Archikulture Digest
Number 12: November, 2000
They say being liked by the critics is like being liked by the chipmunks in the park. Let's see who brought the best peanuts this month.
The Cherry Orchard
By Anton Chekhov
Directed by Alan Bruun
Staring Christopher Lee Gibson, Katrina Ploof, Mindy Anders, Rick Stanley, Bill Lefkowitz
Mad Cow Theater
Frozen in time, frozen between the Russian winters, neither Lyubov (Ploof) nor her well-meaning but vapid brother Gayev (Stanley) have any concept of cash flow. Cash is flowing, however, mostly out the door and the family estate is about to go up the pipe. Mortgaged to the hilt and well into default, they have no choice but to cut their losses and their cherry trees and subdivide for condos and a strip mall. Only Lopakhin (Gibson) understands the problem and only Lopakhin has the gumption and vision to fix it. But no one will listen to such a harsh truth. Not Lyubov, lost in the past with her drown son, nor daughter Varya (Anders), who prays for God's deliverance, nor even romantic Anya (Emily Harrold), in love with that moth-eaten student Trofimov (Michael Lane), left over as tutor to the lost boy. Once you show up on this estate, you get immediate tenure. And now the fatal day arrives - Lopakhin buys the estate at auction, and owns the place that enslaved his father and grandfather and those before him. A great day for freedom, but a disaster for Russia.
And this is the essential Russia of yesterday and today - great, rich, and careening from disaster to disaster with no clear idea of how to operate the emergency brake. Ancient retainer Firs (Lefkowitz) mumbles and grumbles about how things were better when he was a serf, and Trofimov smells of the revolution looming on the horizon. Varya might marry Lopakhin, but might not, and Yepikhodov (Jay T Becker) might marry Dunyasha (Dawn Wicklow), but might not, while neighbor Pischik (Sam Hazell) cadges mortgage money while laughing past his own default. But everyone is a friend, will remain friends, and loves one another no matter what happens. It's sad, funny, and alien to us. It's Russia.
With a year's work by the cast and the public, Cherry Orchard becomes one of the finest, most comprehensive productions Orlando has seen. No one character carries the show, but not one single character gives a weak performance. It's a perfect people's collective, complete with individual collages replacing the standard lobby head shots. And as the clan scatters to the winds, blows fall on the beloved trees. First an axe bites into the dry solid wood ready for transformation into something useful. Then an axe bites into a living tree, cutting the heart out of the estate and leaving wood suitable only for burning. And with the sound of a broken string, everything dies.
Closer
Written by Patrick Marber
Directed by Abigail Paul
Starring Marisol Novak, Jason Moyer, Heather Godwin, Dan Johnson
Presented by Cerulean Group at Impacte!, Orlando
How do we hate each other? Let's count the ways. Dan (Moyer) picked up Alice (Novak) at a hit and run. She's torn her orange fishnets and now there's love in the air. Dan writes obituaries but Alice inspires him to pen a tawdry sex novel. He promotes it by convincing sex chatroom habituŽs he's hot for them and to meet him at the London Aquarium for some action. "Aquarium" is the title of the book. Clever, eh? Horny doctor Larry (Johnson) shows up and meets photographer, artist, and Friend of Dan, Anna (Godwin), and now they're a thing. Until Larry meets Alice and Anna sleeps with Dan and everyone expresses undying love for one another until they hit the hay with the other's main squeeze. If one had a social disease, now they've all got it.
Alice's clothes look so sad when she takes them off, but she knows what men want - a girl that looks like a boy and makes herself sexy far beyond her looks. When she's with Dan, he has a self-absorbed look of boredom that only disappears when the topic turns to himself. And Anna exploits the sad and lonely by selling their photos to the wealthy sad and lonely, making them feel a bit better. I do believe she actually steals their souls. Finally, consider Doctor Larry, trained dermatologist and certified loser. When you push him hard enough, he spits real fire defending his infidelity. Rather than waste time bragging to the boys in the operating theater, he just volunteers his infidelity to whoever he's living with at the moment. He calls it honesty and love. I call it sheer petty meanness.
With a multitude of short scenes flashing before us, cued by light changes and nothing more, we see a carpet full of glass shards. Each glistens with a small vignette of pain, and they stick to the bottom of your feet when you try to clean them up. These are not people falling in and out of love, but a small time S&M circus with the pain knob turned to 11.
Caffeine - Episode 2
Written by Todd Kimbro
Starring Ed Campbell, Megan Dewitt, Michael Marinaccio, Todd Kimbro, Kimber Taylor
Impacte! Productions, Orlando Florida
It's another Someday night in the Caffeine Crash, Orlando's almost hippest coffee joint. Buckstars Coffee still wants to buy out Devon's (Kimbro's) operation and make him assistant district manager. We all know what ADM's are like, and he's having none of that. Holden (Campbell) and the sisters Tuni (Taylor) and Jasmine (Drewett) have been abducted by aliens, and Stash (Marinaccio) is on a mission to slash some tires and rescue the girls before Holden turns everyone he meets into a flesh-eating homosexual zombie. Just another quiet night. It seems that Buckstars really intends to control Global Blended Caffination, take over the world, and turn all the women into DSL-controlled breeding stock. Guys are programmed to Zombiefy each other, leaving the gay guys who are much better dressers for the few remaining green-skinned pulsating brained fem-aliens with that White Rain hairspray smell. It's a fate worse than walking into the Sullivan's Trailside Lounge on karaoke night.
With the local live soap scene expanding into its second effort, just enough continuity exists to make the amnesia and infidelity grade, but not so much that you're lost if you miss an episode. My favorite characters were the two Jane Jetson babes in sparkly flared skirts and uber-blonde wigs who pogoed in and out with the props. Devon contributes more to this episode on stage than previously, declaiming how he won't sell his business to the evil empire of corporate caffeine, just on principle. Well, when people say principle, what they really mean is more money. And since this buyer needs Devon's small beans open mic joint to take over the world, they're likely bluffing on the cash anyway. Give 'em hell Devon.
Warning - there is actual zombie flesh-eating in this production. And the cast members smoke. Notionally, it sets the character but I think they can't talk with Nicorette in their mouths and can't wait till half-time to fire up like the rest of us. HAHA - no intermission. It's the price we pay to save the world from sex-crazed alien invaders.
Kids Only Fringe Festival
Oct 21 and 22
Theater Garage, Orlando Florida
There are many dangerous ways to entertain the public - knife throwing, crocodile wrestling, talk radio host. But nothing requires more nerve, bigger cojones, and more disregard for personal safety than doing Improv with 6 year-olds. That was the risk James Newport and Jay Hopkins from Sak took in Kid Prov, one of the best events at this year's inaugural Kid's Fringe. They began with the relatively safe One Word At a Time Story, taking their cue from children who seem to have only one thing one their minds - extra terrestrials. Increasing the risk level, they did a set of Giant Puppets, where audience volunteers move the actors around as if they were giant action figures. Adults might attempt to get the guys in rude or silly poses. The children seemed mystified by the process, and tended to run off and play with each other, leavening John and Jay hung in awkward poses, or run into walls and abandoned. Their funniest moments came as experts on Sand, one of the most under-appreciated collectibles on E-bay.
A local family posing as the Tany Hill Gang did a little show called "I'm Not Ghetto" exploring the options a child in a bad situation has to make things better. Each of the children sang a number, but the best effect came from the family singing together on such standards as Give My Regards to Broadway and Hey Look Me Over. With no microphones and a tendency to speak to one another rather than project to the audience, most of the individual pieces became lost in the open-air stage, drowned out by the fountain and street noise of almost bustling downtown Orlando. There's some raw talent here, and a cleaner technical setting would do them well.
And who will forget the brothers Grimy? This vaguely famous circus troupe would come to Lakeland (presumably from Sarasota) and entertain folks of all ages. Today, Gidget Grimy has taken sick by OD'ing on marshmallows, and Grimy Grimy (Richard Paul) must cancel the show until announcer Charles Friedman convinces the one true Grimy to let him audition. The show goes on, with a little more improv, a few more word at a time stories. Their highlight came with an actual pie in the face, a comedic device that has been so sorely missing from the lives and experience of today's post-MTV rug rats.
Kid's Fringe provides a separate, much more low-key event than the Kids' stage at the more frenetic and dispersed regular Fringe Fest. There is the requisite face-painting, arts and crafts activities, and a mixture of free and pay shows all involved and oriented toward kids. Parking is easier but more expensive than Regular Fringe, and all the events are within 100 feet of each other, avoiding the need to wander around downtown looking for the Blue Venue. It's a modest beginning, but a pleasant place to take the next generation of art patrons. Even Spiderman dropped by.
Sister Calling My Name
Written by Buzz McLaughlin
Directed by Arlen Bensen
Starring Tom Stearns, Lisa Curtis, Heather Avery Clyde Trilemma Productions
Presented at the Darden Theater, Orlando Science Center
Born a woman with a mind completely cast adrift, Lindsey (Curtis) drove her family into alcoholism and depression as they struggled to cope with her schizophrenia and retardation (can we still use that word?). After the folks died, she went to the state hospital to rot, while brother Michael (Stearns) fled to his own world of academia and divorce. Now ten years are under the bridge and childhood sweetheart Anne pops back into his life. Now Anne is a nun and she's pulled Lindsey out of the dumpster and discovered an important 'outsider' artist. Her scribbles are selling for $3k a pop bid, $3500 asked.. Next stop - MOMA. Sister Anne brings Michael back to Minneapolis under the guise of setting up a trust fund, but it's really the reunion with Lindsay and maybe a quick look at what she gave up that drives her. Mike's not happy, and resists a reunion with either of these women from his past. And to top it off, God's taken a personal interest in the whole thing. It's messy.
It's a touching and strained story. Curtis spends the show painting and flopping around, and if you have had any dealing with the not-quite-here, you'll understand Mike's lack of interest in a reunion. We can put up with most any deformity, as long as the spark of coherency or at least logic remains to connect with. It's the inability to have the other person behave as we do that drives the wedge. That wedge is apparent in Mike, and Stearns shows he's not happy to be here, not happy to find his 'lost' sister, and even Anne isn't what he thought he was signing up for.
And how much mind does one need to have a soul? What exactly is it in you that makes you YOU? Lindsay is aware of herself, aware of her surroundings, aware of her past, so we grant her a soul. But one wonders where the limit lies, where the asymptote crosses the line from having a soul to not. God gave Mike this problem, and like any good deity, he's not explaining himself. Maybe you can help.
Something's Afoot
By James McDonald, David Vos, Robert Gerlach
Directed by Julia Listengarten
Starring Yuti Joshi, Clark Mims, Cory Warren
Theater UCF, Orlando
Ten corpses in a mansion. Lead story on channel 4, or a musical comedy? On Broadway the tunes and not the bodycount matter, and it's always death in a lighter vein. Everyone's arrived at Rancor's Retreat for a weekend house party in a musical mood. Unfortunately, Lord Rancor himself will miss diner tonight - it seems he has a bit of lead poisoning. And with an electrical storm of Floridian proportions brewing, badminton's off as well, se we'll all stay inside to dance and die. With gas, guns, and blowdarts, the guest list starts shrinking and panic overrides singing but troupers one and all, they keep singing till it's their turn to visit the library and check out. Eventually, there are barely enough folks left to mount a duet or reveal the murderer, but there's one last toe tapper sung by.... well, that would be telling.
Based on Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians", ingenious murder is a frame to hang some songs on - many of which seem lost on the cavernous stage, masked by the continuous sound effects of a thunder storm. Rising above the ambient noise was "Problematical Solution (Dinghy!)", a cute bouncy little number about sexual innuendo between handyman Flint (the rubbery Nick Sprysenski) and Lettie the maid (Tamia Helena Zulueta). Mims and Warren as Hope Langdon and the lost oarsman Geoffrey put in a great dance number (I don't know why I trust you) and kept up a supercharged stage romance. Yuti Joshi (Miss Tweed) held up respectably in her first starring role as the relatively long-lived Miss Tweed, a liberated woman, amateur detective, and free spirit. And did the butler (Sam Waters) do it? No - we lost him far too soon.. but that all I can say right now.
Rocky Horror Show
Written by Richard O'Brien
Directed by Aaron Babcock
Starring Stephen French, Joe DiDonna, David Mackey
Theater Downtown, Orlando
It's pretty hard to summarize Proust, but Rocky Horror is a snap - boy meets girl, boy builds monster, aliens invade the earth, then everyone has sex. Gay, straight, animal, elbow, you name it. We've all seen it 20 times, but each time is a new experience - you pick up another bit of dialog. But what of the nuance, the deconstructionist subtext - how does it form the story, influence the observer? That would be through sex, backed by the guilty feeling you're not having any at the moment, and the cast is ignoring you to deal with their own problems. At least that's how it seems, judging by the rude catcalls and slices of toast thrown with ninja precision at the actors. I'll give the cast this much - they took it like troopers.
This is a musical, complete with a five-piece band gently backing the cast as it pummels the hits. The beltingest vocals come from arch alien Riff Raff (French) who sings a good 10 dB better than the rest of the cast. DiDonna as Frank N Furter croons in a petulant, 'I want my nooky now' style, and the rest of the cast puts out, each in their own special way. We were all stuck by muscle boy Rocky (MacKay), who appears to have a pet armadillo in his thong. That's what my girlfriend thought it was, and she should know. Sitting high above the action beneath a cheap fluorescent shop light was the narrator (Dennis Enos), with his Jack Daniels intravenous rig. I'll bet he knew Frank and Riff and the rest really were a bunch of aliens the whole time, and covered up for the CIA. It was that sort of show.
And what can we learn from this little immorality play? Well, first and foremost, there are probably a few ways to get it on that haven't occurred to you. Really. And if you hang with aliens, they may well want to probe you. It's cultural, and we need a greater appreciation of alien cultures. But mostly, we learn that occasionally the audience can come up with a good ad lib, and we don't normally allow that in Orlando. But it happens here, and you should take advantage of the opportunity before the mayor catches on and makes it illegal.
Overtime
Written by A. R. Gurney
Directed by Paul Luby
Starring Kim Nelson, Jeffrey Wilson, Brian Fitzgibbon
Seminole Community College Fine Arts Theater
Exactly what is Shakespeare's appeal? Why, never a loose end. Everyone gets sex or money or both, bad guys get punished, a hermetic plot. So neat, so clean, so transient. As we wrap Merchant of Venice, Portia (Nelson) and Nerissa (Tiki Noreaga-Hagen) have their men, someone's ship arrives safely in port, and that schmutzig Judishe Shylock (Jeffrey Wilson) is put in his place. If life were only that simple.... until everyone has thoughts about boyfriends, ethnic grouping, and of course their sexual persuasion. Even guilt flares up, with Shylock invited over to have a little nightcap and make up from the guilt-riddled liberal inside Portia.
Are people behaving stereotypically? You bet. The Jews are avaricious, the blacks are interested in b-ball, the JAP is a whiner, and that pale Episcopalian is bland, but boy can he dance. And all of this is why we came tonight. By forcing the evil images lurking within us as far as one can get away with it today (no blackface and we still can't say the N word in community college), we experience an uncomfortable look at what we think of each other. Right or wrong, we always carry premade roles for those we meet in life. Not all are acurate, but there is just enough truth to make them handy when dealing with cabbies and televangelists.
A competent but not commanding staff presents Overtime on a jewel bright set, asking us to examine our mores in a sort of post-deconstructionist Sally Jesse what's-her-name way. There were moments of spit and fire from everyone, but not always at the same time. Shylock comes off best of all, with ample time and scope to defend himself for his faith and drug of choice (money). Poor Salerio (Fitzgibbons) comes off worst, accused of fighting against multicultural nationalism, all because he's secretly Serbo-Croatian, or whatever that country is this week. Such a poor end for such an excellent job of grovelling.
Asian Sings The Blues
Featuring Fiely Matias
Music & Lyrics by Dennis T Giacino
Oops Guys - Theater Garage, Orlando
Scary season, and for the jaded Eastern European, accents and body parts just don't make it any more. Sure, a young black male makes you jump, but for real heebie-jeebies visit a Cabaret Show. You know the deal - a smarmy crooner and Piano Stylist (just give it a wash and a perm) and a tummy-tucked guest star you never saw before. But add a twist - a Chinese cabaret show, lead by that little guy with the big voice, Fiely Matias. Backing him are the not-ready-to-audition-for-June-Taylor Egg Drop Dancers and pianist Dennis Giacino. Half a camp review of the overwrought lounge act and half a silly attack on oriental culture, Matias keeps the audience giggling nervously between songs with bad jokes while Gong Boy does the sort of menial jobs Charlie Chan assigned to Number One Son. He even moons on command. With such soon-to-be-on K-Tel tunes as "Acceptable Porn" and "Ode to a Fag Hag", there was something to offend everyone. What allows him to pull it off is he really has a nice singing voice, so when he pops off an odd note, you can tell he meant it. It's such a fine line between genius and stupidity.
Well, what does he do besides sing? Aha, glasshopper, so happy to say. There's a bit of pseudo-sumo Kabuki theater. All Kabuki players look like they've just seen Hillary nude, and sound like they are repelling mosquitoes. I know this reveals some deep chord of the oriental psyche, but danged if I can explain it. Don't forget the mysterious oriental calisthenics. He's small, he's oriental, and he bends in rather unusual ways, sort of like Gumby-san. And there's a shameless plug for his new record. Heck, you never know - someone might want a memory. It's fun, it's not that clean, you get free popcorn and a fortune cookie, but it saves you having to sing your own songs like those cheapskate Karaoke bars do.
Vampire Lesbians of Sodom
Written by Charles Busch
Directed by Steve Gardiner
Starring Robert Black, Steve Gardiner, Jareb Dauplaise, Michelle Elam
Theater Garage Courtyard, Orlando
When the succubus is hungry, you'd best feed her. And make it a virgin, please. This morning's nummies didn't get enough nitrous and woke up a bit too early, forcing the succubus to confront her own inner feeling toward drinking virgins' blood, agonize a few seconds, and then dig in. Of course, since breakfast was undercooked, it bites the mouth that eats it and now we have a plot. I'm never real clear on this vampire blood exchange business, but we now have two immortals, forced to track and fight each other though eternal kitty bitch sessions. And where do they end up? Why in Hollyweird, of course, the uber vampire company town. And since no one dies, careers just go on hiatus, permitting the eternal dinner theater revivals, again and aging and again...
But what does this all mean? Vampirism is certainly a metaphor for oral sex at a minimum, and a sneaky homosexual relation without the burdens of explaining why you've never actually married and still live with your college roomie. But is it an accurate metaphor for the mass media creative process? Is the act of writing or producing simply the extraction of whatever vital forces you experienced in other venues, with the hope that you can distill the pure essence from other's actions and claim them for your own? Is this why the vampire schema remains popular despite having been done to death in Roger Corman's cutting room? Or is it that we want to see scantily-clad women pursued and consumed, and maybe they'll slip out of their costume just a bit? That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.
Carl F Gauze is a wealthy but reclusive student of the arts, semi-retired from a stellar career as an insurance calendar salesman. His real fortune derives from his great grandfather, Herman S. Gauze, who invented the sterile surgical dressing in Zurich shortly before the First World War. Because of Switzerland's neutrality and the obvious humanitarian uses of this bandage during the tragedy, he amassed a vast fortune selling the dressing to both sides. He's recently been looking at bikes, and can't decide between a Harley Fat Boy or a Vespa. Decisions, decisions...
