Between Stages

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Holiday Alchemy

By this point, I would’ve been dragging myself to my fourteenth holiday show of the season. By this point I would’ve dreaded having to go through the whole ordeal of another Christmas story. This wasn’t just any Christmas show, though. This was The Show: the first production to inhabit the newly opened Alchemist Theatre on south K.K. I had been pleasantly invited to the new space earlier in the week and hopped a #15 down to Bay View at my first opportunity. After ordering a beer from the bar, I was shown around the space. Talking to the Alchemist people (the alchemists?) one gets the impression that there is finally a group of people just as passionate about providing a space for theatre as so many others in town are about actually performing.

Resting comfortably across the street from the Bay View library, The Alchemist Theatre is pretty impressive for a converted space. One side is a fully functioning bar, which will be opening for business in the January. The other side is a small theatre space featuring what just might be the third most comfortable theatre seats in the city. (More on that later.) They are converted multiplex-style seats complete with cup holder in case you want to drink during the show.

The Show itself was an unexpectedly good end to the season. Sketch comedy is rarely more than a few laughs, but The Show’s holiday program transcended this a bit in places. The local sketch comedy group (consisting of Doug Jarecki, Karen Estrada, Jason Powell, Mathew Huebsch and Andrea Moser) may have been a bit limited by the holiday theme of the show, but, on the whole, it was surprisingly bearable. It opened with some reasonably clever superhero-themed Christmas carols. What followed was a pleasant mix of reasonably good comedy. One of the more interesting bits was an office comedy sketch involving Santa’s middle-management elves at the North Pole. It was a cute premise, but it never quite lived up to its potential. One of the better sketches was a cleverly offbeat bit involving a gift exchange between ninjas. One dare not give a lousy gift when honor can be brutal. Funny stuff, but only to the fraction of the audience that might understand.

The program featured a few improv bits as well. For the most part, these bits went off precisely the way improv bits normally do: the audience is asked for suggestions that are fit into a comedy bit and mild laughter ensues. The final improv skit of the Thursday evening show had some real comedy in it, though. The Dickensian Christmas comedy skit featured mention of the magic of the Christmas Smiting Ornament—a surprisingly durable idea to have come out of improv comedy. This holiday season, may the Smiting Ornament come and smite away all of your anxieties. Okay, so maybe you had to be there. . . .

The Show’s Christmas program closed. Next, The Alchemist Theatre welcomes Alamo Basement and Insurgent Theatre with their production of Berzerk!—a chaotic march of ten-minute plays that was so good last year at Darling Hall.

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

But Only Because People Are Asking

Normally, I try to keep out of other people’s opinions—especially if they happen to come from a major media outlet. (Why give them any more attention than they’re already getting?) However, since enough people have asked me what I think about this past Sunday's article by the theatre guy from the daily, I should probably mention something about it.

The gist of the article is this: the author feels that, while theatre in Milwaukee has been particularly good lately, it needs to take more chances. Local theatre companies are playing it safe far too much and Milwaukee audiences are suffering. Or something like that.

The problem with the article is that its author is only talking about the more established, relatively well-funded theatre companies. One does not attend a show by one of these companies if one is expecting to be challenged for the same reason one does not attend a Hollywood film at a multiplex for clever, thoughtful cinema. Big money generally doesn’t take chances with new, challenging stuff. Look at how many new Broadway musicals are based on old Hollywood films. Big money generally doesn’t take chances with new, challenging stuff. Compare the budgets of The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (one of the largest arts groups state) and Present Music (not one of the largest arts groups in the state) and compare how many world premier compositions each one performs each season. Try selling work by a new composer to an audience that would rather listen to Beethoven again. (I know what this is like firsthand: I used to work in subscription sales for the MSO.)

Big money theatre is big money theatre because it does stuff with a proven track record that will guarantee an appreciation by a broad enough audience to maintain funding. Take chances with something new and you run the risk of alienating some of your established audience. About once per season, the Artistic Director of the Sunset Playhouse tries something a little out of the ordinary for a relatively sleepy suburban, Elm Grove audience and about once per season, the Artistic Director of the Sunset Playhouse gets a flood of calls from irate customers asking why he would put something so offensive onstage. Making decisions for major stage in town, you're put in a strange place. You find yourself finessing that tenuous balance between what artists want to do, (giving the audience what you think they want) audience expectations (giving the audience what they think they want) and the artists’ perceptions of audience expectations (giving the audience what you think that they think they want.)

Those who want to be challenged by new, untested theatre don’t go where the money is—they go to the fringe. In a market like Milwaukee, that means going to DIY shows at out of the way locations—shows by theatre groups with names like Pink Banana, Alamo Basement and Insurgent Theatre. Generally speaking, that means going to shows that the theatre guy from the daily doesn’t review. The problem here is not that theatre in Milwaukee isn’t taking chances—it’s that the theatre that is taking chances isn’t being seen by the guy who wrote the article everyone seems to be going on about.

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Know What They Call A Quarter Pounder With Cheese In England?

UWM’s Studio Theatre rests at the bottom of a stairwell, holding back the bewildering labyrinth of rooms and workshops in the basement below UWM’s Mainstage. Michael Cotey and Daniel Koester share that space with an electric heater and a pair of beds as they mill about playing a couple of characters named Gus and Ben. It’s halfway though a three-night run of the Players Guild’s production of The Dumbwaiter. There aren’t many people in the audience, but that’s to be expected. People are still shoveling themselves out of a few inches of snow that still coats much of the East Side from earlier in the day.

Going to UWM to see Pinter’s The Dumbwaiter feels like going back to high school to watch Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. Two hit men sit in a basement making casual conversation until their next kill. The wardrobe is familiar: white shirts, black ties, black suits and handguns. Tarantino’s idle small talk between killers in his first two feature films may have been inspired by Pinter. If not, it’s a strange coincidence that John Travolta (who went on to play a hit man in Pulp Fiction) starred as Ben in a 1987 TV movie adaptation of Pinter’s Dumbwaiter as part of a two-hour special directed by Robert Altman.

Koester and Cotey, both in the final year of their BFA acting programs at UWM, opt out of adopting British accents—a decision which takes away some of the flavor of Pinter. Two professional killers rest in a basement somewhere in the British Midlands speaking of tea, “crisps” and “biscuits,” with perfect American accents, but you get used to it. This is actually an excellent choice: adopted British accents can be a fatal distraction if they’re not perfectly on the mark. The clarity of Pinter’s more visceral emotions shines through a captivating performance. Cotey and Koester handle the tension in the basement quite well, aided by the ominous, booming mechanical sounds of a restaurant dumbwaiter at key moments. All the British specifics wash away and all the audience is left with is two men awaiting their fate in a windowless basement with almost no connection to the outside world. Cotey and Koester stumble a bit in places, but the illusion is remarkably convincing for much of the one-act. Holding Pinter’s tension with authentic emotion for the entire act is quite an accomplishment given that Cotey and Koester are just a few paces from even those in the back row of a very small theatre space. It’s a really good show that could hold a crossover appeal for those younger audiences that are so illusive to the mainstream theatre companies in town. Too bad it runs only one more night.

The Players Guild’s production of The Dumbwaiter closes Wednesday, December 12 at the UWM Studio Theatre. The show starts at 7:30 pm. Admission is Free.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

A Pair of Hit Men Raise Money to Fight Cancer

Even the snow doesn’t stop hit men. Tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 pm, The Player’s Guild at UWM is presenting a production of Harold Pinter’s The Dumbwaiter. Spend some time with professional killers Ben (played by Daniel Koester) and Gus (played by Michael Cotey) as they wait in a windowless basement (played by the UWM Studio Theatre) for word on their next hit. Admission is free. Donations are being accepted for the American Cancer Society as a show of support for UWM Theatre Department member Pam Rehberg, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s snowing. Hang out with Ben and Gus and help fight cancer. The show opened Monday December 10th. It closes on the 12th.

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What A Wonderful Closing Song

After this past weekend’s opening of The Norman Conquests, for some reason I feel the need to mention that as of this writing, Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World has been featured as the closing music for not one, not two, but five different distinct productions so far in the 2007-2008 Milwaukee theatre season. There’s no question that one of the personal favorite songs of one of the greatest musicians in history is one of the most popular songs in the history of recorded sound, but . . . five shows in one season? It’s a bit much. Here’s the run-down:

October 3rd: the Marcus Center opens a production of Pat Hazell’s The Wonder Bread Years featuring John McGivern. The show closes with the 1967 (or was it 1970?) Louis Armstrong recording of What A Wonderful World. The song is a fitting closing for the feel-good boomer-centric stand-up routine.

October 4th: the Tenth Street Theatre—In Tandem opens its first show in brand new venue featuring HA!--a series of clever one-acts by Rich Orloff. The last short is a sharp comedy theorizing the possibility that the universe was created as a class project for a university student. The show closes with the 1967 (or was it 1970?) Louis Armstrong recording of What A Wonderful World. Closing the show with the song here is reminiscent of the final episode of a certain sci-fi BBC radio comedy written by Douglas Adams that originally aired in 1978. It’s a good song, but a bit eerie this night at In Tandem considering a show across town is closing with the exact same recording of the same song at roughly the same time in the evening.

December 2nd: the Quadracci Powerhouse Theatre--The Milwaukee Rep opens its latest production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests. Not only does the 1967 (or was it 1970?) Louis Armstrong recording of What A Wonderful World close all three shows in the trilogy, it’s also used (presumably by Sound Desiger Michael Keck) as the central theme for the trilogy’s musical score. The show’s star Gerard Neugent is even seen putting it on a phonograph player and lip-synching to it in character in Living Together. It works, but it feels a bit inconsistent here. Why this particular Louis Armstrong song for The Norman Conquests? I know it’s splitting hairs, but Armstrong’s A Kiss To Build A Dream On would seem more appropriate for the trilogy . . . it’s a much more wistful song that seems to suit the end of each show much better.

I shudder to think of the song ending even one more show this season. I admit it’s a minor concern—petty, even. I’m not even sure why I bring it up. Don’t get me wrong--I love the song. I’m okay with the it ending a show. (Putting it at the end of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in 1978 was brilliant) but five times in one season is a bit excessive. That’s all I’m saying . . .

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