INSIDIOUS • The Black Rep

Ibn Shabazz's Insidious had its 2010 premiere at Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo, New York, and the Black Rep's production of this St. Louis premiere, the play's second mounting, is fearless.  Insidious takes an unblinking look at addiction, promiscuity and men on the "down low" -- men who engage in unprotected sex with other men, while maintaining relationships with girlfriends and wives.  Because of its adult language and themes, I would leave the kids at home for this one.

THE NEW CENTURY • Max & Louie Productions

Paul Rudnick's 2007 play is made up of vignettes, primarily featuring monologues by its main characters who all have one thing in common -- they are, or have been affected by, someone gay.  This set-up could potentially present as a virtual pride parade of stereotypical characters.  Well, it kinda does.  In between the ready-made laughs, and there are many, you can spot moments of introspection from certain characters, but those delicate strokes are often layered over with the script's heavier-handed brush strokes of over-the-top clichés.

The festivities begin with Helene Nadler (Stellie Siteman), self-proclaimed "most loving mother of all time".  Why?  Well, she's got a lesbian daughter, actually two, except one is transgender.  Then there's her son David, also gay, with fetishes for leather and scatology <-- don't ask.  That's why I made it a link.  In a presentation she's giving to the “Parents of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, the Transgendered, the Questioning, the Curious, the Creatively Concerned and Others” group, she fiercely defends her love for her children, but you can tell that despite her claims of being the most accepting mother in the world, she's really trying to convince herself that her children are truly okay.  Stellie Siteman plays up Helene's enthusiasm, but the over-long narrative loses steam near the end.  It also gets a little bizarre as she trots out her son, fully clad in leather, to show how submissive and obedient he is.  Whaa?

JACOB AND JACK • New Jewish Theatre

In the final production of NJT's 15th season, actors play double roles and time-travel from the present day to the 1930's in a nifty little backstage romp.  It's always fun watching actors play actors, right?

Jack Shore (Bobby Miller) is an actor who's mostly known for his television commercials.  He's agreed to appear in a staged reading at a benefit for his mother's Ladies Club, that pays tribute to his grandfather Jacob Shemerinsky, a star of the Yiddish theatre.  In addition to not believing in rehearsing, Jack also has an eye for the ladies, and his latest target is a talented young actor named Robin (Julie Layton), also taking part in the reading.  She's so talented that Jack finds himself reconsidering his stance on not memorizing lines.  His flirting ends up pissing off his wife Lisa (Kari Ely), also an actor, also involved in the reading.  Jack, his insecurities, and his ego are placated and tolerated by his manager Ted (Terry Meddows) and they are both checked in on by the show's "gay as a picnic" stage manager Don (Justin Ivan Brown), and occasionally Jack's enthusiastic mom, Esther (Donna Weinsting).  That's the present day situation.

ANGELS IN AMERICA PART TWO: PERESTROIKA • Stray Dog Theatre

Stray Dog's repertory cycle of Angels in America culminates with Part Two: Perestroika, and it continues to impress.  The themes introduced in Part One: Millennium Approaches (you can read about that here) are plumbed even more deeply as the paths of Tony Kushner's cast of characters continue to cross, in the most remarkable ways, providing the connective tissue that makes this play a challenging but incredibly rewarding journey -- for the actors (whom I have the highest respect for), as well as the audience.

When we left off, Prior Walter (again, an amazing Ben Watts), suffering from AIDS and abandoned by his boyfriend Louis Ironson (Aaron Gotzon), is visited by the vision of his fever dreams -- the powerful and splendid Angel of America (a compelling Sarajane Alverson), who tells him that he must "prepare the way", for soon, "the great work begins".  This is where we pick up.

This Angel doesn't come with good tidings.  She comes with a prophecy for Prior, whether he wants it or not, and a plea for humanity to "stop moving".  In an arresting scene spiked with humor, The Angel explains how the migratory tendency of human beings drove God from heaven (on April 18, 1906 -- the date of the devastating San Francisco earthquake), leaving the Council (of Angels) powerless and alone.  Angels can't create -- they can only observe, and The Angel of America's mission is to get Prior, and everyone else on her part of the planet, to be still.  To halt progress.  So hopefully for heaven's sake at least, God will return.  Prior tries to make the argument that humans aren't rocks, so for us, migration and change are innate.  <-- Major theme going on right there.  Movement and progression are inevitable for the earthbound.  How we steer it though, is a decision heftily laid on us alone, cause it seems that God has left the building.

ANGELS IN AMERICA PART ONE: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES • Stray Dog Theatre

"Prepare the way…" -- a supernatural admonition given to a young man in 1985, new to his first lesions of Kaposi's sarcoma, a devastating indication of the AIDS virus.  Meanwhile, a valium-addicted housewife calls on "Mr. Lies", her hallucinogen-induced travel agent, ready to take her wherever she needs to go, for an escape from her phobias and suspicions about her husband, Joe.  Across town, Ethel Rosenberg, a woman executed for being a Communist spy in 1953, appears as a ghost to Roy Cohn, a right-wing closeted lawyer, chiefly responsible for putting the Rosenbergs in the chair.  He counts this among his major accomplishments.  He's also infected with AIDS.

The scope Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award winning two-part epic, subtitled "A Gay Fantasia on National Themes", is broad.  Incorporating the topics of AIDS, religion, death, politics, corruption, and then some, with a few supernatural visits thrown in, could seem over-whelming, if not for Kushner's ability to bring all of these subjects down to a common denominator.  A responsive chord that brings Reagan-Era philosophies and the hopeless devastation of the AIDS virus together under the ageless umbrella of an undeniable humanity.

KILLER JOE • St. Louis Actors' Studio

This first play from Tracy Letts takes a look at the Smiths -- a brood that gives the phrase "trailer trash" a whole new meaning.  Killer Joe is the third play I've seen from Letts and so far, they all have this flavor of damage mixed with dark comedy.  Like sour candy or bitter chocolate…  …  You know what I'm sayin'.  At any rate, under Milton Zoth's direction, it's a hearty blend going on right now at Actors' Studio.

The swastika tattooed son of the Smith family, Chris (James E. Slover), is in debt to some tough guys for thousands of bucks he doesn't have.  His wounded, naive little sister Dottie (Rachel Fenton) walks and talks in her sleep, and his dad Ansel (Larry Dell), whom Chris shares joints and Stag beer with, doesn't care about much outside of old detective shows on television.  In addition, they all look like they kinda don't shower very often.  Sharla (Missy Miller) is Ansel's new but maybe not so improved wife.  When her stepson asks why she answered the door half-naked, she replies, "Well, it's the middle of the night!  I didn't know who you were!".  Yep.  A nice bunch.

The Seventh Annual Kevin Kline Awards • Loretto-Hilton Center

I love this night.  I get to dress up (thanks, K9) and stare at the St. Louis actors I've admired all year.  Yes, I'm a geek, but I managed to gawk and point way less than last year.  And what do you know -- it's my 100th blog!!  Yay!  And if you can get a seat in front of Troy Turnipseed, do it.  He's a blast!

Here are the winners (in red) from this year's Seventh Annual Kevin Kline Awards.  Congrats to all!

Lifetime Achievement Award • Joe Schulte, veteran drama teacher and resident stage manager at the Muny

THE VALUE OF NAMES • New Jewish Theatre

Some wounds are harder to heal than others, and the latest offering from New Jewish, written by Jeffrey Sweet and directed by Alec Wild, deals with injuries sustained from the fallout of McCarthyism.  The associated hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) reached their height in the 50's, and many lost their careers and reputations in the aftermath.

Benny Silverman (Bobby Miller), once a successful comedic actor, went for years without work because he ended up on the Hollywood blacklist.  He eventually landed a hit sitcom that affords him a comfortable life with a home in the hills of Malibu.  His daughter Norma (Elana Kepner) is also an actor, and she's just landed a promising role, but has opted to change her last name to her mother's maiden name.  She doesn't want to be constantly associated with her famous dad, but the conversation sets Benny's teeth on edge.  To add insult to injury, Benny finds out that the newly appointed director for Norma's show is Leo Greshen (Peter Mayer), a successful Hollywood director who was Benny's theatre buddy from the old days -- until Leo called him out as a communist sympathizer about thirty years prior.  Yep.  When Leo shows up on Benny's patio, it hits the fan and old wounds are opened.

NO CHILD • The Black Rep

There's a lot packed into Nilaja Sun's play that garnered Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World and Obie Awards when it opened off-Broadway in 2006.

The title of the play is a reference to the No Child Left Behind Act that ended up putting school test scores ahead of curriculums that often included the arts.  Sun draws on her own experience as a teaching artist in the New York City school system and delivers a play about the failures, struggles, successes and expectations of the students within the fictional Malcolm X High School in the Bronx.  These kids have been, for the most part, written off, and this lively one-act shares the perspective of a teacher taking on one of the "worst classes in school" in an attempt to get these 10th graders to learn, rehearse, and perform a play -- Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker.

BUG • Muddy Waters Theatre

The featured playwright of Muddy Waters Theatre this season is Tracy Letts.  Yay!  Buckle up, right?  Okay, let me just get this out of the way -- I remember the numerous walk-outs during the August: Osage County run at the Fox a few years ago -- another Letts play.  I effing loved it -- so visceral and funny.  Some didn't find it to their taste.  Aiight.  That's cool, I completely get that, but their loss, I think.  Buy the ticket, take the ride, I say!!  Anyway, like August: OC, Bug drops you in the middle of a realistically gritty look at the unsteady, paranoid lives of its characters, and while it offers laughs (perhaps uncomfortable, and at a safe distance), it also comes with moments that will, with Bug in particular, contagiously make you itch.

All of the action takes place in a mangy motel room just outside Oklahoma City.  Agnes (Kirsten Wylder) is a resident of said motel, trying to avoid her nasty ex-husband Jerry Goss (Jared Sanz-Agero), who has recently been released from prison.  To keep her harsh realities (past and present) at bay, her buddy, a plainspoken lesbian named R.C. (Jenn Bock), brings over some cocaine and an unassuming but intriguing guy called Peter Evans (Justin Ivan Brown).

THE GLASS MENAGERIE • Dramatic License Productions

The first show of DLP's third season is one that I'd never seen before.  Yes, I know -- I'm always late to the party.  According to the posted director's notes, when Tennessee Williams wrote this memory play in 1944, he wanted to make use of "expressionistic" and "unconventional" techniques like "magic lantern slides bearing images".  We call them projections, but still, pretty uncustomary for its day.  Again -- this was my first time seeing this, but Bill Whitaker's sensitive direction seems to take cues from the playwright's intentions with accompanying projections along with musical punctuations throughout.

When the lights come up on the fragile world of the Wingfield family, set in late 1930's St. Louis, Tom (Antonio Rodriguez) sets the stage as our narrator for the play.  We learn that the patriarch of the family abandoned them years ago, and though he never makes an appearance, his portrait hangs over the proceedings and he is often referred to.  Because of his absence, Tom tries to support his mother and sister with a warehouse job at Continental Shoes.  He aspires to be a poet, and his current job is mind-numbing for him, so he spends a lot of his free time at the movies to break out from under the thumb of his own boring life.  His smothering and controlling mother Amanda (Kim Furlow), relies on Tom to keep the family afloat, but the pressure of Tom's confinement is evident from the beginning.  Amanda has a tendency to drift off into these reveries about her fine upbringing, fine prospects, and her "that time I had seventeen gentleman callers" days, and she tries, as best she can, to infuse her kids with that same desire and motivation for a respectable, fulfilling life.  This includes her desperation to find a suitable match for her daughter Laura.  Laura has a bad foot resulting from a bout with pleurosis when she was younger, and a terrible insecurity about herself and an anxious fear of the outside world.  Everyone in this play has a means of breaking away -- Tom goes to the movies, Amanda recollects past glories, and Laura finds her solace in the victrola and her collection of tiny glass animals -- her favorite being her glass unicorn.

CRY-BABY • New Line Theatre

Premiering on Broadway in 2008, Cry-Baby was nominated for 4 Tonys including choreography, book and score.  Still, it was not as critically acclaimed as its 2002 predecessor Hairspray, another John Waters film adaptation.  Similar to Hairspray, Cry-Baby features a 1950's Baltimore clash of the classes, with "good girl" Allison Vernon-Williams (Taylor Pietz) falling for the slick rock ’n’ roll "bad boy" Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker (Ryan Foizey).  

The show begins with the New Line Band's rockabilly admonition to "Take your seat, turn your phone off and unwrap you lozenges".  Then it's a headlong plunge into "The Anti-Polio Picnic", a ridiculous, goofy vaccination extravaganza put on by the "Whiffles", the "square" faction of Baltimore.  The party is soon crashed by the "Drapes", the "bad kids", with a great number, "Watch Your Ass".

WAKE UP, CAMERON DOBBS • West End Players Guild

The West End Players Guild continues its season with Wake Up, Cameron Dobbs, a world premiere penned by St. Louis actor and playwright, Stephen Peirick.  Written in 2006, this comedy is getting a splendid treatment with thoughtful, nimble performances and direction.

The lights come up on Owen (Eric Dean White) and his wife Abby's (Colleen Backer) New York City apartment.  They're preparing to host a little birthday dinner party for Owen's brother, Cameron (John Foughty).  The natural, conversational tone of the evening is delightfully set as Owen considers the wine for the night and Abby considers her wardrobe -- their back-and-forth is very funny.  Cameron shows up with a bloody nose and a bruised up face from falling into the gutter after being tripped just outside his brother's apartment.  Happy 30th birthday, right?!  After an explanation about his appearance and the discovery that the meal prepared for him features something he's deathly allergic to, Cameron admits that he'd lost his job months ago and could use a little financial boost from big bro.  Cameron suffers a considerable amount of ribbing from his brother concerning the specific circumstances of his job loss (an ill-timed company bathroom situation -- I'll just leave it at that, shall I?), and then Owen tells Cameron that he has invited their mother (Jan Meyer) to the party -- an invitation Abby wasn't expecting.  When Mom arrives, she flies into the details of her latest drama, is convinced that Cameron really got mugged instead of falling down, and manages to set everyone on edge.

AUTOBAHN • Soundstage Productions/R-S Theatrics

A girl on her way home from rehab, an inappropriate trip to a cabin in the woods, and a series of pre-interpretations that turn "make-out" point into "break-up" point and then back again -- these are some of the situations explored in Neil LaBute's 2003 collection of seven brief one-act, two-characters plays, and it's getting a fittingly intimate production by Soundstage Productions/R-S Theatrics.  (<-- Sorry.  Longest sentence ever.)

While these vignettes are unrelated, they all take a look at relationship dynamics, and take place in the front seat of a car.  The additional common denominator is the fact that they are also language-oriented.  David Mamet is one of LaBute's favorite playwrights, and in like fashion, connotations and perceptions of meaning are examined and the "here's the dark underbelly" of things are uncovered.

URINETOWN: THE MUSICAL • Stray Dog Theatre

First of all, get a ticket.  This hilarious show, superbly co-directed by Justin Been and Gary F. Bell, lampoons everything from political corruption, the legal system and bureaucracy, to the musical form itself, while constantly obliterating the fourth wall.  Speaking of the fourth wall, there's this thing called "Brechtian theatre".  It's a term that used to intimidate the hell out of me, but not anymore.  Thanks to a conversation with a buddy of mine, I learned that, in a nutshell, Bertolt Brecht, a poet and playwright who played a huge part in developing what's called "epic theatre", didn't want the audience to get too caught up in the story by constantly reminding us that we were watching a piece of theatre.  He "intended to provoke rational thought rather than to create illusion."  Little did I realize that this works brilliantly in comedic satire.  Hello, Urinetown: The Musical!  

Thanks to a devastating 20 year drought, a town has had to suffer no private toilets in an effort to conserve water.  Public amenities are controlled by the corporation UGC, or "Urine Good Company".  These toilets are scattered throughout the city, and there is a fee to pee.  The big guy kicking the shit… no pun intended… out of the little guy.  Sound familiar?  Sure it does!