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larryland · 5 years

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by Macey Levin

Jen Silverman is a very provocative playwright whose plays are set in world wide locations mirroring her own extensive living experiences in other lands. Silverman’s various styles and themes lend her canon of work a certain amount of intrigue. That is the case with The Moors currently at Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill, New York.

This take-off of mid-19th century novels and stories, by the Brontes, Conan Doyle and DuMaurier focuses on a gothic amalgam of strange characters. Spinster sisters live in a secluded mansion on the moors of England (Wuthering Heights!); Agatha’s (April Armstrong) severe persona dominates Huldey (Molly Parker Myers,) who is more than a little ditzy and spends hours writing in and talking about her diary.

Their depressed pet Mastiff ( Hound of the Baskervilles) (Shane Sczepankowski) mopes about the house and moor spouting mournful philosophy. Yes! the dog is played by an actor. They have a house/scullery maid (Rebecca) who is identified as either Marjory or Mallory (Lori Evans) depending on where she is and what bonnet she’s wearing. Marjory is pregnant, probably by the master of the house whom we never meet, while Mallory suffers from typhus. The women are awaiting the arrival of a governess (from Jane Eyre) though there is no evidence of a child in the household.

When Emilie (Kate McMorran) arrives she refers to letters she’s received from Master Branwell (the name of the Bronte’s brother) in negotiation for the position. When Emilie requests to meet him Agatha says he is dead and that there is no child. There are evidently many secrets hidden by all the women.

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In a seemingly parallel plot, The Mastiff is roaming through the moors trying to commune with God. When A Moor Hen (Bonnie Black) descends in front of him he instantly believes his prayers have been answered. As they continue to meet through the next several days they develop a loving though somewhat tenuous relationship. The characters, however, are not truly necessary to the plot line though they do represent the wild savagery that the moors inspire.

This set-up, bizarrely written and played, invokes laughter in the opening scenes, but as the play evolves a serious tone is introduced to work in tandem with the comic elements. The thematic threads of alienation, love and hate, change, and human needs intertwine in a surreal series of events.

Tracy Liz Miller’s direction of the production, seen at a preview, is uneven. A number of laugh lines don’t work because of the timing of the delivery and/or intonation. The play could use more foolery especially in the opening scenes and to underscore the outlandish behavior that occurs in the latter part of the play. This should improve as the cast becomes more comfortable and the pace accelerates. As Agatha, Ms. Armstrong plays evil convincingly until she allows her softer but still controlling side to emerge. The somewhat batty Huldey of Ms. Myers is a stitch even when she becomes inflamed with hatred. Emilie, the oblivious governess, is sweetly and naively played by Kate McMorran. Lori Evans’s schizophrenic several maids is at first subservient, but her dark side emerges as she convincingly becomes the leader of the pack. The audience immediately warms up to Shane Sczepankowski’s dispirited but charming Mastiff and Bonnie Black’s Moor-Hen matches his appeal though it is tempered by her well-delivered sarcasm. The cast works well together and are aware of where Silverman wants to go.

John Sowle, the theatre’s artistic and managing director, has designed the sets and the lighting. The two sets, the living room in the mansion and the moors, capture the mood of the work, but the scene changes, of which there are many, take time and are awkward. His lighting, however, enhances the production. The costumes by Jennifer Anderson are of the period though Huldey’s change of character is epitomized by her change of clothing. The Mastiff and Moor Hen are clever. The sound design by Steven Patterson is appropriate, though it could be more haunting in the last scenes.

The production has weaknesses, but it was seen at a performance when the cast was in front of an audience for the first time. All involved are professionals which should help mitigate the problems.

The Moors is an often funny and touching theatrical experience. Bridge Street continues to produce stimulating theatre of ideas and reflections of the human condition.

The Moors, by Jen Silverman; Director: Tracy Liz Miller; Cast: April Armstrong (Agatha) Molly Parker Myers (Huldey) Lori Evans (Marjory/Mallory) Shane Sczepankowski ( The Mastiff) Kate McMorran (Emilie) Bonnie Black (A Moor-Hen); Designer: John Sowle; Costumes: Jennifer Anderson; Costume Associate: Michelle Rogers; Sound Design: Steven Patterson; Sound Enginer: Carmen Borgia; Stage Manager: Joshua Martin; Running time: one hour, forty-five minutes; one intermission; Bridge Street Theatre, Catskill, NY, 800-838-3006; 518-943-3818; From 5/30/19; closing 6/9/19.

REVIEW: “The Moors” at Bridge Street Theatre by Macey Levin Jen Silverman is a very provocative playwright whose plays are set in world wide locations mirroring her own extensive living experiences in other lands.

#April Armstrong #Bonnie Black #Bridge Street Theatre #BST #Carmen Borgia #Catskill NY #Jen Silverman #Jennifer Anderson #John Sowle #Joshua Martin #Kate McMorran #Lori Evans #Macey Levin #Michelle Rogers #Molly Parker Myers #Shane Sczepankowski #Steven Patterso #The Moors #Tracy Liz Miller

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larryland · 6 years

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by Barbara Waldinger

Casse Noisette, French for Nutcracker and subtitled A Fairy Ballet, is Bridge Street Theatre’s current World Premiere offering. Given these clues, audience members may be excused for expecting Balanchine’s ubiquitous holiday ballet, set to the familiar score of Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, based on Hoffmann’s famous fairy tale. However, Michael Whistler’s play combines multiple tales–a kitchen sink full, in fact–in one very long production.

The double plot parallels scenes from Tchaikovsky’s life (as he fulfills his commission to compose music for the Russian Imperial Theatre’s ballet of Casse Noisette) with the life of the fictitious Joe Jessup, an earth science teacher in twenty-first century Spokane, Washington. The piece dramatizes the struggle of both men to come to terms with their homosexuality, which they have strived mightily to keep secret. In addition, the playwright attempts to interpret Tchaikovsky’s music (which he claims to have heard a thousand times) as explained by Joe, who, like Whistler, is obsessed with the composer’s work. Joe analyzes different sections of the Nutcracker score for his latest boy toy, while Tchaikovsky, explaining his need to write Romantic compositions that express human feeling, argues with his brother, Modeste, about why he doesn’t want to waste his talent on a meaningless ballet that is merely “the waking dream of a confectioner.” As if that were not enough material for several plays, there are reflections about earth science and the state of public education. Furthermore, a dancing Sugar Plum Fairy, accompanied by her consort, attempts to summarize the plot of the ballet and its possible endings, to offer an epilogue about the conflicting versions of Tchaikovsky’s death, and to express her philosophy that one’s life cannot be lived “on point” without someone to hold you up: only love can restore the ugly Nutcracker back to a handsome prince.

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Perhaps there is a significant connection between the uncle in the fairy tale whose young nephew is the Nutcracker/prince, and Tchaikovsky, whose liaisons with his own young nephew and with the nephew of a powerful Russian Duke played major roles in the maestro’s final years. Fascinated by the composer’s struggle with his homosexuality, Whistler asserts in an interview with Joseph Dalton for the Times Union that his mission is “to depict the lives of contemporary gay men with humor, honesty and dignity.” But in highlighting the difficulties faced by both Tchaikovsky and Joe on account of their sexual orientation, Whistler underplays their predilection for underage boys. This fact undercuts the idea that these good men, with whom we sympathize, were victims of bigotry, given that pederasty was and still is a crime. Indeed, Tchaikovsky decides to write the ballet because of its depiction of beautiful, innocent children.

Led by a mesmerizing performance by Jason Guy as both Joe and Tchaikovsky, the five talented cast members play roles in both the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. Jennifer Anderson’s costumes: beautiful, functional, and fittingly representative of each time period, make it easy to distinguish each character. Not only does Guy’s gray cutaway indicate Tchaikovsky, but so do the actor’s voice, manner, his physical appearance– arms akimbo and sideways-facing posture—and his emotional outbursts. Joe, with his gray shirt and bow tie, is quiet-spoken, meticulous in his habits, not wanting to call attention to himself, living in a state of withdrawal and isolation. Keeping these two men separate is hard enough when Guy moves from one role to the other in successive scenes, but it must be doubly difficult to portray each of them when the time periods occur nearly simultaneously. This pas de deux with one performer is miraculous.

Nancy O. Graham offers a wonderfully comic portrayal of Antonietta Dell’Era, a principal dancer with the Imperial Ballet. We next see her as a fellow teacher in Joe’s school, cautiously trying to break through the wall Joe has built between himself and the world, resulting in a heartbreaking confrontation. Jason Kellerman plays both Tchaikovsky’s brother Modeste, who manages and protects the composer, and a physical education teacher, distinguishing himself in each role (not to mention a comic turn as the consort of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Modeste’s impressive sleight-of-hand maneuvers). Serena Vesper is both Tchaikovsky’s sad and sickly sister Sasha who can hardly move as the result of a terrible accident, and the agile and graceful Fairy, a gorgeously-costumed ballerina. Finally, Bradley Levine plays Blaine, the male prostitute picked up first on the phone and then in person by Joe, and Tchaikovsky’s upper class nephew Bob. By means of costumes, diction and demeanor, Levine enables us to easily identify each character.

John Sowle, the Artistic and Managing Director of Bridge Street Theatre, serves as director and designer of Casse Noisette. The challenges he faced in producing this play include the creation and use of a thick red velvet curtain across the entire stage (described in the script) with a painted proscenium arch surrounding it; multiple moving set pieces (including a kitchen in the teacher’s lounge with a working microwave oven) and rapid costume changes; two completely different time frames; seven footlights, and a painted backdrop upstage to represent the Candyland of the ballet (though the playwright requested a fully-realized candy landscape!). Sound designer Carmen Borgia not only supplies the sounds of the imagined audience during Tchaikovsky’s concerts and the sound of the school bell ending each class (accompanied by the sounds of students moving through the hallways), but also underscores most of the production with Tchaikovsky’s music, while locating exactly the right segments of his work as they are discussed by the characters.

Bravo to Sowle for choreographing the changes between time periods and scenes so efficiently that there is never a delay, despite characters entering and exiting from between the curtains and the wings, and large set pieces moving backstage while scenes take place in front of the curtain! The director finds both the humor and the pathos in this play, often changing on a dime. But despite his considerable skill and best efforts, Sowle is stymied by Whistler, whose overwritten play runs two and a half hours (including intermission). Every scene could use judicious cutting and some could have been excised. Brilliant ensembles, such as the one in which Graham, Kellerman and Levine imitate the sound of the celesta as they sing the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, are eclipsed by the sheer weight of the script.

Still, Casse Noisette presents an original concept and scintillating performances. One hopes that like many World Premieres, the play will be revised and abridged to its benefit.

Casse Noisette runs from November 8—18, 2018 on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm at the Bridge Street Theatre. Tickets may be purchased online at [email protected] or call 800-838-3006.

Bridge Street Theatre presents Casse Noisette by Michael Whistler. Directed and designed by John Sowle. Cast: Jason Guy (Joe Jessup, Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky), Nancy O. Graham (Nancy Klein, Antonietta Dell’Era), Jason Kellerman (Marc Maynes, Modeste Illych Tchaikovsky, Consort), Bradley Levine (Blaine, Vladimir “Bob” Levovitch Davidov), Serena Vesper (Sasha Illynovna Davidov, Sugar Plum Fairy). Costumes: Jennifer Anderson; Sound: Carmen Borgia; Stage Manager: Julia Rothwax.

Running Time: two and ½ hours (including intermission); Bridge Street Theatre, 44 West Bridge Street, Catskill, NY; Thursdays through Sundays from 11/8; closing 11/18.

REVIEW: “Casse Noisette” at Bridge Street Theatre by Barbara Waldinger Casse Noisette, French for Nutcracker and subtitled A Fairy Ballet, is…

#A Fairy Ballet #Barbara Waldinger #Bradley Levine #Bridge Street Theatre #BST #Carmen Borgia #CASSE NOISETTE #Catskill NY #Jason Guy #Jason Kellerman #Jennifer Anderson #John Sowle #Julia Rothwax #Michael Whistler #Nancy O Graham #Nutcracker #Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky #Serena Vesper

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