Another Step in The Evolution of Mann By Tina Arth

 

While Broadway Rose occasionally offers its audiences access to relatively unknown plays, their current production is a rare treat, allowing the cast, production team, and audience to participate in the literal evolution of a work on the long journey from concept to final product. Collaborators Dan Elish (book and lyrics) and Douglas J. Cohen (music and lyrics) have been sculpting Elish’s 2005 novel, Nine Wives, into a finished (at least, for now) musical for well over a decade, and the result is The Evolution of Mann. The show has had three previous titles, songs have come and gone, and the loveable sidekick has been changed from Glenn to Gwen on the winding road from first reading at Boston’s Emerson College to the Broadway Rose New Stage.

 

Through one 90-minute act with 13 musical numbers, the authors take us through the story of single, thirty-something aspiring playwright Henry Mann as he moves from the heartbreak of being dumped by his fiancé through a series of romantic missteps until he finds the path to potential happiness. The songs are fully integrated into a charming, often very funny script that’s just loaded with interesting takes on the rom-com clichés we know and love – the heartlessly materialistic ex(Sheila), the pushy momma, the sophisticated babe (Tamar), the sweet girl-next-door schoolteacher (Christine), and Gwen (my favorite), the level-headed lesbian roommate who offers wry advice and ultimately steers Henry in the right direction.

 

Courtesy of a poorly timed Covid exposure, for opening weekend the lead role of Henry Mann was filled by director Isaac Lamb rather than by Broadway Rose newcomer Richie Stone. While I was looking forward to seeing Richie do his thing, it was a treat to be able to watch Lamb step in – he has the voice, the look, and the stage presence, knew the songs, and as director was uniquely suited to step in at a moment’s notice. Richie is expected to be back on the boards by the second week of the run, where he will be able to rejoin the other two cast members, Kailey Rhodes and Kortney Ballenger.

 

Rhodes is a Company regular, with four previous Broadway Rose shows under her belt. Since she wears several hats, playing Sheila, Tamar, Christine, and an intergalactic Daisy Buchanan (I won’t try to explain this one – you’ll have to see it!) she carries part or all of 10 of the show’s 13 songs. She copes beautifully, changing her look, affect, and vocal styling constantly to fit the fast-moving script – and she is just ridiculously cute throughout. Rhodes’ delivery of “Tale of the Otter” ensures that the audience will be rooting for Christine, irrespective of Henry’s concern about her unibrow.

 

My hands-down favorite performer is Ballenger – she’s sincere, smart, and funny but never silly (except for the Gatsby cameo), absolutely slays the show’s most important song (“The Unromantic Things”), and nails her New York accent and over-the-top blonde wig as Henry’s classic Jewish mother. Since the program says she’s based in Middle Tennessee, we’re not likely to see her on local stages again – reason enough to check out The Evolution of Mann while you can.

 

Sean O’Skea’s scenic design plants us squarely in the heart of NYC, capturing a cartoonish quality that perfectly suits the tone of the show – and the clever use of the revolving stage means that the action never stops for scene changes; Carl Faber’s lighting design moves our attention smoothly from one setup to another while complementing the changing moods of the show.

 

The score is typical of lightweight musical comedies - conventional rom-com tunes built as a vehicle for Elish and Cohen’s witty lyrics. Music Director/pianist Darcy White, with cellist Dale Tolliver and Attila Csikos on guitar, move the show along seamlessly and provide an almost continuous soundtrack underscoring much of the dialogue as well as the formal musical numbers. 

 

The Evolution of Mann will not change your life, teach you anything startlingly new about love, or alter your opinion of starving New York artist types. It will provide 90+ minutes of solid entertainment, deliver a lot of laughs, and make you reflect on what’s important in human relationships. Reason enough to go!

 

The Evolution of Mann is playing at Broadway Rose’s New Stage, 12850 SW Grant Avenue, Tigard through Sunday, October 16.

HART’s Ripcord Flying High By Tina Arth

 Photo shows Kathleen Silloway, Les Ico, and Diana LoVerso.

When I went to opening night of Ripcord at HART Theatre, it was the second comedy I had seen in as many days. The first (which shall remain nameless) was a beautifully done production of a classic work, set on a large and elegantly dressed stage. By contrast, playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s play was brand new to me, performed with minimal bells and whistles in the tiny Hillsboro venue. Two very different productions on many levels – but the most important difference between the two shows was that, unlike its thoroughly pedigreed rival, Ripcord made me laugh. A lot. Director Tony Broom and his highly versatile cast (6 people play a total of 10 roles) make the most of Lindsay-Abaire’s darkly comic script, and the payoff for the audience is enormous.

 

The premise is sort of The Odd Couple on steroids. Two residents of a high-rise assisted living facility, Abby and Marilyn, are sharing the most desirable room in the house, a top-floor double with a lovely view overlooking the park. For several years, Abby has used her thoroughly unpleasant personality to drive out a succession of roommates, ensuring that she will be able to live alone. The impossibly upbeat and positive Marilyn, however, refuses to yield to Abby’s increasingly overt attempts to repel her. At a stalemate, the two adversaries agree to an unusual bet – Marilyn will move out if Abby succeeds in making her angry, and Abby (who claims to never be frightened) will cede the best real estate (the bed by the window) if Marilyn manages to scare her. Over the course of a couple of weeks, the two women turn to increasingly nasty tricks, some of them over-the-top dangerous and some really vicious, working their way to the final prank and the show’s climax.

 

Diana LoVerso (Abby) and Kathleen Silloway (Marilyn) are both experienced in their adversarial roles, having previously battled it out in The Odd Couple, Female Version. However, their current roles call for a more complex approach to character; each of them portrays a woman who is not exactly who she initially seems to be. Ripcord has been accurately described as a farce with a dark side, and Silloway gives her “Marilyn” a correspondingly Pollyanna-like surface that offers quick glimpses of an inner demon. LoVerso has a similarly deft touch as “Abby” – she is convincingly and consistently nasty, but resists the urge to overplay the role and thus leaves the door open to soften (slightly) her hostile affect at the denouement. Both women are skilled comedians who leave no laughs on the table, but both understand that the more the situations go over the top, the more essential it is that the actors play it completely straight.

 

I was gratified to see how well Les Ico (who often plays the consummate clown – beautifully) toned down his inner comic as Scotty, the nurse/aide/aspiring actor who has to mediate between the battling roommates.  While he fills a key role in the development of the story, Ico’s performance is also one long set-up for a final joke, and he never gives anything away until it’s time for the punch line. The final three cast members (Beth Moore, Charly Smith, and Bryce Bristow) have less to do, despite filling a total of seven roles, but each has a core character essential to the story and each finds within that character just the right touch.

 

The set is simple – minimal but reasonably authentic for the half of the stage that is Abby and Marilyn’s room, and virtually a black box for the other half. Costume coordinator Kelcey Weaver has done a lovely job of assembling the authentic apparel needed for the weird and often absurd action that sometimes explodes stage right.

 

Due to strong language and some mature situations, Ripcord is not really appropriate for younger children.

 

Ripcord is playing at the HART Theatre, 185 SE Washington, Hillsboro through September 25th, with performances Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Opening Night Audience Crazy for The Mad Ones By Tina Arth

 

Picture shows Elise Byrne and Amelia Segler.

I rarely leap to my feet for standing ovations, but Twilight Theater Company’s opening night performance of The Mad Ones was an exception – I happily joined the large and enthusiastic audience in granting “Standing O” honors to this marvelous musical and dynamite cast. Playwright/composers Bree Lowdermilk and Kait Kerrigan have captured that magical moment in late adolescence when so many of us have chafed against parental, societal, and self-imposed bonds of conventionality, dreamed of, and then chased freedom. As I was going home from the theater, the lure of the unknown, exemplified by a destination-free road trip, lingered and I found a part of me wanting to just follow the 5 where it would take me. However, I wasn’t driving and my sensible chauffeur opted for the 5 to 217 to 10 to my house – just as well, as the dogs would have been very confused and no route, no matter how spontaneous, would have taken me back to my freedom-loving 1967 self.

 

The production’s antecedents are complex – while The Mad Ones debuted in late 2017, licensing for general production was not available until shortly before the pandemic hit, and live performances were shut down. Undaunted, the authors found a creative stopgap - as director Chris Byrne explains it, “Kerrigan and Lowdermilk responded by creating The Mad Ones Lab, a community-driven experience that allowed a select group of innovative creators to collaborate and experiment with what digital theater can become.” Byrne was selected as one of 21 directors in the collaboration, and she assembled a cast that created a video segment of part of the show. Finally in 2022 she has been able to bring the full production to the Twilight stage, including three of the four original cast members.

 

Largely through its 21 songs, The Mad Ones tells the story of Samantha Brown, a young woman on the verge of graduating from high school who is confronting a literal and figurative crossroads in her life. Sitting in a hand-me-down car, keys clutched in her hand, she wavers between her mother’s determination to send her off to Harvard and a Jack Kerouac-inspired longing to chuck it all and hit the road. She takes the audience back to a time when her best friend Kelly was pushing her to take her foot off the brakes and fly, and her steady, sweet, but a bit unimaginative boyfriend Adam offered love, security, but not much excitement. Sam’s world had fallen apart when Kelly was killed by an errant driver (there are a LOT of car themes), and for 90+ minutes we relive her sometimes joyous, sometimes painful journey.

 

Samantha’s mom Bev (played by Dorinda Toner) is a statistician who reels off numbers  (some of them highly questionable, imho) at every turn. Toner gives the role a comically didactic edge that makes it clear we are viewing Bev through Samantha’s eyes – beginning with the droll“My Mom is a Statistician” (“Two to one, you'll hit a red light, Fifty to one, you hit a bear”) and continuing through a series of demanding vocals that blithely interweave singing and speaking. I especially related (as Sam, not Bev) to Toner’s marvelous delivery of “I Know My Girl” (no, Mom, you do not!). 

 

Blaine Vincent III creates perhaps my favorite character with his nuanced portrayal of Adam – part horndog adolescent, part caring (and almost too good to be true) young adult who really sees Sam for who she is. When he sang “Run Away With Me” I was almost ready to start packing, and his beautifully played sincerity was an interesting contrast to Toner’s overt parody.

 

It’s tempting to view Kelly (Amelia Segler) as the star of the show – her wild enthusiasm is impossible to resist, her voice is spectacular, and she frequently carries the score with challenging vocals that she delivers with utter precision even when the ensemble arrangements verge on chaos. Segler’s blazing heat sets off the fire in Samantha – plus she’s hilarious as the guidance counselor who goes toe to toe with Bev in a battle over Sam’s future. However, the real star is, of course, Samantha (Elise Byrne) – it is her story, her life, her changes as seen through her lens. Byrne gives the role just the right mixture of intellectualism, reticence, grief, passion and intensity as she transforms herself into her version of a mad one, and it’s a pleasure to watch. Her vocals, like her acting, are engagingly relatable but not flashy – ultimately, she is the character I most wanted to be.

 

The minimalist set makes no attempt at realism, which is perfect for a story completely projected from the mind of one character (not to mention that it eliminate any awkward time wasted on scene changes). In lieu of elaborate set, Twilight has allowed lighting designers by Leslie Inmon, Jeremy Ollis, and Ward Ramsdell to go over the top. Carefully timed bursts of color interspersed with monochromatic moments provide as much support as the soundtrack, pulling the audience into some of the show’s most intense moments with amazing precision. Speaking of precision, kudos to vocal arranger Lindsey Lefler – her deft touch was essential in weaving the actors’ voices into a unit despite the complexity of the score.

 

The Mad Ones is one of those gems that may not be available on local stages for a long time, so I strongly urge everyone who has ever survived adolescence (or is secretly trying to survive it right now) to hasten themselves to North Portland for the show before it disappears.

 

The Mad Ones is playing at Twilight’s Performing Arts Theater, 7515 N. Brandon Avenue, Portland, through September 18th with performances at 8 pm on Friday and Saturday and 3 pm on Sunday.  There is an additional 8 pm performance on Thursday, September 15th.

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.