Renegade redux

A few final notes on last weekend's theater festival in Old Town

Posted

The curtains have come down on this year's Renegade Theatre Festival, but people are still talking about the shows. Here's one last look at some of the notable productions from last weekend.

Peppermint Creek Theatre Co.

“Loving Alanis,” directed by Brad Rutledge: “This isn’t ‘OurTown,’” warns part-time narrator Luke early on in “Loving Alanis,” and he’s notkidding: Some of the dialogue in Brad Rutledge’s script might make even the“Sex and the City” crew blush. Unfortunately, the ribald talk often distractsfrom the most intriguing element of this comedy-drama, an offbeat May/Septemberrelationship between the fiftysomething Luke (played by Rutledge) and 30-ishJessica (Angharad McGaughey), a lobbyist who has just given a no-confidencevote to her sports-crazy boyfriend, Evan (Joe Dickson).

The dynamics that develop between the three — particularlyafter Evan and Luke cautiously become friends — are worth exploring. Instead(and inexplicably) “Alanis” becomes another one of those “I’m gonna teach youhow to…” stories, with Luke trying to educate Evan about the proper way toapproach women and Jessica’s randy buddy, a worldly wise wife named Ronnie (KatCooper), providing unwanted coaching in the art of manipulating men. AlthoughCooper made a valiant, spirited stab at making Ronnie human, the obnoxious andhollow character — who is married to a man named Wolf and the mother of Gooberand Poopsie — seems like a salty-tongued harpy that’s flown in from a low-rent knockoffof “Will and Grace.” The script’s credibility deteriorates as Ronnie squawksabout her favorite sexual positions while sitting in the middle of a Starbucks,and badgers Jessica into doing kegel exercises; if Rutledge rewrites, he shouldsend Ronnie straight back to Sitcomland.

“Alanis” is also hobbled by Evan’s ever-shifting maturitylevel: In one scene, he’s a self-aware survivor of a chilly childhood spentwith a brutish dad, and a few minutes later he’s carrying on like a beer-swilling,trash-talking frat house vet. While Dickson managed to give Evan enough chummycharm to make the personality swings tolerable, he couldn’t entirely disguiseEvan’s inconsistencies. The engaging McGaughey, blessed with the looks of ahipper Jodie Foster and the appealingly crackly voice of Debra Winger, had aneasier time with Jessica, who is definitely the most vivid and best-defined figurein the script as it stands now.

As Luke, Rutledge battled a double whammy: portraying acharacter who has almost no flaws — he’s an expert in how to prepare anyvariety of bulgar, his favorite movie is “A Room With a View,” he knows aikido,he adores the music of Alanis Morissette and he’s a sexual sorcerer, too! — andburdening himself with tying together the story through fourth-wall-breakingmonologues. His unfussy, easygoing acting style is always a pleasure to see, but his Oprahesque lectures (“In the most fundamental way, men and women are thesame,” “Be the man you want to be, instead of a half-assed impression of whatyour dad wanted you to be,” etc.) were banal.

Like Jessica, “Alanis” is still searching for its core andstruggling to define itself. Although Luke advises us to focus on merely“being” instead of constantly “doing,” the play does exactly the opposite,manufacturing melodrama when it could have concentrated on the truth in theJessica/Evan/Luke triangle. To quote Madame Morissette, isn’t it ironic — don’tya think? — James Sanford

Williamston Theatre

“Dead Man’s Shoes,” directed by David Wolber: In June, Milanplaywright Joseph Zettelmaier won the Edgerton Foundation New American Playaward for “Dead Man’s Shoes”; last weekend, the Williamston Theatre crewperformed a thoroughly winning reading of the Western comedy-thriller, which mixesfrisky humor into a decidedly twisted tale inspired by a jaw-dropper of a truestory.

In 1881, outlaw Big Nose George Parrott was dragged from aWyoming jail cell by a lynch mob and strung up on a telegraph pole. His bodyeventually fell into the hands of Dr. John Eugene Osborne, who skinned Parrott,sent his flesh to a tannery where it was turned it into a pair of shoes and amedical bag. If that’s not bizarre enough, Osborne was later elected Governorof Wyoming — and he wore those shoes to his inaugural ball.

Zettelmaier picks up the tale in 1883, as Parrott’s formercohort, Injun Bill Picote (played at the reading by a deliciously dry-humoredJohn Lepard), embarks on a mission of vengeance: He’ll stop at nothing to findthat cursed footwear and kill the man who’s in them. Injun Bill is a half-breedand, to paraphrase the Cher classic, both sides were against him since the dayhe was born.

Injun Bill’s unlikely partner in crime is Froggy (Aral BasilGribble II, who provided some zesty harmonica playing in between his vivaciousline readings), a transplanted Cajun whose bad luck, poor employment choices —he was General Custer’s cook — and hard drinking landed him in the same jail asPicote.

“I’d rather go to Hell with a friend than to Heaven bymyself,” Froggy declares, but Injun Bill isn’t big on companionship and doesn’toffer much of the “hospitalitude” Froggy had hoped to find. “I like knives,”Injun Bill growls. “I don’t like talkin’.”

The first act of “Shoes” suggests “Butch Cassidy and theSundance Kid” remade by the Coen Brothers. The plot darkens and becomes moredisturbing in the second half, but Zettelmaier modulates the tone splendidly ashe ratchets up the suspense while constructing an endearing, low-key romancebetween Froggy and a widowed hotel owner (Maggie Meyer).

The play is written for four actors, and Meyer and AlexLeydenfrost impressively handled their multiple roles. Meyer and Gribble willstar in the world premiere of the show at Williamston in January, alongside DrewParker and Paul Hopper. It should be fascinating to see how director Wolber andset designer Daniel C. Walker create the multitude of backdrops for the action,which range from a brothel to a cave to a town in which the streets arelittered with the corpses of slaughtered citizens.

At the talk-back Saturday night, Zettelmaier said he isplanning to remove “90 percent” of the “Deadwood”-style profanity thatsometimes called attention to itself. But his wonderful characterizations andsinuous plot should not be touched. — James Sanford

Puppet Theatre

“Amateur Nite,” directed by Fred Engelgau: Hooray! Onceagain, the characters of Fred Engelgau’s imaginative "Puppet Theatre"came to run amok in his latest installment, "Amateur Nite." Themalleable and ever-adept Brian deVries reprised his role as emcee Alan Kennedy,this time joined by his trusty and coaxing dresser (James Sanford). The stagewas set for an Ed Sullivan-esque variety show with a competitive twist. Aidedby an effervescent troupe of performers, including Trisha Kosloski, DylanRogers, Teri Brown, Marianne Chan, Jeffry Wilson and David Schneider, Engelgaucreated a surreal and hilarious world of theatricality. Highlights included"The Mazel Tov Dancers" (played by Kosloski and Brown), who drew someof the biggest laughs when Kosloski’s spectacles were removed by Brown,propelling Kosloski into a Gilda Radner/Lucille Ball-like hand-chime pranceinto walls and people. Others included Chan recovering from a card trick goneawry, Wilson as both the "World’s Strongest Man" and his Borat-ishcomedian twin brother, and Schneider playing a variation on the memorable SenorWences act as Senor Gonzales with puppeteer Pepe ("S-All Right!").Finally, kudos to Rogers as the mostly one-man-band, who played a mean kazooand a host of other instruments, including a bubble blower. — Erin Buitendorp

Conceived and directed by Fred Engelgau, “Amateur Nite” wasthe latest in a series of one-act plays that feature a regular cast of puppetsand humans. As in the past, the audience was treated to both a publicperformance and a glimpse behind the scenes, as show host Alan Kennedy (BrianDe Vries) mustered up the will to gleefully emcee the show while suffering froma broken heart. The play was as surreal and fantastical as the previous offerings,but the ratio of humans to puppets increased this time, due to the addition ofthe titular amateur night contest. Cast members Jeffrey Wilson, Marianne Chan,Teri Brown, David Schneider and Trisha Kosloski dropped their puppets anddisplayed some rather dubious, albeit humorous, talents. — Mary C. Cusack

Tom’s Take: Notes from Tom Helma

It’s Renegade Theater: theater, in unusual settings, theaterthat illuminates the complex human existential condition, that wakes up theslumbering psyche, stirs up the stink on the doo-doo, scratches off the scabson societal wounds.

In the former Mustang Bar, J'esse Deardorff-Green wrote andstarred in a brief one-act play, “Everybody Wins,” a jagged, jarringportrayal of the fragmentation of the contemporaryhuman soul. Three very good actors attempted to recreate on a theater stage thecomplex and disparate roles that many of us attempt to jam into one lifetime. Deardorff-Green was joined by Brian deVriesand Trisha Kosloski, who flipped in and out of multiple characterizations as quicklyas one might change the channel with a TV remote.

Across the street, borrowing the cavernous art-space of the MICAgallery, Katie Doyle starred along with Rico Bruce Wade in the one-act play“Choreography,” that reminded us of the terrible delusional lengths to which wecan go to deny the death of a son.

Can it get any better than this? Oh, yeah!

In the former Chrome Cat, Michigan State University’s RobRoznowski brought us a full-scale 90-minute production of Roberto-Aguirre-Sacasa’s“Good Boys and True,” a kaleidoscopic morality tale, in which ethical behavior,organizational hypocrisy and exploitive sex battle for attention in the settingof a parochial high school.

Dana Brazil and Wes Haskell, as mother and son, deliveredpowerful, sizzling performances in this intense saga, performed so well thatthe audience gave actors a standing ovation and a second curtain call. — TomHelma


Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here




Connect with us