Rock
the cradle
The
latest in Shipping Dock Theatre’s historical tear is Canadian playwright Jason
Sherman’s It’s All True. This time we
get a close-up on American history: the legendary first performance of The Cradle Will Rock.
In 1937 socialist writer Marc
Blitzstein (Billy DeMetsenaere) had in his hot little hands a satirical opera
about the labor struggle. It was a new kind of theater: musical, political,
without sentiment. He sent it to the 22-year-old Orson Welles (Michael
Phillips), a bright, chaotic, and dangerous star on the New York scene. Welles,
with images of rolling wagons and weeping prostitutes and streetlight solos
dancing in his head, decided to stage it under Project 891, the WPA-funded
theater project he ran with producer John Houseman (David Jason Kyle).
Cradle‘s opening
night became history because it got caught in the middle of actual labor
unrest: workers were gathering, conservative politicians were panicking, and,
ultimately, the WPA withdrew its support. Just before opening (where the play
begins), the company finds padlocks on the theater door.
This play is a mouthful for the actors,
with its brisk pacing, overlapping lines, heated arguments, and character- and
setting-jumping. On opening night, some scenes were a challenge. But things
were already falling in place by the end of the performance, and it will only
improve as the run continues. Everyone will take big, deep breaths, and all the
pauses will fall in the right places.
Ironically for a play about a play
whose production steadily gets more and more out of control, director Barbara
Biddy takes the jumpy timeline and double roles firmly in hand and set designer
P. Gibson Ralph creates a clean, efficient, and completely effective set. The
Visual Studies Workshop stage becomes the players’ stage at Maxine Elliott
Theatre, and small tables are brought in to indicate Club 21 or a dressing
room. Nothing more is needed.
If you want quick and easy
entertainment, don’t bother. This is time to think. We’re behind the scenes at
a pivotal moment in theater history. Characters discuss the intersection of
politics and art, and whether theater should reflect what’s really going on in
the streets. Blitzstein and Welles argue about songs and set pieces as if they
are life and death. And, in this setting, where theater is the only reality we
have, they are. But it is a great credit to the cast and the production that
nobody looked at their watch and nobody leaned over to whisper, “What just
happened?”
I can’t help but feel a tiny bit sorry
for DeMetsenaere, Kyle, and Phillips, cast as Blitzstein, Houseman, and Welles.
But especially Phillips. It has to be hard to play any well-known historical
figure. How much harder is it when you have to try to live up to the man behind
“Rosebud”? Phillips has one thing going for him, before the acting even comes
into play: the radio voice. And while he has some difficulty projecting Welles’
arrogance and charisma, in some scenes you can see he’s learning how to throw
his weight around like only the truly self-loved can do.
The acting in the rest of the small
cast is generally quite good. I am confused by the playwright’s choice to have
two women play all the female roles, unless it’s to stay true to Welles and
Blitzstein’s hang-ups with women. But luckily Melissa Rees and Jill Rittinger
pull it off beautifully, with nice direction from Biddy. Rees’ scene as the
tortured and untrained Olive trying to get her song down is really well played,
as is Rittinger’s scene as Virginia Welles finally confronting her husband.
Mark D’Annunzio, who plays the lead actor and budding socialist Howard DaSilva,
is the easiest to watch. He’s seamless, never letting you see the acting behind
his energy.
You should go
if you already like the theater or Depression-era history. Bring your brain; this
is not a replacement for primetime.
It’s All True through July 10. | Shipping Dock
Theatre, Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince Street. | $20-$22. |
www.shippingdocktheatre.org, 232-2250
—
Erica Curtis
Open-air
farce
Yes
Virginia, there is such a thing as fun Shakespeare.
The
Shakespeare Players (a division of the Rochester Community Players) is bringing
Shakespeare to the park for the eighth year. This time it’s The Comedy of Errors, that tangle of
mistaken identity and twins, and director Linda Starkweather has a vision.
She’ll
be happy if “we can hook a few people on that Shakespeare isn’t all that dull
and stuffy,” she says. And she’s doing it with music.
The Comedy of
Errors as a musical. You probably wish you thought of it first. The whacked-about
servant twins sing “It’s a Hard-Knock Life”; Adriana sings “I Hate Men” from Kiss Me Kate; there are old standards to
rock ‘n’ roll favorites. Everyone sings along to a piano.
Starkweather
likes the idea of free, outdoor theater because it’s going back to the art
form’s roots, when theater was performed in the street or in venues that
everyone could afford to attend. “The community was all seeing the same story
being told, with the same moral or lesson,” she says, “so this was sort of the
communal, live experience. The theater has always been a great place for
political or moral issues.”
Though
this comedy is bigger on pratfalls than politics. But lately it’s been too hot
for morals anyway. Bring your picnic. It’s all in good fun.
You should go
if you’ve ever sacrificed a night of entertainment because you just didn’t want to
go inside. Or, if you happen like to like the sound of “free admission.”
The
Comedy of Errors, July 1 through 10 (no show July 7). | Shakespeare Players,
Highland Park Bowl, 1200 South Avenue, 8 p.m. | Free. |
www.rochestercommunityplayers.org
—
Erica Curtis
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 5, 2005.
