Archive for September 29th, 2008
Shrivel up and die … of laughter
Flies in the Snuffbox brings comedy back to the Black Box
Written with Matthew A. Jonassaint, originally published in the UVU Review on Sept. 29, 2008.
Media Credit: UVU Theater Department
Elize Newton and Julie Sazo look blithely on as Scott M. Stringham suffer from stress-induced heart palpitations in The Proposal
D. Terry Petrie and Isaac Walters, the chair of and a lecturer for the theatrical arts department respectively, jump-started UVU’s theater season from summer by directing the best production we have ever seen on campus.
Flies in the Snuffbox, collected 1880′s Russian comedy sketches by Anton Chekhov, is more than a successful production — it is unadulterated, enlightened entertainment.
The play is technically four short comedies, the first of which has been segmented to form a more distinct transition between the stories.
The first sketch, On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, was brilliantly handled. The piece was broken into four segments, and was integrated between the other sketches in a way that creatively unified them. Nathaniel Drew was the sole performer in this particular sketch, and he did a fantastic job. His character, who spoke directly to the house, was the perfect bridge between actors and audience. His performance is engaging, relatable, invigorating, and hilarious. In the hands of a lesser actor, this rambling bit of script would simply be stale and flat, but he made it effervescent.
The beginning of The Bear, skit two in the play, provides the low point in the show. However, as the plot heightens, and the audience becomes better acquainted with the leading characters, any disappointment is more than made up for. Here is where the theme of pseudo-psychological terror in long-term relationships really manifests.
And it evolves into a delightful character-based comedy that is more entertaining than any movie in theaters right now. The light design as well is particularly well-done in this piece.
The leading actors in The Bear, Jeremy J. Minagro and Penny Pendleton, ease you in to a full-on yelling match, which warms the audience up nicely for the altercations in the following sketches. It’s an example of an extensively incorporated aspect of the show — to stretch themes and plot devices across all of the short stories.
Scott M. Stringham’s high-strung performance in the third sketch, The Proposal, forces the audience to feel his anxiety. Imagine Charlie Brown without therapy at 35 years old, trying to ask a friend of the family to marry him. Add a dash of Munchausen syndrome and you’re close to Stringham’s character. Elize Newton is the other standout performance of this piece. She plays the obstinate, argumentative counterpart to Stringham, adding her own brand of hilarity to the action. Julie Suazo plays the mother, and Suazo ably balances the character’s tension and mediation in the story.
The plot of The Proposal is less neatly tied off than in The Bear, which parallels the theme of devolution in long-term relationships nicely. The final sketch, The Jubilee, descends into pure chaos by the end. This sketch, about employees of a bank on the night of a company party, practically erupts on the stage. The women show the worst characteristics they are blamed for earlier in the script, the men become children or monsters, and every relationship between characters is destroyed. But it is still a delight to watch.
Amos Omer plays a smug, self-appreciating boss whose egocentricity is exceeded only by his overly talkative wife, played by Britni Gibbs. His antics will seem all too familiar to students working through school by relating with middle management; he is akin to Michael Scott from The Office, but with actual concern for his career. Jana Grass is fantastic as a dynamic character whose obstinate and thunderous nature is matched only by Leviticus Brown as an elderly, miserable volcano who leads the tone of the entire sketch with the sense of a slowly approaching collision.
Performers also include Samuel Davis, Natalie Devine, and Jacob Porter.
The comedy is not merely effective — it’s exhausting, and that’s because the actors perform so provocatively that each line becomes an engaging, relatable experience for the audience. Flies in the Snuffbox is executed well because at the heart of the production, there is a message inherent to the actors, directors, stories, and Chekhov: that human beings are weak, desperate, stubborn creatures who overexaggerate and complain often. And for some reason, that’s uproarious to witness.
“Perfect musical” at Pioneer Theater
My Fair Lady opens in Salt Lake City
Originally published in the UVU Review on Sept. 29, 2008.
Media Credit: Courtesy of Pioneer Theater Company
My Fair Lady is as close to a perfect musical as there is in this world. From its brilliant source material – Shaw’s Pygmalion – to the best score and libretto ever written by Lerner and Loewe, to its audience-pleasing mingling of romance with witty social commentary, My Fair Lady is the rarest of combinations: a classic that’s fun to produce and a joy to watch,” said Pioneer Theatre Company’s Artistic Director Charles Morey.
The classic musical most of us know from the movie featuring Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle will show at PTC until Oct. 4. Pioneer, the only legitimate Equity theater in Salt Lake, has hit the nail on the head with this production.
The members of the cast fit together perfectly, like the pieces of a puzzle. Paul Deboy plays Henry Higgins to be especially eccentric and brooding — almost curmudgeonly — creating the perfect antithesis to the naive, optimistic Freddy Eynsford-Hill, played by Jeremiah Miller. This balancing act between characters and classes continues from curtain to curtain. Roguish Mr. Doolittle (Jeff Brooks) is the polar opposite of gentlemanly Colonel Pickering (Max Robnson), the upper class in the famous horse-racing scene act in a manner completely incomprehensible to the London street rats, and Eliza Doolittle turns a complete 180 in her transformation from flower girl to bona fide lady.
This rare standout feature of the production required a complete understanding of the script’s purpose from both cast and crew. This is truly professional theater – the likes of which venues in Utah Valley can hardly hold a candle to. Is it “Broadway quality,” as the PTC claims? No. But it’s much closer to Broadway quality than Utah is to New York.
My Fair Lady is not immaculate, but still worth saving up for tickets.
The best news about this particular production is, the cheaper the seats, the better your view. Sitting on the sixth row from the apron, the large proscenium and stage-filling sets almost seemed too close. And the cast does such a good job at emoting that you won’t miss a thing in the back row.
Who: Pioneer Theatre Company
What: My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe
When: Sept. 19 through Oct. 4 Mondays – Thursdays: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays: 8:00 p.m. Saturday matinees: 2:00 p.m.
Where: Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre on U of U campus 300 S. 1400 E. Salt Lake City
Tickets: $26-$49 Students K-12 half price on Monday and Tuesday Tickets can be purchased through the box office at (801) 581-6961 or online at www.pioneertheatre.org
Of the valley
When the second act isn’t the only terrifying prospect
Originally published in the UVU Review on Sept. 29, 2008.
Media Credit: Jordy Kirkman
On Sept. 6, three workers at Showtime Utah — formerly known as the Grove Theater — in downtown Pleasant Grove witnessed a 20 oz. root beer mug rise up in the air and move at an alarming speed toward the dishwasher, which was about 5 feet away, shattering on impact.
Head chef Josh Southard, chef’s assistant Chris Southard, and waitress Stephanie Tobias were cleaning up after a show that Saturday. Josh Southard thought that the incident was “cool. I never thought I would ever see something like that.”
Workers in the 82-year-old theater have heard footsteps and strange noises before, but they remained relatively ignored.
Several weeks before the mug incident, Josh Southard set some kitchenware on top of a refrigerator and continued about his business. From another room he heard a loud crash, and upon returning to the kitchen discovered that the bowl and pans were scattered on the floor — the glassware broken.
This certainly isn’t the first time a theater has claimed to house the supernatural.
The Caine Lyric theater in Logan, for example, houses an established friendly ghost, Everett. According to the Lyric’s website, Everett was killed by a jealous fellow performer during a run of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The theater even has a special seat in the loge for Everett, directly behind a chandelier that arbitrarily sways, supposedly reminding cast, crew, and patrons of Everett’s presence.
The idea of a haunted theater is particularly delicious. A live theater is a place where reality and logic are intentionally cast off, where the stakes are heightened. What better place for a poltergeist to loiter?
Oh the thinks they thought
Seussical plays at the Scera
Originally published in the UVU Review on Sept. 29, 2008.
Media Credit: Jordy Kirkman
Seussical is exactly what it sounds like — a musical based on the ideology and stories of Dr. Seuss. Horton the Elephant is the only animal in the Jungle of Nool that can hear the Whos, who are living on a precarious speck of dust. The story is narrated by the Cat in the Hat, who plays Jiminy Cricket to Jojo, an imaginative boy from Whoville.
Still interested? If that last paragraph was difficult to swallow, you might not be able to sit through Scera‘s latest colorful, chaotic, possibly seizure-inducing musical.
If you’re willing to let the madness sweep over you, and to forgive a few sloppy scenes, Seussical can be a lot of fun. It’s certainly entertaining — A.J. Nielsen as the Cat in the Hat, in particular, adds a delightful, unharnessed hilarity to the show.
The production would be a great way to introduce children to live theater. They will recognize characters from the best of the Dr. Seuss books, and the music is full of cheeky maxims that they might be young and pure enough to believe.
However, if you’re childless and cold of heart, Seussical can still be a fun night. Many of the songs can be interpreted as thinly veiled satires of very grown-up issues. Take the song “Amazing Mayzie” from the first act. In this song, the bird Mayzie (played by BYU alum Makenna James) tells how she made her tail bigger and better by using pharmaceuticals. “Get the pills and you can have frills,” her backup singers croon. What else starts with a “T” and is commonly altered medically?
If you throw your imagination into the show’s topsy-turvy pool, it will most definitely make for an entertaining night.
What: Seussical by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens When: Sept. 19 through Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m. Where: SCERA Center for the Arts, 745 S. State St., Orem Tickets: $12 for adults, $10 for children, students, and seniors
