[Advertisement]

[Advertisement]

[Advertisement]

The 30th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays

    by David Hurst, Theatre Critic - NEXT Magazine - Special to BroadwayStars.com

    The 'industry' weekend for the 30th Anniversary Humana Festival of New American Plays was held March 31 thru April 2 at the festival's home at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and, as is often the case with their yearly selections, a general theme seemed to run through most of the works being presented. This year's theme seemed to be 'mental health,' or the lack thereof, which was appropriate considering how questionable many of the selections actually were.

    The first play was LOW, a possibly autobiographical one-woman show about how quickly a member of society can go from a seeming impoverished normality to the other side of sanity and homelessness. Written, produced and performed by Rha Goddess (whose biography claims that she's a "world-renowned artist/activist") and directed by Chay Yew, LOW is about a woman named Lowquesha whose descent into addiction and mental instability is as vivid as it is self-indulgent. Goddess is a talented performer with undeniable stage presence who confidently and competently handles an array of characters in Lowquesha's life. But, after a myriad of one-woman shows by everyone from Whoopi Goldberg to Sarah Jones, Goddess isn't telling us anything new – about the form or about addiction issues in America. The last five minutes of the piece in which she steps out of character (and without her body-mic) to deliver a stinging indictment of this country's inability and unwillingness to deal with all the social ills she's dramatized is both riveting and irritatingly preachy. Yes, it's all true; but Low feels more like a vehicle written to showcase a talent instead of a theatrical call to social change.

    Next up was Theresa Rebeck's The Scene, directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman. A contrived, contemporary drama about a man's mid-life crisis that spirals out of control into an implausible act of violence, The Scene's acting and physical production were excellent (as was the case across the board at Humana this year); the problem was that I didn't believe a word of it. The story involves a frustrated, out-of-work actor named Charlie and his friend Lewis who meet a free-spirited, passive-aggressive and seemingly ditzy woman named Clea at a party. Lewis asks the beautiful Clea out on a date but it's Charlie who ends up having an affair with her that destroys his marriage with his wife Stella, his friendship with Charlie and catapults him into a personal hell from which it's clear he won't recover. As Charlie and Lewis, Stephen Barker Turner and David Wilson Barnes are excellent while Carla Harting hits the right notes as Stella and Anna Camp knocks it out of the park as the mentally unhinged, manipulator Clea. The problem with The Scene, as it is with so much of Rebeck's writing (Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection, Spike Heels and Omnium-Gatherum) is that her dialogue is completely unbelievable; no one talks the way she lets her characters speak. And speak, and speak and speak. No wonder actors lover her work, they're like kids in a candy store who can't help themselves from stuffing their pockets with sweets. Rebeck consistently lets them prattle on endlessly, whether it's Stella complaining about a bad day at work, Charlie screaming about a humiliating lunch with a former actor-friend who has a pilot-deal or Clea, who always seems to linger in every scene she's in to get in her two-cents worth when any rational person (in the scene with her) would have thrown her out long ago. The ending, which I won't divulge since The Scene will probably end up being produced around the country, is ridiculous beyond imagination. But Rebeck has bigger problems than Charlie's 'snapping point' as long as she favors speechifying over believability.

    For me, the best play of the festival was Jordan Harrison's Act a Lady, a delightful and silly exploration of gender roles that's set in a play within a play in the Midwest of 1927. Directed with stylish fun by Anne Kauffman, Act a Lady tells the story of Miles (Paul O'Brien), True (Matt Seidman) and Casper (Steven Boyer) who find themselves 'putting on a show' for charity in which they dress up as Lady Romola, The Countess Roquefort and Greta the Maid, respectively, in a campy 18th century love story. Miles' wife Dorothy (Suzanna Hay) has grave reservations about her husband and the boys donning ladies clothing. But she soon comes around to the transformative power of theatre with the help of a wayward make-up artist, Lorna (Cheryl Lynn Bowers) and a dictatorial female director, Zina (Sandra Shipley). As Miles, True and Casper delve into rehearsals for their over-the-top extravaganza under Zina's watchful eye, they begin to wonder why they're having so much fun wearing dresses and what that means. Harrison's deliciously funny script unveils each of their personalities and motives as each man comes face-to-face with his male persona (which the three actresses portray) while in drag. If it sounds a bit complicated, it is, and Harrison has a bit of cleaning and shaping to do in the second act to more carefully illuminate these conversations so the audience isn't confused. But the juxtaposition of their Grapes of Wrath daily existence with their Marie Antoinette love story is wonderful and serves as one of the many metaphors about sexuality that Harrison is subtly making. The entire cast was superb but special mention goes to Matt Seidman who does the impossible flipping back and forth between the ruggedly handsome True and the alluring Countess Roquefort, as well as Steven Boyer whose burgeoning Casper is simply adorable and gets the last, heartbreaking line in Harrison's eye-opening play.

    I'm glad I read Anne Bogart's 'director's note' before I saw Charles Mee's Hotel Cassiopeia, the second in a quartet of plays that Mee has written (and is writing) for the SITI Company, the first of which was Bobrauchenbergamerica which premiered at Humana in 2000. Hotel Cassiopeia was inspired by the art and life of American artist Joseph Cornell and incorporates: texts taken from his diaries and letters, some of his favorite movies, Deborah Solomon's biography Utopia Parkway, and various and sundry other writings. The production itself, with scenic design by Neil Patel, costumes by James Schuette, lighting by Brian H. Scott, sound by Darron L West and projections by Gregory King, is visually and physically stunning. It's been directed within an inch of its life by Bogart and the cast, including an arresting Barney O'Hanlon as Joseph, Michi Barall, Stephen Webber, Leon Ingulsrud, J. Ed Araiza, Akiko Aizawa and the divinely talented Ellen Lauren are all wonderful. The drawback for Hotel Cassiopeia for many will be its lack of narrative and/or clearly defined story about Cornell's life with his domineering mother and his mentally dependent brother Robert. Granted, it's not intended to be a biographical play strictly about Cornell which Mee makes abundantly clear. It's inspired by him and much of the action and dialogue appears to be taking place within Joseph's mind, opening a window for the audience onto what an artist must suffer and go through for his art. It's mystifying and beautiful and there will be many who absolutely love it. There will also be those who are just as confused by what Mee is trying to say.

    There's no doubt about what playwright Sharr White is trying to say in his slice-of-life drama, Six Years, which charts the course of a man and woman's rocky and emotionally dysfunctional relationship from 1949 to 1973 at six year intervals. The problem is that nobody really needs to hear it. A tired, retread of other plays about men returning from the horrors of war dressed up in a Same Time, Next Year wrapper, White's writing is flat and boring. Michael J. Reilly and Kelly Mares overact and work way too hard as Phil and Meredith Granger. But the supporting cast, including Harry Bouvy, Frank Deal, Marni Pennning, Stephanie Thompson and Isaac Gardner all acquit themselves admirably with Bouvy and Thompson being especially good in difficult scenes that require understated restraint. Hal Brooks' direction is fluid and keeps the action moving, but it can't overcome White's dreadfully dull script that needs to be put in a shoe box in his closet.

    Conversely, we haven't seen anything like Eric Coble's lavishly produced new play, Natural Selection before but that doesn't mean it's not crippled by problems too. Coble's work envisions an America in the future (though the 'Time' setting in the program is rather ominously described as 'next week') when global warfare and environmental destruction have left us a society where no one leaves their homes and all communication is done via the internet. The terrific Jay Russell puts just the right spin on the lead character of Henry Carson, a nebbish executive of a theme park that specializes in providing 'live' exhibits of indigenous peoples and cultures that no longer exist because of our own stupidity. Henry is forced to go find a new Native American for one of his exhibits and ends up capturing Zhao Martinez (nicely played by Javi Mulero) but it turns out that Martinez isn't a full-blooded Navajo after all and hilarity ensues. Unfortunately, Coble's not content to let Natural Selection be just a comedy and insists on making it a 'message play' as well with disastrous results. The cast is solid with an over-the-top performance by Mark Mineart as Henry's paramilitary cohort that's hard not to laugh at. But Coble's writing is unfocused, both in content and tone and Marc Masterson's rambling direction doesn't help the proceedings one bit. Neither one of them have a handle on the conclusion of the play wherein a biblical storm and Indian myths collide headlong. The set by Kris Stone, however, is impressive.

    In addition to these six main stage productions, the festival also included three Ten-Minute Plays: Sovereignty by Roland Jones (The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow), Three Guys and a Brenda by Adam Bock (Five Flights, Swimming in the Shallows and last years Humana entry, The Shaker Chair) and Listeners by Jane Martin (who is rumored to actually be director Jon Jory); as well as a series of songs and sketches based on Las Vegas for the members of the Acting Apprentice Company called Neon Mirage. Both Jones' Sovereignty and Bock's Three Guys and a Brenda were big hits with the audience, the former a slyly written treatise against America's hypocrisy towards the disenfranchised of the world, and the latter being a laugh-fest wherein all the roles were played by women with hysterical results. If only the other main stage productions this year had writing with half the wit, skill and subversive nature of Jones and Bock, it would have made for a much more interesting and entertaining festival. Other than the delightful Act a Lady and the beautiful Hotel Cassiopeia, this year's Humana was in need of serious anti-depressants. If these were the best plays received out of hundreds of entries, the state of the American play is grim indeed. Personally, I don't think that's the case. But after this year and last, I do think that the Humana Festival's selection process needs a drastic overhaul.

  • Wednesday, April 5, 2006 | Link to this feature


    • Archive of Guest Writers

[Advertisement]

[Advertisement]