never shows up) and it's even worse considering that Marcus is not a stand-alone play, but the conclusion of an ambitious trilogy. We know from Red and Brown Water and Brothers Size that McCraney can write unflinching, emotionally gripping finales... why did he falter when writing the ending of Marcus?

Also, part of me wonders whether ACT shouldn't have produced In the Red and Brown Water and Marin produced Marcus, instead of the other way around. Red & Brown Water is the biggest play of the trilogy -- the most characters, the most overtly mythological themes, the most stylized. So mightn't it be better in ACT, the biggest theater; and mightn't Marcus, a gentle comedy, be better in the medium-sized Marin Theater? Then again, ACT has the most tickets to sell and the most subscribers to please. Under those circumstances, Marcus is probably the most crowd-pleasing show of the trilogy, and the safest bet.

I really need to buy and read the whole trilogy of plays now; despite my occasional caveats, this is exciting writing, and I am sure I can learn from it.

The Salt Plays, Part II: Of the Earth (at Shotgun Players through January 16) -- After producing writer-director Jon Tracy's innovative Iliad adaptation In the Wound at John Hinkel Park this summer, Shotgun presents the sequel, an adaptation of The Odyssey, in their indoor space. One of the most thrilling aspects of In the Wound was its huge cast and innovatively staged fight scenes; I feared that Of the Earth, an indoor play with just eight actors, would be more sedate and conventional. I shouldn't have worried, though: the staging is imaginative, very physical (the taiko drums return!) and makes good use of the space. For instance, video is incorporated into the production, something that obviously could not happen at John Hinkel Park. A five-woman ensemble plays all of the roles besides Odysseus, Telemachus, and Penelope: they transform themselves into Greek gods and goddesses, Odysseus' crew, Circe, the suitors. You haven't lived till you've seen five women, using nothing but their bodies, some ladders, and a lighting instrument, come together and characterize the Cyclops. It is an amazing theatrical moment.

The Salt Plays are a very unconventional take on Greek mythology. For instance, the gods are given different motivations than they have in Homer: the driving force of the play is Zeus' insistence that Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena must atone for having caused the Trojan War, and must punish Odysseus for killing Iphigenia. It is exciting to watch such a fresh take on such old myths, but some plot points in both In the Wound and Of the Earth were unclear. At times, Jon Tracy seems to pack too much into each of these plays -- the text is dense, and on top of that the staging is complex and physical.

I love what Tracy does with most of the mythological figures, but I don't like the way he's characterized Penelope. Usually, Penelope is one of my favorite characters -- seriously, read The Odyssey and be amazed at how such a strong, well-rounded female character appears in a poem that was written in the eighth century B.C. But in the Salt Plays, she seems kind of one-dimensional and weak. The play captures the part of her that is a loving mother and faithful wife, but not the intelligence and cunning that draws Odysseus to her (and she to him). Tracy presents Odysseus as an antihero, full of flaws, and Penelope as the perfect woman -- whereas the The Odyssey makes the point that Odysseus and Penelope are an evenly matched pair. (A very radical point, for such an ancient work.) I love how The Salt Plays treat the other female characters, and in particular how Of the Earth has actresses portray Zeus and Poseidon -- it's just a shame that, in this telling, Penelope becomes a more conventional ingenue.

Shotgun's "In The Wound" (No, this has nothing to do with firearms)

So, what should you do this weekend if you're jonesing for some outdoor theater that features a big cast and a story that takes place in the ancient world? Don't head to Marin--instead, make your way to John Hinkel Park in Berkeley, where Shotgun Players is producing In the Wound, an invigorating new play based on the Iliad.

I wish I had time to write a longer review, but I think I have to go with some bullet points (no pun intended) about what makes In the Wound well worth a trip to the Berkeley hills:

• A 31-person cast! Thirty-one! I'm trying to remember the last play I saw that had a cast that big...and drawing a blank. The cast really proves the depth and diversity of Bay Area acting talent, and creates some dazzling moments of theater.
  
• Inventively staged fight scenes (stylized, rhythmic fighting with a stick held in each hand) involving most of said 31-person cast. Accompanied by taiko-style drumming and other live percussion and chanting.
  
• Now that I no longer have my prejudice against adaptations of mythology, I am amazed at how rich these stories are--how many different ways you can interpret them, and how every adaptation of the Iliad must choose to emphasize something different. In the Wound focuses on how the Greeks' sacrifice of Iphigenia haunts them throughout the Trojan War and requires expiation. I had never considered this aspect of the story so deeply before.
• In the Wound also has an unusual way of presenting this familiar story, doling out key information in flashbacks. Okay, sometimes it got a little confusing. But, in theater, confusion can sometimes be a useful device to keep the audience paying attention. The In the Wound playbill lists three actresses simply as "Goddess," but it is not until the end of Act 1 that you learn which specific goddesses they are. Greek mythology nerds will be playing Guess the Goddess* all through the first act.
• The play is set in a timeless milieu that blends classical and contemporary references, encouraging you to reflect on warfare ancient and modern. Furthermore, I saw the play on September 11, so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were at the front of my mind. In the last decade, there has obviously been a lot of war-themed theater produced in America. Would I have seen a play based on the Iliad on 9/11/10 if the United States had not been attacked on 9/11/01?
• Odysseus, played by Daniel Bruno, is the main character of In the Wound, and he's intriguingly complex: a family man, a technocrat, a "cruel" man who suggests killing Iphigenia and a thoughtful man who questions his role in the cycle of warfare. Anti-heroes make for good theater, and Odysseus' story isn't done yet. I am thrilled that in December, Shotgun will produce Of the Earth, a new adaptation of the Odyssey, picking up where In the Wound left off!
  
• Suggested donation to see this epic spectacular is just $10!
  

*Not to be confused with Get the Guests.

Image: Iphigenia (Nysbeth Rieman) is carried off to be sacrificed. Photo Credit : Benjamin Privitt.