Review: Impressive Harlequin ensemble cast brings 'Schwartz' to life

The News Tribune / The Olympian Feb.11,2011

Pictured from left: Scott C. Brown, Alison Monda and Deya Ozburn in "The Last Schwartz."

What do you get when you take a great play, perfect cast and spot-on set and lighting? The answer is “The Last Schwartz” by Deborah Zoe Laufer as produced by Harlequin Productions.

The set by Linda Whitney, who also directs this show, is the richly decorated living and dining room of an old country home in the Catskills. The muted colors are wonderful, and the lighting by Jill Carter goes from natural to dreamily supernatural when Simon (Casey Brown) steps out of his usual trance to speak directly to the audience (or whatever gods or alien beings he might be addressing). There also are transitional lighting effects between scenes that simulate the shadows and moving light created by the movement of clouds. These effects are worthy of a fine film.

I can’t say enough about the cast. As an ensemble, they become the Schwartz family. The group is as funny, spiteful, loving and dysfunctional as any family in recent literature.

Ann Flannigan is Norma, the eldest of the Schwartz siblings, who feels it is her duty to keep the family and its religious traditions intact. Flannigan plays her as controlling and uptight, but there’s a spark of something decent that makes you not so much dislike her as wish she would loosen up.

Herb, the oldest brother, is played by Scott C. Brown. His facial expressions are hilarious yet so subtle that he tends to lull you into complacency until he explodes with passion, jumping up on a coffee table, for instance, and defiantly claiming the beat-up and worthless piece of furniture as his personal property. Everybody is funny in this play, and he is the kind of funny that makes you want to slap your head and shout, “Wow! Where did that come from?” He makes Herb seem wonderfully ludicrous yet genuine.

Simon, the middle brother, is so shut down and otherworldly that playing him is a real challenge to an actor, and Casey Brown plays him beautifully. His movements and speech are excruciatingly slow. He conveys the idea that it is a major challenge for Simon to break out of his private world and react to anyone.

Deya Ozburn plays Herb’s wife, Bonnie. She is the most complex character in the play. She is confused, scared and burdened with secrets. The range of emotions both nuanced and dramatic that Ozburn conveys is huge and authentic.

The youngest brother, Gene, is played by David Brown. Like Bonnie, Gene often seems discombobulated. Brown plays him as down-to-earth and likeable in a fine bit of underplayed acting.

The one character who is not part of the family is Gene’s girlfriend, Kia, a small-time actress portrayed with unbridled joy and energy by Alison Monda. She lights up the stage with her physical antics. She just wants to have fun, and she is enjoyable to watch. Her outfits (costumes by Darren Mills) are wild and perfectly match her unbridled exuberance.

“The Last Schwartz” balances comedy and drama. We ache for the Schwartz family members. We love them and hate them and laugh all the way to the family patriarch’s grave and beyond.

Comfortably familiar

Impressive group show at American Art Company

Published in the Weekly Volano, February 9, 2011

Pictured: "AFTER CALDER" and “AFTER CALDER II” mixed media baskets by Jill Nordfors Clark. Photos courtesy American Art Company
I had not visited American Art Company in a long time, but when I dropped in Thursday afternoon it was like coming home, because so many of the artists in their current show are artists I've seen in many other shows at American Art Company and in other galleries.

There's something very comforting about seeing familiar works and something very nice about seeing slightly new directions from familiar artists.

Works by Jill Nordfors Clark are a prime example. Her sculpted basket "After Calder II" is done in a signature Clark style with her signature hog gut and other unusual materials. It has the classical cylindrical form with the slight variations in surface decoration I've come to expect from her work - and the same delicacy and beauty. But her other works in this show, while similar in form and style, have a brand new element: color. Bright, vivid color. At first blush my tendency was to prefer the one with the natural tones because the natural tones highlight the uniqueness of her materials. But I can't deny the appeal of the bright colors. Clark's works are among the best in the show.

But the absolute best, the one that just knocked my socks off because of its grand scale and nuanced forms and color changes, was Toot Reid's quilt titled "April 1, 2009-September 25, 2010." The title represents the start and end dates of working on this monumental quilt, which consists of six panels, each approximately three feet wide by five feet tall. Within each panel are intricate yet simple square shapes in subtly changing colors that look like ceramic tiles until you get close enough to the surface to see the weave of the cloth and notice the loose and almost invisible threads that extend inches beyond the surface. This is truly a beautiful work of art.

Another powerful piece is a strange steel cabinet by Timothy Leonard with fused and painted glass doors in a soft, cloudy blue by Susan O'Brien. One of the open doors reveals a golden chalice in blown and carved glass by Stephan Cox. The chalice didn't particularly impress me, but the cabinet did. It has qualities of old fashioned diving gear and also of caskets and an odd shape that twists and tapers from a small base to a broad square top.

The rest of the show consists of highly skilled but predictable quilts, turned wood, glass and paintings by familiar names such as Erika Carter, Art Hansen and Michael Ferguson. One other piece that I thought was particularly impressive was Merryll Saylan's turned wood "Still Juggling Balls." It is a round, flat bowl with circular indented lines following the circumference, and an opening in the middle that holds five little wooden balls. It is all in beautiful shades of blue and the lines create the impression of fast centrifugal motion on the outside with perfect stillness in the middle.

Through March, Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Third Thursday until 8 p.m.
American Art Company, 1126 Broadway Plaza, Tacoma
253.272.4327

Lady Day and the Blues

You know her from "Dreamgirls" at Tacoma Little Theatre (my pick for best actor, female, in a muscal in 2006) amd from "Ain't Misbehavin'" at Centerstage and many other outstanding musical performances around the South Sound. Now she's doing a Billie Holiday tribune performance at Centerstage.  

Here's a shortened version of the press release (which, incidentally, quotes me and calls me a "noted  theatre critic," thank you very much):

(Federal Way, WA) - Purple Phoenix Productions is excited to announce return of a new concert tribute to the music recorded by the legendary Billie Holiday, LADY DAY AND THE BLUES: The Billie Holiday Songbook. This one-woman concert is performed by gifted vocalist/entertainer Stacie Calkins, accompanied by a live 5-piece jazz ensemble, and is a Benefit for CenterStage  - a semi-professional theatre company that performs at the Knutzen Family Theatre, located at the Dumas Bay Center in Federal Way, WA. 

Billie Holiday is considered one of the iconic jazz vocalists of all time. Influenced by the jazz instrumentalists of the 1930’s and ‘40’s, she pioneered a new way of manipulating vocal phrasing. Most jazz aficionados consider that she changed the sound of popular singing forever.  

The tribute will include songs that Ms. Holiday enjoyed great success with: “Lover Man (Where Can You Be)”, “I Cover The Waterfront”, “Them There Eyes”, “I Cried For You”, “You’ve Changed” and “Good Morning Heartache”. While known as a vocalist, Holiday was also a prolific songwriter and poet, and the concert features many songs written by her, including “Lady Sings The Blues”, “Tell Me More and More and Then Some”, “Fine And Mellow”, “Billie’s Blues (I Love My Man)”, “Don’t Explain” and the legendary “God Bless The Child”.  Also included will be the controversial classic “Strange Fruit” which Holiday recorded in 1939. The lyrics were originally a poem written by a Jewish poet in New York, who later set it to music. When it was brought to Billie’s attention, she initially resisted singing it because it reminded her or her father’s death. When she finally decided to sing it, her record label didn’t want her to record it because of the serious political nature of the song – a vivid description of the aftermath of a lynching. Eventually she got a release to record it elsewhere. Even though many radio stations refused to play it, it became a cult classic and she included it in her nightclub and concert repertoire for the remainder of her career. 

“[She] inhabits the stage the way Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith inhabited nightclubs in their heydays” says noted theatre critic Alec Clayton.

Centerstage is located at The Knutzen Family Theatre, Dumas Bay Center at 3200 Southwest Dash Point Road in Federal Way.

The March 5 performance of LADY DAY AND THE BLUES will begin at 8:00 p.m. There is a $15 per person donation requested.  Seating is on a first-come-first-serve basis.

The word is H-U-M-O-R-O-U-S

Odd, fun characters: Laughs abound in 'Bee'


Conventional wisdom has it that it's the music and dancing that makes or breaks musical theater, not the plot. A notable exception is "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," winner of the Tony and Drama Desk awards for best book of a musical in 2005.

Left to right: Elise Campello as Olive Ostrovsky, Patrick Wigren as Leaf Coneybear, Harrison Fry as William Barfee, Danny Boman as Chip Tolentino, Bailey Boyd plays Marcy Park, on the floor between Barfee's legs Stephanie C. Nace as  Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre.Photo courtesy Capital Playhouse.

The book by Rachel Sheinkin is funny, but not so funny as to deserve those awards. Typical of Shinkin’s humor is when contestants ask for a word to be used in a sentence and outlandish examples are given. For the word “phylactery,” we get: “Billy, put down that phylactery, we’re Episcopalians.” For “fandango,” we get: “Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango” from Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

This play humorously brings to light a whole host of foibles, fears and yearnings that plague teenagers, as well as a couple of screwball adults: Deanna Moon as Rona Peretti, who keeps reliving her long-ago win at the third annual spelling bee, and Jerod Nace as Vice Principal Douglas Panch, who tends to inexplicably go berserk from time to time.

Seldom has such an odd assortment of characters been brought together in one play. Just a few examples:

Vice Principal Panch is a buffoon of a school leader. Nace plays him deadpan, even while improvising, and he truly looks the part in his ridiculous wig and moustache.

Patrick Wigren, whom I loved as Rooster in “Annie,” is equally amazing as Leaf Coneybear. (What a great name.) Leaf is something of a savant who is plagued by thoughts of not being smart enough. Wigren plays him with facial plasticity and weird arm movements that remind me of Dick Van Dyck at his klutzy best.

Harrison Fry is a great William Barfee (pronounced bar-fay, but everyone calls him barfy). William has a rare mucus membrane disorder and spells out his words with his foot in a funny little dance.

Stephanie C. Nace as the overly earnest Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre – who should win the spelling bee simply by spelling her name – reminds me of Lily Tomlin’s classic Edith Ann from “Laugh In.” Nace’s Logainne speaks and sings with a pouty little-girl voice that I found endearing.

Also very earnest is Danny Boman as Chip Tolentino, last year’s spelling bee winner who is constantly frustrated and complains the contest is unfair. Boman also helped choreograph the show.

Bailey Boyd plays Marcy Park as confident, cute, perky and a fierce competitor.

And Stephen Anastasia is endearing as the juvenile delinquent Mitch Mahoney.

The songs are not as memorable as the odd assortment of characters, but a few do stand out. Boman’s solo, “Chip’s Lament,” which opens the second act, is all about an embarrassing moment that affects almost every teenage boy. It is fall-on-the-floor-laughing funny, and Boman belts it out.

On a more serious note, Elise Campello as Olive Ostrovsky sings beautifully and powerfully on “The I Love You Song” with backup by Moon and Anastasia, and in duet with Fry on “Second.”

Audra Merritt’s costume design added immensely to the flavor, and kudos to whoever did the hair and wigs.

The play might be a bit too silly for some, but if you like outlandish humor, it could be for you.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 19
Where: Capital Playhouse, 612 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
Tickets: $28-$41
Information: 360-943-2744, www.capitalplayhouse.com

Review: Lakewood Playhouse's complicated comedy has heart

Published in The News Tribune, Feb. 4, 2011

DEAN LAPIN/LAKEWOOD PLAYHOUSE
Top: Alison Wiles plays Isabelle, from left, Jamie Pederson is Romaineville, Syra Beth Puett is Madame Desmortes and Jill Goodman is Capulet in Lakewood Playhouse’s “Ring Round the Moon.”
Bottom: Matthew Vail as Hugo with Alison Wiles as Isabelle.
Christopher Fry’s adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s “Ring Round the Moon” fell out of favor some years back and is seldom performed, according to Lakewood Playhouse director David Domkoski, who is leading a production there. That’s a shame.

In its send-up of the pretensions of the wealthy class, this play is like a comedy of errors, but less formulaic. Its wit, charm and clever wordplay remind me of Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare. Indeed, numerous Shakespearean references can be found and an all’s-well-that-ends-well ending.

The in-the-round seating at Lakewood Playhouse lends itself well to the many entrances and exits of the large cast. I particularly like the way they use brief but lush glimpses of a grand ball to transition between scenes.

As was typical at the time it was written in 1947, “Ring Round the Moon” is a fairly long three-act play. It might be better if it were shorter.

The plot is so complicated that Lakewood Playhouse saw fit to include in the program an outline of how each character is related to the others. It was fun to read but didn’t help much in sorting it out. It took me a while to figure out who was who, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying the comedy, which was funny from the opening line and got funnier through the second act. It grew preachy and bogged down a little in the third act, but became lively again in the end.

It is the story of a heartless and conniving man about town, Hugo (Matthew Vail), and his kind-hearted but ineffectual twin brother, Frederic (also played by Vail). Diana (Nicole Lockett), a beautiful heiress, is engaged to Frederic but in love with Hugo. Practically everybody except Hugo, who has no heart, is in love with Isabelle (Alison Wiles), a poor ballet dancer. Meanwhile, the beautiful Lady India (Kat Christensen) is carrying on with Patrice (Brandon Brown) while secretly in love with Hugo. There is a subplot about people pretending to be who they’re not; the surprise reunion of two old friends, Capulet (Jill Goodman) and Isabelle’s mother (Kathi Aleman); and a separate subplot about a millionaire, Messerschmann (August Kelley), who renounces his wealth.

Vail does an amazing job of playing the twin brothers. The women say they always can tell the twins apart, even though they look identical, because they can see into their hearts (or where Hugo’s heart should be). In keeping with this concept, Vail distinguishes the brothers with gesture and expression. He never resorts to costume or hairstyle changes or anything physical to distinguish between the brothers, yet there is little doubt as to which brother he is playing at any given time.

Wiles plays Isabelle with style and restraint. She starts out quiet and shy but gradually gains self-confidence, and Wiles makes her subtle changes in personality believable and natural.

Goodman and Aleman are outstanding in supporting roles. Goodman is charming and Aleman is really funny as Isabelle’s overly expressive and not-too-bright mother. Also outstanding are Andrew Fry as the butler and Syra Beth Puett as Hugo and Frederic’s aunt, Madame Desmortes. These two are the only level heads in the household.

Despite being asked to accept that otherwise intelligent women will fall helplessly in love with the heartless Hugo and not be attracted to his twin – who is just as handsome and charming and a much kinder person – I thoroughly enjoyed “Ring Round the Moon.”

What fun!

"Pop Art to Post-Pop" at Tacoma Community College

The Weekly Volcano, February 2, 2011
Pictured, top: "Bogo," painting by CJ Swanson, center: "Snack," painting by Frank Dippolito, bottom: "Water Lilys," photo by William Mitchell. Photos courtesy Tacoma Community College.

The Gallery at Tacoma Community College is celebrating Pop Art, the movement that revitalized American art half a century ago and has never quite gone away. Elements of Pop keep joyfully popping up.

Students from area schools and anyone else who wants to make a Pop Art piece to be displayed in the front section of the gallery may do so - supplies provided - while the selections from professional artists are displayed in the back gallery. I'll keep my comments to just the back gallery.

There are a lot of clever images and sly humor. The artistic quality ranges from "How fabulous" to "He's got to be kidding." There's some really bad drawing, and most of it is grouped together along the back wall, the grouping indicating that perhaps these works were purposely done badly. Like, for instance, a clumsily drawn portrait of a blue-faced Lee Marvin holding a pistol and an equally klutzy painting of Richard Nixon that is really funny and politically astute.

There is also some outstanding painting, and like the really bad paintings, many of the really good ones are grouped together along one wall. Most notable of these are a group of paintings by Frank Dippolito that combine words and images in beautiful ways and a similar painting by CJ Swanson. Dippolito's "Snack" shows a Hostess cupcake on a blue field with all the snack's ingredients spelled out. Swanson's "Bogo," also on this wall, is the best painting in the show. The words "Buy One Get One" in yellow and green are repeated to fill the canvas over a gray background. There's a fascinating peek-a-boo effect of back-and-forth movement in shallow space and the paint application has the kind of lush look of Wayne Thiebaud's paintings of cakes and pastries from the early 1960s. Dippolito's paintings have a similar lush quality.

On the same wall is a wonderful group of photographs of flowers in Monet's garden by William Mitchell. The color in these photos is described by the artist as "over saturated." These are strikingly beautiful pictures.

Bret Lyon has a lot of fun work in this show, including the largest and the smallest works. The largest is a sculpture of a fork with a ripe red cherry skewered on the tines. It stands seven or eight feet tall and rotates on a motorized base. It's like a Claes Oldenburg sculpture - not very original, but lots of fun. The smallest is Lyon's sculpture of strawberries and other fruit in a spoon jutting out of one wall.

One of the most intriguing works is Lavonne Hoivik's "Read the Label," a homage to Andy Warhol made of sculpted Campbell's soup cans with something else that I will not mention because to mention it would be to ruin the surprise.



"Pop Art to Post-Pop" - through May 3, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday
The Gallery at Tacoma Community College, Building 5A,
entrance off South 12th Street between Pearl and Mildred, Tacoma
253.460.4306]

Louise Williams: A Second Look

By Your Own Sweet Skill (top) Children in Sunlight,  both pastels by Louise Williams done in 1994


Published in the Weekly Volcano blog Spew Feb. 1, 2011

I'm still enjoying the book about the artist Louise Williams that I wrote about for this blog two weeks ago, Louise Rae Williams: Her Life and Work 1947-2004. It's a fascinating book partly because her art is so inconsistent. Frankly, she sometimes can't draw worth a flip, but other times her drawing is superb. How do you account for that? I surely don't know, but I know that such inconsistency is not uncommon among artists (including me back when I was actually making art and not just writing about it). Heck, even the great master Pablo Picasso turned out some perfectly horrible drawings and paintings.

This could be an object lesson in art appreciation. It's a comparison of two Louise Williams paintings.

"Children in Sunlight", a 1994 pastel, pictures three children at play in a sandbox. It's overly sweet, trite, clumsily drawn and strangely disturbing in an unintentional way. "By Your Own Sweet Skill," another pastel from the same year that's printed on the facing page in the book, is intentionally disturbing, beautifully drawn and mesmerizing. I wish I could own this painting.

One thing I like about both works is that each is color-keyed to a narrow value range. The colors in "Children" actually remind me of Pierre Bonnard, the great Post-Impressionist colorist, and the colors in "Sweet Skill" remind me of another great painter from the same period, Paul Gauguin. (The imagery and drawing in this one also reminds me of Gauguin.)

There is some clumsy drawing in "Children" that detracts from its sweetness. Both of the boys in the picture have legs that don't attach at the hip the way they should, and their hands look like claws, and the girl's face is harsh, mostly because of the dark shadows around her eyes. On the upside, the contour line on the boy on the right from his shoulder to his hand is exquisitely drawn with nicely flowing marks.

The composition of "Children" could stand some improvement. One thing I do like about the composition is that each of the four corners is different, a device artists often use to keep the viewer's eye from getting stuck on the central figures. I also like the circular edges of the sandbox seen at top right and bottom left. But the rest of the composition seems haphazard and unplanned, especially the harsh angle of the slide that touches the boy's head. If Williams was working from a photo or an actual scene, I suspect she just painted what was there with little thought about how the placement of objects might affect the design. But here again there's an upside. The chance quality of the composition lends to the painting the unpretentious feel of a snapshot; it's an unposed and natural moment.

"Sweet Skill" is a powerful image. The chunkiness and strength of the figure is like Picasso's gigantic classical figures and also like Gauguin's paintings of Tahitian girls. It's monstrous and sexy at the same time. I love the way she clings to the tree trunk and the way she seems to be one with the tree due to the similarity of colors between body and tree limbs. The colors set an ominous mood, and the dark-light contrasts and that strange mask-like face add dramatic impact.

I wish everyone reading this could get a copy of this book, and I wish I could sit down with each of you and go through it and talk about all the of the pictures. We might disagree on many of them, but I suspect we would like a lot more of them than we dislike. There are a limited number of copies left. While supplies last you may get yours by e-mailing Thomas Lineham at tlineham@comcast.net