The Beautiful People by William Saroyan at The Museum of Human Achievement, October 18 - 26, 2013

by Michael Meigs

Don't let this gem flicker past you. Saroyan's gentle, quizzical one-act from 1941 isn't well known, and you're not likely to get the opportunity to enjoy it ever again. MFA candidate in directing Steven Wilson has magicked forth this evening with some powerful help, and it's a revelation of theatre and acting craft nestled within a revival.

You'll see nothing like it anytime soon . In Austin terms it's as if Norman Blumensaadt's devoted exploration of twentieth century classic writing has been blended with acting talents often seen at the Zach Theatre. With a bit of marketing the Zach Theatre could put this staging into its Whisenhut theatre in the round and run it profitably for a month, without a single change.

Admission is free. It is, after all, Wilson's thesis project, with technical collaboration by University of Texas students including third-year MFA graduate students William Anderson (set design) and Hope Bennett (costume design). The single-page program leaflet lists everyone in democratic alphabetical order in dizzyingly tiny print, including leading Austin actors Janelle Buchanan (an Actor's Equity artist), David R. Jarrott and Rommel Sulit. On opening night UT prof, playwright and Zach collaborator Steven Dietz occupied one of the 40 seats in the audience; Zach star Barbara Chisholm was in another.

With the constraints of academic endeavor and financing by Kickstarter, his edition of The Beautiful People is designed to disappear after only six performances before a maximum audience of about 240 persons.

Wilson and friends are staging it in grandiloquently titled Museum of Human Achievement, a lofty title for a ramshackle space behind what used to be the Goodwill warehouse on Springdale Road and just south of what used to be the Blue Theatre (click for map). Easiest access is via a relatively obscure gate on Lyons Rd. just west of the railroad tracks. Your vehicle noses into a rutted, muddy parking area. Austin's recent rains had left such large expanses of standing water that the company e-mailed ticket holders the day before to warn them to wear rubber boots or similar footwear and even offered to reschedule their seats if desired.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com 

THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE by William Saroyan at The Museum of Human Achievement, October 18 - 26, 2013

The Beautiful People
 
by William Saroyan
directed by Steven Wilson
October 18 - 26, 2013

Museum of Human Achievement, via parking lot north of Lyons just west of Springdale Rd. (click for map)

A forgotten classic by American playwright William Saroyan, is living another life in a new Austin production.

A runner-up for the 1941 New York Drama Awards, The Beautiful People centers on Jonah Webster, an eccentric father navigating the difficulties of parenting Owen, his son who writes one-word novels, and Agnes, his daughter who has a personal relationship with the mice that occupy the house. Jonah is trying to pass his optimistic philosophies of life onto his children, even as these philosophies are being tested by the fact that his third and oldest son, Harold, has gone missing.

This brand new revival of The Beautiful People features favorite Austin actors Janelle Buchanan, Rommel Sulit and David Jarrott, in addition to talented performers from the University of Texas Department of Theatre and Dance. The gifted production team of UT students, both graduate and undergraduate, will transform the Museum of Human Achievement into a site-specific performance space. Directed by Steven Wilson, a third year Directing MFA, the company re-imagines William Saroyan's play, and breathes new life into his forgotten work.

Performance dates and times are:

Friday, October 18th at 8pm
Saturday, October 19th at 8pmSunday, October 20th at 2pm

Thursday, October 24th at 8pm
Friday, October 25th at 8pmSaturday, October 26th at 8pm

Performances are FREE to the public, and donations are welcome. To make a reservation or for any other inquiry, please e-mail: thebeautifulpeople2013@gmail.com

Upcoming: The Laramie Project 10 Years Later in repertory with Part 1, Zach Theatre, April 22 - May 13

Found on-line:

presents

The Laramie Project 10 Years Later

April 22, 2012 - May 13, 2012

Kleberg Stage

Written by MOISÉS KAUFMAN, LEIGH FONDAKOWSKI, GREG PIEROTTI, ANDY PARIS and STEPHEN BELBER

Directed by DAVE STEAKLEY | Starring the original ZACH cast: JASTON WILLIAMS,JANELLE BUCHANAN, MARTIN BURKE, MEREDITH MCCALL, ROBERT NEWELL, SARAH RICHARDSON and JENNY LARSON, with HARVEY GUION
Please arrive early for parking.

Student Tickets: $18 One Hour Before Showtime (with Valid ID)
Bar opens 1 hour before showtime. Drinks welcome inside the theatre.

Please note: THE LARAMIE PROJECT plays in repertory with THE LARAMIE PROJECT 10 YEARS LATER.
Part 1 will play in repertory with Part 2 on Saturdays April 18 – May 13. It will be possible to see both parts on the same day with a dinner break between. See our calendar for individual show times.

A decade passed and we return to Laramie to see what has changed — and what hasn’t. The results are surprising, life-altering and unforgettable!

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, Zach Theatre, March 31 - May 22

Director Dave Steakley proves that with a first-rate cast and a gifted scenic designer he can turn Tracey Letts' savage misanthropy into a mesmerizing long evening in the theatre.

That's no modest achievement. The last -- and first -- Letts work I saw was Capital T Theatre's Killer Joe, which I found violent and obscene. Not in the sexual sense, but because of Letts gloated while degrading his working-class characters. Perhaps Letts is easier to stomach in the modestly affluent middle-class home of the Westons than in the trailer park setting of Killer Joe.

Things fall apart in both places. Or, abjuring Yeats since in the opening scene Letts has the patriarch, retired literature professor Beverly Weston, ramble to the uncomprehending new housekeeper about T.S. Eliot, each play is set in a wasteland populated with hollow men. And while we're dealing with symbolism, let's get the housekeeper out of the way. Johnna Monevata is a simple, good-hearted full-blooded Indian -- a native American -- so we can see her as the authentic antithesis to the drug- and alcohol-soaked psycho Weston family that symbolizes the contemporary Anglo heartland.

You won't see Michael Holmes again until the curtain call, for patriarch Beverly Weston disappears, causing confusion and alarm. After he has been missing for four days, plain-Jane stay-at-home sister Ivy (Irene White) calls her two sisters as well as Aunt Mattie Fae and Uncle Charlie. All converge on the expansive, bourgeois triple-level set crafted by Zach's Michael Raiford, complete with a mechanical chair on a track by the staircase, allowing tottering mom Violet to get downstairs. The Zach jocularly calls it "one bitch of a family reunion." I call it a gripping extended battle, a sort of lengthy, determined knife fight, in which drug-dazed Violet (Lana Dieterich) and her embittered sister Mattie Fae (Janelle Buchanan) are the chief protagonists.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, Zach Theatre, March 31 - May 22

Received directly:

presents one bitch of a family reunion

by Tracy Letts

directed by Dave Steakley

starring Lauren Lane, Michael Holmes, Lana Dietrich and Janelle Buchanan

March 31 - May 22

Previews: Thursday and Friday, March 31 and April 1 (7:30 p.m.)

Champagne Opening Night and Press Night: April 2 (7:30 p.m.)

Performances continue through MAY 22, 2011 (Wed., Thurs., Fri., Sat. @7:30 p.m.; Sunday @2:30 p.m.)

ZACH Theatre’s Kleberg Stage 1421 W. Riverside Dr. (Corner of Riverside Dr. and S. Lamar.)(click for map)

Tickets range from $20 to $49. $15 tickets are available to students starting one hour prior to curtain time. Charge tickets by phone at 512-476-0541, ext. 1 or visit http://www.zachtheatre.org.

ZACH – Austin’s Theatre and Texas’ longest running theatre company -- presents this scathingly hilarious tragicomedy of cataclysmic proportions, one bitch of a family reunion! When Dad unexpectedly vanishes into a sweltering Oklahoma summer night, the rest of the Weston clan rushes home to figure out what the hell happened. No easy feat with their serpent-tongued matriarch whose prolific pill-popping only sharpens her vitriolic outbursts. And if mama ain’t happy … she’ll make sure you’re worse! Perfectly subversive, this entertaining turbo-charged saga shocks with each new diabolically funny bombshell that’s dropped.

Read more and view links at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Man and Superman by G.B. Shaw, Austin Shakespeare at the Rollins Theatre, February 17 - March 6

Found on-line:

presents

George Bernard Shaw's

Man and Superman

February 17 - March 6, Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m. & Sundays at 3 p.m.
The Rollins Theatre at The Long Center, Riverside Drive at South First Street

(click for map)

Tickets are on sale now at http://thelongcenter.frontgatesolutions.com or call 512-474-5664.

Austin Shakespeare presents a delightful comedy of topsy-turvy romantic pursuit, George Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, a timely look at the perennial clash between the past and the future, the reactionary and the progressive, and questions of what the proper roles of men and women really are.

Man and Superman stars Kimbery Adams, Jill Blackwood*, Janelle Buchanan*, Michael Dalmon, Shelby Davenport*, Jenny Gravenstein, Philip Kreyche, Ev Lunning Jr.*, Barry Pineo, and Mark Stewart (* Member of Actor's Equity Association).

As a special addition, there will be a staged reading of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell with Babs George* and Harvey Guion at the Rollins at 7:30PM, Sunday February 27.

Upcoming: Our Town, Zach Theatre, April 15 - May 23

UPDATE: Review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin at Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, April 19

Received directly:

presents

OUR TOWN

by Thornton Wilder

April 15 - May 23, Wednesdays - Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. , Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Kleberg Stage , 1421 W. Riverside Dr. (corner of Riverside and South Lamar.)
Tickets range from $20 to $50, with $15 tickets available to students starting 1 hour prior to curtain time. Charge tickets by phone at 476-0541, ext. 1 or visit the Zach website to purchase on-line

Zach Theatre Re-Envisions “Our Town” in Our Town with all-star, all-Austin cast starring “Greater Tuna’s” Jaston Williams as the Stage Manager

Austin’s finest actors join together to tell the intimate, heartfelt story of America’s best loved play. Zach’s contemporary interpretation transports the audience to a chapel of love that will linger in your memory. Our Town audiences will watch the story unfold in several settings, including the wedding scene, which will be fully realized in its setting, costumes, environment with music by Austin area choral choirs. Directed by Dave Steakley, ZACH’s production is more than a play: it’s an experience as unique as Austin!

Jaston Williams, star of ZACH’s The Laramie Project and Austin‘s Greater Tuna will star as the iconic Stage Manager in Grover’s Corners. ZACH’s production also stars well-known, Austin favorites Michael Amendola, Michael Bryce, Janelle Bucahanan, Barbara Chisholm, Lana Dieterich, Christian Guerra, Harvey Guion, Billy Harden, Jordan McRae, Michael Mendoza, Crystal Odom, Don Own, Marco Perella, Scotty Robertson, Donelvan Thigpen, and Evan Underbrink,

ZACH Theatre is sponsored in part by Applied Materials, Austin American-Statesman, Time Warner Cable, Austin News TV 36, The Dell Foundation, Vollmer Public Relations, SOL Marketing Concepts, IKEA, The Shubert Foundation, The City of Austinunder the auspices of the Austin Arts Commission, The Texas Commission on the Arts, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

[Click for information on $5 discount offer]

The Grapes of Wrath, Zach Scott Theatre, March 12 - May 10

A brooding orange light dominates the empty central space at the Zach Theatre's Kleberg Stage. A haze roils fitfully against a panorama of emptiness. A man in overalls, wearing a slouch cap and heavy work boots, holds a saw between his knees. He gently applies a bow to it, bends the saw, and an eerie, keening melody begins The Grapes of Wrath.




John Steinbeck's story follows the Joad family from the 1930s Oklahoma Dustbowl, driven by implacable weather and unforgiving bankers to abandon everything except a grim hope of finding work and land in California.


Read More . . . .

An Ideal Husband, Austin Shakespeare/UT Drama at Rollins Theatre, February 11 - March 1

The conventional staging of Oscar Wilde, within the frame of a proscenium, gives us a bright window into the highly mannered scene of London's Victorian upper classes.

For Austin Shakespeare's An Ideal Husband in the Long Center's Rollins Theatre, the audience surrounds the stage. This staging in-the-square gives us a visual kaleidoscope of witty epigrams, paradoxes, brilliant costumes and exquisitely good manners.

There's a technical challenge here, since at any given moment an actor will be standing with his or her back to a quarter of the audience. Anne Ciccolella's direction keeps the actors moving, in Copernican fashion, and the gifted young cast from the UT Theatre Department subtly adjusts position throughout.

Every spectator has a different view of the play, necessarily missing some portion of facial or corporal expression. But stage business is full, diction and accent are at a high level, and vocal characterizations are rich. No part of the audience is short changed.

Advocates of theatre in the round often assert that it creates a closer community of audience as spectator reactions are exchanged across the playing space. The playing space in the Rollins is broad, however, and I found little of that effect. Concentrating on Wilde's words and characters, one easily loses the spectator background.

Beneath the wit and banter of An Ideal Husband, deeply serious outcomes are at risk. Sir Robert Chiltern's political career is in the ascendent. His sister Miss Mabel has set her cap for the brilliant but still noncommittal Lord Goring. Goring's crotchety father Lord Caversham insists upon choosing a spouse for the young man. Into this world comes the amoral, enormously wealthy Mrs. Cheveley of Vienna, threatening the blackmail ruination of one promising aristocrat and the matrimonial ruination of another.

An Ideal Husband is a vivid portrait of a bygone world and age. Wilde, the son of an impoverished Irish aristocrat, an extravagant self-promoter, longed to secure a place in that world. Five years after the 1895 success of this play, he had been disgraced, judged, jailed and was dying at the age of 46, an exile in Paris. The brilliance of the idle life of the British upper classes was largely ended by the Great War of 1914 - 1918.

It's fun to psychoanalyze the piece, seeing it as Wilde's self-promoting joke on that beau monde. For example, the foppish Lord Goring, who is a patent stand-in for Wilde, proves wittier and more effective than any of the other characters. Director Anne Ciccolella recounted another insight in the Q&A after the preview night: much of the tension of the piece is created by the anguish of Sir Robert over a hidden crime in his youth that can alienate the affections of his morally absolutist, adoring wife, Lady Chiltern. Wilde himself had recently married well and was presumably concealing from his wife the homosexuality that would soon ruin him.

The plot is that of a relatively conventional London stage melodrama of the time, with much of the action revolving around letters sent, not destroyed, stolen or misdirected. Sir Robert (Mark Scheibmeir, left) and Lady Chiltern (Sydney Andrews, lead photo above), are a relatively unsurprising married pair, and his exemplary political career seems based more on championing of morality and principal rather than on eloquence.

Lord Caversham (Robert Tolaro, right), constantly annoyed by his son, and the sententious gossip Lady Markby (Janelle Buchanan) are relatively predictable caricatures of the blindly self-important upper class.

Shaun Patrick Tubbs (left) as the Wilde surrogate Lord Goring does not have the bulk or the drawling dismissiveness one might conventionally expect. Instead, he is a lithe, cocky smiling fellow ready to mimic and mock his absurd old Pater but also quick to prove steadfast concern both for his friend Robert and for Robert's lady wife.


Ah, but the villainesse! Verity Branco as the spider lady Mrs. Cheveley (center) is beautiful and coolly efficient. With high cheekbones, perfect diction and a decisiveness betrayed in a measured strut, she is the antithesis of the polite goody-goody world of society. She lives abroad for good reason -- having been expelled from boarding school for stealing, she went on to wed and use up two husbands before lanching into the dubious but highly successful collaboration with a now-deceased European baron. Branco's vigor is captivating and her diction is as precise as a stiletto.

At the opposite end of the female spectrum is the ingenue Miss Mabel. Marlane Barnes bubbles with flirtatious mischief. Her tippy-toeing rushes across the stage manifest a fine sense of physical comedy, all the more comic because of the constraints of society and corsets. Her exquisite nonsense suggests that she does, indeed, share Lord Goring's non-jaded joy for things fine; one can imagine that she will some day become exquisitely scandalous while loving him always to excess . . . a promise of Bloomsbury, a decade or more before those lovely libertines were to flourish.

Wilde has a message -- approximately, "We men adore women for their imperfections but you women will insist on putting your men on a pedestal, obliged to perfection."

Those intent on seeking modern day relevance might force the matter by referring to recent scandals of political life, but I would not take that reading of the tea leaves from this aromatic cup. An Ideal Husband succeeds for what it is -- a witty send-up of conventional melodrama and of the differences between men and women.

"Aielli Unleashed" program on KUT.org -- February 12 interview with director and cast members, including scenes and Michael McKelvey's incidental music (26 minutes)

Audio piece and photos at KUT.org

Promotional article on OutinAmerica.com

Review by KelseyK on Austinist.com, February 20

Review by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin on Statesman's Austin360 blog, February 22

Comment posted on van Ryzin's review, February 24: It is a unique opportunity to bring our performance work off-campus and into the Austin community. The experience for our students is rich and rare as they enjoy a three-week run in a classic play housed in the exquisite Long Center for the Performing Arts. This collaboration seems very right. Hook ‘em! Lucien Douglas, Associate Professor of Theatre & Dance

Review by Laura Clark in the Daily Texan Online, February 24

Review by Barry Pineo in the Austin Chronicle, February 26