Humana Festival 2019: All hits, all the time

This article originally appeared at 88.1 KDHX, where Chuck Lavazzi is the senior performing arts critic.

It's spring, and once again I made the annual pilgrimage to the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL). As we have done for the past few years, my fellow KDHX critic Tina Farmer and I posted instant video blog mini-reviews from the festival on YouTube. We're also posting our own individual festival reports. Here's mine.

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This year the festival consisted of five brand new plays. Four were performed by ATL's resident professional company and the fifth, as usual, by the members of the Professional Training Company. This year the productions and scripts were of such high quality that I abandoned my initial plan to rank them and instead I'm just reviewing them in the order in which we saw them.

L-R: Arash Mokhtar and Diana Simonzadeh
Photo by Jonathan Roberts

"The Corpse Washer" adapted for the stage by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace from the novel of the same name by Sinan Antoon; directed by Mark Brokaw

The setup: In an Iraq beset by decades of war and occupation, Jawad (Arash Mokhtar) faces a difficult choice. Must he follow in the footsteps of his father (J. Paul Nicholas) washing the bodies of the dead--an honored Muslim tradition--or can he pursue his dreams of being an artist? His uncle Sabri (also played by Mr. Nicholas) made the break and went to live in Europe; why shouldn't he?

The story of a young man in conflict with his father because he feels called by the arts rather than the family business is an old one, but placing it in a nation being destroyed by continual warfare put a very different spin on the familiar tale. The fact that the family business is also a quasi-religious calling added even more depth. Jawad isn't just being asked to run the family store; he's called to help the souls of the dead move on to meet God. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Mr. Khalidi and Ms. Wallace crammed a lot of story into the play's one hour and forty minute running time, including subplots about Jawad's lover Reem (Mehry Eslaminia), Jawad's relationship with his brother Ammoury (Gus Cuddy), who plans to become a doctor but is killed in the war, and Jawad's friendship with security guard (and eventually fellow soldier) Basim (Abraham Makany). I assume they're all in the original novel, but overall it felt like the authors were trying to stuff too much story into a long one-act.

Still, it was a compelling and sometimes emotionally wrenching story. Seeing America's video game wars in the Middle East from the perspective of Iraqi people trying to get on with their lives is a reminder that our actions have consequences that we have found far too easy to ignore over the decades.

The strong performances by everyone in the cast had a lot to do with the impact of "The Corpse Washer". Mr. Mokhtar was very credible in a large and demanding part and Mr. Nicholas did an excellent job keeping the roles of Father and Uncle Sabri distinct; ditto Diana Simonzadeh as both Mother and a guard later in the show.

"The Corpse Washer" isn't an overtly political play but, as Hannah Rae Montgomery writes in her program notes, "fostering empathy for underrepresented narratives is a vital part of what theatre can accomplish." Sometimes empathy itself is a political act.

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The cast of Everybody Black
Photo by Jonathan Roberts

"Everybody Black" by Dave Harris, directed by Awoye Timpo

The setup: Beneath an LED display promising "The Black Experience (tm)" in a cheesy "Soul Train" font, The Black Historian (J. Cameron Barnett), in an equally cheesy gold leaf sports coat, confesses that he's not actually a historian and has never met another black person. But a bunch of white historians with money are paying him to deliver Authentic Black History and, by golly, he's going to deliver.

What followed was a raucous send-up of a wide range of mass media stereotypes of The Black Experience (tm), including a tacky TV sitcom complete with laugh track, a talk show about black people addicted to dating white people, and an absurd rap competition. Barack Obama (played by the Historian) made an appearance, and eventually even the playwright (played by Galen Ryan Kane) took the stage to put his personal stamp on The Black Experience (tm) with a touching story that may or may not be true. There was even a final loopy dance number.

I was reminded bit of Robert Townsend's 1987 film "Hollywood Shuffle," which took aim at the cartoonish boxes into which white Hollywood liked to stuff black actors, but Mr. Harris's agenda was broader, including an explicit critique of the very notion of historical authenticity. As he said in an interview earlier this year for San Diego CityBeat, the play "is tracking theater as a method of storytelling and history as a method of storytelling, and asking how do we reconcile the two of them?"

"Everybody Black" was something of a theatrical carnival, and if it didn't completely come together, there was a lot of awfully entertaining stuff in it. And it did raise interesting issues about the way fact and fiction get commingled when we try to tell our stories. I think Mr. Harris went too far in suggesting that there's no difference between history and his (or anyone else's) story, though.

Aside from Mr. Barnett and Mr. Kane, the stunningly versatile cast for "Everybody Black" consisted of Ashley N. Hildreth, Sharina Martin, NSangou Njikam, and Christina Acosta Robinson. They took on around 40 characters during the show's two-hour run time and did so with such credibility that they created the illusion of a large ensemble.

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The cast of The Thin PlacePhoto by Jonathan Roberts

"The Thin Place" by Lucas Hnath, directed by Les Waters

The setup: Everyone who ever died is here, just in a different part of here. And if you listen, really listen, you can hear them--in the thin places--the places where the line between our world and some other world is very thin. It's like if you were to imagine an octopus in an aquarium, pressed up against glass...except that there's no glass, and no octopus.

This remarkably compelling and creepy play began by shamelessly (and successfully) violating one of the rules of playwriting: show, don't tell. As the lights came up, mousy and timid Hilda (Emily Cass McDonnell) told us, at great length, about a telepathy game she used to play with her grandmother and how it so incensed her mother that grandma got banned from the house. Despite Hilda's timid demeanor, the story was pretty gripping.

Then she talked about how her meeting with a professional medium, Linda (Robin Bartlett) led to a friendship of sorts and invitations to parties with Linda's somewhat mysterious friends Jerry (Triney Sandoval) and Sylvia (Kelly McAndrews). We saw Linda "reading" a room. We saw her explain to Hilda that it's all an act. We saw Hilda fade into the background in a party with the voluble Jerry and opinionated Sylvia. Then Hilda was finally coaxed into talking about her mother and things took a sharp turn toward the weird.

Everything about this production was perfect. Mr. Hnath's characters are sharply and credibly drawn, and the combination of his intelligent script and Les Waters's impeccable direction delivered all the chills you could want from a proper theatrical ghost story. The cast was excellent, headed by Ms. McDonnell's compelling Hilda, who gave the character a near-spectral shyness that became progressively more unsettling as the play progressed.

Mr. Hnath designed "The Thin Place" specifically for Actors Theatre's Jory Theatre, but it looks like a piece that could easily be produced by almost any small theatre. Don't be surprised if it shows up on a stage near you in the next year or two.

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The cast of How to Defend Yourself
Photo by Crystal Ludwick

"How to Defend Yourself" by Lily Padilla, directed by Marti Lyons

The setup: Your body is a weapon. So says Brandi (Anna Crivelli), who starts teaching sorority pledges Mojdeh (Ariana Mahallati) and Diana (Gabriela Ortega), shy student Nikki (Molly Adea) and sorority sister Kara (Abby Leigh Huffstetler) self-defense after fraternity brothers assault one of Brandi's sorority sisters. Male classmates Andy (David Ball) and Eggo (Jonathan Moses Olivares) show up to show their support, and the group learns how to fight back, while wrestling with their own complicated experiences and desires.

A play dealing with issues like toxic masculinity, consensuality, and the ways in which women have been conditioned to accept being pushed around could easily become strident or preachy. This one didn't mostly because Ms. Padilla created characters that looked and sounded entirely real. Her female characters dominated the story, as they should, but Andy and Eggo were also drawn with enough depth to insure that they didn't become cartoon bad guys.

The actors all completely inhabited their characters with uniformly strong performances. I was especially struck with the way Ms. Adea's Nikki moved from near-invisibility to rage as she realizes that Brandi's promises might not match up with reality, but everyone did fine work here. Kudos are also due to Movement Director Stephanie Paul and Fight Director Drew Fracher for their effective combat choreography.

"How to Defend Yourself" fell apart a bit at the end, with a final scene that did a quick rewind through the life of the unseen assault victim, Suz. It made a valid point about the ways women can be conditioned to accept unwanted attention from childhood, but it felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the play. Still, this is an important script with plenty of food for thought, and it deserves a post-festival audience.

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The cast of We've Come to Believe
Photo by Jonathan Roberts

"We've Come to Believe" by Kara Lee Cothron, Emily Feldman, and Matthew Paul Olmos, directed by Will Davis

The setup: Fads, cults, and irrational beliefs that defy reality are the subject matter for this collection of six short one-acts performed by members of the Professional Training Company.

In an interview with my colleague Tina Farmer, the three playwrights talked about how their scripts for "We've Come to Believe" were developed independently, based on an information packet they each received about the theme behind the show. Director Will Davis then put it all together. That might explain why "We've Come to Believe" didn't necessarily work as a whole, although parts of it were certainly fascinating.

Ms. Cothron's "Pure Love Now" tackled the theme of cults head-on with a sharp parody of groupthink and her "Our Impact on the World," was a trenchant observation of the dark side of social media. Mr. Olmos's three plays--"the asleep," how do the lonely live," and "the awake"--were more oblique in their take on witch hunts (literal and figurative). Ms. Feldman's "Winning at the Games of Life" was perhaps the most satisfying of the lot, with its incisive takedown of the mindless psychobabble of self-help gurus and corporatespeak.

The performances by the student ensemble were polished and solid. Director Davis, though, was a bit too fond of having his cast create elaborate patterns on the darkened stage with luminescent socks and light-up sneakers. It was visually arresting, but it wore thin eventually.

The quality of the scripts at Humana can be variable, but this one of the strongest collections I have seen there. To paraphrase rock critic Jon Landau, I have seen the American theatre's future, and its name is the Humana Festival.

At the Humana Festival, "Wellesley Girl" displays untapped potential

L-R: Jeff Biehl, Pun Bandhu, Lynda Gravátt, Kelly McAndrew
Photo: Bill Brymer

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One of the great things about the Humana Festival of New American Plays is the valuable exposure it gives to new playwrights.  Their work is sometimes rough around the edges or even, as is the case with Brendan Pelsue's Wellesley Girl at this year's festival, a bit of a mess.  But as far as artistic growth goes, there's just no substitute for the experience of seeing one's work performed by a professional company for a paying audience.

The concept behind Wellesley Girl is intriguing, especially during our fractious political season.  Set in the year 2465, the play takes place in a walled enclave in New England whose 435 inhabitants are, as far as they know, the sole surviving population of the United States of America.  They're all members of Congress, and the Supreme Court is now one woman—the only one with legal training and the books to back it up.

Barney O'Hanlon, Rachael Leslie
Photo: Bill Brymer

Their stable if limited world is threatened when an army from Texas suddenly and inexplicably shows up, insisting that they are the real U.S. government and making a list of impossible demands.  The population soon splits into two camps, one insisting on negotiation and another on "scorched earth", which appears to mean abandoning the enclave and fleeing into the wilderness.  Neither alternative makes much sense, though, since the invading army appears to be invincible and the water supply outside of the enclave is supposedly poisoned.  Only the enclave's filtration system makes it drinkable.

This setup has the potential to offer a satirical look at our current political dysfunction and possibly an examination of how people behave when there are no good choices.  Unfortunately it offers neither.  The arguments among the enclave's residents become little more than shouting matches and the moral dilemma they face becomes buried in political maneuvering. 

L-R: Philip Taratula, Jeff Biehl
Photo: Bill Brymer

The plot also doesn't hold up to much scrutiny and much of it simply makes no sense.  If the water is poisoned, what are the mighty Texas forces drinking?  How did they even find out about the New Englanders in the first place, given that there appears to be no communication infrastructure?  If the army has them surrounded, how will they escape to the woods? 

Worse yet, the feeble final scenes seem to indicate that the playwright simply wrote himself into a corner and couldn't find a way out.  When the final blackout came, nobody clapped because it wasn't clear whether or not the play had actually ended.

The show isn't without its moments.  A scene in which Donna, The Supreme Court (Lynda Gravátt) hears arguments at her kitchen table with a hand-made "SCOTUS" sign in the center have real charm.  And Barney O'Hanlon's robot Hank is a wonderfully precise piece of acting.  Indeed, the cast as a whole is quite good, even if some of the characters they portray are a bit one-dimensional.  There's also some real comedy in the public meetings before they descend into chaos.  But ultimately this play's reach far exceeds its grasp.

That said, this is still an interesting first effort, for all its flaws.  Mr. Plesue is clearly an original voice and, given that he is still working on his M.F.A., it's reasonable to assume that he might have a bright future ahead of him.  Very few creative people get everything right the first time, after all.

Wellesley Girl runs through April 10th in the Pamela Brown Auditorium at Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays.

At the Humana Festival, Sarah Ruhl's "For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday" never quite gets off the ground

Scene 1
Photo: Bill Brymer

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"Having been unpopular in high school," observed Fran Lebowitz in her 1978 essay collection Metropolitan Life,  "is not just cause for book publication."  If she had seen Sarah Ruhl's For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, the world premiere of which is part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays, she might have added that a death in the family is not just cause for play production.

As the play opens, five adult siblings (the oldest, Ann, is 70; the others are in their 50s and 60s) are gathered in the remarkably large hospital room of their comatose father George.  In what feels like the strongest of the play's three scenes, the siblings ruminate on death, the afterlife, and what it means to really be an adult.  The tension of waiting for the end that they both dread and anticipate is palpable and believable.

Scene 2
Photo: Bill Brymer

The remaining two scenes are less impressive.  In the first, Ann and her brothers and sisters gather in George's house for an impromptu wake.  Fueled by liberal doses of Jameson, they tell stories from their childhood, share jokes, and engage in political arguments which, given the play's setting during "the Clinton era", feel rather dated.  Meanwhile, the ghost of George wanders in and out, repeating the routines of his daily life—and generating some of the funniest moments.

Finally, everyone toddles off to bed and Ann, who serves as the play's narrator, dreams of repeating the role of Peter Pan—the part she played at a local theatre before heading off to college—with her siblings as the Darling family and brother Jim as Captain Hook.  Like the previous scene, it has no real dramatic shape and doesn't really go anywhere.  A final scene between Ann and her ghostly father suggests that she is coming to terms with his departure, but it essentially comes out of nowhere, dramatically speaking.

Scene 3
Photo: Bill Brymer

Kathleen Chalfant leads a strong cast as a sympathetic and engaging Ann.  There's good work here as well from Keith Reddin as Michael, David Chandler as Jim, Lisa Emery as Wendy, and Ron Crawford as the spectral George.  Barney O'Hanlon was a late substitution in the role of the youngest brother, John, but you wouldn't have known that from his assured performance.

Les Waters directs with a sure eye for both the comedy and drama in the script, but even so For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday is a bit too specifically autobiographical for its own good.  It feels less like a play for a general audience than a home video.  Ms. Ruhl is a highly regarded playwright with a string of frequently performed and justifiably praised shows, though, so I'm inclined to cut her a little slack with this one.

For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday runs through April 10th in the Pamela Brown Auditorium at Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays. 

At the Humana Festival, student interns deliver a "Wondrous Strange" collection of ghost stories

Hannah Karpenko in "The Bonnets"
Photo: Bill Brymer

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Every edition of the Humana Festival features a program of short one-act plays organized around a common theme and performed by the students of the Actors Theatre of Louisville's Acting Apprentice Company.  This year's show, Wondrous Strange—which takes its title from Horatio's exclamation of astonishment after seeing the ghost of Hamlet's father ("O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!")—focuses on ghosts and the supernatural.

"Kentucky's supernatural lore fills anthology after anthology," writes Jessica Reese in the program book, "and every year, thousands of visitors head to the state's haunted landmarks, from posh hotels and mansions to dive bars and Civil War sites…This season, four fearless writers—Martyna Majok, Meg Miroshnik, Jiehae Park, and Jen Silverman—have been invited to venture into the spirit realm and examine the unexplained and the uncanny."

L-R: Alejandro Hernandez, Addison Williams
Jayson Speters in "Ghost Bros"
Photo: Bill Brymer

The resulting short (70 minute) collection of nine plays, sketches, and "blackouts" is a bit uneven, but taken as a whole it's great fun and performed with skill and versatility by a company of 20 talented young actors.  Even though we saw it at a 10:30 a.m. matinee, the show still created an appropriately spooky atmosphere, punctuated with moments of inspired comedy.

Most of the latter comes from Jen Silverman's two contributions. "Ghost Bros" is a hilariously on-target send-up of supernatural "reality" TV and juvenile macho as the titular "bros" (Alejandro Hernandez, Jayson Speters, and Addison Williams) blunder their way through a long-abandoned insane asylum in unsuccessful pursuit of a ghostly little girl (Walls Trimble). "The Bonnets", which concludes the show, is an enthusiastic celebration of murder and mayhem by the female members of the company, dressed in modest nightgowns and bonnets.

Martyna Majok contributes one of the best pieces, a touching little character study about an inexperienced prostitute (Glenna Brucken) who advertises herself as a psychic to stay ahead of the law, only to discover that her customer (Mr. Hernandez) is really interested in a reading.  Instead of playing this for laughs, Ms. Majok makes it a charming portrait of two troubled people looking for comfort in a cold world.

Tracey Green in "Something Like"
Photo: Bill Brymer

One of the creepiest entries is Meg Miroshnik's "The Holler", about a group of friends who have made the mistake of trying to turn part of a former abattoir into an apartment—with unpleasant results.  Her zombie tale "Bug" is a close second, but I thought its predictability spoiled it a bit.

Jiehae Park's "Something Like" takes the ghost story into cyberspace as a young woman (Tracey Green) becomes addicted to interacting with an artificial intelligence program (Adenike Thomas) modeled after her deceased lover.  It downplays the supernatural element to deliver a moving illustration of how we deal with loss.

Directors Marti Lyons and John Rooney make good use of the Bingham Theatre's versatile space, assisted by Paul Toben's dramatic lighting and Christian Frederickson's sound, both of which go a long way towards establishing a disturbing atmosphere.

Wondrous Strange runs through April 10th at Actors Theatre of Louisville as part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays. 

At the Humana Festival, "This Random World" abounds in comic coincidences

L-R: Shirine Babb and Beth Dixon
Photo: Bill Brymer

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One of the great pleasures of the novels of Charles Dickens is the often comical way in which he arranges for characters from very disparate walks of life to be connected, often by wildly improbable coincidences.  In his new comedy "This Random World," veteran comic playwright Steven Dietz stands that convention on its head. 

In Dietz's anti-Dickensian story, characters who are already related to each other, however tangentially, repeatedly miss making connections as a result of coincidences that are as unlikely and comical as anything the great British novelist ever dreamed up.

Renata Friedman and Todd Lawson
Photo: Bill Brymer

As the play opens, Scottie—in her 70s and ailing, but still energetic—is preparing for a trip to the Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto with her assistant and general dogsbody Bernadette.  Bernadette convinces Scottie to send Bernadette's younger sister Rhonda instead, but events conspire to force a last-minute cancellation on Scottie's part, sending Rhonda to Japan on her own.  Meanwhile, Scottie's daughter Beth, who believes her mother to be a shut-in, has taken off on an adventurous and expensive trip of her own to Nepal where, because of a missed connection, she is thrown together with Gary, a new-agey life coach and the ex-boyfriend of the outrageously neurotic Claire, who is the ex-girlfriend of Scottie's son Tim.

As for Tim, he's a failed writer and computer hacker whose already off-track life is sent into a genuine tailspin when his prank hack of a mortuary's server results in the publication of his own fictional obituary.  His attempts to explain to Rhonda—who just happens to work at said mortuary—that he is actually alive prove to be as funny as they are frustrating.

Nate Miller and Brenda Withers
Photo: Bill Brymer

I could have used the word "coincidentally" a lot in those last two paragraphs, but you get the idea.  As the characters' lives spin merrily out of control, the connections that might get them back on track are repeatedly missed in absurdly unlikely ways.  In one scene, for example, Bernadette just happens to leave her cell phone behind in a hospital waiting room at exactly the point when Beth, who just happens to have lost her cell, is calling from a pay phone to find out what's going on with Scottie.  As the phone rings, Tim just happens to walk in.  He answers it just as Beth impatiently hangs up.

Apparently, the phone just happens not to have voice mail.

Not all of the missed connections are funny, of course.  Dietz is too smart a playwright not to throw in a few scenes that are genuinely touching.  And those scenes work because, with the possible exception of the absurdly unhappy Claire, his characters are all well drawn and believable.

Deonna Bouye
Photo: Bill Brymer

The actors do well by these characters.  Brenda Withers's Beth is as confident as Nate Miller's Tim is lost and perennially baffled.  Beth Dixon is an appealingly feisty Scottie, nicely contrasting with Shirine Babb's patient Bernadette.  Todd Lawson's Gary is perfectly clueless and Deonna Bouye's Rhonda is hilariously motor-mouthed.  Dietz has made the role of Claire fairly one dimensional, but Renata Friedman makes her interesting nevertheless.

Dietz's script calls for a set that suggests "a world that is warm, mysterious and evocative", and designer Daniel Zimmerman has certainly delivered that.  Director Meredith McDonough keeps the action focused and smoothly flowing among the play's many scenes.

"This Random World" is essentially a one-joke play, but the variations on that joke are so ingenious that it never goes stale or wears out its welcome, remaining thoroughly entertaining right up to the surprising final scene.  Given its relatively simple technical demands, I'd expect it to start appearing on other regional stages in the coming years; it certainly deserves to be seen.

"The Random World" runs through April 10 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, as part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays.  For more information: actorstheatre.org.

At the Humana Festival, "Cardboard Piano" examines the fragile quality of mercy

L-R: Nike Kadri, Jamar Williams, Briana Pozner
Photo: Bill Brymer

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Dramatizing contemporary political events is a risky proposition.  A story "ripped from the headlines" can have immediate impact but fade quickly as the latest outrage takes center stage.  Fortunately, Hansol Jung's gripping drama Cardboard Piano manages to balance immediacy with a contemplation of deeper issues.

It's New Year's Eve, 1999, and in a church in Northern Uganda Chris, the daughter of an American missionary, and Adiel, a local teenage girl, are preparing to welcome the new millennium with a secret wedding ceremony.  Their celebration is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Pika, a child soldier in the infamous Lord's Resistance Army fleeing the brutal commander who has cut off the boy's ear for failing to carry out a sadistic command.

Chris and Adiel patch his wounds but, as subsequent events demonstrate, the damage to his soul runs much deeper.  As the first act comes to a violent end, it seems that the play has nowhere to go, but when the second act opens in the same church ten years later, it's clear that Ms. Jung's concerns go beyond a simple contemplation of the horrors of war. 

Nike Kadri and Michael Luwoye
Photo: Bill Brymer

As Paul, the church's Ugandan pastor, rehearses a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan with his wife Ruth (the Biblical resonance of the names will prove significant), the scene looks peaceful enough.  But, as in the first act, that peace is shattered by the appearance of a third party—Chris, now an adult and hoping to bury her late father's ashes in the church garden.  Her arrival sets in motion a series of dramatic explosions that strike at the heart of Christian concepts of mercy and forgiveness.

Interviewed in the program book, Ms. Jung notes that "religion can do two opposite things.  It can destroy, hurt, and be an instigator of violence, but it can also be the only thing capable of controlling that violence…I am a Christian, but I've always interrogated what that means.  That really influenced the writing of this play."  Forgiveness, as the subsequent action of the play suggests, is not an easy thing to truly grant—and may not always be justified.

Cardboard Piano uses the same cast for both acts, with the performers playing the roles of Adiel, Pika's commander, and Pika appearing in the second act as, respectively, Ruth, Paul, and Francis, a gay teenager who is leaving town to escape the rabid homophobia of the town's populace.  That adds interesting resonance to the characters and gives the actors an opportunity to demonstrate their impressive range.

Jamar Williams
Photo: Bill Brymer

As Paul and Pika's commander, Michael Luwoye has perhaps the biggest challenge, since the roles are so radically different. He meets it brilliantly, creating two sharply contrasting and credible characters.  Nike Kadri also makes Adiel and Ruth different enough to make suspension of disbelief easy, as does Jamar Williams as Pika and Francis. Briana Pozner very effectively differentiates the teenaged and adult versions of Chris with subtle and consistent changes in vocal inflection and body language, assisted by Ms. Jung's smartly crafted dialog.

Director Leigh Silverman guides this all with a sure hand and Scenic Designer William Boles's set makes creative use of the Jory Theatre's intimate black box space.

As our own domestic political process plays out the conflict between a version of Christianity based on mercy and compassion vs. one based on anger and judgment, the issues in Cardboard Piano feel both immediate and timeless.  I'd be surprised if this play didn't have a life after Humana.

Cardboard Piano runs through April 10 in the Jory Theatre at Actors Theatre of Louisville, as part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays.  For more information: actorstheatre.org.

At the Humana Festival, 'Residence' chronicles a month in the age of anxiety

Danielle Slavick
Photo: Bill Brymer

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The poor are a frequent topic of American political discourse, receiving compassionate concern from the left and righteous hatred from the right.  But our shredded social safety net has left the middle class in precarious straits these days as well—a fact which, while not discussed overtly, is nevertheless a recurring theme in Laura Jacqmin's comedy/drama Residence.

As the play opens Maggie, a new mom, has just checked in to an extended-stay hotel (the "Residence" of the title) in Tempe, Arizona.  She's selling a portable ultrasound system to local doctors, hoping to earn enough in commissions to get her family out of debt and her life back on track.  In the process she encounters Bobby, the hotel's all-purpose "gofer" and Theresa, the ambitious manager trainee determined to give her a "five star experience."

Leah Karpel and Alejandro Rodriguez
Photo: Bill Brymer

Bobby and Theresa couldn't be more different in some ways.  He's a slacker pothead avoiding commitment with his ex-girlfriend and she's a perky college student determined to get ahead at pretty much any cost.  And neither of them appears to have much in common with Maggie, who just wants her life to be less crazy. 

As the play progresses, though, it's clear that what unites them is that they're just one bad break or wrong choice away from personal and economic disaster. That constant sense of life on the high wire gives Residence a sense of dramatic urgency, even while individual scenes are often extremely and very believably funny.  Sometimes they're even a bit of both, as in the alcoholic seduction scene between Bobby and Theresa, which suddenly turns confrontational when Theresa realizes Bobby has a daughter with his former girlfriend.

As is so often the case at Actors Theatre of Louisville, the cast of "Residence" is impeccable.  Leah Karpel and Alejandro Rodriguez play off each other beautifully as Theresa and Bobby, and Danielle Slavick makes Maggie impressively sympathetic—not an easy task, given what a very disturbed person Ms. Jacqmin has made her. 

Avery Glymph shows considerable range as all of Maggie's doctor clients plus husband Ben, who appears only via Skype.   And Amelia Workman is on stage all too briefly as Bobby's ex Nita.  She's an intriguing character, but the script makes her something of an enigma.  It's not at all clear what she sees in Bobby, who simply can't seem to find a way to take his life or responsibilities seriously.

Alejandro Rodriguez, Danielle Slavick,
Leah Karpel
Photo: Bill Brymer

In fact, the sketchiness of nearly all the characters is one of the script's major weaknesses.  The principals are not quite shallow enough to be simple stereotypes—although Maggie comes perilously close to being little more than a psychiatric diagnosis—but neither are they fleshed out enough to feel entirely real. 

In addition, the issues raised in Residence are, perhaps, a bit too specific to our current social and economic situation here in the USA to have much resonance beyond it.  I think this is likely to be one of those pieces that perfectly captures a particular moment in time and then quickly fades.

Still, it's a well-made piece overall, with a shrewdly observed critique of the petty ways in which those with a little bit of economic power seem compelled to throw their weight around and make life miserable for the rest of us.  Barbara Ehrenreich described that phenomenon in detail in her 2001 book Nickel and Dimed, of course, but it is perhaps time for a reminder.  And Hal Brooks's sharp direction serves the play well.

Residence runs through April 10th as part of the 40th Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville.  For more information: actorstheatre.org.

A face in the crowd

John Clarence Stewart and Sally Diallo
Photo: Bill Brymer

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Who: Actors Theatre of Louisville
What: brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Kimber Lee
When: March 14 – April 6, 2014
Where: 38th Humana Festival of New American Plays

Kimber Lee's "brownsville song (b-side for tray)" opens on a bare, harshly illuminated stage.  Lena (Cherene Snow), a middle-aged African-American woman, is in pain.  A resident of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Lena has been working two jobs and doing everything she can to raise her two grandchildren properly.  Now the older, Tray (John Clarence Stewart), has been gunned down stupidly and senselessly simply because he was standing too close to his gangbanger friend Junior (Joshua Boone).

To the press and public, Tray is just a number—another pointless death in one of "those" neighborhoods.  Lena wants us to know that he was much more than that.  He was, as Steve Moulds writes in his program note, "the glue that held their family together; he was the rising amateur boxer, the promise of a better future."  Anonymous? Faceless?  "He was not!", Lena demands.

As the rest of the play unfolds, we see just how big a void Tray left behind.  We see him playfully interact with his little sister Devine (Sally Diallo), helping her cope with the anxiety their alcoholic mother Merrell (Jackie Chung) caused when she abandoned them.  We see him dealing with attempts to reconnect with him and the rest of his family by a reformed Merrell, who has been assigned to him as a tutor to assist with his college application essay.  And we see him trying to balance his relationship with Junior against his desire to move beyond the sudden violence and gray anonymity of the streets—brought to visual life by Dane Laffrey's set with its massive, faux cinder block units.

Quoted in the program note, playwright Lee says she wanted to portray the real people behind the impersonal numbers of neighborhoods like Tray's.  "It's families living there, trying to get by with what could seem like insurmountable obstacles.  But they're just people trying to put the food on the table, get the kid out of bed, get him dressed, get him to school…doing all the things that all of us do."  Given the campaign of hatred and demonization being carried out against people like Tray and his family by the political right in this country, Ms. Lee's point is one that cannot be made too strongly.

Ms. Lee's writing brims with poetry, passion, beauty and—yes—even a kind of verbal music.  "There's such a musicality and a hum and rhythm to the life in Brooklyn," she notes.  "So it felt right to have the title be some kind of musical thing."  It's called the "b-side," she says, because that's "always the song that nobody's heard.  It's the one that people aren't talking about."  Her characters are sharply drawn and wonderfully three-dimensional.  The final monolog, in which Tray reads his completed college essay—the one that got him the scholarship he will never live to use—was profoundly moving.

I know it sounds like a broken record (if not a b-side) to say this, but once again the Actors Theatre put together a first-rate cast.  Ms. Snow perfectly captured Lena's strength and pain.  Mr. Stewart allowed us to see Tray the boy as well as the man he was becoming.  He did, however, look a bit too mature for his character's eighteen years.  Ms. Chung's Merrell was clearly a woman trying to take control of her life again—low key without being bland.  And young Ms. Diallo was simply a delight as Devine.

Meredith McDonough's direction was clean and focused.  Jake Rodriguez's rap/hip hop sound design neatly captured the urban beat suggested by Mr. Laffrey's sets and Ben Stanton's lights.  Like every other Actors Theatre show I've seen, tech was generally flawless.

"brownsville song (b-side for tray)" deserves a life beyond Louisville.  Casting the role of Devine might be an issue for some companies, but otherwise I think it would be well within the capabilities of any company with access to a decent pool of African-American actors.  The elaborate tech the show got at Actors Theatre didn't strike me as essential; I expect it could be done quite effectively with more minimal staging.

The true believer

Photo: Michael Brosilow

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Who: Actors Theatre of Louisville
What: The Christians by Lucas Hnath
When: March 4 – April 6, 2014
Where: 38th Humana Festival of New American Plays

When the lights come up on Lucas Hnath’s compelling idea-rich drama “The Christians,” the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Pamela Brown auditorium is instantly transformed into the sanctuary of a typical Christian mega-church, complete with video screens, an organ, and a choir. 

In front of the choir is a pulpit and five chairs, each with a microphone and stand.  All the action will take place in this space, and all of the dialog will be delivered into those microphones.  This, for the playwright, is a way of emphasizing the fact that a preacher's life is "constantly on public display.  The moment you make a mistake, people are very hard on you."

As the play begins, the members of the choir file in and launch into Jennie Wilson’s upbeat hymn “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hand.” The title will prove to be ironic.  Paul (Andrew Garman), the church’s pastor, is about to preach a sermon that proposes a fundamental shift in his congregation’s philosophy.  Like the apostle Paul, he has changed his mind in a radical way.  As the repercussions of that sermon play out over the next 75 minutes, it becomes clear that doctrinal change can be a very dangerous business.

The sermon starts innocently enough.  Paul talks about how the church has grown from its humble storefront origins to an organization with a congregation of thousands, classrooms for Sunday School, a coffee shop in the lobby, and a baptismal font as big as a swimming pool.  Better yet, the church has finally paid off its building loans, thanks to the generosity of its members.  But there's a problem.

"There's a crack in the foundation of this church," he warns.  "And I'm not talking about the building. I'm talking about something like Isaiah talks about, Isaiah 30 verses 12 and 13 'Because you have rejected this word' 'this word' that's God's word he's talking about 'And relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging'."  Mending that crack, though, will involve abandoning what other members of the congregation—most notably assistant pastor Joshua (Larry Powell)—regard as a fundamental tenet of their faith.

Paul and Joshua debate their differences in front of the congregation and while their argument is courteous enough, their beliefs are irreconcilable.  Paul forces a vote by the congregation, which Joshua loses badly.  He leaves the church, slowly and sadly exiting offstage.  But, like his Biblical namesake, he will return to tear down some walls.

The vote doesn't take place on stage.  Like most of the action of the play, it happens offstage and the characters tell us about it.  What happens onstage is a series of arguments between Paul and those close to him—his wife Eilzabeth (Linda Powell), a church elder named Jay (Richard Henzel), Joshua, and choir member Jenn (Emily Donahoe) who has questions about Paul's new/old theology that he can't adequately answer.  That might sound like a recipe for a play that will be more didactic than dramatic, but Mr. Hnath (whose "Death Tax" so impressed me back at the 2012 festival) is too good a writer for that.  His characters are so well drawn and his refusal to take sides is so scrupulous that those exchanges crackle with energy and passion.

As the play progresses, Paul's problems multiply.  Ultimately, he finds himself asking the question which far too many believers seem to ignore: how do you know where your beliefs really come from?  Is that voice in your head God's, Satan's, or just an echo of your own? "I believe what I believe because I know it is true," Paul says towards the end of the play, "but why do I know it's true?—it's a feeling. And where did that feeling come from?—God. God put it there—but how do I know it's God that put it there?—I know it's God because I believe God is there—but how do I know God is there?" 

To say that "The Christians" is thought provoking is to praise it inadequately.  The philosophical and spiritual questions raised by this meticulously written and dramatically gripping play generated lively discussions among our party.  As I prepared to write this review today, my wife and I found ourselves coming back to many of the ideas in the play’s intellectually rich script.  It was one of the best plays I've seen anywhere in recent years.

The performances by the fine Actors Theatre cast did full justice to Mr. Hnath’s dialog.  They were completely comfortable with the microphones, using them as extensions of their bodies, and were fully invested in their characters.  Even the members of the choir were distinct individuals, sketching diverse personalities in the way they sang and in their reactions to the debates on stage.

Les Waters's direction made good use of the space, especially during the confrontation between Paul and his wife.  As Paul paced around on the carpeted dais downstage of the chairs, swinging his microphone cord, you could see him taking on his public persona and shutting her out.  The show was well paced and, despite its argument-counterargument structure, never felt static.

Will "The Christians" have a life beyond Humana?  It certainly deserves one.  Smaller companies might have to finesse the choir, but on the whole it should be well within the capabilities of most groups.  Congratulations to Actors Theatre and the festival for continuing to give us smart, well-crafted scripts like this one.

Man of steel

Photo: Michael Brosilow

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Who: Actors Theatre of Louisville in association with SITI Company
What: Steel Hammer
When: March 19 – April 6, 2014
Where: 38th Humana Festival of New American Plays

A lot of talent went into the Actors Theatre of Louisville and SITI Company’s co-production of "Steel Hammer"—and I'm not just talking about the gifted, versatile, and physically robust six-person cast. 

The authors of the production's text—Kia Corthron, Will Power, Carl Hancock Rux, and Regina Taylor—all have impressive resumes that collectively embrace the worlds of theatre, musical theatre, film, and television.  Composer Julia Wolfe is a big name in the world of classical music, as are the artists who perform her recorded score: Bang on a Can All-Stars and Trio Mediaeval.  To top it all off, director Anne Bogart has been Artistic Director of SITI since she founded it with Tadashi Suzuki in 1992.

With that much going for it, it's a shame that "Steel Hammer" wasn't better.  The concept is a good one: a play with movement and music based on a historically informed version of the legend of that "steel drivin' man" John Henry.  Apparently inspired by Scott Reynolds Nelson's 2006 book "Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend," "Steel Hammer" posits that John Henry was based on a real character: John William Henry, a New Jersey–born free black man who went to Reconstruction-Era Virginia to find work, was imprisoned on trumped-up charges (as so many black men were in the Reconstruction South), and was farmed out as convict labor to build railroad tunnels. 

"Steel Hammer" uses the character's mythic status to build a chronological through line that credibly connects slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation with today's system of privatized, for-profit prisons.  Convict labor, the play suggests, is just another form of slavery—one that always seems to fall most heavily on the backs of black Americans.

Unfortunately, the creators of "Steel Hammer" don't seem to have much faith in the spoken word as a vehicle for their concept.  I realize that's a matter of philosophical conviction, going back to the "Viewpoints" technique (originally developed by Mary Overlie and elaborated upon by Ms. Bogart and Tina Landau) with its insistence that none of the elements of theatre should take precedence over any other.  But that didn't make the results any more convincing.

Most of the show's two-hour running time is taken up with long scenes of repetitive movement (some of which rose to the level of dance) accompanied by equally minimalist and repetitive recorded music.  The opening scene, for example, consisted of the full cast repeatedly striking a series of a half-dozen or so poses that represented the main elements of John Henry's story: manual labor, captivity, struggle, and death.  It went on for several minutes, long after it had made its dramatic point and had become boring—if not actively annoying.

This proved to be a pattern that repeated throughout the evening.  At one point the actors did nothing more than run in circles around the outside of the platform that served as the primary playing area.  After around ten minutes of that I began to wonder if the creators of "Steel Hammer" might be (to paraphrase an Anna Russell line about a certain type of contemporary composer) trying to get away with something.  But then, a lot of post-modernism has the effect on me.

For me, "Steel Hammer" truly came to life only during the rare moments when actual words were spoken.  At one point, for example, Henry (Eric Berryman, in a truly spectacular performance) yearns for freedom and a reunion with his wife (Patrice Johnson Chevannes, very impressive here and in other roles in the show).  In another, Berryman is treated as the subject of a series of lectures on the Henry legend by the rest of the cast.  As a satire of the academic treatment of folklore, I thought it worked quite well. 

Perhaps the best thing about "Steel Hammer," though, was a monolog in which Ms. Chevannes played an ancient former slave reminiscing about the hard lives of Southern blacks before and after the Civil War and recalling the night she met John Henry.  It was a beautiful piece of acting using a solid and compelling script.

There is, I think, a good 45- to 60-minute play in "Steel Hammer."  At two hours with no intermission, however, it felt heavily padded and sometimes veered perilously close to self-parody.  I also felt that it made physical demands on the cast—and especially on Mr. Berryman—that approached the abusive.  By the end of the performance Mr. Berryman was drenched in sweat and looked exhausted.  I find it a bit ironic that a play about the evil of pushing a man past the point of physical pain appears to do the same thing to the actor playing that role.

I wanted to like "Steel Hammer."  Its historical and political points are valid and important.  Alas, its creators have not, in my view, served those points well, however imposing their credentials.

Money (that's what I want)

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L-R: LeRoy McClain, Annie Purcell, David Ross, Kasey Mahaffy
Photo:Bill Brymer

Who: Actors Theatre of Louisville
What: Partners by Dorothy Fortenberry
When: February 26 – April 6, 2014
Where: 38th Humana Festival of New American Plays

Clare (Annie Purcell) is an aspiring chef married to Paul (David Ross), an IT manager for a New York City law firm. She loves trying out new recipes on her best friend Ezra (Kasey Mahaffy) and his boyfriend Brady (LeRoy McClain), who teaches "at risk" kids.  Ezra wants to start a Tex-Mex food truck business with Clare. She, in turn, wants him to marry Brady.  When Clare gets an unexpected financial windfall as a result of a long-forgotten class-action lawsuit, She, Paul, and Ezra find themselves faced with some tricky choices.

That should be the set-up for a lively comedy examining the difficulties in trying to mix business, love, and friendship.  And, in fact, Dorothy Fortenberry's script bristles with funny lines.  In "Partners," just about everybody is a joker.  Indeed, that's the problem: the humor in "Partners" comes mostly in the form of Neil Simon-esque jokes.  It doesn't, unfortunately, come from well-developed characters in credible situations.

The biggest problem with "Partners" is the central character of Clare.  She's self-centered, devoid of insight, and has an unerring knack for turning silk purses into sow's ears.  Worse yet, she's passive aggressive with a vengeance.  She allows Ezra, for example, to spend hours of his own time developing a business plan for a project that she apparently doesn't want to undertake.  Rather than simply say she's not interested, she produces a litany of excuses for why she never makes a meeting on time or meets a deadline.

Husband Paul doesn't get much better treatment.  Her cooking is too spicy for his stomach, but she makes no real effort to change her recipes.  She hides her financial good fortune from him and then, while he's making plans to use it in ways that will benefit both of them, she gives most of it away to a marriage equality organization.  Why either he or Ezra have any affection for the tiresome Clare is frankly hard to fathom.

Scenes between Ezra and Brady—both well-drawn and sympathetic characters—were more interesting.  I found their relationship was more credible than Clare and Paul's.  The scene in which Brady proposes marriage (but not, alas, monogamy) to Ezra was touching and true.

At only 65 minutes, "Partners" is hardly a long play.  But, despite strong performances from the cast, it felt like one, largely because Clare wore out her welcome about halfway through.  Lila Neugebauer's smart direction made the best of this shallow script, greatly assisted by Daniel Zimmerman's realistic sets, Paul Toben's lights, and Lindsay Jones's original music and sound.  But you know you're in trouble when a fast scene change gets as much applause as your curtain call.

Humana Festival 2013: "Appropriate"

[The 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays runs through April 7 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.]

“Appropriate” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Gary Griffin
The Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville
Through April 7, 2012

My video blog review

Synopsis: “The family that stresses together represses together. When the Lafayettes descend upon a crumbling Arkansan plantation to liquidate their dead patriarch’s estate, his three adult children collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father’s possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations. A play about the trouble with inheritance, memory loss, and the art of repression.”

The title of Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins’s play is nothing if not ironic. At one point or another nearly every member of the Lafayette family acts in ways that are not appropriate (the word we now use in place of “bad” or “wrong”). Resentful that she was left to deal with the family’s increasingly disturbed father and crumbling finances, sister Toni is hostile and judgmental towards nearly everyone—and possibly in denial about dad’s real nature. Frank (now calling himself Franz as part of his attempt to escape his past) has apparently still not gotten over the unhealthy interest in underage women that made that escape necessary. And Bo, while apparently the most rational of the bunch, is still willing to make a fast buck from a shameful family secret.

Larry Bull as Bo, Amy Lynn Stewart as Rachael,
Reese Madigan as Franz and Jordan Baker as Toni.
Photo by Alan Simons

Dysfunctional family dramas can be deadly in my experience, but Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins avoids the pitfalls of the genre, at least in the first act. Exposition is neatly and economically delivered, the characters are all credible and quickly established, and the dramatic tension builds plausibly from the semi-comic opening scenes to the dramatic explosion that results from the revelation that the clan’s father might have been something much worse than just emotionally disturbed. The first act of “Appropriate” is, in fact, one of the best I’ve seen in many years.

The second act is not quite as strong, partly because it never satisfactorily resolves some of the tensions in the first and partly because it strikes some false character notes, especially in the arguments over how to capitalize on an ugly artifact found in the attic (yes, I’m being vague in an effort to avoid spoilers). The final moments depicting the eventual fate of the house also struck me as a bit anticlimactic and tacked on. Still, the script as a whole is very compelling; it needs only a little tweaking, in my view, to make it the Lexus of dysfunctional family plays.

The cast is uniformly wonderful. Reese Madigan, Jordan Baker, and Larry Bull all shine as the siblings Frank/Franz, Toni, and Bo. Amy Lynn Stewart is very strong as Bo’s wife Rachel, especially in the final moments when Bo’s façade of reserve collapses. Natalie Kuhn is archly New Age as Frank’s very young fiancée Trisha.

There’s fine work as well from David Rosenblatt as Toni’s son Rhys (who has some ugly inappropriate behavior in his own past) and young Gabe Weible as Bo’s over-energized son Ainsley. Lilli Stein is remarkably credible as Bo’s prepubescent daughter Cassidy. Although Ms. Stein is a college graduate, she completely convinced me she was (at least) a good ten years younger.

Director Gary Griffin has nicely shaped the scenes, blocked it all intelligently, and served the script very well. He and stage manager Michael D. Domue also designed a redressing of Antje Ellermann’s amazingly detailed set in the second act that was executed so swiftly and artfully that it actually got applause.

That set, it should be noted, is quite a marvel, especially when you consider that it has to be struck and rebuilt repeatedly because it shares the Pamela Brown auditorium with “Gnit”. With the addition of Matt Frey’s lights and Bray Poor’s sound, the illusion of a decaying Southern mansion was perfect.

Taken as a whole, “Appropriate” was one of the best things I saw at Humana this year—right up there with “Cry Old Kingdom”. And that’s high praise indeed.

Humana Festival 2013: "The Delling Shore"

[The 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays runs through April 7 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.]

“The Delling Shore” by Sam Marks
Directed by Meredith McDonough
The Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville
Through April 7, 2012

My video blog review with Leslie Wobbe

Synopsis: “Eminent novelist Thomas Wright has invited fellow writer Frank Bay and his daughter Adrianne to stay the weekend at his country house. From the moment the Bays arrive, though, Thomas and his daughter Ellen are out to get them. The shared love of books that should unite these characters instead becomes a battleground where words become weapons.”

Maybe I’m just getting grumpy in my old age, but I think I’ve really seen my quota of acerbic comedy/dramas about dysfunctional middle class (and above) New Yorkers in the arts slicing and dicing each other and agonizing over their failures to make the Big Time. In a nation slowly sliding into third-world status, with millions of citizens facing unemployment, underemployment, and/or crippling debt, these concerns are looking increasingly trivial.

I could also do without plays that use a parlor game as the means to bring out Big Truths about the characters, but that’s probably just me being a curmudgeon.

Bruce McKenzie as Frank, Catherine Combs as Adrianne,
Meredith Forlenza as Ellen, and Jim Frangione as Thomas.
Photo by Alan Simons

I understand that struggling artists are of great interest to folks like playwright Marks, who grew up in the theatre and, according to Kathryn Zukaitis’s biographical sketch in the press kit, “is intimately acquainted with the risks and rewards of pursuing a career in the arts.” But in order for their struggles to matter to the rest of us, the characters have to be something more than just bundles of ambition and resentment. The father/daughter teams in “Delling Shore” just don’t pass that test.

Frank starts off with a chip on his shoulder that would make Atlas shrug and only becomes more abrasive as the evening progresses. Adrianne is so tightly wound from the moment she walks on stage that she’s ready to snap (and eventually does). Thomas is unprincipled and arrogant, and his daughter Ellen seems more interested in clubbing than anything else. It’s an indication of how unpleasant and ultimately uninteresting these characters are that Ellen eventually turns out to be the most fully realized of the lot.

That’s not to say that there aren’t laughs and some decent dramatic tension created during the eighty very long minutes of “The Delling Shore”. It’s just that they’re not enough to compensate for having to spend time with a quartet that you wouldn’t invite to your house on a bet. Worse yet, the play starts at such a high pitch of hostility that there’s ultimately nowhere for it to go without tipping into absurdity—which it eventually does, in a thoroughly unbelievable scene between Frank and Ellen towards the end.

The best things about “The Delling Shore”, in my view, are Daniel Zimmerman’s strikingly realistic set and the solid work by the actors. Catherine Combs’s Adrianne is a bundle of nervous tics from the get-go, tipping us off that she’s not as collected as she seems. Meredith Forlenza nicely manages Ellen’s transition from superficial to sympathetic. Bruce McKenzie is the very picture of resentment and Jim Frangione’s smug complacency is just right for Thomas.

Meredith McDonough’s direction mostly serves the playwright well, although I think she might have found ways to dial down the intensity a bit early on.

Some years ago Scott Adams authored a Sunday “Dilbert” strip titled “Seven Habits of Highly Defective People”. I won’t say that these characters have them all, but they have plenty and (to quote The Bard), “’tis enough, ‘twill serve.”

Humana Festival 2013: "Cry Old Kingdom"

[The 37th Humana Festival of New American Plays runs through April 7 at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.]

“Cry Old Kingdom” by Jeff Augustin
Directed by Tom Dugdale
The Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville
Through April 7, 2012

My video blog review with Leslie Wobbe

Synopsis: “Haiti, 1964. Beneath the watchful eyes of François ’Papa Doc‘ Duvalier’s government, revolution is brewing. Words of rebellion against his repressive regime flood the nation’s radio waves, even as the Tonton Macoutes death squads prowl the villages, killing or imprisoning anyone who speaks ill of the dictator. The people of Haiti face a stark choice: to join the fight or to flee.”

Edwin, a painter, is a kind of self-made zombie. Years ago he faked his own death and now works, appropriately, out of an underground studio. Or he tries to work, anyway. Since his bogus death his inspiration has suffered a real death. Worse yet his wife Judith is witnessing the slow death of her own former vivacity and love of dancing at Carnival, killed by the need to work in an open market all day to sustain her and Edwin.

Jonathan Majors as Henri and Andy Lucien as Edwin.
Photo by Alan Simons

When Edwin stumbles across Henri Marx, “a scarred but beautiful young man” (to quote the program notes) gathering wood to build the boat he hopes will take him to America, he’s fascinated by the young man’s lust for life. Edwin offers a bargain: Henri can build his boat safely in Edwin’s studio if Edwin can paint him. As the two men get to know each other, Edwin finds his inspiration returning, but the estrangement from Judith increasing. When Judith announces her intention to join the rebels, Edwin faces difficult choices—with tragic results.

“Cry Old Kingdom” is profound on so many levels that it’s hard to articulate them. From a purely polemic perspective, it’s a dramatic illustration of the way political repression undermines and corrupts human relationships. It’s also a forceful illustration of both the futility of attempting to remain apart from life and the cost of doing so. Edwin’s self-inflicted burial doesn’t insulate him from having to make choices because, as Henri Marx observes, “Being alive is having to choose.”

Andy Lucien brings the repressed Edwin to vivid life. He’s nicely matched by Jonathan Majors as Henri, still optimistic despite horrific persecution from the regime. Natalie Paul’s Judith is a masterpiece of body language, forcefully illustrating the gradual revival of her character’s spirit as the revolution seems to bring her hope—however briefly. The Haitian accents of the cast are (at times) a bit too heavy, though. When actors were facing away from me, I often lost lines—a pity with a script this literate.

Scenic designer Daniel Zimmerman smartly conjures up the beach, Edwin’s studio, and Edwin and Judith’s home with only a few set pieces and some piles of sand. The lights, sound, Tom Dugdale’s direction, and the fine work of the actors do the rest.

“Cry Old Kingdom” was one of the best things I saw at Humana this year. Its illustration of the horrors faced by so much of the world on a regular basis is so vivid, though, that it makes the angst of some of the characters in the other four plays I saw feel trivial by comparison. Not being able to find yourself, for example, looks like pretty small beer compared to not being able to prevent the Tonton Macoutes from finding you. That’s an invidious comparison, perhaps, but it’s hard to avoid those thoughts when you see five plays in three days.