REVIEWS
"Goodnight Desdemona, (Good Morning Juliet)""The Eight: Reindeer Monologues"
KDHX Theatre Review - Betrayal
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Kelly Levins
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal is one of those thoughtful plays that create deep-rooted emotional stabs through a seemingly simple situation. The complexity of the relationships is only revealed through short, simple dialogue in scenes that progress backwards, beginning with the story nearing its end. The characters—Emma, Jerry and Robert—find themselves in quite the predicament. In Scene I, Emma reveals to Jerry over drinks that her marriage to Robert is ending. Jerry is Robert’s best friend; he and Emma had ended a seven-year affair two years prior to this scene. From this scene on, Pinter transports us through the history of Emma’s marriage and her affair, all the way until we reach the last scene, where we see Jerry acknowledging his desire for Emma for the first time. The dynamics of the relationship are startling and shocking as they are revealed. As a fellow audience member near me observed early on, watching this show and guessing what sort of emotional punch might end each scene became an entertaining game of sorts.
The complexity of Pinter’s script lies in not what is said, but what isn’t. The interesting use of time as structure works well with the orchestrated pauses that generate the show’s true emotional intensity. The relationships are more multifaceted than it seems at first. Competitiveness, jealousy, lust, anger, pity and even love all reveal themselves more through the actor’s clean choices and the use of awkward silences rather than through any lengthy, cluttered dialogue. Pinter’s writing is clean and simplistic, and the Hydeware actors play well to this. Choices made are consistent with the script and the style of the show. They are clear and bold without overly conceptualizing the show. The individual performances by the actors varied. Billie Jo Leuschen’s portrayal of Emma is that of an ice queen; while it easily becomes redundant early on in the production, Leuschen does break away with some true, softened moments that give Emma true depth. Robert, played by John Shepherd, is appropriately egotistical and perceptive; his stiffness and intelligent persona serve as a strong contrast to Richard Strelinger’s Jerry. Strelinger’s fluidity and grace, along with superb mastering of Jerry’s emotional character, makes him stand out as more human than any of the others involved. The ensemble compliments itself well, and the relationship between the three is appropriately complex and challenging.
The extremely minimalist staging, lighting and costumes suit Pinter’s script well. The space, old and a little rough, works with the minimalist feel and doesn’t detract from the strong and worthy emotional jabs that make this piece so thought provoking. Betrayal continues through November 11 at the Dignity House Lower Level Theatre, 812 Union Blvd. Call 314-368-7306 for ticket information.
by Gerry Kowarsky
“Oleanna” is rich in the stylized language that has become the trademark of playwright David Mamet. The peculiar sound is not merely an exercise in technique. The point of Mamet’s distinctive writing comes across clearly in Hydeware Theatre’s absorbing production of “Oleanna,” directed by Richard Strelinger.All of the action takes place in the office of John, an education professor on the verge of receiving tenure. The other character in each scene is Carol, a college student who first visits John because she is completely lost in his class.
John is preoccupied with the new house he plans to buy after receiving his promotion. Carol’s desperation eventually rouses John’s sympathy, but nothing he says can spark any hope in her, not even when he reaches out on a personal level.
The fragmentary sentences and incomplete thoughts in the dialogue make it difficult to pin down the exact problem Carol is having in John’s class. Clarity about an educational issue, however, would be a distraction from the real focus of the scene: the relationship between the teacher and the student. John has all the power, and he enjoys using it.
The situation is very different in the second scene. John’s promotion is in doubt because of a report Carol has submitted to the tenure committee. She has interpreted John’s behavior in their previous encounter as sexual harassment, and he is hard-pressed to refute her accusations. The reversal in power is complete in the third scene, when Carol is in charge and John is pleading for consideration.
At the outset, Brian Hyde fully captures John’s glib, academic self-importance, while Ember Hyde convincingly projects Carol’s discouragement and confusion. The interplay between the two performers is equally persuasive as the characters’ roles change.
Carol’s transformation presents an intriguing question. Was her consciousness raised between scenes by the group she mentions, or was her initial helplessness a pretense designed to entrap John? This question and many others prompted by the play can divide the audience by gender.
The Hydeware production accentuates this division in the layout of the seating. The stage lies between two groups of chairs that face each other. The ushers ask the people entering the theater to separate by gender so that men and women are seated on opposite sides of the room. Making each gender see the other’s responses to the action effectively underscores the sexual politics of the interpersonal drama.
OLEANNA The David Mamet Society
By David Mamet
Hydeware Theatre, Berserker Studios, St. Louis.
2 June 2002.
In the ten years since its original production, David Mamet’s Oleanna has continued to challenge and disturb its audiences. While the author persists in his claims that Oleannacenters on the concept of academia as a utopia, critics and audiences continue to use the play as a starting point for discussions of sexual harassment, political correctness, and contemporary gender relationships. Hydeware Theatre, one of St. Louis’ newest companies, approached the play from these popular conceptions, and yet avoided creating another rendering of Oleannameant to lead to a panel discussion of gender politics. Director Richard Strelinger and his cast and crew presented a unique vision of the play that recognized its political dynamics without allowing these issues to dominate the production.
I must admit that I was concerned when informed that seating was segregated by gender: men sat on one side of the stage, women on the other. In a more traditional theatre, such an arrangement may well have seemed a gimmick, but in the intimate space of St. Louis’ Berserker Studios, where the other side of the stage was, at most, ten feet away, I could not help but take note of the reactions of women facing me and integrate them into my experience of the play’s action. The arrangement of the performance space was even more interesting for the intimacy created with the play’s characters John and Carol. Literally no separation existed between actors and audience: I had to move my feet once or twice to avoid tripping an actor. The literal lack of distance from the actors also challenged the audience’s ability to distance itself emotionally. While reviews of early productions of Oleannanote the cheers and curses that spectators offered at the play’s final descent into violence, the audience for this production sat in tense silence as John attacked Carol.
While Strelinger and company’s use of space proved highly successful, it also created a risk, as spectators were able to observe the actors very closely. Cast members Brian Hyde and Ember Hyde met this challenge admirably. Brian’s John at times seemed drawn from William H. Macy’s film performance of this character, but he succeeded in creating a unique vision of the troubled professor, even eliciting laughter from the audience at very appropriate points in the first act. Ember’s portrayal of Carol was spirited and intense. While she demonstrated mastery of Mamet’s dialogue, the real strength of her performance came from her physical presence, deftly using facial expressions and body language to communicate Carol’s frustration and anger. The two actors also interacted well, following Mamet’s cues for overlapping dialogue in a practiced, professional manner.
Perhaps the truly unique aspect of this production was its set, drawing on conventions commonly associated with film noir. For most of the production, the only lighting came from two fluorescent lights above the performance space. This soft lighting, along with minimal props (a desk, two chairs, and a makeshift bookshelf), created a feeling much more like the office of Sam Spade than the genteel academic environment created in Mamet’s film version of the play. The actors’ costumes enhanced this effect, with both characters clad primarily in black and white. While critics have often noted Mamet’s debt to noir in films like House of Games and Homicide, Strelinger, along with stage manager Traci Eichhorst and lighting designer Pamela Banning, cleverly connected Oleanna’s sexual tension and quest for certainty with the writer’s more obvious forays into mystery and darkness.
Overall, the success of Hydeware’s production of Oleannagrew from this young company’s sense of purpose, which, in part, is to “stage plays that offer a fresh, new perspective: on life and on the way theatre is experienced.” While a spectator might quibble, noting that Oleannais one of Mamet’s most performed plays in recent years. Strelinger and company “offer(ed) a fresh, new~ perspective” on a play that, in a relatively short amount of time, has had its edge removed through productions that focus strictly on notions of political correctness within the academy Ignoring the political implications of Oleannaseems almost foolhardy, though, despite Mamet's claims of the play’s apoliticism. Hydeware managed to balance themes of gender relations and power with Oleanna’s more intrinsically dramatic elements to create a powerful, thoughtful, and heartfelt rendering of this challenging theatrical work.
JEFF MCINTIRE-STRASBURG
WEBSTER UNIVERSITY
KDHX Theatre Review - Oleanna
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Julie LaBeau-Bond
Hydeware Theatre is yet one more of the intimate, bare bones groups popping up in the converted spaces of St. Louis. Its mission, a seemingly popular one these days, is to "produce theatre that entertains while broadening the mind", to "advance ideas, through performance, that encourage debate and exploration of societal beliefs, actions, and sterotypes." So, it seems fitting that this group would choose Oleanna, David Mamet's controversial piece about sexual harassment and abuse of power.
Through a trio of vignettes, we learn that Carol, as played by Ember Hyde, is meeting with professor John, played by John Hyde, to discuss her difficulties in his course. Her frustrations lead to an outpouring of emotion, which, when John uncertainly tries to comfort her, lead to accusations of sexual harassment.
I found it interesting to note that Hydeware Theatre does not hold formal auditions for their productions. Rather the handful of people that comprise the core group also perform, direct, design, and manage the entire production. I do hope that for their next show, they will consider opening up to newcomers, as they could certainly use some fresh blood and fresh ideas.
I'm not sure if the fault lies with the performers or with the director (Richard Strelinger), but this show never quite figured out what direction it was going, stylistically speaking. Brian Hyde's naturalistic take on the character of John was quite good, though it was difficult to believe that he was old enough to have been teaching for 20 years. While Ember Hyde's treatment of Carol was in keeping with the Mamet school of line delivery, I found her to be flat and uncomfortable. Ms. Hyde rendered her character void of emotion, except anger and hostility, and refused her any of the nuance that is necessary for the "Who's right?" outcome.
Hydeware Theatre also attempts to create "gender-siding" by segregating the men and women of the audience. I'm sure that by doing so, they believed we would support the character which represented us, respectively. I, however, felt that Ms. Hyde's Carol only served to belittle and belie those who have truly been victimized, therefore further enhancing the thinking that women "really want it and only use rape/molestation/harassment as a way to get back at someone."
I wish to state that I did enjoy this performance of Oleanna; I only wish that more care had been taken to ensure the quality rather than focusing on the overall shock-factor. Of course, as John states in regards to his job as teacher, "My job is to provide you with my ideas and beliefs; your job is to take them and do what you will with them." And such is my job as a critic and such is your job to go see David Mamet's Oleanna for yourself and make your own decision.
By: Alex Graves
In case you missed it, an inventive troupe fresh to St. Louis, Hydeware Theatre, performed a modern rendition of Shakespeare’s classic, Othello. Held in TillesPark September 20-22, the play was staged in 1980 in Afghanistan during its war with the Soviet Union. The primary characters are American, except Othello, who remains a Moor. However, under this new rendition, nine months in the making, the play’s director, Richard Strelinger, has changed more than the character’s nationality.
Previously a play about intrigue, jealousy, racism, and revenge in which a soldier passed up for promotion, Iago, and a man pining for another’s wife, Roderigo, plot together to bring the ruin of one of their army’s great generals. Othello has taken on new meaning under Strelinger’s tutelage. Removing the element of racism, Strelinger has changed the sex of the two antagonists, Iago and Roderigo, into female, introducing the elements of sexual discrimination and homosexuality. Othello’s character remains the same. By erasing the element of racism, Othello’s dubitably sympathetic character becomes less so, while a pale light of sympathy illuminates Iago. Iago’s duplicity is no longer borne of greed and jealousy, but actions intended to break through the deliberate promotional ceiling confining her. Roderigo no longer seeks Desdemona as wife but as lover. Emilia, Previously Iago’s wife and unwitting assistant to his intrigue, now Iago’s adversary, is a photojournalist documenting the new couple’s movements in Afghanistan.
While the performances in Hydeware’s recent presentation was not as strong as the troupe’s performances in David Mamet’s dramatic Oleanna and the company’s high-humored improvisationals, the unique perspective of this Renaissance play and the mature yet sometimes lighthearted performance in the park’s tranquil setting is rewarding. By performing in the park, it is with intended irony that the sun recedes and the nearby bells toll on Othello’s ruin. By staging the play in America’s Afghani-Soviet war in the 1980’s, audience members are forced to reflect on the tumbling recursive consequences of external and internal conflicts. Yet, despite the play’s modernity, Shakespeare’s rhythmic iambic pentameter is maintained.
Many of the actors have performed with Hydeware before. Aptly and dynamically played by Ray Reese (Macbeth, the Tempest), Othello’s internal turmoil and later crime is eerily reminiscent of recent headlines of internal violence erupting into crimes of passion by a few American soldiers returning home from the current war in Afghanistan. Desdemona, played by Ember Hyde (Top Girls, Oleanna), displays an extra-traditional amount of foreshadowing in her performance, as confused concern over her husband’s change in personality accelerates. Iago, played by Billie Jo Leuschen (Macbeth, The Tempest), is unusually by intentionally reserved, emphasizing her duplicity. Notable characters are those played by Mark Moloney as both the President (formerly the Duke of Venice) and Montano and Pamela Banning as Emilia. In addition to the requisite grandeur, Moloney, a highly developed actor, introduces humor and charm to his characters. Banning, also a mature actress, turned a small and relatively quiet part into an absorbing, charismatic character, begging for more lines.
Keep an eye out for future performances of this highly creative troupe.
KDHX Theatre Review - Othello
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Teresa Doggett
After sitting through the current production of Othello by Hydeware Theatre, I was constantly asking myself several questions. Why make Iago a woman? Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for giving women more opportunities to portray traditionally male characters. But in this case what was gained? Was the aim to show that women can be equally ambitious and devious? Well yes, we can be all that and more. Some of the major textual issues of this gender change were addressed but still with updating the story to the modern-day military conflict in Afghanistan you have to make sure that some of the issues within the military of today are addressed, such as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
After saying that, what a coup for a woman to play Iago. What wouldn't most of the female actors in St. Louis do to play such a wonderfully written villain? That's why Billie Jo Leuchen's performance was such a disappointment. There was no depth to her Iago and I got the impression that she did not totally understand what she was saying.
This could also be said for all the actors in the production. One of the most common criticisms thrown at actors performing Shakespeare is the lack of attention to 'meter', or rhythm, of the dialogue. When followed, it can give great emphasis to the performance, but when an actor either ignores or fights it you end up with a performance such as that given by Ray Reese as Othello. You cannot force your own meter on this language in an attempt to make it modern. You end up with disjointed line readings that make no sense.
Most of these problems could have been addressed by a director who was not afraid of the text, as director Richard Strelinger seems to have been with this production. It didn't help that the acoustics at the outdoor pavillion at Tilles Park sucked up the actor's voices, and obvious cost limitations did not allow for more artificial light, for when the sun went down so did our ability to see the actors. Plus, was there a point to be made with allowing Iago to live? I'm not opposed to this point, it seems like a metaphor for corporate America right now!
The Play’s the Thing
The Zoo Story—
A one-act play by Edward Albee
The Hydeware Theatre, April 24–May 10, 2003
Directions to Central Park: Head to 1520 Washington Ave., take the elevator to the Art Coop on floor seven, walk through several charmingly unpolished hallways, enter a room defined as the “theatre,” and take a seat with a small audience in front of a simple set.
There sits on a bench a buttoned-up man named Peter, legs crossed, smoking a pipe and reading a large hardback book. It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon, as birds’ chirps confirm. Into the patch of park roams a wandering oddball named Jerry, who, standing behind Peter, announces creepily, “I’ve been to the zoo.”
Untucked, Jerry’s trailed by the tails of his shirt and the tales of his minor but intensely lived life. He doesn’t so much talk with Peter as accost him, poking and prodding at the man’s life as a husband, father, and executive. Many of his eerily direct questions—“Do you mind if we talk?” he asks, well after they’ve begun; and even later, “Do you mind if I ask you questions?”—let us know that we won’t be hearing simple strangers’ chit-chat, but something of substance.
The substance arrives in the play’s middle, when Jerry ends his questions and begins a string of long stories describing his life and those who surround him. The tales are the kind you’re not sure you want to hear—there’s an always-weeping neighbor; two empty picture frames back in his bedroom; his extreme relationship with a neighbor’s dog—though you sense the stories’ significance in defining this man’s existence. So you listen.
The stories describe the physical and emotional hurdles we encounter simply trying to leave a building but, as in quality art, they end up speaking to larger ideas: the directions of our lives, attempts at connection and containment (note the play’s title), love and language, and God and transience. Albee skillfully supplies these major subjects with room to breathe by maintaining the play’s dark humor throughout. (After a particularly long and troubling story by Jerry, for instance, an uncomfortable Peter asks, “Why did you tell me all of this?” Jerry responds quietly, “Why not?”) As the playwright steers the play into its final third, he adds to the humor a rising tension and an air of expectation, as Jerry continually promises to describe to Peter, and to us, what he’d seen at the zoo just before the play began. On that I’ll remain quiet.
An endnote: A bonus to this short but memorable performance is that it is performed twice, with an intermission in between, and with the actors switching roles the second time around. While you may initially be concerned, as was I, that a second performance would be repetitive; know that you’ll be rewarded for sticking around. While there are no major changes in dialogue, actors Brian Hyde and John Shepherd inhabit the two characters differently, adding their own textures and tones in surprising but believable ways. And director Richard Strelinger provides his own touch—a fresh way to view the second performance, one that allows each audience member to take part in the story’s disturbing conclusion.
KDHX Theatre Review - The Zoo Story
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Mark Bretz
Hydeware Theatre can never be accused of playing it safe. In the past the company has dared to present stripped-down versions of Othello, Macbeth and The Tempest in public parks, pre-dating the big, splashy Shakespearean festivals in Forest Park. It also has tackled works by modern-day theatrical giants Harold Pinter and David Mamet to critical acclaim.
That pursuit continues with its present production, a provocative, beguiling take on Edward Albee's one-act puzzle, The Zoo Story. Director Richard Strelinger expands the possibilities of Albee's drama by having his two actors reverse roles, performing the play twice at each presentation.
This device allows for a couple of interpretations of Albee's story, both from the points of view of the actors and from the audience. The Zoo Story is a tight little tale about the chance encounter of two seemingly ordinary men on a bench in New York's Central Park. Peter is stable, self-satisfied and absorbed in a huge book he leisurely reads while puffing on a pipe and relaxing in his tidy and controlled environment.
Upsetting all of that is Jerry, who arrives on the scene and immediately turns it on its side so that it matches his view of the world. And a disturbing view it is. Much like Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Jerry's aggressive conversation increasingly reveals his troubled and tormented nature. At the same time, his manic approach to the world increasingly unsettles and agitates Peter, who at first is annoyed and then alarmed by Jerry's blunt and unwanted attack on Peter's persona.
Albee's The Zoo Story is alternately funny and terrifying, as the carefully crafted world of Peter is besieged and dismantled by his menacing marauder. Strelinger's direction on a minimalist set strips away the veneer of society to expose the flesh of the two characters to the everpresent cruelty of nature, all the more emphasized under the harsh lighting design by Pamela Banning, the succinctly stated costuming by Traci Eichhorst and Banning's deceptive sound design.
The first performance of The Zoo Story is the superior one, with Brian Hyde making Jerry's menace and threat more overtly hostile and unsettling. In turn, he's complemented by John Shepherd's interpretation of Peter. Shepherd is highly effective as he slowly transforms Peter from a stuffy and static park statue into an urban animal fighting for survival to defend his soul and his psyche from the uncomfortable intrusion of Jerry.
Conversely, Hyde commands Hydeware's second version for much of the performance, while Shepherd offers a more tentative and restrained portrayal of Jerry, emphasizing the terrible banality of his life that has led him to his present predicament. Unfortunately, Hyde's smug and complacent demeanor is too strong for too long to allow a satisfactory descent into dismantlement, which hinders the second telling of the story.
Till Death Do Us Part
Two Edward Albee plays probe the tangle of love and despair
BY DENNIS BROWN
feedback@riverfronttimes.com
For more than four decades, Edward Albee has been challenging, confusing and sometimes even boring theatergoers -- always on his own exasperating, uncompromising terms. Though Albee has received three Pulitzer Prizes for drama, he defiantly refuses to play safe with success. He demands the right to experiment, the right to wander rather than to ascend, the precious right to fail. This week, local productions of two Albee plays, written more than a quarter-century apart, provide an intriguing duotone of the dramatist as both a rising star and a weary traveler.
The Zoo Story, an ominous parable that chronicles a chance meeting in Central Park, reveals Albee on the cusp. When this, his first produced play, debuted off Broadway in 1960, it ran for nineteen months. Its unprecedented success anointed the obscure writer America's newest Very Important Playwright, a judgment that was confirmed two years later with the opening of his first Broadway offering, the explosive Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Because The Zoo Story was written by the often cryptic Albee, today one is tempted to describe it as deceptively simple. But there's nothing deceptive about it: Peter is reading a book when his privacy is intruded upon by Jerry, a stranger who is determined to talk. Within a matter of minutes, both their lives will be profoundly altered.
But nothing is that simple in a Hydeware Theatre production. Hydeware's goal is to shake things up, to challenge an audience to look beyond the obvious or expected. Here the company enacts the 45-minute play twice, with the same two actors switching roles for the second rendering. It's a legitimate approach. Albee's words, which always tinker with the nuances of language, can benefit from a second hearing.
By Hydeware standards, Act 1 is condescendingly conventional. The viewer enters a spacious loft at the Art Coop, sits in a prosceniumlike space and peers through the imaginary fourth wall at a simple set: a bench, a tree, some leaves projected on the rear wall. Midway through the performance, some prerecorded sounds of a distant barking dog deliver an all-too-obvious underscoring of Jerry's now-famous speech about his unhappy relationship with a dog. As directed by Richard Strelinger, the actors -- Brian Hyde as the bookish Peter and John Shepherd as the intrusive Jerry -- are competent enough, although Shepherd's singsong delivery in time becomes as predictable as a metronome.
But with Act 2 the evening moves beyond the conventional. After the intermission, viewers return to the theater to discover that the set has been changed. Forget pretty leaves projected on the rear wall; suddenly there is real grass. No longer is the audience an objective onlooker; now the viewers are in the park, watching events unfold as if from the next bench. Gone is the distant dog; instead The Zoo Story assumes an air of urgency.
One of the themes of Albee's play is that "sometimes it's necessary to go a long way out of your way" to get to where you're going. That premise also holds true for this double-barreled evening. Yet one begins to wonder whether the first version isn't so intentionally on the nose simply to set up the second. If so, there's something disingenuous about purposely staging mundane theater in order to make good theater look even better.
But Hydeware has done more than merely deconstruct its own opening production. Act 2 also deconstructs The Zoo Story itself by radically altering the thrust of Albee's ending. This is baldly, blatantly wrong. As commendable as it might be to encourage viewers to rethink a play, it's something else again to purposely warp that play's intent. Nevertheless, until the final minutes, this well-acted second telling provides compelling, involving theater.
The Zoo Story
By GERRY KOWARSKY
Post-Dispatch
04/29/2003
The dense language and violent conclusion of "The Zoo Story" can leave a first-time viewer with more questions than answers. Hydeware Theatre addresses this possibility in its current production by presenting back-to-back performances of the one-act, two-character play by Edward Albee. The actors reverse their roles for the second performance, which is mounted on a different set.
"The Zoo Story" is such a challenging, provocative script that it stands up well to being seen twice in succession. The Hydeware stagings differ significantly, but both offer useful perspectives.
The action takes place on a Sunday afternoon in New York's Central Park, where Peter, a publishing executive, is sitting alone on a bench reading a book. At the start of the play, Peter is approached by Jerry, a carelessly dressed, weary-looking stranger, who announces he has been to the zoo.
Once he has Peter's attention, Jerry will not let it go. In the course of an hour, Jerry questions, cajoles and dominates Peter, prying a great deal of information out of him and revealing even more about himself. Jerry is repellent but mesmerizing as he rambles on about his troubled upbringing and his isolated existence as a permanent transient.
The first time through the play, Brian Hyde is Jerry and John Shepherd is Peter. They switch parts after an intermission, during which the audience is required to leave the performing space so it can be completely reconfigured. One set features real grass, for which the program lists a horticulturist, Karen Clodfelter. The director of both outings is Richard Strelinger.
It is instructive to hear the text twice within a short period of time, particularly the long, central monologue about Jerry's attempt to connect with and then kill the monstrous dog of his repulsive landlady.
Both actors pace themselves well in effective performances. The differences in line readings are interesting in themselves and make a useful point about the variety of interpretations possible for a script as rich as "The Zoo Story."
Both Jerrys, however, could have brought more focus throughout their portrayals to the weariness and desperation that produce the shocking twist at the end. Providing more preparation for the inevitability of the conclusion would have been particularly helpful the second time around, when the Hydeware cast and crew could be certain that everyone in the audience knew how the play would come out.
Bard Stiff
'Twas pacing killed this Desdemona
BY DEANNA JENT
feedback@riverfronttimes.com
If you think Shakespeare is sacred, stay away from the Soulard Theatre, where Hydeware Theatre is skewering two of the Bard's famous tragedies in Ann-Marie Macdonald's Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). The play is Alice in Wonderland meets A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, with modern-day Shakespeare scholar Constance Leadbelly falling into her trash can and tumbling into the worlds of Othello and Romeo and Juliet in search of a possible missing character who might turn both plays into comedies.
The evening begins on a promising note. The theater is newly fitted with comfortable seats that surround a thrust stage, on which actors playing the corpses of Romeo, Juliet and Desdemona are strewn while a silent, musing Othello stares at the body of his dead wife. Intriguingly, Desdemona is played by an African-American actress. The opening scene, a "dumb show" that plays and replays the deaths of the characters, ventures boldly into the style of the absurd. Sadly, our interest is lost as the first twenty minutes of the play unfold drearily, with stereotypical doormat Constance letting manipulative Professor Night steal her ideas and stomp on her heart. Some unnecessary speeches about alchemy bog down the action even further (alchemists wanted to turn lead into gold -- here we have Constance Leadbelly looking for a golden discovery in Shakespeare's plays -- could the playwright be more heavy-handed?).
When Constance (finally) falls down the rabbit hole into the world of Othello, the scenes turn immediately more interesting, as Macdonald proves apt at twisting the plot unexpectedly. But it's not until Act Two, when Constance (now dressed as a boy) enters the realm of Romeo and Juliet, that Goodnight Desdemona finally kicks into gear.
It's hard to dislike a play that offers cross-dressing opportunities for every cast member, and it's in their gender-crossed roles that most of the actors find glints of comic gold. But while the script turns Shakespeare's plays topsy-turvy, the actors show a distracting disrespect (or ignorance) of his language, mispronouncing "cuckold," "gall," "rheum" and "Iago." Much of what might have been humorous in the play is also rendered unintelligible by the actors' runaway-train line delivery. Director Richard Strelinger is at his best with the script's physical comedy, and several scenes of stage combat are humorous and exciting. But the thrust stage is not always well used: In some scenes, not everyone in the audience is able to understand much of the dialogue or see some of the action.
Ken Haller's portrayals of the chorus, servant and ghost were easily the clearest and most interesting moments in the production. The rest of the ensemble -- Jennifer Blankenheim, Percy Rodriguez, Richon May, Wayne Robert Easter and Ellen Clifford -- each had bright moments (mostly in the second act), but too much was lost in their pell-mell punch lines. It's frustrating to see actors with such energy and good intentions derailed by vocal pace. Also unfortunate is the noisy heater that occasionally overpowers John Shepherd's driving sound design, which features the Eurythmics and the Beatles. Thom Crain's imaginative costumes add unexpected humor, while Brian Hyde's deceptively simple-looking set proves there's much more than meets the eye. Indeed, the scene changes and lighting effects (designed by Pamela Banning) were more interesting than some of the early scenes in the play.
In Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), the main character is searching for a way to turn tragedies into comedies -- or, if you prefer archetypal images, a way to turn the lead of despair into the gold of self-respect. This production delivers the search but not the payoff, finding fool's gold instead of the real thing. But it's hard to dismiss the effort entirely. Hydeware's brash mission statement, declaring an aim to "overthrow the preconceptions of how theatre is experienced" and to "revive theatre as a relevant, powerful force in society," paints the company as a contender willing to take a loss and come back fighting. I'm looking forward to the next round.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Hydeware Theatre at the Soulard Theatre, November 20-23
by Phillip Morton
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is the latest production from the recently founded Hydeware Theatre. Written by Anne-Marie Macdonald, the play is given a fresh twist by director Richard Strelinger. Keeping his stage sets and art direction to a minimum, he wrangles the most from his very talented cast while keeping his audience at undivided attention. This is an admirable task, especially considering the dialogue is at times rambling and the plot sometimes wanders astray.
Shakespeare’s plays are endlessly recycled and reinterpreted due to the fact that they all revolve around a universal truth. Strelinger testifies to their lasting longevity: “His concepts and themes still live today.” Shakespeare’s characters stumble from grace for various reasons: hubris, jealousy, lust, and cowardice. His storytelling set a precedent still unequaled in its insight into the human psyche. Therefore it is fitting that Macdonald set her sights upon writing a play that would deconstruct the very principles and plot mechanics that propel his characters forward into the midst of their inevitable demise.
On this level, the play works wonderfully. The audience is given food for thought when the lead character is given an opportunity to time travel back to the past and change the outcome of what would have been a tragedy, since she knows the path that destiny once led. What she finds out is that she can circumvent situations, but she cannot change human nature.
Psychosexual motivations once hinted at in Romeo and Juliet and Othello come roaring to the forefront in what for the most part seems like a natural extension of the already classic tales. Ironically, Shakespeare’s female characters are still ahead of their times: modern day culture has yet to feel comfortable enough to fully embrace strong, ambitious, and sexually frank female characters. This is certainly a post-modern (some might claim feminist) look at the works of Shakespeare. A point of contention among scholars may lie in the unwise plot twist that involves the revelation that Romeo was, in fact, a homosexual in hiding. But given the homosexual overtones of Hamlet and the rumors of sexual deviancy in Shakespeare’s own life, this seems to be more of a summarized and generalized look into the confused sexuality and gender identifications that litter nearly all of his works.
Sound confusing? It is, and the ruminations and metaphors for literary illusions don’t stop there. Sixteen characters are played by six actors/actresses, but the approach works wonderfully. The various roles give each performer an equal opportunity to shine and display a range of character acting. Jennifer Blankenheim, who plays the lead character Constance, pulls off a very challenging role despite her unwieldy and extraneous dialogue. Richon May electrifies as the tempestuous Desdemona, and Percy Rodriguez is a natural on the stage. All of the actors are really fine and the script will play games with your mind the whole way through. Goodnight Desdemona may be as neurotic as a Woody Allen flick, but it’s highly enjoyable and worth every penny of admission.
Desdamona-Juliette
Nov. 21 Peformance
Hydeward Theatre (Soulard)
Intermission
Ed Golterman
Mess with Shakespeare at your own risk. Try to change his endings and a curse be on you. Ask too many questions and you perish. This isn’t television or Time Machine. But Anne-Marie Macdonald took the plunge, and Hydeware Theatre safely carried her play to shore, in delivering a very funny Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliette), at the Soulard Theatre.
Through magical machinations, and good stagecraft (Anna Marie Groh), Constance is transported into both Othello and Romeo and Juliet with a dual purpose-Save all the star crossed lovers and discover ‘who wrote it’. Jennifer Blankenheim carried it off-a pedantic mouse/victim on a quest, who found a bit of courage and spunk, romping with The Baird’s character. Richon May as Desdamona and Mercutio lit up the stage. She is pure energy and deftly walked the line between comedy and ‘camp’. Richon can mug with the best and knows when. Percy Rodriguez was an ass as Professor Night, cunning as Iago, and hilarious as a cross-sexed (Not star-crossed) Romeo. Percy underplays nicely, then takes His moments. Wayne Robert Ester struck a half-hour pose prior to the show, then sprang into action as Othello, Juliet’s nurse and Tybalt. This was very nice work and a good workout for an up-and-comer. Ellen Clifford cut to the heart of every matter as Juliet. Sex. Shakespeare’s Juliet died before she could experience heat. Macdonald’s Juliet is in perpetual heat, but not for Romeo-the difference between tragedy and comedy.
The big challenge in Goodnight is mixing contemporary and Shakespearian dialogue, at rapid pace, but not too fast for the laughs. The laughs came. Director Richard Strelinger gave his performers a break or two.. A simple, tight set, and an economy of props, entrances and exits, saved their energy for ‘the work’.
The small theatre space allowed Strelinger to block some entrances and exits through the audience.
This is a tricky, tricky piece of theatre. The audience can easily get lost. But Ken Haller book-marked the action as Chorus, Servant and Ghost. Tech guru Anna Marie and Production Support Services, took us back and forth From now to then and then to now. One word for Constance-Riccola.
KDHX Theatre Review - Death and the Maiden
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Robert Boyd
Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden is no-holds-barred scrutiny of the human capacity to be cruel, and though its ending is optimistic, it nevertheless leaves the audience reluctant to look in the mirror, for fear of finding signs in our own faces confirming that this capacity is part of our nature. It is about torture and retribution, specifically during the upheavals in Chile in the 1970’s and 80’s, but it could equally well be set in any conflict in which democratic ideals are confronted by raw political and military force.
As drama, the play requires considerable willingness to suspend disbelief. Into the home of a young couple comes, by the purest happenstance, a stranger, who turns out to be – at least in the mind of the wife – the very man who had presided over her torture, rape, and humiliation ten years ago. The husband, at first unwilling to believe in such a coincidence, then baffled by his wife’s capacity to respond to her torturer with physical cruelty of her own, tries to get her to see that she may be mistaken and – when this fails – that her desire for revenge is as dangerous to the establishment of a government of laws and due process as was the brutal abduction and humiliation she suffered.
Part of the strength of Dorfman’s script is that the audience, along with the husband, is held masterfully in suspense about the identity of the stranger until the climactic moment. If there is a weakness, it is the final, anticlimactic scene, ambiguous enough to be fantasy, in which a benign resolution materializes without much reference to the ferocious anger which precedes it. But this is one of those scripts that is strong enough to produce gripping theater almost without regard to the production.
As staged by Hydeware Theater Death and the Maiden has a kind of barebones intensity that makes the production almost incidental. Even the fact that the actors are rather young for their characters – especially John Shepherd as the doctor – doesn’t undercut the power of the second and third act scenes in which Dorfman yanks the audience from sympathy to revulsion to fear with bewildering speed. Pamela Banning plays the young woman with all the stops full out, and Richard Strelinger, as her husband, matches her energy stride for stride. Mr. Shepherd carries the difficult ambiguity of the doctor’s true identity convincingly. Brian Hyde directs with great sympathy for the complex issues Dorfman raises and for the skills of his young actors.
Hydeware Theater’s production of Death and the Maiden will run through next weekend [
KDHX Theatre Review - Kathryn Blume in The Accidental Activist
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Daniel Higgins
On
At first glance, Ms. Blume seems a slight and unprepossessing figure, and she projects a persona which is appealingly eccentric, but one which makes it understandable that her career as an actor in New York has not been greatly successful up to now: she doesn’t belong to any standard “type,– and she herself notes that she is “too uncastably ‘me.’– She is, however, a talented and professional actor and writer, and she engagingly tells her story with wit, pathos, and passion throughout, seldom descending into the sort of self-indulgence that so often undermines this sort of personal material. Her political views are not presented with any ostensible intention to convince or convert, but are simply stated with uncompromising conviction as an integral part of the story being related and the person relating it. That story is only partly about her “accidental– foray into political activism. There is much here about creative problem-solving, about personal discovery, about the Sacred Feminine, and about different meanings of the word “actor.– It’s a perfectly satisfying piece of one-act theater (running not much over an hour), but it also has different kinds of substance for people far outside the typical theater audience. Congratulations are due to Ms. Blume for her work on this piece, and to Hydeware Theatre for bringing it to St. Louis.
This was a one-night appearance and Ms. Blume’s tour schedule does not include a return visit to St. Louis in the immediate future. Her other current and upcoming projects include another one-woman show, The Belly of the Beast, about one woman’s attempt to create the Mideast Peace Plan, and Vanya In Vermont, an adaptation of Chekhov’s play set in modern-day Vermont. For information, go to the website at www.theaccidentalactivist.com/AboutMR.htm
Hydeware Theater’s next production is Phyro-Giants. For information, call 314-368-7306.
KDHX Theatre Review - Phyro-Giants!
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Steve Callahan
It's the freshest thing I've seen all season. It's fun, it's sexy; it's part really intense Seinfeld, with just a soupçon of Café Boeuf. It's honest, it's unashamed and it's awfully well done. It's Phyro-Giants!, the delicious little piece now being presented by the Hydeware Theatre.
The Soulard Theatre has been transformed into a restaurant, and the patrons dine during the performance. But have no fear, this is not one of those moronic let's-embarrass-the-guests interactive dinner theatre events. This is real theatre at its best. From the moment you're greeted by the only-slightly-haughty French Mâitre d', played to a "T" by Ken Haller, you sense the ease and comfort that fills this small space; you know that you're in fine, fun professional hands. Really good jazz in the air makes it even more pleasant. The Mâitre d' is assisted by Babette, the waitress who's played by Betsy Strelinger. All their considerable humor aside, I only wish real restaurant staffs were as competent and courteous as this one.
One table in the corner is raised a bit. Two young couples there are enjoying their second or third bottle of wine, and, yes, it turns out that they are the performers. After our dinners are served we are allowed to eavesdrop on what becomes their very intimate conversation.
Playwright Michael Blieden has a truly wonderful ear for dialog. Everything has such a ring of truth to it, even (or especially) those unlikely, illogical little quirks that season an anectdote and make it so believable. The talk flows from ghosts to religion to sex to friendship to sex to relationships to the ridiculous inconveniences of affairs and lots more. There is that Seinfeld touch--the humor found in the slightest foibles, the shock--really the liberation--of finding that after a few drinks you've been casually talking about things that nobody dares talk about.
J.C. Pierce plays Joey-handsome and a bit brash and more than a little of a ladies' man. Brian Hyde is a delight as his loner friend, Melvin, who can never make plans lest his married lover should call wiith an unexpected free hour. Rebecca Jaycox is Alex, and she's the image of Seinfeld's Elaine-even more in her sensibilities than in her looks. And Noelle Santacruz invests Sarah with a luscious touch of hot Latin blood and candor. Shameka Washington has just the right attitude as their waitress.
It's full of laughs and full of real insight as these four friends--or friends of friends--learn lots more than they ever expected about each other's love lives.
Director Pamela Banning can be proud of this very refeshing offering. It's Hydeware's production of Phyro-Giants! Go see it through May 22nd [2004] at the Soulard Theatre, 1921 South Ninth Street. It's great fun.
Dennis Brown and Deanna Jent suss out local theater
The irreverent folks at Hydeware Theatre like to do guerrilla Shakespeare outdoors in city parks; last season for Edward Albee's Zoo Story they brought a city park -- complete with real sod -- indoors into a Washington Avenue loft. Anything to avoid acting on a conventional proscenium stage. Now, miracle of miracles, they've transformed the bleak, antiseptic Soulard Theatre into a warm, intimate restaurant.
Michael Blieden's Phyro-Giants! is yet another addition to that burgeoning genre, the "let's-sit-around-a-table-and-talk" play -- with this distinction: Earlier this season the HotHouse Theatre production of Omnium Gatherum also concerned people at a table, but in that mounting there existed the usual imaginary wall between viewer and eater; the audience could only drool as the actors partook. But the current Hydeware production is billed as "an interactive dining experience." Here you have the opportunity to arrive a little early, sit at a table and enjoy dinner. The playbill (which is more menu than program) promises food, drinks and talk. The food, catered by the Soulard Coffee Garden, looked inviting and delicious. The drinks were, well, drinks. (What can you do to a Bud Light?) It's the talk that shortchanges an otherwise intriguing evening.
And there's a lot of it -- talk, not intrigue -- despite the fact that the play itself runs only 60 minutes. "Do you want to talk about it?" one character asks another. (Allowing for the possible exception of The Miracle Worker, that overused question should have been banned from all drama decades ago.) Later we hear the more declarative, "I want to talk about it." In between those predictable lines the author treats us to such original phrases as "I'm like..." and "you know" and the ever-accentuated "Excuse me?"
The premise here is that two guys and two gals in their early thirties have accidentally converged for an impromptu meal in an upscale restaurant. One fellow is married, but the other three are still playing the field. As we begin to eavesdrop on their after-dinner chatter, they breeze through matters ethereal: ghosts, television psychics, reincarnation. But as the dinner wine begins to lower their guard -- and as you might expect from a playwright who used to work for Comedy Central -- it's not long before the conversation turns to more intimate matters: infidelity, Internet pornography and other revelations that one might be more prone to share with a stranger than a friend.
By hour's end what began as a seemingly shapeless evening turns out to have some symmetry after all. The author even tries, ever so haltingly, to emulate the creepiness of a thriller by M. Night Shyamalan.
It's fun to break the bounds of conventional theater. St. Louis is the better for having a group like Hydeware, which is ever thinking outside the (black) box. But a script that is all gossip and banter has palpable pitfalls. For starters, how do you sustain viewer interest when there's no movement? At what decibel level should the actors deliver dialogue that is intended to be conversational yet must be heard by everyone in the room? And how do the actors reveal their characters when what is written on the page is either too sketchy or too on-the-nose? One senses that director Pamela Banning has not addressed these challenges.
As the married diner, J C Pierce sets an appropriately understated tone that draws listeners into the dialogue, but Brian Hyde is about as subtle as Andy Kaufman. The two women -- the engaging Rebecca Jaycox and the more mysterious Noelle Santacruz -- try to resort to their own personal charms to override the thinness of the writing but too often are saddled with filler lines like, "Yeah." The most amusing performance comes from Ken Haller as the maitre d', who does not even appear in the play. Yet his presence in the restaurant makes the overall experience felicitous.
And ultimately, one would choose to attend this rare evening of bistro-theater for the originality of the experience. But if you do decide to partake, be sure to purchase the combo ticket that also includes the meal.
KDHX Theatre Review - The Taming of the Shrew
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Bob Wilcox
We have trouble today with William Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew. The plot turns on Petruchio’s success in making his wife Katherina, the shrew of the play’s title, subservient to his will. He does this by depriving her of food, sleep, clothing, and, in some productions, by physical force. This would be considered spousal abuse in our enlightened times and hardly the stuff of comedy. Yet The Taming of the Shrew continues to be one of the most popular and frequently-produced of Shakespeare’s plays. Maybe the challenge appeals. Directors become quite ingenious in inventing inoffensive ways to motivate Petruchio’s behavior.
Richard Strelinger has gone beyond ingenious. In directing the current Hydeware Theatre production of Shrew, he has turned everything upside down. What if, Strelinger muses, the Amazons had defeated the Greeks three thousand years ago, rather than vice versa, and we lived in a matriarchal society with all the traditions of rule and precedence going to women? So his rich landowner of Padua is a woman with two marriageable sons. And Katherina, originally the shrew in Shakespeare, becomes the suitor who marries and tames the bad son Petruchio.
Though this Katherina does to Petruchio what Petruchio usually does to Katherina, somehow – and here our latent sexism probably comes into play – it seems less offensive when a woman does it to a man than when a man does it to a woman. On the whole, the switch works. You do have to accept the matriarchal conditions that Strelinger proposes. You have to put up with the ill sounds of a few phrases changed from Shakespeare’s to fit the gender. And you have to ignore the fact that J.C. Pierce’s physically imposing Petruchio could obviously overpower Megan Kelly’s slender Katherina any time he wanted. It helps that Kelly is a strong, vibrant presence on the stage, an assured actor, and at home in Shakespeare’s language. I suppose it helps in their confrontations, if not in the overall performance, that Pierce has less energy and appears less at ease with the language than the others in the cast. After some initial bullying of his younger brother, played with copious crying by John Shepherd, Pierce does little to justify the “shrew” epithet. So the central conflict remains weak. But the cast on the whole form a tight ensemble, playing with delightful comic energy and a clear command of the language. Richon May and Reggi Davis get down as the suitors of the younger son. Ember Hyde drily observes the follies as Katherina’s servant. Ken Haller and Brian Hyde make the comic most of several roles each. Catherine Bright manages a maternal equanimity as the mother of the two boys.
Thom Crain’s costumes, mostly casual modern dress, soften gender differences, but he does little with Katherina’s wedding outfit, described in detail as outlandishly ridiculous. Director Strelinger wisely has cut the subplot about a third suitor, with its multiple disguises and false fathers, tedious to those of us who’ve seen it often. So a performance outdoors in one of the charming gazebos in Tower Grove Park that begins at 5:30 is easily over before darkness descends. Bring a chair and a picnic if you like and share the laughs in a curiously refreshing take on The Taming of the Shrew. Free performances continue Saturday and Sunday [September 18 and 19, 2004].
This Week's Day-by-Day Picks
Week of September 15, 2004
BY PAUL FRISWOLD AND ALISON SIELOFF
feedback@riverfronttimes.com
Saturday, September 18
Free outdoor theatre? We're all about that business. Hydeware Theatre's fourth annual installment of Hydeware in the Park comes to a close this weekend with their gender-flipped adaptation of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew in the beautiful Old Playground Pavilion of Tower Grove Park (Magnolia and Tower Grove avenues, in the northeast corner of the park). In Hydeware's version Petruchio is the shrew, and Katherine is the one who will "tame" his bitchy ways through harassment and domination. Somehow, that sounds less amusing when the gender-discrimination shoe is on the other foot. Well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Taming of the Shrew begins at 5:30 p.m., admission is free and Hydeware invites everyone to bring picnic baskets and blankets to make a night of it. Check out www.hydewaretheatre.com or call 314-368-7306 for more information.
KDHX Theatre Review - The Woman in Black
Hydeware Theatre
Reviewed by Cay Berry
Maybe you're smarter than I am, at least when it comes to ghost stories. I'd grown up reading a wide variety of them, most often the old-fashioned, particularly English kind of story, that starts out with the cozy familiarity but which gradually grows in intensity, until that familiarity becomes something unpleasantly close, particularly on your nerves, and more than likely to follow you home after the story is over.
I've also watched a lot of supernatural movies too, and as we know, it takes all the powers of digital effects these days to come up with something the audience is willing to believe in. So I was more than a little skeptical attending Soulard Theatre's production of The Woman in Black. After all, I thought, what could three actors and a bare-bones set really conjure up?
Well, something followed me home afterwards, as I'm sure it did the rest of the audience. I may consider myself technically sophisticated when it comes to entertainment, but deep down, I'm as susceptible as the next person to a production that uses such relatively simple elements to build up an atmosphere that engulfs the stage, its players and the audience.
We begin with a gray-haired man (Richard Strelinger), stiff and hesitant, attempting to read a manuscript of an unhappy experience to another man (Brian Hyde), sitting in the audience. This second man, a chipper, theatrical type, chides him for his nervousness, jumps up, and joins him onstage, determined to help him groom the story into something livelier. From a recitation, the story becomes a narrative, as the second man takes over the first man's story and his identity, acting out his experience. The first man, becoming more confident, takes over the parts of the supporting characters. Between the two of them, a story unfolds of a London solicitor summoned to an old house in a distant village, the secrets he unearths, and what he ultimately brings back with him.
Even for a viewer unwilling to suspend his or her disbelief, it would be hard not to be drawn in by the sheer skill of the cast. Richard Strelinger first claims our curiosity as the haunted, secretive narrator. His character slowly loosens up, and gradually, almost imperceptibly melts into a startling array of people, from the agent in charge of the old house to the driver who knows the route there (and what happened there to haunt the place). Each character has a different stance, a different accent, a completely different personality, and the actor embodies each with perfect naturalness, with no trace of camp. And yet, no matter who he changes into, he retains that air of being haunted, and by the end of the story we know why, being haunted by it ourselves, now.
Brian Hyde, too, is marvelous, taking over from man's story, as innocent as the protagonist once was as he travels into that far country and its fatal knowledge. With him, we pass into that strange old house, its artifacts, its locked rooms, as the protagonist passes from being willed by duty, to curiosity, and finally by dread.
I know I should praise Ellen Clifford as the title character; the only problem is that she did so well as a disembodied force that it seems a killjoy to reveal her as a real human woman. Besides, the Woman in Black is so pervasive that I keep thinking she was there all the time, I just can't say exactly where.
Despite how easy it is to praise the players, this is the kind of review that's difficult to write, because I want to describe the elements of the train journey through the mist, the chilly ride to the old house, the ancient churchyard, the halls of the deserted old house, because it is absolutely solid in my mind—except that that's where it was created. Using a spare array of props, but a wealth of sound effects and a masterful use of lighting, director John Shepherd pulls the audience's imagination into building the sets along with the players, and together we are all drawn into a passive state receptive to any powerful force we should meet, between our minds and what we are seeing. That force is the Woman in Black, seen in glimpses, but impossible to forget.
The traditional kind of ghost story I mentioned before usually deals with an injustice, lost in the past but brought to the here and now by an unearthly presence. The audience would feel a shiver, and then a cathartic release, reassured by belief in a universal justice. Modern audiences have changed, much less likely to believe in justice of any kind; our fears these days are of unappeasable forces, as mindless as a virus, and as contagious. The ghost herself is summoned by the narration, and slowly takes shape as the story is brought to life. And then, through a skillful twist, her presence begins to bleed through the outer reaches of the production, and into the audience itself. Those who see the ghost are marked by her, to be themselves pulled into the machinery of the plot, and its terrible cycle of doom.
Hydeware's production of The Woman in Black plays at 8 PM Thursdays through Saturdays through October 31 [2004] at the Soulard Theatre, 1921 South Ninth Street. For more information call 314-368-7306.
The Play’s the Thing
The Woman in Black
Adapted From the Susan Hill novel by Steve Mallatratt
Directed by John Shepherd
Hydeware Theatre
The Soulard Theater, through October 31, 2004
As Halloween draws near, the usual entertainment options present themselves en masse. From haunted houses to costume parties, anyone looking to revel in all that is unholy needn’t look too far. The St. Louis theater circuit, however, normally doesn’t cater to this most scary of holidays. Leave it to Hydeware Theatre to present a show that not only capitalizes on the season, but also manages to scare the bejeezus out of you.
Hydeware, known for staging slightly offbeat shows, brings the haunting tale The Woman in Black to the Soulard Theater for a Halloween run. The play is a chilling ghost story in the tradition of spooky campfire narratives that we all know and love. While not an outright horror story, the play creates tension throughout, and builds to a climax that gives the audience a sense of terror with its final 20 minutes.
The story is being told by Arthur Kipps, the man who lived through this horrific tale. He has found himself in an English theater, recounting his story with vivid detail, and preparing for a performance of his account for his family and friends with the help of a naïve young actor. Kipps believes he is cursed by the spirit of the Woman in Black, and feels that the only way to purge her from his life is to tell his story, once and for all. As a young man, Kipps is sent by his firm to attend the funeral of a reclusive woman who lived in a remote village in the far-flung region of east Britain, and to tie up her affairs afterward. The house the woman lived in is set among the misty bogs and marshes of the area, and the locals consider it to be haunted, refusing to even speak of the events that led them to this conclusion. While going through the papers of the deceased, strange things begin happening. Lights go on and off by themselves, animals get spooked, and Kipps is increasingly filled with unspeakable dread. Kipps doesn’t believe in ghosts, however, and he remains steadfast with his intent to finish the job he’s been assigned, shrugging off the strange occurrences. He discovers the secrets that house keeps, and learns of the ghost of a spinster that supposedly haunts the grounds. In the end, events that he cannot explain transpire, pushing him over the brink of skepticism and into full-on terror. As with most great ghost stories, there is a plot twist near the end of this tale that really send chills up your spine. It would be disingenuous of me to reveal what that twist is here, but be assured that it is executed very well.
The play itself, while still being very terrifying, unfortunately drags pretty badly in the first act. This is through no fault of the actors or of the director, John Shepard. The dialogue is repetitive and takes the longest possible route to get to its destination. Most of what is accomplished in Act I could have been boiled down to about 20 minutes, instead of stretching it out over an hour and 15 minutes. Mallatratt may have been looking to create a sense of tension during this act, but it seems like overkill in some instances. Act II, on the other hand, is truly brilliant. The amount of action that takes place in this half of the show more or less compensates for the first act. So while the beginning of the show borders on boring, the end product makes it totally worth the $12.
The cast is well suited for this show, and features two of Hydeware’s founders and repertory players. Brian Hyde takes the role of the young actor who is called upon to help Kipps tell his story, portraying Kipps during the narrative. While Hyde is a terrific actor, there were a few things about his performance that struck me as slightly off base. In every other production I have seen him, Hyde is playing more of a comical character, and he has the face and the body movements to pull them off. In this production, though, his broad movements and facial expression seemed a bit out of place for the type of story being told. He also slipped out of his English accent noticeably on two occasions. Neither of these criticisms should be held against him, though, as he does deliver a marvelous performance toward the end of the show that truly conveys the sense of terror that his character experiences.
Richard Strelinger, who is also the Artistic Director for Hydeware, steps in to play the role of Kipps. Strelinger has a profound understanding of the script, due in part to the fact that he originally was the director for the show before his lead actor dropped out. As Kipps, he fleshes out the other characters in his story, moving nicely between dialects and personas. He has a good handle on his character, especially considering that he had less than a month to jump into this role. He shows his mettle by giving a truly remarkable performance.
As the titular figure in the show, Ellen Clifford plays the ghostly Woman in Black. She has no lines, but her entrances and exits speak volumes of her ability. When she suddenly materializes, seemingly from out of nowhere, her presence manages to create a strong feeling of suspense. In addition, she has the physical appearance that brings a reality to the way she her character is described throughout the play.
Probably the real star of the production, though, had to be the technical crew. All the technical aspects of the show were right on the money, and created a tone of creepiness that would be hard to match without them. Pamela Banning’s lighting design, for example, was a thing of wonder. Her use of stark, yet minimal lighting throughout the show really went a long way in setting the mood. Ember Hyde’s sound design also lended itself nicely to the overall production. Brian Hyde’s set design was nothing spectacular, but for the purposes of this play, was just right. One trick that he employs in the show is a rocking chair that rocks by itself. This bit in particular was creepy enough to give me goose bumps. Hi multi-level set is wisely used to imply a change in location and setting throughout the show.
Aside from Act I, John Shepard’s direction is wonderfully paced, and he coaxes the right emotions from the actors. Again, bear in mind that we can’t fault the actors or Shepard’s direction for the slowness of the first half, but we can recognize the power that they bring to the conclusion. In lesser hands, this play could very easily fall flat or, worse, become a hokey portrayal of something inherently scary.
In conclusion, Hydeware sets itself up as being the purveyor of some of the best alternative theater in St. Louis, and this production is just another feather in the cap. But be warned: the spirit of the Woman in Black will linger at the Soulard Theater only a little while longer, so if you like getting scared out of your wits, be sure to catch it before the spirit is exorcised on Halloween night.
Hydeware Theatre continues The Woman in Black thorough October 31, with performances on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors; Thursday is buy-one-get-one-free night. The Soulard Theater is located at 1921 South 9th Street in Soulard. www.hydewaretheatre.com
—Tyson Blanquart
Deanna Jent - The Riverfront Times
The Woman in Black Richard Strelinger is marvelous in this slow-moving ghost story, taking on a handful of roles. We get lots of familiar spooky themes: a haunted house, revenge, dead children, a town afraid to talk about the horror and -- of course -- a ghostly woman dressed in black. Adapted from a novel by Susan Hill, the play features too many descriptions of the environment and not enough dramatic interplay between characters. Director John Shepherd moves the actors nimbly around the awkward platforms, but this production suffers from its cramped quarters. If you're a fan of old-fashioned thrillers and can endure the stop-and-start flow of the piece, you'll be satisfied by the "gotcha" ending and the eerie self-propelled rocking chair. Through October 31 at the Soulard Theatre, 1921 South Ninth Street. Call 314-368-7306. (DJ)
Theater Review, Ladue News 10.29.2004
By Mark Bertz
The Woman in Black is a good old fashioned yarn about the supernatural, a clever ghost story adapted for the stage by Steven Mallatratt from a book by Susan Hill. A play within a play, it focuses on a quite and introspective young man named Arthur Kipps, who has written an autobiographical account of his chilling experiences with the otherworldly and now wishes to have his story performed. He also hoped the process will exorcise the nightmares that have plagued him.
Kipps tells how he was sent to the desolate house of a widow after her death to pore over her documents on behalf of his company, the executor of her estate. There he learns about the woman’s tormented past, which included a young woman, a young boy and a mysterious horse, all of which may or may not have lingered beyond their earthly years.
Highlights: The Woman in Black is a splendid throwback to a simpler, and perhaps more literate time, when the scariest and most frightening events were left to the reader’s imagination. Most of all it features very clever writing, akin to the best of the X Files and other creepy classics of the oeuvre. Hydeware Theater’s production is directed most effectively by John Shepherd, who uses the dark, confusing confines of the theater to utmost advantage and paces the show with just the proper degree of spooky drama.
Brian Hyde infuses the Actor’s role with flair and frivolity, while also slowly building the terror and tension. Richard Strelinger is delightful playing an assortment of colorful characters, complete with various accents and dialects. The lighting design of Pamela Banning is hauntingly effective, and the sound design by Ember Hyde provides terrific nuisance noises.
Rating: A festive, frightful 4 of 5
'The Woman in Black' delivers a spooky tale
Who says a good ghost story is a thing of the past? For those who are not afraid of the dark or things that go bump in the night, "The Woman in Black" is a must-see.
The stage play was adapted by Steven Mallatratt from the Susan Hill ghost story also titled "The Woman in Black." The story is set in the town of Crythin Gifford, England around 1950. It is told through the eyes of Arthur Kipps, a young newly married lawyer working to settle the financial affairs of an elderly woman who recently passed away.
Alice Darblow lived and died in the small town of Crythin Gifford , England . Her house located on Eel Marsh, has since been abandoned and Kipps has the monumental task of going through all of Darblow's personal papers and settling her accounts. What seems like a few days work quickly turns into something more and Kipps is forever changed.
While attending Darblow's funeral in a local graveyard, Kipps sees a mysterious young woman dressed all in black. The woman looks sick and pale. When he asks a local man about the identity of the woman, he is met with fear and silence. He initially shrugs off the odd reaction of the man and continues to work on Darblow's affairs. However, he soon learns why people fear the house on Eel Marsh and are afraid to speak of the woman in black. Kipps decides to sleep in Darblow's house in order to expedite the process of finalizing her accounts and to avoid the hassle of getting a ride out to the remote marsh everyday. Once alone in the house, Kipps sees the vision of the mysterious woman in black again and realizes that he is in the midst of a real-life haunted house.
"The Woman in Black" is a play within a play that, at times, can be confusing for audiences to keep up with. However, through the use of lighting, pre-recorded sounds and dialect changes, the actors are able to take the audience through the various settings of the twisted and convoluted tale.
The play opens with an elderly man who wishes to share his personal encounter with a ghost in an attempt to exorcise it from his memory and put the past to rest. The man has written a rather lengthy manuscript about his past experience, the secret of which he has carried for years. As the man tries to tell his story, an enthusiastic drama teacher begins giving him pointers about ways to make the story seem real to the listening audience. Suddenly the focus of the audience is shifted from the man simply telling his story to the actual events contained in his manuscript. Soon the audience is made to feel the terror of not only the old man, but also the citizens of the town that has been haunted by the presence of the woman in black."The Woman in Black" gets off to a slow start at first but by the second half of the two hour play, the audience is fully entranced by the ghost tale.
"The Woman in Black" is being presented by Hydeware Theatre at the Soulard Theater, located at 1921 S. 9th Street and runs now through Oct.31. All shows begin at 8 p.m. For more information call 314-368-7306 or visit www.hydewaretheatre.com.
The Play’s the Thing
The Eight: Reindeer Monologues
By Jeff Goode
Hydeware Theatre
The Spot
December 16–18, 2004
You would think that St. Louis audiences might have learned by now to turn off their cell phones in the theater. So when the jangling of someone’s phone stopped the action in the middle of Hydeware Theatre’s performance of The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, which ran recently at The Spot, I would have expected the offending patron to turn it off quickly. But when it kept ringing in the middle of JC Pierce’s monologue (as Comet, the bad seed of Santa’s crew), Dancer, played by Emily Strembicki, leaned forward and asked, “Is that for me? I’m expecting a call.” Her ad-lib provoked laughter from the audience, and Pierce can be forgiven for lapsing briefly out of character following the interruption; the owner of the cell phone, though, should get coal in his or her stocking this year.
The same could be said of playwright Jeff Goode, who has used an extremely unlikely premise to craft a dubious satire on pop culture’s fascination with high-profile criminal cases, reality TV, and on-the-edge talk shows: Scandal has swept through the North Pole after Vixen (Leah Schumacher) accuses Santa of sexual assault and two other reindeer threaten to walk off the team in solidarity. As each reindeer makes his or her case for or against Santa, other tawdry secrets come to light involving Santa’s relationship with Rudolph, an alcoholic Mrs. Claus, and more sexual innuendo than you can shake an antler at. (Try picturing Mrs. Claus going to the company Christmas party in gold body paint, pasties, and wearing a screaming elf as a thong. Thankfully, this spectacle is only mentioned and never seen, but still—not pretty.)
There are strong performances throughout. They include Brian Hyde as the swift (but not terribly bright) Dasher, who stands by Santa in spite of the mountain of evidence against him. Pierce is also convincing as a bad buck turned good thanks to St. Nick’s intervention after Comet was shot in a liquor store robbery; he too stands by the guy with the bowl of jelly for a belly, and points out that before Santa, the elves were towel boys in an Irish brothel. Prancer has morphed into a prima donna named Hollywood, portrayed by Pamela Banning just this side of caricature (albeit a funny one at that) who is still miffed that her star was eclipsed by that Rudolph thing. Dancer as portrayed by Strembicki is a ditzy, Jewish doe who used to be a ballet instructor and wonders if they’re still supposed to work when the 24th falls on Hanukkah.
The standout role has to be the evangelical Blitzen, played with fire and spirit by Ember Hyde. She’s outspoken in her support of the victimized Vixen; she’s clearly taken a page from the Rev. Al Sharpton’s hymnal around the time of the Tawana Brawley scandal. Perhaps the only performance that falls short is Russell James’s over-the-top, stereotypical portrayal of Cupid, the only openly gay member of the reindeer crew. What should be funny just ends up sounding tired.
With so many excellent performances, it’s a shame that the play itself is a problem. It’s almost as if Goode couldn’t make up his mind whether he was going to go for the laughs (of which there are many in the first half) or choose to issue an indictment of the public’s appetite for scandal. In the middle of the show, he seems to decide to trade the former for the latter (which leads to a gut-wrenching monologue by Tyson Blanquart as Rudolph’s father Donner), but that’s a big mistake: at that point, it’s as if the play breaks its deal with the audience, and not only that, but makes the audience feel guilty for laughing in the first place. And using the Christmas story as a vehicle for this is a questionable choice at best, and a stunning lapse of taste and judgment at worst.
In this case, it would be better to pass the bucks—and the does, too.
—Jeffrey Ricker
KDHX Theatre Review - The Eight: Reindeer Monologues
Reviewed by Richard GreenYou might call this one, “Eight Angry Reindeer.” Jeff Goode’s story of the sordid lives of Santa’s sleigh team reads like a satire of a soap opera, with some notably jagged forays into the creepy business of sexual harassment. My only problem with opening night’s performance was that half the reindeer didn’t fully grasp the satirical nature of the piece. The other half of the cast was excellent, though, and well worth the trip.
The Eight is part of that whole genre of plays (like Sordid Lives) that says good and evil are thoroughly mixed together and that the moral compass itself is spinning faster than the needle inside. Beyond the obvious similarity in themes, this makes it a good companion piece to The Santaland Diaries, playing across town, in Soulard.
You might also call it, “the red noses versus the blue noses,” if you can tolerate another election-year reference: The reindeer take sides, one by one, concerning Santa Claus’ alleged attack on Vixen, one of their own. And the red/blue distinction comes in handy, since this is a case of “family values” versus “human rights.” Both sides use the tragically mixed-up Rudolph as a pawn, in absentia. Both sides refer endlessly to him, and to Saint Nick, but most could stand to put more emotional weight behind their relationships to these two missing characters (Mrs. Claus, on the other hand, becomes quite the unforgettable figure).
Special mention for on-the-nose satire goes to Russell James (Cupid), Ember Hyde (Blitzen), JC Pierce (Comet) and Emily Strembicki (Dancer). Whether director Jerry McAdams purposely brought them more vividly to life, or whether they’re just funnier people, probably doesn’t matter. But James’ rip-roarin’ gay reindeer, Hyde’s rock-ribbed lesbian activist, Pierce’s biker-boy, and Strembicki’s wool-gathering ballerina are wonderful contributions to a very tricky show.
Certainly, there is promise in Pamela Banning’s “Hollywood,” (a movie star now that Prancer with Sam Elliot has come out). She’s on the right track when she throws down a script offered as a sequel to her first film, and has the beginnings of a “diva” voice. Bryan Hyde, as Dasher, the team leader, had just a bit of the necessary “rah-rah” half-time speech elements in place. Tyson Blanquart as Donner has many fine little moments of silent reaction to mention of his tragic, red-nosed son. Mr. Blanquart has the most dramatic speech to deliver, but (on opening night) lacked the overtly searing torment of a parent who’s betrayed his own son to a sexual predator (and maybe a toy “Rudolph” would add to the ironic humor of the piece—you can pick one up at the Hallmark store). Leah Schumacher presents her testimony as Santa’s rape victim with notable realism. But without the benefit of 100% full-bodied nut-cases to lay the ground-work before her, her story is never quite thrown into what should be appalling relief. If this show can get running on all eight cylinders, in just one weekend, Ms. Schumacher’s closing remarks will carry all the chill of winter.
If you can catch The Eight , before it closes late Saturday night, I will bet each portrayal will gain twists and turns. Another thing that would help tremendously would be a spotlight—expensive for Hydeware Theatre, but such instruments have reportedly been used previously at the venue (SPOT). A spotlight here would help isolate each confessional interlude. And they frequently have the effect of sharpening an actor’s mental and emotional images in their own heads and hearts. As it stands now, roughly half the monologues seemed as unvaried as the un-cued lighting overhead. One other point: if you are playing a piece like this to a bar crowd, you just might want to go out and rent a video of Peyton Place or The Valley Of The Dolls for good measure.
The Eight: Reindeer Monologues runs with two shows nightly: Friday (December 17th, 2004) at eight and ten, and Saturday (December 18th) at seven and ten. Performances are at “SPOT,” a bar at 4146 Manchester Avenue, between Kentucky Ave. and the post office. Congratulations to SPOT for bringing a cabaret stage to that burgeoning stretch of taverns on Manchester, just west of Vandeventer—it’s a classy addition to the neighborhood. Ticket information, (314) 368-7306 or (314) 534-1111.