"Joe Turner's Come and Gone" at Penumbra Theatre

When I was in New York City a few months ago, I saw signs for the Broadway revival of Joe Turner's Come and Gone, with some big names attached, but I'd rather see it at Penumbra Theatre right here in St. Paul. Joe Turner was the 4th play written by August Wilson in his Pittsburgh Cycle of ten plays, each taking place in a different decade, chronicling the Black American experience throughout the 20th Century. The second play chronologically, it takes place in Pittsburgh in the 1910s, but was written in the 1980s when August Wilson was living in St. Paul, working closely with Penumbra. This is the 4th of the ten plays I've seen, all at Penumbra, and there's nowhere better to see his work than at one of his artistic homes, directed by Penumbra founder Lou Bellamy who was his close collaborator, performed by actors who have spoken his words and inhabited his characters many times. Joe Turner's Come and Gone continues at Penumbra Theatre through June 21.

"Marisol" at Penumbra Theatre

Although it premiered over 30 years ago, the play Marisol by Puerto Rican playwright José Rivera feels like it was written for today. It's an absurd and surreal look at a dystopian society in which, among other things, people are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and hauled away in handcuffs. Something that is actually happening in our country right now with ICE raids in schools, business, and even homes. Theatre Coup d'Etat produced this play back in 2018, but it's even more relevant today, scarily so. Kudos to Penumbra Theatre Company for programming this play this season, in partnership with Teatro del Pueblo, even though they couldn't have known how relevant it would be today when they chose it some months ago. This play requires some effort from the audience as it's not straight-forward or even entirely sensical, but it's beautifully designed, directed, and acted by the team at Penumbra and Teatro del Pueblo. See it at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul's historic Rondo neighborhood now through November 2.

"A Jumping-Off Point" at the Jungle Theater

"A smart, sharp comedy that asks the important questions about privilege and who is allowed to fail." This tagline on the cover of the program pretty well describes the new play A Jumping-Off Point, receiving its regional premiere at the Jungle Theater. It's the kind of play that I love, one in which complex characters discuss relevant issues in a personal and relatable way, with no easy answers, no winners or losers. And the issues discussed are ones on the forefront of current conversation - who has the right to tell whose story? It's no longer acceptable for a writer to tell the story of a community they're not a part of, particularly a marginalized community. People in that community have the right to tell their own story, something we've only just begun to realize and put into practice. But does that make it OK to steal someone else's idea and "make it better?" Those are the thorny issues that this excellent three-person cast, savvy director, and brilliant design team dig into in just 90 minutes. Buckle your seat belts, not just to make it through Uptown construction to see this play at the Jungle through May 19, but also to navigate the twists and turns of this story.

"Wine in the Wilderness" at Penumbra Theatre

Last weekend, I saw four plays written by women. The first three were by living playwrights (Grace McLean's musical In the Green, Lauren Gunderson's Silent Sky, and Keiko Green's world premiere Hells Canyon), and the fourth was by Alice Childress, one of the most prolific Black female playwrights of the 20th Century, who had her Broadway play debut just a few years ago - Trouble in Mind (which the Guthrie produced a few years earlier). Her plays seem to be having a resurgence in recent years, and it's about time. In 2017 Penumbra Theatre Company produced the gorgeous and devastating Wedding Band, and now they're presenting Wine in the Wilderness, about an artist painting Black women in 1960s Harlem. It's a thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of the intersection of race and gender, as always beautifully done by Penumbra.

"The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman's Deportation Proceedings" by Jungle Theater at Hamline University

The Courtroom: A Reenactment of One Woman's Deportation Proceedings is unlike any theater I've seen before. As the title indicates, it's more a reenactment than a play. All of the text is taken from court transcripts, arranged by Tony nominated theater artist Arian Moayed. If that sounds dry and boring, it isn't. It's surprisingly riveting. Yes, you have to pay attention, because the words weren't constructed to entertain and hold our attention, so it requires a little more work from an audience. There's a lot of legalize, but if you love Law and Order type shows, you'll love this. But the beautiful thing about Jungle Theater's production is that behind all the legal talk and formalities is a true human story. The cast, direction, and staging really make us feel that humanity, and at the end, the play has a truly beautiful message about the best that America, this nation of immigrants, can be. 

"What I Learned in Paris" at Penumbra Theatre

A few months ago, the Guthrie produced a Pearl Cleage play called Blues for an Alabama Sky, a lovely and ultimately tragic story about a group of friends living in 1930s Harlem. Now Penumbra is bringing us her play What I Learned in Paris, about a group of friends living in Atlanta in the '70s. This story is a little lighter, but not without depth. It begins on the night that Maynard Jackson was elected mayor of Atlanta, the first Black mayor in any major Southern city. Our group is filled with hope at the new world this event signals, but also aware that inequality still exists, in the areas of race and gender both. Director Lou Bellamy calls it an "insightful and often provocative romantic comedy," and this co-production with Portland Playhouse is fun to watch, while still exploring important issues that are still relevant nearly 50 years after this historic election. See What I Learned in Paris at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul's historic Rondo neighborhood now through May 14.

"Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley" at the Jungle Theater

It's the most wonderful time of the year* - time to return to Christmas at Pemberley at the Jungle Theater. Playwrights Lauren Gunderson (one of the most produced playwrights in the country, often writing plays about women in history, particularly in STEM) and Margot Melcon have created the most delightful Jane Austen fan fiction in this series of plays based on the characters in Pride and Prejudice. The Jungle produced the first one, Miss Bennet**, in 2017 and it was such a hit that they co-commissioned a sequel, The Wickhams, which premiered the following year. After remounting Miss Bennet in 2019 and taking a break for two years for... you know, they've done it again, with another co-commission and rolling world premiere of the third (but hopefully not last) installment - Georgiana and Kitty. Each of these plays focuses on a different Bennet sister or two, but they're all similar in their sparkling dialogue that feels both period appropriate and refreshingly modern, their centering of women in the story (continuing the legacy of Jane Austen), their fleshing out of characters who didn't get much space in the original novel, and their charming romances complete with obstacles to be overcome, just like all good Austen heroines. With Georgiana and Kitty we get not one but two new Austen heroines to love and root for in their pursuit of love, art, purpose, and happiness. Every Christmas at Pemberley is sheer delight from start to finish, and I hope the Jungle makes this a 40+ year tradition (my dream is that they'll produce all three plays in rep someday and I can see them all in one wondrous epic day). You can visit Pemberley any day except Monday from now through December 23 (click here for info and tickets).

"Weathering" at Penumbra Theatre

Prolific #TCTheater playwright Harrison David Rivers has written another beautiful and relevant story about humans. Weathering was commissioned by Penumbra as a response to the growing awareness of racial disparities in maternal health. A quick google search reveals staggering statistics around the racial disparity in infant and maternal mortality in this country - two and three times higher for Black mothers compared to White mothers. Weathering puts a human face on those statistics and lets us experience the tragedy of one family, as well as the healing that can happen within a community.

"After the Fires" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

Transatlantic Love Affair is a unique #TCTheater company. Unique in their process (ensemble created work rather than a set script, although other companies in town do that too), unique in their execution (they create the entire world of the play with their bodies and voices only, without the use of sets or props), and unique in the feeling evoked by their work (indescribable). They often reintrepret fairy tales or classic stories that we all know, but sometimes create new fairy tales as well. Their latest work After the Fires, playing at Illusion Theater through February 22, is an example of the latter. It's an original story that feels like an old story, a story of courage, adventure, nature, and community.

"Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing" at Pillsbury House Theatre

I couldn't describe Pillsbury House Theatre's Jimmy and Lorraine: A Musing better than playwright/adapter Talvin Wilks does, calling it "a meditation on the American political climate of the late '50s and '60s through the lens of two significant artists of the time, James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. Following their impactful careers as artists, their call to social activism and the challenges of wrestling with the balance of an artistic career and politics, their lives give us an opportunity to look at this rich period of political and social upheaval." This is a brilliantly constructed 90 minutes of theater that gives us a clear picture of these two artists/activists in all their complexity, with much (or all?) of the text coming from their own writings. It's really quite impressive how Talvin cobbled together all of these different sources to form a cohesive and dramatic story, like the most complicated jigsaw puzzle coming together to form a picture that was always there. A picture of a very specific time in America that still resonates today.

"Antigone" at Park Square Theatre

"Who lives, who dies, who tells your story." In Sophocles' classic Greek play Antigone (the third of a de facto trilogy which begins with the tragedy of Oedipus, Antigone's father), pretty much everyone dies, including the title character. But in Park Square Theatre's basement stage, a group of talented women are telling her story. MJ (Meagan) Kedrowski adapted and directed the story for Theatre Coup d'Etat a few years ago, which Park Square's recently retired Artistic Director Richard Cook saw and asked her to remount for Park Square. Much of the cast and creative team return, along with some new artists, to rework the piece. One of the biggest changes is that this production features an all-female cast, and a mostly female creative and technical team. It's a powerful story of a strong and resilient woman who does what she believes is right for her family, despite the consequences she will face, powerfully told by this team of women in an engrossing and affecting way. Brave the cold and snow to visit the tumultuous world of Thebes in downtown St. Paul.

"The Visit" by Frank Theatre at the Minnesota Transportation Museum

To open their 30th season, intrepid nomadic #TCTheater company Frank Theatre is bringing us The Visit in the Minnesota Transportation Museum. This is actually the second play I've seen in this unique and super cool venue (see also Wayward and Mission's co-production of Ghost Train). Both plays are set (at least partly) in a train station, so the museum is a perfect location. Filled with vintage train equipment and displays (which you can wander through before the show and at intermission), the museum is fascinating but also kind of dark and creepy and cold, and smells a little like a garage. Which is the perfect atmosphere for Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's absurd "tragicomic" play. This is a very Frank play, with a huge and talented cast and great commitment to the highly stylized design and tone of the play.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018: "The Womyn's Mysteries"

Day: 3

Show: 8

Title: The Womyn's Mysteries

Category: Drama / Physical Theater / Storytelling

By: See-Saw Theater Lab

Directed by: Chava Curland

Location: Minnsky Theatre

Summary: An ensemble created piece telling the stories of the women in the Bible.

Highlights: Using music, movement, scarves, and stories, this diverse and talented 8-womyn ensemble (Erika Kunk, Gina Sauer, Jex Arzayus, Jody Bee, Kate Kennedy, Katherine Engel, Samantha Joy Singh, and Vinecia Coleman) tells stories from the Bible you may have heard before, but not quite like this. The piece is arranged in four parts (the beginning, matriarchs, warriors, and lovers or harlots), and the ensemble members take turns narrating and acting out scenes. They make these ancient women seem modern and relatable. There's also a bit of fourth-wall breaking, when someone will call cut in a questionable scene and the cast will proceed to discuss the story they're telling. There are also scenes in which they truthfully speak their own personal fears and wants. It's a beautiful thing to see a group of womyn on stage supporting each other in telling their stories and the stories of womyn in history and mythology, and how that history and mythology has shaped where we are today. A timely and timeless piece.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.