Loosely based on a true incident, Mow's farce centers around an eccentric in Santa Fe, N.M., whose land has become the focus of interest of developers. The property is overrun with cats and, to dissuade the builders, the recluse announces there's a cat-spanking machine on the premises. "It's about political and cultural differences," explains Jeanie Heller, development coordinator for Signstage. The comedy stars mainstage company members Stella Antonio, Rachel Hollander, John Kinstler, Larry Nehring, and Anne Tomasetti, with guest appearances by Constance Thackaberry and Mark Ross.
Founded in 1975, Signstage Theatre is one of three professional companies in the United States which present theatre for hearing and deaf audiences simultaneously in spoken English and American Sign Language. Mow, who is deaf, also serves as director of artistic development at Signstage. His drama Counterfeits, about two deaf Civil War soldiers--one Union, one Confederate--who compare experiences, had its world premiere at Signstage in 1995.
Another world premiere is off and running at Cleveland Public Theatre, an alternative company devoted to new works. It's The Fable of the Cloister of the Cemeteries, a somewhat bizarre and surrealistic tale about a tramp's journey to the underworld in search of a woman he has never met. Written by African-French playwright Caya Markhele, and translated by Suzanne Quittner-Beal, it runs through March 15. Winner of the Chilcote award for "Best Play of the Festival" at CPT's 1996 New Plays Festival, The Fable fuses elements of folklore and absurdist theatre in an exploration of death, love, and appearance vs. reality. Matt Sahr is convincing as a hapless tramp, Terence Cranendonk a cool keeper of the morgue. The director is Lisa Black.
--FRANCES HELLER
A big mess for The Mouse. That was the situation when orchestra members for the 5th Avenue Theatre's production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast forced postponement of the show's opening night for a week.
American Federation of Musicians members and supporters protested noisily on Feb. 20 as 1,500 patrons crossed a picket line to attend a performance staffed by musicians from around the country. While several hundred protesters booed or chanted "Shame on you!" and "Get a refund!," angry Seattle parents complained loudly that the commotion was scaring their children. One ticket holder became so irate, he got into a scuffle with a protester before being hustled into the theatre by police.
A young patron of the show told a television reporter that "Playing [music] isn't about money, it's about making people happy." Meanwhile, AFM Local 76-493 claimed 5th Avenue management was unreasonable in rejecting the union's requests.
The company extended the run for an additional three weeks (through Apr. 27) to make up for its losses; the 2,100-seat theatre was little more than two-thirds full for the first performance. But, with the intervention of a federal mediator, the dispute was resolved the following week: union musicians returned to the 5th Avenue's pit on Feb. 28. A new three-year contract was forged, granting an increase in wages and benefits over the life of the agreement.
In question is how much damage the union did to its image locally. There was a bomb threat earlier in the week that forced evacuation of the immediate area, but no union member has condoned or taken credit for the hoax. Local television media clearly characterized the protesters, in the words of one reporter, as a "mob of angry musicians." Following the Feb. 20 show, audience members said the replacement orchestra was great, and they couldn't tell the difference.
A union spokesperson told reporters that the main character, Belle, stands up to the Beast, and the union simply wanted to be treated fairly. But when you interfere with Baby Boomers' need to pamper their kids, much ill will is the result.
--JEFFREY ERIC JENKINS
Two world premieres--Bare Knuckle (Jan. 23-Feb. 9) at the Philadelphia Festival for New Plays, and Autumn Canticle (Feb. 18-March 19) in the Walnut Street Theatre's Studio Three--might have succeeded if each could have borrowed the other's strengths.
Art Becker's Bare Knuckle focuses on a fascinating historical footnote: In 1901, boxer Jack Johnson (the first black champion seven years later) was incarcerated with a white opponent in Texas for 24 days. The play purports to show what transpired between them; but platitudes, speechmaking, and rigged plot about a lynch mob shadow-box around the central conflict, despite the impressive efforts of Michael Broughton as Johnson and Chance Kelly as aging fighter Joe.
John W. Lowell's Autumn Canticle has the insightful dialogue and direct conflict Becker's script lacks. But the story (inexplicably set in 1972), about two long-term male lovers struggling with relationship problems, lacks the potential for excitement; the men bicker, with bitchy witticisms darting hither and yon, as they make up. The play hardly seems worth its two-and-a-half-hour running time, despite powerful performances by William M. Whitehead, William McCauley, and Callum Keith-King as the young man who comes between them.
People's Light & Theatre Company's production of Athol Fugard's latest, Valley Song (Jan. 15-Feb. 16), featured Graham Smith's intricate performance as both The Author and Buks, a black septuagenarian tenant farmer; and the sparkling presence and powerful vocals of Lisa Renee Pitts as Veronica, Buks' 17-year-old granddaughter. Stephen Novelli directed.
Another small, thoughtful play given a splendid production was Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney (Jan. 3-Feb. 2), directed by Mary B. Robinson for the Philadelphia Theatre Company. Jarlath Conroy, William Langan, and particularly Mia Dillon in the title role made a compelling evening of Friel's interlocking monologues.
On the Walnut Street Theatre's mainstage, director-actor Frank Ferrante strained to wring laughs from Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor (Jan. 11-Feb. 23), but the script is as heavy-handed as the production. InterAct Theatre Company opened its new home--the Wilma's Theatre's old one--with Canadian playwright Jason Sherman's Three in the Back, Two in the Head (Jan. 22-Feb. 15). And Villanova University Theatre began its epic production of Angels in America with Millennium Approaches (Feb. 12-23). Part II, Perestroika, runs March 19-27; then the two plays will run in repertory, April 1-6.
--MARK COFTA
Barter Theatre is taking its rollicking, irreverent musical revue Doctors and Diseases from rural Abingdon, Va., to New York City--Barter's first production to be staged in the Big Apple since the days of Robert Porterfield, the legendary producer who founded the company in 1933 to provide food and fodder for out-of-work actors. The satiric D&D, with cast members James Weatherspoon, Jill Geddes, Nancy Johnston, and Buddy Crutchfield, is scheduled to close at Barter on March 8 and reopen March 26 at the Off-Broadway Players Theatre.
Theatre IV, the nation's second-largest children's theatre (last year, it played to more than 1 million people in 46 states), has bought the Cincinnati-based Art Reach (which last year played to about 250,000 in 27 states).
In town, Theatre IV presents Having Our Say at the Empire (March 5-30), with the Delany sisters' saga enacted by two of Richmond's most beloved and distinguished performers: Marie Goodman Hunter as Bessie, and Kweli Leapart as Sadie. Theatre Gym has A Devil Inside (through March 8), a wry tale of murder and obsession, tragedy, crime and punishment, with William Blain, Rick Brandt, Jill Bari Johnson, and Steve Perigard.
Barksdale Theatre--still trying on its new in-town, arena-style space--opened triumphantly with The Taffetas, but fared less well with The House of Blue Leaves. The company is now in rehearsal for the rowdy, boisterous The Complete Works of Wilm Shkspr (abridged), wherein three actors (here, David Bridgewater, Richard Koch, and Michael Todaro) present condensed versions of all 37 Shakespeare plays in two hours. The show runs March 14-April 19.
Speaking of Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors has received a fast-paced, critically praised production at TheatreVirginia, set to run through March 15. The play has been mounted on a knock-out set by Ron Keller, descended from the art of Renƒ Magritte, which creates a dreamlike atmosphere. Meanwhile, though Swift Creek Mill Playhouse's revival of 1776 was criticized as "too long and diffuse," it has proved to be highly popular with audiences; the musical continues through March 29. And Firehouse Theatre Project has the Richmond debut of North Shore Fish, through March 8.
--CAROLE KASS
The Denver Center Theatre Company has covered nearly all bets this March. While Edward Albee's Three Tall Women is finishing its run (through March 29) in the Ricketson Theatre, Life With Father is opening in The Space Theatre (March 13-April 13). The risk comes at The Stage Theatre, with One Foot on the Floor (March 20-April 19), Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of Georges Feydeau's Le Dindon [The Turkey].
Hatcher wasn't too sure about either farce or Feydeau when One Foot's director, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, approached him with her idea of taking Feydeau to Hollywood. Can Americans, taught by empathetic talk-show hosts to accept nearly any aberration, enjoy laughing at the truly dislikable characters necessary for farce?
Then Hatcher hit on the idea of setting the play in uptight 1930s Hollywood, and he's been keeping one foot on the floor ever since. With the concept of a priggish censor from the Hays Office keeping an eye on who's in whose bed, while whatever is coming through which slammed door, Hatcher had his hook--and he also had his pompous, farcical characters.
Working from a word-for-word translation commissioned by DCTC from Michaela Fisnar, Hatcher kept close to the original, though establishing the Hollywood setting added about five new pages. He didn't change Feydeau's structure, as he figured there's a reason Le Dindon has been performed for nearly a century.
Hatcher has just resigned from the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis to pursue his own writing full time. No stranger to working from extant sources, he has adapted--among other works--Bon Voyage for DCTC, and The Turn of the Screw for the Portland Stage. Hatcher is now laboring to make Melville's novel Pierre stageworthy.
Meanwhile, DCTC is getting the door hinges properly oiled (and the bed springs squeaking satisfactorily) to make sure One Foot on the Floor comes off much like the plump, skewered, turkey of Feydeau's original.
--CLAUDIA