St. Louis Eats and Drinks

Appreciation: A Buffet of Ann Lemons Pollack’s Writing

With the passing of Ann Lemons Pollack in April and preparations underway for the July 24 celebration of her life, we’ve been enjoying re-discovering some of her early writings. Tucked onto dusty bookshelves and archived in old wine boxes, we’ve found dozens of dog-eared hard copies and tear sheets of her old writings, largely lost in time and some predating the Internet era. 

These are musings on food and travel and life. Her old St. Louis Magazine column on food and cooking in the early 2000s was called “The Flavor of Lemons,” and that seems an apt description for these excerpts and anecdotes from various publications. We’ve highlighted a few amusing passages so we can share, ahem, a little Lemon zest with you.

It’s an appetizer, if you will, for celebrating Ann’s life at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, July 24 at The Grandel theater, 3610 Grandel Square, in St. Louis. Everyone is invited. In the meantime, cheers and enjoy! 

On the Great River Road north of Alton, Ill., from November 1973 in the Mill Creek Valley Intelligencer, Ann’s first published article: “The (Mississippi) River that comes so close to us here might as well be 30 miles away for all the attention most of us give it. Go and look at it - smell it, ride on it, taste what its communities eat. Throw a picnic lunch, a cooler, or nothing, if it’s really an impulse, in the back of the vehicle and head north.”

On eating strategies, from 1983 in New Orleans Menu: “The word serious probably ought not to be applied to the pleasures of the table. Unlike the kitchen – where art is being fashioned – a dining room should be marked by relaxation and indulgence. And with any luck, glee, too. ‘Serious’ in this connotation brings to my mind a slit-eyed evaluator descended from the Cromwellian Puritans, noting instead of enjoying the meal.”

On food and relationships, from 1986 in St. Louis Dining: “I somehow had an ongoing relationship with a fellow who had a large appetite for food but whose interest in it was strictly intellectual and, at that, rather lukewarm. One evening we were in an excellent and extremely elegant restaurant. Waiters bowed and scraped. A senator dined at the next table. The first courses, his fish soup and my salmon mousse, had been exciting. The entrees arrived. We were perhaps two bites into them, when one of those intermittent drops in the room noise occurred. Just as it did, he turned to me, and said in a voice that carried, ‘Why can’t you cook like this?’ The entire room, including the waiters, broke up. This from the man for whom I had prepared chicken Rochambeau and marquise au chocolat on his birthday. It was the beginning of the end of the relationship.”

On food and relationships, from a 1982 letter exchange with legendary food writer M.F.K. Fisher. The California food icon noted this in a neatly typed letter to Ann on onion-skin paper: “I myself cannot imagine wanting to spend my whole life, or even part of it, with someone who had absolutely no comprehension of reading or Mozart or a good ripe tomato.” Ann later wrote: “Sounds about right to me.”

On food and relationships – do you detect a theme? – from February 2000 in St. Louis Magazine: “After years of being single, I learned that early in a relationship – really early, like the first date – is when you hear a great deal of truth. For instance, if a guy says, ‘I’m not much on fancy food,’ this almost guarantees you won’t be visiting any Asian restaurants. It puts a big question mark over the possibility of dinners at French and contemporary American ones, even Italian.”

On eating peculiarities from February 2000 in St. Louis Magazine: “I once knew someone who wouldn’t eat whole animals, thus precluding shrimp, sardines and gingerbread men, among other things. (Once I yanked the leg off a soft-shell crab and popped it in my mouth. He turned absolutely pale and, briefly, I thought he might faint.)”

On food adjustments after marrying Joe Pollack, from February 2000 in St. Louis Magazine: “Anglo-Saxon that I am, my sandwich-making skills had to be sharply adapted for my delicatessen-going husband. I knew better than to use white bread or mayonnaise on a corned-beef sandwich, of course. But apparently I was far too skimpy on the meat.” Family note of amusement: We never saw Joe turn down food that Ann made.

On brunch at the old Schneithorst’s restaurant at Clayton and Lindbergh, from 1985 in St. Louis Dining: “ ‘What’s that?’ I asked a server. ‘Ah … seafood Lindbergh,’ said the young squire behind the line. He promptly got an elbow in the ribs. ‘Seafood Newburg,’ hissed the fellow next to him. By either name, the old Delmonico’s classic is a good idea at breakfast, the white sauce spiked with wine and generally well seasoned.”

On eating outdoors from June 2000 in St. Louis Magazine: “The French eat outside without a moment’s hesitation. It’s a tendency that I admire immensely. Living in the Central West End, I wait for the time of year when I can take my morning coffee, juice and newspaper out to the miniscule balcony, balance my feet on the rail (to the censorious stares of a neighbor just beyond the fence) and spend as much of the morning as I can outside.” Family note of amusement: Ann’s bare feet not only drew the ire of gentrified condo dwellers, her fondness for walking barefoot while living in the Dog Town neighborhood in 1969 prompted anonymous letters to be dropped into the family mailbox. Such behavior, the letters warned, could be subversive to the neighborhood children.

On visiting European Christmas markets, from November 2016 in Ladue News: “Call me a rebel, but I love leaving home at Christmastime and traveling to locales across the globe. Doing so constitutes a sociology lesson akin to a wedding – interesting to experience even if it’s not your own.”

On the pleasures of pot roast, from January 1999 in St. Louis Magazine: “Most of our recipes for that kind of food are heirlooms, the way my grandmother’s bed and her pressed glass are. Such traditional food is striking today, in this world of Chilean sea bass with shiitake mushrooms and a coulis of raspberries. What, as children, we greeted with ‘Oh, no! That again?’ is now something like a big, soft, wooly red sweater, simultaneously comfy and fashionable. Like the sweater, it seduces us into wanting it.”

On porch suppers, from August 1999 in St. Louis Magazine, discussing her childhood living in Desloge, the Southeastern Missouri town where she grew up: “My great-aunt had the best back porch I knew. I gravitated toward it on any visit when the weather was suitable. It, too, had awnings, and plenty of trees, so there was no sky, only green, the feel of being under water. The porch itself had a day bed and plenty of reading material, a magnetic combination for me. In addition there was a table where they often ate supper.”

On food resolutions from January 2, 1999, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Food resolutions? Tell me one person who doesn’t have any, and I’ll send him to Crown Candy Kitchen.”

Terry Lemons, June 2022

Hand to God

The very disquieting St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s Hand to God will probably be the subject of debate next year when the Critics Circle discusses whether it’s a drama or a comedy. Ibdb.com calls it a comedy, but I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision for them. There are laughs, sometimes uncomfortable ones, but it’s far from what one reviewer in another city called a “madcap comedy”.

Smallish Protestant church of uncertain denomination is trying to start a puppet ministry. (We can call that the first off-kilter thing about the play; if it’s a puppet ministry, who’s really running things? Sorry, political joke.) The responsibility has been given to Margery (Colleen Backer), who’s trying to wrangle three unmotivated teenagers, including her own son Jason (Mitchell Henry-Eagles). The other two are Jessica (Phoebe Richards), who vaguely reminds one of the long-departed-but-still-missed Lisa Loopner character of Saturday Night Live fame, and Timmy (Josh Rotker), a hulking, somewhat older-seeming fellow who’s parked there because his mom is at an AA meeting in another part of the building.

It all seems so…wholesome, even though Margery knows nothing about puppetry and is leafing through a book for answers. But the kids are anywhere from reluctant to openly defiant and she’s clearly pretty fragile. Pastor Greg (Eric Dean White) comes by and insists she can do this, and he’ll do whatever he can do help in any way. He’s there for her, he says.

Only Jessica and Justin have actually finished their puppets. Jason has even named his Tyrone, and there’s a cute-but-awkward scene where Justin and Tyrone do part of the old Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine to impress Jessica. That’s when we begin to realize that Henry-Eagles has this two-voices/two-characters/one-person thing down pretty pat. It’s also when Tyrone begins to show that he has a mind of his own – or is that Justin being brave behind a facade? Meanwhile Margery tries to have a talk with Timmy with dramatic results.

Whether Tyrone really is Justin’s id or something entirely different is one of the things we’re left to ponder here. There are enough dramas about wicked puppets that it’s not hard to make the leap early on in the show. We’re left thinking about that and the nature of evil. Sure. It’s a comedy. Right?

Good ensemble work overall, with Backer and Henry-Eagles leading the way. White’s Pastor Greg is just fumbling his way along rather than joining in on the creepiness; we already have enough as it is. Rotker is wonderfully menacing and Richards holds her own in the scene with her puppet and Tyrone. Director Andrea Urice has put together a fine crew off-stage, too, including Patrick Huber with a clever set design, Steve Miller’s light design, and Robin Weatherall masterminding the sound.

One’s pleasure at this show will depend on tolerance for off-color humor and for another story about puppets gone wild. Some folks say it’s brilliant, but I’m just not there.

 

Hand to God

through April 24

St. Louis Actors’ Studio

The Gaslight Theater

358 N. Boyle

314-458-2978

stlas.org

Hairspray

Did anyone in St. Louis do the Madison when they were growing up?

I was thrust back into my somewhat misspent youth when in Scene 5 of Hairspray, which just opened at the Fox, television disc jockey and would-be Dick Clark, Corny Collins is emceeing a high school dance and announces the dance, saying it began in Baltimore, where the show, and the film from whence it came, is set. (Well, it would, of course; it was a John Waters, the high priest of all things Bawlamer.)

I’d never run into it until I was abruptly thrown into the adult world at an air force base in New England and saw it at a service club dance. I never saw it anywhere else, but it stuck with me because it was un-partnered, like line dancing – and in its basic form was simple enough that even I could do it after watching a few minutes. Nobody was doing the Madison in outstate Missouri in 1962, which is the year Hairspray takes place. Fifteen years later, the only person I ever met who remembered it had gone to high school in Mobile, AL.

In the script, the aforementioned Corny Collins claims it’s a product of Baltimore; Wikipedia says otherwise, crediting it to Columbus, OH, but the Wiki Talk agrees there’s disagreement. No one, of course, expects historical authenticity in a musical comedy. It’s just part of the lighthearted collection of era-specific references that are sprinkled through the show. Some of those flew over the heads of the delightfully young audience on opening night, with plenty of under-21s and even more under-40s, always a good sign for the continuing health of the theatre arts.

Surely by now you know the story – pudgy, slightly rebellious teenager longs to appear on a local after-school-dance-party TV show. Mother refuses permission, teen makes it on the show only to announce on-air that she’d like to make the monthly Negro Day obsolete and just have kids of any color dancing. Chaos ensues.

The teenager, named Tracy Turnblad, is Niki Metcalf, having a whale of a good time in this high-energy role. Her mother Edna, played by Andrew Levitt, is more sprightly than some interpretations of the role, and we realize that Edna probably wasn’t all that old when she had Tracy. Her pop, Christopher Swan’s take on Wilbur Turnblad, seems to be having a whale of a good time being uxorious. (Look it up.)

Tracy’s nemesis is Amber Von Tussle. The ultimate Mean Girl/Queen Bee is played by O’Fallon, IL, native Kaelee Albritton, who carries off Amber’s venomous attacks with glee, and even manages a particularly amazing wig without batting an eye. Amber’s mom Velma, Addison Garner, who was clearly Amber’s role model, turns out to be the producer of the Corny Collins Show, giving her extra leverage to keep Tracy and her multiracial pals out. Sandie Lee appears as Motormouth Maybelle, the mother of one of her friends, and a leader in the Black community, a strong woman played with more dignity than the character’s name implies.

A fun score, even for people too young to remember the earlier years of rock and roll, and energetic choreography. Even the costumes hit the right note, being close to the way it really looked.

So much fun and lots of good work.

 

Hairspray

through April 9

The Fox Theatre

527 N. Grand

www.fabulousfox.com/

The Winnahs Are...

Here are the Circle Award Winners for the 20-21 Seasons

Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Comedy, Female or Non-Binary Role:
Nicole Angeli, “It Is Magic,” The Midnight Company
Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Comedy, Male or Non-Binary Role (TIE):
Joe Hanrahan, “It Is Magic,” The Midnight Company
Carl Overly, Jr., “It Is Magic,” The Midnight Company
Outstanding Leading Performer in a Comedy, Female or Non-Binary Role:
Ellie Schwetye, “Tinsel Town,” The Midnight Company
Outstanding Leading Performer in a Comedy, Male or Non-Binary Role:
Adam Flores, “The Thanksgiving Play,” Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
Outstanding Lighting Design in a Play:
Seth Reiser, “A Christmas Carol,” Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
Outstanding Sound Design:
David R. Molina, “King Lear,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
Outstanding Costume Design in a Play:
Christina Leinecke, “Dress the Part,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
Outstanding Set Design in a Play:
Margery and Peter Spack, “The Ville: Avengeance!,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Drama, Female or Non-Binary Role:
Elizabeth Teeter, “The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis
Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Drama, Male or Non-Binary Role:
Brian McKinley, “Spell #7,” The Black Rep
Outstanding Leading Performer in a Drama, Female or Non-Binary Role:
Laurie McConnell, “Annapurna,” St. Louis Actors’ Studio
Outstanding Leading Performer in a Drama, Male or Non-Binary Role:
André De Shields, “King Lear,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
Outstanding New Play:
“Tinsel Town,” by Joe Hanrahan, The Midnight Company
Outstanding Achievement in Opera:
Patricia Racette, “La voix humaine,” Opera Theatre of Saint Louis

Outstanding Production of an Opera:
“Gianni Schicchi,” Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Outstanding Musical Director:
Charlie Alterman, “Chicago,” The Muny
Outstanding Choreographer:
Denis Jones, “Chicago,” The Muny
Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Musical, Female or Non-Binary Role:
Natascia Diaz, “On Your Feet!,” The Muny
Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Musical, Male or Non-Binary Role:
Adam Heller, “Chicago,” The Muny
Outstanding Lighting Design in a Musical:
Sean M. Savoie, “Jersey Boys,” Stages St. Louis
Outstanding Set Design in a Musical:
Edward E. Haynes Jr. and Kevan Loney, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe,” The Muny
Outstanding Costume Design in a Musical:
Emily Rebholz, “Chicago,” The Muny
Outstanding Leading Performer in a Musical, Female or Non-Binary Role:
Diana DeGarmo, “Always…Patsy Cline,” Stages St. Louis
Outstanding Leading Performer in a Musical, Male or Non-Binary Role:
Christopher Kale Jones, “Jersey Boys,” Stages St. Louis
Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy (TIE):
“Dress the Part,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
“It Is Magic,” The Midnight Company
Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama:
“Two Trains Running,” The Black Rep
Outstanding Ensemble in a Musical:
“Chicago,” The Muny
Outstanding Director of a Comedy:
GQ and JQ, “Dress the Part,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

Outstanding Director of a Drama:
Carl Cofield, “King Lear,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
Outstanding Director of a Musical:
Denis Jones, “Chicago,” The Muny
Outstanding Production of a Comedy:
“Dress the Part,” St. Louis Shakespeare Festival
Outstanding Production of a Drama:
“Two Trains Running,” The Black Rep
Outstanding Production of a Musical:
“Chicago,” The Muny

Special Award:
Michael Hamilton and Jack Lane, cofounders of Stages St. Louis

Companies with Multiple Awards Awards
The Muny 9
St. Louis Shakespeare Festival 8
The Midnight Company 6
Stages St. Louis 3
The Black Rep 3
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis 2
Repertory Theatre of St. Louis 2

Shows with Multiple Awards Awards

“Chicago” 7
“Dress the Part” 4
“It Is Magic” 4
“King Lear” 3
“Jersey Boys” 2
“Tinsel Town” 2
“Two Trains Running” 2

People with Multiple Awards Awards
Denis Jones 2
Joe Hanrahan 2

The 39 Steps

Cognitive dissonance: A state achieved by mixing comedy and the work of Alfred Hitchcock. The 39 Steps (based on a film by Hitchcock based on a book by a former governor general of Canada) cavorts across the boards at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis as its final show of the season.

Richard Hannay (Ryan Colbert) is a man of the world, a bachelor now returned to London in the period just before the outbreak of World War II. And he is bored, bored, bored by everything, although one suspects the correct word for it is jaded. To cure his ennui, since nothing else has worked he makes a desperate decision. He decides to go to the theatre! (A clue he may not be Our Kind of Guy?)

The other three actors in the cast, per the Rep, play 149 people. The woman we first meet when she sits down next to Hannay is our introduction to Olivia Gilliatt. Rounding out the cast are Jimmy Kiefer and Futaba Shioda, particular masters of the quick-change-before-your-very-eyes, and our initial sighting of them is when they’re doing a vaudeville-type act in front of Hannay and the woman. Shots ring out, pandemonium ensues and Hannay ends up with the woman in his flat.

It all goes downhill from there. This is a very physical show, particularly utilizing gymnastic-type activity from Kiefer and Shioda. There’s a lot of movement up and down the aisles and platforms over the voms, those stage exits that go under the audience seats. Props are moved around, crates becoming beds and car seats and more, the turntables onstage being put to full use. There’s a lot of pell-mell afoot. Director Kate Bergstrom moves things into top speed pretty quickly and they remain near that level for much of the show.

Several Hitchcockian references are sprinkled throughout, music, visuals, and phrases (“No – use the rear window!”) but the MacGuffin, to use a word Hitchcock originated (it’s the thing in a film or play that everything revolves around) is pretty vague throughout. It all feels very pasted together, with plot pieces that are almost odd bits strung together. It tries very hard to be a madcap comedy, but doesn’t have the requisite flair.

One of those deceptively simple sets that are very versatile comes from from Stephanie Osin Cohen and lots of good costume work from Tilly Grimes. Broken Chord did the sound design, and trivia buffs need to pay close attention to it for maximum enjoyment. Christina Watanabe’s lighting is quick and very helpful in moving us from one focus to the next.

Good work from the cast and crew. But a script that is as rocky as an unpaved country road.

 

The 39 Steps

through April 10

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts

130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves

repstl.com

Laughter on the 23rd Floor

The New Jewish Theatre returns to action with a first-rate piece of ensemble work. Neil Simon’s Laughter on the 23^rd Floor has aged well, and it turns out to be unexpectedly and unfortunately relevant in this year of turmoil. The dark clouds at the edge, however, don’t interfere with our enjoyment of the laugh-a-minute show.

Eddie Coffield, NJT’s artistic director, is a fan of Simon and he’s obviously had a good time putting together such a cast and orchestrating the snappy pace. Based on Simon’s time writing for Your Show of Shows, which starred Sid Caesar, it’s about a group of comedy writers. The hit show was quirky, offbeat and ran 90 minutes, which was not deeply unusual then.

As is often the case in Simon’s work, there’s a wide-eyed young man, usually considered to be Simon himself, here Jacob Flekier. He’s just come to work with the crew. It’s the job of his dreams. It’s quite a gang of characters. Joel Moses, playing Milt, deserves hazardous duty pay just for wearing the zany outfits he deliberately chooses. 

The calm, logical but deeply funny Kenny, Michael Pierce’s character, tries, often in vain, to keep things under control. Somehow, an Irishman has gotten into this group; Brian, John Wolbers, is as fast at zingers as the others, but the accent makes them even funnier. Val, the oldest in the group and a Russian refugee, is Aaron Mermelstein, who tries to herd this bunch of feral cats.

Kirsten De Broux, the sole woman writer, brings some of us back to Sally Rogers, on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”, which was also based on this same experience. Funny and strong, she goes toe-to-toe with the guys. Ira, the resident neurotic, comes to us courtesy of David Cooperstein, absolutely owning Ira’s hysteria. Annie Zigman is the boopsie of a secretary who’s hiding her own little secret.

The star they’re writing for is Max Prince, played by Ben Ritchie, perhaps Ritchie’s best performance I’ve ever seen. He roars, he snaps, he passes out, clearly the Big Dog in any room he enters. 

All this takes place in 1953 with a group who’s very aware of what’s going on in the outside world, and not just so they can do sketches about it. Stalin is alive and menacing the world with his totalitarianism. Senator Joe McCarthy is accusing everyone he doesn’t agree with of being a Communist. That’s resulted in a blacklist of writers tainted, either justly or not, thus unable to get work and that hovers, too.

Talented actors, fine direction, seriously good fun. The production staff includes scenic designer Rob Lippert, lights from Michael Sullivan, costumes via Michele Friedman Siler and sound from Kareem Deanes.

It’s like Beethoven – you’ve heard the symphonies before, but here’s a new orchestra playing an old favorite.

 

Laughter on the 23^rd Floor

through April 10

Wool Studio Theatre

Jewish Community Center

2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur

Website

My Fair Lady

How long did it take you to recognize the wordplay in the title of My Fair Lady? For decades I just accepted it was the line from the nursery rhyme about London Bridge falling down. It was only in the last 20 years or so that I realized the title of the play could also be a Cockney saying “Mayfair lady,” Mayfair being an exceedingly posh neighborhood of London.

The musical comedy in question, which opened in 1956 quickly became an American classic. The 2018 Lincoln Center Theater revival, which had its tour rudely interrupted a couple of years ago, is now at the Fox, three hours-plus of delightful escapism.

Our Eliza is Shereen Ahmed, selling nosegays of violets in front of the lovely Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. A man behind a post seems to be making notes about her and some of her – well, not quite the place to use the word peers, is it now? Her associates, let us say. He turns out to be a phonetician named Henry Higgins, played here by Laird Mackintosh. The rest, as they say, is history. Higgins attempts to turn Eliza into someone who could pass for a duchess.

It’s quite a household at 27A Wimpole Street. In addition to long-time bachelor Higgins, there’s his new friend, the linguist Colonel Pickering (Kevin Pariseau), the housekeeper Mrs. Pearce (Gayton Scott) and a flock of servants. Eliza, upon arriving, is so stunned, her raucous attitude mostly disappears.

Ahmed sounds fabulous and hits just the right spots as she becomes more and more duchess-ized, leading up to the Embassy Ball. Mackintosh’s Higgins, viewed in today’s terms, is well-acted and thus rather unlikeable, oblivious to his sexism, his frequently unkind, even abusive language and his ignoring of her humanity. Some day a slipper like the one used as a prop late in the second act, may come flying out of the audience at him.

Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Dolittle, comes to us courtesy of Martin Fisher. Fisher’s a bass, and the minute he opens his mouth for “With a Little Bit of Luck” it’s clear this is no ordinary Dolittle. He excels, too, with the physical comedy. “Get Me to the Church on Time” is turned into something that might have fit into The Rocky Horror Show, and I mean that with the greatest glee. (St. Louisans, take note: When this revival opened in 2018, our very own Norbert Leo Butz played Alf, to the puzzlement and delight of New York critics.)

There’s no doubt this is meant to be a blockbuster show. The set, for example, including a rotating two-level townhouse with two staircases, is amazing, despite a small glitch opening night in the Ascot scene. Even the backdrop looks like an early Monet painting. They’ve kept the superb original musical arrangements from Robert Russell Bennett and Phil Lang. The costume s, by Catherine Zuber, hit their apogee in the race scene, the pale, pale pearl gray very different than Cecil Beaton’s classic efforts onstage and in the film, but drawing the eye in to the many details.

This is clearly director Bartlett Sher’s vision of the classic musical, and the question of sexism obviously never left his mind as he put it together. The final scene is not in Higgins’ mother’s conservatory but afterwards. A new path is being trod for this version.

 

My Fair Lady

through April 3

The Fox Theatre

527 N. Grand

fabulousfox.com

Behind the Sheet

The Black Rep’s Behind the Sheet will leave you shaken. It should.

It’s playwright Charly Evon Simpson’s story of a pre-Civil War physician and surgeon who is attempting to repair an injury that sometimes happens during childbirth. These days, having delivery create a fistula, or opening, between the birth canal and rectum and/or urethra is rare, but obstetrics was very different then. Fistulae create a near-continuous leakage of those bodily products and no one had even done serious work on attempting to close such an opening. “Women parts” were pretty much terra incognita to physicians – the first American woman graduated medical school in 1849, a year after this play ends.

It all sounds very selfless of the fictional Dr. George Barry, who is based on the real Dr. Marion Sims, who tackled this problem. But...no. He’s trying to figure out how to fix fistulae by using slave women as subjects. He buys women with fistulae and operates on them over and over again trying to find a technique that works. Not with their consent, of course. They can’t refuse these procedures – done with no anesthesia, by the way. They’re slaves.

Barry is played by Jeff Cummings. The closest thing he has to a nurse is Philomena, a house slave, part of what he acquired when he married his wife. Tall and self-contained, dignified for someone so young, she’s portrayed by Chynna Palmer. And she’s quite pregnant. It’s Barry’s child.

It is not just Barry’s assaults on his subjects that makes us realize even more the horror of slavery. It’s personified in a moment between Barry and Philomena when he reaches out to touch her cheek as she knows she cannot pull away. She has to tolerate his touch, which surely burns her soul. The moment summarizes the matter better than a three page monologue. Palmer is utterly magnetic in the moment.

The other enslaved women are far from a Greek chorus here. From the frosty, suspicious Dinah, here Patience Davis, to the seemingly snippy Betty, Alex Jay, they know they’re all in this together, but they’re still individuals, beaten-down or not. Another slave, Lewis, a loner, does appreciate the strength of Philomena, and waits patiently, courtesy of Brian McKinley.

Why is Barry doing this? Yes, for glory, he admits, and to be able to heal the wives of people like other plantation owners damaged from their obstetrical disasters. When his assistant, Ryan Lawson-Maeske, says he has heard that ether is being used to ease the suffering of childbirth, Barry says that will be even better for such women. Not for the women he owns, of course, their “constitutions” can tolerate pain so much better.

As well as a fine cast, director Ron Himes has put together a first-rate production staff, with a fascinating set from Peter and Margery Spack that’s lit beautifully by Joe Clapper. Lamar Harris’ sound design is particularly satisfying, stroking our emotion into openness.

We’re beginning to learn that trauma can create changes embedded in our DNA. Surely seeing something like this helps us understand, if not the how of that, then surely the why.

 

Behind the Sheet

through April 3

The Black Rep

Berges Theater at COCA

6880 Washington Ave, University City

theblackrep.org/

Head over Heels

There’s a (near-riotous) party going on at New Line Theatre. Scott Miller and his merry band have unleashed Head over Heels. Unleashed again, that is. Their first production was stopped in its tracks two years ago this month by the pandemic. Celebrate by heading to the Marcelle Theater and settling in for an evening of fun.

The story is adapted from a 16^th Century romantic novel – whose language, according to people who know about these things, was considered extremely dated even then. There are still some influences of that in Jeff Whitty’s script, which was adapted by James Magruder, but not enough to put off anyone who is willing to flex their ears a little. They’ll be rewarded with a romp.

They won’t have to wait long, either. This is, rather amazingly, a jukebox musical using the music of the Go-Go’s. Cognitive dissonance? Not much. Our first clue is Courtney Gibson and Sarah Porter’s costumes, which are delicious takes on quasi-period threads, with rowdy colors and a fine varied assortment of footwear, plus the greatest use of rick-rack since elementary school pageants in the Fifties. And then there’s the choreography from Michelle Sauer and Sara Rae Womack, dazzling and athletic and in-your-face.

The royal family of Arcadia has two daughters. The hunt is on, of course, for appropriate husbands. The older, Pamela (Grace Langford), is considered the most beautiful girl in the kingdom (of course – the eldest daughter of a king who has no sons?) and rejects suitor after suitor. Philoclea (Melissa Felps) has a devoted swain who is (also naturally) considered totally inappropriate. Dad the King Basilius (Zachary Allen Farmer) isn’t in quite as much charge as he wants us to think, and Queen Gynecia (Carrie Wenos Priesmeyer) can still put her foot down with considerable authority.

After yet another raft of gentleman callers are shown the castle door, there’s a message from Arcadia’s new oracle, Pythio (Tielere Cheatem). Pythio, a non-binary character, wants a meeting, pronto, so the King and his councilor Dametas (Colin Dowd) go deal with the dazzling one. What Pythio says sends the court on a road trip. The lighthearted show also gives us plenty to consider in terms of gender identify, sexual preference and how we think about ourselves.

Lots of good voices here. Langford and Felps as the two princesses can both rock it, and mom Priesmeyer, as well. (Not surprisingly, since the Go-Go’s were an all-female band, the score works particularly well for female voices.) They’ve configured the black box at the Marcelle with audience on both sides and cast entrances from all four corners, so it’s a chance for us to watch actors up close, always fascinating. In a scene very close to the end, Farmer, as the king, has no lines for a long time, but it’s a very emotional time. Watching him from the back, even his ears turned red as the character tried hard to suppress his true feelings. That’s the sort of detail that can make these small venues so rewarding. Watch also the transient expressions on the face of Colin Dowd as Dametas, the counselor, as he deals with the king’s quirks.

Scott Miller, New Line founder, directed this, and he’s hit it out of the park. It’s a good example of the whole new world of musical theatre.

 

Head over Heels

through March 26

New Line Theatre

The Marcelle Theater

3310 Samuel Shepard Dr, St. Louis

newlinetheatre.com/

Fireflies

There’s a hurricane happening in the Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University.

In only 90 minutes, the storm forms, erupts and passes, but The Black Rep gives Donja R. Love’s play Fireflies every possible bit of energy necessary for the full-blast script to leave an audience barely holding on.

It’s late summer 1963. We’re at a home not terribly far away from Birmingham, Alabama. The play opens on the day of the horrible church bombing that killed four innocent girls. Olivia (Zahria Moore) is married to Charles (Eric Connors). He’s a pastor who works for the civil rights movement, a very public face; she writes his speeches and sermons. The stress of their lives is heavy. Calls about young men in jails, a request to speak at the girls’ funeral in Birmingham, the weight of knowing how vulnerable they are in the world they live in – it’s a burden. He’s gone from home often. She coordinates his schedule and pounds out rhetoric on short notice, rhetoric that enhances his already-fiery reputation.

But Olivia seems sort of off-bandwidth. There’s something that isn’t quite right. We aren’t sure if her hearing bombs going off in her head is a metaphor or just what. Writing a letter to a friend, she seems dreamy. Or distracted. Nevertheless, when Charles comes home from an overnight trip, she’s right at it, cooking his supper and trying to humor his eager advances. But beyond the domesticity and the worries about safety because of their participation in the movement, there’s something else. Why is she looking for something in the jacket he shed when he walked in the house?

When Charles begins talking about the bombs Olivia hears, we begin to realize they’re symptoms of the tension she’s feeling. She says she dreamed the fireflies outside were childrens’ souls going off to God. We learn that Charles drinks pretty seriously – and that Olivia is, after many years of marriage, pregnant. But that turns out to be only a start.

Yes, it’s a lot for 90 minutes. It’s packed. The performances of Connors and Moore are mesmerizing. Director Andrea Frye has this storm under precise control – which is to say it doesn’t look like anything but spontaneity. Dunsi Dai’s set is a good part of the work, and the lighting of Sean Savoie is impeccable.

Emotions. Surprises. Great work from the two actors in this very intimate setting.

 

Fireflies

through February 27

The Black Rep

Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University

theblackrep.org/fireflies

 

Good People

To pull oneself up by the bootstraps, one must first have boots. That’s one of the themes of Good People, the David Lindsay-Abaire play brought to us by Stray Dog Theatre.

Margie Walsh, an about-to-be-middle-aged woman in south Boston, is the struggling single mother of a disabled adult daughter. Played by Lavonne Byers, she’s just lost another job, this one as a cashier at a dollar store. She’s tough and brassy but tired, beaten down by life’s repeated smacks upside the head, as her mother probably would have said. The neighborhood known as Southie has been in real life a blue-collar area for several generations – and indeed gained a reputation when violence erupted there because of school desegregation in the mid-Seventies. Her landlady Dottie, Liz Mischel, is also, sort of, her friend and her babysitter. Then there’s her even more raucous pal from high school, Jean, played by Stephanie Merritt, who’s particularly given to egging Margie on. They make quite a trio with their repartee, especially in the first act. No one seems to be hiring and Margie is desperate.

It turns out that one of her school friends, Mike, here Stephen Peirick, she dated for a couple of months, made the transition from Southie to med school. He’s now a reproductive endocrinologist. Margie’s so desperate for a job that she manages to get into his office to see him. She doesn’t put on any airs in the visit, acknowledging she has no idea what kind of a doctor that would be or what she could do in his office, but doesn’t he have something? He doesn’t, and she shames him into an invitation to the birthday party his wife is throwing for him that weekend. Maybe, she says, someone there will have a job for her.

Mike phones to tell her the party is canceled because their daughter is sick, but Margie doesn’t believe him and shows up anyway. High drama ensues.

Byers may have been made for this role. She’s so authentic, it becomes uncomfortable to watch. It certainly is for Peirick’s Mike, who frequently looks as though he wishes he were dealing with the IRS or having his teeth pulled. Instead he’s coping with Margie in front of his wife, the work of Laurell Stevenson, who seems pleasant and mildly interested in their unexpected visitor.

This is the second show that’s in town right now set in eastern Massachusetts and dealing with racism, classism, and probably some sexism, too. It all works, and the accents are mostly very good indeed.

Gary Bell directed, and it was a wise choice to have Margie be bristly instead of merely downtrodden. Josh Smith’s scenic design was versatile and Tyler Duenow did the lighting design. As usual, Justin Been’s sound design was spot on.

Fine ensemble work overall in a play that could descent into soap opera territory but never does. Well played.

 

Good People

through February 26

Stray Dog Theatre

Tower Grove Abbey

2336 Tennessee Avenue

straydogtheatre.org

Stick Fly

Is there anything quite so stinging as rejection from a parent? It brands the soul of a person. No matter how well, over time, it seems to heal, there are permanent gashes. Those who pay attention know that perfectly normal-seeming people can have these internal wounds, people perfectly functional until something makes them surface. Then, deep inside, there’s the quivering child or teenager feeling off-balance just like they used to.

It seems to be a universal phenomenon. I’ve seen a father insult his child in front of the child’s teacher, and an expensively-dressed woman go white as a sheet in Saks Fifth Avenue when her mother delivers a verbal slash. They’ll never be too old not to remember at least some specific incidents of being shoved into the ditch.

Stick Fly, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis’ current offering, courtesy of director Chanel Bragg, takes us to a lovely house on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s been in the possession of a single African-American family for many generations. Now the two grown sons of the current owners are arriving for the weekend, bringing with them the women with whom they’re in serious relationships. The younger son, Spoon or Kent (Richard Fabre), is going to introduce his fiancee, Taylor (Amber Reauchean Williams) to his parents. Flip (DeShawn Harold Mitchell)’s girl, Kimber (Blair Lewin) is white, a fact he tries to explain away beforehand by saying she’s Italian.

Dad Joe (Ron Himes) is a neurosurgeon. Flip’s a plastic surgeon. Spoon has both a law degree and one in business – but, as Dad says, he thinks he can be a writer, and how can you do that if you’re going to start a family and be responsible? Is this the first fly, so to speak, in the ointment? There’s a lot of “I paid for your ______” in Dad’s conversation, we notice. The women’s credentials are pretty good, too, although not outshining the sons; Kimber teaches in an inner city school. Taylor, whose late father was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of books about race. She’s now an entomologist, particularly interested in flies. To add to the mix of the household is the teenaged Cheryl (Bobbi Johnson). Her mother has worked for the family for several decades, but is ill – Cheryl, poised and amiable, is taking her place for the time being and handling the housekeeper role well. The mother of the household is coming in from New York the next day, says dad when the crew arrives, but she never gets there.

Experienced theatre-goers soon begin to wonder where the conflicts are going to arise. The answer is Everywhere. It’s astounding the number of crosscurrents that author Lydia R. Diamond creates. Race, yes, but also class, gender relationships and family, all gradually swirling around each other until the air is frothing. While things are complex, they’re not confusing. Still, I found myself sitting bolt upright at a couple of points wondering what would come next.

Director Bragg has created a well-meshed group of actors. Fabre’s Spoon and Himes’ Joe resonate particularly well, with performances both deep and wide. As Cheryl, Bobbi Johnson is a charmer, showing the poise of an older teen and yet the vulnerability. Strong work, too from Mitchell, Williams and Lewin.

The stage at the Burges Theatre at COCA is deep, and the set from Kyu Shen is a good one, delineating several parts of the house. It does, however, make it difficult for voices to project because of the depth, particularly in the set’s kitchen, where actors are often facing the side or rear walls. (There are several scenes where actors are talking over each other, clearly a script choice, not an accident.) Amina Alexander’s lighting direction helps us move along with the action.

A strong, well-defined piece of work demanding attention and thought with themes both universal and specific. Pretty much a don’t-miss.

 

Stick Fly

through March 6

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

Berges Theater at COCA

6880 Washington Ave, University City

repstl.org/

Iphigenia in Splott

It’s hard not to be intrigued just by the title of Iphigenia in Splott. The smooth, romantic-sounding name, even for someone who never heard of the princess in Greek myth, set upon the thudding single syllable that means – what? Is this a wisp of silk floating above a muddy street?

Actually, that’s batting .500. Upstream Theater’s current offering is about a young woman named Effie whose life is, well, not a struggle, because she doesn’t struggle. She languishes in a barebones existence of a nasty boyfriend, plenty of alcohol and a modicum of pot. She’s angry and defensive against a world that ignores her. Splott is a neighborhood in Cardiff, the capitol of Wales. It, too, languishes in poverty as industrial jobs evaporated and small businesses did, too. The best that can be said for Splott is that it was occasionally mentioned in “Dr. Who”. (Shirley Bassey, who sang “Goldfinger”, is known for being from Tiger Bay, another slum nearby, but moved to Splott when she was 2. Tiger Bay at least got a zippy name.)

Playwright Gary Owen knows whereof he speaks – he has said that Effie’s flat is about 6 doors from where he once lived. Effie is brought to loud, vivid life by Jennifer Theby-­Quinn in a spine-tingling performance. She’s had a hard enough life to operate on the I’ll-strike-first level, even with her boyfriend. She describes her daily existence with an up-yours fervor that takes no prisoners, not even her grandmother, who’s gone back to work at the till of a grocery store to have money to give Effie. Effie doesn’t work, she gives us glisteningly clear descriptions of her hangovers, and lives an altogether purposeless life.

Then she meets a man, a recently-discharged soldier. Perhaps because he, however reluctantly, reveals his vulnerable side to her, it shakes Effie. To her surprise, it warms her, leaves her floating by the time she leaves him the following morning.

But things don’t go well. While the audience isn’t surprised by that, the story winds on, drawing us further and further in. It keeps surprising us. Theby-Quinn gives us 100 minutes, no intermission, of no-holds-barred Effie.

Her Welsh accent is quite good – I had a friend in Cardiff for more than fifty years, visited her when I could, and have heard a fair amount of Welsh citizens speaking English their way. Just like the real thing, it’s occasionally a little unintelligible,. Most of the Britishisms (that phrase may offend any Welsh reading this, for which I apologize) are kept in, like buying things at a cancer shop, which is one kind of resale shop, or the Co-op, where her nan, or grandmother, has gone back to work.

Patrick Siler has orchestrated a fine piece of work using Owen’s script and Theby-Quinn’s talent. The scenic and costume design are from Laila Alvarado, and Joseph W. Clapper did the lighting design along with co-designer and master electrician Tony Anselmo. Kareem Deanes created the sound design, subtle but very effective. And Teresa Doggett – who is originally from Wales – is the dialect coach whose efforts show so well.

Not an easy, comfortable piece of work but for those prepared to be almost blown out of their seat, it’s a remarkable experience. And not for the kiddies.

 

Iphigenia from Splott

through February 6

Upstream Theater

The Marcelle Theater

3310 Samuel Shepard Drive

upstreamtheater.org

The Prom

The PTA is upset because the school is going against “community standards”.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – but don’t, because you probably haven’t. The Prom, currently at the Fox, probably wasn’t intended as quite such a contemporary protest against They’re-Not-Like-Us thinkers. But it turns out to be. It’s not a perfect show. But, good grief, is it fun!

It opens on a cast party on opening night for a musical about Eleanor Roosevelt (yes), all glitter and laughter as they wait on the early reviews. When The New York Times pretty much eviscerates them, the show closes immediately, leaving the cast at loose ends. For reasons that are less than altruistic, they decide they will go to a small town in Indiana where a prom has been canceled because of homophobia. They will set those people, uh, unstraight.

The show is full of show-biz cliches – the diva, the wildly un-closeted gay man, the agent tearing his hair out – but it all fits perfectly. Despite the delay in opening The Prom here because of cast COVID problems, and substitutions to what’s in the program, things opening night seemed extremely smooth. The boldface names were understudies that went on. Ashley Bruce is Dee Dee Allen, the biggish-name diva who’s now unemployed. Is there anything at all beneath her cooly driven exterior and her ego? A subtle, strong performance. Barry Glickman, who was Franklin to Dee Dee’s Eleanor, comes to us via Patrick Wetzel. Wetzel is a particular delight, mugging and hoofing his way through adversity. Coming to Indiana with them are Angie Dickinson (no, not that one), played by Emily Borromeo, with a sad story about her time in the cast of Chicago, and, Jordan Alexander as Trent Oliver, who never lets anyone, including the high school students, forget he went to Julliard. Good stuff, too, from both of them. (The photo above shows Patrick Wetzel and Emily Borromeo.  Courtney Balan in the glittery gown and Bud Weber in the waiter's jacket, also shown, were not able to perform opening night.)

The young, out student Emma is Kaden Kearney, quiet and sad and angry – even their singing voice reflects their stress. Their main ally is the high school principal, played by Christopher McCrewell, the sort of school administrator some of us knew and some of us could only dream of. Mitchell carries it off with elan. Their nemesis is the head of the PTA, here Ashanti J’Aria, strong but not shrill despite her fingers-in-the-ears approach to things.

It’s a very funny show, with jokes that are both expected and un-, like a reference to Indiana sugar pie. Much of that is due to director Casey Nicholaw’s pacing of things. He also choreographed the show, and the snappy dancing is a great contribution to the fun. Scott Pask’s scenic design runs from a faux Sardi’s to a monster truck rally and handles it all perfectly, especially the motel. And a particular shout-out to Josh Marquette whose hair design gives us both the good stuff and the awful, the latter being some of the high school girls’ hair. Hazardous duty pay for both Marquette and the actors is suggested.

And just by the way, there’s a lot of St. Louis connections here. Among the producers are Jack Lane, Terry Schnuck, Ken and Nancy Kranzberg and Fox Associates.

Tolerance. Acceptance. We all belong. Pretty radical stuff these days. A satisfying two hours and 25 minutes.

 

The Prom

through February 6

Fox Theatre

527 N. Grand Blvd.

314-534-1111

fabulousfox.com/

A Christmas Carol

How satisfying is it when a classic you knew and went to see merely out of a sense of duty turns out to be almost thrilling?

Stand back: Here comes A Christmas Carol.

Of course the original is wonderful – the book, I mean. Just the scene of the Cratchit’s Christmas dinner alone is enough to make someone (ahem) read it aloud even though there’s no one else at home. The play has been done time and time again.

Forget that. Go to the Rep and fall into a wonderful semi-post-Victorian lushness. Yeah, sure, it’s grimy London and the fog machine is doing its thing. But the version brought to us by artistic director Hana Sharif is a sight to behold. Costumes. Music. Choreography. Add to that talented acting and charming kids, and pat yourself on the back for choosing to go.

The Rep has partnered with COCA to bring in young pre-professionals who auditioned for the show – there are two separate casts of them to spread the fun out. They’re a delight and perform up to the standards expected on this stage. Our Scrooge is Guiesseppe Jones, a little fierier and more agile than the average miser. His inevitable warming at the end gives out a more believable glow than usual, too. Armando McClain is the long-suffering Bob Cratchit, playing the role with more subtlety than is often seen in the saintly father.

One of the first clues that this isn’t the same old thing comes when Scrooge is awakened the morning of Christmas Eve by his housekeeper, and it’s Michael James Reed in drag, saluting the old tradition of the British Christmas pantomime. Reed also plays Jacob Marley. There’s quite a bit of multiple role casting here; J. Samuel Davis is one of the charity solicitors and a delightful Fezziwig, for instance, and Raffeal Sears charms as both nephew Fred and Scrooge as a younger man.

Tre’von Griffith, music director, gives us some wonderful harmony from the group, and Kirven Douthit-Boyd’s choreography ranges from modern dance to hip-hop. There’s plenty of song and dance without it actually being a musical, things moving along rather organically. It happens on a set that takes full advantage of what the Rep has, from the brick wall in the back to pop-ups downstage, using Tim Mackabee’s handsome work. Costumes designed by Dede Ayite work particularly well given the sets – pay particular attention to what the Spirit of Christmas Present is wearing.

An eminently satisfying evening, enough to keep even a critic from muttering, “Humbug!”

 

 

 

 

A Christmas Carol

through December 23

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts

130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves

repstl.org/

A Piece of My Heart

Full disclosure: It’s hard for me to be completely neutral about A Piece of My Heart. It’s a story about nurses and other women who served in Vietnam during that war. That was my generation of nurses. Several of my original classmates enlisted. I don’t know their stories. The stories I did hear – I was off raising children – were from GIs who returned home and much later shared their stories of both the war and the aftermath.

The aftermath is very much a part of A Piece of My Heart. In fact, it’s the entire second half. Women weren’t as apt to be spat on as men, I suspect – and what idiot in some national media outlet said they suspected it was an urban legend, since there were no documented cases? [There were. Many.] – but there were far more consequences afterwards than that. Far more.

All these women we encounter before they begin the adventure that will take them to Southeast Asia. Steele (Patience Davis) is career Army. MaryJo (Chelsie Johnston) is in an all-girl singing group that’s moved to LA to make it big. Whitney (Annalise Webb) comes from a wealthy family and an Ivy League college. Martha (Mara Bollini)’s an Army brat, and Leeann (Vicky Chen) and Sissy (Madison Jackson) meet in nursing school. There are, obviously, men around, too, Shane Signorino as a multitude of them.

If you missed the Vietnam War because you were too young, you may find the play too melodramatic. It’s condensed experience – but it doesn’t exaggerate. I cannot compare it to subsequent ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I knew nurses from World War II and Korea, and Vietnam was a totally different experience. Whitney goes to work for the Red Cross and becomes a donut dolly, as the slang goes, and MaryJo is with the USO. Steele does intelligence work. All different experiences, all some very heavy lifting.

Thomas Wolfe must have been cited a lot back then – maybe you arrive at the place where you were raised, where your family is, but you can’t completely go home again. You change, “home”, whatever that is, changes. Wrestling with that is not so dramatic, but it’s hard not to be taken back to what Agent Orange did to families, not just the vets, or how PTSD didn’t manifest itself immediately.

Playwright Shirley Lauro has given us a memorable collection of characters, and WEPG cast them well. Davis and Signorino give particularly good performances for director Dani Mann.

Unlike the Depression or World War II or COVID, the Vietnam War influenced American society slowly, stealthily. In this time when our attention is diverted in so many other ways, a reminder about war isn’t at all out of line. A Piece of My Heart is a good chance to learn or remember.

If this is your first time at this venue, there’s a good-sized parking lot behind, and the entrance is back there as well.

A Piece of My Heart

through December 19

West End Players Guild

Union Avenue Christian Church

733 Union Boulevard

www.WestEndPlayers.org

Comfort

Comfort really isn’t a comfortable play. Coming from the pen of Neil LaBute, that shouldn’t surprise us. LaBute always looks at the uncomfortable parts of human nature, and his newest play falls right into line. This, written before COVID and having its world premiere at St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s home base, the Gaslight Theater, is a particularly remarkable piece of work, giving us human pathology with a near-singular quality of wickedness. It’s a play that asks a lot of its two actors. Kari Ely and Spencer Sickmann deliver in spades.

Iris (Ely) has very little about her that’s sympathetic. She’s a writer with a fabulous career who believes she deserves every bit of it. She disdains anyone who isn’t perfect. That includes about everyone except herself. It particularly includes her son and his father, whom she divorced as soon as the royalty checks began. She has, to use an old Flannery O’Connor line, no pleasure but in meanness. Iris makes me think about Tennessee Williams going to work on the character of Lady Macbeth

Iris repeatedly says that she hated being a wife and a mother, and was glad custody of their son Cal (Sickmann) went to her ex-husband, a high school teacher who wrote a little himself. Is it any surprise that Cal turned out to have a tongue far beyond the serpent’s tooth? She frequently brings up the money she’s given him for various things and how whatever he tries to do, he’s not enough of a success.

She excuses her nasty remarks by saying she’s “being honest”. So is Cal when she pushes his buttons – those ones she installed herself. The battle ebbs and flows. He tries to give as good as he takes, but Iris is made of iron. It’s amazing seeing the vitriol come out of a suburban matron with a polite, well-modulated voice – if Iris is iron, Ely playing her is steel. Sickmann, though, holds his ground, and the battle remains joined. There are splendid performances, rough and tough, yet nuanced.

Annamaria Pileggi directed the play – one has the feeling it might be more like being an orchestra conductor, considering the sweep of emotion, and keeps thing just as tight as they ought to be. Patrick Huber’s set and lighting design fit right in, the upper-class home of someone who didn’t care about homemaking but could afford to hire a decorator.

The script will almost certainly undergo more work before it hits any boards in New York, and it could use some tightening. But it’s very close to the precipice of greatness, aided by the excellent work of Ely and Sickmann, and Iris could well be one of those roles that actress itch to be cast in.

 

Comfort

through December 19

St. Louis Actors’ Studio

Gaslight Theatre

358 N. Boyle Ave.

314-458-2978

stlas.org/

Tinseltown

One of the great unheralded pleasures of small theatre is small venues. The Midnight Company’s new show Tinseltown is working at the .ZACK. There are times when the black box there isn’t a good fit for a show, the sort of thing that happens with many venues due to many things. But here we have a very fine match.

Tinseltown is a new play from Midnight’s co-founder and artistic director Joe Hanrahan, under the subheading “3 short plays 24 hours in L.A.” It’s a two-hander, with Hanrahan and frequent collaborator Ellie Schwettye as various residents, either permanent or temporary, of LaLa Land.

There’s a thread running through it about a movie that is being proposed, but that’s merely an excuse for some interesting work by two accomplished actors. Schwetye is a fading diva, a musician and a director; Hanrahan is an agent, a musician and a fading British actor. Fine work from both of them, not just the broad stuff in terms of physical comedy but more subtle things. And that brings us to the venue. This is a perfect situation for taking advantage of the small venue. Sit close and watch the actors work. Look at faces when they’re not speaking. Watch what the hands and shoulders do. It’s a great way to understand how deeply actors can go into their characters, fascinating stuff.

The show is fun – I think the second of the three plays is the weakest link, but even it has that same watch-the-magic feeling. The excellent acting takes place in a physical world created by Erik Kuhn, who did the minimalist set and lighting design and Michael Musgrave-Perkins’ video design. (Perkins has done quite a lot with Midnight, including the lovely A Model for Matisse.)

Rachel Tibbetts directed, keeping good pacing and a feeling of freshness despite what might be considered some cliched situtaions. Fine work there, too.

It’s an opportunity to see something new, see some fine work and to really watch what happens in theatre.

 

Tinseltown

Midnight Theatre Company

through December 18

.ZACK

3224 Locust St.

https://www.midnightcompany.com/

Who's Holiday

Cindy Lou who?

Don’t give me that blank look. You know perfectly well the little girl who tried to steal our hearts in The Grinch…. Yes, the now-classic children’s Christmas book/television special/Jim Carey movie/animatedmovie. That one. Whatever happened to Cindy Lou? Surely you’ve asked yourself that question practically every holiday season.

Or not. Our girl has had a hard life by the time she resurfaces in Who’s Holiday, a play by William Lombardo. It’s part of the (fairly) long tradition of rowdy R-rated Christmas offerings from Stray Dog Theatre. (Gary Bell, the founder/artistic director: “There’s already a lot out there for families. We just thought we’d do something different.”) It’s a one-Who show, with Cindy Lou being played by Sarah Polizzi for most of the run. For two days in the last week of the run, Sarajane Alverson takes over the role, but given the wackiness of Cindy Lou, that somehow feels par for the course.

Our heroine, living in what appears to be a small trailer as we meet her, is bravely preparing to host a Christmas Eve gathering. It’s a long (well, not that long; running time is a little over 90 minutes), sad and rather sordid story of what happened after she became a teenager. But it’s pretty funny, make no mistake. It’s certainly not for kiddies or the easily offended. Language? Yes. Content? Yes. Politically incorrect, or at least sociologically? Oh, definitely yes. So don’t bring the kiddies or anyone whose social mores you don’t know well.

Polizzi has a terrific time as Cindy Lou, make no mistake. She’s rowdy, bawdy, outspoken – but still has a soft side, clearly. Josh Smith’s mobile home interior rings very true, and Megan Bates’ work as costume designer works splendidly. Gary F. Bell directs this little askew bijou of a show, which is not for the fainthearted or easily offended, but ready to let fly with plenty of zingers. In fact, the play was the subject of a lawsuit from Dr. Seuss Enterprises, citing copyright infringement. The estate lost. While the dialogue is delivered in couplets very Seussian, which certainly does add to the amusement, one could scarcely mistake this for The Real Thing.

Have a couple of eggnogs first and prepare to be entertained.

 

Who’s Holiday

through December 18, 2021

Stray Dog Theatre

Tower Grove Abbey

2336 Tennessee Ave.

straydogtheatre.org

Pretty Woman the Musical

Maybe you had to have been there.

The Fox has reopened for the first time since the shutdown last spring. The air on opening night was full of excitement. The Fox is requiring full vaccination or a recent COVID test – the latter can even be done by a nearby testing site, and purchasing tickets leads to a site where one uploads a photo of one’s vaccine card, followed by a text with a link to a website that says in large, easy to read type CONFIRMED, along with more specific details. That gets shown to the folks at the door before proceeding to the ticket-takers. Doors are opening an hour before curtain, to help with the slower entrance process.

People were cranked up to see Pretty Woman the Musical. Some good performances, though, aren’t enough to save this show.

Why base a musical on a film that had a pretty weak script but two big-name stars, Julia Roberts and Richard Gere? Sheer economics. Broadway musicals are where the audiences and thus the money are. Straight plays don’t run as long and draw as well. The tourist crowd gravitates toward musicals, and it’s proven that recognizable names now do better than all-new material, with some Hamiltonian exceptions. So using a movie that people knew, even one from 1990, seemed like a logical idea. The play opened in 2018. Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance wanted the score to riff on late ‘80’s rock.

The basic concept of prettying up a hard, ugly, dangerous, illegal way of life is what the show starts out with. That’s part of the Cinderella/My Fair Lady concept the script is based on, but neither Cinderella nor Eliza Dolittle had to avoid getting beaten up by customers or had pals with track marks. It needs to rise above that. In today’s society, that’s hard to do.

So here we have Vivian (Olivia Valli) from Milledgeville, GA, who is sort of new to this kind of thing meeting Edward, rich, successful, wealthy family, etc., on a park bench. He wants to rent her, for an emotion-free evening, and then decides that this kid from the country, still with lots of raw edges, is just the thing for the week he’s in town doing billion-dollar deals. No, he’s not keeping her in the penthouse – he wants her on his arm, thinking that the right clothes will be enough to turn her into a lovely but otherwise unremarkable companion. Riiight. Director Jerry Mitchell’s concept of her rube-ness is unnervingly broad – she shakes hands like she’s pumping a well, for instance. One wishes there were more chemistry between the two but given the size of the Fox, that may be a function of the sheer size of the venue and how futile subtle onstage gestures can be..

The strength in the production comes from some of the secondary characters. Kyle Taylor Parker first appears as Happy Man, one of the street people, and then reappears as Mr. Thompson, the manager of the ultra-swanky hotel where Edward is ensconced. As the dignified boss, he’s particularly delightful, fixing a knowing eye on Vivian, then befriending her, including a dance lesson that’s one for the ages. Bellman Giulio (Michael Vincent Taylor) does a great job with very broad physical comedy. Between the two of them, they make the hotel Happy Town. When Edward takes Vivian to hear la Traviata, there’s an unexpected treat with part of an aria of Violetta’s coming courtesy of Amma Osei, bringing shrieks and applause from the crowd, well deserved.

David Rockwell’s scenic design was just as fine as he always delivers, of course, but it was handsomely exhibited thanks to Kenneth Posner and Phillip S. Rosenberg’s lighting design, with particularly delicious colors. The score is deeply unremarkable aside from the Verdi insertion and the waited-for appearance of the great Roy Orbison song of the same name. That happens at the end of the show, and, strange to say, was not added until some months after the show opened.

Much work involved in trying to save this show. It has its moments. But on the whole, it’s time to try again.

 

Pretty Woman

through November 28, 2021

Fox Theatre

527 N. Grand Blvd.

314-534-1111

fabulousfox.com

Jake's Women

Moonstone Theatre Company begins its onstage life with Neil Simon’s Jake’s Women at the new Kirkwood Performing Arts Center. Among the amazingly prolific Simon’s plays – almost half his work was screenplays, which we tend to forget – this is one of the lesser-known.

Jake (Jeff Cummings) is a pretty successful writer, complete with a nice apartment in Manhattan and a beach house in the Hamptons. At the moment, he’s going through a rough patch, not quite the classic writer’s block but it’s a struggle to put the right words on the page. Writing, he says rather defensively, is fun. (Well sometimes. What’s really fun is having written. But who am I to argue with someone who made that much money from writing?) Right now, though, not so much.

One of the things he does to prime his intellectual pump is to have imaginary dialogues with the people in his life. His sister Karen (Sharon Hunter), for instance, or his therapist, Edith (Jennie Brick), seem to be the ones he talks to the most. In his head, of course. We, of course, see them.

Jake is married to Maggie (Jennifer Theby Quinn), a Midwesterner who’s seemingly rather younger than he. The marriage is on rocky ground as things crumble before our eyes. What now? Jake’s daughter Molly(Carly Uding as the college senior Molly, Amelie Lock as the 12-year-old Molly) is living with them, which complicates thing. Jake, you see, is a widower. Molly’s mother Julie (Marisa Puller) was killed in an accident, and she, too, is someone that appears in his thoughts.

These appearances are something he evokes deliberately – at first. As his distress at the marital problems increases, they seem increasingly to occur unbidden. Yes, it’s a Simon play, which means there are some funny lines. But there’s also serious distress here, including a scene that Cummings pulls off beautifully with a woman he’s dating (Mindy Shaw) and his estranged wife’s – well, at this point it doesn’t seem to be his imaginary dialogue with her as much as it is her ghost, even though she’s alive. Or perhaps it’s a true psychotic break. It could be seen either way, but it’s very well done on the part of all three.

Some very touching work, too, from Uding and Puller as the now-deceased mother and Jake’s evoked memory of their daughter as they meet in his memory despite his fighting against it.

It’s mostly not difficult to tell if each woman’s appearance on stage is the real person (except obviously for the late wife and the younger version of the daughter) or Memorex, to evoke a very old advertisement, but overall it’s not what one expects from Neil Simon, even under the expert eye of director Edward Coffield, an old hand with Simon scripts. Nevertheless, it’s skillfully acted, Dunsi Dai’s scenic design is nicely minimalist, and Michael Sullivan’s lights play on the memory concept very well. The music, particularly before the play opens, is perfect at evoking the time period.

Moonstone is welcomed to the St. Louis theatre community and long may they give us pleasure.

 

Jake’s Women

through November 21^st

Moonstone Theatre Company

Kirkwood Performing Arts Center

210 E. Monroe, Kirkwood

314-821-9956

moonstonetheatrecompany.com/

IT IS MAGIC

Is IT IS MAGIC too much inside baseball, so to speak, for people who don’t live in the world of live theatre? Well, no, not unless this is your first time ever to go to a play. I admit, having experienced it, it’s difficult to explain to an adolescent whose world of entertainment is entirely on screens of one sort or another just why live theatre is so remarkable. And to some minds, watching the worst of special effects is preferable to seeing humans on a stage. (I’m thinking of finding some of those very early Japanese Godzilla-type films and making them endure that if they’re so convinced of the superiority of technology.)

No, trust me on this. The Midnight Company is back in the groove with a bang showing off this Halloween-y play by Mickle Maher. We’re in the basement of the Martier Civic Playhouse. On the main floor, the Scottish play is about to open. Here, there are auditions going on for an adult version of The Three Little Pigs. It’s a new play written by a first-time playwright, who is also directing it, and who works in the office at the civic center. She loves, loves, loves theatre, but is clearly an amateur. In fact, as it turns out, she doesn’t remember the name of the play opening tonight, or why no one will say its name. (If you don’t, either, here’s an explanation from folks who really know.)

But that’s just an aside. Deb (Michelle Hand), the playwright-director is casting the big role, the Wolf, and Tim (Carl Overly, Jr.) has been called back three times now because Deb just can’t make a decision. Moreover, Tim’s going to need to leave in a few minutes because he’s playing Second Murderer upstairs, thus his kilt. Sitting by Deb is her sister Sandy (Nicole Angeli), her head on the table, looking bored out of her mind. Or so we think. But it turns out that Deb wants the role. Badly.

Finally Deb lets Tim go, after picking his audition to pieces yet again and after the curtain upstairs has risen, in comes the artistic director for the whole place, Ken Mason (Joe Hanrahan). In other hands, either another author or another theatre company, this could have been the sort of character Gig Young played, rather sophisticated, slightly jaded, a martini in one hand and a cigarette holder in the other. Hanrahan’s much grittier Mason announces he can never stand to be in the room once the curtain goes up and he has to be elsewhere. Jaded? Like a piece from the Ming Dynasty. Forget the romance of theatre, much less the magic, it’s all he can do to be civil to the patrons in their khakis and chunky bracelets (and crocheted shawls, don’t forget the shawls) who keep things afloat with their donations. Of course, he poo-poohs Deb’s excitement, even though he has agreed to let her do the play the following season. The best that can be said is that he’s not condescending He’s just bluntly negative down to the point of complaining about the seats in the theater.

Somewhere in here, the play moves from satire into...another dimension. It’s very subtle at first. A woman named Elizabeth (Chrissie Watkins) comes into the basement, remarking that she knows the sisters “from somewhere”. Odd things begin to happen. And off we go.

This is really excellent ensemble work from all concerned. Director Suki Peters has orchestrated them like a piece of chamber music. Overly is a delight, throwing himself – repeatedly – into the Wolf audition, Angeli practically rending her garments with frustration and Hand leaning into the wonderfully overstated director’s role. Hanrahan switches back and forth between despair and the occasional encouragement faster than blinking, and Watkins at times felt like someone out of Star Trek with her electricity.

Kevin Bowman’s lighting comes into its own in the second half of the play – he did the set design as well – and the very subtle-at-first sound is the work of Ted Drury. Liz Henning did the costuming, including the Second Murderer’s outfit, which looks very au courant in certain circles.

Fascinating stuff, like so much Midnight Company does, but much twistier than one thinks at first.

IT IS MAGIC

through November 6

The Midnight Company

Kranzberg Black Box

501 N. Grand

tickets at https://www.metrotix.com/

https://www.midnightcompany.com/

Blue/Orange

Blue/Orange is the sort of play it’s hard for me to be neutral about. It’s set in a hospital, and some readers may know that for many years I worked as an RN. Nearly all that time was spent in acute-care settings rather than outpatient ones. I’m the sort of person it’s easy to imagine snarling at a television show, “Put the side rails up on that _____ bed!” or “His IV is hooked up to his catheter bag, for heaven’s sake!” As Gary Trudeau wrote in Doonesbury, “GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY!”

Granted, Blue/Orange set in London, so it deals with the National Health scheme, socialized medicine. And it’s twenty years old, but that really isn’t a factor in the story or its details. It’s a story of a patient and his physicians. Christopher (William Humphrey) is about to be discharged tomorrow. After a mandated 28 day stay, he’s wildly ready to hit the bricks. “Wildly” is not too strong a word. If this is how his behavior is after four weeks of medication and talk therapy, one can only imagine what he was like on admission. He’s very manicky. In the interview with his psychiatrist, who seems in American medical parlance to be the equivalent of a senior resident or perhaps a fellow, he can barely be talked into sitting down. The doctor, Bruce Flaherty (Jason Meyers), is clearly hesitant about sending him home, feeling he’s not ready, but is equally uncomfortable telling him, probably because Christopher’s temper can erupt on a dime. Or a farthing.

Oh, my, look who’s dropping by mid-session. It’s Dr. Robert Smith (Ben Ritchie), the attending psychiatrist and Bruce’s boss. At first the relationship isn’t quite clear – they’ve obviously socialized together, Smith dining with Bruce and his wife, and the men have gone to a rugby game together with a pint or three at a local afterward. Now they’re about to butt heads, because Dr. Smith wants Christopher (who appears to have no surname) out so they can use the bed for someone else. Bruce is trying to politely make the case that the patient is nowhere near ready to unleash on the unsuspecting public of Shepherd’s Bush, the rather rough area of London where he came to the attention of authorities.

Christopher is Black. He has complained to Bruce in the past of feeling that he was being observed and judged because of that, and the language he has used to describe himself in such situations is derogatory. Smith is of the opinion that – to condense it considerably – standards of behavior are different for other ethnic groups and that should be kept in mind, so Christopher is fine to go. Nope, says Bruce, and asks Christopher to pick up an orange from a fruit bowl nearby and describe it. The orange, says Christopher – who clearly is bored by going through this yet another time – is blue. Blue inside, too. Disagreement breaks out. Christopher is asked to step out for more disagreement to take place.

Dr. Smith interviews Christopher alone. It goes well for a while; then that disintegrates to some degree, too, after he explains that he’s the son of Idi Amin. (Interestingly, Joe Penhall, the playwright spent six years working on the film The Last King of Scotland, about Amin, after he wrote this play.)

The next morning, Bruce has just left a disciplinary hearing because of what Christopher has said about him to Smith. Smith arrives, followed by Christopher, dressed to go home.

I’ll leave it at that.

Christopher, as brought to us by William Humphrey, is very real. It’s splendid work, showing someone internally tortured by some process whose clinical name is being argued over by the other two men. It’s the behavior of the aforesaid pair that is, while essential to the play, totally utterly unreal. Much of the disagreement over his diagnosis, his facts, his future would never be done in front of a patient – or a “client”, to use the currently fashionable if rather inaccurate term. There’s a great deal of racism on display, which certainly is part of the point of the play, and some quite tasteless sexism about Bruce’s wife early on, although nothing compared to the racism. Ritchie and Meyers carry on with their arguments with considerable elan, but must of necessity take a back seat to Humphrey’s activities, both verbal and physical.

It’s a harrowing evening. Justin Been, Stray Dog’s assistant artistic director, directed the play and did the set and the music. (Stray Dog always has really excellent music for their non-musicals; pay attention when you go.) He’s orchestrated things beautifully. Just be prepared to be slapped around a little by the ugliness of two educated, professional, white males.

 

Blue/Orange

through October 23

Stray Dog Theatre

Tower Grove Abbey

2336 Tennessee Ave.

straydogtheatre.org

The Gradient

Yet another premiere comes to St. Louis with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis’s production of The Gradient. It’s a slightly futuristic idea about a company that uses algorithms to treat men who’ve exhibited sexual misconduct.

Steph Del Rosso’s play gives us a strong, very controlled Natalia (Christina Acosta Robinson), who’s one of the directors of the program, and a young, newly hired counselor Tess (Stephanie Machado) to show us how this works. It’s an inpatient treatment program, although it’s not clear whether it’s voluntary or whether people are placed there by court order. Therapy at the facility seems to be a very assertive interaction that enlarges on traditional methods, confronting the clients and not holding back. It’s all based on algorithms.

Those clients are played by Stephen Cefalu, Jr. and Yousof Sultani. Cefalu inhabits eight different characters in a series of blackouts that is remarkable, and very funny. Sultani is Jackson, a single, pivotal character. William Demerrit plays the sole male employee we see, who only works behind the scenes.

The criteria for a man to be discharged from the program, or to graduate if that’s a more palatable word, are rather vague. One of them, though, is an apology. In the (only available online here ) program, director Amelia Acosta Powell, the Rep’s associate artistic director, she talks about “performative utterance”, a act of speaking that alters reality, and asks if apologies are performative utterances. Do they alter reality? Or are they merely performances? Apologies, real or not, really don’t alter reality. We measure reality by behavior. An apology, however articulate it sounds, is worthless if there is no change in both the apologizer and what they do in the future. Sometimes it’s hard to judge the latter factor, certainly, but behavior is really the primary criteria.

How are they assessing whether a client really does regret what they did? How do they judge whether he understands why the behavior was wrong? It’s particularly relevant in the case of Jackson, Tess’ client who is just a little too smooth. The faint sheen of oiliness soon begins to appear.

Somewhere in the program, the play is described as a satire. In another note, the play’s described as portraying a cure for toxic behavior. Perhaps that’s the satire. While there are some very funny moments, it feels not-funny. Nevertheless, this is a beautifully put together piece of work, from the acting to Carolyn Mraz’ set and Mextly Couzin’s lighting.

It was clearly intended to be disconcerting, and it does just that.

 

The Gradient

through October 24

Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

Berges Theater at COCA

6880 Washington Ave, University City

https://www.repstl.org/

The Story of My Life

It was a daring move for New Line Theatre to open this season, of all years, with a play about someone writing a eulogy. Too many of us have had to do that, too many of us have thought we might have to do that, too many of us have thought, Oh, God, please don’t ask me to do that. It’s been a stinking couple of years, but the fact that someone was brave enough to think it was material for a play, two someones in this case, book by Brian Hill, music and lyrics by Neil Bartram, is impressive. Scott Miller, New Line’s founder and artistic director, is well known for his fearless approach to what he stages, and once again we have him grabbing life, giving it a good shake and holding it up for inspection.

Jeffrey Wright plays Tom Weaver a successful writer from a small town, and Chris Kernan is Alvin Kelby, his friend from childhood, the son of the town’s bookstore owner. Plenty of cultural references here, not surprisingly, from It’s a Wonderful Life to Tom Sawyer and on to adult magazines, set things pretty firmly in the near-present. Interestingly, the writer is the mainstream guy; his pal is the one who seemed to wander around with his head in the clouds. Tom is tasked with writing a eulogy for Alvin, who appears not as a ghost but as a character in Tom’s head, reminiscing over the past.

But the focus is not on deciding what to say and what not to say in the eulogy. The focus is on Tom’s success and his writer’s block. He was blocked before Alvin’s death, and he’s still blocked as he tries this. Success has gradually turned him into rather a sod, despite his old friend’s continuing affection for him.

Wright turns in a fine performance as Tom Weaver, and Chris Kernan is easy and natural as the hometown guy. Miller is at the keyboard, styling himself “The New Line Pandemic Band”. He directed the show, too. I particularly liked “Mrs. Remington”, a nice tribute to teachers.

Rob Lippert’s set is a delight, as his often are. Lights come from Kenneth Zinkl, and the props masters – there are a lot of books on the set – is Alison Helmer.

All that said, this is a script that badly needs tightening. It runs about 90 minutes without intermission, but another 10 minutes of editing would benefit things immensely. And I do wish it had focused more directly on the creation of eulogies in general, at least in passing. A tip of the black hat to those who have had to write them.

 

The Story of My Life

through October 23

New Line Theatre

Marcelle Theater

3310 Samuel Shepard Drive

www.NewLineTheatre.com

Jersey Boys

I wasn’t able to see the new venue, the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, until the opening of Jersey Boys from Stages St. Louis. The theater is an absolute winner. Sight lines are good, acoustics are good, and to my immense delight, there’s room for live musicians. It’s quite a lovely building, with parking in several places, including the two lots at Greentree Church. (For any newcomers, St. Louisans, city dwellers and suburbanites, are always concerned about parking.)

Jersey Boys is, to me, the best of the jukebox musicals. There’s an actual story line in there and while it’s not completely accurate in an historic sense - “It’s a play, not a documentary,” snapped someone years ago – it’s close enough to make dramatic sense. And the score is great fun, even if these guys weren’t your absolute favorites at the time the songs were popular. It’s the background music of a lot of those who come to see the show around the world.

I suspect in another couple of decades these shows won’t be done except occasionally as Broadway revivals because the target audiences won’t be around. Gloomy? Realistic? Either way, it’s a secondary kick in the pants for people to go see Stages’ version. Secondary? Yes, because this one is strong enough to stand on its own merits, despite a few quibbles here and there.

The first reason to go is the music, especially the harmony of the group in various iterations. It sounds right, just like it should. The visuals are fun, from the versatile set from James Wolk, which manages to go from jail to a concert stage without breaking a sweat, to the costumes, the awfulness of shiny suits, bouffant petticoats and more courtesy of Brad Musgrove. (How is it that the narrow-as-an-arrow ties still manage to look great, though?)

And then there are the players, all well matched. The Four Seasons themselves, Frankie Valli (Christopher Kale Jones), Nick Massi (Jason Michael Evans), Tommy DeVito (Brent Michael DiRoma) and Bob Gaudio (Ryan Jesse) have different personalities and there’s no question about which is which. DeVoto’s ego, Massi’s pondering whether to start his own group, Gaudio’s composing talent and Valli’s drive delineate them from start to finish. Jones, who at times looks a little like Bobby Darin, to evoke another pop star from the mid-20th Century, is a charmer. At times, his solo work moves from sounding very much like Valli to something close to a country music style, which I assume is a choice of director Michael Hamilton. It’s solely the call of the listening ear as to how this comes across, of course.

Fun from the supporting cast, too, such as Jenna Coker Jones, who plays Frankie’s girlfriend and then wife as well as his mother. She is, in fact, married to Christopher Kale Jones, and they met at Stages. Two local actors fill a long list of roles, and it’s great fun watching John Flack and Steve Isom pop up many times in deep disguise. Isom’s transformation as Gyp DeCarlo, the local leader of the mob, is particularly remarkable. It took a little while to identify him. Maybe the Critics Circle needs to consider a category of Quick Change Artist.

A final tip of the hat to the band, who occupies the top third or so of the stage. Under the direction of Jeremy Jacobs, they’re a most welcome addition to the Stages experience.

Seriously good fun.

 

Jersey Boys

through October 24

Stages St. Louis

210 E. Monroe, Kirkwood

314-821-2407

https://stagesstlouis.org/jersey-boys/

Elsinore

Another premiere of a new play in town? Yes, Elsinore comes to us via Prison Performing Arts. Their alumni group, aided by some professional actors, shows off The Chapel’s improved acoustics with this play from David Nonemaker and Eric Satterfield.

It’s the prequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, taking us from Hamlet’s adolescence forward. Shakespeare scholars argue over just how old Hamlet would have been at his demise – sorry if that’s a spoiler, but at least it’s not occurring in this play – but Elsinore covers about fourteen years. And if it does nothing else, it offers an explanation of why Hamlet’s mother and his uncle marry soon after his father’s death. Yeah, it’s always creeped me out, too.

When Elsinore opens, our hero the adolescent Hamlet (Oliver Bacus) has come to his uncle Claudius (Eric Satterfield – one of the authors), full of fire and fury over how his father treats him. He’s not interested, he whines, in settling down and learning how to be a king, he wants to follow his own Best Life. Uncle and nephew truly seem to have a close relationship and when Claudius suggests some time at university for the prince, that seems to be a possible answer. King Hamlet (John Wolbers), ye olde father, whose irritation at his son seems a mile wide and equally deep does agree reluctantly to shipping the young one off. Queen Gertrude (LaWanda Jackson) is more sympathetic to the boy, but can’t do much because of her husband’s bad temper and sharp tongue. And so we have the basic setup, aided by Claudius’ wife Colette (Julie Antonic), pregnant with a much-wanted child, courtier Polonius (David Nonemaker – and here’s the other author), Polonius’ daughter Ophelia (Summer Baer), and the ever-popular Rosekranz (Ryan Lawson-Maeske) and Guildenstern (Joey File), here in the employ of Claudius and sent off to school on his dime to keep an eye on the impulsive prince.

For all its serious ancestry, there’s certainly some humor here. Wolbers’ King Hamlet is mostly, and seemingly quite deliberately, over the top, making us even more sympathetic to the young prince. (And doesn’t it bring vague memories of a similar situation the world may have heard about a few decades ago?) The Nonemaker take on Polonius is a long-winded sycophant with the most deadpan face imaginable. Ophelia, courtesy of Summer Baer and the script, is a Modern Young Woman, interested in learning and willing to speak her mind when encouraged. And File and Lawson-Maeske bring the dynamic duo of R&G to the point of near-giggles.

The language, while Shakespeare-esque, isn’t so hard to follow as the original, for those new to this sort of thing. Particular kudos to Ellie Schwetye, sound engineer for this production, who knows the venue’s quirks well from much work there previously. Erik Kuhn’s lights and Liz Henning’s costumes helped pull it together.

Still, the biggest round of applause needs to go to Christopher Limber, the director and retiring artistic director at PPA, whose good work is surely appreciated.

The play only ran this past weekend, but if it pops up again, as sometimes happens with such things, it’s a worthwhile evening.

 

Elsinore

Prison Performing Arts

http://www.prisonperformingarts.org

The Zoo Story/The Dumb Waiter

When it comes to timelessness in playwrights, the gold standard is Shakespeare. So flexible, goodness knows – but then there’s that language, beautiful but clearly dated. Ibsen? The misogyny, so painful to watch, but thankfully from another time. (At least we hope so.)

So it was interesting to realize that St. Louis Actors’ Studio’s opening presentation this season is a pair of one-act two-handers that date from before most Americans were born. And there’s only one giveaway to their age. SLAS has placed the show in the capable hands of veteran director Wayne Salomon.

Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story takes place in Central Park, where Peter (William Roth), a successful Upper East Side resident, is quietly reading on a park bench. Up wanders Jerry (Joel Moses) – and since it’s Albee, you know the fireworks will start quickly. Jerry’s been to the zoo and wants to talk about it. Peter, following New York style, wants minimal interaction with this guy. Jerry’s nervous. Or something. Joel Moses’ Jerry is as mesmerizing as a snake who keeps coiling and uncoiling. Is he crazy-malevolent or merely malevolent? How much of his story is true? What does he really want? Peter seems as hypnotized as we are. Well, for a while.

From across the pond comes The Dumb Waiter, an early work from Harold Pinter. A couple of yobs with working-class British accents are on cots (in the American sense of the word, not baby cribs, the British usage) in what seems to be a basement. They’re waiting for the word to finish an assignment, apparently a murder of some sort. They’ve done this before. As we meet them, Ben (William Roth), fully dressed, reads a newspaper. Gus (Joel Moses), the younger guy, has his tie untied, shirt tail out and is putting on his shoes after a nap, a particularly fine bit of wordless physical comedy. Still, this is Pinter, so there’s some fine wordplay, too. Even the title – dumb as in mute? Dumb as in not smart? Waiter waiting on tables or waiting for something to happen? Patrick Huber’s fine and extremely versatile set even gives us what is almost a third character in the basement.

Moses is clearly an actor to keep one’s eye on. It’s only his second St. Louis appearance onstage – he did the Aphra Behn Festival in 2020 – but he steps right up and owns the parts, particularly in Zoo Story. For Roth, his unshakeability in both plays becomes intriguingly frayed in the Albee and we see it balancing off the craziness of the Jerry character. Salomon is directing them like Leonard Slatkin handles his baton.

What? The dated thing? Both these edge-of-your-seat plays were written and opened in the late 1950’s, The Zoo Story in 1958 and The Dumb Waiter from 1957. The single thing that dated them, to my ear, was Roth’s Peter in Zoo Story admitting to Jerry that his salary – which kept up an apartment big enough for his wife, two daughters, and their pets in the Upper East Side of Manhattan – was $18,000 a year. Another commonality? Both were considered so radical at the time that they weren’t first performed in their countries of origin. The Pinter opened in Frankfurt, the Albee in Berlin. (And for trivia buffs, the original off-Broadway company in New York, ca. 1960, had William Daniels as Peter and George Maharis as Jerry.)

A fascinating, amazing double feature.

 

The Zoo Story/The Dumb Waiter

through October 3, 2021

St. Louis Actors’ Studio

Gaslight Theatre

360 N. Boyle

314-458-2978

stlas.org

Dreaming Zenzile

The Rep reopens – and with a world premiere. Dreaming Zenzile is based on the life story of Miriam Makeba, the singer-songwriter-activist. Probably a couple of generations are saying Who’s she?

A Black woman born in the townships of South Africa, she began singing with groups and was participated in Come Back, Africa, a film that was in the Venice Film Festival in 1959. She was brought to Venice for the festival. That kicked off her international career. Harry Belafonte was her mentor, she moved to New York and began singing in the New York jazz clubs, merging jazz and African styles. Record contracts and national television followed. Living in South Africa during apartheid would probably be enough to make anyone super-socially conscious, but when she tried to go home for her mother’s funeral, she found her South African passport had been canceled because she’d spoken out on racial issues. Over time, she became as well known as an activist as she was as a musician.

This is the woman that playwright Somi Kokoma introduces us to on the Rep stage. Kokoma, a singer and songwriter herself, plays Zenzile Miriam Makeba, whose first name was dropped as she began to sing professionally. Four other actors, Naledi Masilo, Phindile Wilson, Aaron Marcellus and Phumzile Sojola portray different people in Makeba’s life and are credited as the Sangoma Chorus – sangomas are traditional healers in southern Africa. We’re also in full sight of the musicians, Herve’ Samb (music director and guitar), Toru Dodo (piano), Sheldon Thwaites (drums) and Pathe’ Jassi (bass).

The story isn’t linear, but it’s fairly easy to follow, even though much of the first act isn’t in English. The music certainly is universal and comes from many sources, from Zulu through Afropop and the Great American Songbook to her own compositions. She sang in Swahili, Sotho and Xhosa, and, yes, Xhosa is one of the languages with the “click” consonant. In fact, one of Makeba’s hits was a traditional song that she recorded as “The Click Song” - you can hear it here . There’s also ululation, the warbling, high pitched back-of-the-mouth sound found through much of Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. I believe it’s the first time it’s heard on the Rep stage.

Kokoma certainly has the pipes to play Makeba; she sounds wonderful. And the chorus, especially singing a capella, are remarkable. The arrangements of the songs, many of which are done by Kokoma and Samb really resonate. And it’s fun to watch the band during the numbers that swing.

Lileana Blain-Cruz directs the ensemble. The set, a concert stage in Italy, is by Ricardo Hernandez with lighting by Yi Zhao and projections designer Hannah Wasileski, all very subtle to contrast with the music and action. Mimi Plange’s costumes move well, particularly in the second act.

The fly in the ointment for this otherwise-satisfying show is that the sound, especially in the first act, is often blurry, with the music overriding lyrics, even in English and the spoken word not resonating. This is not a house that generally has acoustic problems, so it’s particularly notable.

Still, a worthwhile evening for music lovers and those who want to learn more about a world-renown activist. You can learn more about Miriam Makeba on this from the Rep's website.

 

Dreaming Zenzile

through October 3

Repertory Theatre St. Louis

Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts

130 Edgar Rd., Webster Groves

314-968-4925

repstl.org/

Sweat

The Black Rep starts the ‘21-’22 season off with a bang. Lynn Nottage’s Sweat is definitely a play that talks about lots of things we struggle with. Nottage takes on racism, classism, the perfidiousness of corporate management, all in one sweeping evening. Substance abuse is just a sort of garnish to everything else.

Alas, she hasn’t got a cure for those things, but that’s no excuse – at all – for not talking about them. Director Ron Himes, the founder of the Black Rep, has pulled it all together for an enthralling evening.

It’s a blue collar world in Pennsylvania, mainly a bar, where the action takes place. Three women, regular patrons, have worked in a local factory for decades. Two of them have sons considering getting jobs there. Life is thrumming along, although one woman has just finally thrown her husband out because he’s again relapsed with his drug use. A fair amount of alcohol is being consumed, but the bartender, who’s obviously known them for a long time, is unflappable. It turns out there’s a job posting for a manager. Much joshing bout who should apply, and eventually two of the three do just that. Only one, of course, can get the job, and since there are men applying too, the outcome is up in the air.

Cynthia (Velma Austin), the one who’s bounced her husband, gets the nod to leave her slot on the floor and move into the office. She’s Black. That factor isn’t a component for a while. As time passes and the plant looks more and more like it’s going to have some serious layoffs or shut down entirely, it raises its ugly head. Management is trying to hire replacement workers if the union walks out over the company’s demands – you’ll hear the word “scabs” used to describe the replacement workers, if you’re unfamiliar with the term. Tensions rise everywhere in the community. The people whose jobs are in danger seem in denial at first and then cannot understand why their one time friend can’t fix this, why the union is helpless

Austin, Amy Loui and Kelly Howe are the trio of women, and the rowdy group navigates the changing emotion of the time period – from 2000 to 2008 – extremely well. Blake Anthony Edwards is the bartender, a remarkable, graceful referee in an establishment whose walls hold everything from dancing to threats. Oscar, his right-hand guy, is Gregory Almanza, who fleshes out Oscar’s increasingly important story as the show progresses. Franklin Killian and Brian McKinley play the two sons, one more curious about the outside world than the other, but both wanting to protect their mothers. And A.C. Smith as the banished husband exhibits his considerable ability to go from charming to explosive in a nanosecond, as he has often shown Black Rep audiences.

David Simon, who created “The Wire” was discussing the late actor Michael K. Williams in The New York Times. And he said this:

It’s about the death of work, I told him. When legitimate work itself dies in an American city, I argued, and the last factory standing is the drug corners, then everyone goes to a corner...it’s about economics and the collapse of the working class – Black and white both.

This is a painful, important and truthful play. The Black Rep gives it full respect. Great work from all concerned.

 

Sweat

through September 26

The Black Rep

Edison Theatre at Washington University

https://www.theblackrep.org/

The Ville: Avengeance!

Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Much argument about this quote, its exact wording and original source, to be sure, but the message is the same: We need to learn history. St. Louis Shakespeare Festival annual event Shakespeare in the Streets is back after a year’s hiatus, giving us the remarkable piece The Ville: Avengeance! There’s lots of relatively unknown history in it.

As is the tradition, it’s outdoors, with some seating, but mostly BYO lawn chairs (or blankets, but the street is blocked off for the audience, and most of us would be mighty uncomfortable). The stage is the lawn of Annie Malone Children and Family Services’ lovely Georgian-style building in the midst of the historic Ville neighborhood.

Playwright Mariah Richardson (a graduate of nearby Sumner High School and the author of, among many other things, Love at the River’s Edge, a previous SLSF Shakespeare in the Streets) brings us the ghosts of Annie Malone (Michelle Dillard) and a young man named Hopeless (Tylan Mitchell) who was killed nearby. They both appear before two guys visiting the neighborhood. Hamlet (Brandon Ellis), who’s inherited a house his grandfather owned in the Ville, has brought his buddy along from North County to take a look at the property. They hadn’t bargained on a couple of ghosts.

But it’s the ghosts that bring it to these suburban guys, talking about the Ville, complete with honest assessments of things like segregation, redlining and urban crime. The stories of the neighborhood that supported Black businesses and cultural institutions are mostly news to Hamlet and Heratio, and probably to some of us as well – despite how well we think we know St. Louis history. The story is clearly, vividly told, including Hamlet’s grandparents. The fictional Grandma (Arthurine Harris) was a graduate of Homer G. Phillips School of Nursing, which I can tell you from personal experience produced some extraordinary women; his grandfather (Carl Overly, Jr.) quite a persistent charmer from Mississippi. Alex Jay, as the narrator, rounds out the cast, all of whom can be pretty much described as enthralling. Nevertheless, Dillard’s Malone stands out, a formidable woman who tells the story with powerful restraint.

In addition, there are two music breaks from The Legend Singers, whose long history goes back to Kenneth Billups, who taught music at Sumner, and who was certainly a legend himself. They add immensely to the experience.

Thomasina Clarke, who also has deep, deep roots in the Ville, directed. The history of the neighborhood is enhanced by the set from Peter and Margery Spack, using multiple smaller white screens upon which are projected illustrations of photos, advertisements and newspaper clippings relevant to the story. Bryant Powell deserves credit for the lighting, which moves the story along smoothly.

A delightful and important piece of work that contributes greatly to the understanding of life in St. Louis. Alas, only running for three nights, closing Saturday, September 11. Do your best to see it if you want to learn a lot and have a fine outdoor theatre experience.

 

The Ville: Avengeance!

through September 11

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

https://stlshakes.org/production/theville/