This won't be a comic book ‘Annie'

Published in The News Tribune, Nov. 26, 2010

PHOTO: DEAN LAPIN/ COURTESY OF TACOMA LITTLE THEATRE
Kennedy Miller stars as Annie and Chris Gilbert plays Daddy Warbucks in Tacoma Little Theatre’s “Annie.”

I sat in the audience at the first tech rehearsal of “Annie” at Tacoma Little Theatre and enjoyed every minute of it, even the inevitable mishaps that surely will vanish as if they never happened before tonight’s opening.

Before the complete run-through began, they worked on a couple of dance numbers, and I was lucky to get to see them practice my favorite musical number in the show, “Easy Street,” two or three times. It is a saucy, upbeat number with growling horns and comical expressions from Miss Hannigan (Roxanne DeVito), Rooster (Chris Serface) and Rooster’s girlfriend, Lily (Jenifer Rifenbery).

Sitting nearby in the audience was a dapper Oliver Warbucks (Chris Gilbert) in a gray suit and hat. He had wavy brown hair and beard. I had to ask the director, Michael O’Hare, if Gilbert was going to shave his head before opening night. After all, Daddy Warbucks is traditionally bald. He said he had decided not to base the play on the comic strip, which gives them the leeway not to have a bald Warbucks. Instead, he said, Gilbert would cut his hair short and trim his beard – a good decision considering Warbucks is one of the few characters in the play that is not an outsized comic character but a dignified business tycoon with a big heart, accustomed to getting his own way but not lording it over everyone else.

Annie (Kennedy Miller) also wasn’t wearing the traditional curly wig at the rehearsal. I don’t know if she’ll don one tonight, but with or without the wig, she looks the part. She’s small and redheaded, and has a precious smile. Her demeanor is very mature, and she has a full voice that projects well while still having a child-like quality.

There is a five-piece orchestra, heavy on the brass, that offers an enjoyable, tinny, speakeasy sound typical of the Great Depression era.

Brett Carr’s set, while not quite complete for the rehearsal, is elaborate yet functional, using a revolve to facilitate the many set changes. I particularly like the sky-blue painting and arch windows on the Warbucks home setting.

There were some problems with lighting, but I could tell it will be unobtrusive and effective by tonight. I thought the back-lighting on Miss Hannigan’s first entrance was especially effective.

DeVito plays Hannigan as brassy and loud. She’s very expressive and has a powerful voice.

Serface provides most of the comic highlights. He’s a veteran of many musicals at Tacoma Musical Playhouse and Capital Playhouse specializing in comical villains and funny voices. He’s terrific as Rooster. This probably is his best performance since “Beauty and the Beast” at TMP.

Rifenbery is delightfully animated and sexy as Rooster’s dumb-blonde girlfriend, Lily. Her dance moves are smooth and catlike, and both she and Serface nail the accents.

Gilbert, who has a buttery baritone voice, plays Warbucks as likeable and empathetic, accentuating the character’s kindness. I don’t know how much of the credit for choosing to play Warbucks in this manner goes to the director and how much to the actor, but it was a good decision.

The ensemble is universally good. Most notably Ernest Heller as President Franklin Roosevelt, Jon Huntsman in various roles including Burt Healy, and Carol Richmond and Lanita Hudson in many different roles. And of course the little girls are charming.

It’s a fairly long play at about two and a half hours plus intermission, but it goes quickly. I like that at this time of year when we’re inundated with Christmas plays, this one, while set at Christmastime, hardly mentions the season. The holiday is secondary to a bigger and very touching story.

When: 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 24
Where: Tacoma Little Theatre, 210 N “I” St., Tacoma
Tickets: $17-$26; pay what you can Dec. 2; actor benefit Dec. 18
Information: 253-272-2281, www. tacomalittletheatre. com.

Creative hat-trick at Mavi

Three artists and three styles at Mavi Contemporary Art gallery

Published in the Weekly Volcano, November 24, 2010

Pictured, top, "Pursue the Shadow of the Salmon," photo by Henry Haneda; middle, painting by William Quinn; bottom, painting by William Turner

The latest show at Mavi Contemporary - the new gallery next door to The Grand Cinema - features two painters, one photographer and one craftsman. The painters are William Turner and William Quinn, the photographer is Henry Haneda. The craftsman is also Haneda. He makes exquisite handmade objects, including fly rods and pocket knives. The fly rods are as beautiful as any I've ever seen. I held one and tested its flexibility, and it felt like air in my hands. Imagine landing a trout with one of those lovelies.

Haneda's photographs are mostly landscapes with brilliant colors and extra-sharp focus.  The one exception, which looks nothing like the others, is a close-up of ice on a road that is a nicely designed abstract in super-sharp focus. Only the sharp focus puts it in the same camp with the others. Most of his pictures look like calendar art. They're impressive but not as impressive as his craft items.

Both of the painters are showing abstract works based primarily on landscapes. Quinn, whose opening show at Mavi I reviewed just a couple of months ago, paints large abstractions with compositions reminiscent of Matisse, and in some instances of Rauschenberg, and in one powerful Northwest scene called "Object of Sound," of Marsden Hartley. There is an amazing variety of style in his work. Perhaps a bit too much. The works in his earlier show were more stylistically consistent, and I thought it was a better show.

The Northwest scene I mention above has huge boulders fronting a body of water with harsh contrasts and layered colors that are quite intriguing. My favorite painting in this show is another Northwest scene called "Henderson Bay" (acrylic on paper), with nice washes and delicate line work and beautiful toned-down colors. A newcomer to the area - he spent most of his working life in Europe - Quinn has captured the essence of Northwest light and scenery in this little painting.

Turner is featuring a suite of new paintings in "the vault." (I didn't know it, but the building must have been a bank at one time because there are two walk-in vaults that I never before knew were there. I guess the vault doors were never opened when Two Vaults Gallery was in that space, but in retrospect the name should have been a give-away.)

But I digress. Back to the Turners in Mavi's vault. There are 15 small Turner landscapes in this room. They are expressive and colorful. Although he lives in Tacoma and not San Francisco, Turner's paintings put him squarely in the school of art known as the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Earlier Turner paintings I'm familiar with show a strong Diebenkorn and Thiebaud influence, especially in the way he tilts perspective upward to flatten space.

The paintings in this show are not so carefully constructed. They look to be more slap-dash, finish-in-one-sitting paintings. That is somewhat deceptive, however. A few of these paintings were dashed out quickly, but most were more purposefully composed than they appear. They draw you in with their bright colors and expressive brushstrokes, but keep you engaged with their solid composition. There are a couple that don't hold together as well as they should, but most are excellent.

This show won't be up much longer, so see it while you can.
William Turner, William Quinn and Henry Haneda

Through Nov. 28 2-7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday
Mavi Contemporary Art, 502 Sixth Ave., Tacoma
253.759.6233
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So many performances, so little time!

There are a host of performances in the South Sound region that I wish I could review, but there's only one of me.

Tonight - One night only: Saul Tannenbaum presents The Champagne Sisters in "Horn of Plenty"

Here's the announcement on Facebook:

Join your friend Saul Tannenbaum this holiday season as he brings you some of his favorite friends, the internationally-renowned Champagne Sisters! This terrific trio has brought joy to audiences all over the world and now, favors owing, Saul Tannenbaum has managed to lure them to Olympia where they’ll sing some of your favorite songs new and old!

The Champagne Sisters are a sensational singing set who have performed for audie...nces young and old, near and far. Their special brand of gorgeous harmonies are guaranteed to have you clapping your hands, tapping your toes, and snapping along to some of the greatest numbers the world’s songbook has to offer. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to welcome these lovely ladies to the Olympia stage!

Saturday, November 20 8 p.m.
Olympia Eagles Hall, Olympia
Tickets $10, available on brownpapertickets.com, from your favorite Eagle, or at the door!

Members and guests only, 21+

**a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Thurston County Food Bank!**


And coming soon to Olympia Litte Theatre
Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol by Tom Mula

Here's the press release:

Tired of the usual Christmas Carol? Take a journey through the classic tale from a slightly... different perspective.  We all know Scrooge learned all his stingy, bullying habits from his older partner, Jacob Marley. We're also told Marley died on Christmas Eve seven years before Dickens's classic tale begins.   But did you every wonder just what happened to the miserly Mr. Marley? Move over Scrooge; it's time for Jacob Marley to tell his side of the story.

Under threat of imminent damnation Marley can only save himself, by helping save Ebenezer Scrooge's soul before it's too late.  Watch as he teams up with a devilish sprite named Bogle (a side-kick with his own agenda) and join him on a  roller coaster ride from the jaws of death to the mouth of Hell... all in a very good cause.

The show runs December 2 through December 19 Thursday through Saturday evenings & Sundays matinees.  Tickets are $10-12 and available though Yenney Music or on-line through www.olympialittletheatre.org
Specific performances dates & times: 7:55pm: Dec 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18
1:55pm: Dec 5, 12, 19

And finally:

Theater Artists Olympia present
Sharon Pollock’s “Blood Relations”

This psychological murder mystery is based on historical fact and speculation surrounding the life of Lizzie Borden and the murders of her father and stepmother. The murders took place on August 4, 1892 in the city of Fall Rivers, Massachusetts. Although acquitted of the crimes in 1893, many believe to this day (118 years later) that Lizzie got away with murder.

This play within a play takes place ten years after the murders. The show starts with Lizzie conversing with her “actress” friend who is trying to portray Lizzie in a play. Instead of directly answering the actresses questions on what happened, Lizzie creates a game where the actress experiences Lizzie’s past memories, imagination or self-justification. Which is it?

Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks. When she found what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. Did she? Did she do it?

The Midnight Sun, 113 N. Columbia Street, Olympia
WHEN:8:00 p.m.Dec. 2,3,4,9,10,11,12,16,17,18 and 2:00 p.m.    December 12,19. December 9: Pay-what-you-can
TICKETS:    $12.00 at the door or at http://www.brownpapertickets.com
Theater Artists Olympia (TAO) http://www.olytheater.com

‘Oleanna' confronts sexism

John Pratt plays a professor and Sara Henry is his student in “Oleanna” at The Evergreen Playhouse in Centralia.

Published in The News Tribune / The Olympian, Nov. 19, 2010


I’ve seen a lot of hard-hitting, edgy, contemporary dramas lately, and I just saw another one. I drove to Centralia to see the first full dress rehearsal of David Mamet’s “Oleanna” at The Evergreen Playhouse.

This performance of Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story was well worth the drive. I have never seen a more polished first run-through of any play.

It helps that the director, Gary Morean, and the two-person cast – Sara Henry as Carol and John Pratt as her college professor – recently did this show at The Driftwood Theatre in Aberdeen.

First, a word about The Evergreen Playhouse. This is not your typical small-town amateur theater. It is a beautiful space with a large thrust stage and comfortable stadium-style seating.

It draws experienced actors and directors from throughout the region, including some of the best from Tacoma and Olympia. The director and the actors in this show have performed in many venues throughout the South Sound.

“Oleanna” is tough. It is a no-holds-barred look at sexism and political correctness.

It generally is considered to have been written as a response to sexual harassment charges brought against now Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas by Anita Hill. The story played out on television shortly before Mamet wrote the play, which debuted in 1992.

This show is so intense and the subject matter so volatile that when it opened off-Broadway, fierce arguments broke out in the lobby at intermission and after the performance. The director of this performance related a similar experience when he first saw it at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. “The passionate debate was immediate and intense ... we barely got out the door of the theatre when it began,” Morean recalls.

Carol, a student, fearfully and hesitantly confronts her professor with complaints about a paper she submitted and about his teaching methods and philosophy.

The professor is arrogant, didactic and defensive. He also is under tremendous pressure – constantly being interrupted by phone calls having to do with an offer on a house that might or might not go through – and worried because he is under review by his college for tenure. He is rather sure at first that he’ll get both the house and the tenure, but his confidence quickly erodes.

In each act of the three-act play, the confrontation between Carol and the professor intensifies, culminating with her getting him fired and charging him with sexual harassment and attempted rape.

Mamet builds in a lot of ambiguity, leaving it up to the audience to decide whether the professor is guilty of any of the things she charges him with or whether she is guilty of twisting his words and actions out of revenge or political correctness gone to the extreme.

The set for this production is as sparse as can be, with nothing but a desk and two chairs in front of a black curtain. The sparse set puts the attention squarely on the two actors, which is where it rightfully should be in this two-person battle.

Henry and Pratt are excellent. They create realistic characters through body language and tone of voice and allow us to see these characters change through subtle details of demeanor, hair, clothing and posture.

In the first act, the professor is dapper in a coat and tie, and sure of himself. He lounges in his swivel chair, paces the floor and sits on the edge of his desk – an academic in full control of his world. Meanwhile, the student hugs her notebook to herself and repeatedly glances at her notes while her hair keeps falling in her face. She is fearful but determined.

In the second act, her hair and clothes are neater and she sits more erect, more in control, while the professor has removed his jacket and has become more fidgety.

As the play continues, she becomes stronger and more defiant, and he becomes more frail. She seems to grow while he shrinks.

The language is typical of what has been called “Mamet speak.” Characters talk over and interrupt each other and sentences trail off and are left unfinished, which is the way a great many people in real life normally speak. On the phone, the professor says, “Call me back in ... yeah (pause) thank you.”

Mamet also is famous for liberal use of curse words that are not allowed in family entertainment. Although there is some of that in this show – the show announcement carries a warning “adult language, not suitable for children” – the cursing is sparse and very appropriate.

When: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: The Evergreen Playhouse, 226 West Center St., Centralia
Tickets: $15 evening, $10 matinee
Information: 360-736-8628

Glimmering Gone

A winter wonderland in glass
Published in the Weekly Volcano, November 17, 2010

"Landscape" is a 12-foot-high by 25-foot-long by 18-foot-deep installation of sculpted, slumped and fused plate glass. Photo courtesy Russell Johnson and Jeff Curtis

The perfect show for winter, Glimmering Gone is the new three-part exhibition by Ingalena Klenell and Beth Lipman at the Museum of Glass. The three parts are Landscape, Mementos and Artifacts.

Upon entering the gallery viewers browse, as if window-shopping at exclusive gift shops or jewelry stores, a series of clear glass objects in square recesses. They are parts of cups and bowls and other domestic items that have been broken apart and reassembled to create glimmering abstract forms (more accurately, formed to look that way). Only upon close inspection do the objects become recognizable. Intentionally or coincidentally there are a lot of phallic objects that jut out at odd angles.

This leads into the gallery where the "Landscape" part of the installation can be seen. Inspired in part by the landscape paintings of former Tacoman Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943), "Landscape" is a 12-foot-high by 25-foot-long by 18-foot-deep installation of sculpted, slumped and fused plate glass. It looks like a winter wonderland of shimmering ice. There is a forest of dense trees, a mountain range, a shimmering brook and waterfall and a large evergreen tree, all made of clear glass. It can be viewed from three sides. From the most extreme side angles the forms appear to be giant snowflakes hanging from the ceiling and big sprays of glass sprouting like stalactites and stalagmites from the ceiling and floor. It is a magically beautiful installation. Slight differences in transparency and surface textures loom large in this installation. I especially like the look of shimmering mirror fragments that form the mountain stream.

The final part, "Artifact," comprises 100 everyday objects from contemporary life - a spool of thread, a change purse, a paper coffee cup, a teddy bear and a lot of hats - all cast in opaque and dull white glass, fractured and slammed into the white wall. Imagine, if you will, glass objects thrown against and partially embedded into a Styrofoam wall, or ghostly white hats and cups and other items poking through a white wall. There is an eerie quality to this wall. It's like a butterfly collection left out in the snow.

"Moving through these installations is like a walking meditation," says  Museum of Glass curator Melissa G. Post. "It heightens our awareness, urging us to look inward and approach life more thoughtfully."
Glimmering Gone

Through Sept. 6, 2011, Wednesday–Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.
Third Thursdays 10 a.m.–8 p.m., Sunday noon–5 p.m., $5–$12
Museum of Glass, 1801 Dock St., Tacoma
253.284.4750, museumofglass.org

'Drive': Difficult to watch, tough to ignore

Published in The News Tribune / The Olympian, Nov. 12, 2010
Pictured: Tim Hoban and Heather Christopher. Photo by Elizabeth Lord.

It's hard to imagine a more difficult challenge for an actor than to play a perverted, evil or disgusting person sympathetically. Tim Hoban does just that with skill and conviction in Prodigal Sun's production of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "How I Learned to Drive" at The Midnight Sun Performance Space in Olympia.

What might be almost as difficult is for a woman to play a teenage girl and, furthermore, to play that same girl from age 11 to 35. That’s what Heather Christopher does in this play, and it is the best performance I’ve seen from this veteran actor.

Inspired by “Lolita,” which Vogel said she has read many times, “How I Learned to Drive” is difficult for both cast and audience for a number of reasons. First and most obviously, it is difficult because of the subject matter: incest and pedophilia. Second, it is difficult because the play is staged in an innovative manner with the use of a Greek chorus that presents humorous lessons in driving, with random jumps in time, and with actors stepping in and out of character to speak to the audience.

The writing is smart and poetic, especially in its extended use of driving as a metaphor for life and love, and in the light it shines on these complicated characters.

Christopher’s character, Li’l Bit, has been shaped by her family’s crude obsession with sex. (They all have nicknames based on their genitalia.) Everyone, from her grandfather to her school chums, relentlessly tease her about her big breasts. She is uncomfortable with her body, and she is simultaneously attracted to and repelled by sex. She is romantic, rebellious and highly intelligent. Christopher poses provocatively, bats her big eyes, pouts, and goes instantly from flirtatious to angry to wounded. She is absolutely believable as a pre-teen and as a grown woman, as a dreamer and as a frightened child.

Hoban plays Uncle Peck as a smooth operator and a sleazy manipulator who nevertheless loves his niece and is perhaps somewhat ashamed of his pedophilia. He speaks with a slimy Southern accent and never looks anyone in the eye. Uncle Peck is the only person in Li’l Bit’s life who treats her with respect and tenderness, which, of course, makes her susceptible to his advances. But his gentleness seems sincere, not just a way of manipulating her.

His molestation of Li’l Bit is handled in an ambiguous manner as he says he will never do anything sexual without her consent and not until she is of legal age; yet it is obvious he already has been sexual and continues to be. The only ambiguity is in how far they take it, which is left to our imagination.

The Greek chorus of Thomas Neely, Pamela Arndt and Brittni Reinertsen bring in the comic relief and provide for smooth transitions between scenes. As with Christopher, these ensemble actors have the challenge of playing many different ages as they double as Li’l Bit’s mother, aunt and grandfather, and as teenage school mates.

Neely was great as a teenage boy making clumsy sexual advances, but he seemed strained and artificial as the obnoxious grandfather. Arndt and Reinertsen are outstanding as the older women.

The molestation scenes are acted out fully clothed and are in no way salacious, but they are very difficult to watch because Christopher and Hoban are so fully in the skin of these characters. When they kiss, it is not two mature actors kissing, it is an older man and an innocent young girl, and it sets your teeth on edge.

“How I Learned to Drive” is a short play running only about an hour and a half with no intermission.

How I Learned to Drive

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, through Nov. 20; special performance at 8 p.m. this Sunday

Where: The Midnight Sun, 113 Columbia St. N.W., Olympia

Tickets: $12, available at www.brownpapertickets.com and at the door

Information: www.olytheater.com

Sweet and morbid

Justin Hillgrove at Mineral

Published in the Weekly Volcano, November 10, 2010

"THE RAVEN": Acrylic on canvas by Justin Hillgrove

In last week‘s column I made a distinction between fine art and illustration. That distinction applies to Justin Hillgrove's paintings at Mineral featured in a show with a title both clichéd and appropriate: Black, White and Read All Over.

As illustrations for books and movies, or homages to the same, the paintings in this show are entertaining and well executed; but as fine art - not so much. The defining differences in this case are the overall composition and the relationships between figure and background. In a narrative sense the figures and backgrounds relate, but visually they seldom do. The figures are inventive and delightful, but the backgrounds are ... well, just backgrounds.

Hillgrove is showing a group of small acrylic-on-canvas paintings illustrating some of his favorite books and movies, and all done in a style associated with Hello Kitty and Japanese anime married to macabre sci-fi. They're very cute in the way Tim Burton movies are cute. The drawing is precise, the paint application is smooth and almost flawless, and his color choices and subtle modulations are beautiful. The paintings are all in tones of black, white and gray with touches of red (or, in some cases, all in red with touches of gray). These colors lend a softly menacing quality to the pictures.

Among my favorites are two based on the Harry Potter books titled "Expecto Patronum" and "Priori Incantatem." Harry is a round-faced cartoon, but he's still recognizable as Harry. Same goes for "Boo's Escort," a homage to Harper Lee illustrating the scene in "To Kill A Mockingbird" when Scout escorts Boo Radley home.

The most fully composed in the sense of integrating figure and background is "Lullaby," an illustration of a kid (he looks like a character in "The Simpsons") having a horrendous nightmare. My favorite literary homage is the painting of Edgar Allen Poe riding a raven as if it were a horse. Notice especially how subtle the red on the raven's beak is.

Through Dec. 2, noon to 5 p.m. Thursday-Saturday
Mineral, 301 Puyallup Ave., Tacoma
253.250.7745