ALT Video: THE SUNSET LIMITED by Corman McCarthy, Trinity Street Players, August 2 - 18, 2013

 
A look at the opening scene of the
 





presentation of

August 2 - 18, 2013,Fridays - Sundays

Trinity Street Players, Black Box Theatre, 4th floor, First Baptist Church, 901 Trinity Street - click for map
Tickets are FREE, but reservations may be made at trinitystreetplayers.com/reservations or by calling 512-402-3086. Donations are appreciated.

A near fatal encounter in front of a passenger train brings two very different men together to explore and debate the meaning of life, human suffering, and the existence of God.

Trinity Street Players will present Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited at Trinity Street Theatre located at 901 Trinity Street in downtown Austin. A famous novelist, McCarthy has written All the Pretty Horses, The Road, and No Country for Old Men, all which have been adapted for film. A two-character drama, The Sunset Limited has been billed as a “novel in dramatic form.”

The play involves two nameless characters whose lives intersect when “Black” saves “White” from throwing himself in front of a train. The story unfolds and follows the men as they go back to Black’s sparse Harlem apartment. The men find they are polar opposites; Black reveals himself as an evangelical ex-convict; White, an atheistic professor. As they discuss White's suicide attempt, a verbal duel results, prompting both characters to remain fervently rooted in their beliefs. The Sunset Limited is directed by Patrick Torres, who recently moved to Austin from Washington, DC where he worked for 10 years as a director and educator. The cast includes Trevor Bissell and Derek Jone. Bissell most recently appeared as the title character in the City Theatre's production of William Shakespeare's Othello. Jones has been involved in the performing arts for more than 30 years - acting, directing, writing and producing. He appeared recently on Trinity Street Player's stage in the critically-acclaimed Almost, Maine. He also serves on the board of Austin's local B Iden Payne Awards Council.

About Trinity Street Players – Trinity Street Players is an all-volunteer nonprofit community theatre, committed to providing high-quality, thought-provoking, and entertaining stage productions in the heart of downtown Austin. We believe in making arts accessible and relevant, and welcome all who share a passion for creating and experiencing the transformative power of the theater.

Upcoming: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Soubrette Productions at the Boyd Vance Theatre, September 23 - October 9

Received directly:

Soubrette Productions
is proud to present the Tony-Award-winning musical

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

by William Finn with book by Rachel Sheinkin

directed by Philip Olson with musical direction by David Blackburn

September 23 - October 9
Friday, Saturday, & Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. with additional Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
at the Boyd Vance Theater, George Washington Carver Center, 1161 Angelina Street (click for map)
Tickets $15, discounts available for students and seniors -- purchase via www.austincreativealliance.org

The cast includes Derek Jones, Kylie Baker, Mitch Mahoney, Brian Lasoya, Oliva Frierson, Audrey Johnson, Amy Chang, Aaron Glover, and Julia Lorenz-Olson.

Soubrette Productions and its artistic director Philip Olson believe that Austin deserves excellent, affordable, and accessible theater. Soubrette also believes Austin's community of theater artists needs more opportunities to shine, flourish, and expand. Soubrette aims to accomplish these goals, while supporting local community arts programs and students through benefit performances. A portion of the proceeds from this production will benefit Tapestry Dance Studios.

Upcoming: Of Mice and Men, City Theatre, May 12 - June 8

Received directly:

THE CITY THEATRE

proudly presents John Steinbeck's American classic

OF MICE AND MEN

with Derek Jones as George Milton and Andy Brown as Lennie Small.

also featuring Samantha Brewer, Gabriel Diehl, Scot Friedman, Larry Oliver, Garry Peters, Daniel Sawtelle, Gabriel Smith, and Ben Woods

May 12 – June 5

Thursdays – Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 p.m.

The City Theatre. 3823 Airport Blvd. 78757 – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street (click for map)

Tickets $15 - $20. Guaranteed Front/2^nd Row Reserved $25.

Students $12. Thursday all seats $10. Group discounts are available.

Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org

www.citytheatreaustin.org

The City Theatre Company continues its 2011 season with the critically-acclaimed Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. This classic tale and Nobel Prize-winning novella about two migrant workers’ quest for the American dream portrays the struggle for independence, the responsibility we have to one another, and the desire for a place we all long to call our own.

“We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.” - George

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

How The Other Half Lives by Alan Ayckbourn, City Theatre, March 25 - April 18

Alan Ayckbourn applies a clever staging twist of time and space in the first act of this contemporary English comedy of manners, and it is a delight to watch the City players accomplish it.

How The Other Half Loves, as the title implies, is a satire of class and sexual mores. I repeatedly mistyped that title in the ALT "images" feature for the production, because my fingers were finding their way back to How The Other Half Lives, the famous work of photojournalism by Jakob Riis, an 1890's exploration of the slums of New York City. That's an additional little ironic note on economic development in the UK, for these two couples are separated far more by class habits than by economic well being.

Frank Foster is the hapless, clueless university-graduate manager at an unidentified firm and Bob Phillips is his smugly lower-class subordinate. The generic living room represents the snug little homes of each man and his wife. Ayckborn's joke is that he runs separate actions simultaneously in the same space, with the couples unaware of one another's presence. This is better than cinematic cross-cutting of scenes, for we're suddenly endowed with a sort of hallucinogenic X-ray vision, comparing the couples, their relationships and their games with one another -- for we rapidly understand that Foster's wife the nervy, nervous Fiona was out the previous evening for a spontaneous roll in the hay with yobbo subordinate Bob Phillips. Phillips' wife Teresa is angry that he was out until 2 a.m. the previous evening and is avoiding her insistent questions about his whereabouts.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

God's Man in Texas, Georgetown Palace Theatre, February 22 - March 8

With her decision to stage God's Man in Texas at the Georgetown Palace Theatre, artistic director Mary Ellen Butler has taken a risk. She acknowledges in the program that she has waited seven years to put it on -- "as the Palace grew . . . in depth of audience, attendance, and actor availability."

The Palace is now a highly successful non-profit venture, depending on a local audience including a big percentage of retirees -- folks you might assume to be relatively conservative in their outlook. It specializes in high quality light fare (sometimes 'lite' fare). For example, this season features two comedies, three musical comedies, a musical, and God's Man in Texas.

God's Man in Texas premiered at a festival in Kentucky in 1999. It has been regularly produced since then, and companies have tended to emphasize the humor in it ("an entertaining drama"; "a harsh though sometimes humorous look at organized religion"; "intelligent, thought-provoking and funny"; "with gentle humor and great respect, [it] brings to light issues common to any corporate or religious environment. . . "; etc.). Mary Ellen Butler opens her program comments with the notice, "God's Man in Texas is not a spoof or a skewering but a thoughtful, probing comedy about succession, the reach of church power and the quest for redemption that never ends, even for authentic men of God."

What I saw was a drama of scope and penetration, one that was dealing principally with the egregious sins of pride and ambition. Playwright Rambo adroitly uses the forms of evangelistic oratory and carefully exaggerates the peculiarly American characteristics of mass religion.

For example, the audience enters and finds itself facing an enormous cross, a pulpit and some fussy, mannered flower arrangements in front of a curtain of shimmering lavender. After the opening scene, we realize that the church set, stretching the entire width of the stage, is built on a huge turntable. Stagehands push it around to reveal the ample, comfortably furnished wood-paneled formal office of the church pastor. The set itself, which revolves perhaps ten times during the evening suggests the enormous scale of a megachurch.

We meet the young, modest pastor Dr. Jeremiah "Jerry" Mears, who has been invited as guest preacher. He is pleased and flattered to be appearing in this historic pulpit. Derek Jones as Mears is earnest, respectful and contained. He is attended by the church's audio-visual technician Hugo Taney (Andy Brown). Cheerful and talkative, Taney is unabashed about confiding that Rock Baptist Church and its pastor turned his life around.

Enter the pastor, Dr. Phillip Gottschall, played with wily élan and orotund assurance by Joe Penrod. He's a pastor for the ages, on the level with Billy Graham and equally at home with presidents of the United States ("except Clinton, of course"). He's 82 years old, the founder and pastor of the Rock Baptist Church, a mega-institution in Houston so big that the young adult program has 6,000 members. Gottschall is vigorous, in full possession of his faculties, charming, authoritative and the very picture of a successful CEO. We learn that without consulting him the church board has decided to invite guest preachers over a succession of Sundays, with the evident intention of acquainting the congregation with possible candidates to replace him.

Though the playwright doesn't tell us this, "Gottschall" in German suggests "resounding call of God."


The first half of the piece features excerpts from Mears' series of sermons, which evolve under helpful coaching from A-V tech Hugo Taney from cerebral meditations to folksy homilies, though always with conviction and fine preacherly presentation. There's a clever set of jokes about broccoli and the first President Bush.



Gottschall thwarts the "disloyal" initiative of the committee by blocking a rival and announces that Mears will be co-pastor of Rock Baptist. The first act ends with a fierce sermon by Gottschall on the theme, "The time is not yet!" One could play this piece for laughs, highlighting Gottschall's implicit comparison of himself with Jesus or the Deity; but Joe Penrod's delivery is instead so monumental, a perfectly pitched representation of the Mosaic certainty of an erudite man of God, that one involuntarily begins to search one's own soul, instead. The man's adamant warnings are chilling.

Jerry Mears wins the position, and in the second act he quickly picks up the jargon of "the numbers" (of baptized, of contributions, of membership -- all the quantification of Big Business). Gottschall sets him an unending series of trivial tasks -- for example, we get to hear him bless the new bowling alley at Rock Baptist, and we hear him address AA and other backsliders, where he runs across A-V tech Hugo. Some woman has been insistently calling Mears, trying to get into contact with Hugo. . . .

Gottschall becomes more and more threatened by Jerry, while Hugo is pursued by the unknown woman from his past. She tells Jerry that Hugo has a son from their liaison 13 years earlier. When Jerry passes this on, Hugo is completely taken aback. Dismissal becomes denial becomes uncertainty as Jerry counsels him.

Andy Brown has established Hugo for us as simple man who is happy to have found home and a salvation at Rock Baptist -- in effect, he represents for us all those thousands who are faithful clients of this huge enterprise. We identify with him as we see him hesitate, apprehensive about this new development, about these new people, and about the uncertainty of Gottschall's reaction to the unwelcome news.

With good reason. The Great Man misreads their counseling session as conspiracy, and the piece builds to a climax.

God's Man in Texas sails very close to the wind, raising issues that some of us might wish to avoid. Rambo uses the theatrical rituals of church to great effect -- the symbols and evangelical language, confession and counseling, and the public side of pastoral communication. Religious faith is never questioned, for all three men are firm believers.

In the last analysis, it's a parable. We have three sinners in this piece: a great man who is blind to his own shortcomings, a simple man who tries to keep his own sins from destroying him, and a young pastor who struggles with the illusions of worldly authority and power. There are some moments of humor and caricature, but in the main this play is as serious as a Sunday school lesson. Judging from the comments I heard about me in the audience, the Georgetown public received it with appreciation.

Dramaurgy: A conversation with David Rambo about the play

David Rambo's comments to Actors theatre, with his biography

Miss Witherspoon, Different Stages at the City Theatre, January 9 - February 2

Jennifer Underwood is larger than life. Like famous stage personalities, she captures our attention utterly with her remarkable appearance, conviction and an acting talent that amounts almost to shape-changing.

In Miss Witherspoon, directed by Karen M. Jambon for Different Stages and now playing at the City Theatre, Underwood is a deeply disappointed soul in the afterlife, determined not to give in to the requirement that she be reincarnated. Sometimes, with her stubborn will, she prevails; but when the whizzbang of celestial machinery overcomes her, Jennifer Underwood becomes a cranky newborn child (twice), a distrustful abused teenager (twice), a pet, and the potential savior of the messed-up world.

In each newborn incarnation she is a comic mixture of goo-goo baby and sharp-tongued old soul. As a pet she is blissfully wiped clean of apprehension and reluctance. As the teenager Virginia she radiates resentment and distrust but fixes her harried counselor with an attention that betrays her complete vulnerability.

Underwood herself is worth well more than the price of admission, and at times the piece becomes a one-woman show. Hovering in that unexpected afterlife, she longs for release, rest and forgetfulness. She speaks directly to the audience about her past and her disappointments (was she really Mrs. Rex Harrison?). There are stretches that resemble solo stand-up comedy here, and some of those in the full house on Saturday night took her bleak observations just that way -- a woman sitting just behind us regularly went off like a braying donkey and there was a guy in the back, less obtrusive, who had the same reactions. But Miss Witherspoon's story and musings were not Henny Youngman one-liners -- they were coherent comments on the real Dark Side of the world.

Foil to Miss Witherspoon's relentless pessimism is an eternally optimistic spirit in the Hindu persona of Maryama. Suzanne Balling had the perky personality and lilting accent of a Bollywood version of a temple goddess. As Miss Witherspoon's guide to the afterlife, she has to explain why neither Mahatma Gandhi nor Thornton Wilder happens to be available for counseling sessions. She does dutifully take on board her client's insistence on seeing St. Peter.

Other highly capable actors shimmer through multiple roles and realities. Derek Jones and Camille Latour become parents to our heroine three times, playing the variations from enchanted to abusive to neurotically protective. Among their other incarnations are The Giant Chicken and Gandalf the Wizard.

Patricia Robinson is the overwhelmed school counselor who tries to reach out to the death-obsessed teenager Virginia and she appears again in the afterlife follies as the extravagantly self-confident Woman in the Red Hat.

But for all the pleasure of watching these actors at work, I found myself eventually disappointed with the poverty of Durang's plotting. He gives his principal character good reason to comment on the horrors and misery of our world -- and he even sets off nuclear war in South Asia -- but he structures his talky quasi-comedy with the second-hoariest of plot devices -- action in an imaginary afterlife. (The first-hoariest of plot devices is, of course, a story that is eventually revealed to have been a dream, thereby giving the transformed character new opportunity.)

So in this fantasy there's something going on about karma. Maryama explains that every soul has to reincarnate until it gets things right -- Miss Witherspoon, for example, failed to speak up when her sister was condemned as a witch in the Salem Witch Trials. Miss Witherspoon does learn, progressively, through her incarnations. There's a wickedly funny version of the heaven for the Jews. There's also a comic treatment of Christian faith -- Saint Peter never makes it, Gandalf does, and Higher Authority also arrives. At the end Miss Witherspoon is again a newborn, with political babble that somehow promises World Peace.

And what are we to make of all that? Other than, of course, the fact that Durang can make acerbic fun of just about anyone?

As my spouse commented, "It's as if he got stuck with his plot and couldn't figure out how to end it gracefully."

Joey Seiler's January 12 review in the Statesman's Austin360 arts blog

Hannah Kenah's January 15 review in the Austin Chronicle

Review by chicksarefunny on Austinist.com, January 15