"Stewardess!" at the Herstory Theatre

This spring, the History Theatre, which regularly produces new works of theater about local and national history, has transformed into the HERstory Theater, with three new plays by women, about women: "real women, real stories." The line-up includes a new musical about a female spy and a play about some radical nuns. But first: Stewardess! This new play by Kira Obolensky tells the true story of a real American hero, Mary Pat Laffey, who tirelessly worked for the union to improve the working conditions and treatment of then-called stewardesses, and even sued her employer, Northwest Airlines, eventually winning $59 million dollars in back pay for over 3000 flight attendants. Unfortunately we're not yet at the point of equal pay for women and men, but thanks to Mary Pat we're a lot closer. This fun, playful, inspiring play tells her story, as well as that of other feminists of the era, at just the right time. There's a growing awareness of the importance of women's stories and women's voices, and the Herstory Theatre is celebrating that.

"The Great Society" at History Theatre

I'm not sure I've ever seen a play that feels (and is) as much of a direct sequel as History Theatre's production of Robert Schenkkan's The Great Society, a sequel to All the Way that History Theatre produced just a year ago. This play continues right were the last one left off, with Lyndon B. Joynson's second term as president (or really, his first full term after taking over for JFK halfway through his term). History Theatre reunites most of the cast and creative team from last year, including director Ron Peluso and Pearce Bunting as LBJ, a performance even more powerful than last year. What also continues from the last play is "political machinations, the Civil Rights movement, and the ugly opposition to freedom and equality for all," with a bonus - the rapid escalation of the Vietnam War. The rhetoric used by everyone on stage is disconcerting in a "the more things change, the more they stay the same" kind of way, as is the divisiveness of a country torn in two by politics. The Great Society is long, dense, and kind of depressing, but it's also extremely rewarding, and important to examine our history to give insight into the issues of today.

"All the Way" at the History Theatre

The night after seeing the historical political drama Watch on the Rhine at the Guthrie, I saw the historical political drama All the Way at the History Theatre. That was a couple of pretty heavy (and long) nights, and left me feeling dismayed at just how much history repeats itself. With Watch on the Rhine, it's the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, genocide, and an impending world war. With All the Way, it's political machinations, the Civil Rights movement, and the ugly opposition to freedom and equality for all. Covering Lyndon B. Johnson's short and eventful first presidential term, from Kennedy's assassination that thrust him into the presidency to his re-election (or rather, first election) one year later, All the Way has a lot of history and historical figures to pack into three (yes, three) hours. While I wish that playwright Robert Schenkkan had consolidated characters and compressed speeches a bit to create a more concise and driving story (the days of me being able to sit comfortably through a three-hour play are long gone), it's a gripping story, well told by director Ron Peluso and an excellent cast.

Fringe Festival 2017: "Blackout Improv"

Day: 3

Show: 13

Title: Blackout Improv

Category: Comedy

By: Rogues Gallery Arts

Created by: Blackout Improv

Location: Phoenix Theatre

Summary: An all POC improv group that discusses and improvs around topics of the day suggested by the audience.

Highlights: Blackout Improv is one of the few POC improv groups in the Midwest, performing regularly at the Phoenix (you can find their schedule here). For this MN Fringe show, the rotating cast (I saw Alyssa DiVirgilio, Duck Washington, Joy Dolo Anfinson, Kory Pullam, Nimene Wureh, and special guest Grammy winner Billboard Top 100 Artist Jamila Anderson) does an excerpt of their usual show. It starts off with "Take 'Em to Church," an improvised church sermon which last night featured Deacon Jamila and Pastor Kory. Then the main action begins, which is drawing an audience-suggested topic out of a hat, such as cultural appropriation, edginess in comedy, or white playwrights writing black characters. First the group discusses the topic (which was my favorite part of the show), and then they improv a comedy sketch about it. Blackout Improv is funny, smart, relevant, topical, and sure to sell out so reserve your tickets in advance.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Nina Simone: Four Women" at Park Square Theatre

Fans of meaningful, relevant, timely theater - rejoice! Last year's smash hit new play with music, Nina Simone: Four Women, is back at Park Square Theatre! The Twin Cities Theater Bloggers chose this show as favorite in two categories: musical performance by an ensemble, and music direction (Sandford Moore). If you didn't see it last year, please don't miss this chance again. And if you did see it last year, you might experience it differently this year as a lot has happened in the past year that makes this show even more important to be seen. I've copied my original review below, but what really struck me this time is the idea of arts as advocacy. Nina Simone made a conscious choice to pivot her career from performing black classical music to mostly rich white audiences, to writing her own songs that spoke to the current black experience, putting her at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement. There's been much debate recently about the role of art and artists in politics and our national conversation, and Nina makes it clear that art was, is, and always will be political. The role of arts in society is to hold up a mirror, tell untold stories, engender empathy with our fellow human beings, and start conversations. Nina did that, and continues to do that through Christina Ham's brilliant new play.

"An Octoroon" at Mixed Blood Theatre

The word octoroon is defined as "a person of one-eight black ancestry." The Octoroon is a 19th Century play by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault about which Wikipedia says, "among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second only in popularity to Uncle Tom's Cabin." An Octoroon is a new play by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who adapted the play and added himself as a character, writing the play and playing all the white male parts in white face, with the original playwright and his assistant playing roles in redface and blackface, while a rabbit seems to pull the strings behind the scenes. Got all that? Believe me, it's a lot to take in, and the play says some pretty profound things about race and racism in the past and present. But despite being a little perplexing and intentionally offensive (in a way that's not really offensive because it's satire), the whole thing is kinda brilliant in a crazy sort of way.

I'm not going to describe the plot of the play to you; it's one of those things you just have to see for yourself (and you should). Suffice it to say, this adaptation actually hews quite close to the original in the middle play-within-a-play bit, in which a kindly slave owner dies and leaves his kindly wife and heir with no money to save the plantation or its slaves, including the kindly dead slave owner's octoroon daughter whom his wife loves and they both treat like a daughter (because that happened). But before we get to all of that, the "black playwright" sets the scene by telling us the origins of this play, and why he was forced to play all the white male parts himself. Then the play begins, done in an exaggerated melodramatic style that points out the silliness of this depiction of the Old South, complete with piano accompaniment to heighten the mood (beautifully and cleverly composed and performed by Eric Mayson). In the fourth act of the play-with-a-play, the playwright and some of the other actors break out of character to describe the scene that's too difficult to stage, and to offer commentary on it. It's all very meta, and also offers some comments on theater itself (as well as some nifty pyrotechnics).

Director Nataki Garrett somehow keeps all of these timelines and realities moving together smoothly and making sense, and the cast fully commits to the melodrama of the piece. William Hodgson gives several excellent performances - as the playwright and both the kindly slaveowner's heir and the evil slaveowner, sometimes playing multiple characters in one scene, and even having a fight with himself (kudos again to Annie Enneking for her fight choreography). Jon Andrew Hegge is ridiculous (in the best way) as the Irish playwright in redface; Ricardo Vázquez portrays every stereotype of blackface; Jamila Anderson, Chaz Hodges, and Jasmine Hughes are amusing as the modern-talking slave women; and Jane Froiland is an absolute hoot as the stereotypical and overly dramatic Southern Belle. Megan Burns as the titular octoroon Zoe is the straight woman in this crazy scene, bringing dignity and humanity to her character. Last but not least, I'm not sure what Br'er Rabbit has to do with any of this, but Gregory Parks is nimble and slightly creepy in that oversized rabbit head (with movements delightfully punctuated by the aforementioned Eric Mayson's music).

William Hodgson and Megan Burns (photo by Rich Ryan)

At one point the playwright character complains that there's no novelty in the theater anymore. Which any theater-goer in this town knows is not true, and this play is Exhibit A. At the end of the play another character says, "we were just trying to make you feel something." An Octoroon will most definitely make you feel something, it will likely make you feel many things, some of them uncomfortable or even unpleasant. But that's not a bad thing in theater, in fact sometimes it's necessary. An Octoroon continues at Mixed Blood Theatre through November 15. Tickets are free through their Radical Hospitality program, or you can reserve tickets in advance for $20.


This article also appears on Broadway World Minneapolis.

"By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" at Penumbra Theatre

In By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, now playing at Penumbra Theatre as part of their "Womansong" season, the title character is a black actress in 1930s Hollywood who gets her big break playing a loyal slave in an antebellum Southern melodrama (think Mammy in Gone with the Wind, for which Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Academy Award). She imbues the stereotypical role with as much humanity and depth as possible, and so begins a long and successful career, until she mysteriously disappears from the spotlight. Much like Hattie, who famously said she'd rather play a maid than be one, Vera is a controversial figure because on the one hand her characters perpetuate the stereotypes seen in movies, but on the other hand she makes her characters as real as possible and has built a successful career for herself and opened doors for black actors in Hollywood. The play examines these issues in a funny, entertaining, innovative way, jumping across time and using video of Vera's first movie.

The first act of the play takes place in 1933, where we meet Hollywood starlet Gloria Mitchell and her former Vaudeville partner Vera, who works as her maid while trying to break into pictures (doesn't everyone who lives in Hollywood want to be in pictures?). Gloria is up for a role in The Belle of New Orleans, and Vera is desperate to be cast in it as well. Gloria is too preoccupied with her own life to help her friend, so Vera takes matters into her own hands when the studio head and director come to Gloria's apartment, playing into their stereotypes and getting cast. The second act jumps forward in time 70 years to a seminar about the legacy of Vera Stark in which the panel discusses her life and work while watching clips from the movie (pre-recorded video) and a 1973 talk show appearance (live reenactment) that reunites Gloria and Vera.

Norah Long as Gloria as Marie and Crystal Fox as Vera
as Tilly, in the classic "tightening the corset" scene in
The Belle of New Orleans (photo by Allen Weeks)

The play verges on camp at times as it spoofs old Hollywood and TV talk shows, which is great fun, but still manages to make the characters, especially Vera and her friend Lottie, real and grounded people. This cast is divine, they all play their role(s) to the hilt under the direction of Lou Bellamy. Crystal Fox's Vera is smart and determined, someone it's easy to root for as she goes after her dreams, and then becomes a larger than life version of herself after 40 years in movies. Norah Long is perfection as she plays several different sides of Gloria - the image of a Hollywood starlet that the studio wants her to be, the real person who swears and drinks, the selfish and thoughtless friend, and Gloria's dying Southern belle character in the movie. Greta Oglesby steals every scene she's in as Vera's friend Lottie, especially when she sings her mournful slave song to win a part. Jamila Anderson is fun as Anna Mae, who's trying to pass as Brazilian to win a man and a part, and the modern day tough-talking poet on the panel. This play really is about these four women, but the men are great too - Kevin D. West as Leroy, who befriends Vera and helps her in her quest, Peter Moore as the studio head and the Donahue-like talk show host, and Paul De Cordova as the eccentric director and a trippy '70s British rocker.

The production elements on this play are as divine as the cast. Mathew LeFebvre's gorgeous costumes span the range from glamorous '30s Hollywood, to real working women in that era, to the fabulously colorful '70s, and modern day specific types. C. Lance Brockman's versatile set easily transforms from Gloria's luscious apartment to Vera's working class apartment to a studio back lot with just a change of furniture and the flipping of panels in the walls. A really fun feature of this play is that we actually get to see the movie that's talked about so much. A quite lengthy clip of The Belle of New Orleans is played on a big screen in which the four women play roles in this deliciously melodramatic movie.

By the Way, Meet Vera Stark is a really fun, entertaining, funny, beautiful to look at play on the surface, but on a deeper level says some important, thought-provoking, and relevant things about black actors in Hollywood, then and now. And it's quite timely, coming a few weeks after the announcement of this year's Oscar nominations, which included not only the snub of the film Selma, but the first all-white group of nominated actors since 1998. Hollywood, and we its audience, still have much to learn from Vera Stark (playing through March 1).


This article also appears on Broadway World Minneapolis.

"Courting Harry" at the History Theatre

I have to admit, before seeing the world premiere play Courting Harry at the History Theatre, I was afraid that a play about a couple of Supreme Court Justices would be dry and boring. I was pleased to find out that it's anything but; it's actually an amusing, engaging, entertaining, and yes, educational play. Playwright Lee Blessing has framed the story of Minnesota-raised Harry Blackmun as a conversation between him, his childhood friend and Chief Justice Warren Burger, and the audience. This informal conversational style invites the audience into the lives of these powerful men who helped shape the laws of this country over several decades. Their most famous case is the landmark abortion decision Row v. Wade. Despite the fact that they both voted in the majority, it began a division in their friendship that was never mended. Courting Harry is both a historical play about a 40-year-old case that's still very much debated today, and a very personal story about a lifelong friendship.

Harry Blackmun was a bit of a pack rat - upon his death he left behind over 1500 boxes containing a half a million documents, both personal and professional. The stage at the History Theatre is filled with boxes overflowing huge shelves. Harry (the charming and natural Clyde Lund) begins to tell his story to the audience and is interrupted by Warren (a suitably gruff Nathanial Fuller), a sort of afterlife conversation. Four researchers in white coats (Jamila Anderson, Charlotte Calvert, Sam Pearson, and E.J. Subkoviak) sift through the documents making notes, pulling out pertinent letters and reading from them to support the story. It's very well-choreographed and a clever way to add interest to the story and make it more than just two people talking in an empty room. We meet a few other characters played by the ensemble, including Harry's mother and daughter, and presidents Nixon and Clinton (very entertainingly portrayed by E.J. Subkoviak, who has graduated from playing Nixon's campaign manager last year in 1968 to the man himself). When Harry is appointed to the Supreme Court, everyone puts on a black robe to illustrate that part of the story, with justices coming and going through the years like a game of musical chairs. Remaining constant through it all are Harry and Warren, growing further and further apart, until they, too, move on.

As someone who does not enjoy politics, I'm impressed that playwright Lee Blessing, director Joel Sass (who also designed the simple and stately set, as per usual), and the cast have managed to make a play about politics and the law so engaging and relatable and human. But I shouldn't be surprised; the History Theatre has a knack for telling important stories about Minnesota and American history that entertain as much as they inform. I don't know why I never learned about Harry Blackmun in history or civics class (or maybe I did and I just don't remember), but I know about him now and I won't soon forget, proving once again that everything I know I learned from theater. There is a renewed effort to place a bust of Harry Blackmun in Minnesota's State Capitol, as a famous son of Minnesota who achieved much on the national scene, including being an advocate for women's rights. Contact your local representative if you agree, and head to the History Theatre between now and March 24 to find out more about the life of Minnesota's Supreme Court Justices. I promise, it's much more fun than it sounds. (Discount tickets available on Goldstar.com)

the cast of Courting Harry at the bench (photo by Scott Pakudaitis)