Avenue Q at Trustus Theatre - A Review

Avenue Q, the new summer show now running at Trustus Theatre, is a lively, witty, naughty musical romp through the challenges of young adulthood in the big city, told via catchy, silly, bouncy songs, performed by puppets. Well, by live actors, four of whom give voice and life to a number of Muppet-style hand puppets.  For sheer escapism and entertainment, you absolutely will not be disappointed by this triple Tony winner that ran for over six years in New York, and still thrives and prospers off-Broadway today.

With music and lyrics by creators Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, and book by Jeff Whitty, Avenue Q  follows the adventures of recent college grad Princeton, an archetypal naïf looking for his meaning in life... or perhaps just a job, and a cheap place to live, which he finds in the low-rent zone of Avenue Q.  Princeton is Everyman (or Everypuppet) at 22, and this theme has been explored countless times over the years, in films like How to Marry a Millionaire, musicals like How to Succeed in Business, and even the current HBO series Girls.  The show's brilliance lies in its reinvention of the coming-of-age genre, using multi-colored felt and cloth puppets, especially since the impression conveyed is that we are seeing the familiar Sesame Street characters all grown up, and having to confront the realities and responsibilities of maturity.  A disclaimer in the program makes it clear that there is no actual connection to any Jim Henson creations or properties; one imagines that at this stage, Elmo, Kermit and friends are such cultural icons that they classify as public figures, and therefore fair game for parody and satire.  Unlike the Muppets, however, the audience actually sees each performer skillfully manipulating his or her diminutive alter-ego, and so the relevant expressions and emotions are visible on the live actor's face as well.  All are attractive and talented, causing one to want to follow them on stage, but just as much attention needs to be paid to the puppets, who are the actual characters.

Performing Princeton, Kevin Bush finds just the right tone to seem sympathetic, yet still a bit of an immature tool.  A subplot revolving around an ambiguous pair of roommates (think Bert and Ernie) features Bush as Rod, an uptight and closeted yuppie banker whose nose and eye design are as phallic as his name.  Rod's denial of his sexuality and feelings for his best friend become increasingly ludicrous, culminating in a stream-of-consciousness musical fabrication about an imaginary girlfriend, from Canada, named Alberta, who lives in... ummm... Vancouver.  The ever-youthful Bush could really have played either of these roles quite believably in a "normal" play; I do wish there were a bit more distinction in their voices, especially since between the two characters, he has at least 50% of the dialogue in the show.  Still, he's a great singer and a delight to see.

Katie Leitner as Princeton's love interest, Kate Monster, is equally appealing.  Looking back over my notes, I see at least half a dozen times where she duets with Bush or joins in a group number, and I have jotted down "beautiful harmony" or "incredible voice."  Her solo "Fine Fine Line" (a melancholy reflection on the difference between lovers and friends) could easily have been part of a "serious" musical, whereas most of the other songs replicate the sing-song style of a children's show.  With no way to really change the facial expression of the hand puppets, emotions must be conveyed by adjusting their posture or position; somehow Leitner expertly manages to depict Kate Monster as a sloppy drunk, with her hair falling into her face, and the moment is one of many comic highlights.  She also gets to create Lucy the Slut, who oozes mint-julep sultriness and temptation, with a rich deep voice an octave or so lower than Kate's.  Brien Hollingsworth also displays amazing diversity in his voice characterizations as four different characters, including Trekkie Monster (addicted to porn in lieu of cookies) and Nicky, who accepts BFF Rod's sexuality long before Rod acknowledges it.  Hollingsworth and Elisabeth Smith Baker perform Nicky together, and also appear as the Bad Idea Bears, Care Bear-like apparitions who suggest things like chugging Long Island Teas the night before an important day at work, or using funds sent from the 'rents to buy some beer, and it might as well be a case, since those are better bargains.  Baker probably does the best at recreating the perky, cartoonish voices one expects, and also helps to manipulate most of the other puppet characters when their principal portrayers are busy, e.g. she performs Lucy's movements when Leitner is performing Kate. Through some skillful choreography and misdirection, rarely can one ever tell that the principal actor is doing both voices, and this also means that Baker has to know not only her own characters' lines, but most of the rest of the script too, in order to move the puppet's mouth at the right moment, in synch with the right dialogue. The other three performers accomplish this as well, but Baker is perhaps the best at turning invisible on stage, this being that rarest of times when that's a good thing.  And did I mention that Princeton and Kate engage in some graphic puppet sex?  Well, as graphic as hand puppets who only exist from the waist up can get, but that's incredibly, and hilariously, graphic.

Just like Sesame Street, there are human characters too, similarly disillusioned 20-somethings, played by G. Scott Wild, Annie Kim, and Devin Anderson.  While these characters are never fully developed, the performers are excellent, and their voices blend beautifully with the rest of the cast.  Director Chad Henderson brings the customary style that I have come to expect from his shows:  everyone is completely believable in their characters, everything moves at a lively pace, and there's never a dull moment on stage, even in transitional moments and bridging scenes.  Musical Director Randy Moore capably leads four other musicians and never once drowns out the singers.  Danny Harrington's set is ostensibly a simplistic, child-like facade of an apartment row, but utilizes striking colors and odd angles (much like his recent set for Grease at Town Theatre) to make an attractive visual statement.  Performers frequently have to make rapid exits in time to appear as another character in an upstairs window, and I'm guessing the true extent of Harrington's design can only be appreciated from backstage, as everything seems to flow quite smoothly.   There's also a multi-media component, incorporating a tv-like screen that projects video clips (created by Aaron Johnson) and little visual lessons, in that same Sesame Street style.  The excellent puppet creations are by Lyon Hill (profiled in the cover story of the current issue of Jasper - The Word on Columbia Arts) and Karri Scollon, the result of a collaboration between Trustus and the Columbia Marionette Theatre.

Trustus of course is at a crossroads, with new leadership coming in, and the ever-present challenge to stay true to their mission (edgy shows from NY that might not be done elsewhere locally) while giving the audiences what they want (which by and large is light, frothy, silly musical comedies.)  Through some happy harmonic convergence, Avenue Q  manages to do both simultaneously.  The only caveats might be:  a) however adorable the puppets may be, and however appealing the performers, the humor and language is decidedly R-rated, so consider yourself forewarned, or titillated in advance, as the case may be; and  b) the score is quite catchy and eminently hummable, but no moreso (and no less) than any good Muppet Show song.  As above, coming-of-age stories are nothing new, and have been depicted musically as recently as March's Passing Strange, which was wildly popular among most artists, musicians and theatre folks I know. For me, however, Avenue Q  is the most entertaining production I've seen at Trustus in years, and certainly the best show I've seen locally since Victor/Victoria  at Workshop some 15 months ago.  Retelling  fundamental and timeless themes using a new, unexpected, yet also familiar story-telling technique is simply a stroke of genius, and you owe it to yourself to take a trip down to Avenue Q.

Avenue Q runs through Sat. July 21st; contact the Trustus box office at 803-254-9732 for ticket information.

~ August Krickel

(Photo credit - Bonnie Boiter-Jolley)

Arik Bjorn Reviews Cinderella at Columbia Children’s Theatre: Bippity-Boppity Buffoonery with a Spaghetti Twist

Somewhere in Columbia this evening, the minds of sleeping children are processing the uproarious phenomenon that is Columbia Children’s Theatre’s current Commedia dell'Arte production of Cinderella.  Until tonight, these innocents had never heard Olivia Newton-John sing “Xanadu.”  Never once had it occurred to them that a princess could be bippity-boppity-beautiful in a hot pink and floral poodle skirt and piggy slippers.  And they have no idea why their parents’ bellies burst with laughter over references to some guy named Dick Cheney and tapeworms, and at the unbridled performance of a white trash, uni-browed wicked stepmother, who makes Norma Desmond look like Mother Teresa. These flowers of our future returned to the comfort of their domiciles on Cinderella’s opening night with a renewed, perhaps refined, appreciation of clowning and fairy tales.  And when their cerebellums finally finish stripping away all the layers of buffoonery and silliness sometime in August, what will remain is the essential truth that beauty on the inside matters most.  That, and never be the last one caught holding a rubber chicken at the end of a Keystone Cops-style chase scene.

If you have never attended Columbia Children’s Theatre, your family is in for a real treat, one which begins well before the house lights are dimmed.  First, you will be doing society a great service by patronizing the only retail mall space in the world that has managed to redeem the boxed blandness of space usually reserved for Aeropostale and Banana Republic outlets.

Artistic Director Jerry Stevenson and Managing Director Jim Litzinger have built a children’s thespian wonderland on the second level of Richland Fashion Mall.  Children enter a lobby space filled with suits of armor, masks, and costumes, then are swiftly separated from their parents like wheat from chaff, the adults condemned to “grown-up chairs” while the tots are invited to dance to “Y.M.C.A.” and “The Hokey Pokey” on a brightly-checkered, padded floor space in front of the stage area.  Children eat popcorn and Skittles, adults sip Coke, and everyone has a relaxed sense that this is the kind of theatre that was designed in Willy Wonka’s world of forms.

As to the show itself, the above tidbits have prepared you for the fact that this is not your average Cinderella production.  The curtain rises (or, rather, is tossed off stage left), and the (Jiminy) crickets begin.  Literal crickets, actually, prompting a series of knowing chuckles from adults, and bewildered looks by children.  Then a comedic troupe with mock-Italian accents, presenting itself as the Spaghetti & Meatball Players, demolish the fourth wall, and begin banging into each other with parasols and hat racks.  From there, it’s a jet-fueled, jolly joker jaunt into humor hyperspace.  Eighty minutes later, adults and children alike are ready for giggling triage.

One cannot applaud enough the work of director Sam LaFrage, who, thankfully, has also provided a functional explanation of Commedia dell'Arte in the show program, for parents who mayfeel compelled to explain to their children why this production did not resemble Walt Disney’s familiar version.  (Actually, as a parent of a four-year-old daughter, I do recommend that parents explain there will be some differences in advance to their children.  My daughter Katherine loved the show, and cherished her onstage dance with actor Edward Precht, who plays the Prince and Meatballer Pantalone, yet she wanted a little reassurance afterwards that Cinderella’s castle estate in Orlando hadn’t been sacked and overrun by Italian clowns.)

As to the other Meatballers, Elizabeth Stepp brings enough pure energy to the stage to keep the Olympic flame alive until 2020.  Paul Lindley II and LaFrage (who moonlights as director and Meatballer) play gender-bending stepsisters of such pure, perfidious evil that I expected Macbeth’s Hecate to rise from the depths in the guise of Snooki.  LaFrage also brings down the house at one point as a ding-a-ling Chip Potts, lampooning the classic song “Beauty and the Beast.”  And Beth DeHart’s dual roles as roller skating fairy godmother and wicked stepmother Viola Scruffanickle quite nearly put one adult sitting near me into comic cardiac arrest.

Don’t just go to this show.  Go in droves.  Bring your neighbors.  Bring your friends.  Bring your worst enemies, and let the goofiness settle your long-term differences.  (For all that, consider the excellent weekday group rate that Columbia Children’s Theatre offers.  See website below for more details.)  But most importantly, bring your children.  Bring everyone’s children!  Then immediately afterward, have them call their grandparents and enjoy the pure thrill of watching them try to explain every strange and wonderful hilarity they have just experienced.

 ~ Arik Bjorn

Cinderella runs June 15-24, with performances at the following dates and time:  Friday, June 15 at 7 p.m.; Saturday, June 16 at 10:30 a.m. & 2 p.m.; Sunday, June 17 at 3 p.m.; Wednesday, June 20 at 10:30 a.m.; Thursday, June 21 at 10:30 a.m.; Friday, June 22 at 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m. & 7 p.m.; Saturday, June 23 at 10:30 a.m. & 2 p.m.; Sunday, June 24 at 3 p.m.; and a special Thursday, July 19 performance at 10:30 a.m.  Tickets are $8 for adults and children ages 3 and up.  The Columbia Children’s Theatre is located at the Second Level of Richland Mall, 3400 Forest Drive (corner of Beltline and Forest Drive).  Enter the Second Level parking garage walkway and park in Level 2-L for easy access.  Call 691.4548 for more information or to reserve tickets for groups of 10 or more.  To learn more about Columbia Children’s Theatre, visit http://columbiachildrenstheatre.com/ .

No Lie! CMT's Pinocchio Is Anything But A Wooden Performance - A Guest Blog by Arik Bjorn

There is no entertainment venue in Columbia more likely to have fallen straight out of the pages of a Ray Bradbury story than the Columbia Marionette Theatre, which this past weekend revived its wonderful 1992 original production of Pinocchio.  Even for adults, there is something magically inviting about the castle theatre ensconced at the corner of Huger and Laurel Streets, its giant mural of Punch, puppet-turned-puppeteer, dangling a stringed unicorn and dragon, and inviting children of all ages to rediscover authentic, if not shadowy, storytelling.  The best part of any CMT production is a stiff refusal to cater to the “Mickey Mouse-ification” of fairy tales, and the insistence that a peppering of Brothers Grimm in every scene is a recipe for narrative pleasure. At the age of four, my daughter Katherine is already a CMT veteran, having attended numerous productions.  She accompanied me to this weekend’s premier of Pinocchio, and I have made every effort to review the show from her diminutive perspective.  Sometimes the best part of parenting is rediscovering familiar stories through the eyes of one’s children - and also through their arms and legs, as on numerous occasions throughout the production her hands were wrapped tightly around my arms or her own face, her feet bouncing up and down with uncontrollable delight and fear.

Every CMT show begins well before Artistic Director Lyon Hill (profiled in the cover story in the current issue - # 5 -  of Jasper - The Word on Columbia Arts) emerges from backstage to lead the crowd in a birthday “Huzzah!” for whatever little boy or girl is lucky enough to host a dinosaur-, fairy tale-, or Wizard the Oz-themed birthday party.  Just getting your youngster from the lobby to his or her general admission seat is worth the price of admission.  Children enter the theatre’s faux archway main entrance, and are immediately surrounded by marionettes hanging from the ceiling and puppeteer dioramas from previous CMT productions, as well as a large mounted dragon head that once was the centerpiece of a real Medieval-themed wedding at CMT.  (By the way, parents, CMT offers a number of affordable “starter” marionettes for the novice puppeteers in your home.)

Inevitably, one or two children begin whimpering or looking cautiously askance before the show even starts, as does my child occasionally still.  It’s no lie that there is something naturally eerie about marionettes.  For the past several generations, our puppet-viewing collective consciousness consists mostly of cuddly Muppets, and the lack of softness of form of the traditional marionette immediately bespeaks more funhouse than Sesame Street.  But this is precisely the world of lost storytelling that marionette theatres engender.  CMT makes all of its marionettes on site in its workshop from hand-carved molds.  As Hill explains, he is not interested in smoothing the pin-prickly scary parts of a story, or conforming to pop culture’s sense of how a genie, T-Rex or mermaid should be physically represented:  “Every marionette has is its own silhouette.”

While patrons will not find Jiminy Cricket in this production of Pinocchio, what they will find is something that would make the story’s original Italian teller, Carlo Collodi, proud—plus a few inventive 21st-century twists, including a break-dancing wooden boy and a jazz-duet cat and fox.  And, of course, like any good children’s story, there are a few jokes just for adults, including the “BELIEVE” UFO poster on the dilapidated backstage wall of Boyaradi’s Fabulous Marionette Theatre, and a sign outside the theater that reads “Come Inside for Fun, Excitement and Man-Eating Plants.”

The show is a panoply of theatrical creativity.  In one early scene, the Fairy’s wand, with a mind of its own, causes all the puppets in Geppetto’s studio to dance unexpectedly.  The set drops of 19th-century Italy and the Isle of Joy (replete with its own cherry-topped sundae mountain), as well as Geppetto’s studio, are museum-worthy pieces.  And in one of the final scenes, Pinocchio and his papa emerge from the belly of the whale and rise magically to the ocean surface.  (I am willing to bet that every child who sees this show afterward will dream mystically of water gobos.)

This 45-minute version of Pinocchio is jam-packed with wonderful storytelling and numerous artistic and design triumphs, including, of course, the one trick both children and adults eagerly await to see:  the title character’s famous fibbing proboscis.  Several times after the performance, my daughter asked me how Pinocchio’s nose grew.  Fortunately, when I replied “magic,” my own nose remained its normal length.  But for the life of me, I have no idea how Hill & Company make that nose extend and retract with only strings!  (By the way, someone should give CMT a medal for understanding that 45 minutes is the ideal duration for a weekend children’s event.)

Along with Hill, puppeteers Kimi Maeda, Cooper Hill and Payton Frawley bring this timeless classic to life; not quite to the point where a little wooden boy is turned into the real thing, but definitely enough for you to tell everyone you know with kids to get down to the Columbia Marionette Theatre next Saturday.  And when all the dusty wonder has settled, most important of all, children walk away having learned a real moral lesson.  Just ask my daughter, who told me, “The lesson is always tell the truth and stay close to your papa - or else you’ll be turned into a donkey or eaten by a whale.”  Close enough, dear one, close enough.

~ by Arik Bjorn

Pinocchio runs through Sat. Sept. 8th, with performances every Saturday at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.  Tickets are $5 per person.  Children under 2 are free!  The Columbia Marionette Theatre is located at 401 Laurel Street (corner of Huger and Laurel).  Call 803-252-7366 for more information, or to reserve party space for your little ones.  To learn more about Columbia Marionette Theatre, visit www.cmtpuppet.org .

Shakespeare in Finlay Park, Grease at Town, Wild Party at Workshop

April was the month for several hundred amazing cultural events all going on seemingly at once. The hubbub may have died down a bit, but there's still plenty to do in May, especially if you're an enthusiast of live theatre.  For example, did you know Columbia regularly has Shakespeare in the Park?  Who needs New York? This spring, the South Carolina Shakespeare Company is presenting a comic tribute to not one but all of Shakespeare's works, first in Finlay Park this week, then at Saluda Shoals next week.  The show opens with a preview performance tonight, Tues. May 15th, and then continues Wed. through Sat. (5/19) in the Finlay Park Amphitheatre, with all shows starting at 7:30 PM.  The cast then migrates to Saluda Shoals Park for three more performances, Thurs. May 25th through Sat. May 27th, with all shows again at 7:30 PM.

From their press release:

SC Shakespeare Company has a sense of humor about its patron saint!

For the past 19 years, SC Shakespeare has given Columbia a great many of the Bard’s most famous plays from The Taming of the Shrew to Henry V. This spring, they wanted to give Columbia audiences something a little different but very enjoyable for patrons and their families.

The company presents The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield. It's been performed internationally, including hit productions all over the US and Europe.  The show pays homage to Shakespeare as much as it mocks him, and is actually a fair introduction to the Bard for a first-timer by watching the players dance, act, parody, and soliloquize through Shakespeare's works, raucously and without regard to political correctness. And, while the play pokes fun at the Bard’s works, it never looks down on the actual writings, showing a great deal of respect for both the material and the author.

Directed by Robert Bloom, the three players - Jeff Driggers, Marques Moore, and Elizabeth Stepp - are a young and vibrant trio, entertaining and involving the audience as much as possible in skewering all 37 of the Bard’s plays in one two hour show (with intermission)!   The comedy is edgy - demanding craft: even the simplest gags require taste, timing, discipline, and the willingness to push things to the limit but not beyond. The end result: both homage and honest fun!

Come out with family and friends for a raucous evening of laughter.

For more information, please visit www.ShakespeareSC.org or call 803-787-2273.

We must note that Bloom made a vigorous and assertive Benvolio in a Finlay Park Romeo and Juliet a few years ago, smacking down those Capulets like flies, and Stepp has caught our eye with some amusing performances at Columbia Children's Theatre, so we suspect this is a show not to be missed.

In other news, there are three other great shows also running in town currently, and it's not the worst of dilemmas, at least in the broader sense, to have to figure out which great performance you want to see first, since there's something for just about every taste.  By now you already know about the new show at Trustus, In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, which runs through Sat. May 26th. (If not, my review is at http://jaspercolumbia.net/blog/?p=1478.)  Town Theatre meanwhile is presenting Grease, and there's a review at www.OnstageColumbia.com .  This show has been held over, and now also runs through Sat. May 26th. Most recently, Andrew Lippa's Wild Party just opened this weekend at Workshop Theatre, and there's a review for it as well at the same site.  Sure enough, it too runs through Sat. 26th, meaning Sunday the 27th will be a sad day for local theatre-goers.  Not to worry - pick up a copy of the new Jasper - The Word of Columbia Arts (issue # 5, which is being released in about 3 hours) for details on what shows are being done this summer!    And look for a review of The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) from Jillian Owens in a few days at that same site, www.OnstageColumbia.com .

~ August Krickel

Columbia City Ballet presents The Sleeping Beauty: A Story Where Good Triumphs Over Evil with a Single Kiss

The Columbia City Ballet culminates its 2011-2012 season with the most famous kiss in fairytale history… a sparkling rendition of the full-length classic The Sleeping Beauty. Under the direction of Executive & Artistic Director William Starrett, this elaborate spectacle of magic and glamour takes the Koger Center stage on March 9 and 10 for three performances.

“The Sleeping Beauty is one of the purest classical ballets in existence. It has a long and important history with the Columbia City Ballet. It has been produced ten times in our 50 year history: first in 1966, and last eight years ago in 2004. I first danced the role of the Prince in Sleeping Beauty for the Minnesota Ballet when I was 17-years-old. It is thrilling that I can be instrumental in bringing this masterpiece to our community,” said Starrett.

Created in 1890 by choreographer Marius Petipa and legendary composer Tchaikovsky, The Sleeping Beauty is recognized as one of the supreme achievements of classical ballet. The ballet takes audiences on a journey through an enchanted forest based on the classic French fairytale by Charles Perrault: the beautiful princess Aurora, performed by Ballerina Regina Willoughby, is cursed by the evil fairy Carabosse, brought to life by Alexis Doktor and Cooper Rust who will be alternating the role, and doomed to sleep for one-hundred years -- only to be awakened by the kiss of her true love, the handsome Prince Charming, danced by Soloist Journy Wilkes-Davis. Also performing are Principal dancers Mark Krieger and Kathryn Smoak dancing the Blue Bird Pas De Deux and the Lilac Fairy will be portrayed by Soloist Claire Kallimanis, alternating with Claire Richards.

Tchaikovsky is also well-known for two other popular full length classical ballets, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. With a score that has stood the test of time, The Sleeping Beauty remains one of the most revered ballets in the world today. The sheer artistry of the technically demanding dancing, and the Columbia City Ballet’s fresh approach to this clearly-portrayed story make The Sleeping Beauty production the perfect family outing and a great ballet for first-timers.

Performances of The Sleeping Beauty are:

March 9 at 7:30 p.m.

March 10 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Before each evening performance, Director Starrett holds a pre-show lecture 30 minutes prior to the curtain where he gives you a unique introduction behind the scenes into the magical world of ballet. Following the March 10 matinee, audience members are invited to tour backstage and meet the Columbia City Ballet dancers.

The Sleeping Beauty is sponsored by Lexington Medical Center. Tickets are on sale at the Coliseum Box Office and all Capitol Ticket Outlets. Charge by phone by calling 251-2222 or on online at www.capitoltickets.com. For more information about the Columbia City Ballet, call (803)799-7605 or visit www.columbiacityballet.com.

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Review -- August Krickel on Workshop Theatre's The Dixie Swim Club

Jasper has a thing for feisty women of a certain age, especially when they periodically reunite to do some female bonding, and to recharge their collective vitality.  The reunion going on at Workshop Theatre isn’t just the one we see on stage in The Dixie Swim Club, which opened to a packed and appreciative house this past Friday, but also the reunion of veteran director Cynthia Gilliam and some of Columbia's favorite actresses.  Depicting four girls-only beach weekends stretching over several decades, Workshop's new production is strong on laughs and characterization, a little bit less so on depth and substance, but you enjoy the performances of the five leads so much, that's all that matters.  

The script (by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, i.e., the team responsible for numerous down-home community/regional theatre favorites like the Dearly Beloved/Futrelle Family trilogy) introduces us to five gal pals who have kept their friendship going long after the heyday of their championship college swim team.  Once a year, all spouses, children and telephones are banished, and the quintet meet at a beach house in the Outer Banks, with the expected results. The framework is part Same Time, Next Year, part Big Chill, with liberal doses of Designing Women and Steel Magnolias, but it works, thanks to excellent casting and direction.

Four of the five are recognizable types:  Barbara Lowrance plays the flirtatious and often-married Lexie, Leigh Stephenson plays the former team captain Sheree, Andi Cooper plays the career woman Dinah, and Drucilla Brookshire plays the Southern-fried Vernadette. Tracy Rice has the biggest challenge as Jeri Neal, who reinvents herself several times in the course of the play. In the hands of less seasoned actresses, these roles could be quite stereotypical and derivative: Lexie is a more vulnerable version of Sex and the City's Samantha, attorney Dinah is basically Miranda, preppy and optimistic Sheree is a variation on Charlotte, while long-suffering yet wisecracking Vernadette is more like Roseanne's sitcom character.  (That three fairly collegiate types would be this close to two fairly rural country girls is a bit of a stretch, but not overly distracting.)  Likewise, the plot doesn't forge any new territory; you can pretty much guess in advance what sort of challenges five friends will face as they age from 44 to 77.  There will be marriages and divorces, children and grandchildren, issues with careers and health, and ultimately, as with any group of friends, someone will be the first to pass on.  I doubt I'm giving away any plot spoilers when I reveal that through it all, their friendship is the one rewarding constant on which they can depend. Thankfully, Gilliam has cast the right performers to make the evening a showcase for their acting skills.

A few weeks ago, I noted that many of the Midlands' finest performers from the past few decades were gathered together for Jim Thigpen's swan song at Trustus; just about everyone who missed out on being in that cast turns up here.  (In fact, Gilliam directed a number of these actresses in a similar show, Ladies of the Alamo, several decades ago at Workshop, and the only Alamo alums not in this were onstage a mile away down at Trustus!)   Top honors have to go to Brookshire, who takes what could have been a stock, down-home comic relief character and makes her believable, while getting some of the biggest laughs of the evening.  While the storyline is fairly thin, the script is replete with classic, quotable one-liners, as when Vernadette declares that she "never knew true happiness until I got married, and then it was too late," or when Lexie reveals that she gave her ex "the thinnest years of my life." Actually, this is the sort of show where, believe it or not, references to divorce, infidelity, even early-stage dementia can become jokes. For me the tenderest moment was when Stephenson's eternally youthful ex-athlete breaks into tears not because of some tragedy, but upon realizing that she's going to be a grandmother.  Another highlight (and a perfect audition piece or monologue for someone looking) is Vernadette's defiant and hilarious defense of biscuits, deep fat fryers, and the Southern way of life - this actually got a huge round of applause in the middle of the scene on opening night.  All five play a tad younger than their actual age as the play begins, and define their progression through the years more with their voices and physicality than actual make-up (although Cherelle Guyton's wigs are extremely believable and help to define both age and personality.)

Randy Strange's ultra-realistic set is one of the best I can recall in recent years at Workshop. The show wisely avoids too many references to specific times or places (in fact, it could probably be done fairly well on a bare stage with a few chairs) but Strange has gone all-out, crafting a believable beach house setting.  Something that I really admired was the detail lavished on a screened-in porch at stage left, which doesn't really figure into any plot elements, but makes for a familiar and credible feel.  Chuck Sightler's sound design is subtle and effective, with passing noises (thunder, rain, a car horn) coming from the right direction, and often muted, not distracting from the dialogue.  A minor quibble would be a lot of wasted space above the set, which could have been used for projected images of sand dunes and sea oats, or perhaps to suggest changing climate (clouds, storms, the sun, etc.)

In the program, Gilliam notes that this production is not great dramatic literature, but I'd say that she and the cast nevertheless give it their all, as if it were.  The Dixie Swim Club, as above, is a showcase for the skills of its cast and director, and Columbians who have followed them over the years will enjoy seeing the team back together again.   The Dixie Swim Club runs through Sat, Dec. 3rd; contact the Workshop Box Office at 799-6551 for ticket information.

~ August Krickel

Release Your Freak Tonight at the Carpe Noctem FREAK SHOW

Give into your inner freak tonight at Unbound Dance’s third annual Carpe Noctem FREAK SHOW from 7 p.m. to midnight at 701 Whaley. This freaky fundraising gala includes performances by Unbound Dance, Columbia Alternacirque and Party Time Gurls featuring Carla Cox.

Attendees will be greeted at the door by a consortium of perilous women known as the Columbia QuadSquad. They will enter into a menacing carnival scene designed by local lighting designer Aaron Pelzek, scenic designer Kimi Maeda and puppeteer Lyon Hill.

Unbound Dance will perform three original pieces including an encore of the audience favorite “Thriller.” Emcee Alex Smith will guide the audience through their freakiest carnival experience while Charleston’s DJ Lola pumps music on the dance floor between sets.

In addition to live entertainment, FREAK SHOW will tempt the audience with a silent auction, carnival foods, caged freaks and cash bar. Attendees may want to disguise themselves so they are encouraged to wear their craziest carnival costume for a chance to win the FREAK SHOW Costume Contest.

Carpe Noctem FREAK SHOW is open to the public. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door. A portion of the proceeds will go to Unbound’s dear friend, Amy Hardy, who is battling stage four metastatic breast cancer at the age of 30. The remaining proceeds will go to Unbound Dance.

-- Margey Bolen

Review -- August: Osage County

Jasper loves dysfunctional families.  Wait, let's clarify that - Jasper loves Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas about dysfunctional families, and there's a doozy of one running right now through Sat. Nov. 12th, at Trustus Theatre. August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts, is billed as Jim Thigpen's directorial swan song; he and wife Kay, with whom he founded Trustus 26 years ago, will retire at the end of this season (see the current issue of Jasper at http://jaspercolumbia.net/current-issue/ for details.) Fortunately, he has assembled a highly functional cast of family, both literal (brother Ron Hale and daughter Erin Wilson) and theatrical (a veritable who's who of local theatrical talent) to bring this provocative and compelling work to Columbia audiences.

The show recounts a few weeks in the lives of the Weston family, disrupted by the disappearance of the father. His three daughters return home, family and significant others in tow, to support their mother, and along the way we meet an aunt, and uncle, a cousin, and a few innocent bystanders. I was only familiar with this work from some reviews I read a few years ago, when it premiered and promptly won the Tony and N.Y. Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best Play, the Drama Desk and Outer Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Play, and the Pulitzer. As a result, I had some misconceptions going in.  This is in no way, shape or fashion a comedy, even a dark one.  There are certainly some witty lines; most of the characters are fairly eloquent people connected to academia, and often barbs spoken in moments of great anger, frustration, and passion get some big laughs. Nevertheless, this play is a tragedy of the ordinary, an examination of the dark underbelly of contemporary American society, depicted before us via one truly unfortunate family.

Likewise, the title notwithstanding, this isn't really a rural or country-themed play at all.  While there is a plaid shirt here, some cowboy boots there, a backdrop that suggests dull stucco or adobe walls, and a Native American housekeeper, the setting isn't so much Oklahoma as it is any desolate location, and the desolation is as much spiritual as literal. One character notes that this isn't the Midwest, but rather the Plains, which he compares to the Blues, just not as interesting.  Nor is the show particularly surreal or avant-garde, as I somehow had expected. Sadly, the obstacles that confront these characters (with perhaps one Southern Gothic exception) are all too commonplace: divorce, infidelity, youthful rebellion, repression, substance abuse, suicide, and depression. The language is sometimes quite eloquent and poetic, but more often quite down-to-earth and familiar.

Yet this is a tremendously entertaining evening at the theatre, thanks to the supremely talented cast. While each of the thirteen actors gets his or her moment to shine on stage, top honors have to go to Libby Campbell Turner, in the central role of Violet, the harsh matriarch of the Weston family. We first see Violet helplessly struggling to form her words and thoughts as a result of her addiction to painkillers; the effect is shocking, especially for those familiar with Campbell Turner's assertive stage presence in any number of shows over the last several decades. Have no fear, however: Violet's coherence returns with a vengeance, as she tries to bring down each of her three daughters in turn. We chillingly realize that while the pills may have loosened her tongue, they surely didn't create her venom.

Violet's main adversary is her eldest daughter, Barbara, played by Dewey Scott-Wiley. She and Paul Kaufmann (as her husband Bill) are masters of the stage whisper, which they must employ for a marital spat that they desperately wish to remain unheard.  Scott-Wiley expertly depicts this ordinary yet complex character, as we see her first channeling her father in an alcohol-fueled intellectual ramble, then mirroring her mother, attempting in vain to control all around her, while still clad in her nightclothes.

Another standout is Gerald Floyd, as Violet's amiable but long-suffering brother-in-law whom she bitingly notes is now the family patriarch "by default," after her husband's disappearance. In a play where characters often naturalistically talk over one another, timing is everything, and Floyd is the champ, portraying a man who rarely gets a word in edgewise, yet always makes his point known.  Late in the third act, his demand that his wife (played by Elena Martinez-Vidal) show some shred of decency and compassion to their son, was for me perhaps the most moving moment in the play.

Another cast member whose vocal talent must be noted is Ellen Rodillo-Fowler, as the housekeeper Johnna. Brassy and feisty just a few weeks ago in Third Finger, Left Hand, here she plays soft and stoic, often pausing a half-second before most of her lines, and thus showing the depth and thought behind them.  Ron Hale, as Violet's husband, shines in the opening scene, waxing poetic and philosophical while concealing the depths of despair into which he has fallen. Sarah Crouch as the granddaughter Jean, Joe Morales as the local Sheriff, Kevin Bush as the supposed loser cousin "Little" Charles, Erin Wilson as the frustrated, plain-Jane middle daughter, and Robin Gottlieb as the somewhat spoiled youngest daughter who foolishly thinks she has escaped the family cycle, all do fine work, many playing against type.  Stann Gwynn as Gottlieb's fiancé has perhaps the fewest lines, but is memorable for making the audience wonder which is creepier: his interaction with Jean (which quickly moves into "Like to watch gladiator movies?" territory) or his career as a yuppie entrepreneur profiting from the Persian Gulf conflict.

One suspects that just as every great actor must try Hamlet in his youth, Macbeth in middle age and Lear as he gets older, so too must every playwright, Letts included, take a stab at a tragedy of family dysfunction.  August: Osage County presents us with no moral or lesson, but rather portrays people making the choices they must, but then living with the consequences.  I was reminded more than once during the show of a line spoken by Clint Eastwood in the film Gran Torino, about how "the thing that haunts a man most is what he isn't ordered to do."

Critics have called this the first great play of the new century. I'm not so sure I'd quite go that far, but there are certainly echoes of any number of classics:  Lillian Hellman's "little foxes, that spoil the vines," the spectre of substance abuse from A Long Day's Journey Into Night,  the bleak sense of frustration and yearning from  Chekhov's The Three Sisters and Turgenev's A Month in the Country, families coping with long-repressed secrets from Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Ibsen's The Wild Duck,  and a dozen Tennessee Williams works, and the domestic battles in the homes of academics from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and On Golden Pond.   Shoot, stick togas on the Westons and you'd basically have the cursed House of Atreus.  Time will tell if this is the latest retelling of eternal themes from the human experience, or a well-crafted pastiche of those themes, designed as an acting tour-de-force for a talented ensemble.

Either way, it rarely gets better than this if you want to see some of Columbia's finest performers flexing their dramatic muscles in some rich and juicy material. Director Thigpen made a wise choice for his finale, and deftly pulls it all together for a rich and thought-provoking evening at the theatre.

If you're going, note that the show runs a solid three and a half hours, with two intermissions, but it feels like not much more than two. Just be sure to make dinner and babysitter arrangements accordingly.  Call the Trustus Box Office at 254-9732 for ticket information.

~ August Krickel

Tom Poland reflects on his play, Solid Ground -- Guest Blog

I wanted to send this little news release of sorts to friends, former students, special clients, and those of you who knew I was writing a play this summer. Some of you expressed a desire to see the play but let me tell you it is one exhausting drive down to south Georgia. My drive, roundtrip was almost 900 miles and 15 hours. If I go down in March 2012 to see the play again, I'll fly into Tallahassee, rent a car, and drive up to little Colquitt, Georgia.

I am glad I went. Everyone down there is so gracious and friendly and the countryside is beautiful ... brilliant cotton fields, massive live oaks, and majestic pecan orchards draped in Spanish moss. Being a native Georgian, I was glad to see many parts of the state I'd never seen.

"Solid Ground," my play, uses a cast of more than 50 people. It's directed by Phil Funkenbusch of the Abraham Lincoln Museum Theater in Springfield, Illinois. The two-act, two-hour show is about a man's route to salvation. It deals with the after effects of the Depression, the harsh realities of farming, and the beauty of the land. The stories it's based on are true. Life was vastly different back then. No daycare for instance. One young couple, poor and struggling to make ends meet, took their infant daughter into the cotton fields and laid her down in a blanket. While they were picking cotton, a rattlesnake bit the child and she died. Lots of true stories like this and beautiful original music truly make the play an event. It has sad moments and funny moments but not one dull moment. Lots of crying by the audience ... it's moving the way they do it. I could get intellectual on you but I'm not that kind of guy. It's just a good story based on oral histories. I heard from several people that it's their favorite play of all they've staged in 19 years. I was humbled by the cast and crowd's reaction to me when I was introduced around and after the show.

The sweetest moment for me was right after the play, three little girls about nine years old walked up to me and handed me a promotional brochure about the play. "We want you to have this," said one little girl with her front teeth missing. Each little girl had signed the brochure for me! It's something I will keep forever.

Would I write another play? Yes indeed. It's really something to see ideas and words that bounced in around your head all summer find their way to a stage.

Swamp Gravy, the theater company down there, by the way, began on Broadway in New York City when a citizen from Colquitt met Director Richard Geer (No not that Richard ... he spells his name Gere) and the two talked about a way to revitalize Colquitt. That's where the idea for Swamp Gravy began. Today it is acknowledged by the Georgia General Assembly as "Georgia's Official Folk Life Play" and its plays have been performed at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, at Atlanta's Seven Stages Theater and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Creating Columbia: An Artistic Experience -- A Guest Blog from Sumner Bender

 

I have been involved with theatre in Columbia almost all of my life. It is an outlet, which from an early age, has given me more encouragement and excitement than almost any other activity in which I have engaged. After moving away to another country, I was without my theatre for an entire year. That was enough of that I knew. I decided that I would never live my life without the theatre again. One of the main things that I missed while in that foreign land, where I did not speak the native language, was a community. I had other foreigners, like myself, to joke and talk with and on a certain level connect. There is a bond built when you share an interesting situation like living abroad. But there is no community that I have ever felt more alive and involved then that of the theatre community. Upon my arrival back to the States I dove back into my old passion. I was barely in the country a week when I had signed on to do my next theatrical production, Reasons to be Pretty, at Trustus Theatre. And voila, I was back.

As I became more aware of my surroundings, and the reverse culture shock began to wear off I noticed that something had changed in Columbia. Well something had changed, but so had I. My eyes were opened wider than they had been before my departure and noticed this little city, that I had known all my life, opening up for me. All of a sudden there were artists of all variations wherever I went. I found myself traveling in packs of people I had never met before, but who spoke and looked liked the ones I had always known only slightly different.  Somehow this college town that seemed monotonous and trite and something to complain about had become a flourishing venue for the arts and a breeding ground for new experience. Where had they come from, had they been here all along? I don’t know and I don’t care, all I know is that it is here and it is now and it is all happening.

Working as a legal assistant most of my college career I spent plenty of time on Main Street hustling court documents and vying for stamps and certified signatures. Now I stroll down the street dipping in and out of various buildings hoping to see some inspiring work of art, whether an instillation at Anastasia’s or the ever changing scenes at Tapp’s. The first few times at gallery openings around town I noticed a large audience of my peers, people whom I barely recognized as someone who may or may not hangout at that bar I like to go to. In general there just seemed to be a thriving scene of interesting and interested people feeding off this new cultural frenzy taking place in our small southern city. Everywhere you look people are building and creating. It is vibrant and exhilarating to watch and feel.

Having been a part of the creative class of theatre folk that has been pounding on the door to this city for decades, I couldn’t help but want to combine the two. What separates the arts from one another? The genres of course, the performer, the visual artist, the sculptor, the musician…director etc. at the heart of each of these individuals lies the same bit of truth. Creation. Where there once was nothing now there is something, from a blank page, a blank wall or a blank stage each of these creators adds life to the lifeless. So why is it that we keep them all separate, one thing here another there and very little mixed in between. Arts in this climate, political and economical, are something that have to be continuously fought for, but one of the most important things in a community worth the fight.

To begin we must evolve these communities into one. Separately theatre, film and galleries have thriving followers. The would be regulars at the local bars, the ones we can count on to support us no matter what, but how much can we ask of the ones who already give us so much. We need to share with each other. Open our doors to collaboration between the arts. Introduce each other to the enriching beauty this city has to offer. Make it our mission as creators to build a bridge for our supporters to support each other creating a solid base for this city’s artistic class to not only stand on but rely on as well.

This is the 27^th season at Trustus Theatre. We have been pushing the creative envelope since the doors opened in 1985. Yet as I stroll down Main Street I will meet many a people who have never set foot in the doors of the theatre, or any theatre in town for that matter. That has to change. Selfishly of course, I would do anything to keep our doors open because I believe in what we do, but at the same time I think we could offer those people a new experience one that they can keep coming back to and counting on. Just as I say that there are plenty of Trustus regulars who have never set foot in a gallery in this town. It would almost never occur to them to do so. It isn’t there style, it isn’t their interest. But isn’t it, really?

Think about it, we are all after the same thing even if we go about it in completely different ways. We are a family and right now we are estranged. That makes for pretty lonely Thanksgiving dinner. Wouldn’t it be much more fun to bring all the quirkiness together, all the eccentricities supporting one another like one big dysfunctional family? I mean it doesn’t get much more dysfunctional than trying to consistently create in a state that thinks the arts should be thrown out with yesterday’s trash. Well one governor’s trash can be one community’s absolute treasure. But it has to be one that we all share. No finder’s keepers, but finder’s givers. Tell us what is working for you and share your successes with everyone else out there trying to keep this cultural class in Columbia on the rise.

We have started off simply, by asking some of these visual artists to hang their work in our theatre. Help us turn our space where we sometimes hang art into The Gallery @ Trustus. So far we have bemet with overwhelming excitement from those involved. Next we are asking the writers who fill notebooks whilst sitting in small coffee shops to write a poem and enter it in our Spring Awakening Poetry Contest. We want you to enhance our audiences with your words, like our actors enhance them from the stage. Our goal is to make Trustus an artistic experience, but it takes you to make that possible. Enter your poetry, hang your art, come see our shows. Tell your friends. In return you can expect them same from us. We will go to your shows and look at, maybe even buy your art. We will listen to you sing and watch you mesmerize us with your dance. But all in all we have to do this together, let’s make Columbia an Artistic Experience.

~~~

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest

 Trustus Theatre, in conjunction with this December’s production of the Tony award-winning Broadway hit musical Spring Awakening and Jasper Magazine, announces The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest. Share your own experiences, your own version of the coming of age experience through poetry. The winning poems will be published and winners will receive tickets to Trustus Theatre’s production of this award-winning play.

Winner of 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical, Spring Awakening celebrates the unforgettable journey from youth to adulthood with power, poignancy, and passion. Although our own experiences are individual, the coming of age theme resonates with all of us.  Whether it was tragic or transformative, the loss of innocence of the power of self-discovery, we all experience coming of age as a kind of awakening.  What did you learn (or not learn), and what can we learn from you?  What does it mean to you to come of age, to awaken, to discover who you are, to become an adult?

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest will have 3 winners, one each in Adult and High School categories, and a third winner to be chosen as a Fan Favorite on Facebook.  The top 10 finalists will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page and the Fan Favorite selected through Facebook feedback.

Each winner will receive 2 tickets to Spring Awakening at Trustus and will have their poems published in the shows program AS WELL AS being published in the January edition of Jasper Magazine. Besides Fan Favorite the winners will be chosen by Ed Madden, literary editor for Jasper.

Effective IMMEDIATELY the entries are to be submitted online to thegallerytrustus@gmail.com as a Word document ATTACHMENT with the subject POETRY CONTEST. The deadline for entries is November 18 at 5 p.m. On Monday November 21 the Top 10 submissions will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page where voting will open for Fan Favorite. Voting will end at midnight on November 26. The winners will be announced online on Wednesday November 30.

Submission Guidelines: Work can be any form or style of poetry, but the poem should focus on the Spring Awakening coming of age theme.  Poems should not have been previously published in print or online, including personal blogs and internet web pages.  Only one entry per person. If you are entering the High School portion please tell us what school you attend!

Jasper asks, Do you remember what it was like to discover love and sex and who you are?

Jasper is working with Trustus Theatre to present:

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest

Trustus Theatre announces, in conjunction with this December’s production of the Tony award-winning Broadway hit musical Spring Awakening, The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest. Share your own experiences, your own version of the coming of age experience through poetry. The winning poems will be published and winners will receive tickets to Trustus Theatre’s production of this award-winning play.

Winner of 8 Tony awards, including Best Musical, Spring Awakening celebrates the unforgettable journey from youth to adulthood with power, poignancy, and passion. Although our own experiences are individual, the coming of age theme resonates with all of us. Whether it was tragic or transformative, the loss of innocence or the power of self-discovery, we all experience coming of age as a kind of awakening. What did you learn (or not learn), and what can we learn from you? What does it mean to you to come of age, to awaken, to discover who you are, to become an adult?

The Spring Awakening Poetry Contest will have 3 winners, one each in Adult and High School categories, and a third winner to be chosen as a Fan Favorite on Facebook. The top 10 finalists will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page and the Fan Favorite selected through Facebook feedback.

Each winner will receive 2 tickets to Spring Awakening at Trustus and will have their poems published in the shows program as well as being published in the January edition of JASPER Magazine! Besides Fan Favorite the winners will be chosen by Ed Madden, poetry editor for JASPER.

Effective IMMEDIATELY the entries are to be submitted online to thegallerytrustus@gmail.com as a Word document ATTACHMENT with the subject POETRY CONTEST. The deadline for entries is November 18 at 5 p.m. On Monday November 21 the Top 10 submissions will be posted on the Trustus Facebook page where voting will open for Fan Favorite. Voting will end at midnight on November 26. The winners will be announced online on Wednesday November 30.

Submission Guidelines: Work can be any form or style of poetry, but the poem should focus on the Spring Awakening coming of age theme. Poems should not have been previously published in print or online, including personal blogs and internet web pages. Only one entry per person.

Columbia City Ballet's Off the Wall -- Go for the end of the show

OK, everyone who really knows me knows how I feel about the state of dance in Columbia, SC. Not to beat a dead horse but, as you've all heard me whine too much, sometimes I feel like we're stuck in the nineteen-eighties or whenever the last time was that Columbia's big two dance company ADs went to see a show that they weren't staging themselves. It's frustrating that the only new and innovative dance and choreography opportunities tend to come out of the university setting.  

So, with all these caveats out there I want to express how pleased I was with what City Ballet did with Off the Wall tonight at the Koger Center. Yes, Act I was the longest single ballet act I have ever sat through, and yes, the numbers themselves went on for way the hell too long. But when Act II came around, it was like we were sitting in a different theatre, with a different audience, watching a different company perform a different ballet.

While some of Act II was a retread of previous Off the Wall performances, artistic director William Starrett has added a new scene this season, set in the congregation of a church and, this time, he has scored and scored big. The new church scene starts off with a heart-and-gut twisting rendition of Amazing Grace, sung by a soloist with the Benedict College Gospel Choir whose name I do not know. If anyone knows this young woman's name, then please, pass it along to the rest of us because I don't ever want to miss an opportunity to hear her perform again. As outstanding as she was, her performance was just a precursor of the wild and crazy gospel choral ride the audience was in for as the remainder of the act unfolded. It was, to be completely candid, one of the best performances I have seen in Columbia. (And yes, Bonnie danced in this piece but only for a handful of minutes and in a decidedly standard corps role.)

The choir was over-the-top and athletic in their performance and the dance choreography was innovative and surprising. Dancers seemed to pop out of the pews of the church like hot kernels of corn. But by far, the most exciting thing to me was the fact that there on the Koger Center stage were three different arts disciplines -- ballet, choral music, and the visual art of Jonathan Green -- coming together to present an all around sensory overload that left the audience all but on fire. In a word, it was a success.

So, to those of you who were not planning to attend Columbia City Ballet's performance of Off the Wall and Onto the Stage, my advice is that you reconsider your decision. To be honest, act I may not be for everyone -- in our party, two people loved it and two people thought it drug on fairly mercilessly. But whatever your complaints or lack thereof with Act I, Act II will, by far, make up for any unhappiness with the early part of the show. There are three more chances to see this version of Off the Wall -- Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday afternoon. For more information go to www.columbiacityballet.com.

-- cb

Catch Shakespeare Under The Stars This Weekend at Saluda Shoals Park

What a delight it was last Saturday at Saluda Shoals Park to catch the SC Shakespeare Company perform a reading of The Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain, a play within a novel by New York author Arthur Phillips.

To hear the robust delivery of Shakespeare’s lines amid the occasional hoot of an owl or hum of crickets is a rare pleasure, providing an example of the outdoor theater experience that can become a regular source of enjoyment for Midlands audiences if fund-raising for a proper outdoor venue is successful.

Before the performance, Phillips gave a talk about his novel, The Tragedy of Arthur, copies of which were available for purchase, with proceeds going to the park’s planned “Nature’s Theater,” a grand outdoor performance venue, the plans for which include a covered stage, seating for 500 with a lawn to accommodate 500 more, and a rooftop event space. I get really excited at the thought of seeing the SC Shakespeare Company and other esteemed performers regularly on a glorious outdoor stage cradled in nature’s womb.

Until that happens, however, you can see the SC Shakespeare Company open its 2011-12 season with one of the Bard’s earliest and funniest plays, The Comedy of Errors, this weekend at Saluda Shoals Park. Directed by Scott Blanks, the production will put a decidedly modern, World War II twist on the play, which gets so many of its laughs from hilarious episodes of mistaken identity and slapstick. Performances run nightly through Saturday, October 1, at 7:30 p.m. at Saluda Shoals Park, in conjunction with unearth: a celebration of naturally inspired art (culminating on Sunday, October 2,  from 1-5  p.m. with performances, poetry readings and art being created outdoors at the park).

Tickets for Comedy of Errors are $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. If you can’t make those performances, the Company also will perform The Comedy of Errors at Finlay Park from Wednesday through Saturday, October 12-15, at 8 p.m. nightly. For more information, call 803-787-2273.

Review -- Third Finger, Left Hand

Randall David Cook's clever, funny, and comfortably bizarre play, Third Finger, Left Hand, is a production that could benefit from the addition of both time and space. A portion of the Jasper entourage had the opportunity to attend a late night show on Friday, for the next-to-the-last-performance of the play's Columbia run, as we snuggled into the intimate confines of the Trustus Black Box Theatre along with a few dozen of our closest friends. An efficient configuration of the seating in the black box area created something of a theatre-in-the-round arrangement and, as is the way with small space productions, we all became a part of the show.

With a cast of five strong women and one delightful man, (Joe Hudson plays the part of Mark Luke Matthews, a church organist with a penchant for sound effects), the play catapulted the audience into the overlapping conjunctions of sad but hysterical drama from the first word. In the part of a sappily sweet-mouthed wedding planner, Dell Goodrich embodied the socially constructed worst of Southern womanhood as she contrived and manipulated, and said one thing but meant another, all from a plastered smile evoking images of the proverbial serpent in the garden itself. While it is disturbing to see this stereotype perpetuated in the theatre, the reality is that those bitches are still out there and maybe the best way to rid the world of them is to expose their likes on the stage for all to see. Sumner Bender, Kristin Wood Cobb, Ellen Rodillo-Fowler, and Denise Pearman, under the direction of Larry Hembree, fashioned a well-balanced ensemble cast that fed off one another like a dysfunctional and somewhat sapphic sorority.

The 75 minutes of Third Finger, Left Hand were filled with all the laughter and cringes appropriate to a modern-day gothic tale of the worst of humanity dressed up all pretty in the guise of family lore, but we couldn't leave the theatre without feeling as if the play itself needed something more -- the luxury of time and space. While we enjoyed the intimacy of the black box setting, Third Finger, Left Hand is the kind of play that really needs to spread out and take off its Spanx. We would like not only to see the play on a larger stage with a less minimalist set, but also in two extended acts. Several of the most important components to the creepiness of the conflict were delivered to the audience like a slap on the face, but with the economy of the forward motion of the play, we were given little time to process them. A few extra moments for both the actors and the audience to catch our collective breath -- and realize how disgusted we really were -- would have been helpful and much appreciated.

That said, thanks to Randall David Cook for bringing  his special kind of crazy back home to South Carolina. We like it when successful people don't forget where they came from. And we like it even better when they come back. You have one more night to see this engaging play. Do it. Then call, facebook, or email Randall David Cook and ask him to bring it back to us again -- same cast, same director -- but this time on the main stage.

For Your Consideration -- Jasper's take on three plays opening in Columbia this week

Jasper loves going to the theatre. On rare occasions, he'll just show up and be surprised by what he gets. But most of the time, he does his homework. There are three shows opening in the city this week. One you should just show up for and have a good time. One you might want to do a little planning for. And another that you need to know what you're getting into so, you know, you can really get into it. Anything Goes, opening at Workshop Theatre on Friday night and running through October 1st, is like an ice cream sundae. You really just have to go for it. Other than knowing it's Cole Porter and how, like ice cream and chocolate syrup, it's brilliant in its simplicity, you don't need to over-analyze it. Just have fun. And, given that Cindy Flach is directing it, yeah, you will have fun. Flach has a way, not only with execution, but with space. Her shows conjure up words like pizzazz, and sizzle, and flare. She's another one of Columbia's treasures who asks for little attention, but always gets the job done and gets it done well.

On Wednesday night, in some wild configuration of the Trustus Black Box and Late Night series, our boy Larry Hembree opens Randall David Cook's play, Third Finger, Left Hand. The show plays Wednesday nights at 7:30 and Friday and Saturday nights at 11, for two weeks. Cook is a hometown boy who has done well so, in our book, that would be reason enough to go out and support this show with your patronage. But there's more -- well, first of all, you know Larry Hembree and the kind of weird and magical spells he tends to put on a stage, so, there's that. But the bottom line is that the play has been described as both "Southern gothic" and "twisted" -- terms that makes Jasper's pulse absolutely race. (Jasper likes weird -- why hide it?) But here's the thing -- Cook and Hembree are also presenting a little bonus, next Tuesday the 20th, when they give a staged reading of another little something from Cook's box of tricks, a play called Southern Discomfort. In an effort to construct something of a study of Cook's work, we'll be seeing both the reading and the play next week. Then we're going to sit down and decide what we really think of Cook's work and talk about it. We invite our lovely readers to join us in this online discussion next week. Come back here -- right here -- and share your comments below. We look forward to getting your views.

Finally, a third play opens this week that already has us wiggling in our seats. We've never seen David Mamet's Oleanna, but we've seen David Mamet's Race (with David Spade) and his Glengarry, Glen Ross (with Alan Alda), and we've seen his films, Wag the Dog, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Verdict, to name just a few. So we know that when David Mamet writes for us, we have to prepare ourselves to be receptive. Mamet's use of language and delivery (called "Mamet speak") is unique and edgy and a little scary. Rather than enjoying a little vino or a draught of bourbon before a Mamet play, we recommend you dose up on caffeine -- not to help you stay awake, but rather to help you keep up. Mamet is unrelenting. That said, the subject of Oleanna is sexual harassment in the academy. A subject far too serious to trivialize or present solely for entertainment value. Mamet doesn't - it will be interesting to see what director, Ait Federolf, a senior in the department of theatre at USC, does with his production. It opens at the USC Lab Theatre on Thursday night, the 15th -- but you'll be busy then attending the Jasper Magazine Launch Party at Speakeasy -- and only runs until the 18th. All shows are at 8 pm and cost $5 -- with tickets available only at the door.

For more information on all three plays, visit the following websites or addresses  respectively:

Anything Goes - workshoptheatre.com/11-12season_AnythingGoes.html

Third Finger, Left Hand - Trustus.org

Oleanna - bushk@mailbox.sc.edu

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Arts Fatigue anyone?

Sometimes the life of an artist or arts lover can get heavy. Art is all about thinking, reflecting, analyzing, questioning, growing. Certainly, all these cerebral endeavors make for enlightened, self-aware individuals who live life intentionally and, I tend to believe, more fully. No one holds a gun to our heads and makes us love the arts -- it's a lifestyle we choose and enjoy. That said, there is no denying the reality of a syndrome I have come to call - arts fatigue.

Arts fatigue typically presents itself after a number of nights in a row when beloved artists have generously shared the gifts of their talents in a wide variety of ways. For Columbians, it usually manifests early in the month, after First Thursday often, and it is exacerbated by concomitant openings of gallery exhibits, multi-artist cooperative projects, concerts, CD releases, dance performances, and readings. We love these events. We live for them. We can't miss them. And, after so many, they exhaust us.

Yes, it is an embarrassment of riches -- and it is a glorious problem to have.

If you're like Jasper, and your head is feeling heavy with all the arts you've experienced recently and have yet to have the time to process, relief is on the horizon in the form of a play that, as I understand it, is less about reflecting and analyzing and more about laughing your ass off.

This Thursday night Trustus Theatre opens an encore run of The Great American Trailer Park Musical, directed by Robin Gottlieb. Jasper did not see this musical during its last run, but this time, at this particular moment in the arts season, a play that will allow us to laugh uproariously at ourselves and our neighbors feels like just what the Doctor ordered to not only battle arts fatigue, but to refresh our overworked brain cells with a healthy dose of laughter-induced endorphins.

Here's the blurb from the Trustus website below. And if you, too, are suffering from arts fatigue this week, just take a musical comedy to cure your ills -- and enjoy!

Back by popular demand! There's a new tenant at Armadillo Acres—and she's wreaking havoc all over Florida's most exclusive trailer park. When Pippi, the stripper on the run, comes between the Dr. Phil–loving, agoraphobic Jeannie and her tollbooth collector husband—the storms begin to brew. Throw in Pippi’s insane marker-sniffing ex-boyfriend, and you’ve got a recipe for hilarious disaster. “…It is really, really funny and should be a very big hit for Trustus Theatre […] the casting of the show is perfect.” – Larry Hembree, Onstage Columbia / The Free-Times. Please note that there will not be a show on Sunday September 11th. All tickets are $25.00

Behind the scenes (and the wardrobe and lighting) of Swing '39

Some of the staff of Jasper had the good fortune last night to attend the closing performance of TRUSTUS Theatre's most recent play, Swing '39. Directed by Chad Henderson, a young man who, full disclosure, is dear to the heart of this writer, Swing '39 was the winner of the TRUSTUS Playwright's Festival.  Written by Alessandro King, a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Swing '39 was developed during readings both at Sarah Lawrence and at New Dramatists, "the country's premiere center for the support and development of playwrights," according to their website. While we enjoyed the play and thought the second act made up for some needed editing on the playwright's part in the first, we were also duly impressed by the set design, lighting design, and costuming.

Danny Harrington, who did the scenic design, was able to capture the essence of early 20th century propriety in his pink, center-stage Davenport which appeared to be as appropriately uncomfortable as it was beautiful.

Costume Designer, Alexis Doktor, one of the two most under-recognized and over-achieving members of the Columbia arts community, scored an A+ again with her too snug pencil skirts for the women and too large suits for the men. Her wardrobe decisions well reflected the constraining sex role constructs of the pre-World War II era. (And the shoes chosen for Sylvia, played by Bianca Raso, were to die for!)

Aaron Pelzek, the other of the two most under-recognized and over-achieving members of the Columbia arts community, announced he was serious about his lighting design in the first few seconds of the show when he dramatically lit the stage, one fixture at a time, to the tune of the opening music.

Finally, hats off to Elena Martinez-Vidal who played the off-stage voice of Sylvia's mother with a demanding whine that would put that of Howard Wolowitz's Ma to shame. That said, at least one member of our theatre-going party has not been able to get Dr. Hook's rendition of Sylvia's Mother out of her head since reading the program last night.

Other standouts from the performance include G. Scott Wild in the role of Benny Goodman and Rozlyn Stanley as his love interest, Maggie. Wild, seen most recently as John Wilkes Booth in  the TRUSTUS production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, also directed by Henderson, was a snarling portrait of professionalism. Stanley embodied the kind of sensual naiveté that would allow a girl of her character's age to become involved in a tryst with such an unlikely partner.

Kudos to the cast and crew of Swing '39. We're looking forward to seeing more of you all on our city's stages in the near future.

-- C. Boiter

Check out more of Jasper Magazine at our website at www.jaspercolumbia.com