Virtual Theater – Page 6 – an intuitive perspective

January 27, 2021

RBT: The Woman Hater

“…wear out the drums of his ear…” Sir Roderick, the Woman Hater, describing a man’s destiny in life if he were living with a woman!

And Sir Roderick’s defiant misogynistic comment could at once describe the rabbit hole that playwright FRANCES BURNEY presents us with in The Woman Hater. Certainly a satire, we soon have a comedy of class and manners and love.

Not unlike other rather prominent authors from the English isles, we have comedic and tragic actions based on misinformation and mis-identities and missed connections…the stress on the viewer in anticipation of the next miscue, or better yet, resolution, at first intolerable becomes delightful.

And words, words, words. It took me a while to get into this play. Not for lack of trying on the part of the Red Bull Theater, cast and director. They regaled the words with everything at their disposal…but I was overwhelmed at first…my ear drums were wearing out…and I think it’s Ms. Burney’s issue! Although this might work better on stage too…the movement from character to character as their scenes and speaking roles change can be a bit distracting in Zoom.

But once I got acclimated, this became an enchanting and frustrating (in a good way).exhibition. And we want to fall in love with all of the characters at one point or other…and we will as the story progresses. But knowing the whole story as we do as audience, you just want to jump into the screen and tell everyone what’s what…as one character follows poor advice…and the next mistakes someone for a third party…and everyone has only part of the story because they are ALL afraid to be forthright…and we have seventeen years of this similar deceit and denial and ignoring of feelings to fill in and overcome and eventually forgive.

And don’t overlook the two comedic relief characters here. They both play key roles and both love words. There is of course Lady Smatter who presents herself as a lady of letters who apparently is spending her fortune to support poets in exchange for the flattery of inscriptions or dedications to herself! The joke here is she quotes them incessantly and constantly but incompletely and inaccurately and continually via the wrong attributions. And this is all portrayed with the proper edge by VEANNE COX. And the other is Arnie Burton as Old Waverly who seems to be a wordsmith…well at least when he is assigning attributes to others. Just an amazing sequence as he peers out from under his powdered wig!

And kudos to EVERETT QUINTON for pulling this off…this is not an easy timeline to keep straight while also recognizing the shifting moods and relationships and then being able to move the actors to each specific action and scene…watching that interplay is a joy in itself.

And the the cast here…this is an intense and fast moving play….with as I think I said…words, words, words…and these words are all important and not necessarily easy dialogue to follow or perform. Just an amazing accomplishment by all hands…particularly in the Zoom virtual format rather than on stage in person with the usual cues and habituations. Here is the cast list of these amazing people:

Young Waverly……………………………………NICK WESTRATE
Wilmot | Old Waverly…………………………ARNIE BURTON
Steward………………………………………………BILL ARMY
Sir Roderick………………………………………..MATTHEW SALDIVAR
Lady Smatter……………………………………..VEANNE COX
Nurse | Prim | Phebe………………………….JENNE VATH
Sophia | Joyce……………………………………CHERIE CORINNE RICE
Eleonora ……………………………………………REBECCA S’MANGA FRANK

And thank you for the great costumes and props…and the careful orchestration of passing off the several props from one character to another…who were of course in separate frames and miles apart…not something that other theater groups have put enough thought into. RBT nailed it!!!

Well, as Milton said, “All’s Well That Ends Well” or was it Spencer?

This presentation will be available online for free (but please send them a donation, they deserve it). The recording is available until 7:00 PM EDT on Friday, January 29 – then it disappears.

January 23, 2021

Have You Discovered Red Bull Theater? It’s Time To Give Them A Try!!

Despite missing live theater, I will admit that I have found solace in various virtual presentations and readings around the internet. And somewhere, somehow the Red Bull Theater came into my life…I am not 100% sure where…but probably on Facebook as I was transitioning from political writing to arts writing. And I have already enjoyed a couple of their offerings…really enjoyed them…and I guess I should have written about them but I haven’t. But I want you to have the same opportunity to experience their excellent theater making too!

Red Bull Theater describes themselves as such:

Off-Broadway theater company specializing in plays of heightened language, with a unique focus on the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
RED BULL THEATER is named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, and was the first London theater to reopen after the Restoration. This bold spirit is central to our identity. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as our cornerstone, Red Bull Theater is New York City’s destination for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. The company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics.

Their virtual presentations have been free and pay what you can. So take the opportunity to experience a company you might not be familiar with…you will enjoy them…and then drop a few dollars in the hat when you see it being passed around! And so far, their productions have lived streamed at a particular day and time and then remain available for a few more days as on demand streaming events!!! So you aren’t locked in and can watch to suit your schedule.

And now, here’s a good place to start. This Monday evening, January 25th, Red Bull Theater will be performing The Woman Hater by Frances Burney.

Directed by Everett Quinton and featuring Bill Army, Arnie Burton, Veanne Cox, Rebecca S’Manga Frank, Cherie Corinne Rice, Matthew Saldivar, Jenne Vath, Nick Westrate.

Frances Burney’s rarely seen 18th century proto-feminist satire is a hilarious story of broken engagements, excessive romanticism – and one massively misguided misogynist.
Sir Roderick has turned frantic misogynist for two reasons: he was jilted 17 years previously and his sister had the gall to marry his ex-fiancee’s brother. Burney’s outrageously witty comedy of manners bursts into life with the introduction of the former fiancee, Lady Smatter, who has turned into a voracious and addle-brained bookworm.
With its unforgettable characters and delicious absurdity, The Woman Hater is a lost comic treat.

Want more information? Just follow this link…then order your ticket!

And next week, let me know what you think!

January 16, 2021

APT: Smart People

It would never be my intention to create best of lists of plays or concerts. My intention it to just record my responses and share them with you. But: OH. My. Goodness. If there was ever one play that I saw in person in 2020 or viewed virtually online that I want to see again, it is Lydia R. Diamond’s Smart People. Immediately!

Because I am a professional grade procrastinator, I didn’t watch this online until its run was at its end (or get around to writing about it until now). So I didn’t leave myself the opportunity to watch it again. But I do want to see not only this play again…soon…but this exact virtual American Players Theatre’s Out of the Woods reading as directed by Melisa Pereyra. (So note to APT and Brenda DeVita: this is a perfect candidate for a reprise during Black History Month).

Smart people is about smart people. Four of them to be exact. And we know that they are smart because they work in and around Harvard. And in the contemporary vernacular they are ‘woke’ people when it comes to racism and sexism. Our four smart people are Ginny Yang, an Asian American psychologist played by Amy Kim Waschke; rising Black actor Valerie Johnston played by Cassia Thompson; Black surgical intern Jackson Moore played by Rasell Holt; and white neuroscientist Brian White played by Jeb Burris.

Over the course of the two act play they interact with each other on a one to one basis and eventually they all eventually meet. They are all acutely aware of racism and sexism and the full variety of stereotypes and push back promptly and directly when they find themselves on the receiving end.

But then it gets confusing, because during their initial interactions with one another, we see that they too are willing and able to apply stereotypes to strangers, and don’t see themselves doing it. This is probably the biggest takeaway from this play…our best intentions aren’t always enough…we need to be on guard against doing these same things in our own lives.

And finally all four of them come together for a dinner party at Brian White’s apartment…and they realize that they have all met at one time or another…and have all mistaken the intents and identities of the others…and the evening ends in a huge and painful meltdown…and a great deal of that hinges on the fact that Brian is…well I won’t go into spoiler mode here but playwright Lydia R. Diamond brings this to a heady and fraught climax…and leaving some big questions for us all to take to heart.

Now if this all reads as very contemporary, well it surely is. But the under story is that this is written for the period during the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama…so we clearly see that we haven’t progressed as much as we’d hoped.

This virtual presentation was performed live by APT on November 20, 2020 and was then available for viewing on PBS Wisconsin through December 31, 2020. It is part of their series of readings written by BIPOC writers, and created by BIPOC artists. It deserves to be exhibited again in the future, sooner rather than later!