Scoot Yer Boots On Down to the Tualatin Heritage Center, Y’all! By Tina Arth

 

Picture shows: Brick Andrews, Jody Odowick, Blake Copeland, Amber Green, Rachel King, 

Matthew Grand

On very rare occasions, I start a review by suggesting that readers close my blog immediately and scurry(electronically) to the theater group’s website, buy tickets, then navigate back to the review for elucidation.  This advice goes doubly when the production in question is at the tiny Tualatin Heritage Center, where limited seating means that every show should be a full house. Why am I taking this extreme step now? Because Mask & Mirror’s current production of playwright James McLure’s duo, Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star, is just that good. Director Lennon Smith, ably assisted by her jack-of-all-trades husband George Mauro, the rest of the production team, and a fabulous cast have conjured up the funniest show I’ve seen in years. Better yet, they will continue to make this magic until the end of July, so I may even be able to see it twice!

 

I am struggling with the task of giving a lucid synopsis, so I will pirate the director’s prose: “Laundry and Bourbon/Lone Star, two one-act comedies, offer the audience two sides of the same coin. Through two very different sets of characters, we see the intimate details of life a small Texas town during a time of unrest and uncertainty in America.” I would quibble with just one part of this description – I do not see these as two separate one-act comedies, but as two halves of a single work (despite the fact that one does not generally give each act in a play its own title!). While each part could certainly stand alone, the story is infinitely richer because of the relationships between the women in the first part and the men in the second.

 

The women? There’s lonely, laundry-folding, bourbon sipping Elizabeth and her best friend Hattie, who escapes her three god-awful children by watching TV, gossiping, and making sure Elizabeth doesn’t have to drink alone. Enter self-righteous, born-again Southern Baptist snob Amy Lee to spoil their fun with her talk of mah jongg and country clubs, and the fuse is lit. Laundry and Bourbon is funny, touching, emotional, and authentic (in a down-home, Texas kind of way), but nothing in it prepares the audience for the knockdown, drag-out comedy of Lone Star. In the dusty parking lot of the quintessential Texas bar, we encounter Roy, a beer swilling vet with severe PTSD whose life has been off the tracks ever since ‘Nam – all he has left from his previous life is his wife Elizabeth, his ’59 pink T-Bird, and his slightly dim little brother Ray. As with Laundry and Bourbon, an already chaotically depressing scene is upended by the arrival of an outsider – Amy Lee’s wimp of a husband, Cletis. How is all of this funny? Hats and spurs off to playwright McLure, director Smith, and an amazing cast that takes this premise up, up, and over the top!

 

Amber Green (Elizabeth) is absolutely perfect, and saves the first part from being the stereotypical southern schlockcomedy. She gives the role a quiet dignity that sucks us into the pain as well as the humor of small-town life, and is apparently able to cry on cue. Be sure to sit near the front of the room if you can – the subtle beauty of her performance is worth a few extra minutes to arrive early. As her buddy Hattie, Jody Odowick is just as effective in a loud, gauche, weirdly lovable way – Hattie gets the best of the comic lines and physical comedy, and she doesn’t waste a thing. To the extent that there are any weak moments in Laundry and Bourbon, they come from Rachel King’s portrayal of Amy Lee. Like the other women, she isfunny and gets her share of the laughs, but she sometimes takes her character’s mannerisms to excess, so that she seems to be playing a parody of her type – if she reels it in just a little she’ll be a lot more believable.

 

The team of Brick Andrews (as Roy) and Blake Copeland (as Ray) is simply sublime. I am not, in general, the “laugh out loud” type, but driving home from the show I rediscovered my long-lost abdominal muscles because they actually hurt from excessive usage. No worries – it was worth it to spend an hour with this hilarious pair of comics. The pathetic cringing and whining of Matthew Grand’s “Cletis” provided a needed break from the physical comedy, allowing me to reset myself before the next onslaught of Roy and Ray as they drank, fought, and reminisced their way through the script.

 

While I’m passing out the praise, let me not overlook the lighting and sound effects by George Mauro. On a platform that barely dares call itself a stage, Mauro managed to recreate the sounds of a tattered down-home bar as well as the endless vistas of Texas’ barren Hill Country including a glorious red sunset, and Steve Hotaling followed the sound and light cues with utter precision.

 

Because of mature (sometimes very mature) dialogue, the show is not appropriate for children – but other than that, my advice is just GO!

 

Mask & Mirror’s production of Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star is playing at the Tualatin Heritage Center, 8700 SW Sweek Drive, Tualatin through Sunday, July 31st with performances at 7:30 PM on Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 PM on Sundays.

Twilight’s Song of Extinction By Tina Arth

Photo shows Thomas Magee, Shelley Aisner, and Arun Kumar

There is a lot to celebrate in Twilight Theater Company’s complex production of Song of Extinction. Playwright E. M. Lewis’ work is a timely reminder of the fragility of both our environmental and psychological ecosystems, and co-directors Michael Griggs and Kathleen Worley have brought in a fine cast to tell the story in a way that captivates and moves the audience.

 

The story revolves around four principal characters, each one in some way dealing with loss, evolutionary biology, and extinction (sounds a LOT drier than it is!). There’s Lily Forrestal, once a field researcher who is entering the last stages of a deadly cancer. There’s Lily’s biologist husband Ellery, hiding from his wife’s impending death by obsessing about saving the last member of a rare, endangered species of Bolivian beetle. In the meantime, young Max Forrestal (a musical prodigy, but no budding scientist) will fail biology if he doesn’t complete a 20-page paper on extinction. Dealing with the literal loss of one parent and the figurative loss of another, Max is completely adrift, and nobody seems to notice except his biology teacher, Khim Phan. Phan’s loss, while initially less obvious, is the most profound – he immigrated to the United States from Cambodia decades earlier, after losing his entire family in the brutal killing fields of the Khmer Rouge – like the Bolivian beetle, he is essentially the last of his species. The objectively “real” events of the play are interspersed with a few dreams, hallucinations, and reveries, but the writing, staging, and acting ensure that the audience is generally clear about what is going on.

 

Shelley Aisner’s dying “Lily” is heartbreakingly stoic as she adjusts to the finality of her diagnosis (and the awkwardness of her doctor, a newbie for whom Lily is his first dying patient). She is sometimes wry and sarcastic, sometimes gentle, and clearly frantic when Max runs away – but always believable as a fiercely strong woman trying to cope with her own fate while shielding her son and husband as much as possible. As Max, high school student Ben Delgado delivers a solid performance, moving through anger, alienation, despair, and ultimately the rebirth of his relationship with his father. His bio says that one of his favorite past roles was playing the earthworm in James and the Giant Peach, but I think his performance as Max Forrestal will assume a prominent place on this list.

 

Thomas Magee’s “Ellery” is almost painful to watch in his first scenes. With no context for his extreme detachment from his son and home we can only view him with puzzled anger – what father would be so indifferent that he could calmly send his son off to school with a breakfast of sauerkraut? The intensity of his passionate defense of a rare Bolivian beetle just makes it worse until we are shown a glimpse of his pain at losing Lily, and when he finally brings the same intensity to repairing his relationship with Max all is forgiven. Arun Kumar is simply riveting as Khim Phan – in some ways, he is every stern high school teacher with a heart of gold, but we are able to watch him develop this persona as he thaws from the isolation of his tragic past, fighting through both his own and Max’s loneliness and alienation in response to his young student’s obvious need.

 

Derek Lane’s set design is simple and effective – the hanging tubes give a slightly surreal effect that contrasts with the harsh reality of the hospital bed and curtains, and the translucent panels by the noodle shop/bus station create a gently commercial effect.  Robin Pair’s lighting accurately guides the audience from one scene to another on a stage that fills many roles, almost always keeping our focus on the relevant action.

 

All of that said, the staging was occasionally uneven. There is a moment in the beginning when Max and Ellery are first revealing their central conflict, but for some reason the decision was made to have Phan standing stage right watching the action. Unable to watch both sides of the stage at once, I was unsure of where my attention was supposed to go – I eventually settled on the father/son pair, but wonder if I was supposed to have gleaned something from Phan’s presence. The sound effects were spectacular in the Bolivian rain forest, but it would have been helpful if sound (or props) had told me that Max was in a bus station before the dialogue revealed this fact. The butterflies slowly floating down over Lily’s bed were graceful and evocative, but the cutout silhouettes of family in Khim’s reveries were cartoonish at best.

 

On balance, the strong performances and story far outweigh the few negatives. Song of Extinction is one of those plays that will stay with you long after you leave the theater, and the show is definitely worth seeing.

 

Song of Extinction is playing at Twilight’s Performing Arts Theater, 7515 N. Brandon Avenue, Portland through July 31st, with performances at 8 pm on Friday and Saturday and 3 pm on Sunday. There is an additional performance on Thursday, July 28th at 8 pm.

You’re A Good Show, Charlie Brown! By Tina Arth

Broadway Rose welcomes the onset of another Portland July with a tried and true audience pleaser, beloved of the boomers who grew up with the Peanuts gang and by their grandchildren (and, gasp, great-grandchildren!). You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown is perfect summer fare – light, but not empty; fun, but not silly; childlike, but not childish – just like Charles Schulz’s iconic 17,897 original Peanuts comic strips. Director Dan Murphy’s relationship with the show extends back into his elementary school days, and it shows in the care he has taken to present this gem in its best light.

 

The show has undergone some changes in the 55 years since its 1967 debut with Gary Burghoff in the title role (Iwould have loved to have seen that!), so authorial credit goes to the original author, Clark Gesner, with additional credit to Michael Mayer and Andrew Lipa.  Along the way, Peppermint Patty was replaced with Sally – having seen the earlier version of the show, I can confidently state that this was an upgrade.  The script and songs consist of a series of vignettes, with no consistent story line – really the only way you can capture the flavor of Schulz’s vision without limiting the scope of such a vast body of work. Many classic Peanuts conventions, including Lucy’s adoration of Schroeder, Schroeder’s adoration of Beethoven, Charlie and his kite, Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, Linus’ blanket, and more are captured in the show’s 16 (gorgeously staged) production numbers.

 

Each cast member creates a thoroughly memorable character, but there are a few real standout moments.  First among equals is Kimo Camat’s “Snoopy” – he commits 100% to his canine identity, with all of the shaking, wiggling, howling, scratching, yawning physical comedyyou could want from America’s favorite (if slightly delusional) beagle.  His vocals are flawless, but his pièce de résistance is the increasingly frenetic choreography (with “Sally”) of “Rabbit Chasing.”  Speaking of “Sally” (hilariously played by Camille Trinka) – in addition to her work with Snoopy, watch for her charmingly volatile “My New Philosophy.”  I fell in love with Michael Hammerstrom’s security obsessed “Linus” in part for his heart-warming “My Blanket and Me” but also for his serious intellectualism and wide-eyed sincerity throughout – Hammerstrom creates a kid I’d really like to know.

 

Like the queen she wants to be, Sarah Aldrich commands the stage as Charlie Brown’s narcissistic nemesis, Lucy. Whether she’s mooning over Schroeder, bullying her baby brother, or deceiving Charlie Brown with faux empathy in “The Doctor Is In” she is snide, sarcastic, and condescending, with that amazing mixture of arrogance and ignorance that has become a hallmark of 21st century American life. Everyone who has ever been to elementary school will recognize and relate to Aldrich’s contribution to “The Book Report” – and back in the day we even had to count words by hand! Jason Hays is a delightful Schroeder whose enthusiastic rendition of “Beethoven Day” earns a much-deserved wave of audience applause, and his segments of “The Book Report” are nothing short of brilliant.

 

Sadly, if appropriately, James Sharinghousen’s starring role as “Charlie Brown” is generally overshadowed by his more confident, passionate, and outspoken cast mates. As it is in the comic on which it is based, Charlie’s character is drawn to be submissive, naïve, sometimes almost invisible – in many ways, the audience sees him most clearly through the eyes of the others. Sharinghousen is saved from being an object of pity by the eternal optimism he gives his character, an optimism that is finally validated when Lucy (in the final scene) temporarily abandons her abrasive persona and acknowledges that he is, in fact “a good man.”

 

Massive props are due to the team of Sean O’Skea and Kristeen Willis as scenic and lighting designers – the shifting colors and intensity of the light within the striped backdrop and huge blocks create a constantly changing ambience that coordinates beautifully with the action on stage. Musical director Darcy White manages to turn 5 instruments into a solid orchestra that fully complements the powerful and precise vocal ensemble work of the cast.

 

While You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown is fun and accessible enough to delight most children, it is definitely more than a children’s show or simply a brief voyage into nostalgia. Aside from some of the finest vocals and dancing you are likely to see on local stages, the show succeeds (as did Schultz) in drawing children as fully formed humans with the hopes, dreams, intellect, and passion that will shape their adult lives. If you have any kiddos around the house, by all means take them – but don’t hesitate to go all by yourselves!

 

You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown is playing at Broadway Rose’s New Stage, 12850 SW Grant Avenue, Tigard through Sunday, July 31.

HART’s Laughter on the 23rd Floor a Loving Roman à clef By Tina Arth

Picture by Dawn Sellers shows Brandon Weaver, Jeff Brosy, and Steve 

Koeppen

Full disclosure time: prior to May 13, 2022, I did not know that “Roman à clef” meant “novel with a key.” Courtesy of Neil Simon, Google, and Meghan Daaboul’s directorial bucket list, I am now enlightened – and delighted to have been in the preview night audience for HART’s offering of Laughter on the 23rd Floor. Having been subjected to a few too many productions of The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park, I was a bit wary of another play by the prolific and awesomely talented, but sometimes predictable, Simon. However, this lightly novelized tragi-comic take gives an eye-opening perspective on a seminal period in the history of American television writing. With its frequent swipes at McCarthy (Joe, not Kevin) and the oppressive politics of an establishment eager to label anything out of the mainstream as communism, it is thoroughly entertaining and remarkably relevant.

 

Quick summary: it’s early 1953, and the play is set in the writer’s room of a New York based television variety show called “The Max Prince Show” (a paper thin disguise of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows”). A group of slightly mad writers collaborate on the sketches that form the backbone of the 1.5 hour show. Prince is a constant thorn in the side of the network, which wants to cut the show to one hour, cut the budget, and introduce a less sophisticated style of comedy that will sell better in Middle America – something that neither Prince nor his writers have any interest in doing. By the end of Act II, several months have passed, the network has won the battle (they do, after all, control the purse strings), and Prince decides to throw in the towel, leaving his writers unmoored and unemployed. Very little research makes “the key” of this particular Roman à clefvery clear – the characters represent such comic geniuses as Larry Gelbart (“Mash”), Carl Reiner (“The Dick Van Dyke Show” and so much more), Tony Webster (“Phil Silvers Show”), Mel Brooks (need I say more?), and even the playwright, Neil Simon (whose character, Lucas, acts as narrator).

Given the much larger-than-life characters who inhabited the real writer’s room, there is a very clear danger that Laughter on the 23d Floor could be an orgy of overacting and cheap imitation – but director Daaboul has neatly sidestepped this peril. Her actors all play their roles with varying degrees of looniness, but there is a fundamental restraint in their performances that underscores the reality behind the script. As Lucas (the narrator), Brandon Weaver is the closest thing to a straight man, and he gives us a clear idea of how Simon must have felt as the new kid on this particular writer’s block. Steve Koeppen (as the beret toting Milt) immediately introduces the theme of utter insanity, but calmly reveals the method in his madness when he clues Lucas into the comedic politics of catching Prince’s attention in a room full of whackos.

 

While there are truly no weak links in the cast, a few performances really take the show to the next level. I loved the narrow-eyed cynicism of Seth Wayne’s understated “Brian,” and Erin Bickler (as “Carol,” the only female writer) oozes with quiet resentment of the male-dominated culture of the group. For me, a real star turn comes from Michael Rouches (as Ira), a neurotic hypochondriac who playwright Simon openly based on Mel Brooks. I probably won’t have the opportunity to see the show again, but if I could it would be primarily to watch Rouches do his thing.

 

Costume coordinator Kelcey Weaver has done a spectacular job of dressing the eclectic cast in attire appropriate to both the period and the eccentricity of the characters. William Crawford’s set design is detailed and attractive, and (for me) a highlight of the show is the spectacular view of the New York skyline from the 23d floor window.

 

Portland area theaters will probably do a dozen or more Odd Couples before Laughter on the 23rd Floor reappears on a local stage, and courtesy of a Covid-related delay there’s only a two-week run, so tickets are going fast. Catch this little gem while you can!

 

Laughter on the 23rd Floor is playing at the HART Theatre, 185 SE Washington, Hillsboro through May 22nd, with performances Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Another Sweet Suite Surrender By Tina Arth

Jeff Gardner, Mary Reischmann, Amelia Michaels, Lura Longmire, Aaron 

Morrow, and Kraig Williams

I must admit I was having a hard time getting enthused about seeing Mask & Mirror’s latest offering, Suite Surrender. Michael McKeever’s classic WWII era farce about a pair of dueling divas is funny, well-written and lively, but I felt like there was nothing new in it for me – I’ve seen the show several times in the last decade, and have seen two key players fill lead roles, direct, or both in previous productions. What I did not anticipate was the extent to which some new cast members would refresh and enhance the experience for me – so much so that I would advise even the Suite Surrender jaded to consider seeing the show one more time.

 

First, a brief recap of the story: Claudia McFadden and Athena Sinclair are big Hollywood stars who have been playing benefit performances all over the country to raise money for the war effort. They are fiercely combative rivals whose well-publicized fights are a big draw for the public, and it is essential that they be kept apart, both on-stage and off. Due to an apparent mix-up, both women have been booked into the same elegant suite at the Palm Beach Royale Hotel, and the play revolves around the (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts by the hotel management, staff, and the stars’ secretaries to keep the women from discovering the error. 

 

The first time I saw Suite Surrender (in 2013) it was directed by Kraig Williams, who was also called upon to play the role of Mr. Pippet in several performances. Aaron Morrow, who played the role of hotel manager Mr. Dunlap in the 2013 production, is the director of the current Mask & Mirror production, and Williams is again playing Mr. Pippet. Continuing the déjà vu all over again nature of this play, due to an unforeseen injury, director Morrow finds himself reprising the role of Mr.Dunlap. As if all of that were not enough, I’m pretty sure the stuffed dog playing Mr. Boodles is a veteran of every Washington County Suite Surrender stage. Got that?

 

Those of you who saw the 2013 production (or an intervening offering from a few years ago) will know that both Morrow and Williams are physically and expressively quite perfect for the roles they play (Mr. Boodles, while anatomically ideal, lacks emotional depth)– enough said. My focus is on the newcomers – starting with Lura Longmire’s utterly commanding performance as Claudia McFadden. She is imperious, demanding, and very, very funny –and she absolutely nails the vocals (yes, there is singing!). Mary Reischmann’s extraordinarily egotistical and lascivious take on Athena Sinclair creates the perfect adversary – and Reischmann absolutely ROCKS the 1940s Hollywood-era dress she is wearing. 

 

Other star turns that demand mention include Laurie Monday, who is unbelievable as the befuddled and perennially wide-eyed Mrs. Osgood – definitely not to be missed. While he spends a significant amount of time out of sight and apparently unconscious, Steve Hotaling takes Otis to truly lofty heights of cluelessness and is a joy to watch. 

 

As always, Woody Woodbury’s set is exquisite, and captures the flavor of the time and place precisely.  Morrow has drawn strong performances from all of his cast members – my one complaint would be that in the opening scene characters seemed to be rushing their lines, which made it hard to follow the dialogue. Once the pacing settled down everything was sharp and clear. It’s not a long show, and there’s no need to hurry!

 

Mask & Mirror’s Suite Surrender runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2:30 pm through May 22 at “The Stage” at Rise Church, 10445 SW Canterbury Lane, Tigard, 97224.