Ten Thousand Things offers special "Spitfire Grill"

Photo by Tom Wallace

 

The Spitfire Grill is special for me.

The heartfelt, heart-tugging musical has a place deep in my heart, and the current Ten Thousand Things production more than does the material justice. It's certainly the finest production of the material I've seen, as the company's stripped-down production style emphasizes 

The Fred Alley/James Valcq musical was in development at the turn of the century, when I was working in Door County. Alley was co-founder and a creative force with American Folklore Theatre (now Northern Sky Theater), and while Spitfire was in development outside of AFT, it was certainly in the air through 2000 and into 2001, as the creators prepared for a workshop at Playwrights Horizons, in anticipation of an Off-Broadway run. We chatted about his excitement and hopes for the show at his farmhouse in rural Fish Creek in mid-April, the landscape coming to life after a typical long winter. 

Alley died of a heart attack on May 1, 2001, before the workshop began. The work went forward, with composer Valcq taking the lead in preparing the show for its Off-Broadway run in September.

And yes, that September. The musical opened near the epicenter of a national tragedy. It earned solid notices (and even a few best-of-the-year mentions and award nods) but its life has really been away from the big city, where this small-scale musical can really spread its wings.

The Spitfire Grill centers on a small Wisconsin town haunted by the past. It takes a young woman, herself haunted, to be the catalyst for a change. Percy Talbot is fresh out of prison and decides, based only on an autumn landscape photo, to settle in Gilead.

The local sheriff is skeptical, as Gilead is a dying town with few prospects for employment -- or want of a stranger, one who is a convict no less.

Still, he helps Percy out by getting her a place to stay and work at the Spitfire Grill, owned by Hannah, a hard-nosed Gilead lifer. A trio of additional characters fill in for the rest of the town: friendly Shelby, her angry husband Caleb, and the town busybody Effy. 

The plot centers on two things: a raffle dreamt up by Percy and Shelby to raffle off the Grill, which Hannah has been trying to sell since her husband die; and a mysterious stranger who serves as a physical specter for this haunted town.

However, this musical is about the inner lives of the characters much more than the engine of the plot. All of them have flaws -- several are broken when it starts -- and most of them struggle to make themselves, and their town better.

This is brought out through Valcq's folk-infused score and Alley's dynamic lyrics. Merge these, and you have a musical that is a tough test for the actors, not due to any vocal pyrotechnics, but through the depths they need to travel to get the best out of the songs.

TTT is a perfect place for this, with its minimal staging and focus on clarity and depth of performance. Like all company shows, this is presented in the round with the house lights up. Like their characters, the actors can't hide, and they use that to generate terrific performances, led by Katherine Fried as the troubled Percy. That's aided by Michelle Barber as Hannah and Katie Bradley as Shelby. The balance of the cast -- George Keller, Tom Reed, and  Dominic Schiro -- fill in the emotional spaces as needed, and help to bring the whole town to life.

And while I've been talking about the heartache and tough journeys, The Spitfire Grill is also funny and charming, with light hearted songs about bad food at town diners and endless Wisconsin winters helping to keep the mood from getting too dark. (And if you have seen the movie: the musical takes a different path in the end.)

Bright staging helps to make it all work. The show evokes the beauty of a rural, Midwestern town, but has to do that with nary a tree or leaf in sight. Instead, with the aid of movement director Jim Lichtscheidl, the company members become those inanimate objects -- a bus in the opening scene, a hallway and stairs as Hannah walks through her empty house.

It's most impressive in Percy's act two standout, "Shine." Hurt and heart broke, Percy is taken a special autumnal vista. In this case, it's the rest of the cast, waving gently in the breeze, Here, the music (provided by Peter Vitale and Tyson Forbes), staging (co-directed by Marcela Lorca and Michelle O'Neil), and performance all come together for a few minutes of pure theatrical magic.

I'm always going to have a spot for The Spitfire Grill in my heart, but this production is a tremendous interpretation. It runs through June 9 at various venues. 

Guthrie creates unique theater magic with all-day History Plays

The company in Henry V (Photo by Dan Norman)

 After nearly 40 years of theater going, I experienced something new Saturday evening at the Guthrie Theater.

On Saturday, the Guthrie presented a trio of Shakespeare's History Plays (Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V). The marathon started at 10 a.m. and took us through the tumultuous years around the turn of the 14th century.

At the top of Henry V at 8:30 that evening, as the company took the stage for the prologue, and the audience would not let them continue. Instead, they gave the cast a standing ovation for the incredible work already done in the day's first two shows. 

Was it earned? Oh, hell yes. 

While not perfect, the History Plays offered a tremendous taste of what theater can do. Over the span of eight hours, we saw men and women, mighty and low, navigate through treachery, conflict, friendship, and love. It's the culmination of years of work by Guthrie Artistic Director Joe Haj to bring these massive works into a streamlined, thrilling experience. It's aided by a terrific backstage crew and a company of 22 hard working actors who have put in months of rehearsal to get the shows on their feet.

The production is drawn from four Shakespeare works (often called the Henriad). For the Guthrie's production, two of those works -- Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, were compressed into a single show. We start amid the reign of Richard II, run through the arrival of the usurper Henry IV, see his troubled reign through various rebellions and the wayward youthful adventures of his son, Prince Henry, who then reigns as Henry V, and invades France to bring lands he believes are English under his thumb. 

That's a lot of story, and there are a lot of characters crossing Jan Chambers' clever set. Yet the course of the story is always clear, the conflicts are sharp, and the motivations --simple or complex -- are always earned.

The only bump in the road comes during the latter parts of Henry IV, made up of a truncated Part 2. The way they are joined means that the death of the traitor Hotspur at the hands of Prince Henry overshadows much of the remaining action. Some of that is due to John Cantron, whose floppy-haired Hotspur tops the Prince, King, and even Falstaff. 

Jimmy Kieffer's Falstaff is great, and there are strong performances throughout the company, including Erin Mackey's charming portrayal of Princess Katherine and Charity Jones' terrific moments as John of Gaunt, offering up the famous "this sceptered isle" speech with all the gnawing fear of what is to come of his England.

Still, this is all about the kings. Three actors bring wildly different energy to their wildly different monarchs. Taylor Michaels King commands the stage as the doomed Richard II, with the King's madness lying just below the surface. It's a magnetic, mesmerizing performance.

William Sturdivant expertly plays against that as the to-be-Henry IV, giving us a character with more straightforward motivations -- he's angry about being banished and having his property seized by the crown -- that evolves into a deeper more thoughtful person once the crown is on his head.

That evolution is also present in Daniel Jose Molina's performance, moving the wild, vagabond Prince Henry -- only interested in hanging out with his Falstaff and his lowlife friends -- to a stern and driven friend. Some of the most affecting moments of Henry IV and Henry V come as the now King comes face-to-face with his friends, and can show no mercy now that he is the monarch.

 If you can manage it, there is another marathon three-show day on May 10. All three shows can be seen over weekends in April and May. And for individual shows? Well, they all have their unique charms. King gives you probably the best single performance of the trio in Richard II, Henry IV gives you Cantron's Hotspur, the joy of Falstaff and the growth of Prince Harry. And Henry V has Shakespeare in full command of his skills, and provides thrilling, crowd-pleasing ride.

The History Plays run through May 25 at the Guthrie Theater.

Frank's 'Ironbound' illuminates an immigrant's journey

Photo by Tony Nelson

It really isn’t a surprise that a key moment in Martyna Majok’s New-Jersey-set Ironbound turns on a Bruce Springsteen song. Like the best of the Boss’ songs, these characters live on the margins as they suffer defeats, win victories, and struggle to keep moving on.

Ironbound, making its regional premiere from Frank Theatre, centers on Darya, a Polish immigrant who has been in the States for decades and is struggling to hold on. Her son has stolen her car and disappeared. The factory where she worked has long been closed and Darya makes ends meet by housecleaning. And her boyfriend, Tommy, has been unfaithful for some time.

That’s the plot, but the play really turns on Darya’s character. Complex and contradictory, Darya above all is trying to survive in a tough world. That has made her a hustler, playing every advantage she can find to stay a step ahead. That means tapping her boyfriend’s phone to find out he’s been unfaithful, and then holding onto that information where she hopes to trade it for the cash to get a car, and go chase after her son.

As the play unfolds, we discover more and more nuances of Darya’s character. Two long flashback scenes take us back to the early 1990s and the mid-2000s. In one, she is somewhat happy with husband Maks, a fellow Polish immigrant who dreams of moving from Newark to Chicago, and become a blues star. This dream is driving a wedge between them, as Darya doesn’t want to give up the relative stability they have forged. That she is sure that she is pregnant only intensifies that feeling.

In the 2000s, we find her at a low point, about to sleep rough on the grounds of the now-closed factory after her second husband has beat her to the point she needed to get out of the house. Here, she meets Vic, a teenager trying for a late-night hustle, who instantly becomes concerned with the battered woman at the bus stop.

All of this allows us to see Darya’s complexities, and that is the real power of the show. The production turns on a terrific performance by Brittany D. Parker in that role, as she brings all the different layers of Darya to life. While the three men we meet are supporting roles, each performance is also solid, especially Benjamin Dutcher as her musical, lost first love, Maks.

As with any Frank show, the entire production is rock solid, especially Joe Stanley’s grungy set, which brings this broken-down corner of Newark to life (well, minus the rats). Wendy Knox directs with her usual unflinching insight, helping to bring these intriguing characters to fully realized being.

After a long three-plus year layoff, Frank has come roaring back, first with Fetal last fall (that production is scheduled to return) and now Ironbound. Hopefully this energy continues, as a theater scene with Frank is a much better one.

Ironbound runs through Feb. 11 at Gremlin Theatre.

Frank's "Fetal" digs into reproductive rights

Photo by Tony Nelson

Frank Theatre, after a three-plus year gap, has returned with a searing look at America’s crumbling reproductive rights and health care system.

 

Fetal, a world premiere by Trista Baldwin, takes us to a Houston-area clinic on June 24, 2022 – the day the Supreme Court ended federally mandated abortion rights in the United States. For the women – three there for the procedure, and an aide to help them through the process – even the difficult-to-jump-through hoops for an abortion may quickly be gone.

While the characters are there for the same thing, their journeys are all different. Cass is in Texas for grad school, who has been through unwanted pregnancies before. Lucy is nearing 50, has a daughter and a history of miscarriages. Liv is a teenager from an ultra-conservative family who desperately needs her family to not find about the pregnancy.

The are aided by Anne, who volunteers at the clinic for her own reasons. These varied characters allow Baldwin to dig into the reasons why they have chosen to have the abortions. Anne also serves as an in-the-mind foil for each of them; giving voice to the self doubt that each feels on this morning.

Fetal doesn’t just interrogate reproductive rights, but the whole experience of pregnancy, childbirth, and the after effects in America. (Long story short: it’s pretty terrible; abortion rights aren’t the only crumbling part of our health care system.) The physical highs (love making) and lows (the rest) also get a hearing. Baldwin uses these moments to give extra texture and to deepen the characters.

The capable cast gives the characters form. Elena Yazzie (as Liv), Julia Valen (as Cass), and Kate Beahen (Anne) all give superb performances, but Carolyn Pool’s Lucy is sublime and is the glue that holds the show together.

Pool inhabits every atom of the character, who is older and somewhat wiser than the others, and who also has some of the most harrowing experiences, especially in her experiences when she returned to work after giving birth to her daughter. It's a topic that could quickly be reduced to slogans, but Baldwin, the cast, and director Wendy Knox avoid that. 

Oh, it’s an angry play about what has already proven to be a dark day in U.S. history, but by grounding it in the reality of these four women, that makes this rage real.

Fetal is being presented in the tight confines of Franks’ studio space, so seating is very limited (40 per performance). Masks are required. Post-show discussions are held after Sunday performances. Visit online for additional details.

Reality may, but 'Life Sucks' doesn't

Photo by Nicole Neri, 

Existence is a sad veil of tears, as we move from one moment to the next, never quite understanding what is happening to us. The brief moments of joy are overwhelmed by the sense time is slipping away and the fear that the fleeting joy may never be felt again.

Enough on Taylor Swift The Eras Tour. Let's talk about Life Sucks, the terrific adaptation of Chekov's Uncle Vanya from a pair of local stalwarts, Girl Friday and Open Eye Theatre.

Aaron Posner's version moves the action from the dying days of the Russian middle class to, well, whatever dying days we are in right now (capitalism? human life? the era of peak television?). We still get a gaggle of folks confused by love, life, and the everyday need to get out of bed.

The basics of the story are the same. A group of characters linked by family and friendship spend a couple of days together, as long-simmering feelings and feuds come to a head. It's a play short on action, but deep in emotions and insight.

We can start with Vanya, who longs for Ella. She is married to the Professor. Vanya was once his student, but now hates the man. In the middle of this is Sonia, the Professor's daughter who pines for  Dr. Aster. He, in turn, is mainly focused on working, drinking, and fretting about the state of the environment. Rounding out the cast are Babs, a family friend who has long been a fixture in the household, and Pickles (not the drummer), a somewhat eccentric soul who also lives on the estate.

What Posner does is take the pieces of Chekov's play and builds it into something quite contemporary. There aren't just asides to the audience, but full-on fourth-wall breaks. The characters may stop and ask you about your own desires, both for the characters on stage and in the life outside. At his deepest despair, Vanya turns a monologue into a stand-up routine.

For the most part, these updates only help the action. This may be a breezier take on the material, but there is still a lot heft here, as the characters dig deep into the state of their lives (notes version: they aren't too happy). Yet, this isn't a mope fest. Their harsh reality is tempered by strong friendships and an eventual desire to muddle through it all the best they can.

A strong cast aids in the journey, led by Georgia Doolittle as Ella and Elizabeth Efteland as Sonia. Both performances craft deep, multi-dimensional characters that are at the heart of the play. Sam Landman also pulls off a Vanya we are invested in, even though the character is essentially unlikeable. 

As always, Joel Sass directs the show with a mixture of invention and insight, as the staging employs every inch of Open Eye's tiny stage.

Life Sucks runs through Nov. 5 at Open Eye Theatre. 

Open Eye explores 'American' history in 'The Chinese Lady'

Photo by Nicole Neri

Lloyd Suh's The Chinese Lady tackles a fascinating corner of U.S. history, as it centers on Afong Moy, the "first" Chinese "lady" to land on these shores, back in 1834.

The various scare quotes are vital here. I could even add them around "U.S. history." While the basic facts are known, most of the details are missing, and have been filled in -- like so much of the last 500 years on this continent -- by interpretation, conjecture, and a sheer desire to make the conquers out as the "good" guys.

The play, which has received a striking area debut at Open Eye Theatre, digs not just into who this woman may have been, but how Asian cultures (and Asian women especially) are reduced to a string of exotic symbols and cues. 

Here are the basic facts. Afong came to the United States and was put on display in a New York City museum. As a living exhibit, Afong would discuss her life in China and America, and also demonstrate bits of her culture -- including walking to showcase her small feet.

Suh imagines Afong's growing discomfort, as her two-year contract never seems to end, and she finds herself coming closer and closer to how general Americans view her and her culture. Her only confidant is Atung, who translates. Atung has been in the United States longer, has a stronger understanding of their position in the world, and is, thus, harder and more cynical.

The play unfolds with plenty of repetition, as we see Afong's presentation several times over multiple years. She evolves over the years, with actor Katie Bradley making subtle shifts in posture, mannerisms, and especially her voice to mark the character's evolution. Michael Sung Ho's Atung appears more static, but there are also small shifts in his character. The pair help to bring this pair of ciphers to full, rich life.

The entire piece, aided by a team of fine designers (especially Matt Lefebvre's costumes and Joel Sass' sets and props), draws the audience into this story. Playwright Lloyd has heavy ideas in play, but the sharpness of the characters means it never overwhelms the audience. Give credit to the performers and director Eric Sharp for always keeping an eye on the humanity beneath the symbols.

The Chinese Lady runs through Sept. 24 at Open Eye Theatre. Visit here for more information.

Walking Shadow invites you to a thrilling "Feast"

No local theater company has cut a swath quite like Walking Shadow. They have produced award-winning productions, clever Fringe shows, and a number of experienced-based entertainments. Cabal, the company’s magic-based escape room, is still going strong, while the Pandemic brought REBOOT, a Zoom-based show where I got to interview a nascent, self-aware artificial intelligence

Feast, their latest show now running at the Black Forest Inn, merges the company’s different aspects. At it’s core, it is a one-woman show about grief, revenge, and humanity. It also offers a pre-Feast feast at the Black Forest Inn. Most importantly, it is absolutely brilliant.

Megan Gogerty’s play riffs on Beowulf, turning the action away from the titular hero and onto one of the “villains” of the piece, Grendel’s mother. (If you need a quick Beowulf recap: Grendel attacks some noisy Norsemen. Beowulf come in, takes down the monster, and then defeats the monster’s mother in an epic battle beneath a lake. Typical hero stuff.)

She has resurrected herself – made a new body of clay – and has gathered the descendants of those present that terrible day to tell her side of the story. This includes recasting her son as a man not about angry violence but one interested in stubbornly defending what he thought was right, to recounting her abhorrence when she saw her son’s arm, hanging as a trophy on the wall.

Beowulf is fertile ground for a feminist recounting, as the epic reduces its female antagonist to little more than a nameless mother of a monster. Gogerty digs deep not only into the love a mother has for a son, but the natural anger against those who hurt him.

Isabel Nelson uses this framework for a terrific performance. From the moment she staggers onto the stage until the character’s eventual epiphany, Nelson commands every inch of the playing area. The script is at turns funny, tragic, and frightening, and the performer captures every nuance of that in her performance.

It’s aided by Allison Vincent’s tight direction, that keeps the show on track, even if Gogerthy’s script loses focus for a time near the end. The minimal staging – a table and a handful of props – further intensify the performance and the story.

While this certainly isn’t traditional “dinner theater,” the pre-show meal certainly adds to the experience, as it plays not only into the concept of the play, but replicates the experience where stories like Beowulf were often shared. (There are also show-only seats at each performance, and while those patrons don’t get a meal, they do get a mid-show cookie.) 

With a small venue and limited run, tickets are extremely limited.
Feast has been extended to April 1. In addition, Walking Shadow’s John Heimbuch will present a one-man Beowulf on March 18, 25, and April 1 prior to the meal. Tickets and more information can be found at Walking Shadow’s website.