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Since 1996
Contemporary
American Theater Festival Launches its 25th year
The newest theater works in America presented
in West Virginia’s oldest City,
Shepherdstown.
Commentary and review
by
Grace Cavalieri
______________
World Builders by Johanna Adams. Directed by Nicole Watson. (world premiere)
Everything You Touch by Sheila Callaghan. Directed by May Adrales.
On Clover Road by Steven Dietz. Directed by Ed Herendeen.(world premiere)
We Are Pussy Riot by Barbara Hammond. Directed by Tea Alagic’. (world
premiere)
The Full Catastrophe by Michael Weller(Based on the novel by David Carkeet.)
Directed by Ed Herendeen. (world premiere)
_______________
When my 10-year-old granddaughter, Rachel, visited our home in Hedgesville,
years ago, we
took her to a new theater event in nearby Shepherd College. We sat on benches in
a studio
theater with large fans in a hot July. I think the play had clowns or puppets,
but I’m not sure.
Today Rachel is 35 years old, a successful person in the world. And CATF is
America’s premiere
regional theater.
____________________________
Two plays of the five extraordinary plays presented are the best theater I’ve
seen in any
theater, anywhere, in many years. Each work is an emblem of what can be done to
illuminate
this time in history, at this moment, lighting which of Dante rings we want to
turn into a stage.
---------------------------------
“WORLD BUILDERS” by Johanna Adams.
Johanna Adam’s “World Builders” is a world premiere. Her previous play at CATF
“Gidion’s
Knot” (2012) was so arresting I called a director in LA who’s active in theater
and film. He
received the script, tried for the play, but it was already optioned. That is
one illustration of the
power and reach of CATF. It was already optioned one month after premiere,
“World Builders” is a play about two schizophrenic patients participating in a
drug
experiment—taking pills at intervals so that their fantasy worlds will dissolve
and restore them
to “normal” functioning members of society. Whitney (Brenna Palughi) wants to
connect; she
wants to share fantasy worlds—Max (Chris Thorn) want to keep his private. But if
the pills work,
Whitney knows she’ll lose her magnificent multi-galaxied construction, and wants
someone to
see her work of art. She knows her world is intergalactic and better than his,
she’s sure--- but,
it’s still a dying world and Max is the only one who can possibly know it before
it goes away
forever.
Whitney’s fantastic universe she describes as “feeling” centered, a living
thing:” the closest
thing I have for a heart.” Max disputes her logic, step by step, struggling with
his solitary
anguish. Their relationship grows as they reveal their private imaginary worlds
with complex
and stunning narratives. Max’s fantasy world is a hole in the ground where women
die. He’s
doomed to watching the women die there, observing their final moments, unable to
save them,
except perhaps in memory. Whitney and Max write a manifesto to let doctors know
how they
feel. As their imagined worlds are dying, true feelings are being created
between them.
Max envies Whitney’s world. Hers is paradise. His is a responsibility for the
cruelty of
humankind. And as these two face the knowledge that there will soon be nothing
left of their
fantasies, they want to fill impending emptiness with the reality of each other.
But how? Should
both discontinue the pills, once at home? Should one allow the survival of
complex parallel
universes? How to make a relationship possible? How to find an internal model
for external
possibilities; and not lose all they imagined?
This is a play of philosophical significance. Suffering and vulnerability are
what make art. But
not all art is equal to the necessary capacity for pain that is required. Johnna
Adams’ is our new
stage treasure; and her characters will live longer than we do.
-----------------------------------
“EVERYTHING YOU TOUCH” by Sheila Callaghan.
If the interior world is amplified with intelligence and insight by Johanna
Adams, the external
world is turned to magic by Sheila Callaghan epitomizing that theater is
spectacle, the more
highly imagined the better.
The play begins with a fabulous fashion show (you know like the ones we watch on
TV with
birdcages for hats) and fabulous it is. Callaghan satirizes the world of high
couture with robot
like models and ruthless dehumanization in the name of clothing as art. A
wonderful point is
made early on: A model wearing an outfit with legs stylishly tied together,
falls, of course, and
is upbraided by Victor, our narcissistic anorexic designer; finally she no
longer sees reason to go
on living. He wants fashion to be “furious”, to “make my blood boil” with
clothes that are
“anxiety ridden” and “obsessive.” “Can you make a garment look like a Sunday
suicide?”
This writing is fabulous and the stage sets, lighting, costumes are equal to the
task. What a
winner this production is. Callaghan uses every tool in the theater book:
monologues, singing,
dreams, flashbacks, flash forwards, and not a one of them fails her.
Our frumpy overweight heroine, Jess, (Dina Thomas), is dreading a visit to her
dying mother
who was a fashion maven—but she is to be transformed by Victor (Jerzy
Gwiazdowski),
temporarily to be sure, but enough to enter the world of unwearable shoes and a
chance to see
who her true love is—fellow nerd, Lewis, (Mark Thomas) back at the office, who
keeps updating
her on their dot.com business of the day.
Victor’s office is shared with ultimate extreme fashioner “Esme” (Libby
Matthews); and in
comes Louella from Little Rock Arkansas with a box of cupcakes. Esme is Victor’s
muse and not
willing to share her space but Louella (Marianna McClellan) won the trip to NYC
and is happily
on board in her mint green pastel outfit from Dillard’s bargain rack. From this
grid of characters
where” beauty is about death” beauty suddenly may be about humanity.
Jess becomes “Future Jess” wanting the world to notice her for a moment,
especially her dying
mother, before she goes back to donuts and bagels; Victor now sees his new line
is clothing
people really want to wear, because the new season “Cavanaugh 1975” is a smash
hit. A
pregnant Esme and reconciliation with death are all is part of the play’s
fabric. But not enough
can be said about the free spirited creation of this theater piece where every
piece comes
together seamlessly.
_______________
“ON CLOVER ROAD” by Steven Dietz.
A parent hires an “expert” to find and return her daughter hidden within a cult.
The plan is to
kidnap the young girl and bring her to the motel on Clover Road where her mother
is waiting.
But, Stine (the incomparable Lee Sellars) explains that the parent has to be
tougher than the
cult; and so to toughen up Kate Hunter (Tasha Lawrence,) Stine reminds her what
a lousy
mother she was and why her daughter left. The plan takes some mean spirited
preparations
almost losing Mom as a participant but this is what she came for and it’s
essential to save her
daughter from “The Prophet”( played by Tom Coiner) who’s enslaving her. She
wants to start
over with her child.
This is a fast moving thriller “action” play where a lot happens in a small
amount of time so it
poses the question, ‘How does a writer write about confusing situations without
being
confusing?’ As the plot twists, the wrong child is abducted and Stine is found
to be part of the
Prophet’s system. This is exciting stuff and at one point the mother is captive
with her own life
at stake.
The audience seemed ready to be scared and wheeled by surprise with quick
changing events
and, by its response, no one went away disappointed.
-------------------------------
“WE ARE PUSSY RIOT” by Barbara Hammond.
When I saw the actual Pussy Riot girls visiting the USA being interviewed
widely, it seemed
insignificant news. Here were some spirited young rockers who were protesting
lack of
civil/artistic liberties in Russia but saying what seemed lame compared to what
we see every
day on YouTube. That’s perhaps the most important reason why this play should
have been
written and should be seen. The Pussy girls were eventually sentenced to two
years in a penal
colony in Russia for their protests and the details of their trial and
sentencing needed to be
heard. What better way than through stylized theater where exaggeration
emphasizes social
injustice –where those in power become caricatures. “You can be arrested for
anything” in this
the country where the young women were imprisoned. And they were, for disrupting
a church
service. (Ironically in a country where Stalin would have prevented the church
service entirely)
An important thread in the writing is of another political prisoner refusing
food and willing to
die of starvation in the name of all the great victims of an authoritarian
society, including Anna
Akhmatova, the great Soviet poet. These scenes were contrary to that of the
Pussy Rioters’
trial, but substantiated the long rich history of abuse and oppression, honoring
those who died.
T Ryder Smith played the prisoner and he’s the star of CATF this year, for in
other productions
he plays transgenders, characters, and Dufus personalities. He has comedic gifts
not to be
believed as we see him performing, so seriously and convincingly, a heroic
individual dying in a
Russian jail for his principles, and those of his country.
Audience members are involved during the trial in some delightful moments. And
the Pussy
Rioters disrupt with colorful animated behavior sporadically, creating fun where
otherwise it
would be difficult to find. The writer takes a few swipes at the Pussy girls
becoming celebrities
with a brief Madonna appearance creating music frenzy.
But this doesn’t distract from the very real premise that art disrupts and the
artist often pays a
huge price for the right to be free. The rioters are played, with conviction, by
Libby Matthews,
Liba Vaynberg, and Katya Stapanov.
_______________________
“THE FULL CATASTROPHE” by Michael Weller.
This ingenious theater concept was adapted from a novel. An out-of-work linguist
is employed
by a high power relationship broker to enter a couple’s home and, by the rules
set out by The
Company, save the marriage following a day by day directive.
The trouble of course is communication between spouses; and so our antihero
Jeremy Cook
(Tom Coiner) is pressed into service by the international mogul Roy Pillow (Lee
Sellars) to
execute PILLOW principles with the Wilson family. Assumedly “Welcome to our
life” is standard
practice, yet Jeremy cannot quite fathom living with others to interfere with
their marriage.
Envelope #1 commands “A quiet evening with the family.” The Wilsons have paid
for this
counseling so they go along. But Jeremy has only 12 days to right the wrongs
between husband
and wife and it doesn’t help that the wife Beth (Helen Anker) reminds him, heart
achingly, of an
old love, Paula (also played by Anker.)
Day 2 demands Jeremy interact and watch all with absolute silence. Day 3, he’s
to be a
vigilante asking probing questions. Husband Dan (Cary Donaldson) appears to be
the stable one
but not when a tape recorder is found calling his wife “Bitch” in a hilarious
scene of mixed
intentions.
Jeremy reports to Roy Pillow in very funny phone interludes while he’s getting
no closer to
solving the marital issues. Day 4 is to “make a crisis.” Wait and see how the
“horror “at the
center of the marriage is saved.
With all the reality TV of couples marrying at first sight, in therapy, having
interventions, plus
couples being “switched” for therapeutic reasons, this is a funny, timely play
and perhaps not
all that far-fetched.
_________________________________
Grace Cavalieri produces and hosts “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of
Congress”
celebrating 38 years on public radio. She’s the monthly reviewer /columnist for
“The
Washington Independent Review of Books.” Her latest book is a Memoir: “Life Upon
The Wicked
Stage.” (newacademia/SCARITH, 2015.)
All reprinted from the Washington Independent Review of Books.