The Philadelphia Story at Harlequin

From left: Jason Haws, Helen Harvester, Elix Hill and Russ Holm. Photo by Scot Whitney

Harlequin’s “The Philadelphia Story” is big in many ways — big cast, big set, ambitious production. It’s a timeless tale performed by a large and excellent cast in wonderful period costumes on a revolving stage that alternates between the parlor and the patio of the elegant home of an aristocratic Philadelphia family in the 1930s. The finely detailed set, which rivals those at larger theaters such at the 5^th Ave and Seattle Rep, was designed by Linda Whitney, who is also directing this play.

In addition to designing and directing — and I know I’ve said this before — Whitney also writes the best directors notes to be found in theatrical programs in the South Sound, as with the set, equaling or bettering those from much larger theaters. Her notes, usually called “Annotation,” paint nicely worded and thoroughly researched history and background notes. In the case of “The Philadelphia Story” the Lord family is based on an actual high-society Philadelphia family and the main character, Tracy Lord, is based on the well-known society belle Helen Hope Montgomery Scott, a colorful character indeed. 

I’m not so sure it was a good thing, however, that in writing about the film version starring Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and Katherine Hepburn, Whitney gave away what would have otherwise been a delightful surprise ending.

I suggest not reading her annotation until after seeing the play.

Aaron Lamb, Helen Harvester and Jason Haws. Photo by Scot Whitney

I am not generally a fan of period pieces nor plays or movies about the upper crust, but some, such as “The Importance of Being Ernest” are good enough to overcome my aversion to snobbery. This play is another prime example. In fact, it intelligently and humorously pokes fun at the aristocrats, their celebrity and their morality. It is an intelligently written play. 

Tracy (played with great style by Helen Harvester) is going to marry fellow snob George Kittredge (Jaryl Draper) the next day. During the day and night prior to the wedding family and friends, including Tracy’s ex-husband, along with a previously unknown reporter and photographer, descend on the Lord’s estate, and the wild happenings of the evening before the wedding turn Tracy into a much more human and down-to-earth woman. 

The reporter is played by Aaron Lamb and the photographer by Maggie Lofquist. The ex-husband, C.K. Dexter Haven, is played by veteran Harlequin actor Jason Haws. Haws, as always, is a joy to watch in action, and Harvester is amazing as Tracy. Thin and long-limbed, she seems at times to have arms and legs made of rubber. Her physical flopping about plays especially well when she plops provocatively and stretches cat-like, and especially when she is carried o bed in a loose-limbed drunken faint after a midnight skinny-dip.

The first act develops slowly and due to some high society Philadelphia accents many of the words are hard to hear, but you grow accustomed to the speech patterns and by the second act, when the action becomes more intense and more enjoyable, it is easier to hear what they’re saying.

A few actors in supporting roles deserve attention, most notably Russ Holm as William Tracy. Holm is always great as over-the-top boisterous eccentrics, and his portrayal as Uncle Willie is a joy to behold. John Munn is totally believable as Tracy’s somewhat stuffy and self-centered, but ultimately loving father. Also very enjoyable as the epitome of butlerhood is James Bass as Thomas. He doesn’t have much to say, but he doesn’t have to say anything.

And then there’s Max the night watchman who has no purpose in the play other than to allow for a cameo for local celebrity Joe Hyer. This is Hyer’s first performance at Harlequin. He also makes a brief appearance as the priest, Dr. Parsons.

Special kudos are due to costume designer Darren Mills.

WHEN: Thursdays through Saturdays, 8p.m., Sundays 2 p.m. through April 6

WHERE: State Theater, 202 E. 4^th Ave., Olympia

TICKETS: prices vary, call for details

INFORMATION: 360-786-0151; http://www.harlequinproductions.org/

Clayton on Art: South Sound Artists vs. International Artists

Published in the Weekly Volcano blogSpew

March 12, 2013

"Puppet Love" assemblage by Lynn Di Nino

For reasons I can probably never explain both Al Taylor’s untitled acrylic painting and Joel Shapiro’s untitled charcoal drawing in the BNY Mellon collection show at Tacoma Art Museum remind me of paintings by Jeremy Mangan. Taylor’s little painting on newsprint and Shapiro’s charcoal drawing are both abstract. Shapiro’s is a big letter V in two tones of black/gray on a light gray background that looks like worn and scarred concrete. Taylor’s painting is of four adjacent and oddly balanced angular lines in red, blue and black like some kind of angular construction made of rebar or two-by-fours, painted and left out to weather. Both are abstract. Mangan’s paintings are not abstract. They are of buildings, houses and landscapes. 

Furthermore, they are very bright and colorful whereas Taylor and Shapiro’s pieces in the TAM show have little or no color. Yet I immediately thought of Mangan when I saw them. It’s the surface quality, the laboriously worked surface like paintings on the sides of barns or on wood that has been left out in the rain and wind and sun for decades. And it is the precarious balance of their forms and their use of space — not illusory or atmospheric space but the distribution and placement of forms on a flat surface.

The similarities are most evident in works from 2008 and 2009 seen on Mangan’s website — not so much so in his later paintings. What differentiates Mangan’s paintings (and this has nothing to do with what is good or bad, just different) is that they depict unique scenes that viewers can relate to and which, in some instances, verge on Surrealism.

I’ve noticed similarities between the works of other local artists and that of more well-known national or international art figures. Olympia artist Becky Knold, for instance, makes paintings that look a lot like works by Robert Motherwell. Christopher Mathie, who often shows at Childhood’s End in Olympia, looks like the love child of Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell, both of whom he credits with being strong influences. And Judy Hintz Cox had a painting in the recent “Azul” show at B2 Gallery that was an obvious takeoff on a Mark Rothko, plus her other works in that show looked like that same Al Taylor painting from the Mellon collection.

One more: Lynn Di Nino is Tacoma’s answer to Jeff Koons. Many of her sculptures have the same quirkiness and audacity as some of Koons’ pieces, although Koons — with gobs of money and a whole factory full of assistants at his disposal — can do work on a gigantic scale and Di Nino can’t. One of her more recent projects featured in the Foundation of Art Awards show at B2 Gallery was a series of assemblages made from Hostess products and packaging. I can envision Koons doing the same thing only in his case each object would be enshrined in its own Plexiglas box.

Of course all artists pick up influences from many different sources and many create works that coincidentally look like works by other artists where there is no intentional influence, and trying to find such similarities and influences can be a meaningless intellectual game. But it can be a lot of fun.

Drawing Line into Form

Works on Paper by Sculptors 

reviwed by Alec Clayton

The Weekly Volcano, March 7, 2013

 

Mark di Suvero (American, born 1933)
    Untitled (Study for Lady Day), 1972
    Mixed media on paper
    Sheet Overall: 58 × 69 1/2 in. (147.3 × 176.5 cm)
    Collection of BNY Mellon

Henry Moore (English, 1898-1986)
    Reclining Figure, 1972
    Felt tip pen, watercolor wash, and chalk on paper
    Image Overall: 11 × 15 in. (27.9 × 38.1 cm)
    Collection of BNY Mellon

Martin Creed (English, born 1968)
    Work No. 1367, 2012
    Watercolor on paper
    Sheet Overall: 12 × 10 in. (30.5 × 25.4 cm)
    Collection of BNY Mellon

The latest exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum, Drawing Line into Form: Works on Paper by Sculptors from the BNY Mellon Collection, explores the importance of drawing as a creative tool for sculptors.

The drawings in this show go far beyond studies for sculptures. In fact, there are few actually studies in the show. Most are two-dimensional works that stand alone regardless of their relationships to sculpture. They are, as a whole, damn fine drawings — strong, inventive and confident, and as good as anything by artists who work exclusively or wholly in two dimensions. There are drawings by up-and-coming artists and drawings by famous artists including Mark di Suvero, Richard Artschwager, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Tony Smith, John Chamberlain, Jim Dine, Barbara Hepworth, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman and Henry Moore, which you may never get another opportunity to see (museums are not given to collecting drawings by sculptors, but the BNY Mellon collection specializes in it). 

Even though the works in this show are called drawings, many are paintings in full color and in a wide variety of media.

There are a few figurative pieces or works that relate to the human figure, and there are a few architectural studies, but the vast majority of the works are abstract paintings with a decidedly edgy look.

“Senza Titola,” mixed media by Mario Merz, is a fascinating little line drawing that looks like a flying saucer.

There’s an atypical drawing in red ink and pencil on blue paper by Bourgeois. Also slightly atypical are two small oil on paper pieces by John Chamberlain. Famous for massive works made from crushed automobiles, his paintings in this show have a delicate touch.

Artschwager’s “Corner with Parquet” is a drawing of the corner of an empty room with a parquet floor that does strange things with perspective. This and a majority of the drawings in this show look at the oddities of forms in space — an obvious concern of sculptors but of particular interest when depicted on a flat surface.

Martin Creed’s “Work No. 1367” is a brilliant watercolor that reverberates with optical movement.

Di Suvero’s “Untitled (Study fo Lady Day) is in many ways more impactful than his large steel sculptures. The same can be said for Joel Shapiro’s “Untitled, Rome,” charcoal on paper, a minimalist “V” shape like stacked metal bars with wonderfully black blacks and delicate grays.

I particularly like Al Taylor’s untitled drawing in acrylic on newsprint that balances four oddly angled structures and two very large works by Jim Hodges, “Arena I” and “Arena II.”

Curator Rock Hushka has done a terrific job of placement, grouping certain works by theme, such as a wall of architectural drawings including the Artschwager, a Urs Fishcher drawing of a room and Franz West’s “Reminiszenz (Patentolurinoir),” gouache and collage on paper, which is another room drawing but which also functions as a delicately balanced abstraction; and by placing Paul Noble’s “Mountain Sketch,” a humorous homage to Henry Moore, next to two Moore drawings. He has also included next to many of the drawings photographs of sculptures by the same artists, many of which are public works installed in Washington state in places like the Olympia Sculpture Garden in Seattle and on the campus of Western Washington University in Bellingham.

 [Tacoma Art Museum, Line Into Form, Wednesdays–Sundays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Third Thursdays 5–8 p.m. through May 26, adult $10, student/military/senior (65+) $8, family $25 (2 adults and up to 4 children under 18), 5 and younger free, Third Thursdays free from 5-8 pm., 253.272.4258, www.TacomaArtMuseum.org]

WWBHD: What would Benny Hill do?

Lend Me a Tenor at Centerstage

Max (Daniel Wood) and Maggie (Kate Alden) photo by Michelle Smith Lewis

reviewed by Michael Dresdner


Forget subtlety and dramatic nuance. Lend Me a Tenor at Centerstage is farce in its purest form; fast-paced humor filled with improbable situations, mistaken identity, physical comedy, verbal gags, and very broad portrayals of pure, bawdy nonsense. Its sole purpose is to make you laugh, and this outstanding cast, directed by Vince Brady, is certain to do so.


Lend Me A Tenor runs through March 24. Friday and Saturday evenings at 8; Sunday afternoons at 2.
Tickets: 253.661.1444 and www.centerstagetheatre.com

Read the complete review

Please do not buy my...

Please do not buy prints on canvas from my sites on artistwebsites.com or fineartsamerica.com. I set up these sites so I could sell prints made from digital images of my paintings. Through these sites you can buy prints at different sizes, framed or unframed, on paper, aluminum, canvas, etc. I would love for you to buy prints, just not on canvas. The prints on canvas look too much like original paintings, yet they are not. Anyone with a discerning eye can tell the difference. I don't want anyone seeing a print from one of my paintings on your wall and thinking its a painting. Or, worse yet, a fake.

The artistswebsite site does not allow artists a choice of what type prints are available. They do, however, allow us to choose what sizes are available and I make sure that all of mine are smaller than the original to prevent them from looking too much like fake paintings.

Urban detritus

Marsha Glaziere’s roadside paintings at Fulcrum

reviewed by Alec Clayton

The Weekly Volcano Feb. 28, 2013

 

Marsha Glaziere, "Schuster Parkway I" acrylic and mixed media

I was impressed with Marsha Glaziere’s paintings at Fulcrum Gallery.

There are only seven paintings in the show, but they are large. They fill the space and demand attention.

Glaziere’s acrylic and mixed-media paintings picture the gritty industrial side of cities with a focus on interweaving networks of highway overpasses and ramps. The city in question is clearly Tacoma although something like a kaleidoscopic view of Seattle’s Safeco Field makes an appearance in one of her paintings.

These paintings are raw, gritty and bombastic, with collage elements integrated into the painting as well as any I’ve ever seen. She uses wire mesh, wood, metal, paper, corrugated cardboard and other materials to create textures and hints of imagery that peek out here and there like remnants of old billboards showing through where more recent ones have been ripped open. 

Despite dense and complex imagery and materials her compositions are simple with, in most paintings, no more than two or three major forms delineated by sections of road or a scrim of buildings. These larger forms set up strong directional sweeps of motion that are highly dramatic.

Gallery owner Oliver Doriss describes her work this way: “The only way to examine a departed culture is through its legacy of artifacts. Like the Egyptian pyramids and the Pantheon of Rome we shall be known as The Great Road Builders. Marsha Glaziere reworks these monumental formations into intimate landscapes. Coaxing the essence of sun-dappled glen from visually neglected industrial spaces. The resulting mosaic of color, repurposed imagery, and textured physical objects mimic the frenetic vibration of our contemporary culture.”

“Schuster Parkway I” is light and airy in atmospheric tones of blue and white despite heavy materials with a view of the parkway looking up from midway between a lower and upper expanse. “Schuster Parkway II” offers a much heavier look at the same structure with strong movement from different directions converging to a point a little off center where they meet like slipping tectonic plates.

“View From the Viaduct (Tacoma)” is the one referred to earlier with Safeco Field in the background. With this recognizable image and a couple of cranes and industrial buildings and Mt. Rainier in the background, this “Tacoma” painting is set in Seattle. With its long horizontal format it is a more peaceful painting than any of her others and also the safest, most accessible and most gimmicky — due primarily to the inclusion of a woman easel painter on the left. 

Also fascinating are many of the small details that pop out upon close inspection. Notice the way the sky shows through the pillars in “Schuster Parkway I” and the chain on the left, the map on the right and the Art Work logo that shows up in more than one of her paintings.

This is an excellent show of powerful paintings by an artist I’d love to see much more of.

[Fulcrum Gallery, Roadside, noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Fridays and by appointment, through April 12, 1308 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Tacoma, 253.250.0520]

 March 12th - April 19^th