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PrintMarch theater—the director’s cut
A varied selection of intriguing, dramatic, humorous, and touching material takes Western New York stages this month. If springtime isn’t coming soon enough for you, sample some of these spiritually-enriching attractions.
Order in the Kav
Tackling a subject that doesn’t get too much play on stage, the Kavinoky Theatre presents Bob Clyman’s Secret Order, which explores the high stakes world of medical research. Ian Lithgow, who recently reprised his role as George Bailey in the Kavinoky’s Christmas show It’s A Wonderful Life, plays a graduate student on the verge of finding a cure for cancer who “gets caught in the pressures of the corporate and academic machine,” says director Doug Zschiegner.
“There are lots of big ideas in this play,” he tells. “The human drama seems to hinge on how our hopes and expectations get all intertwined with each other. Everyone in this play expects the best of themselves and of their colleagues. On the other hand, everyone has their own agenda and there is a lot of insight into power games and how we intentionally and unintentionally manipulate each other. Sometimes, the best intentions can lead to disastrous consequences.”
Zschiegner says this suspenseful thriller is heightened because “our hero isn't trying to ‘get the girl’ or ‘catch the bad guy,’ but rather find a cure for cancer. That raises the stakes incredibly. The consequences of failure are so high.”
In addition to Lithgow, Secret Order’s superlative cast features Saul Elkin, Peter Palmisano, and Adrienne Lewis, whom Zschiegner directed at Niagara University Theatre.
“All four characters are fiercely intelligent and are playing with the big boys in their field. Yet each has different problems communicating and handling other people,” Zschiegner says. “All four of our actors have the language skills and intellect to handle rich dialogue, but each of them also has the vulnerability and power to make us care about both their strengths and their weaknesses.
Like recent Kavinoky productions The Farnsworth Invention and The 39 Steps, Secret Order is a fast-paced narrative with many moving parts. It opens March 5 and runs through April 3.
Something wicked this way comes
Last year, actor/director Kelli Bocock-Natale met with New Phoenix Theatre on the Park Executive Director Richard Lambert about including her favorite Shakespeare play, Macbeth, in their 2009-10 season. To her delight, he agreed.
“We're very interested in exploring new possibilities for theatre, both when it comes to new works and the classics,” NP Artistic Director Robert Waterhouse explains. “Directors like Kelli and Joe [Natale, Kelli’s husband] like to investigate new ways in which theatre can communicate.”
For this production of Shakespeare’s dark tragedy, Bocock-Natale is using a cast of only eight people and utilizing “a type of physical theatre that will not only tell the story, but also challenge the audience's imagination to the fullest,” she says.
One of Buffalo’s best talents, Brian Riggs (recently seen in ICTC’s Blood Brothers), stars as Macbeth, the beleaguered general whose rise to power includes murdering the king of Scotland and dealing with an insanely ambitious wife.
“Brian is at the right age to play Macbeth. He is so intelligent as an actor, and he excels in physical theatre. We spoke often over the years of doing this play together.” Bocock-Natale says.
Kate LoConti is featured as Lady Macbeth and the remaining ensemble -- Eric Rawski, John Kreuzer, Caitlin Coleman, Darryl Hart, Marie Hasselbeck and Kevin Craig -- will double and/or triple roles.
“By keeping the cast small, it enables me to create, through physicality, all the moods and atmospheres of the play,” Bocock-Natale says. “It also gives the actors the opportunity to explore playing different characters that might change from line to line. Our goal will be to make it exciting and entertaining to watch.”
Along with the challenge of working with Shakespeare’s complex language, Bocock-Natale intends on doing this Macbeth in the round, utilizing the entire width of the New Phoenix theatre space as opposed to just using the stage. “Audiences will be right on the edge of scenes,” she says.
“Not only will we have to be able to truly understand the language as we relay the story, we will be implementing a type of physical creation to go along with it. I advised all of the actors they must be in excellent shape. They will need not only their acting talents, but true endurance and strength.”
Aided by Shakespeare veteran Joseph Natale as dramaturge and Franklin LaVoie as set and lighting designer, this new interpretation of Macbeth opens March 11.
Moody blues
Now playing at the Paul Robeson Theatre is Lydia Diamond’s adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. “[Morrison] always manages to write her work with such a melodic rhythm. Her style of addressing themes and issues within a culture from an elegant and purposeful presentation style has been one of her many strong points,” says PRT Artistic Director Paulette Harris. “I couldn’t help but wonder how Lydia Diamond could manage to take such a wide variety of subjects and weave them into something that addressed racial issues, generational dysfunction, and people who represented the unspoken horrors in every culture.
Harris chose this production in the hope that it would speak to today’s generation. With the play’s depiction of a long past history where people bore the scars of being told “you will never be good enough,” “dark skin is not beautiful” or “your race of people will never be anything,” our current reality with the first African American U.S. President is an interesting parallel. “This production will generate a plenty of conversation about how times have changed or not,” she says.
The Bluest Eye director Ibn Shabazz says it is about shame.
“Toxic shame and social pollution. The dumping of toxic racial and socioeconomic inferiority carcinogens into our community and society at large,” he says. “These carcinogenic agents, from the well-intentioned Dick and Jane elementary school text books, to subtle ads and product packaging, to not-so-subtle disdainful looks and outright aggression, all lead to a cancerous internalized self-loathing that manifests in a little black girl longing for ‘the bluest eyes’ to make her pretty.”
Shabazz’s challenges include working with the narrative’s multiple locations and time periods. However, “dealing with the violence and sensitive subject matter, without glorifying it or glossing over it, is probably the most challenging aspect of presenting this play,” he says.
The cast includes veteran New York City actor John Vines; newcomers Marcus Thompson, Jr. and Germaine Robinson; PRT regulars Renita Shadwick and Ciandre Taylor; and Marsha Callahan and Ashley Dolson round out the cast.
The Bluest Eye can be seen through March 20 at the African American Cultural Center.
A Tight-Knit Family
I’m always keen to see a remount of a production before my time on the “theater beat.” This month, MusicalFare offers Falsettos, which garnered much critical acclaim and many fond memories back in 1995. This new presentation coincides with MusicalFare’s celebration of their twentieth anniversary. “Last time, we did the show at the old Pfeiffer Theatre downtown. This time, we’re bringing it out to the suburbs,” says MF Artistic/Executive Director Randall Kramer.
This musical, with a book by James Lapine (Sunday in the Park with George) and William Finn (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and music and lyrics by Finn, focuses on a character named Marvin and the folks who surround him.
Kramer says Falsettos is about “trying to maintain the essence of a family while the societal rules and conventions of what a family is keep changing. It’s about trying to hold on to what is truly important in life even while we make inevitable missteps and things happen that we can’t explain. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of life and the commonality of its experiences that bring us all together.”
For this production, three original cast members from 1995 are returning: John Fredo, Debbie Pappas, and Pam Mangus. New cast members include Lou Colaiacovo, Marc Sacco, and Michele Roberts. Kramer says, “I’m very, very excited to have John Fredo and Debbie Pappas return to the production. Their characters are the emotional heart of the story.”
Since those two are amongst my favorite Western New York performers, I’m excited, too -- especially since they rarely (if ever, according to my memory) perform on stage together.
Falsettos opens March 3 and plays through April 3.
Irish Bros’
Obviously, with a name like Irish Classical Theatre Company, you expect their work to have a distinctive ethnic feel. However, few playwrights, in my experience, have evoked as palpable an atmosphere as Martin McDonagh.
“McDonagh is one of the three celebrated ‘Macs’ of Irish playwriting: Frank McGuinness, Conor McPherson, and Martin McDonagh. All three are contemporary and internationally celebrated playwrights. McDonagh, although considered Irish, is English born, though his locations, characters, themes, and language are all profoundly Irish,” says ICTC Artistic Director Vincent O’Neill.
McDonagh and the ICTC make a fine combination: Beauty Queen of Leenane at Studio Arena and Geva Theatre, in association with ICTC, starring Josephine Hogan in 2000, is an all-time fave, and Cripple of Innishmaan (at the Andrews Theatre) was another outstanding effort.
The Lonesome West is a part of McDonagh’s “Connemara Trilogy,” which includes Beauty Queen and A Skull in Connemara (which ICTC is yet to produce). ICTC Associate Director Greg Natale (Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me) directs a carefully assembled cast to present McDonagh’s tale of two warring brothers “forever stuck in a pubescent selfishness and violent way of looking at life,” he says.
Steve Copps (Blood Brothers) and Joe Wiens (Buddy Holly, Yankee Tavern) star as the brothers. Candice Kogut (Blackbird) is “the flirtatious beauty lost in rural purgatory,” Natale says, and Brian Patrick Stoyle is “the hapless, hopeless, and in-over-his-head young parish priest, sentenced to tend to his troubled flock, the inhabitants of, as he puts it, ‘The murder capital of Ireland.’”
The Lonesome West is a dark comedy about “how most people don’t change, not really. They may wish they could; they may even be able to delude themselves that are doing so for a while, but ultimately, the real them will rise to the surface...good or bad,” Natale says.
“In the case of these four characters, there is a lot of jockeying around for position--top dog, moral high ground, control, self-worth, sexual prowess and straight out survival--as the good and bad in them ebbs and flows. The play is not a morality tale, though there are morals to be drawn from it. It is not a slice of life, though we do experience the character’s lives.
“At times, the play is shocking; but mostly, it is a wonderfully fun opportunity to be a fly on the wall to see what insane topic or action will arise next, and what justification will be contorted to make sense of the actions taken by this eclectic group of whackos.”
The Lonesome West continues through March 28.
Also Playing
From March 5-28, Ujima presents Florence Gibson’s drama Belle about two former slaves -- Belle and her husband -- who go North in the period following the Civil War. Ujima Artistic Director Lorna Hill says she waited a long time to mount this production, because she needed to find the perfect actress for the lead. After discovering Shanntina Moore, who played “Snake” in In De Beginnin’ last season, her search was over.
The Alleyway presents their annual Buffalo Quickies show March 4-20. The festival of one-acts is in its 19th year and is best suited for adult audiences.
Featuring songs from the movie as well its originals hits, the Broadway touring production of Grease slides into Shea’s on March 23-28. American Idol Winner Taylor Hicks from the fifth season appears in the show.
Darwin McPherson is Spree’s theater previewer.
