HART Explores Crimes of the Heart

Photo by Bob Morrison: Kelsey Ion, Yelena King, and
Leslie Inmon

 

 By Tina Arth

If there is one overarching theme that defines theatrical depictions of the American South, it is that family trumps all.  Playwright Beth Henley’s Pulitzer Prize winning Crimes of the Heart clearly adheres to this principle in its curious mixture of comedy and tragedy, of startling transgressions and stereotypical Southern schlock. Director Stan Yeend has assembled an appropriately quirky group of actors to bring this unusual blend to Hillsboro’s HART Theatre’s production of a classic play.

 

Crimes of the Heart introduces the Magrath sisters (Lennie, Meg, and Babe), the most recent generation of a hopelessly dysfunctional family in Hazlewood, Mississippi. Henley tackles it all – racism, spousal and child abuse, suicide, infidelity, mental illness, and more as her script takes the audience back and forth from laughter to tears through three acts of emotional peaks and valleys that end with the ubiquitous sisterly hug – more catharsis than resolution.

 

The story is centered on a very, very bad day and a single (literal) crime –Babe, the youngest sister, is being released from jail after shooting her husband, Zachery Botrelle, in the stomach because she doesn’t “like the way he looks.”  The scene opens with a desperately lonely Lenny, the oldest sister, celebrating her 30^th birthday alone by trying to light a candle and stick it in a cookie (this does not go well).  Lenny’s pathetic birthday celebration is minimally brightened by the delivery of two presents – a bag of pecans from Doc, Meg’s ex-beau, and a box of Whitman chocolates from the Magrath girls’ cousin Chick, the quintessential small-town snob.  Chick, utterly mortified about the stain Babe has left on what’s left of the family honor, is headed for jail to pick up her errant cousin. The incredibly self-centered middle sister Meg, having gotten word from Lenny of Babe’s predicament, breezes into Hazlehurst from Hollywood, where she has achieved solid failure as a singing star and been briefly hospitalized for depression. The fun never stops – and it’s a tribute to playwright, director, and actors that the audience is able to empathize, but still see the lighter side of all this tragedy.

 

Tyler Hulegaard brings a puppy-dog like naiveté to his small role as Babe’s young, inexperienced (and clearly smitten) lawyer, but his finest moment is a phone conversation where he seems to grow 6” and his voice drops an octave as he tries to intimidate Babe’s wounded spouse.  Blaine Vincent III drips with Southern charm that makes it hard to read his true feelings as Doc Porter, still carrying a small torch for Meg but thoroughly settled in with a wife and family. Deone Jennings is consistently funny, if occasionally a bit over-the-top, as stick-up-her-butt Chick – she provides a lot of the show’s much-needed comic relief.

 

The real heart of the show, of course, is the Magrath sisters.  Leslie Inmon’s “Lenny” provides the lion’s share of the tears (her own, and the audience’s) – her vast range as an actor allows her to mourn, rage, accept, and even find joy, hope, and love in a world that has offered up entirely too much pain. Yelena King’s “Meg” is nearly impossible to love, and King gives her character a chillingly strident narcissism that hides occasional glimpses of the wounded bird beneath her armor. Kelsey Ion’s performance, like her character, is genuinely bipolar – she brilliantly navigates Babe’s dizzying mood swings as she shifts between a delusional, childlike simplicity and genuine empathy.

 

Several years ago, Woody Woodbury designed a beautiful set for the Mask & Mirror production of Crimes of the Heart, and he has definitely matched this earlier effort again at HART.  Before we know anything about the Magrath sisters, the detailed and authentic kitchen set tells a story of a modest, but much-loved home held for generations and built at a time when the kitchen was truly the center of the home and family.  The set dressing by Kathryn Stevens and Virginia Kincaid provides a perfect complement, with a careful eye in all its touches.

 

With three acts, Crimes of the Heart is a relatively long show (almost 2½ hours the night I saw it) despite solid pacing and no set changes.  However, it’s definitely worth seeing, both for the quality of the performances and to support HART’s willingness to participate in the renaissance of live theater.

 

Crimes of the Heart is playing at the HART Theatre, 185 SE Washington, Hillsboro through Sunday, November 7th, with performances Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Speech and Debate – Twilight’s Latest Gem

Picture by Alicia Turvin shows Dominique Francis and Max Powell

 

 

By Tina Arth

 

Twilight Theater Company’s second offering of the year, playwright Stephen Karam’s Speech and Debate, is a beautifully dark, quirky little show that perfectly encapsulates the concept of dramedy. The subject matter could not be more serious, as one rarely sees the lighter side of adolescent sexual abuse and molestation. However, Karam pulls it off – and I simply love this show! Director Jeremy Abe and his cast, in particular the three leads, find the humor, angst, and power in Karam’s script about coming of age as sexual and intellectual outsiders in the complex 21^st century milieu of a suburban American high school.

 

The story revolves around the intersection of three crusaders at a school in Salem (our Salem, not the one of witch-burning renown). There’s Diwata, the budding Broadway star who can’t get the drama teacher to cast her in a lead, and who is determined to start a Speech and Debate Club in order to expose said drama teacher’s pervy propensities. There’s Howie, gay, proud, and loud, newly arrived from the more cosmopolitan culture of Portland, seeking Instagram hookups and a Gay-Straight Alliance Club. There’s Solomon, the introverted young journalist obsessed with getting the school paper to address controversial issues, in particular sexual misconduct by the local mayor and other closeted authority figures. With Diwata as the prime mover, the trio forges an oddly touching alliance that takes a simple Speech and Debate Club to unimagined heights of absurdity (perhaps you’ve forgotten about the nude dance number in the musical version of The Crucible?) while remaining faithful to the play’s serious core themes.

 

Each of the leads escapes cheap parody and easy laughs by committing 100% to their role. Gayle Hammersley (Diwata) as an irresistible force of nature – the frumpy, bright, persistent, creative outcast who refuses to be sidelined by a school culture designed for lesser mortals. A few repeating chords on her electric keyboard  (and a startling good voice) provide the soundtrack for her enthusiastic, impromptu vocalization as she shamelessly manipulates her cast mates into joining her club and her campaign. Max Powell (Solomon) captures every nuance of his character’s awkward intensity; his mannerisms and delivery are flawlessly accurate, and made me cringe at the casual cruelty that is a hallmark of the adolescent experience. However, my personal Tony for Best Actor goes to Dominique Francis (Howie) for the layered texture of her performance – superficially urbane, cynical, and blasé but with undertones of pain and vulnerability that would have been really hard to watch if she weren’t so damned funny. Their three characters caught on the edge of adulthood and casually dismissed by the adults in their lives, Gayle, Max and Dominique draw us inexorably into playwright Karam’s little world.

 

Paul Roder’s set is minimalist and functional – simple enough to facilitate frequent scene changes; with the addition and subtraction of a few key set pieces we can be in a classroom, a restaurant, or a bedroom (or three), or a surreal school board meeting.

 

Both playwright Karam and director Abe must have clear memories of their teen years; the heartbreaking yet hilarious authenticity of the script attests to careful and respectful examination of each character’s struggle. Courtesy of Covid-19 and the Delta strain, Twilight’s production of Speech and Debate may not draw the audiences it deserves, but those who choose to go will be well-rewarded, and the theater is enforcing the highest safety standards to protect their patrons, actors, and staff.

 

Twilight Theater Company’s Speech and Debate is playing at the Performing Arts Theater, 7515 N. Brandon Avenue, Portland through October 31^st, with performances at 8 P.M. on Friday–Saturday, and 3:00 PM on Sunday. 

 

Loch Lomond

By Tina Arth,

I am not, in general, a big crier – it takes a lot to loosen my tear ducts. That said, every once in a while a show just grabs my heart - somewhere between lights up and final bows I become something of a mess. However, Broadway Rose’s current production, the world premiere of Loch Lomond by Maggie Herskowitz (book and lyrics) and Neal Douglas Reilly (music), established a new record – one look at Alex Meyer’s set, a romanticized vision of the famous loch and surrounding Trossachs, was all it took to send me burrowing into my purse in search of a tissue. The set was only the beginning of a truly magical evening – if you are thinking it’s time for live theater again, this is a show you just cannot miss.

 

While Loch Lomond is set during Scotland’s Jacobite uprising of 1745, it is not a story of glorious battles, but of four flawed people revealing their weaknesses and finding their strengths in a tragic time. Almost all of the action takes place in two locales - the prison cell where brothers Lyle and James are being held after their capture by English forces, and the farmhouse, fields, and hills near Loch Lomond where Lyle’s wife Elspeth and James’s lover Ailey ultimately wait to learn the fates of the men.  Lyle has made two contradictory promises – one to remain with Elspeth, the other to watch out for James when he goes to join the rebellion. The jailers have told the brothers that both will be executed in the morning, and through 17 songs and a series of flashbacks their stories, and the stories of the women they left behind, are revealed.

 

The characters each carry a huge load, but if the show has a star it’s Benjamin Tissell (Lyle). I’ve seen Tissell in two previous Broadway Rose productions, but had no idea of his prowess as a vocalist and an actor until he threw his larger-than-life persona into  “Six Hours” (a duet with Colin Stephen Kane, playing James). From there on, his performance never lets up, even as he gradually cedes some of the power of his alpha male position to his younger brother.  Kane kind of sneaks up on you – he seems broken, maybe even a bit whiny at the start, his vocals spot-on but never dominant. I was stunned at his ability to transform himself – just moments after his first scene in prison, he appears as the playful adolescent with sparkling eyes, more than willing to enjoy Ailey’s libidinous advances – but by the end of the play, he has reshaped himself into a man right before our eyes.

 

The women of Loch Lomond take a back seat to no one. Danielle Valentine (Elspeth) is the epitome of a stalwart Highland lass. Using a voice as powerful as Tissell’s, she illustrates her ability to accept life’s hardest challenges with clear-eyed wisdom (“The Man I Married” and “Time Makes Liars Of Us”) but able to lose herself in her love for Lyle (“Beautiful Things”). Finally, there’s Hannah Lauren Wilson (Ailey), who creates an irresistibly witchy little misfit immersed in a world of Selkies and other Celtic myths. Wilson is everything Ailey should be, with her bright red hair and those laughing eyes that hide an insecure and damaged young girl who taps an inner core of strength and empathy as the play progresses. She is a strong vocal partner throughout, but really shines in her solo number, “Running Through The Raindrops.”

 

Directing a world premiere presents a universe of challenges, but Isaac Lamb makes it look easy. He comes down on the side of consistently mild Scottish accents without even a hint of parody, and his actors are true to that vision. The set design is brilliantly understated, leaving the glory for the sculpted mountains and captivating loch of the backdrop, and the few multi-purpose set pieces move so fluidly that virtually no time is lost to set changes. Kimberly Hergert’s costume design threw me at first – then I remembered that she was recreating a not a contemporary kilt but its ancestor, the flowing yards of tartan that once provided a Highlander’s clothing, shawl, and shelter with an elaborate system of tucks and folds.

 

Music director/conductor/keyboardist Benjamin Quintel and his tiny band (Marc Grafe on reeds, Amy Roesler on strings, Zachary Stowell on Drums and Eric Toner on guitar) create the feel of traditional Scottish music as a backdrop and accent to the show’s original songs, and the closing vocal quartet for “Loch Lomond” ensures that any dry eyes left in the house will be coated with a fine highland mist. Loch Lomond is a genuinely beautiful new play that should become a musical theater standard, and any future productions now have a lot to live up to.

 

NOTE: Per Oregon’s indoor mask requirement, all guests and staff must wear a mask in the theater. In addition, Broadway Rose is requiring proof of full COVID-19 vaccination OR proof of a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours of the performance for anyone not vaccinated, including children under the age of 12 and those who are unvaccinated due to medical condition or religious belief. Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test along with photo identification will be checked at the door prior to entry.

 

Loch Lomond is playing at Broadway Rose’s New Stage, 12850 SW Grant Avenue, Tigard through Sunday, October 24th.