Clearing Hedges
Playwright: Jennifer Barclay
At: Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company at Angel Island, 731 W. Sheridan Rd.
Phone: 773-871-0442
Tickets: $10; Runs through: Dec. 18
by Mary Shen Barnidge
Even as late as 1932, the 19th-century notion of exercise being harmful to female health restricted their participation in activities deemed dangerous to their future reproductive capabilities. The "graceful" sports...swimming, gymnastics, equestrianship and tennis...were considered sufficiently low-stress. But at that year's Olympics, a 19-year-old girl from Beaumont, Texas, named Mildred "Babe" Didrikson broke all track and field records, taking the gold medal in every event.
Selling this bob-haired, hard-training, showboating she-male ( "My goal in life has always been simple...to be the best athlete EVER!" ) to the public was difficult, however, with journalists reduced to calling her a "tomboy," for lack of any other description. Their task was rendered easier when, having demonstrated her prowess in a variety of sports ( she had played pro basketball while still in high school ) , Didrikson turned her attention to golf. Her affirmation of feminine values and her marriage to a professional wrestler...who promptly appointed himself her manager...likewise enabled fans to turn a blind eye to her breadwinner status, and to the young woman more often seen at her side than her husband.
Jennifer Barclay's solo show tantalizes us with unanswered questions: was Didrikson's capitulation to the wifely virtues of her day a savvy PR stunt or a sincere attempt to conform to societal norms? Were her later demands for divorce sparked by resurrection of her independent nature or changed awareness of her sexual identity? WAS SHE A DYKE, in other words? For us to emerge satisfied by our introduction to this significant figure in our history, more information is needed, however speculative. Also necessary is sharper delineation between characters...when the voices are limited to Babe, her hub and her ganymede, a simple change of posture is adequate...barely...but in the early moments of the play, our struggle to distinguish between mother, sister and other nebulous personalities severely impedes our attention to the text.
As a work-in-progress, Clearing Hedges is a propitious start. By next year in Edinburgh, Barclay should have an appropriate vehicle for some long-overdue recognition of this phenomenal figure's contribution to women's sports.
2
Playwright: Romulus Linney
At: Eclipse Theatre at Athenaeum
Tickets: $12-$15
Phone: 312-902-1500 ( Ticketmaster ) or box office; Runs through: Dec. 16
by Jonathan Abarbanel
Eclipse ensemble member Steven Fedoruk arrogantly goose-steps his stuff, chin jutting upwards, stomach thrust out, shoulders thrown back to suggest a powerful man with a bulk considerably larger than his own. Playing a game of divide and conquer, Fedoruk's character glowers, cajoles, demands, wheedles, shouts and charms. You can see the craftiness as he assesses others and sniffs out their weak spots. It's a consciously theatrical, oversized performance that makes one wonder: was Hermann Goering really like that?
Genuine German World War I hero and flying ace...the Red Baron wasn't alone...Goering later rose to power as Hitler's Number Two, creating the Luftwaffe and signing off on the development of the concentration camps. Ruthless militarist, showman and intellectual, the hefty Goering wore powder-blue uniforms and amassed an extraordinary art collection via Nazi conquests. Following actual history, 2 is set in Nuremberg in 1946 where Goering was sentenced to hang for war crimes, but committed suicide.
Playwright Romulus Linney succeeds in dramatizing Goering's contradictions. Affable, courtly and respecting military tradition, he also was a cunning and devious manipulator. The typical banality of Goering's evil, and his denial of responsibility, are weighed against his mystical devotion to Hitler, which never wavered. But to make Goering complex on-stage, Linney reduces others to obvious and one-dimensional foils for him: a Jewish army psychiatrist, a martinet prison commandant, a Black American guard conveniently paired with a Southern redneck guard, and so on. It's unfair. Goering is so much more entertaining and imaginative than anyone else.
The seven-person supporting cast are capable performers, well-drilled by director Nathaniel Swift ( but more volume, please, from Lawrence Garner as Goering's legal counsel ) , but they don't have much to do. It's Goering's play and Fedoruk's show. At first Fedoruk's work is so big and stylized it seems preposterous. But almost by his jackboot straps, Fedoruk pulls the production up to his size.
Kevin Scott provides a surprisingly light scenic design, using cut-away walls and two sinks to define Goering's cell and an adjoining consultation room, and costumers Michelle Bush and Hollie Elliot provide authentic period-style military drag. At one point, very graphic documentary concentration camp film reminds us not only of World War II atrocities, but of the human damage inflicted by all wars and conquests.
Eclipse has devoted its 2001 season to the works of Romulus Linney, a prolific and intelligent senior American playwright. Linney has Goering declare that "Western democracy is not for everyone, and I don't think it ever will be." Writing years ago, Linney was prescient in citing the USSR, China, the Roman Catholic Church and Islam as unlikely candidates for democratization. It's an observation with renewed relevance today.
TOP GIRLS
Written by: Caryl Churchill
At: Victory Gardens ( upstairs
mainstage ) , 2257 N. Lincoln Ave.
Tickets: $22.50-$25.50
Phone: 773-871-3000
Runs through: Dec. 30
by Rick Reed
After seeing playwright Caryl Churchill's magical Cloud Nine at About Face a few years ago, I was thrilled to see that the very talented and discriminating Remy Bumppo theater company had chosen to do another of the playwright's works. Cloud Nine rolled innovation, whimsy, and meaning into one fiercely entertaining package.
Imagine my disappointment then, in seeing that the playwright had managed to roll obfuscation, pretentiousness, and self-indulgence into one fiercely boring package. Despite Remy Bumppo's thoughtful, elegant production ( with particularly fine performances from Annabel Armour, Susan Bennett, and the amazing Tracy Michelle Arnold ) , Top Girls doesn't work because it's never able to take on the dramatic glue that makes for a cohesive piece. The playwright was too caught in her showing off just how clever she could be that she forgot that the most interesting dramas let their messages flow naturally from sharply realized situations and sympathetic characters. Churchill, whose stunning raison d'etre for this piece is that women are oppressed and have been for centuries, never looked much beyond this simplistic and trite theme to introduce anything compelling or fresh.
Despite the play having been written in the early 1980s and set in England ( with Margaret Thatcher's legacy hanging heavy over the proceedings ) , the piece never works because its theme and message ( note the use of the singular ) fails to get off the ground because neither are fresh nor topical for 21st century audiences. That's not to say that the struggle for gender equality is over...it's just that the piece is now dated, its ideas are stale.
The final scene dramatizes all of the themes that have gone before and the playwright has, at last, created a construct that includes genuine human emotion fleshing out her message.
Unfortunately, it's a sad case of too little, too late.
Uncle Fred In The Springtime
Playwright: adapted by Page Hearn from the novel by P.G. Wodehouse
At: City Lit Theatre Company at the Edgewater Presbyterian Church,
1020 West Bryn Mawr Ave.
Phone: 773-293-3682
Tickets: $18-$22
Runs through: Jan. 5
by Mary Shen Barnidge
It was inevitable that City Lit would run out of stageworthy Bertie And Jeeves stories. But that stalwart duo is only a part of the universe created by P.G. Wodehouse, another enclave being comprised of Bertie's cronies at the Drones Club, many of whom are honored to have had Bertie's preternatural manservant extricate them from troublesome situations. Pongo Twistleton is not one of these, however, nor does his rescuer intervene at the eleventh hour to save the day...on the contrary, Pongo's Uncle Fred positively revels in crackpot schemes initiated solely for the challenge of rendering them successful.
The schemes featured in Uncle Fred In The Springtime involve Pongo's gambling debts and his sister Valerie's squabble with best-buddy Horace, as well as aristocratic Ricky Gilpin and untitled Polly Pott's efforts to secure permission to marry from the former's Uncle Alaric, whose habit of throwing tantrums forces Lady Constance, hostess of Blandings Castle, to defer to her guest's every wish...even his demand for custody of her husband's prize-winning pig. Add Wodehouse's trademark smarmy clerk and dimwitted policeman...in this case, a con-artist turned PI...along with the venerable psychiatrist, Sir Roderick Glossop ( introduced in the B & J canon ) , and you have all the ingredients for another of Wodehouse's superlative screwball stews.
This comedy genre rises or falls on the strength of its catalyst. Fortunately, Don Bender projects a sunny optimism and serenity in the midst of upheaval that wins us over totally, reaffirming the comic flair he exhibited in the Hypocrites' recent production of Arcadia. He is supported by a bevy of double-cast actors, among them Will Schutz as the blustering Alaric and George Seegebrecht as both the tweedy Lord Emsworth and the myopic Rupert Baxter ( a transition so complete that only the curtain call reveals their common sire ) . Veteran director Kevin Theis keeps the pace brisk and timing crisp right up to the final staring contest between Katherine Ripley's pig-headed Valerie and Karen Pratt's equally iron-willed Lady Constance. And speaking of pigs...but you'll have to witness THAT complication for yourself.
Painting Churches
Playwright: Tina Howe
At: Organic Theater Company at the McGaw YMCA Center, Evanston
Phone: 847-475-2800
Tickets: $25-$30
Runs through: Dec. 23
by Mary Shen Barnidge
No, Paintng Churches is NOT a docudrama about the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. Its protagonist, Margaret Church ( "Mags" to her intimates ) , is an artist with a growing reputation in New York's gallery circles and a secure teaching job that pays the bills. At the start of Tina Howe's play, however, she has returned to her parents' home in Boston, hoping to persuade them to sit for a portrait in exchange for her help in packing up the household. Her father, award-winning poet Gardner Church, and mother Fanny Church, are retiring from public life and taking up residence at their seaside cottage. But even before we notice that "Daddy" Church supports everything his daughter does and "Mum" Church ( as they call one another ) , virtually nothing, tensions become evident beneath their cheerful banter.
The story grows more familiar with each passing year: elderly parents living longer and falling prey to degenerative illness and impaired cognizance, much to the dismay of family members who must deal with their kinsperson's physical and/or psychological descent into infantile dependence. But even as Mags protests her mother's cavalier treatment of her beloved mentor, his beleaguered spouse apprises her of the stress and sacrifice associated with the care of an icon gone to ruin...the move away from urban society to the isolation of the country will allow her to more easily conceal his disability...as well as the enduring affection that binds her to that duty.
But Howe's purpose is not to make us wallow in depression and despair. Comfort is rendered in the form of Mags' picture depicting her progenitors as they will never be again, an eleventh-hour expression of filial loyalty inspiring in these alienated clan members a rare moment of communal approval.
Under Ina Marlowe's capable direction, veteran character actors Mary Ann Thebus and Tony Mockus effect a deft transition from the jolly high-jinks of what we thoughtlessly assume to be another foozly old couple to the horror of relationships eroding under advanced age. Howe's text gives the clueless Mags little to do beyond reacting to the surrounding events, but emerges as no more naive than necessary in Cynthia Judge's sensitive interpretation.
H2O
Playwright: Greg Allen
At: The Neo-Futurarium,
5153 N. Ashland; Tickets: $12
Phone: 773-275-5255
Runs through: Dec. 22
by Rick Reed
If you want to see something truly inventive, poetic, haunting, funny, and universal, look no further than the Neo-Futurarium, where director/writer Greg Allen has created something unique, astonishing, and beautiful. The creative mind behind such critical and popular successes as Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, and K, Allen has scored a real coup here: presenting a work that is both an avant-garde piece of performance art, yet completely accessible to any audience. Who hasn't been in love?
Water is the metaphor that Allen uses to chart the rise and fall of love between a couple, Heather and Sean. We first see the couple alone in a restaurant, their tables separated by a wide expanse. Actors Heather Riordan and Sean Cooper sit at their tables, deadpan, yet something glimmers in their eyes. Hope? Loss? Desire? Complementing their loneliness is the Three Dog Night song, "One is the Loneliest Number," which acts as a motif throughout the play. The song's words could have been written expressly for H20, they are so perfectly matched to its message. In an extended sequence that's both comical and sad, the couple repeatedly douse themselves with glasses of water. Even though not a word is spoken, we immediately understand the powerful image that water represents: a nurturing force, a huge component of life itself, and the couple's repetitive, and singular, dousing represents each person's vain attempt to nurture a place that is parched and unfulfilled emotionally.
And then Heather and Sean notice each other, and the dance begins. H2O is almost entirely non-verbal, but, unless you've never been in love, you'll immediately recognize the landscape they traverse: the initial attraction, limerance, nest-building, discord which is quickly supplanted by sorrow and concern for the other. Things begin to fall apart and the couple travels down the familiar road of a relationship as it dies: the sexual incompatibility, the boredom, the depression, the rage, until finally the relationship, like the candles also used metaphorically in the piece, flickers and dies.
All of this is underscored comically, evocatively and touchingly, using slide projections, a near- perfect musical score that mirrors the phases the relationship is going through ( using everything from doo-wop to jazz standards to rock ) , and water...lots and lots of water. Water is the medium through which Allen has filtered everything brilliantly...from how we go about impressing a loved one to later, how we go about infuriating that same person.
Heather Riordan and Sean Cooper have both created wonderfully sympathetic and charming characters...no small feat when one considers most of what they communicate to the audience must be done through movement and facial expression.
The Neo Futurists, alas, are probably one of the only theater groups in town doing work like this. H2O proves just what an innovative company they can be; the show is like a slap of cold water to the face: just as surprising and bracing. Don't miss it.
