Philadelphiatheaterarts

Review by Neal Newman

October 1, 2022

The plays of Eugene Ionesco are a celebration for actors, directors, and designers. You know that every production must be unique, and those above mentioned will pull out all the stops to be as inventive as possible. Such is the case at Quintessence Theatre with THE CHAIRS, one of the master’s most challenging works.

As expected, there is no plot, consistent characterization, or dramatic development. The story, as such it is, concerns an old man (Frank X) and an old woman (E. Ashley Izard) who are setting up chairs for the visit of an orator who will explain everything the old man has wanted to say for decades. The large audience arrives, but they are invisible. This is a metaphor for the current theater situation, with actors and directors working hard to create art for a post-pandemic audience that may well turn out to be invisible.

It’s a designer’s field day. Director Alex Burns also created the set and sound. Instead of the custom of using the tumbled-down Sedgwick Theatre as a black box, he has incorporated much of the unrestored ceiling and décor into the play. Where is it? A bomb shelter after a war? Or a pandemic? A hovel by the river? Who knows. Since the play has no discernable shape or build, director Burns has inserted some delicious special effects and sounds to surprise the audience. These won’t be revealed here, but they are spectacular. John Burkland’s quick-change resourceful lighting abets this wonderfully, and Kelly Myers’ tramp costumes continue to surprise.

The actors meet the challenge. They talk incessantly for two hours, and what they say makes no sense unless you listen carefully. Themes, among what seems like hundreds, include the mother/son relationship, the need to flatter people in power, the failures of a long life, and the complexities of being married for 75 years. Both thespians know how to command the stage and are skilled vocal and physical performers. Izard follows a hilarious sexual and physical workout with a powerful speech about losing her son (if she has one.)  X transforms into a multi-voiced vaudeville comic who can be a British servant one minute and a Southern Evangelical minister the next. If they aren’t quite the comedy team like, say, Laurel and Hardy, that will probably happen before closing night, October 23.

What did the audience think of all this? They seemed divided, with some laughing uproariously, listening intently, and yelling Bravo at the end. Others politely squirmed anxiously, wanting it to end. There was much bemoaning as we exited that the set was designed so that you could not leave.

What kind of audience does this require?

It helps if you pretend that you live in Paris in the 1940s and 50s, where Europe was still covered with desolation. Here was the birth of “Existentialism,” WW2’s gift to modern philosophy. It ponders that life is meaningless and that man’s actions are ultimately useless. Considering the state of Europe in that era, this seems sensible. But as Jean-Paul Sartre has pointed out, this philosophy gives you emotional freedom to enjoy life. If any action that you take is useless, you can never succeed. On the other hand, you can never fail. Maybe it’s just best to accept life as it is and try to enjoy the ride. Paris in that era exploded with “absurdist” plays by Ionesco, Beckett, Sartre, Camus, and others that if done well were really a lot of fun.  It also helps if you speak French.  Martin Crimp’s overly British translation is exact, but no translator can recreate the mouthfuls of Gallic splendor that must emerge from the actor’s mouths.

I guess Philadelphia is not Paris. But if you can alter your mindset, run to see this.

Quintessence performs at 7137 Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy. You can purchase tickets at the box office, by phone at (215)987-4450, or online at quintessencetheatre.org.

Running time:  Two hours without intermission. Masks required.

Review by Neal Newman

September 18, 2022

People’s Light has opened a world premiere bilingual production of MUSHROOM, featuring an imported company of mostly Latinx performers. Malvern theatergoers may be unaware that nearby Kennett Square is called the mushroom capital of the world. Most of the workers are migrants, and many are undocumented. Elisa Davis’s new play explores the lives, tragedies, and challenges facing these people.

She creates a memorable group of human beings. Ignacio (Michael G. Martinez) came to America as a very young man, succeeded in three business ventures, and now runs his own construction company. He is terrified of being deported. Epifanio (Angel Sigala) has been injured at work, but no worker’s comp exists. Will he begin selling drugs or perhaps report a relative in exchange for a green card? Natarajan (Ahsan Ali) received a first-rate education in India and has a well-paying job designing electronics. But he is undocumented and cannot return home. He is having an affair with Edit, who has worked all her life to become a nurse. But the lack of documents will hinder her dream of helping people. The one gringo (Todd Lawson) has just inherited a mushroom plant and is clueless.

Author Davis is also a poet, and the play features many impressive soliloquies (the translator is Georgina Escobar). These a mostly delivered by Janice Amaya, who plays the narrator.

The entire cast is expert and performs the bilingual dialogue with ease. For example, Lety (Laura Crotte), Edit’s mother, does not speak English. Projection designer Yee Eun Nam provides lighting fast translations on four screens. The speed and shifting of the eyes are a strain for those not gifted with Spanish or English but are effective for the play.

People’s Light has not only brought in actors of color, but the entire team from designers, director, and stage management are making their local debuts.

Director David Mendizabal has his hands full with the many scenes and locations provided by the playwright. There are frequent moments when we don’t know the location or what is going on, but he has obviously directed fine performances. The set by Efren Delgadillo Jr is striking, with a stage covered with gravel/dirt, along with the Walmart effective costumes by Rodrigo Munoz. Both designers fail the Indian character Natarajan who is of a different social class, but this is not delineated. The effective musical score is by David R. Molina.

This world premiere is not perfect. The running time is three and one-half hours, and playwright Davis frequently resorts to didactic speechifying. The result is an unsatisfactory combination of a Brechtian teaching play and a traditional story play. This viewer hopes for a shorter version that will hide the teaching inside more vibrant and concise scenes involving these engaging characters. 

MUSHROOM is very demanding but also very necessary.

Running time: 3 1/2 hours with intermission. Masks required.

MUSHROOM plays through October 16022, 2 at People’s Light – 39 Conestoga Road in Malvern, PA. Call the box office at (610) 644-3500 or purchase tickets online.

Review by Neal Newman

September 11, 2002

THE UNDERSTUDY by Theresa Rebeck (2007) is skillfully revived by the Montgomery Theater. Rebeck, whose works include Broadway’s MAURITUS, the TV series SMASH, and the fierce memoir FIRE FREE ZONE, has a tasty bone to pick with theater people. THE UNDERSTUDY is a no-holds-barred satire on this bizarre culture.

The plot is simple. Roxanne, the stage manager (Vanessa Sterling), a multi-tattooed gamine with the physicality of a superhero, is failing to conduct a rehearsal for a new understudy in a hit Broadway production of a play by Kafka. That’s right, Kafka. The understudy Harry (James Ofalt) wants to play the part his way rather than following the promptbook of the opening night. The costar, Jake (Matteo Scammell), is more concerned with a possible action movie lead than the rehearsal. Scammell could certainly have a career in action films. From these archetypes spring forth wit. Here are just a few thematic morsels:

BROADWAY NEEDS MOVIE STARS. Jake banks 2.7 million dollars per film but is upset that his unseen costar earns 20 plus million per film. Nobody respects the play, but it is a way to gain respectability between movies.

ACTORS ARE NOT CAST FOR TALENT. The understudy gets the part because he knows the producer’s wife’s hairdresser. The assistant stage manager who keeps the lighting booth like “the inside of a bong,” is a nepotistic hire. The stage manager is a frustrated actress who is reduced to babysitting film star egos.

MEN DON’T WRITE ROLES FOR WOMEN. The Kafka play, which seems loosely inspired by THE CASTLE or THE TRIAL, has only roles for 15 men. Ditto Shakespeare for the most part.

THEATER FOLKS ARE A DUPLICITOUS BUNCH. The understudy feels that Jake has no talent, a thought shared by Jake about his costar. The stage manager finally screams I HATE KAFKA.

These examples are merely the tip of the iceberg. The 90-minute intermissionless evening is probably best enjoyed by the practitioners themselves. The audience was filled with such people who laughed constantly. Even totally “inside” jokes such as “mercury poisoning” rated a great response.

The settings by Meghan Jones are inventive, and though the stage is tiny, it still gives the feeling of a complex Broadway production going awry. The lighting by Jim Leitner includes many humorous mistakes, while Felix Pinschey’s costumes define the characters perfectly.

The direction by Tom Quinn and the actor’s performances are unsubtle and seem designed for a larger 500-seat theater. As such, this audience member enjoyed the quieter moments the most. Don’t eat the props.

The Montgomery Theater, 124 N Main Street, Souderton, PA. Tickets are available at 215-7239984-ext. 10 or online at www.montgomerytheater.org. Masks are required.

By Neal Newman

September 2, 2022

Tony Braithwaite is a hilarious actor. Sabrina Profitt and director Tom Teti ably abet him. Neil Simon’s THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE may not be a great play, but when The Act II playhouse has you thinking and laughing in the same breath, who can notice?

PRISONER is one of Simon’s “middle plays.”  He has gone beyond the earlier hits such as BAREFOOT IN THE PARK and THE ODD COUPLE, where characterization takes second place to some very funny wisecracks. But he still hasn’t found the humor/drama balance that will enhance later works like BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS and LOST IN YONKERS. The jokes keep coming, and the audience keeps laughing, but the characters in PRISONER seem richer and their problems more earnest.

Mel (Braithwaite) plays a middle-aged married New York executive who is constantly stressed by the constant drama of life in this city. During a recession, he loses his job, and soon every tiny disaster sends him into an (amusing) rage. His loyal wife (Profitt) does everything she can to assist the situation but to little avail. Mel is heading for a breakdown. 

Tony Braithwaite is especially admirable as he steers his way through the profound moments with memorable comic bits and lines. Sabrina Profitt skillfully suffers a complementary serio/comic breakdown. Their performance of the classic “robbery” scene is a textbook example of skilled timing, double takes, and delayed reactions. There is a scene where Mel is “sedated” by 1971-era drugs. My wife. an experienced area psychiatrist acknowledged that this performance was precisely accurate.

These two artists hold the stage for three-quarters of the play, but just when one thinks this is a two-character play, Simon, brings on the brother and sisters. These are an individualized and well-acted bunch (credit director Teti again) and returns the work to its humorous roots. Peter Bisgaier (so different from the father in Act II’s BRIGHTON BEACH), Linda Friday, Ellen Ratner, and Eleni Delopoulos get the kudos.

PRISONER is set in 1971, and just when you think this might be too distant in history to be topical, Simon shows a fine satiric hand that brings the themes into the present. Conservatives still complain that American cities are battlegrounds, and Mel believes that some sort of “deep state” is making him the victim of a conspiracy. 

The setting, costume, and lighting designers, Kevin Hoover, Teal Knight, and James Leitner, certainly enjoy recreating the strange world of 1971, which seems, seeing those sets and costumes, more distant than we thought it was.

Laughs and thoughts at the same time? Simon and ACT II pull it off. The production runs through September 25.

Running Time:  Two hours with one intermission. Masks are optional. For tickets visit act2.org or call 215-654-0200.

By Neal Newman

August 28, 2022

The Langhorne Players in Tyler State Park are presenting an excellent production of THIRD by Wendy Wasserstein. This was her final play which premiered in 2005. 

Seeing this was a “Circle of Life” experience for me because I reviewed the opening night of UNCOMMON WOMEN for Show Business (the weekly New York trade paper) in 1977. Everyone that night knew this was a major American playwright and a world-class play.

The story for THIRD began when Wasserstein visited a restaurant in New England and began talking to a waiter. He was a former Swarthmore student who had been accused of plagiarism and was generally disliked because he was an athlete. He was eventually acquitted of the charge but lost his scholarship and was forced to withdraw. This true story became the basis of the play.

The protagonist of any Wasserstein play must be a strong, feminist woman, and this time it’s Dr. Laurie Jameson (Susan Blair), who has been teaching her Shakespeare class in the same strident manner for decades. She believes KING LEAR is a typical male-centric classic about a cruel patriarch who is shocked when his feminist older daughters cross him. The simple loving youngest daughter is the typical passive “girl.” 

There’s a lot of hate in this radical interpretation, one that doesn’t sit well with a student, Woodson Bull III (Thomas Wick), called Third. The professor instantly dislikes him. He comes from what is now called a red state. He only attends this elite New England college because his father and grandfather did. His primary interest is sports, and he appears to be a privileged moneyed Republican. And he calls himself THIRD! Dr. Laurie sees him as a “Walking Dead White Male.”  When he submits a paper on LEAR that brilliantly disagrees with her perspectives, she accuses him of plagiarism, has him placed on probation, and demands a commission to investigate.

There are many internet search engine tools for professors to prove plagiarism, but Dr. Laurie is so convinced of his guilt that she refuses to use any of them. The student is acquitted of the charge but loses his scholarship because any student on academic probation cannot play sports.

As the play continues, the doctor gains a personal education in KING LEAR. Her first-year college student daughter, (Olivia Byrne), begins to challenge all her beliefs in heated arguments. The professor is then forced to comfort her senile father (Russ Walsh) in a driving thunderstorm. Does she learn from any of this? Not immediately. 

Wasserstein seems to be challenging herself and the themes of her earlier plays by saying that being on the far left is as dangerous as being far right. Our country in 2005 was not as divided in the red/blue/civil war manner as it is today, but the author clearly illustrates the seeds of our current struggles.

THIRD is a powerful play. If it lacks the humor of other Wasserstein works and seems to be surpassed by similar works such as Edison’s WIT or Gilman’s SPINNING INTO BUTTER, it still makes for riveting theater. I found the ending unconvincing, but I urge you to make up your own mind on this.

The two leading performers are exceptional. Susan Blair could easily have played Dr. Jameson as a tough, hardened, fierce female, but Blair brings a natural softness and warmth that makes the character ALMOST likable. The author also throws in two long bravura speeches, one in a psychiatrist’s office and the other in a lecture. Both lead to intense breakdowns. Blair meets the challenge and effortlessly carries the play. Thomas Wick as Third certainly seems to be the overindulged character of Laurie’s accusation, but Wick’s natural honesty and intelligence win the audience over. The defense of his writing and his speech at the student union is particularly impressive. The supporting characters give remarkable performances when they challenge the professor’s beliefs. Special mention must be made of the character of Nancy, (Laurie Hardy, excellent), a best friend professor who is dying of cancer. This lends a touching elegiac feel to the evening when we realize that the playwright was facing death as she wrote and rehearsed the play.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible without the direction of Erin Leder. The designers Erin Leder, Jack Bathke, Judi Parrish, and Mark Kolber have been forced to go for simplicity as the play consists of short scenes that would be more appropriate for a screenplay. Their work is effective, but the hypnotically lengthy set changes rob the production of the pacing the performance requires.

THIRD is highly recommended. The closing is September 17, with no performances on Labor Day weekend.

As an added extra, I include my 1977 Show Business review below.

Running time: Two hours, including intermission. Masks required.

By Neal Newman

August 17, 2022

A visit to Theater with a View is always an unusual and memorable experience.  The setting, after a long, gorgeous drive in the country, is the back of a large house set on a huge and sylvan backyard landscape.  This time the maskless audience sits in a circle surrounding a campfire.  There is no stage, and one wonders where the play will be performed.  The fire is real and audience members roast marshmallows and make s’mores as the sun drops behind the trees.  The only lighting is a string of outdoor lights above and the fire.  The lighting is credited to Christopher Annas-Lee who may also have created a few excellent special and sound effects.

The play begins when the cast of five begins telling stories. The plot, as much as there is, tells of twenty-something camp counselors, (the costumes are camp t-shirts and shorts), gathering around the fire to drink beer and chat after the young campers are put to bed.

There is some humor as they deal with modern woke issues. The lodge has been around since they were campers and now all the historical names and activities are no longer PC.

As night falls, the play becomes more serious.  The program refers to THE GROWN-UPS as “an apocalypse around a campfire”.  Something very dangerous or catastrophic is coming, but in the tradition of Beckett, Stoppard, and Pinter we are never sure what that is.  It soon become obvious that these young counselors are the “grown-ups” of the title and like all parents are totally unsure what the right choices are.  Eventually, the confusing but intriguing play warns that some events are coming to get us, and we’d better learn to appreciate what good things we have now before we lose everything forever.

Wow!  That’s quite an evening.  A little history can deepen the appreciation.  Theater with a View has not produced the play, as they usually do, (the wonderful Nina Covalesky is especially missed), but imported this entire production from Brooklyn.  THE GROWN-UPS gained instant fame as the only theater production running during the pandemic.  It was located outside in a backyard, where the address was released to ticketholders only hours before the event.  It was originally limited to seven audience members and caused quite a sensation.  The play was written by Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques with the assistance of the cast who quarantined for the rehearsal period and developed the script through discussions and improvisations.  The theater group is Nightdrive which has a long history of productions in unusual places.  Fox, the excellent co-author/director who pulls this all together, is also the “Manager of Illusions” for the worldwide HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD.  Following the Pottstown run, the production will travel to Bloomington Indiana for a two-month engagement.  This unconventional play has been optioned by Concord Theatricals and may very well turn up in a backyard near you in the future.

The cast are the original creators, Chloe Joy Ivanson, Emily Elyse Everett, Abby Melick, Simon Henriques.  They are joined by newcomer Zack Segel, a veteran of many Nightdrive productions.  They are an endearing group and succeed admirably acting literally inches away from the audience.  The photos, by Julie Fox, presented here are from the Brooklyn setting.  As the night darkens, so do the performances even though we don’t know exactly what is going on.  These plays never offer characters with incredible depth, but the actors bring strong and memorable personalities to the roles.

It was a provocative 100 minutes and my friend, Ben, and I stayed rooted to our seats for an extra half hour trying to parse what we had just seen.  It turned out to be “about” quite a lot.

Running Time:  100 minutes without intermission.  No masks required.

Theater With A View, Sycamore Hill, 491 Abelhare Road, Pottstown, PA. www.theaterwithaview.com/484-925-1346.

By Neal Newman

August 7, 2022

The play begins with a long silent sequence with an older husband and wife serving dinner. Evidently, they have done these things thousands of times before and have nothing to say. Finally, the wife speaks: “I want a divorce.” The husband gives no reaction and says: “All right.” The audience roars with laughter. The scene immediately segues to a gathering with the grown children, two sons, and a daughter-in-law. They are baffled. The hilarious sequence that follows proceeds to satirize how children cannot view their parents as complete people with normal human feelings.

What is this? Bess Wohl’s GRAND HORIZONS looks and feels like a Neil Simon comedy. The jokes come fast and furious, and the audience howls. Yet something is different. These characters are not two-dimensional joke machines, forcing the actors to struggle to find any trace of humanity. These are real people dealing with serious themes:  aging, relationships, children, and that familiar feeling that we haven’t yet achieved all that we might. These characters are a gold mine for experienced actors; without exception, these performers find the treasure.

The mother and father seem to be an ordinary bunch. Married fifty years, they have a not very varied relationship. Marcia Saunders as the mother, looks a little more discontented, while Peter DeLaurier, as the father, seems a typical stick-in-the-mud. What a journey these easily identifiable humans will take before the final curtain. 

This includes the two sons, one a masculine stalwart soon to be a father (Dante Alexander), the other a self-involved, troubled gay high school theatre teacher (Brian McManamon.)  They have a lot to learn and the laughs built when they discover that these parents have unusual masturbational fantasies and some past secrets that will soon be revealed.

Saunders carries much of the load here and is heartfelt, human, and simultaneously comic. DeLaurier has the most maturing to do and succeeds when the couple delivers an impressive final scene. McManamon proves to be a resourceful physical actor whose gyrations during his mother’s confessions bring down the house. The daughter-in-law, Jenelle Chu, starts as one of those too-smart psychotherapists (“Have you tried holding hands?”) but grows in unexpected ways as the play progresses. Luis Augusto Figueroa and Zuleyma Guevara provide able support in one scene cameos that help define the leading players.

Bess Wohl is quite the playwright to have pulled off such severe themes. Is this boulevard comedy for the twenty-first century? She also provides a memorable first act curtain event.

Scenic and Lighting Designer Paul Whitaker has designed the perfect Malvern/King of Prussia retirement community apartment. It is named Grand Horizons, and it is precisely like the apartments found right here. How canny People’s Light is to schedule a show where the audience actually dwells in the setting and resembles the main characters. The lighting is first-rate as well. Costumer Katherine Roth has created real people who obviously shop at our local mall.  

All this excellent cohesion must be credited to director Jackson Gay, whose work is masterly.

Don’t miss it. The closing date is August 28.

Running Time:  Two hours with an intermission. Masks are required. 

Review:  THE VINEGAR TREE at People’s Light.

By Neal Newman

July 3, 2022

If you crave a truly extraordinary theatrical experience, stop reading this and run to the phone and call 610-644-3500 to order tickets for THE VINEGAR TREE.  It is one of the most perfect productions I have ever seen in Philadelphia.

Paul Osborn’s play is a deliciously written combination of high comedy mixed with a comedy of manners, which is extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Such a play requires complex droll interactions, brittle, witty dialogue, with great ideas attached.  It requires actors who can drift through an artificial world with sumptuous upper-class settings in stunningly elegant costumes with ease.  It requires designers who can supply the above and a director who can bring all of this together.  If any aspect of the production fails, the entire affair will collapse like a house of cards.  Most of the time that’s what happens.  Elegance is almost impossible to achieve in today’s world.

Let’s begin with Paul Osborn.  He is acclaimed for the writing of THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG and MORNINGS AT SEVEN, which is a modern classic, though indifferently received in its own time.  He is not remembered well in our era, but THE VINEGAR TREE, a rarely produced play, suddenly has the feel of a classic. 

A group of archetypal characters gathers in an upper-class country house with the purpose of abetting Laura, the wife of the cantankerous older man host, with a visit from a long-lost love of years before. Fifteen years before. When he arrives, she is smitten with him. But is it her memory of this perfect love or just a romantic dream?  The author’s theme becomes apparent:  We all have dreams of what might have been had not circumstance altered our lives.  Could we or should we mourn the past we should have had?  Osborn suggests that we examine our own present and perhaps realize how excellent our imperfect future has become.  Quite a theme.  This high comedy reaches its summit in a scene where the frustrated wife meets her “old lover” only to discover that he is infatuated with her 18-year-old daughter.  The brilliance of the writing is that the scene plays on for many minutes with each character not understanding what the other wants.  Then it finally dawns on the supposed “lover.”  He is astounded.  Osborn also delivers a crackling ending to Act Two and keeps the climax until a few lines before the final curtain. This is magnificent high comedy.

This play was written in 1930.  The contemporary clothing of that era was not attractive to today’s eyes.  The costumes by Marla J. Jurglanis somehow manage to suggest the period and yet make everyone look splendid. The excellent settings by Daniel Zimmerman suggest an upper-class country house but are cleverly adapted to the small but pleasing Steinbright stage.  The lighting by Dennis Parichy fulfills the demands admirably.

Now to the outstanding performances. Aside from the natural elegance, the actors must have the expressive vocal ability to deliver the biting dialogue with the proper panache. They do.

The leading role is obviously Laura, who has mastered the outer regalia of upper-class society without the intelligence to match it.  She thinks Botticelli is a composer and Holbein is really Holstein.  She proudly announces “I am a Holstein” as her husband winces in agony.  This role was originally played in 1930 by Mary Boland, whom you’ll realize if you’ve seen her in her many films, most memorably THE WOMEN, is a take-no-prisoners STAR and expects everyone to follow behind.  This production is, thankfully, a true ensemble piece where everyone contributes equally.  Teri Lamm’s wonderful Laura benefits from this approach but still supplies the central, daffy, comedy of manners characterization.  It is also a credit to People’s Light to supply an experienced acting troupe to create this.

David Ingram as the older husband mostly sits on the side and delivers epigrams designed to show that he is the smartest fellow in the room.  Both performers are given a MARRIAGE OF FIGARO final act which allows their full acting prowess to flower.   

The young lovers played by Claire Inie-Richards and Aubie Merrylees are as consumed by youth and self-centeredness as the kids of THE FANTASTICKS.  Their self-consumed madness is especially amusing when the young man rejects his love because she is a virgin.  When the girl, as a result, throws herself at the older man, he responds that virginity is “an unintelligent stage to be in.”

Julianna Zinkel plays the younger sister, a much married and pragmatic character who reasons with the others.  Though she can be as giddy a lover as the others, she holds the play together with her charm and dry wit.

Christopher Kelly has the most difficult characterization of the long-lost lover who has no idea what anyone is so excited about. This is a pivotal role in high comedy and Kelly manages to be both charming and innocently oblivious at the same time.

People’s Light stalwart Stephen Novelli plays the small role of the butler.  There are no small parts only great actors.

Abigail Adams directs this play skillfully creating a number of memorable stage pictures as well as some superbly inventive comical moments of stage movement.  How else could all of this be pulled together as one totally coherent work of art?

This combination of writing, acting, design, and directing will stay in the memory forever. Bravo.

Running Time: 2 hours with an intermission.

Masks are required in the theater.

 THE VINEGAR TREE plays through Sunday, July 24, 2022, at People’s Light – 39 Conestoga Road in Malvern, PA. For tickets call the box office at (610) 644-3500 or purchase them online.

Review by Neal Newman

June 19, 2022

The great black artist, Hattie McDaniel, when asked by a not too bright reporter why she only played maids, once quipped, “Honey, I can get $500 a week playing one, or $50 a week being one.” 

There were no choices for Black actors in Depression-era Hollywood. Performers with Shakespearian training had to speak in the expected dialect and act as subservient as possible. Many, like McDaniel, managed brilliant performances despite the limitations. Things have changed somewhat today, but those films still remind us of who we were and still are.

After terrifyingly brutal works like SWEAT or RUINED, playwright Lynn Nottage turns her hand to farce, which is deliriously funny. The show closes on June 26, so set your calendar now. The audience on Father’s Day/Juneteenth was small and socially distanced, but the laughter was loud and hearty.

The play’s premise is so outrageous that I’ll allow the director’s notes to explain it.

Vera Stark is a Black actress who gets thrust into pre-Code Hollywood fame because of her role in a “Southern Epic.”  We see Vera and two other Black actresses as they all vie with humor, innovation, and frustration to “make it big” on the silver screen. Vera’s sudden and unexpected stardom leads to both a long career in movies and, later in life, to controversies addressed in TV shows and symposia decades later.

The first act is pure farce and, as beautifully staged by skilled director Suki, is hilarious. The three actress roommates go through countless humiliations to audition in their real-life maids’ outfits for roles in this obviously racist film.

Act Two breaks a cardinal playwrighting rule: Never switch styles in the middle of the play. The second act, set in modern times, is in a college lecture hall and a TV studio. Now there is more satiric comedy as three modern professors discuss the current racial situation and hawk their books. Audience members may be disappointed if they were hoping for more farce as the depression actresses climbed the Hollywood ladder. But if you are Lynn Nottage, you can get away with anything. I liked it. This allowed the playwright to offer her thoughts on the contemporary situation.

The director Suki has found an exceptional cast who deserves the extra space below. Most are making their Barnstormers debut, with some appearing on stage for the first time. Darrah Lashley is delightful as Vera, as both the eager young actress and the cynical older woman years later. She makes her stage debut here and carries the show with ease. Tanya O’Neill and Candace Miller add to the comedy as the older Shakespearian roommate and the floozy who gets ahead by “acting” as exotic foreigners. Later O’Neill becomes a Ph.D. in Black Studies with an African outfit and attending “attitude.”  Miller appears as a lesbian pundit with an equal “attitude.” The erudite host of the symposium is skillfully characterized by Tyler Andrews, who in Act One was a horndog hustler who claims to be a great trumpet player but works as a chauffeur. Elena Nahrmann plays Gloria, an overage child actress once known as “America’s Cutie Pie,” but is now desperate for the leading role in the upcoming epic. Being white is an obvious advantage to Gloria, as her IQ is in the single digits, proving that talent is not necessarily a requirement for screen stardom. Nahrmann is terrific as this actress who is never off stage. Later she visits Vera in the TV studio. Vera has had limited opportunities and is dissolving into drugs and drinks, but Gloria remains as narcissistic as ever. The two white men (Tom Tansey and Brian Scott Campbell) offer some age and experience as two Hollywood big wigs reminiscent of Louis B. Mayer and Michael Curtiz. Later Tansey plays an obnoxious Merv Griffin-type TV talk show host, whose guests include Campbell as a stoned British rock star. I want to see these actors in their subsequent roles. I hope they’ll let me know.

Costumes by Jen Allegra, Claire Adams, Janet Gilmore, and Joan Blake fit the characters perfectly with maid uniforms and tuxedos for the first act and a riot of 1970s clothing for the 1973 TV show. The set by Scott Killinger effectively crams the many settings onto the time stage, but the set decoration fails to convey the vulgar narcissism of the star’s living room and the TV show. There is also an excellent film clip showing a scene from the “Epic” film. It is great fun with effect 30’s style melodramatic music.

Nottage has written another skillful historical event that challenges White and Black audiences to evaluate current society.

Running Time: Two hours and thirty minutes with an intermission. Masks and vaccination proof are required.

BY THE WAY, MEET VERA STARK plays through Sunday, June 26, 2022, at the Stagecrafters Theater – 8130 Germantown Avenue, in Philadelphia, PA (Chestnut Hill). Call the box office at (215) 247-9913 or purchase tickets online.

Review by Neal Newman

June 16, 2022

American History is filled with little-known details that, when discovered can fascinate. Did you know that after the Civil War, formerly enslaved people migrated to the Midwest to claim land grants due to the Homestead Act?  Two enlightened men founded the town of Nicodemus, in northern Kansas, intending to create an all-Black community.  After much hard work, hardship, and violence, the community prospered and today is a national historic landmark as the only remaining all-Black township.

Quintessence Theater Group is dramatizing a small part of this story in Pearl Cleage’s 1994 play FLYIN’ WEST. The setting is a small prairie house in 1899, owned by three black sisters, the children of slaves. Life still consists of constant toil and deprivation, but it is possible to believe that this wilderness might someday become the dreamed-of Utopia.

Playwright Cleage (a best-selling novelist, WHAT LOOKS CRAZY ON AN ORDINARY DAY) creates characters that could challenge Chekov in depth and complexity. Sophie (Deanna S. Wright) is a tough-as-nails survivor who is perpetually grumpy and looking out for the good of the entire community.  Costumer Ali Turns dresses her in tough leathers, cowboy hats, and the ever-ready pistol by her side. Wright powerfully plays Sophie, who has every intention of turning her plot of land into a paradise and will fight anyone who stands in her way.  The second adopted sister, Fannie (Maya Smoot), wears simple but attractive outfits and is intent on enjoying the pleasures of life.  She takes walks in the flower-strewn outdoors and contemplates having a boyfriend.  The youngest, Minnie (Billie Wyatt), who enters in elegant high fashion, has left Kansas to marry Frank (Dax Richardson) a light-skinned black from London, who treats her to the high life in Europe.  Frank is also a self-loathing racist and wife abuser.

The first act has little conflict as these well-portrayed characters come to life.  Patient audience members will be rewarded as the action picks up in the second half when Frank arrives in Kansas and is appalled by the pioneer lifestyle.

Cleage’s first theme is the heroism of our ancestors’ intent on building a new life after the Civil War.  A secondary and more controversial theme is the necessity of violence to create a better world.  No one agrees with this idea but when Sophie and Frank come into conflict, the choices are few.

Brian Sidney Bembridge’s setting and lighting create an attractive mood.  The shiny tiled floor of CAMILLE (played in Repertory with FLYIN’ WEST) is replaced by unvarnished mismatched wooden floorboards.  The in-the-round room is surrounded by flowers to suggest the growing success of the community.

All the performances are excellent.  Smoot as Fannie grounds the play with attractive optimism, and Wyatt as Minnie gives a touching rendition of a woman who loves her man too much.  Richardson as Frank captures the self-abomination that leads him to beat up on anyone around him. and his greed for the money that will allow him to escape Kansas is palpable.  Phillip Brown brings a touching simplicity to Wil, the would-be boyfriend.  There is also Miss Leah, the cantankerous older neighbor who remembers slavery well.  She is portrayed with much cackling and snorting by the director Zuhairah “Z” ‘McGill, which brings some humor to the somber proceedings.  Her function in the play is to remind us that we must never forget our past and those that came before us.  McGill, the actress, is not a trained storyteller, and some of her long speeches are difficult to understand and follow. Kudos to McGill the director, for the excellent designs and performances.

Quintessence Artistic Director Alexander Burns has tried the impossible.  A repertory company performing a modern black play in tandem with a 19th-century classic, CAMILLE. The famed Broadway director George Abbot always hated “rep” because he felt that the job should go to the performer who best embodies the role, not the most talented actor.  Repertory directors think the opposite. There is no doubt that this cast is vastly more comfortable in Kansas than in 19th-century upper-class Paris. Nonetheless, they certainly welcomed the challenge.

The beauty of the play, set, costumes and performances make this a highly recommended event that runs through June 30.

Running Time: Two Hours and thirty minutes with an intermission.

Masks and vaccination proof required.

Flyin’ West plays through June 26, 2022, in repertory with Camille at the Quintessence Theatre Group, performing at The Sedgwick Theater – 7137 Germantown Avenue (Mount Airy), in Philadelphia, PA, for tickets, call (215) 987-4450, or visit quintessencetheatre.org.