Showing posts with label Theater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theater. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

An Ovation for the 2024 Perlberg Festival of New Plays at Palm Beach Dramaworks

 


 

It was nearly ten years ago that Palm Beach Dramaworks’ Producing Artistic Director, Bill Hayes, implemented their visionary Dramaworkshop, dedicated to providing resources and support for playwrights to develop scripts.  The logic was if not-for-profit theatres don’t do it, who will?  Broadway no longer takes such chances.  It was a bold move as regional theatres typically suffer under some economic adversity and Dramaworks had just settled into their new theatre on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach.

 

Then came Covid, yet another strong headwind.  Fortunately, PBD had the financial reserves to wait out the storm, and has come back stronger than ever and, with an endowment gift from Diane and Mark Perlberg, their commitment to new plays has been secured for years to come.  The Dramaworkshop is under direction of PBD’s Bruce Linser, a gifted actor and director, and his enthusiasm for the program is infectious.  He and his committee sift through hundreds of submissions each year, winnow them down to five, workshop them, and those become dramatic readings as part of the renamed Perlberg Festival of New Plays.

 

It is hoped that one or two of the plays presented in the festival will make it to the main stage to join the classic plays presented each season.  Last month’s production of the highly acclaimed The Messenger by Jenny Connell Davis emerged from last year’s festival.  2024’s festival just successfully concluded and because of the Perlbergs’ gift the five new plays were also prefaced by interviews with two theatre luminaries, actor Estelle Parsons and playwright Mark St. Germain.  


Parsons appeared at PBD in My Old Lady (2014) and has originated numerous roles in new plays over her decades-long career.  PBD helped develop St. Germain’s script for Freud’s Last Session and produced its Southeastern premiere (2011).  A feature film based on the play, starring Anthony Hopkins, was recently released.

 

Parsons was interviewed by Bill Hayes on Jan 3, a great kick off to the festival.  They are not only theatre colleagues, but are now old friends and it was amusing to watch how Parsons, a veteran of six decades in the theatre, now 96 years old but feisty, sharp, and a take charge kind of person, just go her way with the interview, while Hayes was left holding his interview outline (although he did manage to hit his high points).  It was a friendly, even loving, give and take.  Parsons is also a director and when asked the question of what is the main role of the director, it was “to find the truth.”  Hopefully the video that was being taken of the interview will be made available in the future.  It was a “don’t miss” beginning to the festival and Parsons attended each and every performance in the ensuing days.

 

The following day Hayes interviewed Mark St. Germain.  Again, both have a long association.  This time, Hayes was on script and like his plays, St. Germain was thoughtful and passionate about ideas.  Many of his plays are a form of historical fiction and focus on single characters, or small casts.  They are intimate and cerebral.  He talked to an extent about bringing his material to film but with some regret because of the loss of control.  It was a memorable interview and St. Germain was also in attendance for all the new plays that followed.

 

So the first two days were these landmark interviews, then five new plays in three days (brief descriptions provided by PBD):

 

PROXIMITY

by Harrison David Rivers 

Newly divorced and sheltering at home with her two children at the height of the pandemic, Ezra hasn't been touched by another adult in eight months. At a virtual PTA meeting, she is introduced to the charismatic Irie, another single parent, and their immediate attraction causes Ezra to reconsider the limits of her Covid bubble.

 

STOCKADE

by Andrew Rosendorf  

Five years after the end of WWII, a group of gay soldiers gathers for a reunion on Fire Island. They are met by an outsider with a surprise that will cause them to question whether history is best left in the past. At a time when “security risk” is government code for “homosexual,” it will take courage for them to step out of the shadows and confront their present and future.

 

COLOR BLIND

by Oren Safdie   

In 2009, a jury was tasked with selecting an architect to design the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. This play is a fictionalized account of how that panel of diverse people and ideas may have come together – or been pulled apart – in making its decision, and in so doing, challenges the audience to consider the state of our current civil discord.

 

EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL HAPPENS AT NIGHT

by Ted Malawer  

Ezra is a successful children’s book writer. Nancy is his longtime editor. They are always on the same page, until someone new threatens to disrupt their friendship and influence Ezra’s next book. Set in 1980s Manhattan, this play explores the legacy of an artist, the meaning of intimacy, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.

 

LITTLE ROW BOAT

by Kirsten Greenidge  

When 14-year-old Sally Hemings travels to Paris as nursemaid to her half-sister’s young daughter, the world appears to have opened much wider than Thomas Jefferson’s post-revolutionary Virginia plantation on which she was born. It is not until Sally’s brother James, also in France as he trains to be a chef de cuisine, points out the peculiarities of their circumstances that Sally begins to question the kindnesses their “master” has extended to them.

 

These are rehearsed presentations by professional actors, most Actors Equity members.  Although they have a podium for their scripts, there is no scenery, special lighting, movement, all the elements endemic to theatre.  Yet, the actors are emotive and draw the audience into the production; we, in our imagination, supply the rest.  While we are watching the playwrights’ work, they are watching the audience as these readings provide valuable clues as to what further developmental work might be needed, clarity, cutting, or maybe more humor, or laughter at the wrong spot?  After the play, there is a Q&A skillfully managed by Linser, encouraging the audience to give their true reactions. 

 

No doubt one of these, at least, will appear on a fully developed main stage production in the future.  I would hate to be on the “jury” to make those decisions as all have merit and as their descriptions indicate a special relevancy to our present times.  The arts are not a competition and to make such decisions more difficult is the fact that a reading is threadbare of staging.

 

Each of the plays presented touched me in some way but I’ll mention a few; and these are very personal observations, unique to my own theatre experiences and background.  So no intended judgment of the ones I fail to mention.

 

Color Blind reminded me in some ways of Tracey Letts’ The Minutes.  Although the latter is about a bickering City Council meeting turning into something very ugly about the town secret, Oren Safdie’s Color Blind uses a similar technique, projecting architectural designs as kind of Rorschach test for bringing out societal issues and the personalities of the jury.

 

Because I have a background in publishing, the relationship between editor and author as portrayed in Everything Beautiful Happens at Night rang true, playwright Ted Malawer exploring larger themes of loneliness, shame, and love.  That reading had two of South Florida’s premier actors, Tom Wahl and Laura Turnbull, which helped make it especially touching.

 

Although entitled “Little” Row Boat, it made a big impression on me because it was so challenging, with lots of symbolism and dramatic contrivances that could be highly effective in a fully realized stage production.  In a narrow sense the story is about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but the macrocosm is about slavery leaving an indelible imprint on our nation.  I can imagine if Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia was workshopped, there would have been similar difficulties (in my mind, Kirsten Greenidge’s Little Row Boat has a similar feeling and complexity).  It is certainly theatre to think about.

 

After the festival there was a Champagne toast to all who made the festival possible.  The collective energy that goes into staging this festival is monumental by very talented people.  Hopefully, it’s success represents an emphatic statement that theatre is back!  And maybe some mighty oaks will grow from these readings.

 

 

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Kenneth Lonergan’s ‘Lobby Hero’ Exposes Uncomfortable Truths in Palm Beach Dramaworks' Production

 

Although written more than twenty years ago, Lobby Hero is a highly relevant play for our post truth world.  It was Sir Walter Scott who penned "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" which is at the heart of this ensemble character-driven plot, leading to disturbing moral and ethical dilemmas.  Each character's actions and choices affect one another's lives.

 

The palette may be small, but Kenneth Lonergan creates major layers of meaning: class issues, racism, sexism, police cronyism, and workplace harassment, leavened by very humorous moments.  These themes clearly emerge in this thoughtful and entertaining production.

 

The stunning set was envisioned by Dramaworks’ award-winning Scenic Designer, Victor Becker, who died earlier this year and to whom the play is dedicated.  This realistic lobby in a Manhattan high rise apartment building is more than a space merely to be passed through.  It is a stoic observer, a fifth character, enabling the lives of the players to be challenged and changed before us.

Tim Altmeyer, Elisabeth Yancey, Britt Michael Gordon, Jovon Jacobs

 

Lonergan builds the play around a pair of parallel relationships, the action unfolding over four successive nights.  The first pair is Jeff, a uniformed nighttime security guard for the building and his captain William and the second is Bill, a uniformed policeman and Dawn, his rookie partner. 

 

Jeff is the antihero in the lobby, “an Everyman,” who views his situation in the world for what it is, having to live with his brother because of debt, hoping for a break, although not knowing what to do in life. Sometimes he feels that he was born to fail; a discernible Dreiserian undercurrent permeates all the characters.

Elisabeth Yancey and Britt Michael Gordon

 

Britt Michael Gordon plays Jeff with an affability which has you pulling for him, in spite of his unguarded casualness in dealing with others. Amusingly, but sometimes disastrously, he just says his private thoughts out loud, even blurting out the truth about others, leading to “the tangled web” of the characters’ enmeshment.  His demeanor makes him feel “safe” for the other characters to talk to, even confess to, and to lecture to as well. 

 

Gordon portrays him with a quirky innocence, belying some poor past choices and the estrangement from his late father of whom he is always reminded as being a “real hero” during the Korean War.  He uses humor as a defense mechanism, particularly to cope with personal insecurities in dealing with others.

 

His boss, William, a black man, is played with an ironclad moral implacability by Jovon Jacobs.  He espouses “living by the book,” especially for the edification of Jeff, but William is on the horns of a dilemma as he later confesses to Jeff -- his brother was arrested for a monstrous crime, one he’s almost certainly guilty of, but he is relying on William to provide an alibi. 

 

William now must weigh that against his equal certitude that his brother will not receive a fair trial particularly as the public defender is overburdened with other cases.  Will he do the right thing, or will he provide an alibi knowing the system, one that is blind to black men without resources, will fail to provide true justice?  Jacobs plays this moral seesaw to the hilt, the impossible choices, drawing Jeff into the details.

Tim Altmeyer and Jovon Jacobs

 

The second pair is headed by Bill, Tim Altmeyer delivering an exaggerated performance as a macho, intimidating cop, imbued by his own self-importance.  However, he certainly nails him as the most unlikable person in the play, who even Jeff in all his innocence calls a “scum bag.”

 

While carrying on an affair with a woman in the same building where Jeff and William are security guards (bristling at being called “doormen” by their police counterparts), Bill also is engineering a fling with his rookie partner Dawn, played by Elisabeth Yancey, her PBD debut who balances bravado, and later, betrayal.  She sees Bill as a love interest until Jeff innocently stirs the pot by blurting out the purpose of Bill’s visits to the building.  Yancey convincingly plays the gullible and then jilted rookie and delivers a lot of pathos in her role.

 

Jeff’s loose tongue provides for many laughs as well.  Gordon’s performance rises to a climatic high point when he is charged by Dawn to share William’s confidence.  He successfully renders this as an existential crisis of finally being able to do something meaningful in his life.  The denouncement hints at some future for Dawn and Jeff, an understanding of doing the right thing, a hopeful upbeat.

 

Director J. Barry Lewis extracts first-rate performances from his very skilled actors, including some fast sounding “New Yawkr tawk .”  Maybe it’s a little over the top along with the mannerisms of Altmeyer and Yancey in their police roles, but those in the audience who grew up in NYC (including myself) will identify.

 

Lewis magnifies some uncomfortable confrontations, such as William’s fury at Jeff for revealing confidences and especially when Bill mincingly and aggressively confronts Jeff for involving himself in Bill’s business, on the precipice of physical violence.  He has paced the play so the humor can land, elevating some laugh out loud moments, so necessary given the play’s themes.

 

The PBD technical staff supports the efforts with Roger Arnold’s sound designs, jazz interludes between scenes as well as the siren sounds of the city, the barking of a dog, the ding of the arriving elevator.  The lighting design is by Kirk Bookman perfectly capturing that glaring light of a lobby in the middle of the night, and PBD’s resident costume designer, Brian O’Keefe devises immaculate uniforms, badges and caps for the four characters, purposely disheveled at times, and street clothes for Dawn in the last scene.

 

Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Lobby Hero successfully deals with its large enigmatic moral dilemmas, with heart, humor and acumen.  

 

All photographs of the actors are by Tim Stepien