Curtains for a fun theater year

2009 has been a great year for Weisenheimer theater. My Sweetie, the official scorer, counted 81 plays we've seen this year (including all 40 one-act plays of 14/48 and Death, Sex as separate plays). A couple of fun ones rounded out the year. Holiday revelry and some rare astronomy action delayed the reviews of these shows until today.

Death, Sex at Balagan Theatre
Balagan rolled out the concept of Death, Sex in February, and the concept was so funny, and successful, that bringing it back for a holiday treatment seemed a natural. Most of the six holiday-themed one-act plays were written by local playwrights especially for this production. They're a raunchy lot, and we love 'em!

The best of the six in Weisenheimer's estimation was Pillow, written by Frederick Stroppel and directed by Mike Dooly and M. Elizabeth Eller. It was the hilarious tale of Janice, a senior citizen whose revelations of sexual and chemical proclivities grew more outrageous and gut-busting as the play went along. Noelle, written and directed by José Amador, was a meeting of one character, aged 17, 25, and 36. They discussed the big-Os of their age ranges, brought on with the help of a variety of high-voltage appliances, until the eldest succumbed to the heart murmur. Consumption, Consummation by Nik Perleros and Davey Young, directed by Chris Bell, was the heartwarming tale of a praying mantis love triangle gone bad. For "Horny," played by Sam Hagen, the only down side was that his marshmallow brain was consumed twice as quickly. Terri Weagant as "mom" in I Saw Mommy (by Eric Ankrim, directed by Banton Foster) had the best line of the night, and a somewhat novel outlook on a white Christmas.

Death, Sex was great fun.

Sister's Christmas Catechism at ACT.
A spinoff of the long-running Late Night Catechism, which, inexplicably, we have never seen, Sister's Christmas Catechism is a riotous two-hour class during which audience members are scolded for chewing gum, taunted for late arrivals, scorned for talking or having their cell phones tweet, awarded with holy cards and other gifts (Christmas Kit Kats) for their knowledge of the saints, and pulled into duty as a living nativity scene to help solve the mystery of the missing gold from the magi.

Written by Maripat Donovan and directed by Marc Silvia, Sister's Christmas Catechism is a long, funny, impressive monologue for actress Aubrey Manning, who really delivers, and finds the gold in the end.

You'll learn a lot about the saints, and also that Presbyterians is an anagram for Britney Spears. Sister continues at ACT through Sunday.

GreenStage Titus is bloody good fun

GreenStage's current production of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus includes a couple dozen murders, several rapes, one sliced-out tongue, five lopped-off hands, one chopped-off horn, two slain offspring baked into a pie and served up to their momma, abused pumpkins, wanton out-of-wedlock sex that results in an illegitimate clown child, stabbed flies, a hootenanny, and so much spilled blood that the front row of the theater is declared a "splatter zone."

It's a comedy, and one of the funniest things Weisenheimer has seen in a while.

My Sweetie, the official scorer, declares that the program for the show contains the best ever one-line summary of a Shakespeare play: "Thus begins a series of events that lead to revenge, revenge, revenge, more revenge, and then some pie." Director Tony Driscoll writes that he thinks Titus includes "some of the greatest characters and some of the best verse the Bard ever gave us." He also finds it drop-dead funny. His production is a scream. It's what you might expect Quentin Tarantino or Sam Peckinpah would have done with it. The blood and violence are entirely over-the-top, and the inspired comic touches are too numerous to mention.

Driscoll gets marvelous performances out of a wonderful cast. A couple deserve calling out. Nicole Vernon as Lavinia is probably the goopiest character ever seen on stage. After losing both hands and her tongue she oozes blood for the rest of the show. That's her in the photo at right, shot by GreenStage producing artistic director Ken Holmes. But she gets a LOT bloodier than that! Orion Protonentis is wickedly evil and funny as Aaron, the clown. GreenStage regular Erin Day is delightfully conniving as the Goth queen Tamora and as the dominating empress to Lamar Lewis, who plays Saturninus somewhat less assertively than your typical Roman leader. Tom Dewey plays seven or eight characters and every one of them gets offed, including "guy with dead pigeons."

The cast included several Balagan Theatre veterans, among them Patrick Bentley, who played Titus. Banton Foster (Quintus) and Sam Hagen (Marcus) are fresh off Balagan's critically acclaimed Elephant's Graveyard. In Titus Foster plays banjo for the second consecutive production. Let's keep the streak alive! Johnny Patchamatla (Lucius) was marvelous as Balagan's Othello, the play that got me hooked on the company. And Amelia Meckler is a riot as "Scrub Wench," a role that -- wait, let me check -- nope, it's not in the Bard's original list of Dramatis Personae for Titus. But she's absolutely necessary in the production as a practical matter. Leaving all that blood about would make for slippery footing and force the company to change its name to RedStage. And when Meckler wipes down a Roman column, that baby gets clean!

Titus Andronicus runs through Halloween night. Go see it!

Don't miss the funeral at Elephant's Graveyard

SPOILER ALERT: This review tells how the play comes out. If you'd rather be surprised, just know that it's really good. And go. Then come back and read this.

They hung a five-ton elephant on the basement stage at Balagan Theatre last night. Though Mary, the central character in Elephant's Graveyard, never appears on stage, you feel her presence throughout.

George Brant's play is a fascinating tale based on the true story of the day in 1916 that the town of Erwin, Tennessee executed a 10,000-pound pachyderm, hanging her from a rail yard crane. Balagan's new production of the show, directed by Jason Harber, packs an emotional wallop.

The story is simple. Mary the elephant is the star of the Sparks Circus, until one day, upon being mistreated by a rookie handler who had just joined the greatest show on Earth, throws said handler to the ground and stomps on his head, killing him. The townspeople demand justice and the ringmaster, fearing the red ink that could result from folks staying away from a dangerous circus, is willing to cut his losses and give it to them, over the protests of Mary's trainer and most of the other circus workers.

The show had the potential to be awfully boring. There's no action as such; the characters are mostly relaying the stories of what they did and saw. But Brant's writing is crisp, and Harber, making his Seattle directing debut, decided to have all 13 cast members remain on stage throughout the play's 75 minutes. It worked--everyone got to agonize through the events and the decisions together with us in the audience.

Harber also assembled a top-notch cast and gets wonderful performances out of all of them. I almost hate to single any of them out. However Chris "Sloop" Bell as the clown was a living, breathing answer to the question of why so many people are creeped out by clowns. He is the most enraged at the execution of Mary and winds up tasked with digging her grave. The tears flowing down his face at the closing curtain, taking much of his clown makeup with them, were amazing. Also props to Ray Tagavilla, who showed tremendous emotional range as Mary's trainer, a long-time partnership. It was gut-wrenching to watch him, teary eyed, tell of how he helped with the hanging. (Tagavilla was also marvelous in Balagan's Picasso at the Lapin Agile last spring, and is featured as a Spotlight Award winner in the currrent issue of Seattle magazine.) Michael D. Blum was grand as Sparks the ringmaster. The role demonstrated great range for Blum, who was hilarious in The Comedy of Errors at Greenstage this summer. And Banton Foster took on the role of the sheriff of Erwin with great zeal.

While there are a few laugh lines in the show, it's not really funny. It's an emotional punch in the gut that ended with few dry eyes in the sold-out house. Elephant's Graveyard is an amazing tale examining questions of justice, commerce, spectacle, race, gender, and revenge. Balagan's production is not to be missed. Tickets here; Balagan season tickets also are still available, and a steal at $110 for the nine remaining shows in the season.

Disclaimer: Weisenheimer is president of the board at Balagan, but it doesn't mean I'm biased.

For background on the story, this page on the Tennessee GenWeb site has a pretty good synopsis, as well as links to other Web resources.