33rd HUMANA NEW AMERICAN PLAY FESTIVAL

HUMANA NEW AMERICAN PLAYS FESTIVAL 2009

(For more information go to www.ActorsTheatre.org)

As in previous years, in this 33^rd year of the Humana New American Plays Festival, each play received a top-notch production in one of Actor Theatre of Louisville’s three theaters. It is the leading venue for new American plays attracting top directors, actors and designers and draws visitors from around the world. This year Carey Perloff, A.C.T.’s artistic director and Berkeley Rep’s Literary Manager / Dramaturg, Madeleine Oldham, represented the Bay Area.

Plays from previous seasons have graced local stages and from the 2008 season, "Becky Shaw" by Gina Gionfriddo and "This Beautiful City" by The Civilians Project are actively being sought by local venues. If one may venture a guess, three of this year plays will make it to the Bay Area, Charles Mee’s Under Construction, Ameriville written and acted by a group of four calling themselves Universes and Slasher by Allison Moore. Two plays, The Hard Weather Boating Party, by the very talented Naomi Wallace and Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry by Artistic director Marc Masterson & Adrien-Alice Hansel probably are of more interest to Louisville natives. Absalom, an extremely well written play by 25-year-old Zoe Kazan, the progeny of famous Kazan family, has all the earmarks of becoming a Dominic Dunn type movie on Showtime or HBO.

This year the audience favorite was AMERIVILLE, a brilliant 95 minute poetic, raucous, foot stomping, hand clapping, gospel singing multimedia presentation by the hip-hop quartet calling themselves “Universes” earning a much deserved spontaneous standing ovation. The New York ensemble company (Gamal Abdel Chasten, Mildred Ruiz, William Ruiz a.k.a. Ninja and Steven Sapp) examines the politics of fear in America starting with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.

Played in the round on a raised platform, two tables and four chairs are adroitly moved to emphasize separation of the multiple scenes. Along with the foot stomping, hand clapping are fascinating songs, poetry and intriguing visual projections. (The visuals lost some of their impact with projections onto the stage platform being difficult to read and distracting.) This non-stop action examines urban renewal, the devastating collapse of the economy, race and sex relations, health care and more. A particularly heart wrenching scene dissects the unfathomable religious tenets with a child’s monolog that God created torture and prisons and therefor he must be an American. After taking us through all that is bad, all that is still festering, it ends on a hopeful note with America being a “work in progress” toward creation of an “Ameriville.”

UNDER CONSTRUCTION by Charles L. Mee is directed by Anne Bogart in association with SITI Company. Some playwrights who have their work rejected by Actors Theatre for the New Play Festival have suggested that this august organization plays (pardon the pun) favorites. And so they do, if you one would call consistently producing plays from a handful of competent and often brilliant writers. This is the case with Charles Mee and his association with Anne Bogart’s SITI (Saratoga International Theatre Institute) company. A few years back Mee, Bogart et al staged a brilliant “War of the Worlds”, “bobrauschenbergamerica” (2001) and the obtuse “Hotel Cassiopeia” (2006).” This year they are back on track with their staging of “Under Construction” a 90-minute ensemble multi-media production that was entertaining, philosophic, poetic and embarrassing in its audience participation.

“Under Construction”is a great companion piece to “Ameriville.” Mee and Universus dissect the formation of present day America. Where Universus blares the defects of past injustice with hopes for a future “Ameriville”, Mee uses a series of vignettes, beginning with a gentler America with a stage manager in the mode of “Our Town” merging with a Norman Rockwell time warp, Bing Crosby singing “Dear Hearts and Gentle People”, through the Ginsberg generation and finally to the present insisting that we are a nation “under construction” with the past morphing into the present.

The SITI company uses a collage of scenes to create a physical artistic installation piece ending with all the props on stage.… wires, light bulbs, bikes, baseball gloves, bats and you name it, it is there and we are asked, nay encouraged to wander through this work of installation art. He insists that the creative process is a form of accepted plagiarism that he calls “dramaturgical collaboration” giving credit to a host of authors. You will not recognize all the references but there are enough that will please you and you may even identify with them. There are the nostalgic Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving and barbershop scenes along with a bizarre duct tape wrapping of a player signifying a chrysalis eventually to blossom into a butterfly while a nude female dancer performs under a clear plastic sheet. Audience participation, similar to the Kinsey sexual interviews, does not fare too well but seem appropriate although the shock value elicits embarrassed laughter.

For each production Tom, the narrator informs us that they will perform scenes 6, 79, 29, etc signifying, as does the title, that the production is under construction and may change when its next stops are Arizona and Illinois.

Naomi Wallace and Actors Theatre of Louisville are participants in the Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, a project of the National Endowment for the Arts and Theatre Communications Group. "The Hard Weather Boating Party" is a product of that program. The play is set in Louisville's infamous industrial contaminated "Rubbertown" area. Three diverse men plot to avenge the years of toxic destruction that has caused havoc to the environment and the inhabitants, by robbing and killing the overseer/owner of the plant.

Staddon Vance a white shop supervisor has contacted two men to help in this nefarious plot. The first is Coyle Forester, an African-American and the second is Lex Nadal, a young Latino. With this diverse mix, the author is obviously attempting to establish that toxic destruction devastates all ethnic groups. Staddon simply states, “I needed you. Both of you. You can’t do some things alone. You need the company of men.” The common bond between the three is a mysterious “How many times for you?” Inexplicably the “what” of the question is not revealed until late in the play. The “what” is how many times have each been exposed to toxic fumes. The magnitude of the problem is enforced when Lex mentions the man made lake, Lake Dreamland in which he swims, “glows from toxic waste.”

There is an existential twist bringing back memories of Jean Paul Sartre's “No Exit” to the motel room set where there are no mirrors or TV and the windows are blacked out. Is it Wallace’s version of Hell where the only hell that the participants will undergo is the hell that will give each other? She uses an artificial device of a child’s game of “Truth or Dare” to define character. Artificial as it is, she conjures up some stunning moments as each player has his turn to question each other.

Not all goes as scripted by Staddon leading to devastating consequences. The explanation of the play’s title becomes confusingly unclear when a sleek motorboat mysteriously rises from the floor.

The Bingham arena stage also did not fare well with a ludicrous satirical/farcical take-off of the “slasher” genre movies in the mode of “The Texas Chain Saw Murders” with the unoriginal title of “SLASHER” written by Allison Moore who worked with director Josh Hecht in the development of the play. They are aided and abetted by Matt Callahan’s horror-movie sight/sound effects where blood and gore abound with a cacophony of wild screeches, and props to start your heart thumping. The arena stage certainly hampered Hecht’s direction with a major character tooling around on an electric scooter and having multiple bulky props with which to contend. (Chains, chain saw, bathtub of blood, meat hook etc.)

Sleazy Marc Hunter, a B-movie director is trying to kick-start his failing career, by returning to his college town to make a cheap horror film on a limited budget. He meets beautiful Sheena and casts her as the “last girl” to get whacked. In horror movie lingo, “last girl” is the star, obviously, because she has made it to the end of the movie. Where Sheena considers the role as her stepping stone to fame and fortune, Frances, her hypochondriac, pill popping mother (she scoots on the scooter) considers it exploitation of women and sets out to derail the effort. She becomes maniacal discovering director Marc, is the one who has done her unforgivable dirt during their college years.

Thrown into the mix is Hildy, Sheena’s bookworm sister, Christi Garcia an anti-abortion religious fanatic and Jody the all-around helper to Marc. Christi and Frances, with a common goal to sabotage the movie, team up with explosive consequences. The actors playing Christi and Jody double up to play many roles that are occasionally hilarious. Despite all the obstacles placed in Marc’s path, the movie making does go on to its gruesome conclusion leaving the stage litter with bodies, blood and baggage.

In the midst of all the social drum beating, and mayhem at Actors Theatres there is island of sanity (quote is from our classical music station KQED) with another homegrown world premiere. Wild Blessings: A Celebration of Wendell Berry adapted for the stage by Artistic director Marc Masterson & Adrien-Alice Hansel with original music by Malcolm Dalglish.

Wendell Berry is a Kentuckian and a nationally acclaimed poet, novelist and ecological visionary who deserted the hubbub of New York City to live on a working rural farm. He derived his inspiration surrounded by nature amidst hard farm labor. The authors/adaptors elected to use only the poems as the basis for this stage work. Rather than chronologic order, the poems are grouped by themes such as work, politics and economics. Malcolm Dalglish is the musical director who plays the hammer dulcimer as well as taking part in the readings. The other four “readers” are a varied lot: an older woman, a young African-American, an older man and a young man who oddly plays the guitar with his left hand. Other musical instruments are used and there is muted singing and dancing to add interest and depth to the poetry.

The spacious proscenium arch Bingham stage held two large juxtaposed screens on which were projected some of the most gorgeous nature scenes you will ever see. Without these projections, no matter how meaningful and beautiful the poetry, the 90 minutes without intermission would a bit soporific.

The family drama “ABSALOM” written by the multi-talented Zoe Kazan will have a long post-Louisville run, making the rounds of the community theater circuit. It has only six expertly defined characters, is plot driven, containing believable dialog and would not require the magnificent, elaborate set designed by Michael B. Raiford for Actor’s Theatre’s stunning production.

The now 25-year-old author began writing the play as a Yale undergraduate member of award winning Donald Margulies’ play writing class in 2003. A “final” script was rejected when submitted to the 2008 Humana Festival. Since then it was work shopped at New York Lincoln Center and the result is an extremely satisfying script.One would not expect less from the granddaughter of Elia Kazan and the progeny of two well known screenwriters.

The play takes place over 24 hours at a country house in the Berkshires where family and friends have gathered to celebrate Saul Weber’s autobiography. Saul, an orphaned Polish immigrant is self centered, domineering and a self-made man who bullies his family. The tightly constructed play has fully rounded characters. Oldest divorced son Adam, himself a successful writer, takes issue with Saul’s need to open up family secrets, secrets that may not be accurate. Plagued by writers block and haunted by the tragic drowning death of his teenage son, he takes solace in drinking. Youngest brother Teddy, the editor of Saul’s self-serving book, is dedicated to his father, and is content to live in his shadow. Unmarried daughter, Sophia who considers herself unattractive, has accepted the role of caretaker to her widowed father. She and Teddy’s wife Julie, herself a budding author, share the chores preparing for the celebration. Julie was once a girlfriend to Adam.

The title “Absalom” refers to Cole Maddox, a long ago alienated adopted brother, now a well-respected TV writer, who returns to confront Saul about the true authorship of a previous book. The reactions to the prodigal son’s return are the meat of the play and Kahn cleverly weaves past and present transgression into a taut drama. If there is a weakness, it involves a ruse instigated by Teddy to discredit Cole that concludes the play.

Running time 2 hours and 15 minutes with intermission.

PREDICTIONS: Under Construction to Berkeley Rep; Ameriville a touring show at Berkeley Rep.

Slasher to SF Playhouse.

Kedar K. Adour, MD

Courtesy of TheatreWorld Internet Magazine