"These Old Shoes" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

I didn't realize how much I've missed Transatlantic Love Affair until I saw their remount of These Old Shoes last weekend, one of my favorite shows of theirs. There's simply no one like them. An ensemble of seven people plus one musician creates an entire rich world using only their bodies, voices, and souls. It's simply exquisite. With origins in the Minnesota Fringe Festival (like many of our great small companies), TLA is a physical theater company that often adapts fairy tales or myths with their unique brand of storytelling. But this show, their first in three years, is an original story about a man moving into a retirement community, which allows for an exploration of aging, memory, relationships, and loss. It premiered at the 2013 Fringe Festival and was produced by Illusion theater in 2015, when it won Twin Cities Theater Blogger Awards for Favorite Play and Favorite Actor in a Play (Derek Lee Miller). I've always loved this show, but having spent some time in a nursing home recently, it was particularly resonant for me this time. It's heart-breakingly beautiful, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. See it at Illusion Theater in their new home in the Center for Performing Arts in South Minneapolis, Wednesdays through Sundays for the next two weeks only.

"These Old Shoes" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

I'll never forget the first time I saw Transatlantic Love Affair. It was the "Audience Pick" show at the end of a long and exhausting 2012 Fringe Festival. I was tired and crabby and fringed out, but from the moment the lights went down on Ash Land, TLA transported me to another world, a world so specifically and beautifully created on a bare stage by a group of performers using nothing but their bodies, voices, and souls to communicate the story. I've seen them a number of times since then, both at the Fringe and as part of Illusion Theater's "Lights Up" series, and they continue to move me beyond what just "ordinary" theater is able to do. TLA returned to Illusion Theater last night with a remount of their 2013 Fringe hit These Old Shoes, a touching story of time, memory, regret, second chances, and long lost love rediscovered. In everything they do, TLA is nothing less than exquisite (not a word I use lightly, usually reserving it to describe the epitome of the art form that television can be, aka Mad Men). But disappointingly, the theater last night was not as full as it should have been. My goal in writing this piece is to get as many people as possible to go see These Old Shoes. You cannot call yourself a true Twin Cities theater fan if you've never seen Transatlantic Love Affair, and there's no better place to start than with this achingly lovely show.

In an original story conceived and directed by co-Artistic Director Diogo Lopes, These Old Shoes introduces us to a group of people living at a retirement community, and a man named Jim (Derek Lee Miller) who is reluctantly moving in. Jim's granddaughter Beatrice (Adelin Phelps) comes to town to help him pack up his house and move into the community. As Jim goes through his things, memories of days and people long past are stirred up. He remembers a young woman named Marjorie (Peyton McCandless) whom he once loved and planned to spend his life with, until his experience in the Korean War changed him and came between them. They both went on to live seemingly happy lives apart, but never forgot each other. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Marjorie lives in the community that Jim is joining; the true beauty of the piece is watching the two stories unfold - past and present - and how they come together again.

In typical TLA style, there are no props or set pieces on stage. Barefoot actors in simple clothing create everything in this world - furniture, a grandfather clock, trees, doors, gravestones. They mime with invisible props. Sometimes you don't quite know what action they're miming or inanimate object they're embodying, but at other times, it's so clear you can almost see it. As we move from the past to the present, each of the ensemble members (also including Heather Bunch, Eric Nelson, co-Artistic Director Isabel Nelson, and Allison Witham) physically transforms from a young person to an old person, each in their own unique and specific way, whether it's the subtle droop of the shoulders and sinking inward, or a back that's fully bent over, or a slower less stable way of walking. Age affects people differently, and this cast allows you to see those differences. One addition to the piece since the Fringe version is that we get to see each of the members of the retirement community in their past, whether as an actor, or a secretary, or a doctor. This glimpse into the past helps to flesh out each of these characters and inform who they are in the present story.

Jim polishes these old shoes of Marjorie's
(Derek Lee Miller and Peyton McCandless)

Transatlantic Love Affair also knows how to harness the power of music to maximum emotional effect. Dustin Tessier provides the soundtrack to this story on electric guitar, alternately melancholy and hopeful as the story requires. The one theatrical "trick" that's employed is the lighting (by Michael Wangen), which along with the music helps to accentuate the mood created by the ensemble. All of these pieces combine to create a world that feels so real and specific, it's positively jarring to the soul to leave the theater and go back into the real world, a world that now feels too bright and garish, and somehow colorless at the same time, compared to that sparsely beautiful world experienced on stage.

It's not possible to adequately describe what it is that Transatlanctic Love Affair does. It's a style so unique and specific, you just have to see it for yourself. Let go of what you think is reality, let your imagination take over, and let them take you on this exquisitely lovely journey. These Old Shoes is playing now through February 14. Trust me when I tell you you need to see it, and be sure to take advantage of the discount tickets on Goldstar.com.


This article also appears on Broadway World Minneapolis.

"The Underpants" at Theatre in the Round

A German farce adapted by legendary funny man Steve Martin and directed by our own funny woman Shanan Custer? Count me in! This combination promises much hilarity, and Theatre in the Round's production of The Underpants delivers solidly on that promise. This brisk 90 minutes of crazy hijinks that ensue after a woman's underpants fall to her ankles in public is actually quite a brilliant satire of societal gender norms and sexual mores of the time; Carl Sternheim's script was banned shortly after it premiered in 1910. The six-person cast is excellent in line delivery and physical flourishes. Shanan's zany and flustered yet real and grounded comedy style is all over this piece, and makes for a highly entertaining afternoon (or evening) at the theater.

Louise Maske is innocently watching the King's parade when, by some fluke, her underpants (or what we might today call bloomers) fall to her ankles. It causes quite a stir in the town, and her husband Theo much embarrassment. He's a respected clerk of the King, he can't have people looking at him and thinking about what's under his wife's skirt! Two men who saw the underpants incident are completely taken by it, and decide to rent a room in the Maske home. A gentleman poet by the name of Versati falls instantly in love, and Louise, with the help of upstairs neighbor Gertrude, decides to have an affair with him. Unfortunately he's more in love with love and poetry than he is with Louise. The sickly barber Cohen loves Louise too, and blissfully unaware Theo takes him under his wing, vowing to fatten him up and return him to health. When a stern and stooped older gentleman named Klinglehoff also wants to rent a room, Louise assumes he's after the same thing. Finally even the King stops by to pay a visit. The underpants have caused quite a stir in the Maskes' life.

Louise (Amy Pirkl) with her suitors
(photo by Richard Fleishman)

The show is perfectly cast, with each member bringing life to their character and the fast and funny dialogue: John T. Zeiler reveling in the selfish and sexist husband, Amy Pirkl charming and likeable as the bored wife looking for more, Jean Wolff stealing scenes as the nosy neighbor, Nic Delcambre polished and smooth as the flowerly and elegant Versati, David Schlosser adorably awkward as the nebbishy Cohen, and Eric Marinus Nelson with brief hilarious entrances as Klinglehoff. As usual, great use is made of the round stage space with seats on all sides, not a bad view among them. The floor is checkered with dingy red and white tiles (reminding me of the kitchen at my Grandpa's old farmhouse) spiraling to the center, with vintage kitchen equipment along one side and a few benches and chairs around the circle (set design by Gabriel Gomez).

The Underpants is the first show in Theatre in the Round's 63rd season (BTW they're the oldest theater company in town), and continues weekends through the end of the month. Check it out for a sharp, fun, witty, wacky romp.

"Ash Land" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

On the last night of the 2012 Fringe Festival, I went to see an "Audience Pick" show that I had been hearing a lot about. A play called Ash Land by a theater company called Transatlantic Love Affair, with which I was unfamiliar at the time. By that point in the fest I was fringed out - sick of the crowds and lines and parking and traffic. But sitting in the Rarig Center, I was completely transported by what was happening on stage in front of me and moved to tears. Such is the power and beauty of what Transatlantic Love Affair does, a style of physical theater that is so unique and special. They are currently remounting an expanded version of Ash Land as part of Illusion Theater's "Lights Up!" series, and it's just as heartbreakingly beautiful as it was the first time I saw it.

Conceived and directed by TLA's co-Artistic Director Diogo Lopes, Ash Land is a very loose re-imagining of the classic Cinderella tale, in which our heroine is now a farmer's daughter somewhere in the plains of middle America in the last century. Ellie's beloved mother dies, leaving her and her father devastated and with a farm to care for in a drought. Ellie's aunt marries her father in order to help care for her and the farm, but decides to sell it. Ellie goes to the town banker's party to try to stop the sale, where she meets his kind and handsome son. And then, it begins to rain.*

On a completely bare stage, this wonderful cast of eight (seven of whom were in the original production) create everything in the world of the story with their bodies and voices. They are the doors and windows, the waving wheat, the wind, the livestock, the water pump, furniture, a car, and most poignantly, the rain. Along with the subtle lighting (by Michael Wangen) and the melancholic sound of a steel guitar (played by Harper Zwicky), the movement of the cast is so evocative of a specific time and place that you can feel the dry heat, see the tumbleweeds blowing, and revel in the release of the long-awaited rain. The cast also sings a few songs from the traditional Americana canon that I love so much, including "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot," "Ain't No Grave," and "Poor Wayfarin' Stranger." The show has been expanded from its original Fringe length (under an hour) to about an hour and a half, which has allowed them to add a few new scenes, as well as given other scenes the room to breathe and expand a little.

Ellie (Adelin Phelps) and her mother (Isabel Nelson)
drinking lemonade on the porch swing

At the heart of this piece is the relationship between Ellie and her mother, which continues long after she dies. This relationship is beautifully expressed by the actors - Adelin Phelps as Ellie and Isabel Nelson (the other co-Artistic Director) as her mother. Along with Derek Lee Miller as Ellie's father, you can truly feel the love and loss in this family trio. Adelin is just wonderful as our heroine, with an open expressive face. Heather Bunch brings a gritty humanity to the role of the "evil stepmother." Nick Wolf, as the banker's son, is the one new ensemble member and fits right in, tall and lanky and adorably awkward when confronting Ellie. All of the other roles of the animal, vegetable, and mineral variety are filled by these actors along with Peytie McCandless, Eric Nelson, and Allison Witham.

Ash Land plays through February 22, and if you've never seen Transatlantic Love Affair before, you really need to experience their unique and beautiful style of theater. And with tickets for as low as $5 on Goldstar, you'd be a fool to miss this one! (Tip: bring tissues.)

I'll leave you with how I concluded my blog the first time I saw the show.

Friends, this one really touched me. And that's all I ask from theater - to move me in some way, whether it's to laughter or tears, or a different way of thinking about something, or a different way of seeing something. To leave the theater knowing that I'm different than when I walked in, that I've been forever changed (in some small way) by what I've seen. That's what this show did for me. 

*Yes, I plagiarized myself by copying the plot summary from my previous post about the show.