Dropped Names by Frank Langella (book review)

I love gossip. I love knowing who's sleeping with who and why X isn't talking to Z. But there is a limit. And, in his new memoir, Dropped Names, Frank Langella goes well past it.

The book is aptly named. Langella drops dozens of names: people he worked with and/or slept with or even just met once in passing (and, in one truly odd vignette, someone he never met yet compared penis sizes with). Marilyn Monroe. Rita Hayworth. Elizabeth Taylor. Montgomery Clift. Lee Strassberg. Laurence Olivier. And he pulls no punches--even punches that really should be pulled. He calls actors second-rate, tells who never picks up the check, and shares very very private moments. He says that he did two awful things to Jackie Kennedy and seems totally unaware that in writing about her now, he's doing a third.

There's something deeply icky about the whole endeavor. He writes only about dead people (with one exception). Is it (1) to spare their feelings? or (2) to deny them a chance to tell their side of the story? Even if it's choice (1), his choice to expose people who believed him to be a friend is creepy.

To Langella's credit, he knows that he's arrogant and somewhat closed down. But he doesn't seem to understand that he's also a user. And a shit.

Gossip is fun at a party when a stagehand or production assistant tipsily shares anecdotes of the great and/or famous. But for a peer to do it--someone who claims to have loved many of these people--and to do it in print, and to do it for profit, is repulsive. I'm glad I took the book out of the library and didn't contribute to his cheerful selling out of his old friends.

3C

What were they thinking?

There are two ways to interpret this question. In the first, it's preceded by a silent "Are they nuts?" And that interpretation is certainly apt in relation to David Adjmi's relentless and unpleasant play 3C.

But in the second interpretation, it's a straightforward question. What were they thinking? For example, what did Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, the usually wonderful Bill Buell, and the impressive-even-in-this-mess Hannah Cabell see in this show that made them want to do it?

Maybe they fell for this description (from the press release):

The war in Vietnam is over and Brad, an ex-serviceman, lands in L.A. to start a new life. When he winds up trashed in Connie and Linda’s kitchen after a wild night of partying, the three strike a deal for an arrangement that has hilarious and devastating consequences for everyone. Or are they non-consequences?  Inspired by 1970s sitcoms, 1950s existentialist comedy, Chekhov, and Disco anthems, 3C is a terrifying yet amusing look at a culture that likes to amuse itself, even as it teeters on the brink of ruin.

However, that paragraph in no way describes the painfully overdone, cutesy, pointless, ten-minute-skit-stretched-to-ninety-minutes show performed tonight. The supposed Chekhov moments and existentialist comedy aren't there, and 3C is certainly not hilarious, amusing, or terrifying. Instead, the show's tiresome, heavy-handed takeoff of Three's Company tries to buy some significance through long moments of cast members sitting and staring grimly (long moments) and bits of confused sexuality. It's not enough. Director Jackson Gay might have helped by varying the pacing and lowering the hysteria a bit, but she went for a balls-to-the-wall approach that is, to coin a phrase, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The set is nice. In a game called "Faces," where characters challenge each other to express various emotions, Hannah Cabell offers a lovely display of acting technique. Kate Buddeke manages some moments of real emotion as the miserably unhappy wife of the landlord. That's it.

(Oh, and if you want people to read up on your show, don't choose an Google-challenged name like 3C.)

(Fifth row, press ticket.)

The Etiquette of Death

Photo by: Ves Pitts

Caption: Chris Tanner as Joan Girdler (standing) and Everett Quinton as Death.

The premiere of Chris Tanner’s heavy-handed farce, The Etiquette of Death at the Ellen Stewart Theatre, explores the darkness and despair—and the occasional humorous moments—the loss of life brings: a fitting topic to close La MaMa’s 50^th Anniversary season since Ellen Stewart, the “mama” of La MaMa passed away last year.

Tanner, part of La Mama since 1979, creates a collaborative on death with 20 other writers and composers, including Penny Arcade, Angela DiCarlo, Jeremy X. Halpern (also the keyboardist), John Jesurun, Penny Rockwell and Tony Stavick. In Etiquette, death becomes an extravaganza: a variety show of sorts, chock full of glittery costumes, cross-dressing, and, song and dance. Amid all this absurdity, the authors attempt to imbue meaning by offering insinuations, conversations, and soliloquies on the importance of appearances, class, the horror of AIDS, and the sadness of loss, among other topics. The ambitiousness of the project, ultimately, generates an overall messiness where narratives and characters stay unconnected and, often, seem erratic.

The loose storyline introduces Joan Girdler (Tanner), a blonde bee-hived Mary Kay incarnate with sometimes questionable ethics, who is caring for her dying son (Brandon Olson) as she struggles with her own Stage 4 brain cancer diagnosis. Girdler, a regional sales manager of Etiquette Cosmetics, also hosts a TV show that offers etiquette and makeup tips. Death (a leather clad, Cher-haired Everett Quinton, who also directs the musical) is a big fan of hers. Scattered throughout the main action, “death” vignettes showcase ancillary characters discussing gangrene and the importance of bringing the right food to a Southern funeral, a chorus of dancing pigeons, and, a funny bit where two characters eat in a restaurant run by Death’s hench-bitches (Machine Dazzle and Matthew Crosland in brief costumes that showcase their to-die-for legs). What the sideshow of anguish and provocation means isn’t always apparent: Why are the pigeons eating Kentucky Fried Chicken? Why use a Grecian-looking set with columns and a bridge that entering actors must duck under? Why portray Isis, an Egyptian goddess who protects the dead, as Death’s cohort? Often, Etiquette offers more shoulder shrugging “huh” than “a-ha.” moments.

The performances span from the good, the bad, and the ugly. Quinton, best known for his work during his two-plus decades with The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, plays death with a campy fierceness, yet still manages to instill a human fragility in (her? him?) during a hopeful but disastrous makeover. Greta Jane Pedersen embodies Isis as a modern-day cabaret chanteuse with a pixie cut and bright red lipstick, who simultaneously channels Norah Jones, Edith Piaf, and Natalie Merchant. Pedersen’s singing mesmerizes and makes Etiquette’s two-hour-and-a-half run time bearable.

Choreography, though, by Julie Atlas Muz offers uninspiring efforts that invoke a high-school dance recital and, often, the singing is off-key. Sound problems in the performance I attended periodically made dialogue and lyrics indiscernible. With clichéd lines such as, “Without death, life would lose its poetry” and the tongue-in-cheek finale chorus, “We’re all gonna die,” this might not be a loss

(General seating, press ticket).

The Etiquette of Death plays from June 14-July 1 at the Ellen Stewart Theatre at La Mama.

The Bad and the Better

Jordan Tisdale, William Apps
Photo: Monica Simoes

The Amoralists love to yell, and they do it well. In their shows, usually written by the smart and wry Derek Ahonen, people live operatically, full of big emotions, deep cravings, and endless questions about their place in the universe. In his sprawling noir, The Bad and the Better, Ahonen gives us a world  in which desire is sudden and intense, you can't tell the bad guys from the better, and no one lives at less than 100 miles an hour.

Lang (the always-wonderful William Apps) is a cop stuck at a desk job, maybe a hero, maybe not. Venus (David Nash) is a playwright doing research on revolutionaries. Sweet anarchist Faye (the extraordinary Anna Stromberg) falls in love with Venus, but the other anarchists aren't sure they trust him. Real estate developer Zorn (Clyde Baldo) basically owns politician Eugene Moretti (the perfectly silly David Lanson). Julio (Jordan Tisdale) is a young police officer. Lenny (Penny Bittone) is an older cop trying to balance love and integrity. Matilda (the delightful Cassandra Paras) is a bartender at a cop bar. Miss Hollis (Sarah Lemp) is a secretary in love with her boss.

What do these characters all have to do with one another? Finding out is a great deal of the fun in The Bad and the Better. 

Director Daniel Aukin keeps The Bad and the Better moving like the proverbial well-oiled machine. New scenes begin almost before the previous scenes end. People flow on and off stage quickly and often. The production is big and energetic and very funny. 

The design aspects of the show are all top-notch. Kudos to set designer Alfred Schatz, costume designer Moria Clinton, lighting designer Natalie Robin, sound designer Phil Carluzzo, and fight choreographer Lisa Kopitsky.

The show's faults are few. A couple of actors are hard to understand. Some lose their characters under their bluster (but most don't, which is impressive in light of the operatic theatricality of the piece). Sometimes it's hard to follow the plot (though that seems to be a tradition in noirs going back to The Big Sleep). The play's ending pushes the moral a bit much. But overall, this show is a highly successful treat.

(second row; press ticket)

Sovereign

Stephen Heskett, Hanna Cheek
Photo: Deborah Alexander

With Sovereign, playwright Mac Rogers and director Jordana Williams bring home the wonderful Honeycomb Trilogy with verve, humor, and a bit of campiness. Amidst the entertainment, you find yourself pondering politics, loss, tribal allegiances, and leadership. (In case this sounds dry, let me point out that one test of leadership here is whether to kill the giant bug queen before she gives birth to thousands of bug children.) With propulsive, enthralling story-telling, Rogers shows how good people can do bad things, how one person's self-defense is another person's (or bug's) genocide, and how hard it is to maintain a soft spot when life forces you to be hard.

Plot-wise, the play focuses mostly on a showdown between siblings Ronnie, a resistance leader, and Abbie, who persists in seeing the invaders as liberators.

The mostly strong cast includes Hanna Cheek as Ronnie and Stephen Heskett as Abbie. Cheek has a slight tendency toward mugging, but can be heart-breaking. Heskett yells a bit too loud for the small theatre, and he seems too robust to have ever needed Ronnie's protection, but he catches all the complexities of his character. Matt Golden is excellent as the official who wants to prove his toughness; Neimah Djourabchi is charming as Ronnie's comic relief lover; the beautiful Medina Senghore needs a bit more gravitas as the defense attorney who goes against Ronnie, but has good moments; Daryl Lathon is effective but often too soft-spoken to be heard; and Sara Thigpen projects amazing amounts of strength and intelligence in a small role.

Sandy Yaklin's effective set does its part depicting the changing fortunes of Ronnie and Abbie and the passing of time. Fight choreographer Joe Mathers has staged some impressively convincing fighting.  

Sovereign is not as polished as its predecessors, and the speed of the dialogue, while theatrically effective, sometimes makes it difficult to keep track of what is going on (particularly for people who didn't see the first two parts). But its faults disappear in comparison with its excellence.

For years, critics have debated about whether science fiction can be literature. There is among many a conviction that once you add alien invaders, human subtleties go out the window. Once again, Mac Rogers has proved them wrong.

(first row; press ticket)

Les Miserables

Les Miserables - favorite of professional traveling companies and high schools - has been the holy grail of community theatre shows. Those waiting for the full version to be released outside of the professional realm knew it would happen eventually, but consistently feared they would be too old to be Javert or Fantine by the time it happened. 

It was with this reverence that Eastlight Theatre in East Peoria, IL became the first community theatre in central Illinois to receive the rights to the full version of Les Miserables. The cream of the crop auditioned for this momentous occasion, and 52 were chosen for the regional premier. I heard about it during callbacks from a good friend who was being considered for the part of Thedinaire. By the time he had been cast as Bamatabois (the creepy and violent gentleman who assaults Fantine), I was already on Eastlight’s website tracking down tickets. 

Of course, when a school attacks the high school edition, the audience enters the theatre with the assumption that what they’re about to see will be a smaller scale and possibly a B-version of the show due to the editing and inexperienced talent. 

But what about a community theatre? Can actors who hale from everywhere between Lincoln, IL to the tiny farm town of Henry, IL, and spend their days in non-acting pursuits, really do justice to this seminal classic?

The answer, it turns out, is a resounding yes. 

Regular attenders of Peoria-area theatre know there is some great talent in the area, but even the veterans won’t be prepared for the professional quality set, the astounding lighting system and design, and the anomaly of 52 solid voices without the typical community theatre problem player (you know....‘that person’....the one you dig through the program to figure out how they’re related to the director or the board to explain how they made it into the cast). 

Stand out performances are difficult to pick in such a cast, but definitely include Jason Morris as Javert. His rendition of ‘Stars’ is breathtaking, and when he and Roger Roemer combine on ‘The Confrontation’ with perfect rhythm and timing, it is a thing of beauty. Don’t get me wrong, Roemer’s Jean Valjean is good, but he takes time to get into the character whereas Morris comes out swinging. Mary Kate Smith’s ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ as Fantine is similarly awe-inspiring, which makes her attack by the most terrifying Bamatabois imaginable (played by George Maxedon) even more tragic. 

Stephanie Myre and Adam Sitton also give performances worth paying attention to as Eponine and Enjolras respectively. Myre’s voice during ‘On My Own’ and ‘A Little Fall of Rain’ is phenomenal, and her spunkiness makes Eponine come alive. Sitton’s Enjolras is hypnotic and his voice has all the strength, beauty, and vigor that the leader of a revolution should. There’s something about the first few words of ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ that always brings tears to my eyes when sung well, and Sitton’s performance is no exception.

A surprisingly standout performance comes from Stephen Peterson as Grantaire. Grantaire isn’t a character that’s talked about a lot, but Peterson’s anger and power makes him an actor hard to look away from. He is the dark part of the revolution - the serious (yet often drunk), realistic balance to Enjolras’s optimism, and Peterson plays this depth perfectly.

Back to Roemer as Valjean - he definitely holds his own and serves well as the story’s foundation. His voice is both solid and beautiful, but his emotions and actions don’t always match up in the first act, and there are points where it feels like he’s moving from one side of the stage to the other solely because he’s been directed to do so. But, that is all but forgotten as he starts singing ‘Bring Him Home’ in the second act. This is where Roemer really comes into his own with the combination of perfect tone and emotion. The night I attended, the audience began their loud and long applause before the final note was complete, and continued long after the orchestra started the next bit of transition music.

At heart, the power of Les Miserables comes from the strength of its ensemble. Although every voice onstage is impressive, there are times during some of the ensemble pieces in the first act that seem like the arrangements could be preparing to fall apart. Yet, the last note of ‘One Day More’ as the first act ends is so incredible, so perfect, so powerful and potent that there is no doubt these musicians have everything under control. 

It might be obvious that I’m avoiding talking about two of the main characters. Honestly, it’s no fault of the actors that I don’t jump to talk about Jarod Hazzard’s Marius and Rebecca Meyer as Cosette. Hazzard and Meyer are solid in their roles and have lovely voices. Personally, though, Marius and Cosette have always bothered me. Perhaps it’s because I adore Eponine so think Marius is a fool for ignoring her. Perhaps it’s because they fall in love so fast after seeing each other for two minutes. Perhaps it’s because Cosette’s part is really high and I’ve always enjoyed alto parts more. Regardless, the whole love story kind of annoys me, so I never get caught up in ‘A Heart Full of Love’ until Eponine starts singing, and I have little emotion during the wedding. 

That to say, Hazzard’s rendition of ‘Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,’ complete with Robin Hunts’s blocking and Steve Cordle’s lighting, is astounding. So much so that my notes, which tend to be decently extensive and detailed, simply say ‘Empty Chairs!!!! Holy freaking crap.’ Eloquent, I know (then again, my note about ‘Bring Him Home’ simply said ‘Yes. That. Yes.’ So, maybe eloquence isn’t my strong suit). In a show with too many highlights to talk about, Hazzard’s haunting and emotion-filled vocals make ‘Empty Chairs’ a moment that’s hard to forget. 

Director Robin Hunt definitely had her work cut out for her and she delivered. The talent on stage, high quality technical aspects, and a functional and beautiful set show she is definitely worthy of the challenge. The talent of musical director Mitch Colgan also shines from the breathtaking orchestrations of the keyboardists and percussionists, to the outstanding vocals.

The technical aspects of this show are stars in their own right. The lighting design and set, specifically, are hard to look away from. The set includes the classic Les Miserables elements - giant turn table, constant haze, the flying bridge and backdrop, etc. Yet, the most incredible part of the set, by far, is the barricade. It’s made of 3 different parts, turns 360 degrees, and both sides are climbable. It’s the kind of barricade that’s an impressive feat for any theatre, but put it in the scope of a community theatre and it is particularly outstanding.

The lighting system and design is another feature that is incredibly extensive for a community theatre. Without going into all the nerdy details, the lights are very cool, emphasize dramatic and emotional moments very well, and add a backdrop of professionalism to the experience. Amazingly, Eastlight’s production has one man who is responsible for both of these areas and more. Steve Cordle claims the titles of executive director, technical director, set design, lighting design, sound design, and sound operator. One of these positions is a big deal. To tackle all of them in a production this large and momentous is unheard of. 

However, there were some technical problems the night I attended - some that were probably one-time things (like a stage hand getting caught in the light a couple times while putting  the barricade in place), and others that were choices (such as some lighting cues that were programmed to come on or off suddenly when a fade would have suited the mood of the scene better). The sound was the biggest program of the night, though, with a couple bouts of feedback from the mics, some levels that made it hard to hear over the amazing orchestra, and an instance where an actor’s mic didn’t get shut off once he was backstage. 

Yet, part of the charm of this particular rendition is that it is still community theatre. There are times where transitions are awkward, lapel microphones are grabbed when a fight breaks out, and actors look slightly startled when the turn table stops moving at least once. Instead of this ruining the ambience of the story, however, it adds to the awe of what these incredibly talented locals are pulling off. If I can sit in a high school auditorium and be astounded by the likes of Jason Morris and Mary Kate Smith to the same degree I’ve been astounded by the voices of professionals singing the same complicated music, there’s something very special happening. The audience seemed to agree as they were already on their feet before the cast even began their bows.

All that to say, it’s more than worth your time and $19. There’s an old adage that if something can play in Peoria, it can survive elsewhere. Les Miserables at Eastlight Theatre definitely plays in Peoria.

The show runs nightly Wednesday, June 27-Saturday, June 30 at 7:30 p.m. at 1401 E. Washington St., East Peoria, IL.

And if you’re no where near Illinois, here’s a funny video made by the cast to ‘One Day More.’

(4th row, center - $19 ticket)