Category: The Arts

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American Players Theatre: Taming of the Shrew and other thoughts…

I first discovered the performed Shakespeare vis a PBS airing of Hamlet from the BBC. Very serious, very traditional, right up my alley. That was followed by the BBC’s Age of Kings, their also very traditional take on Shakespeare’s history plays.

But ever since then theater groups have ever more often felt the need to make Shakespeare relevant or enticing to ‘modern audiences’ by changing the locations, eras, dialects, or costuming to bring a certain freshness I guess. Does it work? Sometimes.

So when this presentation of the Taming of the Shrew opened with a bit of a choreographed mime, I braced for the worst. The five actors came out in brightly colored slick silk-like suits and Mario brothers mustaches dancing round and round making rude gestures and displaying nefarious faces. I feared that Verona was moving to Sicily with made men and mobbed up accents or a Las Vegas dinner show version of the play or worse yet…Shrew: The Musical!

But I needn’t have feared…but we get straight away English pronunciations that allow us to follow the story and dialogue.

And a wonderful phantasmagoria of costumes that define the characters but don’t quite put us in a particular place or era! This worked wonderfully well through out.

And of course in a post BLM world, theaters are re-evaluating their selection process of plays and playwrights, their casting choices, and how they present their selections. This isn’t a sea change for the American Players Theatre. They have been aware of the artistic advantages of diversity for some time. And over the past few years they have been bold in choices in casting and directorial assignments. All to the good!

And in the perceived post pandemic era, theaters have been strapped for revenue, and are doing more with less. And that often means slimmer cast lists and here the Taming of the Shrew makes due with five actors for essentially nine named roles and other sub-characters. This isn’t unusual and actors often play more than one role, particularly if the characters are underlings or don’t appear in the same scenes.

One of APT’s 2021 plays worked with multiple roles of even principal characters very well and that was Cymbeline! And in a sort of turn about is fair play, all of the actors in Cymbeline were women.

screen capture from video by Ed Heinzelman

But at what point are fewer actors too few actors? I am thinking that this presentation of Taming of the Shrew may have stepped over that threshold.

Why? Because by their hats you shall know them. Well in the early going, I was more than a little confused as James Ridge moved about the stage from one pose to another, obviously in conversation, but talking to the hat in his hand. Well it quickly dawned on me that Mr. Ridge was playing three characters…a major principal, Baptista, his own daughter, Bianca, and one of her suitors, Grumio. So you had to be careful…which hat was he wearing? That was the character speaking. Which hat was he holding? That is the other party to the conversation. And obviously Baptista and Bianca have major speaking parts throughout. It did get a bit easier but no less unnerving, when Mr. Ridge opened his jacket while portraying Bianca to reveal his bustier underneath.

This is just a slight quibble for me…and despite enjoying APT’s very effective cross-gender casting, something didn’t quite feel right about Colleen Madden’s Tranio’s impersonation of Lucentio. Ms. Madden played it to the hilt but I just couldn’t get my head around it and sometimes lost the sense that she was playing a male character.

Alejandra Escalante was simply marvelous as Katherine, the ‘shrew’ of the title. Ms. Escalante portrays the character with a certain grace beyond the behavior we’ve come to expect from this part. And she provides some very human moments on her wedding day when Petruchio is decidedly and intentionally late.

And Daniel Jose Molina is the matching and appropriate foil as Petruchio! And the interaction of Petruchio and Katherine as directed by Shana Cooper takes some of the edge off the misogyny inherent to these roles without ever making light of it. ‘Tis the mind that makes the body rich. Yes indeed.

Yes this play is still misogynistic and paternalistic in many ways and without gutting Shakespeare or not performing it at all, directors and casts will need to represent it in an appropriate manner. I think that Ms. Cooper accomplished much here.

This has nothing to do with the performance…but with a 21st Century lens…rather than being a ‘shrew’ does the text support Katherine having a mental illness or some form of Asperger’s or other illness. Can that be played to?

I watched the American Player’s Theatre production The Taming of the Shrew via their streaming At Home option. All photos are courtesy of APT and were downloaded from their website except as noted.

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Milwaukee Repertory Theater Opens Their Main Stage with Steel Magnolias!

I have never seen this play before and I hadn’t seen either of the movies, so I only had a vague idea of what to expect. Of course there would be 1980s era Southern dialect and atmosphere and I expected the one liners and overall humor…but I wasn’t quite ready for the drama and heartbreak. And after doing a bit of background on this today, I also didn’t realize that this is actually based on a true story from playwright Robert Harling’s life and the death of his sister. Thankfully, he was able to make art and reach out to us in his sorrow.

While waiting for curtain, we get to peruse Collette Pollard’s incredible set of Truvy’s beauty salon. Thankfully the script lets us know where we are because I was wondering how someone could successfully run a salon out of doors in Louisiana…but we are looking into Truvy’s place uninhibited by the walls of the car port her husband enclosed so she could support them! And we can sit and wonder how the Rep found all of the correct hair dryers and stylist stations and such as well. But this set design makes perfect sense and utilizes the Rep’s thrust stage to perfection, giving the characters space to work and the audience the sense of time and place of the story.

Photo by Michael Brosilow and courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater

One other thing that does not inhibit our enjoyment of the play is the male characters! They only live here through the stories and conversation of the six women who inhabit the salon. So the focus is more salient to our story…and even for those who know the movie and enjoyed it…the stage play will be a new experience to enjoy and savor.

Photo by Michael Brosilow and courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater

We are quickly introduced to all of the characters and the initial focus is on Shelby, the bride to be, and the customer of the day. So there’s a lot of joy here and a lot of conversation that brings out the personalities of all six women pretty quickly and we get to know the salon’s dynamic! Little do we expect there are little clues here as to the drama that is about to unfold behind the humor and how the mood will change…but the relationships strengthen and hold the women together. But Shelby will come back into focus again…and given that focus, Phoebe Gonzalez plays our Shelby to perfection as she grows and becomes aware of her own wants and needs and the focus on her own life. A very poignant and skilled transition.

And don’t forget Rebecca Hirota as Truvy Jones, who runs the salon, takes a risk on a new stylist (Annelle played by Maeve Moynihan), and provides the common ground for the disparate characters who are her customers. Ms. Hirota has clearly taken to this role as if it were originally her own!

And M’Lynn is Shelby’s mother and in the early going you don’t really expect her to step out or step up from the initial impression we catch in the early going. But she does and as the situation takes its turns for the worse, she finds a new strength and resolve and oh my goodness, Janet Ulrich Brooks reaches for those peaks of emotion and helps us deal with our grief through her efforts to deal with hers!

Photo by Michael Brosilow and courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater

And of course we have Ouiser played by Meg Thalken, who is the perfect curmudgeon and foil who has simply been in a bad mood for forty years! And Tami Workentin as Clairee, a recent widow who brings some ‘class’ and ‘refinement’ to the mix…and of course football! And the tentative Annelle, Maeve Moynihan, who develops into Truvy’s right hand and a forward and determined individual after being reborn in her religion. The perfect characters to round out our cast and crew in 1980s Louisiana.

So, even if you have seen the movie, seeing this play live in the Quadracci Theater will be a new and special treat that shouldn’t be missed! These women will tell you a funny and moving story live and in person!

Photo by Michael Brosilow and courtesy of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater
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The Velvet Underground Documentary And Related Ramblings

I wasn’t intending to write about Todd Haynes documentary, The Velvet Underground. But after wondering how I should see it (there was never any doubt that I in fact needed to see it), I finally left my cocoon and last night. I went to watch it in the theater. And I am happy that I did. I had a number of discussions on line about whether I should do the theater or play it pandemic safe and watch it at home on a computer with headphones. My default at home since I don’t own a television. Some people suggested that it didn’t make any difference since the sound was muddy, etc. I beg to differ and that’s in part where we are going today…but there will also be a zig down a frontage road later too.

This is a perfect movie. No, not a perfect movie like Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia. Those are movies and this is a documentary. This is a perfect movie. It covered the period to a T. We are carefully introduced to all of the major players and heard their voices and saw them in action. There are a lot of historical video and film clips from the period and from Andy Warhol’s vault. I had seen some and loved seeing them again. And of course I have never seen some and would never have the opportunity if not for Mr. Haynes film. He provided the history and stayed in line with the time line and told the story complete, warts and all.

I am sorry that I hadn’t gone to see it earlier because I am interested in seeing it again but it moves on now so maybe I will follow up with streaming.

But here is why this needs to be seen in the theater. There are minutes and minutes of side by side video or side by side photo to video or video within video that wouldn’t be as mesmerizing as it was on the big screen. There was a warning before the film started about flashing effects that might cause issues for some…and there were…but oh my gosh was it true to the period.

And the sound: well as someone who grew up with this music, it wasn’t muddy at all. It sounds just like I remember it. And yes it isn’t up to contemporary standards but it was what it was. And yes some of the live bits and demo stuff were a bit less than optimal but again to a musician of the period, that was the limitation of the equipment that was available. And we need to keep in mind that the VU wasn’t selling thousands of records and making their record companies rich. So they weren’t getting access to the best recording gear. They actually were lucky to get recorded and released (and at one point Lou Reed admits that Andy Warhol’s name had something to do with that).

And a bit more about the sound. In the theater with a multi-speaker system it seemed like it was more than simple stereo….which is what I’d get at home. So that was really an amazing experience as well. But one thing to quibble with: TURN IT UP! And yes, because the Velvet Underground is meant to be heard at ‘volume’ but there were a few people being interviewed who are a bit soft spoken, particularly John Cale, and I didn’t always catch everything he said.

Now down that frontage road(s):

When I was in art school in the late 1960s, I shared a class with a painter and during studio periods he would bring in the VU to play while we worked. That was my first reference to them but I wasn’t enamored of them because I was working on art. But at the end of the year, he suggested that we spend the summer heading off to New York City and trying to get to Warhol’s Factory. I was too timid and too poor to give it a go. I needed to work that summer to pay the next year’s tuition. I don’t know if he went or not, he didn’t come back in the fall and I never saw him again. So who knows?

Then I went off to the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee for my junior and senior years. And because of the move, my last blues band split up. And through a mutual friend I met a singer who was putting together a band and he needed a bass player. Now he’d seen me play in the blues band so he knew I was capable. So my audition was to put on his leather motorcycle jacket, sunglasses, and sneer. I apparently passed and was offered the gig. He said the band was going to play Velvet Underground and Stooges material. So I knew the VU but not the Stooges…but figured what the heck…I needed a gig! The band was Death.

So how does this relate to the movie? The band was heavily reliant on the Velvet songs Sister Ray and Waiting for the Man for our basic sound. We used the bones of these songs to build up a drone that propelled the songs and allowed for the soloists to improvise in between the vocals. We never really talked about it , we just did it. But in the movie there is a great deal made around the drone underlying the music in the VU’s early years with John Cale. I heard it then but never thought about it…we apparently just felt it. And this was the first band that I played in that openly improvised. And apparently the White Light/White Heat album was improvised. I had always joked that I thought much of it was one long song and the producer had cut it into tracks. But the looseness of the album would obviously result if the band was improvising the things they were working on.

Death is the only band in my music history where I am still in touch with the other surviving members. That music solidified the group in ways unexpected. We have gotten together from time to time and trade taunts on social media. Interesting to me at least.

But this wasn’t always Eden and the lead guitarist and I got tossed at some point when other musicians who were closer friends of our band mates became available and had an interest in joining. So he and I formed our own group called Doggs that with two exceptions was a pure Velvet Underground cover band…but instead of improvisations we stuck closer to the recorded versions of the songs but tailored our sound to the Velvet’s Live At Max’s Kansas City album. We didn’t last long and only played out twice, both times opening for Death. LOL!

So the Velvet Underground was instrumental in my development as a musician. I learned to play a lot of their songs as both a bass player and a vocalist/rhythm player. They had a major influence on what I listened to later in life and I still pop them in the CD player in my studio or car today. And I play them as loud as my tinnitus will tolerate!

So Todd Haynes documentary The Velvet Underground is the perfect movie. It perfectly treats the music and the time. I can feel it in every moment the film flickered on screen. I remember and relived every song from my ears to my soul. I walked out of the theater into a cool dark fall evening feeling 50 years younger and lighter in my step.

So if you are an aficionado of the Velvet Underground, this is a don’t miss event. If you are a music nerd, you will enjoy this film a great deal. But if you are casual music enthusiast or a person of a certain age (from THIS century) you may be like the young lady leaving ahead of me who was asking her companion, ” did you like that”?

Side bar: a real review can be found here by long time Milwaukee Music Writer David Luhrssen!