Star City Blog

All's Well in “Le Havre”

by Justin Senkbile

In Aki Kaurismäki's deceptively simple new comedy, “Le Havre”, André Wilms plays a former bohemian and currently aging shoeshine man named Marcel Marx. Marcel lugs his gear around the French port city of Le Havre, and brings his crumpled euros back home each evening to wife Arletty (frequent Kaurismäki collaborator Kati Outinen). Its evident they're barely making ends meet, but all is peaceful in the Marx household.

Even when a bunch of illegal immigrants are discovered in a shipping container, and one of them, a young boy, manages to escape the police, the pacific mood around the neighborhood is barely disrupted. It's Arletty's sudden hospitalization that sends Marcel whirling. But almost as soon as she's been admitted he meets the fugitive boy, Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), and instinctively begins to help him.

His innate antipathy towards the immigration laws, and towards the steely-eyed Inspector Monet (Jean-Pierre Darrousin), who is busy hunting for Idrissa, is something shared just as automatically by his neighbors. Yvette (Evelyne Didi), the baker, happily shelters Idrissa while Marcel goes searching for the boy's family. And the grocer Epicier (François Monnié) is a key component of Idrissa's escape plan at the end. The only person who actually seems threatened by the fact that this hungry kid has entered his country is a nosy informer, played by the iconic Jean-Pierre Leaud.

What would likely take up a number of precious scenes and minutes in an American film about immigration isn't even an afterthought for Kaurismäki's characters. There are no moments of internal conflict about what's legal and what's right, about state law versus human morality. Because the situation is simple: the boy needs help.

This might classify as a rosy perspective of Europe, which hasn't historically embraced immigrants, especially when they're black and undocumented. But not a moment of this love-soaked picture seems false or pandering. Though it is dealing directly with current, dire situations, “Le Havre” has the feeling of being a fable more than anything else – or maybe even a fairy tale.

With the help of his constant cinematographer Timo Salminen, Kaurismäki shows us this city with his usual, irresistible twist of unreality. The paint is peeling and the appliances are well-worn in the homes and bars we visit, but the colors are eye-poppingly rich, and a phrase of lushly “movie” music swells up periodically. Kaurismäki's Le Havre is very much a real place - with real cops and real dirt – but it's also a fantasy world, where a sense of community thrives, and love and compassion can indeed conquer all.

“Le Havre” ends up being something like a deadpan, European flavored Frank Capra picture: honest but never cynical, and romantic without ever feeling superficial. It's the sort of movie one might mark off as a guilty pleasure if it wasn't so deeply, immediately touching.

“Le Havre” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through January 19.

Best of Lincoln Theater 2011

By Ladd Wendelin

There was something for everyone, no matter what your theatrical tastes, during the 2011 Lincoln theater season. It was a good year for angels, witches, and whatever humanimals are. Here’s a rundown of the best and the brightest, on the boards, and in the glow of footlights – 10 great reasons to look back upon and look forward to theater in Lincoln!  

Listen to Me – If you remember one name from the Wesleyan theater department this year, remember Jay Scott Chipman, who helmed this past October’s thrilling Enron, but also Gertrude Stein’s Listen to Me, which played as part of the ’10-’11 season. Told on a set composed of bar and line graphs, Enron explored the seedy dealings that led to the largest corporate collapse in U.S. history. But it was Listen to Me, staged at the 48^th St. Studio Theatre, that exploded with Wesleyan’s trademark youthful energy and a zest for the spoken word, which in turn seasoned and informed Enron. Chipman wisely referred to the play itself as an “event” in the program notes, and it certainly was that. Challenging, rewarding and not easily forgotten, Listen to Me was everything that take-no-prisoners, experimental theater should be in Lincoln.

X-FIles: The Musical - The Colonel Mustard Amateur Attic Theater Company pulled out all the stops this August and once again brought their zany and satirical sass to another hallowed pop culture institution, The X-Files. After the runaway backyard success of Jurassic Park and Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, bigger ideas needed time, more space and the funds to be fully realized, so Col. Mustard harnessed the power of social networking, employing Kickstarter, Twitter, Facebook, and Livestream to drum up support for the continued adventures of Agents Scully and Mulder. Relocating to the empty lot at 9^th and D, formerly home to Zion Presbyterian, not even an occasional rain shower on opening night stopped droves of attendees from experiencing “humanimals”, succulent barbeque and a show-stopping Lone Gunmen barbershop quartet. What will they think of next? Stay tuned… 

Angels in America: Part 1: Millennium Approaches – It’s a match made in theater heaven: Director Bob Hall, Flatwater Shakespeare and the Haymarket Theatre brought Tony Kushner’s epic drama to life this past April. A powerhouse cast of Flatwater regulars helped the show to earn its wings, including standout performances by Summer Widhalm (Harper), Richard Nielsen (Roy Cohn), and Daniel Kubert (Belize). With great performances and Hall’s strong directorial vision, Angels was simply divine, played with conviction, heart and humor, all necessary components for a tale of love and death in the midst of the mid-80s AIDS epidemic. The second coming of Angels in America, entitled Part II: Peristoika, will run March 29 – April 14, 2012 at the Haymarket Theater.

The 39 Steps – The highlight of this year’s Nebraska Repertory Theater summer shows was this witty, quick-change comedy adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller, The 39 Steps. Not only did it feature outstanding nationally-recognized actors Matt Penn and Dan Rodden, but also sensational local character actors – the radiant Melissa Lewis and Robbie Hayek, who along with Penn played at least several dozen characters during the course of the play. Those who attended the July production experienced a theatrical tour de force - a rare feat combining all the talents and abilities in an actor’s arsenal. But would you expect anything less from the Nebraska Rep?

 Lend Me A Tenor – A staple of contemporary theater found a home at the Playhouse this past October. Or, rather, it found a posh hotel suite, replete with opening and closing doors, a half-dead opera singer, and romantic travails between artists and those who love them. Directed by Morrie Enders, whose affection for Ken Ludwig’s madcap farce was more than apparent in the slapstick rhythm and pacing of the action, Tenor also benefited from a hybrid cast of Lincoln and Omaha talent, including the sauve Michael Corner (Max), Ed Culter (Tito Merelli) and Mark Kocsis (Saunders). With a season of mostly old standards and tried-and-true hits, the Playhouse brought out the best in Tenor, lending it enough classic cool for an audience-friendly experience.

The Wizard of Oz – You didn’t have to go “over the rainbow” to get your Oz fix this past July. What it lacked in polish, Pinewood Bowl, along with director/choreographer Courtney Piccoli, brought plenty of heart and humor to the annual outdoor event, along with a great performance from 13-year old Liza Piccoli, whose tender rendition of “Over the Rainbow” hit all the right notes. Not even this past summer’s grueling heat stopped Piccoli’s hoofers from selling Oz in all its Technicolor glory to the hundreds of Lincolnites who attended. Wedding bells will ring in 2012 when Seven Brides For Seven Brothers says “I do!” at the Pinewood Bowl.

‘cast.’ –  Following ‘coal chamber opera’, a one-man “basement play” performed earlier in the year, local playwright Robert Stewart (Wetrats Prod.) continued his unconventional streak of self-produced, independent shows by returning to the Tugboat Gallery with ‘cast.’, a one-act play about the shifty nature of storytelling, which featured octopus tentacles, a giant leg cast and a superb ensemble cast led by Matthew Gee, Katie Segrist, and Angela Barber. Unpredictable as a playwright and provocative as a director, Stewart's vision of theater is both surprising in its attention to detail and uncompromising. 

25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – Not only did TADA Productions bring back Lawrence and Hope Juber of Gilligan’s Island: The Musical fame for the regional premiere of their latest creation, It’s the Housewives!, in March, but also the 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – a hit during the 2008-2009 season, and another sold out run this past August. Returning cast members Bill Maltas (Vice-Principal Panch) and Matthew Works (William Barfee) were hilarious, as were new cast members, particularly Brent Welch, Jessie Cotton, and Jaci Manning. With its misfit spellers, William Finn's great score and audience participation, Putnam County remained as fun and joyous a musical as you were likely to come across this season. In 2012, TADA will stage the regional premieres of the Spider-Man musical spoof The Spidey Project and the Tony Award-winning naughty puppet show Avenue Q.

 Twelfth Night / A Midsummer Night’s Dream – What theater season in Lincoln would be complete without a tale or two (or more – Othello at the Playhouse) from the Bard of Avon? When Shakespeare’s gender-bending comedy Twelfth Night is set in the Old West, a gunslinger’s paradise, just outside of a bordello, it’s not to be missed, especially when Ian Borden’s all-encompassing reimagining brought UNL audiences into a packed Studio Theater. Mike Lee, who assumed the role of a banjo-picking troubadour, also found success as the mischievous sprite Puck in Flatwater Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Leave it to Bob Hall and Flatwater Shakespeare, who brought Puck, a half-man/half-jackass and the whole magical gang of fairy-folk to the Lincoln Foundation Community Gardens in June while the Swan at Wyuka Cemetery is under renovation. In addition to their run at the Gardens, Midsummer also played free shows at local parks, amounting to a magical evening of theater. That Shakesepeare fellow. He's gonna go far...

***

Wow! What a year! So, what were your favorite show(s) in the last year? Sound off, and get ready – 2012 is going to be a great year for theater in Lincoln!

 

"Christmas Pageant" the best ever at Lincoln Playhouse

By Ladd Wendelin

In Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, two often-overlooked spirits appear in Stave Three, out from under the robes of the Ghost of Christmas Present, an impoverished boy and a girl by the names of Ignorance and Want. Dickens describes them as “yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish…Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing.”

With a flourish of his pen, Dickens also seems to have created the initial character sketches for what would become Barbara Robinson’s ragtag gang of juvenile delinquent siblings, The Herdmans, in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which runs now through December 18^th at the Lincoln Community Playhouse (56^th and Normal). However, Dickens never anticipated that Ignorance and Want, symbolic characters of poverty and social inequality, would eventually take up cigar smoking and stealing lunch money, terrorize and even reinvigorate the Nativity in their own unique way.

The Herdmans are your typical troubled behavioral cases led by Imogene Herdman (Mackenzie Bretz), her four brothers, Ralph (Andrew Ojeda), Leroy (Nick Fullerton), Claude (Matt Loudon), Ollie (Jack Christenson), and the youngest Gladys (Ingrid Gessert). Having made a name for themselves in the school hallways through random acts of assault and battery, the Herdmans catch wind of the annual Christmas pageant. Chaos soon plagues the rehearsals leading up to the performance.

Director Summer Wildham and a large cast of youngsters bring plenty of zip and energy to their individual roles and the pageant itself, which is memorable, heartwarming and hilarious to say the least. There is a purity and innocence in children’s Christmas pageants that brings meaning and perspective to an always hectic month, and with some theatrical whimsy to spare, there’s little reason to resist the Playhouse’s holiday offering. Come for the Herdmans, stay for a cameo appearance by Lampchop and a dog masquerading as a sheep, not to mention excellent performances from Ingrid Gessert as Gladys, and Emily Jobson and Matthew Hakel as Beth and Charley Bradley.

In the magic and mystery of the holiday season, even the hardest of hearts, no matter what their age or criminal record, find personal redemption in the Christmas story. As the Herdmans prove, the birth of Christ was hardly an ordinary event, but the best ever.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever runs through December 18th with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thurs. – Fri., 2:00 p.m. Sat.-Sun. with an added 5:00 p.m. show on Sat, Dec. 17^th. TIckets are $10 general admission and can be purchased by calling the box office at 402-489-7529 or order online at www.lincolnplayhouse.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Christmas Carol" needs spirit at Wesleyan

By Ladd Wendelin

Marley was dead, to begin with – and he wasn’t the only one who drifted in and out of a catatonic state during Wesleyan’s annual production of Charles Dicken’s undying A Christmas Carol. The production, aside from a few stray flickers of life on the mostly bare stage of McDonald Theatre (51st and Huntington), is as dead as a doornail.

Every year almost without fail, as sure as there will be pepper-spray toting holiday shoppers, eggnog and Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Dicken’s tireless yarn isn’t easily dismissed from the accepted canon of Christmas-centric mirth. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a classic piece of literature without question, and it’s message is as clean cut as any of Dicken’s other works: Give selflessly to the poor, needy and destitute or prepare to be visited by otherworldly spirits and ghosts, who will mercilessly harass you in the middle of the night as they convince you to change your ways whether you like it or not.

Eric Little’s direction, along with a large requisite cast, do well in their efforts to convey the basic gist of the text, practically verbatim, but what the hour-and-a-half production really lacks is the very ideals that any other production of Christmas Carol effortlessly celebrates: a sense of infectious Yuletide energy, warmth and most importantly spirit.

Things didn’t start off well. While a group of carolers made their way to the stage at the top of the show, a bulky windowpane crashed onstage from the wings, greenery and all. Live theater is live theater, but how did the stage crew miss this and what was it doing hiding in the curtain? A few portable set pieces in the way of storefronts and lampposts dressed the stage, although it did little to invoke the setting. Ragged beggars used what strength was in them to move lamps and walls, while the carolers did their best to cover these lumbering transitions with hymns and carols that were either pitchy (“O Come Emanuel”) or overkill. One too many songs felt out of place in the foreground of the transition or scene. Why sing "Angels We Have Heard On High" when it's not angels nor Baby Jesus who's meant to save Scrooge, but his own miraculous change of heart? The overall effect felt mismatched, cold and surprisingly bleak and against the darker expanse of the stage - a theatrical lump of coal.

Isaac Anderson’s Scrooge, whose transformation the whole of Carol hinges upon, was stiff and unanimated. He doesn’t look the part even without makeup, and seemed mostly reformed by the time he visits Fezziwig’s party, one of the few highlights of production. In fact, the first half of Act I is only rejuvenated by the appearance of Leigh Walter as Mrs. Fezziwig. Kate Kietmann’s Ghost of Christmas Present and Scrooge’s bed liven up an otherwise droll Act II.

“I wish to be left alone,” Scrooge says to the pair of charitable gentlemen. “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.” If it’s true that there’s a little Scrooge in all of us, his holiday wish doesn’t sound completely unreasonable in a day and age when Christmas arrives earlier every year. Perhaps it’s time we left the grinchy old miser, carolers and street urchins alone, reserved for a Christmas yet-to-come when we can recall with fresh hearts and minds why we cherish Dicken’s immortal ghost story so much. Maybe next year... ?

A Christmas Carol runs now thru December 11^th, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2:00 p.m. Saturday afternoons and Sundays in the McDonald Theatre (51st and Huntington). Tickets are $10 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and $5 for students, and can be purchased by calling the box office at 402.465.2384. Seating is general admission.

 

 

 

RED THEATRE TO PERFORM NIGHT OF NEW, ORIGINAL WORKS AT THE HAYMARKET THEATRE

On December 2^nd Red Theater Lincoln returns to the stage for the first time since April, performing In the Flesh, an evening of 30 original plays in one hour. This production will present the same personal, youthful, engaging, experimental style that has become Red Theater’s trademark.  New directors Hannah Kurth and Erin Parker, many new cast members, and a new venue, The Haymarket Theatre will be bringing the experience alive in a new way. Join us for a night of fast-paced, high-energy theater and a ton of fun.

 

            Red Theater was founded in 2008 by UNL students and until summer 2011 was under the artistic direction of local writer and actor, Gage Wallace.  Red Theater has created two or more original nights of theater each year of their existence and has performed at diverse venues including UNL’s Laboratory Theatre, Red 9 and the Burbon Theater in downtown Lincoln. Wallace’s tenure culminated in the original production Red Hamlet which performed at the Lincoln Community Playhouse and then traveled to the Minnesota Fringe Festival.  Red Theater is a community-based performance collective that is committed to creating new works and developing them through an open, free-for-all, democratic process that is as much fun to participate in as it is to watch. This style and vision are spreading. There are currently more artists involved than ever before and an active branch of Red Theater recently opened in Omaha.

 

            In the Flesh will take place at a one-time-only performance on Friday, December 2^nd at The Haymarket Theatre.  Doors open at 7:30.  The show is at 8:00. Tickets are $5. Please contact Artistic Director Hannah Kurth at hannahdurth@readtheater.org for more details.

 

Handel's 'Rodelinda' Comes to The Met: Live in HD

Renée Fleming returns to The Met: Live in HD in one of her greatest roles, the title character in Handel’s Rodelinda. In this Baroque showpiece, Fleming plays a queen who must fight treacherous enemies to keep her son safe and the memory of her exiled husband alive. Handel’s score gives her the opportunity to sing some of the most beautiful and challenging arias in her extensive repertoire. The all-star supporting cast includes two of the world’s most prominent countertenors, Andreas Scholl and Lestyn Davies, as the exiled king Bertarido and his friend Unulfo; versatile mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the noblewoman Eduige; Joseph Kaiser as the usurper Grimoaldo; and Shenyang as Grimoaldo’s corrupt advisor, Garibaldo. Baroque specialist Harry Bicket, who led the 2004 Met premiere of Stephen Wadsworth’s fast-paced, fluid production, conducts. Deborah Voigt hosts the transmission.

 

RODELINDA is showing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center on Saturday, December 3 at 11:30 a.m. and on Sunday, December 4 at 1:00 p.m.  Details are available at www.TheRoss.org, by consulting your newspaper, or by calling the MRRMAC film information line at 402.472.5353.

 

INDIVIDUAL TICKETS (Tickets can be purchased online at www.theross.org or at the Ross Box Office): General Admission: $23 / Senior: $21 / Member, Student, Child: $16 / UNL Student: $5 (with student ID).

 

The Met Opera Broadcasts are sponsored in collaboration with the Hixson-Lied college of Fine and Performing Arts and funded, in part, by the Hixson-Lied Endowment.

 

This program is being presented with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, the Friends of The Ross, and NET Radio.

 

MOVIE REVIEW: Cult Crisis in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”

by Justin Senkbile

Contrary to popular opinion, there's a lot more to being in your early-to-mid twenties than just drinking and socializing. A lot of questions you thought you'd be able to put off a little longer suddenly start bubbling to the surface. Among other things, there's the issue of who you are, where you belong, and how to approach the problem of desires versus expectations. In “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, newcomer Elizabeth Olsen plays a girl (who goes by each of the title's names at one point or another) stuck in the thick of such questions. In her quest to solve them, she made the unfortunate decision to join a cult.

“Cult” seems too sensational a word for a movie as finely tuned as this one, but read for yourself: on a farm somewhere in the woods, Martha lives with a group of young people. It's a back-to-nature kind of place, one that might feel pleasantly hippie-ish if all the women weren't forbidden from eating until the men had finished, for example. The farm's aura turns downright threatening when we meet the leader, Patrick (John Hawkes). He casually renames his followers (Martha becomes Marcy May, Sarah becomes Sally), sleeps with all of them, and rattles off his damaged logic with just enough of a twist to make him sound sane.

We learn about all this through a totally noninvasive stream of flashbacks as we watch Martha attempting to readjust to “normal life”. She had apparently been living on that farm for two years, but now she's escaped and is recuperating in a sprawling lake house with her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson) and brother-in-law Ted (Hugh Dancy).

Martha is effectively caught between two worlds, neither of which she really belongs in. She's haunted by Patrick's farm, but Lucy's house of wealth and comfort isn't right either, and it might just be reigniting the rebellious impulse that sent her out to the woods in the first place. As her behavior gets increasingly strange, the film's style stays persistently tense. Every gesture of the camera – whether moving slowly in towards a landscape or creeping oddly around a corner – keeps adding to the film's sense of anxiety.

Olsen delivers a nuanced and confident performance, but we somehow never get close enough with Martha to approximate what she might be thinking or feeling. At the lake house, she's impenetrable, to us as much as to Lucy and Ted. This, in turn, prevents the movie from reaching the manic pitch of a great psychological thriller, the pitch that it reaches for and comes close to attaining in the last twenty minutes or so.

Which might be intentional. After all, everyone does spend a lot of time throughout the film chastising her for being closed-off and inaccessible. For us, “Martha Marcy May Marlene” might not end up as explosive as it could be, but it still does leave an awful lot of mysterious impressions to chew on.

“Martha Marcy May Marlene” is playing at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center, 13^th and R streets, through December 1st

 

"All My Sons" boasts strong cast at Wesleyan

By Ladd Wendelin

“Arthur Miller Week” continues in Lincoln with All My Sons, Miller’s 1947 play concerning sins of the father and the lies that bind families together. The student-directed play runs through November 20^th in the Miller Lab Theatre on the Nebraska Wesleyan campus (51^st & Huntington).

All My Sons was Miller’s first commercial and personal success, with 328 performances on Broadway and winning Miller his first-ever Tony award. At the time, it heralded Miller’s arrival as a dramatic force of nature – timely, relevant and impactful while exposing the psychological tumult underneath the burgeoning post-WWII American landscape. Since its debut, All My Sons has been adapted for film twice and revived both on an off-Broadway multiple times. Despite its enduring legacy, I wonder how well All My Sons has aged as a text with its nostalgic echoes of a Rockwellian bygone age that by today’s hip standards seem out of place. Plus, its themes of fathers/sons and the death of the American dream are explored to better effect in Death of a Salesman (1949).

The plot is no less a whopper, and Miller peels back the surface of squeaky-clean Americana to reveal the disappointment, heartache and pain of its haunted citizens. Joe Keller (Kirk Koczanowski) is a retired businessman living in an otherwise wholesome neighborhood, racked by guilt having sold defective airplane parts to the Air Force in WWII. His wife, Kate (Meredith Ernst), is troubled over Larry, their missing son, who disappeared with his plane in an apparent crash during the war. Meanwhile, Chris (Brandon Kelly), their only other living offspring, is intent on marrying Larry’s former flame, Ann (Karlene Grinberg).

“Gosh, those dear dead days beyond recall,” laments Ann, fondly remembering her days spent with Chris and Larry, when he was still alive. Nagging guilt hangs like a specter over the heads of the Keller’s heads and everyone else on the block. No one can seem to live and let live. The downed tree in the front yard only serves as a grim reminder of the son who may never come home and the faulty cylinderheads that may have killed him and other pilots. 

Student director Josh Swenson doesn’t take too many chances with this production with safe, contended staging amidst the wicker furniture, white picket fence and cross-hatched trellises that constitute the Keller’s front lawn. Daniel Anderzhon’s lighting casts an ambient glow over the set through the shadows of overhanging tree limbs. But with no music to transition between acts and production values that are to-the-book, Swenson has mounted a fairly mild production of All My Sons.

Fortunately, strong performances from the principle actors expose the emotional undercurrents nicely and alleviate the tedium. Playing old well is no easy task for young actors, but Koczanowski is remarkably consistent. With a shuffling gait and a breathy, yet jovial voice, Koczanowski brings a warm, believable characterization to Joe that would otherwise seem campy or forced. Kelly, well-played opposite Koczanowski, and Grinberg also make for a convincing couple. Ernst’s Kate may not look old with her bright blonde locks, but brings a sincere and delicate interpretation to the role.

There’s always a risk that student-directed productions won’t have the polish and stagecraft that larger-scale productions often have. However, All My Sons is a suitable testing ground and Swenson and his cast rise to the challenge of one of Miller’s early and no less demanding scripts.

All My Sons runs this Nov. 17 - 20 and with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday -Saturday and 2:00 p.m. Sunday in the Miller Lab Theatre (51st and Huntington). Tickets are $10 for adults, $7.50 for seniors and $5 for students, and can be purchased by calling the box office at 402-465-2384.

 

 

"The Crucible" Bewitches at the Sheldon

By Ladd Wendelin

“Pray, calm yourselves. I have eleven children and I am twenty-six times a grandma, and I have seen them all through their silly seasons…”

- Rebecca Nurse, The Crucible, Act I, Scene 1

“Yup, we’re Witch City, alright.”

- Mechanic, overheard at Magic Discount Muffler, Jan. 2008, Salem, MA

***

What’s left to say about The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s tireless warhorse of a play concerning the 1693 miscarriage of justice in the quaint, easily spooked village of Salem, Massachusetts? Apparently, in the capable hands of Angels Theatre Company and director Becky Key Boesen, just enough to bring John Proctor and the rest into Digital Age. The production runs through Sunday, Nov. 13^th, Abbot Auditorium (12^th & R), presented by Angels Theatre Company In collaboration with the Sheldon Museum of Art, and the Nebraska Girls Shakespeare Company.

Ask anyone with a high school diploma, and they should be able to recall the plot of The Crucible, suffice to say it’s a mostly historically accurate retelling of the Salem Witch Trials of 1693. While it’s nice to see classic tried-and-true dramatic texts revived and brought to the forefront of the local theater scene with some regularity by capable directors and a cast of newcomers and veteran performers, you have to wonder why. The themes are timeless, to be sure – in the face of wanton religious zealotry and superstition, the only real justice comes from standing up for what is right, even in the face of certain death.

For this production, Boesen has contemporized The Crucible’s original setting while retaining Miller’s highly-stylized archaic dialogue. Fortunately, the strength of Boesen’s directorial prerogative rings true, and it works for the most part (Who is Abigail Williams texting in the first scene?). The costuming has been scaled back from typical Puritan attire associated with the play to the sort of everyday fashion you might see worn around Lincoln. Proctor (Scott Herr) is a blue-collar worker who enjoys an ice-cold beer at the end of the day, while Abigail Williams (Noemi Berkowitz) could pass for a high school sophomore in her skirt, turquoise jacket and high-heeled boots – a get-up befitting of her conniving, witchy personality.

The obvious strength of Boesen’s staging is how nicely it gels with the clean modern setting of Abbot Auditorium. Actors make their entrances and exits from the aisles or the first row of the auditorium, popping up from their seat right on cue. Images projected on the backdrop simply suggest the setting of each scene, while a few spare pieces of Sheldon gallery furniture function as set pieces. The overall effect is sleek and effective – no harm done, even though Miller’s thunderous dialogue often overtakes Boesen’s reimagining and forces us back to The Crucible’s original pre-Colonial setting.

The Crucible isn’t the most entertaining play, especially towards its bitter conclusion, and no production I’ve seen is without its hang-ups. Excellent performances abound throughout the cast, particularly from Herr, who never lets up on the intensity even when the tension falters in the courtroom and jail scenes. The five members of Nebraska Girls Shakespeare Company are convincing as the possessed girls. Margery Dunkle’s Mary Warren is a standout, but Berkowitz’s Williams is underwhelming opposite Herr. It’s a stretch to believe they’ve carried out an adulterous affair. The iTunes Genius mix of foreboding, witch-themed music throughout comes across as a bit too obvious in its selection, although I’m as much a fan of Kate Bush and Radiohead as Boesen is. Also, Tituba’s (Leticia Martinez-Meitzen) costume seems as if it slipped past the contemporizing sweep seen in the rest of the cast.

Perhaps Angels and Boesen were onto something by staging The Crucible, which no matter what the season,  is entirely justified with the strength of directorial vision and a diverse cast.

The Crucible runs Saturday, Nov. 12^th, and Sunday, Nov. 13^th with performances at 7:30 p.m. each night, Abbot Auditorium inside the Sheldon Museum of Art, UNL main campus (12^th and R). Tickets are $15 general admission, $5 for students, call 402-937-1960 or visit www.angelscompany.org for tickets. 

 

"Lady Windermere's Fan" is an Extravagant Spectacle at UNL

By Ladd Wendelin

What is a fan?

A fashionable, if somewhat antiquated accessory. Ideally, fawning debutantes purpose it to stave off overheating and exhaustion. When opened with appropriate flourish it makes a striking social statement during lavish balls. It can also prove to be a useful weapon for clubbing insolent and adulterous widowers, or, if left in plain sight for the wrong pair of eyes, a damning piece of evidence – proof of infidelity!

In Lady Windermere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde’s seldom produced and elaborately staged comedy of manners, now on the boards in the Howell Theater, UNL main campus (12^th & R), a fan is a bit of everything if not more – delicate and also dangerous. Much like her beleaguered Victorian cotemporaries, Lady Windemere is a damsel in distress, the product of a society that upholds the sacred matrimony between man and woman, and yet no one can seem to agree on what exactly that means, especially when morals supplant manners.

The trouble begins when Lady Windermere (Emily Martinez) discovers a series of bank notes paid by Lord Windermere (Nate Ruleaux) to a dispossessed widow Mrs. Erlynne (Calandra Daby), his alleged piece on the side. A scandal is immediately suspected, and to make matters worse, Erlynne is invited to Windermere’s extravagant ball. Vowing to exact her vengeance on her duplicitous husband and Erlynne, Lady Windermere instead holds her civil tongue as best she can while being courted by Lord Darlington (Jordan Deffenbaugh). Caught between two men, Darlington begs Windermere to run away with him.

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely,” pleads Darlington. “Or dragging out some false, shallow degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands. You have that moment now. Choose!”

Don’t confuse Lady Windermere’s Fan for one of those dreary Victorian parlor room romances. This is an Oscar Wilde play! Help comes from the unlikeliest of people, true identities are revealed and Wilde’s unmistakable way with words, mockery of social conventions and turning good intentions inside out are as much a part of the spectacle as the characters themselves – The Importance of Being Windermere, if you will.

The University Theater has consistently scored high marks for their period pieces in the past (Tartuffe, Twelfth Night), and Windermere’s Fan is no exception. Director Carrie Lee Patterson deftly exploits the comical beats in the script and moves the sizable cast and set pieces across the stage with precision and intent. The staging feels traditional and secure in its storytelling, and its only enhanced by Jacob Heger’s set. Portable doorways and windowed terraces, black trim on white panels for the first half, then white trim on black, create elegant spaces and depth beyond the walls of the Windermere estate.

Almost dominating these elements is Mallory Prucha’s standout costume designs – a parade of Edwardian fashion, replete with frilly lace, slender bodices, and ravishing evening gowns for the women with white spats and ascots for the men. The costumes are almost overwhelming to a point, with principle actors undergoing at least two or three costume changes over four acts. However, “Nothing succeeds like excess,” as Wilde himself once quipped. 

UNL’s seasoned, veteran student actors are a force to be reckoned with, sporting consistent British accents throughout. While all of the performances were strong, the leads, including Martinez, Ruleaux, Daby, and Deffenbaugh brought out the best in Wilde’s script.

For Lady Windermere, a fan is more than just a fan. It’s a connection to a past she’s blissfully unaware of, a piece of her identity and a weapon of choice in the midst of a dizzying and uproarious scandal.

“We are all in the gutter,” concludes Darlington. “But some of us are looking at the stars.”

Lady Windermere’s Fan runs Nov. 11-12, 16-19 at 7:30 p.m., Howell Theatre, Temple Building (12^th and R) on the UNL campus. Tickets are $16 general admission, $14 for faculty/staff and seniors, $10 w/ student ID, and may be purchased from the Lied Center Box Office by calling 402-472-4747 or 1-800-432-3231, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. or one hour before the performance. Tickets are also available online at unltheatretickets.com.