Reach DCP theatre critic Brian P. Sharp at Theatre@DaytonCityPaper.com

LAUGHS

Putting out a special invitation to young people, the Dayton Playhouse presents “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” directed by Jim Lockwood, who has been smitten with the musical since he saw it in London many years ago as a young man first falling in love with all things theater.

Both lyrics and music were written by Stephen Sondheim as a young man and first exploring the fun of creating theater in a new way with twisty, clever words and complex music. This cast was chosen to bring out the comedy, to move, maybe to mug a bit, putting their all into the songs. Ron Kindell is musical director and Sandra Hyde does choreography. He’s “very pleased” with the vocal achievements, and she has “made ‘em dance,” according to Lockwood.

It is witty, fast moving, non-technical fun; the final scene is pure farce, carefully choreographed to look totally spontaneous. The plot involves slave Pseudolus (Brad Mattingly) and his efforts to gain freedom back in Roman times when brain power ruled without machines. The fourth wall of theater doesn’t exist as the characters in low comedy style talk to the audience. We all have stories to share; they define our humanity. No matter what the medium, they are our entertainment.

The cast of “Forum” includes Brad Bishop as Hysterium, Saul Caplen as Senex, Claire Hurley as Domina, Mary Mykyka as Philia, Jamie McQuinn as Lycus, Jeff Sams as Miles and Richard Young as Erronius, with an ensemble of Proteans and Courtesans.

The show runs weekends Friday, May 31 through Sunday, June 16. For tickets, times and information go to daytonplayhouse.com or call 937.424.8477.

SHUDDERS

What makes some love to ride intricate plunging roller coasters or shiver their way through bloody fright movies with grotesque monsters? What makes a playwright create a tale guaranteed to affect the audience with horror or distress? The Theatre Guild has presented a palette of plays dark with the theme of “‘til death do us part” this season; dramas of death or loosely connected to death, on occasion in a comedy. Beginning Friday, May 17, however, the Guild presents a different kind of necrological show with “The Pillowman” by Martin McDonagh (“Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Cripple of Inishmaan”).

Ben Brantley, in the New York Times, said in 2005 “[…] for all its darkness of plot and imagery, ‘The Pillowman’ – which won the Olivier Award in London for best new play – dazzles with a brightness […] largely absent from Broadway. Mr. McDonagh’s true subject is not gruesome crime and unjust punishment, although that’s what a synopsis of the play, set largely in an interrogation room in an unnamed totalitarian state, might lead you to believe. ‘The Pillowman’ is storytelling and the thrilling narrative potential of theater itself […] Mr. McDonagh is not preaching the power of stories to redeem or cleanse or to find a core of solid truth hidden among life’s illusions […] ‘Pillowman’ is celebrating a raw, vital human instinct to invent fantasies, to lie for the fun of it. Stories are fun.”

The plot: a writer is being questioned about the gruesome content of his short stories that seem to be like a series of actual child murders.  Many twists and turns later it turns out … well that would take the thrill away, wouldn’t it?

Patrick Hayes, Michael Boyd, David Hallowren and Joseph Risner are the players, Natasha Randall directs. She said she’s been eager to do this for several years because of the playwright’s strong writing.  She also praised the skill of her cast.

“Pillowman” tells his story for three weekends Friday, May 17 through Sunday, June 2. Go to daytontheatreguild.org or call 937.278.5993 for times and tickets.

Leave the kids at home.

SUMMER PLAYWRITNG CLASS AT SINCLAIR

Sign up soon for a class running Friday, June 17 through Sunday, August 11 that combines three elements: attendance at the Dayton Playhouse’s Future Fest and The Human Race’s Musical Theatre Workshop and eight Thursday night classes at Sinclair. The course also will workshop a student-written piece slated to be produced in the fall at Sinclair. The instructor is Nelson Sheeley, New York writer and director who guest directed at Sinclair for several years before deciding to live and work in Dayton full time.

To earn three college credits go to sinclair.edu\services\registration for the online registration or call 800.315.3000. Registration and department permission is required. Tuition for the three-hour course is $287.10 for Montgomery County residents and $428 for other Ohioans. Those over 60 may audit for no credit through Sinclair’s College for Life Long Learning.

Future Fest features six new scripts selected from submissions by playwrights nationwide, half presented as fully staged productions and half as staged readings the entire weekend of July 26-28. The Festival of New Musicals will conclude two weeks of workshopping on two plays with staged readings the weekend of August 2-4.

The class size is being limited so that every student will have the opportunity to interact with the writers, directors and actors who are developing these new works. Future Fest always features a panel of adjudicators, professionals from the world of theatre in New York and Chicago and sometimes a well-regarded, knowledgeable local theatre professional. They analyze the plays and invite audience participation. Contact gina.neuerer@Sinclair.edu or 937.512.2455. Quick!

“Next to Normal” – a rock opera with a plot and a social conscience – is now playing at the Victoria Theatre as part of the Premier Health Broadway Series. Locally produced by The Human Race Theatre Company, the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama and the 2009 Tony Award winner for Best Score includes both New York and local professionals.

The plot involves life in a family living with a bi-polar member; lives that are touched and twisted by the actions and reactions that affect spouse and children. Mental health and the need for treatment is real life. Considering the ethics of treatment is very much a part of this tell-it-like-it-is story line. It was a bold topic when it debuted on Broadway four years ago, and it continues to feel brave and edgy, working in powerful ways thanks to the strong performances and wise direction.

Director Scott Stoney has selected a cast of strong voices, a well-balanced ensemble able to meet the musical challenge of an opera form with almost every word sung. As the mom, Trisha Rapier carries the load – both musically and dramatically. With subtlety and vulnerability, Rapier gives us the ups and downs her character, Diana, constantly experiences.

As in real life families, everyone who shares a bi-polar person’s life has stories to tell. Eric Michael Krop is Gabe, the son, who not only energizes the show musically, but adds the drama of hallucination to his mother’s perceptions, evidencing her illness. Their scenes together are well-balanced and powerful.

Dan, the faithful husband who tries to help to be logical in the face of feelings and behaviors he cannot understand, is played by Jamie Cordes. His pain and the kind of support he offers is written with understanding by Yorkey and played with quiet perception.

The forgotten child – often a victim in real life bi-polar families – Natalie changes from a compulsive, overachieving daughter to a disenchanted, desperate druggie, played by Emily Price. Along with Diana and Gabe, Natalie sings “Superboy and Invisible Girl.” Of course, she has to acquire a boyfriend. Henry – played by young Jon Hacker – is just savvy enough to understand that Natalie needs consistent support. He perseveres with three progressive musical pleas; “Hey” to Natalie to let him be there for her.

Beyond the immediate family comes the doctor – or a series of doctors – and questions of ethics. Ably contrasted are Dr. Madden and Dr. Fine, each played by J.J. Tiemeyer. Should Diana be medicated to the point where she is “stable” without feeling any ups or downs? “I Miss the Mountains,” she sings. Should she receive Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) treatments and lose many of her memories? And then what? She sings, “Wish I Were Here.” How does a family know the answer to questions like that? Whose decision is it to make? How do they cope with the consequences? What is “normal”? This show does ask its audience to think … and to feel.

The music by Tom Kitt, with book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, is smart and melodic. It ranges from belt-it-out rock to a smidgen of a “Sound of Music” joke – “My Favorite Pill’ – and varieties in between. Most of the lyrics are clear and well projected, although the five-piece orchestra occasionally overwhelms. A few audience members felt some of the songs sung from the second story of the house were not clear.

Unusual in a rock orchestra is the cello, played by Jacob Yates. The poignancy and pain of Kitt’s music written for that instrument is striking. Conductor Jay Brunner (guitar) shares the musical direction with Scott Stoney, who also is credited as choreographer.

The three-story set by David Centers is very linear and compartmentalized, perhaps reflecting the divisions between characters and their individual needs. It is geometric and strong, while being flexible and functional. It works with the creative lighting design by veteran John Rensel, with bold colors changing and illuminating the house, reflecting feelings the characters are experiencing.

In a pre-opening interview, Eric Michael Krop (Gabe) said one of the show’s challenges is singing while running up and down the stairway. He gets lots of opportunities to prove just how well he has conquered that task.

In the same interview, Trisha Rapier (Diane) said she had first become aware of the show several years ago and is thoroughly delighted with the opportunity to perform it in Dayton. “The cast has come to know and understand each other and the meaning of the script, thanks to our rehearsal time together with Scott,” said Rapier. For Director Stoney, his early “table work” where the actors dig in to the play’s conflicts and connections is essential.

“Next to Normal” is a different sort of offering for the Broadway series and some audience members may be surprised by serious issues as entertainment. Like many other topics that we previously “just didn’t talk about,” mental illness may affect someone we know, whether we talk about it or not. Many families, not only the family on stage, find the strength to cope. The play ends on a note of hope, not a pat solution. Like the late second act mother/daughter duet, “Maybe,” the Victoria and the Human Race offer hope for increasing awareness that we are all next to normal.

“Next to Normal” runs through Sunday, May 19 at the Victoria Theatre, 138 N. Main St. Tickets are $40-$86, plus fees. For all times and additional information, please visit victoriatheatre.com/shows/next-to-normal/.

Reach DCP theatre critic Jacqui Theobald at JacquiTheobald@DaytonCityPaper.com.

Les 7 Doigts de la Main (7 Fingers), the indie-circus company that brought you “Traces,” is back in Dayton with “PSY,” an airing out of the mind’s cupboards in the most physical extravaganza to ever topple the pink elephant that is mental illness.

Dayton City Paper had the opportunity to speak with “PSY” assistant director and 7 Fingers co-founder, Isabelle Chassé, and delve into the emotional and physical acrobatics of the show.

About the name, is “PSY” short for “psyche” or “psychiatry” or “psychotic” or …?

Yes, yes exactly. It is short for all of this, I think. In French, we use it really commonly to talk about psychiatry. The show takes place in the office of a psychologist and you have 11 different characters that have different mental conditions. You get to learn about how they feel and how they overcome their fears or overcome their illnesses. There’s group therapy and there’re funny moments and there’re tender moments. There’re a lot of comical themes, too, that are all group based, so you get to see all the different characters interact with each other. For instance, you have one who is manic-depressive interacting with someone who has a sleeping disorder. It creates very funny moments and a lot of dramatic tension, too. -Isabelle Chassé

What did you learn while developing this show? What was the most rewarding?

For me, “PSY” is a very sort of personal show. It’s an important subject to talk about – mental illnesses – and it’s important to not make it taboo. I feel like we found the right balance between addressing a very important subject and addressing it in a fun way, in a way that’s accessible and funny and endearing. I’ve learned that we can do this, we can talk about something that’s really serious and take it seriously, but still shine some light on it, you know? -IC

Psychiatry deals with disorders of the mind, but this manner of storytelling is very physical. How are these stories better told with the body than with words?

As a circus company, we do feel that the most extreme or the most vivid way to express yourself is through the circus arts, through circus disciplines and the extremities that the body can go to. For instance, if you have someone who has obsessive compulsive disorder, you could create a choreography where things repeat themselves and things are very anal and very perfect and the sentiment or the feeling of that choreography evokes that illness. It’s also a way to make the audience’s brain function, to work and imagine things. We don’t give them every little text or every little sub-text that we want to portray in the show. By the choreography and by the acrobatics, the themes are invoked. -IC

For you personally, as a performer, is there ever a part in a show that you’re scared of? Maybe not SCARED scared, but that you anticipate more than others?

Especially in circus there’s a lot of actual, real risk taking. There’s always one trick that’s like, “Okay, this is the moment where I really have to focus all of my being to make sure that everything is going to go right.” Sometimes there’re multiple moments in a show or in an act. The closing act of “PSY” is a teeterboard act. Every single jump, that person gets thrown 25 feet in the air and does acrobatics and then lands on a little mat. Every time, every jump he gets thrown is the moment that he has to be completely, fully mentally aware and physically ready for the impact. Everyone’s got their moments, even people who don’t take such strong physical risks, like tumblers or clowns. It’s the risk of failure, the risk of being in front of an audience and just either not being funny and getting booed or the risk of dropping your balls on the floor. It’s a matter of dealing with the stress and maintaining your focus. -IC

What’s next for 7 Fingers?

We have a lot of different projects running now. We have a show that’s going to play in Mexico this summer that we’re working on, and we have another show that’s very theatrical that we’re writing that’s going to open in September in Montreal. There’s a lot of rehearsals and a lot of training and a lot of brainstorming and writing and creating happening right now, so that’s very exciting for us. It’s a really great time for our company and we’re super proud of all the projects and all the work that we’re doing, including “PSY.” The thing is, it is a circus show. In and of itself, it’s a lot of bodies and a lot of disciplines and a lot of acrobatics and it’s fun and it can just be plain entertaining. You don’t have to talk about it after you get out because you had a great time and it’s an experience, but if you do want to go and dig deeper, there is a lot of substance to that show. That’s great, too. -IC

“PSY” will be at the Victoria Theatre as part of the Projects Unlimited Variety Series on Friday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 13 at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $39 to $61 and may be purchased in person at the box office of the Schuster Center, by phone at 937.228.3630, or online at ticketcenterstage.com. For more information about “PSY” and 7 Fingers, visit 7doigts.com.

If you can leave the Human Race Loft Theatre with your assumptions and your vanities intact, you may be in denial. David Mamet’s “Race” is a boldly confrontational face-off between racial thinking, some stereotypical, some situational and some totally inaccurate.

Four actors, evenly divided racially, bring alive this law office story with conviction and a physical energy that holds an audience for 90 minutes of emotion, hacked out of the most basic human drives:  shame, guilt, self-delusion, greed. The law partners are Henry Brown (played by Alan Bomar Jones) and Jack Lawson (played by Richard B. Watson). The recently hired young lawyer, Susan, is played Julia Pace Mitchell. The man who wants to be their client is Charles Strickland, played by Bruce Cromer.

The play is full of plot twists and questions: Strickland is accused of raping a young minority woman in a hotel room. Did he? He wants Brown and Lawson to represent him. Will they? The partners trust the talent and knowledge and ethics of the new hire. Should they? The proposed client has no bias and is innocent of the charge. Of course.

Mamet hurls harsh words, words seldom spoken: “Do you think all black people are stupid?” “I think all people are stupid …” and the dialogue blazes on. A bit of the script quoted, as written in the program: “I. Know. There is nothing. A white person. Can say to black person. About Race. Which is not both incorrect and offensive. Nothing. I know that.” The play minces no words or attitudes, and the cast owns it.

Yet, there are subtle moments to balance those in which no holds are barred. Alan Bomar Jones does sly, furious and cynical as Henry Brown. Then he may react to others without words in an equally emotionally effective move and look. He makes more of the role than Mamet.

Bruce Cromer, in a seldom seen, unlikable character role, carries himself quite convincingly as a man who expects his mantle of privilege that comes with high income to be above doubt. His moment of insight at the end is portrayed tentatively, a man testing the unknown. It seems a somewhat thankless role for his talents.

It was a moment of fine acting when Mitchell’s face reflected silently that she had figured out a scenario, internally acknowledging the progression of a small plot, registering discovery, then satisfaction. This play is full of such moments. Ms. Mitchell is pregnant, which stretches the credibility of one of the plot points, but in no way diminished her believable character development.

Watson, whose character Jack Lawson never leaves the stage, carries the most dialogue and the heaviest burden of the play, in more than one way. He only joined the cast on Tuesday of opening week; because Human Race resident artist Michael Lippert had to bow out due to illness on Sunday, another professional had to be found quickly and brought to Dayton. Watson played the role about a year ago, but some of the dialogue had faded over time, as he performed other heavy parts. It has been a race of a different sort for him with the cast and director, getting up to speed: blocking, becoming an ensemble, having costume fitted, retrieving half-forgotten lines, having photographs done, overcoming travel exhaustion. By opening night Friday, Watson seemed to have done it.

More than that, the actor has vested the character with energy and an appropriately greedy, cagy, conniving intelligence. His wiry frame quivers with purpose and alternately slumps when confronting his own racial assumptions.

The rest of the cast has been generously supportive, according to Director Richard E. Hess.  Jones noted how much he liked Hess’s direction, encouraging the lawyers to be more in tune with each other.

Hess said he had learned a lot from trusting his actors to find and build the drive of each character. “I trust the actors,” he said. “They worked through their own issues during rehearsals and brought the reality, but left unanswered those questions we must each answer on our own.  They taught me I’m white, I’m racist.”

Lest you think there is a ripped from the headlines similarity between the basic plot and the recent Strauss-Kahn/ New York hotel chambermaid news, it could not be. Mamet wrote this play previously and it was produced in 2009. The Strauss-Kahn accusation was in 2011.

Your conclusions, if you can come to any about who did what and why, and more significantly if your attitudes and perspectives about race have been altered, may depend on your culture and your race. Certainly, this work and people you’ll meet at the Human Race provide a valuable opportunity for discussion. However, there will be no “While We’re on the Subject Open Forum” discussion, usually held after the second Sunday performance, as Mamet does not permit after show talks.

No matter your ethnic heritage, this is a play that will make you react, one way or another:  agree-disagree; like-dislike; thinking-feeling-squirming. In any case, it may be wise to avoid red sequin dresses.

The Human Race Theatre Presents “Race” Tuesday, April 9 through Sunday, April 14 and Wednesday, April 17 through Sunday, April 21. Prior to Thursday, April 11, there will be an “Inside Track” discussion at 7:15 p.m. For more information, call Ticket Central Stage at 937.228.3630, the Human Race Theatre at 937.461.3823 or visit humanracetheatre.org.

 

Reach DCP theatre critic Jacqui Theobald at JacquiTheobald@DaytonCityPaper.com.