Enchanting "A Little Night Music" at SecondStory Rep (the little theater that can!)

Micheal O'Hara and Jennifer Littlefield in "A Little Night Music" (photo by Tim Poitevin)

A Little Night Music

SecondStory Repertory 

Through March 9

SecondStory Repertory is continuing to expand its repertoire of musical theater productions in a big way. For some years, the company has included at least one major musical production in its season, and currently they are presenting an enchanting production of the intricate musical, A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and Hugh Wheeler (book).

Not only are they tackling this difficult little ditty, but right afterward, they will present Kiss of the Spider Woman and hard on its heels La Cage aux Folles. This is a heady season full of musicals!

Directed and choreographed by Chris Nardine, ALNM is wonderfully cast with exquisite singers. Nardine does a terrific job using a quintet of singers to distract from discreet scene changes and augment the basic plot as a kind of Greek Chorus. The Quintet (Shelly Traverse, Beaven Walters, Britt Boyd, Elias Traverse and Doug Fahl) begin the musical with what sounds like a warm-up routine that blends into the overture – snippets of songs to come.

Some of Sondheim’s loveliest songs are part of this musical. The first set: Now, Later, Soon is a complex suite of songs that explain the characters of Fredrik (Micheal O’Hara), married to an 18 year old still-virgin wife, Anne (Becca Orts), and Fredrik’s son Henrik (Tristan Carruthers) who is secretly also in love with Anne. As Fredrik sings Now, about wondering whether to go to bed with his wife, Anne sings Soon, as a plaintive plea for not being ready yet, and Henrik chafes at always being told “Later, Henrik, Henrik, Later.” The three pieces blend gorgeously together after being presented individually.

Fredrik takes Anne to a play starring an old flame of his, Desiree Armfeldt (Jennifer Littlefield), who cooks up a plan with her mother (Sharry O’Hare) to invite him and his new wife for a weekend in the country. Desiree thinks there might be a way to win Fredrik away from his wife and gain a more stable life with him. She must first get rid of her current lover, Carl-Magnus (Josh Krupke), a boorish officer who drags his wife (Jenny Vaughn Hall) to the country to compete for Desiree’s attention with Fredrik.

You may remember the most famous song, Send in the Clowns, came from ALNM. Desiree sings it to Fredrik as she realizes that he may well be lost to her, just as she is ready to embrace what they could have together. In the context of the production, it is a profound expression of realization and mature growth. The “clowns” reference the idea that someone should be laughing at the irony of their situation.

It is a comedy, however, so ultimately things work out. Anne figures out that Henrik loves her and she, therefore, loves Henrik. Carl-Magnus is made jealous when his wife throws herself at Fredrik, and decides he loves his wife after all. Fredrik feels relieved when Anne runs off with Henrik and he is therefore free to accept that he still loves Desiree.

All the leads are solid performers very well suited to their respective roles. O’Hara is commanding but a bit tired as Fredrik. Orts is twittery and unaware as Anne. Carruthers is woeful and bitter as Henrik, the desperately unhappy young lover. Hall is droll and amusing, and easy to identify with as the woman not sure why she is in love with a man who uses her badly. Krupke blusters amusingly as the boorish officer. Littlefield is arch and dramatic as the artist who wants to settle down, and has an easy way of being sexy without apology.

Also, Kristin Burch adroitly plays a maid who wants to have fun before she settles down. She finds a kindred soul in Frid (Chip Wood), the manservant to Mdm. Armfeldt. Young Catherine McCool plays Desiree’s young daughter with some innocence and a touch of surprising sophistication.

O’Hare as Mdm. Armfeldt is fantastic. Mdm. is a subversive older woman who laments liaisons and the disappearance of elegant mistresses who become gifted, as she was, with jewels and villas. O’Hare was a pleasure to watch in that select small role, and it was easy to imagine her playing Desiree, as her bio states she did some years back.

With musical direction by Paul Linnes, the musicians sound lush. Support from the technical side is also solid. The set has some lovely cut-out wooden lacework with a starry wall behind. (Sets, lights and sound are credited to The Squolf.) Handsome period costumes are designed by John Allbritton.

ALNM is a challenge to get right. The singers must be capable of light opera. The humor is a cool, arch and teasing type – the kind you smile at rather than guffaw loudly to. SecondStory Rep has managed to really get it right, even with much less of a budget than other musical houses around town. Kudos to the little theater that can.

For more information, go to www.secondstoryrep.org or call 425-881-6777. 

Fresh adaptation of Pinocchio entrances and educates

Pinocchio (photo by Chris Bennion)

Pinocchio

Seattle Children’s Theatre

Through March 9

A refreshing and enchanting production of Pinocchio is now on stage at Seattle Children’s Theatre. It is a new adaptation of the Carlo Collodi story by Greg Banks of Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis. Banks did the adaptation of Robin Hood seen at SCT last year, also. He directed this production as well.

In this faux-minimalist production, the play begins with an Italian painter who tells the audience they all need to leave because they will be painting and there is nothing to watch. Then he “realizes” that they all have tickets to a performance of Pinocchio and decides he must call in his fellow painters to try to tell the story as best they can.

The stage is full of scaffolding and ladders and paint cans and drop clothes. The painters have the usual overalls and caps on and the story is then told with rudimentary props standing in for what would be a normal set and props. Of course, it’s all planned, and when an actor has to “fly,” there is a credible rigging system that hoists him up into the air.

Elise Langer plays Pinocchio throughout and Jason Ballweber, Maggie Chestovich, and Doug Neithercott play all the other roles, with Victor Zapanc providing wonderful musical moments. Langer is a fantastic Pinocchio with just the right aspects of puppet-to-human performance and a dead-pan clowning nature that keeps the events lighthearted, even when horrible things are happening. Pinocchio gets his money stolen from him and Gepetto gets swallowed by a whale and then so does Pinocchio, and Langer’s manner keeps it from feeling like a huge tragedy.

The whole production is done in understated clowning. It’s funny but not done for laughs, and the use of whatever is at hand gives it an improvisational air.

If you remember that Pinocchio’s nose grows and you think that the story is mostly about not telling lies, this version focuses on Pinocchio’s deep desire to be a “real boy.” So, finding a way to know how to become real is the heart of this production. Pinocchio makes all kinds of mistakes, even though he is told that he must go to school to become a real boy. The discoveries he makes are the lessons you can take home with your children. There are many discussions to be had about what your child could imagine doing differently than Pinocchio.

CTC and SCT certainly know what they’re doing and this production is highly recommended for everyone from 6 to 86. Even if you don’t need instruction in how to be “real,” you’ll enjoy the sophisticated clowning and the imaginative staging.

A satisfying twist in LungFish Prods.’ "The Last 5 Years"

(Kaitlin Mellinger/Kyle James Traver poster design)

The Last Five Years

LungFish Productions

(at Armory Theater 4)

Through March 1

A new company, Lungfish Productions has begun producing plays in the last year. Their latest offering was The Last Five Years, a musical that is easy to produce because it only has two characters on stage. It is written by Jason Robert Brown, who is famous for intricate music.

JRB, as many refer to him, has written some very autobiographical musicals, and this is no exception. This story is told with the male character falling in love and proceeding forward for five years of the relationship until the end, but the female character starts at the end of the five­year relationship and proceeds backwards in time to the beginning.

The male character is a writer, though to make it a little less autobiographical, he writes books, not musicals. The female is an actress, and she is written with a lot of insecurities. Maybe because it’s autobiographical and JRB isn’t good at expressing himself, we learn a lot about the woman, Cathy, and really don’t learn much about the interior life of Jamie. In fact, Jamie comes off as very self­centered and rather hard to like.

This production starred EmilyRose Frasca and her husband James Frasca, and they made a lovely and believable couple. The production used a number of photographs of the relationship as it went forward and backward, and all of the photos used were real ones taken of the Frascas’ relationship itself. The Frascas meshed well with one another and were both able to hold our attention and tell the story. They made a great casting choice for the production.

The music direction by Kimberly Dare was well done and the addition of a string section was marvelous. The musicians managed beautifully in a difficult performing venue where they were spread around and had some difficulty seeing their conductor. It’s somewhat the nature of that black box space.

Director Kyle James Traver had an interesting idea about The Last Five Years. He did not make any changes at all to any lyrics or dialogue, but he reinterpreted the meaning of a couple of songs in an interesting way.

After a first act that doesn’t reveal much about Jamie’s feelings, Jamie already comes off as an asshole.

In the second act, there is a song called “Nobody Needs to Know,” sung by Jamie. Typically, it is a song sung by Jamie supposedly to a woman he is cheating with, about how his wife, Cathy, doesn’t need to know about the affair.

The original understanding of the plot would be that Jamie cheats on Cathy and that’s why they end their marriage. But Traver reimagined the story and had James Frasca sing with a wine bottle in his hand, implying that what “nobody needed to know” was that Jamie is a closet drunk.

It certainly is a credible reason to break up – many couples break up over drugs or alcohol – but it softens the character flaw. If Jamie has an affair, what redeeming value does he have as a love interest for Cathy?

The last song in the musical has Jamie singing “I love you” to Cathy. If Jamie parts from Cathy due to his drinking, that makes it far more understandable for him to say “I love you” to her, even though he can’t control his addiction, than if he says that after cheating on her with another woman.

Kudos to Traver and the Frascas!

We shall look forward to what LungFish develops next, and applaud the creative thinking that led to a satisfying musical experience of The Last Five Years.

Enjoyable "Spelling Bee" at Seattle Musical Theatre

Evan Woltz (front) as William Barfee (photo credit unknown)

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Seattle Musical Theatre

closed

A good cast amps up the fun in Seattle Musical Theatre’s The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which is a fond and funny look at the tweenage participants in the one event that gets national attention for nerds.

Bee is a relatively simple show and allows for the focus to stay on the jokes and songs and character development. A pair of adults, here Tadd Morgan and Lindsey Larson as the ascerbic vice principal and amiable teacher, run the spelling bee. One really different aspect to this musical is that three audience members are pulled up to spell with the “kids.” That amps up the fun, too.

As each “child” is asked to spell, facts are given to the audience about them so we get a chance to know more about them as the production goes on. Also, each child gets a chance to shine in a song about his or her life. So Brad Walker plays Chip Tolentino who is mooning over another kid’s sister and gets one of the funniest songs in the musical, My Unfortunate Erection. Chelsea LeValley plays Logainne Schwartzandgrubenniere who has two very helicopterish dads and a lisp. Nik Hagen plays homeschooled Leaf Coneybear who isn’t even sure he’s smart.

Evan Woltz plays William Barfee who has a magic foot that helps him spell (a song about the foot is usually a big crowd pleaser). Woltz was confined to a wheelchair with an injury, but it worked for his character amazingly well! Every show should have a wheelchair from now on! This is one production where a geek in a wheelchair even works better!

Melissa Fleming does a terrific job as Marcy Park, an Asian-American girl who resents how perfect everyone expects her to be. Fleming also has one of the best voices in the show. Kelsey Hull adorably plays Olive Ostrovsky whose parents are the opposite of helicopter – her mother is somewhere in India and her father is missing the Bee due to work.

Isaiah Parker does a nice job in the difficult role of Mitch, a “comfort counselor” who is court-ordered to help out at the Bee, and also performs as one of Logainne’s dads. Often, this role goes to an African-American though it doesn’t seem like it must be. It is an unfortunate reflection of the overabundance of young black men who are embroiled in our justice system. Besides the Asian girl, there is not much diversity called for in the musical, unless blind casting is used. Here, the unforeseen use of a wheelchair made more diversity where not much is often used.

While the production was generally well directed by Matt Giles, and likely he also choreographed the small amounts of movement involved which were also nicely done, he had a tendency to make his actors overamp the comedy and the stereotyping. That detracted a bit from the funny bits, especially the over-acting of the “dads.” They are already clearly homosexual if they are two dads. They don’t need to then also use stereotypical movements on top.

Teatro Zinzanni: "On the Air" more chaotic in a Good way

Anki Albertsson and Juliana Rambaldi (photo by Keith Brofsky)

On the Air

Teatro Zinzanni

Through June 6

Teatro Zinzanni’s “tag line” is Love, Chaos, Dinner for every show, even as the shows change and get retitled. The current show is named “On the Air” and uses the fictional radio station Radio TZ to broadcast its shenanigans. Refreshingly, this particular iteration is more chaotic in a funny and endearing way, because it shakes up the standard format just a bit, in that it does not specifically have an MC or Maitre d’ character. 

Even a small change is welcome. The standard format has gotten kind of tired and really has needed a rethink. This isn’t to say they have completely abandoned their formula. Indeed, it’s not that much different, but perhaps just enough so that the ensuing chaos feels a little more fun, a little less by-the-book.

It’s a terrific and wonderful place to go for your first time, for anyone who has never gone! And completely makes a special evening, no matter who is performing, since everyone is always a top notch performer. It’s a given, but bears repeating.

There is the audience kibbitzer extraordinaire, Kevin Kent, back to be silly and pull unsuspecting dinner guests from their seats and have them do or say funny things. There are two wonderful singers, Anki Albertsson – a real celebrity from her native Sweden, and an experienced musical theater performer, and Juliana Rambaldi, who scampers ditzily around and teases diners, and helps end the evening with a glorious operatic aria.

The trapeze act is two males, this time, Collin Eschenburg and Matthias Fischer, and a stuffed cat. Les Petits Freres, Domitil Aillot, Gregory Marquet , and Michael Bajazet, are back, though they aren’t actually brothers. Vita Radionova performs her fantastic hula hoop juggling and does her otherworldly contortions, and in this show gets to be an alien from outer space, too. New to the mayhem is Joel Salom, an Aussie juggler who occasionally helps to bring order to the chaos.

For the dinner part of the evening, the new menu includes a very good steak, a crab and sea scallops seafood entrée, and a rich vegetable mash with filo and sweet corn option. The carrot bisque was very silky and very, very hot! (That’s hard to do with so many to feed at once.) The dessert was a lovely tart of apple-rhubarb compote and a whipped topping.

The flight of wine that goes with the meal includes wine from Germany, France, and a couple of wines from Columbia Valley. The dessert wine, Ice Wine from Columbia Valley, was incredibly sweet and fruity and was a lovely accompaniment to the tart.

For more information, go to www.zinzanni.com/seattle or call 206-802-0015. Discuss your opinions with sgncritic@gmail.com or go to www.facebook.com/SeattleTheaterWriters.

Solo performers travel from NYC to Theatre Off Jackson for "Mom Baby God" and "Killer Quack"

Madeline Burrows in "Mom Baby God" (Jessica Neria)

Solo Performance Festival

Theatre Off Jackson

continues Feb. 27, 28, March 1

Those in the know have been attending Seattle’s Solo Performance Festival over the last several years, housed and supported by the crew at Theatre Off Jackson. Several different solo performers have had shows this last month and this weekend showcases a few more.

Two in particular are coming from the East Coast to showcase their talents.

Mom Baby God is performed by Madeline Burrows, who spent two years going undercover to anti-choice conferences (for which kudos seem due, just for actually attending such things to expose what really goes on there)! She plays “a teenage anti-abortion activist at the fictionalized Students for Life of America Conference. Six other characters from ministers to abstinence-only sex educators provide humorous, insightful and shocking looks into the movement,” says the pr for the event. More information on her work can be found at www.mombabygod.com.

James Judd’s piece is entitled Killer Quack, about a real man who pretended to be a dermatologist in Manhattan and ended up killing one of the patients. It turns out that Judd was one of the patients, seeing “Dr.” Faiello to remove a tattoo, and was kind of infatuated with the handsome “doctor!” So, his piece is autobiographical, and involves letter and converstions he exchanged with the man from prison. More information on his work can be found at www.killerquack.com.

Solo performance is a unique skillset. You must have a compelling story or subject matter and be confident about your ability to hold all the attention and manage the entire performance generally without any onstage help. I interviewed these two performers about solo performance and why their performances work best in that way.

MG: What was your background in theatrical performance and did you have to do/change/learn anything to become a solo performer?

JJ: The lessons I learned at The Groundlings and the Improv (in Los Angeles) is that the theatrical experience is always for the benefit of the audience, not yourself. The worst advice people give actors, especially solo performers, is "just go out there and enjoy the moment." I was lucky enough to be part of an improv class led by Cynthia Szigeti, the legendary improv teacher.  On one particular night I was on stage with scene partners.  I was dying up there. She shouted at me, "Do something funny!" It was a thunderbolt of truth. When you are on that stage it is your responsibility to entertain the audience who paid for their tickets and dragged themselves out of their homes to see you. If you can't cut it, get out. 

MM: I was doing a lot of Suzuki theater training, which is very focused on the body and physical specificity. Doing that kind of precise physical work helped me a lot when creating solo work, because in solo performance you’re relying on one body to convey sharply different characters and tell a story. I also worked with Andy Paris from the Tectonic Theatre Project when I was in college, doing interview-based work and training in their Moment Work method. That work taught me not to hide the process – in solo performance, you have no choice. So both Suzuki work and Moment Work taught me a million things about solo performance without me realizing it at the time.

MG: What made you want to develop a solo show on this topic as opposed to a multiple-actor play?

JJ: I'm exclusively an autobiographic solo performance artist.  My art is turning the stories of my life into theatrical experiences to entertain audiences. It's also an intensely personal story of my relationship with a man who began as the objection of my affection to someone who rejected and frightened me to a tabloid sensation as the Killer Quack to eventually becoming someone I consider a friend. Do I think it would work as a multi-actor play? Probably.  But then where would that leave me? Would I have to buy a ticket? What if no one wanted to sit with me? It's all too much to think about.

MM: Initially it was out of necessity so that I could attend all the anti-choice events on my own time and rely on myself to meet deadlines. But through the process I’ve fallen in love with solo work. One of the best things about solo work is the interaction with the audience. In any play you feed off of the energy of the audience, but in a solo show the audience becomes your scene partner. It’s terrifying and exhilarating, because it forces you to be present from the get-go.

I portray several male characters in the show – right-wingers who say some explicitly misogynistic stuff, but because it's a solo show performed by me, they are being expressed through the body of a young Queer woman, and by the same actor who 30 seconds later is portraying a teenage girl. Having all these characters come through the same body can give a sense of how this teenage girl, Jessica, is internalizing the politics of the right-wing, what effect they are having on her. It also provides a thread of continuity that I think is politically important. Solo performance drives home how despite some tactical differences, the anti-choice movement is very united. All these different characters are pieces of the puzzle. And that’s a scary thing.

From the get go I wanted this to be a piece of theater that could connect with a growing anger about the attack on reproductive rights and with activists who are grappling with how to build a counter-movement to the anti-choice movement. A big part of that meant the ability to tour the show, and doing a solo show provided the kind of flexibility to make that happen.

MG: What makes solo performance a preferred medium?

JJ: There's nothing easy about touring a solo show.  Being a solo performer means carrying everything, literally, with you to the next performance.  It's intensely lonely and psychologically difficult, especially that half hour you spend alone backstage waiting for the show to begin.  There's no camaraderie, no one to lean on backstage or onstage, and the cast parties are the WORST.

I can come up with a million better ways to spend whatever time I have left in this life that would be infinitely more comfortable and less stressful but for whatever reason I have to do this. It isn't a pursuit of fame because no fame will come of it. It isn't part of my journey to the next level. It isn't a means to an end. It is the end. This is it. This is what I do. Do I sound depressed? I'm not. I love this life. 

Mom Baby God performs Feb. 27, 28 and Mar. 1. Killer Quack performs Feb. 28 and Mar. 1. For more information, go to www.theatreoffjackson.org or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/venue/163709 or call 800-838-3006.