The Comeuppance

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ new play The Comeuppance is a bit too topical, a bit too on-the-nose, and one wonders how well it will age. Set in 2022, the text name-checks nearly every conflagration that has beset the United States in the past 20 years, from 9/11 to 1/6, without engaging too deeply with any of them—burgeoning gun violence perhaps being the exception. It takes place on the front porch of Ursula, one of five friends and enemies meeting up before their twentieth high school reunion, the porch well realized by a minimal set designed by Jian Jung. The show is heavily expository in roughly its first half; call it, maybe, a multi-ethnic Return of the Secaucus 5.

Jacobs-Jenkins, himself approaching middle age, confronts the prospect of death head on with this work. The turning-40s is the age when many of us realize that we’re not actually going to live forever. He brings Death on stage by a tidy maneuver, one easier done than described. The (what—spirit? mojo? voice?) quintessence of Death passes among the five players, who each from time to time break character and address the audience directly as Death—starting with Emilio (expressive Jordan Bellow), who may serve as the playwright’s voice. Emilio is a conceptual/sound/installation artist working in Berlin; he has abandoned his early work in photography, saying that he had become “tired of mimesis.”

Emerging from the high-energy agita and decades-old recriminations, Kristina (TayshaMarie Canales) has a lovely monologue in which she questions the turns that her life has taken.

The title of the play is a bit of a tease, or perhaps a misdirection, or maybe a suspension.

  • The Comeuppance, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Morgan Green, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in association with Wilma Theater, Washington

Stereophonic

Playwright David Adjmi takes another plunge into less-visited subcultures, in this case top-tier pop-rock music production in the 1970s with the double album-sized, polished Stereophonic. Music recording in this decade was in a transition period from the era when all musicians played together at the same time, in the same room, looking at and listening to each other. The five-member unnamed band (we may as well call them Bleetwood Mac) of Adjmi’s work do play through a song or two as an ensemble in the first half, but as relationships unravel like a bad macrame plant hanger, all of the subsequent taping sessions entail only one or a few band members, listening to playback and staring straight ahead.

Although the band and chief engineer Grover do have access to a gigantic mixing board the size of a corporate boardroom conference table, sound capture and mixing at the time was analog and linear, in the parlance. Nevertheless, Grover and drummer Simon (Chris Stack) consume an inordinate amount of energy pursuing a glitchy resonance in Simon’s drum kit, something inaudible to us and perhaps chimerical. As Grover learns the ropes of fake-it-till-you-make-it, in the latter stages of the play he overpowers Simon to play to a click track (again, a relatively novel technology) because Simon’s beat is wavering. Or so Grover says.

It was a silver age, with so much money and time available, chasing infinitesimal improvements in quality.

Adjmi’s approach to dialogue, matched by the direction of Daniel Aukin, follows a similar arc: early expository scenes are full of jumbled, overlapping, super fast passages (particularly from Sarah Pidgeon’s Diana), while at the end, characters’ decisions are underscored by searing pauses. With all involved looking dead downstage.

It’s not for nothing that perfectionist Peter (Tom Pecinka), as done up with aviator shades and drooping mustache, is a ringer for Walter Becker.

  • Stereophonic, by David Adjmi, songs by Will Butler, directed by Daniel Aukin, Golden Theare, New York

A gold record on the wall for understudy Cornelius McMoyler, who stepped in seamlessly as Grover at Tuesday’s performance.

Soft Power

David Henry Hwang’s effective new musical Soft Power suggests a triangulation of the patriotism of Hamilton and the east-meets-west of Pacific Overtures, recently produced by Signature Theatre. However, it’s set in the here and now of strained USA-China relations and the two most recent election cycles. The text of the play explicitly acknowledges that it is a response to another well-loved musical, The King and I, Hwang working in a familiar groove.

“Welcome to America” explodes in your face, with the least sinister figure being a silent Times Square Elmo puppet. It sets up the arrival two songs later of Hillary Clinton (the electrifying Grace Yoo), an Asian American in a blonde wig. Clinton’s music and movement is a pastiche of Meredith Wilson,* Reno Sweeney, Evita Peron, Michael Bennett, John Kander, and Stephen Sondheim. Her 11:00 number (actually a 9:15, in this 90-minute play) is “Democracy,” which opens with a tremendous preach and closes with a scrim drop from the flies that will have most Americans losing their shit, in a good way.

“Happy Enough” (my notes say “tone song,” which perhaps better captures the spirit) is a lovely duet for Clinton and ex-pat Xūe Xíng (Daniel May), intimately exploring the nuances of Chinese pronunciation, with a slightly forced joke involving an English vulgarism.

  • Soft Power, book and lyrics by David Henry Hwang, music and additional lyrics by Jeanine Tesori, directed by Ethan Heard, Signature Theatre, Arlington, Va.

*Clinton’s repetition of the lyric “Problems” also brings to mind Laurie Anderson’s “Only an Expert,” but that’s just me.

Contemporary American Theater Festival 2024: supplemental

I returned to Shepherdstown for a repeat viewing of Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting, in an attempt to collect all the allusions to films, filmmakers, and characters that CB drops, geek that I am. I missed a couple, but here is what I could capture in my notes, in addition to those called out in my earlier blog post.

Hmm, now that I’ve seen Akerman’s News from Home, I see that certain liberties were taken when CB describes the film: there is only one door, and there are no brownstones.

Contemporary American Theater Festival 2024: 3

Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting is a little much to take in at first viewing, which is part of the point. The narrative skitters fractally back and forth along a time line in the life of Chantal (a/k/a CB, for Chantal Akerman and Luis Buñuel) from ages 11 to 19, living on a small farm in the Great Plains with a loving, imperfect mother and father. Chantal (laser-focused Jean Christian Barry) checks several of the boxes in the catalog of neurodiversity, among them autism spectrum, ADHD, and synesthesia; CB is also nonbinary, or perhaps “abinary,” preferring to eschew pronouns altogether.

Chantal is learning to become a film-maker like CB’s namesakes. Most of the second half of the play consists of capturing/retelling/reassembling life-changing events when Chantal was much younger. There’s more than a suggestion that Chantal believes that coming out to CB’s parents as nonbinary caused the tornado that destroyed the family home.

Harmon dot aut wisely leans into CB’s synesthesia, as well as CB’s obsession with movies. Both of these aspects of neurodiversity are easy for us to make a connection with Chantal. There’s nothing threatening about synesthesia, unlike the culture dustups about pronouns1 and public washrooms. Likewise, who doesn’t go a little too deep into movies?

Jasminn Johnson holds her own as Mom, a kindergarten teacher with a flair for little verses that end with an Edward Gorey twist. And Roderick Hill as Dad shows some chops remembering a horrible killing when he was deployed to Kabul, as well as a tasty comic run of movie star impersonations (as directed by Chantal).

A scattering of films referred to in the text:

Not alluded to, but always under the surface when we talk about Buñuel: Un chien Andalou, 1929. Somehow those ants scurrying about reflect how/what Chantal is processing.

An ground-breaking piece, masterfully done. Bravo to CATF for bringing it to the festival. And cheers to the running crew scooting in to reset the wreckage of CB’s house.

  • Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
  • Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting, by Harmon dot aut, directed by Oliver Butler

1Between you and me, I look forward to a time, decades or centuries away, when English’s current gender marking seems as quaint as adjectives that decline and the ablative case.

Contemporary American Theater Festival 2024: 2

The Happiest Man on Earth is the Holocaust survivor’s story of Eddie Jaku, told in monologue form by the avuncular Kenneth Tigar. What’s remarkable about Jaku’s memoirs is his breadth of experiences—suffering in at least two concentration camps, a life in occupied Belgium, a journey on foot across France—as well as his lack of animosity toward nearly all his persecutors. And his wry sense of humor.

Enough to Let the Light In sits at the intersection of several genres, and to go into too much detail would spoil some of the fun. Let’s just say that it’s as if Mary Chase’s Mr. Wilson were to meet a lesbian Heather Armstrong, as told by Henry James.

There’s one little detail that I must call out, be it from the script or a flourish added by director Kimberly Senior, that I’ll call the “coaster dance.” Type AAA Marc (Deanna Myers) is visiting the home of her girlfriend Cynthia (Caroline Neff) for the first time. Cynthia’s place is a tastefully appointed brownstone/Victorian house, one of those “oh, I could just live here” sets (designed by Mara Ishihara Zinky) that work so well in the Marinoff. Cynthia used to be a painter, and the one element in the room that seems out of place is a large self-portrait, largely representational but with what could be migraine halos surrounding Cynthia’s frizz of curly hair. There is also a smear that reminds us of Gerhard Richter. Hmm, anyway.

Cynthia brings drinks; Marc sets hers on a coaster and Cynthia sets hers directly on a beautiful wooden table, right next to a coaster; Marc quietly moves Cynthia’s drink on to a coaster. Remember, this is Cynthia’s house. They dance at least three rounds of this game.

  • Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
  • The Happiest Man on Earth, by Mark St. Germain, directed by Ron Lagomarsino
  • Enough to Let the Light In, by Paloma Nozicka, directed by Kimberly Senior

Fun fact: Row J in the Frank Center has the electrical and audio-video outlets for the tech desk.

Contemporary American Theater Festival 2024: 1

CATF launches a slightly simplified season for 2024, presenting only four plays (one in two parts), with no productions rotating out at the festival’s four venues. Sharp-eyed program readers will also note only one world premiere.

In the flagship Frank Center venue is mounted What Will Happen to All That Beauty?, by Donja R. Love. It’s a tender, multi-generational study of the effect of HIV/AIDS, with specific attention to Black communities in metropolitan New York (at the dawn of the crisis) and small towns (close to the present day).

As we enter the theater for Part 1, we see Luciana Stecconi’s handsome multi-playing area set with up to seven levels, faced on wood slats in shades of brown, with backing screens of the same slats. This same set, with some of the screens rearranged, serves for Part 2, albeit with more realistic dressing pieces—bedding is on the platform bed, the cooker and sideboard are visible, and there’s a practical chandelier. There’s no marked change in style in the text or otherwise in the storytelling, so we’re left to puzzle why.

Lengthy costume changes in Part 2 take some of the momentum out of the piece, especially after the penultimate scene, which felt like the play’s end to most of us.

Which takes us to the final step of the journey of Manny (the charismatic Jude Tibeau), the protagonist of Part 2, and his relationship with his grandfather, Rev. Emmanuel Bridges, Sr. (powerful Jerome Preston Bates). Bridges, Sr. is a traditional Mississippi preacher, leading off Part 1 with a sermon that sets two of the play’s themes, beauty and sacrifice; he claims a somewhat confusing dichotomy between the two. His descendants, however, profess no particular faith; a supporting character in Part 1 quietly espouses Islam, but is not taken up on it. At one meeting with his grandfather, Manny is openly resistant to Christianity. So we’re left with Manny’s ambiguous final monologue. Preaching beauty, has he (improbably) taken up his grandfather’s mantle in the church? Has he taken up a street corner pulpit?

  • Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
  • What Will Happen to All That Beauty?, by Dorja R. Love, directed by Malika Oyetimein

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

American Shakespeare Center presents Will’s popular romantic mixup comedy in “Renaissance Style:” a limited rehearsal period, a charismatic repertory cast of only ten, no traditional director, and (per the program note) “a unique mashup of tradition and ‘DIY’ aesthetic.” The reduced size cast means that the lovers double as mechanicals and fairies, to very good effect. There are (the now de rigueur) acknowledgements that some of the rhymes no longer work, and some other modern schtick. More fun are the ad libs with the onstage audience, as well as a very funny bit in which an imaginary bolt kills a train whistle hoot owl that would otherwise disturb Titania’s nap.

Joe Mucciolo’s Puck is quite corporeal, receiving pantomime kicks and blows from Ronan Melomo’s Oberon every time he messes up. The three-way fight among Puck, Demetrius, and Lysander makes good use of the Blackfriars’ upstage doors. Annabelle Rollison’s “Bottom’s dream” monologue is a marvel.

The test of a good Dream is a rollicking Pyramus and Thisby (Shakespeare’s 11:00 number), and the team delivers with fresh bits, from an enormous pair of falsies for Sarah Fallon’s Flute’s would-be ethereal Thisby, to a live dog for Moonshine, to Natasia Lucia Reinhardt’s approach to Wall. Rather than the conventional peace sign chink, she leaves another opening for P and T to converse—let’s just say that Wall enjoys the kiss more than either Pyramus or Thisby.

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, American Shakespeare Center, Blackfriars Playhouse, Staunton, Va.

Blackfriars has made some accommodations to audience comfort since my last visit, with permanent seat backs and cushions.

Amm(i)gone

A very personal piece of metatheater, Amm(i)gone is an extended Moth-style confessional monologue about Adil’s efforts to reconnect with his devout Muslim mother (his ammi) by unconventional means: an (uncompleted) joint project to translate Sophocles’ Antigone into Urdu. Hence, the equally unconventionally punctuated title. The piece takes off from this season’s earlier My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion (with its coda of a video call with the playwright’s mother) and runs with the notion: an extended passage is built from recorded conversations between ammi and Adil. A bit less moving than it wants to be, for this reviewer the strongest material was a video segment of Ivo van Hove’s Antigone. But at least the fifth-grader’s pun in Urdu is redeemed at the end of the piece.

  • Amm(i)gone, created and performed by Adil Mansoor, co-directed by Lyam B. Gabel, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in association with Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Washington

Dance Nation: an update: 5

We closed the show on Sunday, with a bit more drama. Sunday was a clean run for cues, except that at the end of the show we were high-fiving each other and I forgot the cue to bring the house lights up (the last of 80 light cues, which is a new personal maximum).

I missed Thursday through Saturday because I was chasing off a COVID-19 infection (first time for everything!). Swiss Army knife/ASM/understudy Trenor called the show, and do it well, by all reports. We spent four hours Thursday morning with me coaching him through my book and explaining (as best I could without the license key dongle) how to use the EOS virtual light board.

my deskYou can see the app running on my laptop here, along with my book, the god mic, a walkie-talkie, flashlight, scribble pads, water bottle, and Godzilla guarding it all.

step upclimbing wallHere’s that dummy electrical box and the climbing wall setup.

Wet towels to pick up the candy glass residue just made the deck sticky. Sweep, sweep, sweep.

Dance Nation: an update: 4

We got through opening weekend!

On Thursday, a cast member reported a positive COVID-19 test. We were so fortunate that (a) we had designated an understudy for their role and (b) the understudy was actually prepared. Director Lee and I met with the understudy Thursday afternoon, coached him through some lines and bits of blocking, and he got through the PWYC preview with one line call, by my count. He handled the rest of the weekend smoothly. Since we have double cast the Moms character, we’ll end up with four different casts over the three-week run.

Sunday I got happy fingers at the top of the show (in part due to some garbled communication with my sound board op) and I had to back out of a cue live. This is not as intuitive as you might think on the ETC EOS command line. Again, fortunately, I had practiced this maneuver a few times.

We started about 5 minutes late on Sunday due to a late-arriving cast member, which ultimately meant that we lost the last 5 minutes of the show to a block-wide power failure. Aargh!

The continuing challenge: cleaning up bits of candy glass from the eat-the-light-bulb effect. Anything that doesn’t get swept up gets ground into the painted floor. One of our Stevens suggested soaking the floor overnight with a wet towel and an plastic sheet on top of that. We’ll try that this weekend.

Dance Nation: an update: 3

We are into the week of dress rehearsals after two 12-hour days of tech work over the weekend. How did I ever do this and work full-time too?

I am getting reacquainted with the Stage’s booth and the new tech in it. We now have walkie-talkies so that I can cue crew backstage. There’s a new audio system; the old light board is in there, but we will be running the show from a laptop with software from ETC: lighting designer Jordan has borrowed some fancy Selador lighting instruments that they will use for some fun effects during the “baby sexy robots” dance.

Major flubs starting the show last night: I need to position the laptop under my right hand and keep the god mic close by, as well as the walkie-talkie. And some other rookie mistakes: I stumbled and dropped a borrowed prop that McKenna rescued with super glue. No more jokes about actors breaking props.

So far, we’ve been more or less lucky, losing only one rehearsal due to weather, one due to the director catching COVID-19, and one due to multiple schedule conflicts. Early on, we ran a few rehearsals from the tiny space at The Actor’s Center in the city—no space available at the Stage. Shades of Metroing down to Chinatown for that somewhat regrettable Anything Goes gig. We had to switch out master carpenters, as our original builder was called away on a family emergency.

At board chair Jen’s recommendation, I’ve filled out digital rehearsal report forms (as Google Docs) until we moved into the theater. I found them slightly useful. Ideally, you one could use them to track things like, “Fran missed today’s rehearsal and needs the new blocking for page 12,” and notes for the various departments. But without the department leads subscribing to the report folder (pull), one ends up just copy-pasting a note to an e-mail message (push). And we still fubarred communication on an item or two. Next time, I think I’ll try something else. Maybe a groups.io group?

We solved the problem of how our actors can boost themselves up onto the ballet barres to climb the walls: we added dummy electrical boxes projecting from the walls, complete with unwired receptacles and conduit.

Grumble grumble: unplanned runs to Target for a mop and bucket (most of the Stage’s gear for cleaning up is filthy) and to Artistic Concepts Group for glow tape and gaffer’s tape. Not to mention by mentioning the buckets of Pine-Sol and Goo Gone that I used stripping old spike tape and gunk from the floor of the Leta Hall Studio. What knucklehead uses glow tape for a spike?

The Stage’s template for scheduling tech now sets aside Friday evening for a paper tech. This is a welcome luxury that I don’t believe that I’ve had before. I had already started setting up my cued script from the plots we had up to that point, but Friday’s meeting filled in a lot of gaps, especially in scene transitions.

I am super glad that I got out ahead of the props problem and started laying out the tables on our dry tech day Saturday, as my props lead’s first day wasn’t until yesterday. Generally, I ended up delegating a lot of the props work to my lead, the scene shifts to my ASM (participating by proxy yesterday), and spiking most of the deck to my director.

We still have some issues to iron out, particularly with sound cues, but I think we’re doing OK. The rush hour commute from Reston to Four Corners sucks, but I have a mitigation plan for PWYC Thursday and Friday opening. My inbox is full of unread notes from yesterday, so maybe the optimism of this post is unfounded!

Some links: 99

A Commedia Romeo and Juliet

Five players offer a 70-minute rollicking reduction of the Shakespeare classic, with two rotating casts (I saw the “Capulet” cast). All characters save the lovers (including would-be lover Paris) are in half masks (designed by Tara Cariaso of Waxing Moon Masks). Ben Lauer’s Jerry Lewis-infused Nurse is a hoot; Bri Houtman’s Juliet hits all sorts of levels in the balcony scene. There was a sweet impromptu moment of audience interaction when a little boy in the audience vocally noted that a bit of schtick was being reused; Natalie Cutcher responded directly to him with a “Right? I know!”

The inevitable deaths are handled tenderly. When Mercutio dies, his mask is left onstage while the actor exits. There’s a nifty moment in the tomb when Juliet awakes and Romeo dies with a kiss: the pair deftly exchange places on the bier. Of course, this is a comedy, so when the corpses are needed for the summing up, scarecrows are used, all the better for tossing about to explain who killed who and why.

All the important bits of text that we remember from high school remain in place, including that weird Queen Mab passage.

  • A Commedia Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, directed by Kathryn Zoerb, Faction of Fools, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Washington