Category: Lake Country Playhouse

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Post #501, Four Years, and I Find Out I Am A Theater Critic!

WOW! Jane Eyre, The Musical, At The Lake Country Playhouse was my 500th Post here on An Intuitive Perspective. WOW! Yeah, I know not all of them are scintillating and insightful commentary on the arts but the Monday Music feature instead…but I hope you are enjoying all of it! And I apparently lost count and missed our 4th Anniversary on March 20, 2024…you do lose track of time when you are having fun. And now, I am a theater critic as well!

So, how did I get here? I retired from my career as a computer programmer in 2018. And back in 2010 I was invited to contribute to someone else’s blog and I enjoyed the writing and comments and such. It was on another topic, not the arts.

And then I had an opportunity to work with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater as part of their Social Media Club. A little social group who were invited by the Rep to attend their performances and then comment on our experiences across social media. And to share and re-share the Rep’s various social media posts. I really took that to heart and wrote some pretty extensive and detailed reports on Facebook that I referred to as a ‘response’. That was a lot of fun and I started doing similar posts around other events.

And then I started to tire of my participation in that other blog but knew that I didn’t necessarily want to stop writing so I started An Intuitive Perspective. And the first thing I did was republish all of my older items from Facebook and then proceed with my new content. And once published, I share the link around a variety of social media including of course Facebook. That’s the bare facts…but how did I become a theater critic?

Well I was writing ‘responses’ to the shows that I was seeing at the Rep and as a long time subscriber at the American Player’s Theatre in Spring Green. And then a dear friend from the Social Media Club, Kimberly Laberge, Artistic Director at Kith & Kin Theatre Collective, invited me out to Hartland to experience the presentation of Cabaret that she was directing at the Lake Country Playhouse. It was an amazing play and an amazing cast and a cozy jewel box theater and I have been invited back again and again and I am in awe of the quality of the plays that they take on and the high level quality of each and every presentations.

And then somehow, I wish I remembered the history here, I also became involved with First Stage, which is a children’s theater in Milwaukee, that presents full blown musicals in the Todd Wehr Theater in the Marcus Performing Arts Center and smaller more serious fare in the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center. The PAC shows blend a cast of adults and young people in shows that will appeal to all ages…and I love them…and I love to watch the reactions of the youngsters in the audience as they experience real theater featuring their peers and their stories. And the other venue generally features the First Stage’s Young Company, high school age actors presenting more complex stories in an in the round black box theater…things like an adaptation of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People or Shakespeare’s Henry IV (part 1). I hope that we see many of these young actors playing at our local adult theaters eventually.

And I have been invited to see any number of other small theater groups put on amazing theater in small theater settings that I didn’t even know existed before now. And I am so grateful for the experience.

Now one thing that I regret. I had started an idea to present posts about smaller art museums around the state and mid-west under the title A Place For A Muse. I have only written two so far. I need to do better.

And what is this bit about being a theater critic? Well, as I said I have always labeled my articles and posts about theater as responses because I hadn’t studied theater or criticism directly. So I didn’t feel confident using the term review. But after attending the Lake Country Player’s presentation of A Rock Sails By, and talking with director James Baker Jr and lead actor in Rock (and Artistic Director of LCP ) Sandra Baker-Renick, I was convinced that what I write is in fact a review…and that is what they will be from now on! So I am a theater critic now, I guess!

So thank you to all who visit here and read my scribblings. And thank you to all of the theater people who have adopted me and allowed me to see your marvelous shows and write about them with abandon. It has been a very rewarding four years…and I hope we can continue!!!

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Jane Eyre, The Musical, At The Lake Country Playhouse

I read Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre in eighth grade. I know that I enjoyed it. But that was just over sixty years ago. So at a stratospheric level I have some memory of the story line…but the details have been lost in the mist. So I was eager to see how much of the story would return to me while watching the Lake Country Players present Jane Eyre, The Musical. Or even more in question was, how can a musical present the whole story? Well, my friends, the hardest working stage in the lake country delivered and delivered…and Jane Eyre fans won’t miss out on any of their favorite characters or any of their cherished plot lines!

Paige Lombardi as Young Jane, Emily Keiner as Jane Eyre, and Jaela Landowski as a schoolgirl. Photo courtesy of Lake Country Players, Photographer: Breanne Brennan

Playwrights John Caird (book and lyrics) and Paul Gordon (music and lyrics) have indeed provided us with the complete story of Jane Eyre (yes,yes, I know some small events had to be glossed over or skipped to fit the story into a musical) but they also very wisely maintained the first person feel of the presentation in the grand atmosphere created by Charlotte Bronte in the novel. So many of Jane’s recitations or asides to the audience are spoken by members of the ensemble in rapid succession as we watch Jane assimilate the situation she finds herself in at that particular moment. And yes it is a large and very skilled ensemble playing multiple roles, as 28 actors present the story through 2 acts and 39 songs! And as I mentioned, LCP’s hardest working stage? The actors also completed dozens of set changes that keep our heads spinning and well as Jane’s. Director Breanne Brennan, choreographer Thom Cauley, and stage manager Ashley Williams have created a mystery of fluidity on stage as the story and music proceed apace! At one point I think I saw 25 people on the stage for one of the late play ensemble numbers.

And we have two Jane Eyre’s! Paige Lombardi exhibits the youthful exuberance of a young girl but already has the drive and moxy that the adult Jane is going to need. Particularly moving is her interaction with cousin John Reed and her aunt Mrs. Reed that results in her exile to Lowood Institution. And there are a number of transitional pieces in the musical where she appears with Emily Keiner as our adult Jane that illustrate the bridge from youthful Jane to her full adult self. Keiner owns Jane Eyre here as she makes her own decisions to determine her own life path and she perfectly and demonstrably shifts from love and happiness to the crestfallen woman whose hopes are dashed as the secrets of Thornfield Hall and Mr. Rochester come to light. How Keiner so easily makes these transitions is a talent that I hope we see more of at LCP in coming seasons.

left to right, Erin Sura as Mrs. Fairfax, Emily Keiner as Jane Eyre, and Ezekial N. Drews as Edward Rochester. Photo courtesy of Lake Country Players, Photographer: Breanne Brennan

Ezekial N. Drews is similarly gifted as he portrays Edward Rochester. Drews has a character who runs from intimidating and surly patrician, to a stately and mannered gentleman, to a seductive wooing suitor, and finally a contrite and mild, defeated man…Drews missed nary a step in these various miens and certainly portrayed the Rochester that readers will remember from the novel.

A pure delightful character and lighter space in the musical is Reagan Renner as Adele, the student who Jane is responsible for while governess at Thornfield Hall. Her exuberance and sassy caricature present just the right bit humor at just the right time. Particularly as she mimics Mrs. Fairfax’s animated scolding just out of sight of the other characters on stage.

Erin Sura as Mrs. Fairfax and Emily Keiner as Jane Eyre. Photo courtesy of Lake Country Players, Photographer: Breanne Brennan

And some of the tenderest albeit sad scenes feature Gabriella George as Jane’s best friend, Helen Burns, at Lowood. Her interplay with Lombardi as the young Jane is very very touching and then her death during the Typhus outbreak and Jane’s grieving are particularly touching moments…far more so than some of the adult heartbreak…and George is a major player in the success of these scenes! Another actor who I hope finds a place in future LCP seasons.

And one last bit about the set: LCP often uses visuals projected on the back wall of the stage to set the feeling and locale for each change of scene. Director Brennan certainly put a lot of thought into what was selected here. She created a number of slides that resemble watercolors and drawings that not only tell us we are in an attic or school room or garden…but they are also depicted in a gray and just out of focus manner that clearly tells us that we are in a 19th C. Gothic story.

Paige Lombardi as young Jane and Gabriella George as Helen Burns and in the background, Emily Keiner as Jane Eyre. Photo courtesy of Lake Country Players. Photographer Breanne Brennan.

Jane Eyre, The Musical continues through July 21, 2024 at the Lake Country Playhouse in Hartland WI. Ticket and other information available here. It was sold out at the performance that I attended. RUNTIME: 2 hours, 30 minutes. 15 Minute Intermission.

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‘A Rock Sails By’ Commands The Stage At Lake Country Playhouse!

This is the end of the season play that you must see. Now to paraphrase a line from mid-play, it is ok to get lost sometimes…which is how you will feel as this drama unfolds in front of you. And, yes, it is ok…now a quote…shut up and eat the damn donuts! If that doesn’t pique your interest, you need to get lost sometimes!

A Rock Sails By is a relatively new play by Sean Grennan and the world premeire was presented by the Peninsula Players in Door County WI in 2023. And once again the Lake Country Players recognized the value in a new play and despite the complex story grabbed a hold and brought it to life. Director James Baker, Jr. assembled an amazing cast here who embody these realistic contemporary characters and coached them through the tough and endearing scenes that too many of us have to face.

Todd Herdt as Jason Harper and Sandra Baker-Renick as Dr. Lynn Cummings. Photo courtesy of James Baker, Jr at Lake Country Players.

The facade so to speak is the appearance of an interstellar object that actually ‘invaded’ our solar system in 2017. It was called Oumuamua, which is Hawaiian, roughly ‘first distant messenger’. And from there Grennan weaves two stories that intertwine around the life and loves of fictional astrophysicist, Dr. Lynn Cummings!

At first, Sandra Baker-Renick presents us with a very self confident Dr. Cummings who seems bemused listening to a phone message from a gentle but perplexed male voice who is obviously her husband. And then she starts to replay it but hides it when her daughter Olive arrives on the scene. That may seem odd but I recognized it immediately. The voice on the phone belongs to Dr. Cummings late husband and she is relishing in one of the few physical manifestations left to her of their life together. Baker-Renick immediately puts us in place to empathize with Dr. Cummings over her grief now and eventually the other events that put a cloud over her life. And the question, Are You All Right, and response, I’m Fine, takes on multiple meanings.

Sydney Faris as Haley and Sandra Baker-Renick as Dr. Lynn Cummings. Photo courtesy of James Baker, Jr at Lake Country Players.

And the arrival of Oumuamua, puts some ideas in the head of Jason Harper on breaking a story about, well who knows what. But the space rock isn’t behaving in the same way as intra-solar system comets or meteors, and there are visions of E.T.s and little green men dancing in his head. And despite claiming he is a journalist, he quickly succumbs to his editor’s request for a click bait article…and pesters Dr. Cummings, the local expert in astrophysics, for an interview until she relents in exchange for donuts. And she has a little fun with him at first but he goes away with facts and information but little that will give him that blockbuster story. So he fudges a bit and manipulates the facts a bit and achieves his goal but at great cost to Dr. Cummings. He later apologizes…but! Jason Harper as played by Todd Herdt, although not quite smarmy, certainly plays Harper as a self-interested and self-motivated amoral persona despite his protestations of ethical journalism. And Herdt certainly rings true to a very gullible Harper as Olive and Dr. Cummings play a bit of a trick on him. And when invited along to visit an observatory to view Oumuamua, he still can’t let go of the dream of alien contact instead of just accepting…it’s just a rock.

Sydney Faris plays Haley, Dr. Cummings assistant and Faris immediately presents us with a harried and almost out of control young woman. I immediately wondered how this persona became the assistant to such an accomplished and revered professor. And then the story unfolds and she is carrying a very heavy weight…loyalty to Dr. Cummings, responsibility to the doctor’s students, and responsibility to the greater university itself.

Where does so much angst come from in what would seem to be a light and whimsical play? Well it lies in the, Are You All Right, questions as we experience Dr. Cummings freeze up and zone out a bit any number of times. Most of the other characters have seen it and students have reported it to Haley and then she in turn reported it to the chancellor. And there in lies the rub. With the sensational and untrue news item running around the internet about Oumuamua with misused quotes from Dr. Cummings, the chancellor uses the story to cover his decision to put Dr. Cummings on leave for her health issues. At first you might think that she is still in mourning but we’ve been to the doctor with her…and she is in early stage dementia…a diagnosis that rocks her world. But Dr. Cummings first response is to contact Harper to try to get him to retract his story and she too uses donuts to lure him to a meeting.

side note: despite innumerable sighs and suggestions from Dr. Cummings that the why of the donuts being so good is a mystery, Harper never thinks that there might be a ‘story here’! Or am I just projecting?

And then at the observatory, The Messenger arrives. Goo, in a sudden and eerie and almost menacing entrance appears to Dr. Cummings just as Oumuamua reaches its nearest point to earth. In a bright white suit and a glaring spotlight, Goo struggles with their surroundings and a foreign language. We get lost here. Is The Messenger an alien life form or a space traveling robot or an angel from heaven or an early manifestation of Dr. Cummings impending onset of dementia. We will never quite know but Dr. Cummings seems to find her answer.

Goo as The Messenger and Sandra Baker-Renick as Dr. Lynn Cummings. Photo courtesy of James Baker, Jr at Lake Country Players.

And let’s not forget Olive Cummings as played by A. Schultz. Olive is a devoted and loving daughter not always unlike her mother. When she suggests moving home, her mother objects saying they would be tired of each other and at odds the first day. Maybe so. But Olive, as portrayed by Schultz seems a bit more comfortable with her emotions and life outside of academia and the audience immediately took a shine to her. But the two certainly share the same sense of humor as they tease Harper, and Schultz obviously relishes that bit of playfulness. And she is the one who convinces us that it is ok to get lost.

This play is heavily reliant on dialogue and minimal sets…so Director Baker and Light and Sound Tech, Breanne Brennan have pulled together their own little universe in LCP’s black box theater, with background videos of space, cosmic debris, and lawns and paths across university quads on projected backgrounds, all augmented with space music or bird/cricket sounds to put us in the proper scene and locale. It works really well.

I probably have said too much about the play and the plot, but I think that you should really see this…for Sean Grennan’s story and James Baker Jr and his cast’s story telling!

A Rock Sails By is running through May 24, 2024 at the Lake Country Playhouse in downtown Hartland WI. More information and tickets are available here.