I have admired the Four Humors Theater company since they blew me away with their Fringe show Bards at the Southern in 2007. Seriously, a noir gutterpunk Shakespearean spy thriller with the music of Wu Tang sung in English madrigal harmony? Ridiculous, and awesome. Their work doesn’t disappoint and Lamb Lays with Lion shared the bill with them earlier this year at the Guthrie’s Singled Out Festival, so we’re all good there. I have also long admired director Sam Johns, from her work on Maria Irene Fornes’ dark tale of Southern squalor Mud to this winter’s The Thing with a detour in between for the M A R S P RO J E C T, which I was lucky enough to be a part of.
So take these best-of Twin Cities things, mix in the Bedlam Theatre, add a dose of Orwell, hysterical humor, paranoia and love and what do you get? Welcome To Dystopia, opening tonight. I can’t review it, because they asked me to do the video design and I am very proud of that work, especially how it plays in the space, so all I can say is, if you are looking for love in all the future places, get thee to the Bedlam. Get your tickets here, and come this weekend, because Jon Davis of Ghostband (who is part of the sound design team) has planned a whole mad Dystopia Days party. Do it, thank the Person In Charge.
Opening tonight, step right up, step right up! At the fabulous Southern Theatre, The Minneapolis New Breed, wonder of all wonders, three young companies, three provocative and sexy groups all on one joint bill for the first time ever! Not to be missed! SuperGroup will live up to their name! Mad King Thomas will issue dance edicts from fringes of taste! And Lamb Lays with Lion? Well, leave it to Lightsey Darst at mnartists.org to give an outsiders view of that: “I can’t tell whether Lamb Lays with Lion vs. Katie Mitchell’s The Seagull is a train wreck or a stroke of genius; I can’t even tell where the performances stop or start.” Which, ladies and gentlemen, is your life in motion! Opens tonight and runs through Sunday, $18 cheap!
***UPDATE 2/26***
Jay Gabler over at TC Daily Planet takes a look at all the action and proclaims himself right, and Staciaann shoots it all for Vita.mn. Three more shows, so take it all in with a tank full of gas and a head full of weird.
If you already love RENT, you don’t need convincing. If you have ever doubted that the Twin Cities has fabulously talented actors working today, this show will lay those to rest. If you worry that $49 is a lot of rent-money to pay for a show, RENT makes it worth it. If your idea of a Broadway show is big and slick and shallow, the local cast of RENT packs so much heart into the show it can bring tears to your eyes- it brings tears to theirs. As the sold out crowd rose for a standing ovation last night, more than one cast member was crying, the tears of gratitude, it seems, from being able to follow a dream.
The show is strong from the opening, the sense of immediate energy is palpable in the cavernous Lab Theatre. Director Andrew Rasmussen (who also produced the show) fills the space with dynamic choreography across the simple set of scaffolding and platforms, sending his cast catapulting from the beams, seeming heedless of their safety- AJ Eskridge, who fills multiple roles in the ensemble has enough energy to tear the house down. Rasmussen previously directed RENT at the G.R.E.A.T. Theatre in Saint Cloud, and his experience with the show makes for confident direction, unafraid of using the full length of the stage to his advantage and set up multiple tableaux to keep the actors bouncing off eachother. Although the band feels a little too loud throughout the show and the acoustics of the Lab Theatre tend to muddy the clarity of multiple sung lines at points, the cast work together to bring out the soul in the songs and intensify the intimacy of the show.
Harley Wood as Roger
The divergent cast are the reason the show works so well. As Rasmussen said in an earlier conversation about the show, “It’s about artists coming together to do their work…They’re not necessarily theatre people or some of them are theatre pros, I think that’s a great convergence of talent. Sometimes you just set them in the room and say “Go!” And they make their own magic.” A number of the cast were also involved in the production in Saint Cloud, commuting up every night to do the show. Most of the principals are returnees, and their joy to be back in these roles is evident and extends to the glowing cast. It is no wonder that Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, who originated the roles of Roger and Mark on Broadway in 1996 remain on tour with the show.
Minneapolis’ Mark, the film-maker and narrator of the show is played by Reid Harmsen, reprising the role from St. Cloud. Harmsen has the singing chops to carry the role, as a vet of the Children’s Theatre Company productions of Disney’s High School Musical, and his boyish, nerdy charm complements the character’s attempts at artistic integrity and fun-loving lead in RENT’s anthemic song, “La Vie Bohème”. Harley Wood (who fronts Minneapolis band Far From Falling) nails the angst-ridden rocker Roger (who lost his last girlfriend to suicide) with sidelong glances and furrowed brow, but also imbues the sorrow with a manic charm, fully rounding out the character. With a strong tenor he owns not only his solo moments but also his duets. Rising hip-hop starlet Maria Isa (who I interviewed for The A.V. Club prior to the show) plays Roger’s new love interest Mimi and vamps her way through most of the role, detracting somewhat from the pathos of the “stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold” archetype, but when she finds the stillness to sing, as in “Without You” her raw talent shines.
Jemecia Bennett as Joanne
As lesbian lovers Maureen and Joanne, Colleen Sommerville and Jemecia Bennett are a blaze of anti-establishment anger, joyous sexuality and catty glory. Bennett, known for her work at the Guthrie is especially breathtaking both as a singer and powerful stage presence. She commands attention and her duet with Harmsen, the lover/ex-lover banter “Tango: Maureen” is a cross-stage tour-de-force. Sommerville’s soulful licentiousness is a thrill to watch, tender and prickly, and Maureen’s performance art protest against the gentrification of the squat is both hilariously absurd and a resonant call to humanity in the desert of Facebook and Twitter. Also amongst the luminaries is Kinaundrae Lee (also of the ska band 2 Tone Runts) as the drag queen Angel, the vibrating spirit of the show. Angel gets some of the most energetic numbers (“Today 4 U”) as well as some of the most passionate (“I’ll Cover You”) with lover Tom Collins (the eminently likeable Lorin Yenor) which Lee works with creative depth and fire. The backing ensemble provides texture, warmth and humor, not to mention stellar singing. Maisie Twesme puts the perfect inflection on “Mo-om!” in the “Voice Mail” numbers and Margeaux Davis’ solo in “Seasons of Love” will break your heart and put it back together again.
Despite being created and set in the AIDS community of the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1990s, RENT continues to feel prescient. Sitting with Harry Perez, Maria Isa’s father, before the show, conversation turned to the arts school where Isa started in music and theater, and how it was the support of the community that keep it going. “Because,” he said with his low growl, “the Bush years were hard years.” After eight years of the aggressively heterosexual Bush administration, the increasingly bitter state fight over marriage equality and the neutering effect of an economic recession, a work of love is necessary and transcendent.
This is especially true in the case of RENT, which celebrates homosexuality, drag queens, strippers, the will to live of those with AIDS and marginal power as a legitimate choice not because it is merely transgressive, but because re-affirms a heterodoxy of love. At this point, it would seem to be impossible for the institutionalized RENT to be politically transgressive, but as is sung in “La Vie Bohème” that “The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation,” and in the turmoil of the world of RENT and in America of the 21st century, the spirit of generous creation is still a passionate argument for freedom in the face of oppression. It is honest that all love is powerful and valid, love between one human and another, love of community, love of self, love of performance. RENT, and especially one with a cast so obviously close-knit as this Minneapolis performance, affirms that utopia is where and how you make it yourself and who you make it with. A show that can do that is worth, beyond your time and money, your love.
RENT runs at the Lab Theatre in the North Loop through February 21. Tickets are $46.50 (plus an online fee) and are selling out, so get them here.
Carl Atiya Swanson and Catherine Hansen in No Sugar Cookies For Herbert by Tommy Jamerson, directed by Georgia Leigh Hallman, Bedlam 10Fest 2007. Photo by Brad Dahlgaard.
Three years ago, looking for a challenge and some non-traditional theatre in the Twin Cities, I showed up to the group audition for the Bedlam Theatre Community 10 Minute Play Festival. I remember it being a wild, loosey-goosey affair, with lots of actors and non-actors, games being played, bits of scripts thrown around and presented to the assembled directors and all in all the kind of barely-contained anarchy that I have come to love about Bedlam. I was in three different plays that year, with a cameo in a fourth, in 2008 I came back for four more and in 2009 I only acted in one, but also directed one (which takes the energy of acting in at least two.) 10 Fest has been one of my favorite annual events in the Twin Cities, and this year it is getting a shakeup in the process in order to cast a wider net amongst theatre artists, build increased community relationships and foster new development. The first step in this process is this weekend, Saturday the 23rd and Sunday the 24th with an “IDEATHON” an open forum of workshops lead by local artist (I am leading the first session on Saturday) to get ideas flowing and build a strong 20.10Fest. It is free, you can register here and would be even more fun if you showed up.
Saturday Jan 23rd
1pm: Carl Atiya Swanson:Developing Ideas and Dialogue with techniques from Meisner and Boal
2:30-5:30pm: Lisa Channer:Director as Creator
bring several photos of yourself at various ages and one provocative piece of music that is not pop music.
I Love You Even Though We FightorOther Writers Are Better Than Me
Carly Wicks in The Thing. Photo by George McConnell.
There’s a particular moment of realization, no that’s a stupid lede, attempting to link together a personal memory blah blah blah I did this you feel this and we’re all connected. But it’s true. I am sitting in a hotel room in Luxor in the south of Egypt on a family vacation. This is only exotic by a degree of origin- I already lived in Egypt, which meant that a really exotic vacation in my world view at that point would have been Wisconsin Dells. I am sitting in a hotel room in Luxor and taking the most exotic vacation, the most transgressive vacation that I could; MTV. And I am sitting transfixed by helicopters and motorcycles and a fat man in a castle with a beautiful woman and I understand nothing really of this violent silliness I am seeing but I know in that moment, that I, too, would do anything for love.
Bless you Meat Loaf, and you Sam Johns and George McConnell and all you actors in The Thing who put together a battle royale of awkward dances and side glances and sublimated desires exploding into Carmen-worthy partner switching showdowns of one-upsmanship to that 7 minute epic. Because that contained more life experience to savor than two and a half hours of Shakespeare (depending on the production) and took a hell of a lot more bravura performance. Jay Gabler of ArtsOrbit over at the TC Daily Planet posted a list of things in response to The Thing, and he is far more assiduous and trustworthy reviewer than I. I also have to re-echo his caveat that I am friends with the creators, and so completely biased in this matter. Sorry, I should have said that first. In that list, Gabler very astutely (for he is a better writer than I, too) notes, “The Thing taught me that plot is optional, like cufflinks. Not everyone would agree that cufflinks are optional, and those same people probably don’t think plot is optional either. Jeremey Catterton and Carl Atiya Swanson are the only two guys I can think of offhand who might value cufflinks significantly more than plot.”
My collection of cufflinks aside, here is a reason for that, a reason I think very particular to the creators of The Thing, to myself, to anyone else for whom The Thing resonated, why plot or the lack thereof should be so inconsequential to theater. Unlike the Greek thespians performing for the audiences of Aristotle, who could create a coercive narrative arc wherein the plot would elucidate some greater truth as to the human condition without inordinate competition, we are constantly bombarded by narratives. Everything competes for our attention to their own plot, from Jon and Kate to how many dead in Haiti. We have news as narrative, television melodrama as life-substitute, we have the vast internet of plot at our fingertips. Sometimes we just need to feel. And in those 7 minutes of “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” the non-didactic performance of the cast invites the viewer to bring a lifetime of plot to bear on that moment. Identification on individual terms is the greatest weapon of The Thing.
The Thing comprises a two part pact. The first part, by the creators and performers, that they will fully bring themselves to the performance, both in terms of committing to the performance as it happens on the night but in the full process. The absurdity of the dances, set pieces, short stories, vignettes, sexual proclivities and emotions on display are effective insofar as they are brought about through the lives of the performers and crafted to be presented. This can happen in traditional drama as well, where the performer is so committed to the role that you understand what they are saying simply by what they are doing, the words as printed in the script are a secondary mechanism, a fallback. For ensemble-created non-narrative works like The Thing, there is no such fallback.
The second part is a pact by the audience to allow themselves to be open to it. There is so much there that if you as an audience member are willing to access yourself and bring yourself, and not just your empty husk of a body seeking distracting amusements (which have their own time, place and immeasurable value) then you can have a profound experience at what appears to be nothing. On the night that I went, the audience contained parents and older couples and although I am happy to see parents supporting their offspring, this demanding theatre, especially with The Thing, as created by young people, is a young person’s experience. The hoary old nut goes that history is written by the victors, but The Thing is a challenge to be a part of the battles as they are fought.
So bless, with all the vibrating strangeness, religious tropes and mythical overtones attached to that word, bless. There are so many things I would tell you about the performance. The making of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a metaphor for relationships, Billy Mullaney and Tom Lloyd hugging and hitting eachother, coming so close, and not making it, the moment when I heard Mitch Hedberg’s voice in a story about roadside romance novels that made me incredibly sad that he is dead, spitting carbonated water out of my mouth at the declaration that we were good friends with Queen Elizabeth. I would like to tell you about all these things, but you wouldn’t understand. Not here and not now. The Thing is something that happened, and all the seats are sold out, but go down there to try and get on the waitlist, becuase it may happen for you. The Thing supposedly commemorates and event that never happened, but it feels like a continually happening event, one that you bring with you always, if you get back up, when trembling in the dark, and find someone again to love. Meat Loaf sang it, “No one else can save me, no one else but you.”
Lamb Lays with Lion is excited to be a part of the Singled Out Festival of Emerging Artists at the Guthrie Theatre, along with local companies Four Humors, Sandbox Theatre and the New Theatre Group. Lamb Lays with Lion will be premiering The Black Arts, tackling the hard rock magic shows of Criss Angel in a new ensemble created work that pushes forward with the Theatre of Disruption. This will happen, you will not believe your eyes, there will be actual magic.
DATES:
Fri, Jan 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Sat, Jan 16 at 9 p.m.
Sun, Jan 17 at 1 p.m.
Thu, Jan 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Fri, Jan 22 at 9 p.m.
Sat, Jan 23 at 9 p.m.
TICKETS $20
Multiple show discounts for the Singled Out festival: $17 each for two shows and $14 each for three or more shows.
Men’s Eyes Were Made To Look, So Look Someplace Elseor Wherefore? No Seriously, Wherefore?
'Seriously, why are we doing this?' William Sturdivant (Mercutio) and Sonny Valicenti (Romeo). Photo courtesy Guthrie Theater
First it has to start with an apology- I am sorry that I included the Guthrie/Acting Company production of Romeo & Juliet on the list of recommended shows for this winter season. I only hope that by attending early and reviewing honestly I can stop any further damage that may occur by paying audiences actually attending this production. Here is the rationale behind it’s inclusion in the first place- the same company was coming off last year’s Henry V in the Dowling Studio, a stripped down, muscular production that did get to the heart of the text and displayed the talents of young actors. Penny Metropulos, who came in to direct Romeo & Juliet had long been associate artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where Shakespeare has to be approachable and entertaining to survive, and a fresh batch of young actors, some of whom came from the Guthrie BFA program couldn’t go too wrong, right?
But oh how wrong it goes. As the Prince declares in his final speech, “Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished:” and it is punishment that should abound for this production, starting with the setting and ending with the deaths. If Shakespeare is to remain vital, then a production either needs to find a way to say something different with the same text or find an innovative way to re-phrase the same story. By plopping Romeo & Juliet into 1920s-era villa, Metropulos’ production does neither of these things; instead it constrains the actors into a mannered and stilted setting that seemed to be an opportunity to re-use some costumes from The Great Gatsby. The interstitial music used to transition scenes and set the mood for the death and fight scenes is as cheesy as EasyMac and as canned as tuna, not to mention too loud- although that might just be an opening night oversight.
Those two elements alone would be enough to detract from the stated intent of bringing the language of Shakespeare to a new audience- the production is supported by the Shakespeare for a New Generation initiative sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts- if only the actors themselves weren’t so busy mangling the language. The setting directs the actors all to affect some form of highbrow elocution, but no-one seems to fully agree how far to go with their “Shakespeare voices” (Christine Weber as Lady Capulet is especially distinct in her casual endings, making it seem like she rolled out of bed and threw on a costume) resulting in a cacophonous muddle of sloppy diction and direction. The few characters who do seem comfortable with the language are not ones who have sustained speaking roles- Myxolydia Tyler as Perrin (an amalgam of Capulet servants) has the most nimble elocution, the supreme irony of that being that she is supposed to be illiterate – and veteran actor Raymond L. Chapman (by far the oldest actor on stage) as Friar Laurence benefits from years of experience such that when he becomes angry at Romeo in Act III, it actually comes across as a palpable emotion, something sadly lacking in the rest this production.
Sonny Valicenti as Romeo and Laura Esposito as Juliet both seem to function on a soap opera level of either flat affect or histrionics throughout, and the play progresses without much chemistry between them. There is nothing in either performance to suggest any passions that would drive young lovers to such extremes as they deliver the text as if, as Friar Laurence chides, they “read by rote and could not spell.” Romeo & Juliet always runs a danger of being a parody of emotion and Valicenti and Esposito push their self-seriousness obliviously into that territory, so that when they end themselves, we welcome the respite. William Sturdivant (who was part of the cast last year for Henry V) has fun with Mercutio, as the actor should, chewing up the Queen Mab speech and generally being gregarious but neither Isaac Woofter as Tybalt nor Hugh Kennedy as Benvolio develop the personalities of the characters past some foppish frippery. It is disheartening to see what should be passionate young actors flopping about in this bland and disorganized world that never moves past basic high-school conventions.
Shakespeare ought to be presented to new generations because there is poetry and rhythm in his text that not only developed the English language but also set a standard for it. Passions, argumentation, betrayal, love, these themes of existence will find resonances across ages and cultures, if presented in a way that allows them to be opened and accessed- and it can be done, I’ve seen it. Tone-deaf, pointless and artless productions such as this one though, especially on the professional level, are what Shakespeare ought to be saved from, not saved for.
Time once again to to get over our winter of discontent and see some shows, and once again, time to opine as to what shows to get out into the bitterness to see. This piece for the A.V. Club has the recommendations but there were a couple that didn’t make the list for reasons of space and conflict of interest (i.e. shamelsss self-promotion). Before you point out the obvious, of course Rent is the perfect companion for La Bohéme, but at the time of this writing, the cast for Rent hadn’t come out yet and well, if you missed that show this year, someone would remount it pretty soon anyway. However, now that Sotarican star Maria Isa is on board, we are intrigued, and more than happy to go in for some 90s nostalgia and B’way bliss. The other thing that didn’t get a mention but you should go to is The Thing, which I can’t tell you much about but is the long-in-the-works project of a fabulously talented group of theater artists to be delivered in an art installation basement to very select groups of audiences. You should be in one of those audiences.
The final duality that didn’t get a mention in the A.V. Club piece because cas’ company Lamb Lays with Lion is involved in both of them, are the Singled Out Festival at the Guthrie in late January and Minneapolis New Breed at the Southern Theatre in February. Both are programs featuring rising Twin Cities companies and Lamb Lays with Lion is producing new work for both- a hard rock magic show The Black Arts for the Guthrie and a decidedly confrontational take on Anton Chekhov’s classic with Lamb Lays with Lion vs. Katie Mitchell’s The Seagull, and they should both be worth your coin, if I do say so myself.
It seems like a fully self evident thing to write, that not only are samurai pretty awesome, but their awesomeness is timeless and epic. We are lucky enough to have not one but two awesome bits of samurai-related news to share here.
Armor and MIA curator Matthew Welch, Photo via Star Tribune
The Star Tribune reported in mid-December that the Minneapolis Institute of Arts had purchased a suit of samurai armor for a record-setting price of $602,500. (Full disclosure, cas is employed at the MIA, but not in any PR capacity nor with any kind of clearance to spend $602,500.) The armor comes from the Idemitsu Museum of Art in Tokyo, a private museum which is changing its focus to painting and ceramics. This particular suit was made in the early 1600s during the Tokugawa Shogunate, which ruled Japan from 1600-1868 and is the go-to shogunate for all your daydreams about systems of honor and awesome kitana swordplay. Never used in battle, the armor is incredibly intricate and in impeccable condition and should awe little kids, art geeks and film nerds alike. It is not yet on display, but as soon as it is, we’ll let you know.
Photo via Facebook
If you do want to see some awesome samurai armor right ways, bite into that suit made of Doritos. It is from the commercial “Snack Attack Samurai”, one of the finalists in the Doritos “Crash The Superbowl” contest that features local actor Mike Rylander as one of the guys in the gym. (Full disclosure again, cas worked with Rylander in “Lamb Lays with Lion’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” in March 2009.) The top three ads as selected by public voting will get airplay during the Superbowl, the mother of all advertising outlets, and the winners get a bunch of money and free Doritos or something like that. Or they can buy Doritos with the money they get. Either way, help a funny actor get a payday, so log on and vote for it and if you don’t do it for the actors, do it for the poor bastard production assistant who had to make the damn thing and keep it in good shape for the shoot. You gotta figure by now, most everyone who has decided they will buy Doritos will do so, so here’s to art that won’t last to make it into a museum.
Welcome to 2010, and it only seems fitting that the first post of the new year is an invitation to an evening of music, performance and art in order to support a couple wonderful artists. Dancer Anna-Marie Shogren and visual artist Margaret Coleman have been accepted to an artist residency in Skagastron, Iceland, to make new works in a bucolic fishing village of 600 people in one of the most breath-taking landscapes in the world. Which is damn exciting. To help fund this trip (Iceland’s economy may have crashed, but it still ain’t cheap getting there) The Ship Is A Destination, Caroline is an art event fundraiser being hosted at the Art of This Gallery in South Minneapolis. Featuring music from Chokecherry and Bla Bla Blacksheep, a mailable art show (buy the art and then have it sent to you from Iceland!) and performance from McLaughlin&Shogren (Shogren’s new company with KatieRose McLaughlin), Megan Mayer, Charles Campbell of Skewed Visions and yours truly with “The Depressed Person Tells A Joke“, bring yourself for the warmth and support. Takes place Saturday, January 2nd. Doors at 7pm with a sliding scale donation $10-$25. It’s a little bit here, but it’ll take you far across the world.
