Wisey Best Actress: Robin Goodrin Nordli

The nominees for best actress for 2008 were:

Marianne Owen as multiple characters in Intimate Exchanges. ACT Theatre.
Angela Pierce as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Intiman Theatre.
Robin Goodrin Nordli as Hedda Gabler in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Vanessa Claire Smith as Keely Smith in Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara. Matrix Theatre.
Chelsey Rives as Jo in boom. Seattle Repertory Theatre.

The Wisey goes to Robin Goodrin Nordli, who has played Hedda Gabler twice at OSF: In 2003 in the Henrik Ibsen play of the same name, and last year in Further Adventures. She's clearly gotten inside the head of the manipulative and morose (it is Ibsen, after all) late-19th Century Norwegian woman. What a scary place to be!

The Hedda of Further Adventures vows to break out of that and be happy, as you'll note from the photo of Nordli at the right. How she got my Sweetie, the scorer's smiley mug I do not know. Nordli was marvelous in a wide range of emotions: depression, anger, giddiness, resignation, and, most impressively to Weisenheimer, great comedic timing in this new take on a classic character.

Best actress was one of the toughest calls of the Wiseys, as there were a great many wonderful performances. Vanessa Claire Smith as Keely Smith in Louis & Keely was a singing and acting marvel. Angela Pierce turned in an amazing and subtle Blance DuBois in Streetcar at Intiman. Marianne Owen was engaging as several characters in Intimate Exchanges at ACT. Caught in the cross-rough of categories and tough competition was Chelsey Rives, nominated both here for boom at the Rep and for supporting actress for her strong, bawdy Stella in Streetcar. She deserves a new category for strong, multiple performances, though Vilma Silva may still have aced her out.

Nordli brings home the best actress Wisey for a memorable performance in a fresh and fascinating new play. We're looking forward to seeing her as Lady Macbeth at OSF this year.

Robin Moxey rocks Highway 99

I'm more worried about the Alaskan Way viaduct than are most engineers. If Robin Moxey plays many more gigs at the Highway 99 Blues Club, which sits right under the city's favorite roadway, the whole thing is going to come tumbling down sooner than anyone thinks. The dude rocks and he rocks hard!

Moxey delighted with his hard-driving blues rock show Jan. 2 at Highway 99. He opened the first of three sets with Weisenheimer's favorite tune on the Moxey playlist, a lengthy, driving cover of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." The first set also included a couple of tracks from Moxey's album One Big Song: "Everything Changes" and "Keep on Moving." It closed out with the Allen Toussaint classic "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley."

Set two featured a new twist, as Moxey and band were joined by a woman lead singer, "Lady A" of Lady A and the Baby Blues Funk Band, for a couple of numbers: "Go Home to Your Wife" and George Jackson's "Down Home Blues." The new sound was a treat, but the vocals always seem secondary to the Moxey Band. The words are just bookends to their lengthy, electric, rocking jams. Moxey has a great band, with keyboardist Eric Robert and Montana's Bendickson brothers, Aaron, Jason, and Sean. Robert is particularly in demand; he played with Lee Oskar at Highway 99 on Halloween. Set two also featured a rendition of Big Joe Williams's "Big Legged Women, Keep Your Dressess Down," the Meters's "People Say," and Dylan's "She Belongs to Me."

The third and final set on the night started with the Taj Mahal tune "Take a Giant Step," into which Moxey always manages to work the chorus of Marshall Tucker's "Can't You See." Then there was another Moxey original, "How Long?" They closed out with another Meters classic, "I Just Kissed My Baby," and the Eugene McDaniels tune, "Real, Compared to What?" They finished the evening with an encore, the Hendrix hit "Voodoo Child."

Weisenheimer and Sweetie the Scorer discovered Moxey by accident. We'd been taking a blues dancing class and wanted to get out and practice. There he was. We've heard him play several times since. He always entertains with a screaming, rocking, high-octane show. Check him out if you get a chance. He's not on the club's calendar for the rest of January, but you can keep an eye on him, watch some videos, and download some tracks, on the Moxey MySpace page.

Wisey Best Supporting Actor: Heald and Haugen

The nominees for best supporting actor for 2008 were:

Matthew Ahrens as Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. Green Stage.
Michael Elich as Aufidius in Coriolanus. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Anthony Heald as Steven in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Jonathan Haugen as Patrick in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler. Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

The Wisey goes to Anthony Heald and Jonathan Haugen.

To give a single Wisey to either actor would be like giving an award to Rosencrantz and snubbing Guildenstern. Heald and Haugen played Steven and Patrick, two stereotypical gay characters modeled after The Boys in the Band, in The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler at OSF. They are beautifully drawn characters marvelously acted, providing lots of wit, bitchy commentary, and a substantial dose of the play's wisdom as well. Prancing around in their pastel bell-bottoms and vests, Patrick and Steven help the characters in their quest to break out of their stereotypical molds. Several succeed, though the duo does not because, while roaming the mind of their creator, they were sidetracked by an open bar.

Ahrens was marvelously besotted as Sir Toby in Green Stage's Twelfth Night. He may have won the Wisey if he hadn't nearly spilled our wine! The characters often took refuge in the audience in this Shakespeare in the park performance. Elich was a menacing and athletic Aufidius in the seldom-performed Coriolanus.

But Heald and Haugen were shining stars giving memorable performances in a great play and take home the Wisey for best supporting actor.

Wisey Best Set: Othello, Balagan

The nominees for best set for 2008 were:

A Midsummer Night's Dream at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Walt Spangler, scenic designer.
Othello at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Rachel Hauck, scenic designer.
boom at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Jennifer Zeyl, set designer.
Othello at Balagan Theatre. Jenna Schmidt, props designer.

And the winner is….Othello at Balagan Theatre, Jenna Schmidt, props designer.

The Balagan is a tiny black box. The action took place in a narrow path between two banks of seats facing each other, with entrances at each end. The space was tight, especially for swordplay, but the actors didn’t lop off anyone’s shoelaces. We were in the front row (of three) and I found myself pulling my feet in.

So in such a limited space, how to convey court and courtyard, Venice and Cyprus, boudoir and hall? Why, with big wooden boxes, of course.

The boxes, painted dark, were the only furniture. And only Iago could move them. From the moment the house opened Mike Dooly was there, in character, thoughtfully moving boxes around. During the play he arranged and rearranged the boxes to set the scenes, like a puzzle he was doing and undoing, until finally all the boxes fit together as Desdemona’s bed.

The other Othello, at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, was nominated for great lighting turning the Lizzy into a gloomy, gray, spare set. OSF’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream gets mentioned because it had a Volkswagen bus in it. And the boom set was a great disaster bunker, replete with enough bourbon and tampons for a very long stay. I think it would have been even cooler, though, if real fish had been in the aquarium!

Starting the new year with a bang

You can always count on a great show when Warner Shook directs, in no small part because actors are dying to work with him. Elizabeth Huddle "is now mostly retired" says her bio in the program for Seattle Rep's You Can't Take it With You. If you look really closely, you can see the phrase "except when Warner calls" in tiny print thereafter. Huddle worked with Shook on ACT's smash hit The Women in 2007, as did fellow cast members Anne Allgood, Elise Karolina Hunt, Suzy Hunt, and Annette Toutonghi. Throw in talented stage veterans such as R. Hamilton Wright (who just missed a Wisey nomination for best actor in 2008), Michael Winters, Frank Corrado, and Allan Galli, and you can't miss. One of Weisenheimer's theater-centric friends says of You Can't Take it With You, "Truly, you can't do much to mess up that play." Shook and cast delivered.

Corrado was over the top as Kolenkov, the Russian dance teacher to whom everything "stinks." Winters displayed wry comic timing as Grandpa, who gave up work 35 years ago and doesn't miss it. Wright and Galli, as Mr. DePinna, had a number of hilarious scenes with their basement fireworks manufacturing. One nearly wants to cry when DePinna's "Roman costume" goes up in smoke with the entire supply of rockets. Allgood just about runs away with the play with her arts projects and the word association game that takes the snooty Kirbys down a few pegs. Suzy Hunt is a scream in a short role as the drunken actress Gay Wellington. Weisenheimer loved Hunt as Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret last year at the 5th Avenue.

Our one disappointment with the play was the grand entrance of Huddle as Olga the Duchess in the final act. Her arrival is trumpeted wildly by Kolenkov, there's a grand, eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant pause, the audience titters in apprehension of something hilarious, and then -- the duchess walks in. Nary a pratfall. Well, sometimes the anticipation is funny enough.

The Rep's production of You Can't Take it With You was a great way to end the year. They had a party in the lobby afterward, with drinks, dancing, munchies, and the Space Needle Fireworks to blast in 2009. I imagined that the whole show was built by Sycamore and DePinna. Weisenheimer looks great in a tux, and Sweetie the Scorer was the belle of the ball. Her new green dress.... ooh, la-la!!

Wisey Best Music: Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara

The nominees for best music for 2008 were:

Jersey Boys at 5th Avenue Theatre. Ron Melrose, musical direction.
A Marvelous Party at ACT Theatre. Richard Grey, musical director.
Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara at Matrix Theatre. Musical direction by Dennis Kaye.
Black Nativity at Intiman Theatre. Musical direction and arrangements by Pastor Patrinell Wright.

The Wisey goes to Louis & Keely Live at the Sahara. This was the consensus pick for the "Best Music" Weisenheimer Award for several reasons, first and foremost of which is that I had "I Got You Under My Skin" rattling around in my head for weeks afterward, and not in a horrible, it's-a-small-world sort of way.

There are other good reasons, too. Vanessa Claire Smith, Jake Broder, and the faux Sam Butera and the Witnesses are a kick-ass band. Broder and Smith absolutely nail the personas and stage antics of Louis Prima and Keely Smith, whom some credit with virtually inventing the concept of the Vegas lounge act. The musicians are talented and good actors to boot, remaining in character in both their on-stage and off-stage scenes on stage. Fans of Porter, Ellington, Mercer, Gershwin, Arlen, Fields, McHugh, Waller, and a host of others had plenty to enjoy in a show that featured nearly two dozen great numbers.

Colin Kupka was especially marvelous as Butera and on tenor sax, and Dennis Kaye was the musical director for the show and played both tenor and baritone sax as "Doc." The rest of the band -- Brian Wallis (Jimmy/trombone), Jeff Markgraf (Eddie/bass), Richard Levinson (Pee Wee/piano), Michael L. Solomon (Rocco/drums), and "Hollywood" Paul Litteral (Soup/trumpet) were fantastic as well.

The musical and acting abilities of the ensemble and the intimacy of the theater made disbelief was easy to suspend. Weisenheimer didn't really see this show at L.A.'s Matrix Theatre; I think we were actually somehow teleported to the Sahara in Vegas the see Louis and Keely in their definitive lounge act.

Nominee Jersey Boys was in the large 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and the venue worked against them. While the music of Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons was admirably done, it didn't have quite the same impact. Intiman's Black Nativity always entertains, though this year they pulled back a bit on the full-out, floor-stompin' gospel. A Marvelous Party at ACT was a sleeper pick, with a full show of Noel Coward's best material.

But Louis and Keely Live at the Sahara out-did them all and is the winner of the 2008 Wisey for best music.

Wisey Best Costume: Intimate Exchanges

The nominees for best costume for 2008 were:
Intimate Exchanges at ACT Theatre. Carolyn Keim, costume director.
A Midsummer Night's Dream at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Katherine Roth, costume designer.
The Clay Cart at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Deborah M. Dryden, costume designer.
The Adding Machine at New Century Theatre. Pete Rush, costume designer.

And the winner is…Intimate Exchanges at ACT Theatre, Marcia Dixcy Jory, costume designer.

Intimate Exchanges has four possible story lines (or it did in this production), six characters, and just two actors. This means rapid costume changes – up to 30 of them, as fast as 20 to 30 seconds. How is a costume designer to keep up?

The 24 different costumes were exquisitely detailed down to the buttons and necklaces, hats and handbags, and the curl of a mustache. And the clothes were apparently constructed with Velcro or snaps or scotch tape or something equally conducive to being ripped off and stuck back on several times a show. I have no idea how they managed the makeup – presumably by keeping it simple. Some of the changes had to be made in about the time it would take an actor to exit stage left, walk around and enter stage right, shedding garments and stepping into new ones along the way. Wardrobe master Sally Mellis and dresser Erin Perona kept the controlled chaos invisible to the audience.

Clearly the skill of R. Hamilton Wright and Marianne Owen made the magic happen, effecting a complete transformation into their various silly characters every time. Every magician needs props, and the wigs and mustaches and bows and hats and pearls helped make the illusion that there could have been…there must have been?….more than two people playing all those parts. In a delightful nod to the actors beneath all that frippery, Hamilton and Owen took their curtain calls in their underwear, bathrobes, socks, and wig caps.

As for the other nominations: OSF can always be counted on for fabulous costumes, although as this reviewer has noted elsewhere on this blog, they sometimes make up in lusciousness what they lack in relevance. Two shows this season did an especially fine job with costumes that were integral to the production.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was over-the-top fabulous, where the fairies were, well, fairies. And I’m guessing all costume designers get into the biz for a crack at the ass’s head.

I wonder if a certain reviewer involved in the nominating process could have been influenced by Miriam Laube’s bare midriff in The Clay Cart. The play was a visual feast and very physical and the gorgeous costumes and jewelry of a huge ensemble cast helped it all be magnificent.

Special mention goes to the inaugural production of New Century Theater Company for The Adding Machine. The costumes (and, indeed, the whole set) were monochromatic and stark without being minimalist, and the makeup was Holloween-scary (white face and black lips – but really, it works), all in keeping with the whole point. And you have to love a scene where the cast trudges single-file across the stage on their way to being born in the best collection of period underwear since a 1920s Sears-Roebuck catalog.