Theater Review

A.R.T’s ‘Wife of Willesden’ is a Pleasure with a Capital P

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Clare Perkins in ‘The Wife of Willesden’ at the A.R.T. Photo Credits: Marc Brenner

by Shelley A. Sackett

Whether by design or chance, the slightly tardy start to “The Wife of Willesden” gifted the audience with a few bonus minutes to soak in the vibe of Robert Jones’s magnificent set while seat dancing to disco party tunes. The stage, meant to represent a pub in Willesden (a multi-racial part of North London’s Brent) feels more like a holy shrine to drink and camaraderie. Six triple-case bays are filled floor to ceiling with glimmering bottles. A disco ball sparkles from above. A barmaid cuts fruit while local revelers mill about. Members of the audience sit at small tables on the stage, further breaking down the fourth wall. The effect is, well, intoxicating.

And then boom! The play starts.

Enter Author (Jessica Murrain), an undisguised stand-in for playwright Zadie Smith, who profusely apologizes for the play we are about to see and introduces us to the pub’s lively, diverse clientele. “If there is a person in Brent who doesn’t think their life should be turned into a 400-page story, I’d like to meet them,” she declares.

Based on Chaucer’s 1392 “The Canterbury Tales,” Smith’s raucous modernized reworking has the pub’s motley group of locals gathered for a story-telling competition with the prize of a full English breakfast to the winner. The first few stories are told by pompous men, who drone on about themselves with misplaced over-confidence. Lurking in the background is Alvita, the Wife of Willesden. Finally, fed up with the men’s yawning yarns and itching for center stage, she grabs the imaginary mic and never puts it down.

Marcus Adolphy, Perkins, George Eggay, and Andrew Frame

As Alvita, Clare Perkins is a category 6 hurricane. Poured into a scarlet body-hugging dress and shod in weapon-grade stilettos heels, she bursts into the spotlight and commands it for the rest of the evening. Brash and boozy, fierce and wise, Alvita has a story to tell, a folktale about an 18th-century Jamaican soldier and a life-changing lesson he learned. But first, she needs to introduce herself and provide a little context. By way of prologue to her actual tale, she recounts her romantic history of five marriages with full Monty unapologetic focus on sex, pleasure, and her rapacious libido.

“The shock never ends when women say things usually said by men whether today or 600 years ago,” she says with a wink. Alvita is a consummate narrator. She imitates, animates, and intimidates, bringing her history to life with the help of her husbands, who happen to be at the pub. They are her willing props as she details their virtues and vices, defending her right to marry as many times as she pleases. She is utterly devoid of regrets and chafes at anyone who dares to judge her. Her philosophy of life defies conventions and rules, be they religious, political, or matrimonial. “What you call laws, I call advice,” she tells her strict, churchgoing aunt. “I think God likes variety.”

Most of all, Alvita is an unashamed pleasure seeker. She wears her libido on her sleeve like a badge of honor. “I demand pleasure,” she half growls, half purrs. “I’m all about what feels good.” Eventually, (and just in the nick of time, as the prologue begins to feel more like a reprise), Alvita launches into the meat of her story — the Jamaican folktale. A young 18th-century soldier is sentenced to die for raping a woman. In the spirit of restorative justice, the benevolent Queen Nanny agrees to spare his life under one condition. He has a year and a day to comb the earth and discover the answer to the same question Alvita poses rhetorically throughout the play: What do women want?

The folktale’s answer echoes Alvita’s feminist refrain— women want to be free of fear, to be happy, to follow their own path of their own making, and, most importantly, to be deliciously, eternally, and completely satisfied sexually. She looks at the men around her and the power they claim as rightfully theirs and basically says, “I’ll have what they’re having.”

Perkins’s performance cannot be overpraised. She doesn’t steal the show; she IS the show. Her charismatic Alvita may present as part stand-up comic, part Tina Turner, but beneath that flashy exterior beats a tender heart with a sage message. Perkins effortlessly melds Alvita’s contradictory traits into a single nuanced and likable character.

Kiln Theatre Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham brings a playfulness to the 95-minute (no intermission) production, changing mood, time, and place with, for example, a simple gold tray behind the head to represent an apostle or bar rags to represent togas. The superb ensemble cast doesn’t seem to be acting when frolicking on stage; they are thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Claudia Grant, Ellen Thomas, Scott Miller, and Frame

Finally, there is Smith’s ambitious and smart play. Although the cast’s uneven Jamaican, Nigerian, and North London accents and rapid-fire delivery made some of the lines impossible to decipher, Smith’s rhyming couplets in today’s vernacular evoked Chaucer’s Middle English in rhythm and meaning. That is no small feat. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is an uptick in interest in the original as a result. Or in Smith’s award-winning novels.

Though not without flaws, “The Wife of Willesden” is clever, fast-paced, and beautifully produced with a timely message and, above all else, the magnificent Clare Perkins in a role she was born to play. Although studying Chaucer is hardly a prerequisite, a cursory google search would enhance appreciation for Smith’s remarkable talent while scattering a few breadcrumbs to make following its path easier. For tickets and information, go to: https://americanrepertorytheater.org/

‘The Wife of Willesden’ – Adapted by Zadie Smith from Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’ from The Canterbury Tales; Directed by Kiln Theatre Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham; Design by Robert Jones, Lighting Design by Guy Hoare; Composition and Sound Design by Drama Desk Ben and Max Ringham. The Wife of Willesden is a Kiln Theatre Production and is presented in association with BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA through March 17

‘Seven Guitars’ Is August Wilson – And Boston Theater – at Its Finest

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Cast of Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s ‘Seven Guitars’. Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography. 

by Shelley A. Sackett

It’s hard to know where to begin praising Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of August Wilson’s ‘Seven Guitars.’ Jon Savage’s urban backyard set, with its backlit city side panels, gardens, make-do furniture, and hints of multiple interior spaces, combines simplicity with depth. Amanda E. Fallon’s lighting, Dewey Dellay’s pitch-perfect musical compositions, and Abe Joyner-Meyer’s toe-tapping sound design complete the immersive capsule. We are indeed time travelers to a 1948 rooming house in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.

Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s intimate and sensitive direction elicits a natural rhythm from the cast of seven first-rate actors who miraculously coalesce as an ensemble without diminishing their unique bright lights. And then, of course, there is Wilson’s multi-layered, music-infused drama, with dialogue the actors imbue with lyricism and individuality.

Regina Vital, Johnnie Mack, Valyn Lyric Turner, Maya Carter

The play opens in the rooming house backyard right after the funeral of its main character, Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton, a young blues guitarist (played by the exceptional Anthony T. Goss) who was killed just as his dream of stardom was about to come true. His murder remains unsolved.

Wilson has a knack for gathering strangers, putting them under the same roof, and creating a convivial family unit through which a complete social picture materializes. Small talk is never small from this playwright. There is a living power that pulses with every word.

The solemn scene of mourning quickly turns playful, as we meet the residents and witness the warmth and ease with which they address each other. “He almost make it where you want to die just to have somebody talk over you like that,” says Canewell (Omar Robinson), one of Floyd’s musician friends and band sidemen, about the Reverend’s eulogy.

Anthony T. Goss, Carter

Vera (Maya Carter), Floyd’s girlfriend, observes she saw six angels dressed in black carrying Floyd away into the sky. Louise (a spirited Regine Vital), the lively boardinghouse owner, her tenant, Hedley (Johnnie Mack), a Bible-thumping elder, and Red Carter (Dereks Thomas), another of Floyd’s musician sidemen, round out the group. (Ruby (Valyn Lyric Turner), Louise’s pregnant niece will arrive late in Act I. All but Louise also saw the angels whisk Floyd away.

From the get-go, the characters’ quirks and reflections on life, loss, and the history and burden of being Black in white America pepper their conversations, bonding these folks in a natural and kindhearted way. Family, in all of Wilson’s plays, is not defined by biology; it is defined by fate and choice.

The rest of the play is through flashbacks that retell the story leading up to and including, the murder. Floyd explodes onto the stage, freshly released from a 90-day stint in a workhouse detention and ready to kickstart his paused career and love affair with Vera. His plans to return to Chicago and pursue celebrity hinge on convincing Vera and sidemen Red and Canewell to return with him.

Johnnie Macks, Dereks Thomas, Goss, Omar Robinson

Floyd has an uphill battle on his hands. He left Vera for another woman when he went to Chicago the first time, and convincing her that he’s on the up and up will take all the swagger and charm he can muster. Likewise his bandmates, who were burned by their first experiences in the Windy City and the wily ways of the white record industry.

While “Seven Guitars” satisfies its audience with a plot-driven narrative, it is through its seven characters and their conversations that Wilson’s underlying messages surface. These seven are a microcosm of the ways in which racism and its oppressive economic and legal system have stacked the deck against the Black man. Yet, despite these shackles, there emerge layers of folklore, superstitions, family traditions, and shifting dreams that paint a broader, deeper social picture.

Wilson interweaves big ticket topics — male/female relationships, police brutality, the danger of being black in a white land — organically through his characters’ conversations and monologues, giving each their moment in the spotlight. Even the occasional existential soapbox riff – thanks to Wilson’s light and shrewd pen –  blends naturally with banter about recipes and family histories.

Carter, Goss

Each character has their moment, and the actors glow without showboating. All sinew and kinetic energy, Goss brings a riveting physicality to the charismatic, angry Floyd. In his hands, even a hat becomes punctuation. Carter embodies Vera, centering the play’s melancholy and grace with her calm and passion. Vital is wonderfully entertaining as the chatty Louise, whose gossip takes on the gravitas of living history. As Hedley, Wilson’s resident seer, Mack underplays the character, lending a gentle touch that tempers his apocalyptic rants. Robinson (Canewell) and Thomas (Red) round out and individualize the band members, while Turner brings nuance to the mantrap Ruby.

Though “Seven Guitars” clocks in at 2 hours 45 minutes (with one intermission), the pace and quality of the play and its staging never lag. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and winner of the New York Drama Critics Award for Best Play, it is fifth in Wilson’s theatrical saga of “The Pittsburgh Cycle,” ten plays set in a different decade of the 20th century. Wilson remains one of the most important voices in modern American theater, his life-size dramas drawing audiences wherever they play.

Don’t miss the chance to see Actors’ Shakespeare’s Project flawless production of this infrequently staged play. It is a must-see bases-loaded home run! For tickets and information, go to: https://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/

‘Seven Guitars’ by August Wilson. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Scenic Design by Jon Savage; Sound Design by Abe Joyner-Meyers; Original Music Composition by Dewey Dellay; Lighting Design by Amanda E. Fallon Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Hiberian Hall,182 Dudley St., Roxbury through March 5. Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography. 

The Huntington’s ‘The Art of Burning’ Smolders and Sparks

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Adrianne Krstansky, Michael Kaye and Rom Barkhordar in The Huntington’s ‘Art of Burning’
Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson

“The Art of Burning” by Kate Snodgrass. Directed by Melia Bensussen. Scenic Design: Luciana Stecconi; Lighting Design: Aja M. Jackson; Sound Design: Jane Shaw; Costume Design: Kate Harmon. Presented by The Huntington, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont Street, Boston through February 12.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Patricia (Adrianne Krstansky), a frumpy middle-aged painter, opens Kate Snodgrass’ ‘The Art of Burning’ mid-conversation with her friend Charlene (Laura Latreille). “Sometimes we have to kill the things we love to save them,” she announces seemingly out of the blue. Charlene adds critical context. The two have just seen a production of “Medea” and are debriefing outside the theater.

In the ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, Medea takes vengeance on her unfaithful husband Jason by murdering his new younger wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life. To Charlene’s discomfort, Patricia not only sympathizes with Medea, she praises her.

“She saves her children,” Patricia explains. “She doesn’t want to but she has to. The world will make their lives miserable and she doesn’t want that. She loves them.” Patricia may look mousey, but she is a mouse that roars.

Under Melia Bensussen’s fast-paced direction, the audience is quickly brought up to speed as the brilliantly designed (Luciana Stecconi) and lit (Aja M. Jackson) set morphs into a conference room. This is the divorce war room. Patricia’s husband Jason (groan…) has – you guessed it! – left her for a younger woman (Vivia Font). Jason (Rom Barkhordar) has enlisted Mark (Michael Kaye), a family friend and Charlene’s husband, to mediate their contentious divorce despite glaring and unethical conflict of interest.

Adrianne Krstansky, Michael Kaye and Rom Barkhordar

While waiting for Jason to arrive, Patricia continues her tribute to Medea, much to Mark’s discomfort. The more Mark squirms, the more Patricia rhapsodizes. Adding to the slow burn are these facts: Patricia recently torched Jason’s antique desk on their front lawn and their divorce hinges on who will have custody of their 15-year-old daughter Beth (Clio Contogenis). As the animosity and toxicity of their marriage is revealed, the audience feels increasingly sorry for the teenager who must choose between these two. “Custody” in this context feels more like incarceration than protective caregiving.

Through Patricia’s unhinged tirades, Snodgrass seems to want us to wonder whether she is grandstanding or has become so untethered that she imagines herself a 21st century reincarnation of the Greek cuckolded princess. Unfortunately, the characters are too undeveloped and the play too full of clichés and tropes to create the kind of tension required to pull off this level of subtle, emotion-driven drama. Instead, the audience is served up a contemporary look at conflicted, flawed characters who are doing the best they can, more of a slow roasted marshmallow than daring flambé.

Which by no means suggests that the 85-minute intermission-less play should be ignored. Snodgrass raises important issues and the cast capably rises to the occasion. She adds meat to the play’s bones through the interactions between mediator Mark and Charlene (played with comic spunk by a splendid Latreille), who are going through their own marital bumps. Their scenes together bring a chemistry and ease that underscore the tedium of Patricia and Jason’s cardboard, rancorous  communication.

As Patricia, Krstansky delivers her pithy lines with a deadpan earnestness and impeccable timing that hints at the blaze raging inside her. The more controlled she appears, the more hysterical her character reads. Kudos to the talented actress for pulling off this marvelous feat.

Clio Contogenis, Krstansky

Her scenes with daughter Beth (Contogenis brings a welcome multi-dimension to the role) are among the most meaningful and poignant. Beth tries to explain to her mother that her anxiety and discomfort go way deeper than reactions to her parents’ divorce and normal teenage growing pains. She is that Gen-Z “woke” teen who viscerally feels the existential crisis of the world with every pulsating neuron in her body. She lives in a constant state of fear and disgust and marvels at the psychological trauma inflicted upon her by her clueless parents’ irresponsible childrearing.

Poor Beth, it seems, is the fulcrum of her parents’ dysfunctional marriage. How and why the two ever got together, let alone thought they could parent, becomes even more a mystery as Beth fills in the gaps.

Unlike Jason, Patricia finally listens — and really hears — her daughter after a pivotal interaction where she faults her Beth’s outfit for provoking sexual date abuse. “Guys never get blamed, Mom. You don’t know. You don’t get anything!” Beth cries. All Patricia can demurely offer is a heartfelt, “I’m just trying to help.” By the end of the play, the path these two bravely forge together is the most inspiring and meaningful of all the characters’ relationships, and the coals post-theater discussions love to fan. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.huntingtontheatre.org/whats-on/the-art-of-burning/

Lyric Stage’s Genre-Defying ‘Preludes’ Is A Trip

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Cast of ‘Preludes’ at Boston Lyric Stage

by Shelley A. Sackett

I readily admit I am one of those theatergoers who enjoys plot, dialogue and purpose. You can throw in all the special effects, time warp gimmickry and non sequiturs you want, but they are the icing, not the cake. You can give me experimental, but don’t leave out the context.

So it took me some time to figure out exactly what was going on in ‘Preludes.’ In fact, it took me until intermission when I both googled a synopsis and read the playbill’s fine print.

The setting of Dave Malloy’s mash up of musical and drama is inside the mind of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. The play opens in 1900 Moscow. “Rach” (Dan Prior) is having a bad day. In fact, he’s had a bad three years’ worth of bad days, starting with the ruinous premiere of his “First Symphony.” Critics viciously panned the piece (and the drunk conductor), leaving Rach in a creative void, wondering if he would ever write again.

Dan Prior and Aimee Doherty

He also fears that his wildly successful “Prelude in C-sharp Minor,” which he wrote as a 19-year-old, was the sum total of his career. Does he have talent or only luck? Was that the best piece he will ever pen? And most importantly, how did he do it?

At the urging of his frustrated fiancée, piano teacher Natalya (Kayla Shimizu), Rach visits hypnotherapist Nikolai Dahl (Aimee Doherty) for help clawing his way out of this black hole of asphyxiating self-doubt and paralyzing writer’s block. Dahl puts him into a trance and, with the audience in lock step, Rach takes a tour of every trauma that paved his path to the present.

Although this is no yellow brick road, the journey is peppered with its own version of winged monkeys, wicked witches and ruby red shoes. People float in and out of Rach’s internal world of jumbled stream of consciousness and disorienting ordeals. Chekhov Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy (all played by the always fabulous Will McGarrahan) show up, offering varying degrees of encouragement and torture. Where does art come from? they ask unhelpfully.

Prior, Kayla Shimizu

Against the gossamer confusion of Rach’s mind are shimmering tidbits of actual plot. His impending marriage to his first cousin Natalya requires the permission of the Czar, and the two discuss and plan their audience with him. Rach’s personal and professional struggles are likewise real and earthbound.

And then there is the brilliance behind Malloy’s use of music and musicians as integral parts of his theatrical vision. A Liberace-worthy white piano occupies center stage. Dan Rodriguez (also Musical Director), in formal attire, plays a combination of Rachmaninoff, Malloy and Rachmaninoff/Malloy hybrid pieces throughout the two hour (one intermission) production. (Thank goodness the volume was lower during the second act. It drowned out the actors during the first half, adding to audience frustration).

A heartbeat like rhythm is a cloud cover for the stage. The use of classical, electro-pop and musical loops lend an excitement and wildness. The 13 musical numbers give Malloy and the actors a chance to show their musical chops. Every duet is resplendent, especially those with Prior and Shimizu. Anthony Pires, Jr. is a showstopper as Chaliapin, his movements as lithe as his baritone is full-bodied.

Although ‘Preludes’ floats in the metaphorical ephemeral, it also celebrates Rachmaninoff’s music, legacy and determination to find his own creative agency. Malloy and Lyric Stage Company have given us an opportunity to expand our theatrical horizons, loosen the reins and just go with the flow, and for that we thank them. For more information and tickets, go to: https://www.lyricstage.com/show-item/preludes/

‘Preludes’ — Music, Lyrics, Book and Orchestration by Dave Malloy. Directed by Courtney O’Connor; Music Direction by Dan Rodriguez; Scenic Design by Shelley Barish; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Karen Perlow; Sound Design by Andrew Duncan Will. Presented by The Lyric Stage Company of Boston, 140 Clarendon St., Boston through February 5.

High Spirited ‘Chicken & Biscuits’ Marks Front Porch’s First Solo Production

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Cast of ‘Chicken & Biscuits’ by The Front Porch Arts Collective at Suffolk University Modern Theatre

By Shelley A. Sackett

The architectural bones of Suffolk University’s Modern Theater are a set made to order for ‘Chicken & Biscuits,’ the first solo production by The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theater company whose previous presentations have been in collaboration with other larger companies.

With its dark wood pews and balconies and Cluny-esque murals, we feel like part of a congregation even before the setting shifts from Reverend Reginald and Baneatta Mabry’s New Haven home to the sunlit church where Reginald will preside over the funeral of revered Pastor Bernard (“B”) Jenkins, his former father-in-law.

The play opens in the Mabry home, with Baneatta and Reginald preparing to attend Bernard’s funeral. Baneatta sits alone, having a private tête-a-tête with God, with Whom she is on intimate and joking terms. Within easy eavesdropping distance, the audience gets the lay of the land. All is not peace and love between Baneatta and her younger sister, Beverly, who buttoned-up Baneatta describes as a wild woman. The two have not seen each other in a while and, based on that most recent encounter, Baneatta anticipates the worst.

Reginald comes downstairs, interrupting Baneatta’s conversation. With B’s passing, Reginald inherited his pulpit. Bernard’s funeral is his first lead sermon in this new role, and he’s as nervous as his wife, but for different reasons. B was the glue that held both family and church together, leaving Reginald with pretty big shoes to fill. That his opening act will be B’s eulogy is daunting enough without the threat that the two rivalrous sisters will be at each other’s throats.

“Today should be a day of memory and healing for the family, not chaos,” he reminds Baneatta, offering her the chance to talk.

“I already talked about it with Jesus,” she replies, to her husband’s visible relief.

The scene shifts to Beverly and her 15-year-old daughter La’Trice as they get ready for the funeral, and we immediately understand the Mabry’s trepidation. Beverly is smoking a cigarette in her nonsmoking hotel room, defiantly blowing the smoke out an opened window. She is as brazen, brassy and flamboyant as Baneatta is proper, reserved and patrician. She is a spitfire to be reckoned with and she is also VERY loud.

For her father’s funeral, she has chosen a sausage-casing tight and revealing blue lounge singer dress and rhinestone studded belt and stilettos (Costume design by Zoe Sundra) . Even her aspiring rapper daughter, dressed in raggedy chic hip hop, asks if she maybe should tone it down a bit. Beverly will hear none of it. This funeral is a celebration, she says; and besides, there may be some good husband hunting to be had.

Rounding out the family are Kenny, Reginald and Baneatta’s gay son, and his sister Simone.  Kenny has brought his white, Jewish partner Logan to the funeral, hoping that his mother and sister will finally accept him for who he is, as his grandfather did. Simone, unlucky in love and as serious and perfection-obsessed as her mother, is nursing a recently trampled heart, searching for her lost self-esteem.

There is also a shadow lurking in the wings, a mysterious series of phone calls from someone Baneatta does not want to hear from, especially not on the day of her daddy’s funeral. (No spoilers here!)

As the family gathers, each member’s backstory is exposed, along with their strengths and Achilles’ heels. The conversations leading up and after the funeral service are meaty and thought-provoking. La’Trice confides in Simone that she wonders if she would have turned out a different person if she had known her father, whom she has never met. Simone confesses to Kenny that after her Black boyfriend dumped her for a white girl, she stopped eating for three months. “I can’t understand why God would want me to hurt this way,” she tells him.

For his part, Kenny wants to be open and accepted, something his mother and sister have refused to do. “A life style is something you choose. My sexuality is who I am,” he explains to Simone. “How do you find yourself while you’re trying to hide yourself?”

While the family may present as dysfunctional and unhealable, Reginald’s brilliant eulogy and each member’s parting words show how much their father and grandfather touched each of their lives. “You weren’t perfect, but you loved us perfectly,” Baneatta shares.

The play, however, and especially this production, is a lot more than somber reflections on family dynamics. God, shame, love, loyalty, joy, secrets and empathy are all given their moment in the sun.

It is also a hilarious dramedy with a script full of belly laughs. When the mysterious caller shows up at the funeral, a slow-motion meltdown of destruction set to a Rap song ensues. Thanks to Lyndsay Allyn Cox’s direction and her talented cast, there are also engaging performances all around. Robert Cornelius brings his honeyed baritone and charismatic presence to the role of Reverend Reginald Mabry. Jacqui Parker plays Baneatta with grace, gravitas and soul. She is the cornerstone of ‘Chicken & Biscuits,’ and Parker commands the stage, grounding and centering the play from start to finish.

Thomika Bridwell gives it her all — and then some — when playing the irrepressible side of Beverly, but truly shines when modulating and portraying her quieter, more contemplative counterpart.

Lorraine Kanyike brings a freshness to La’Trice, and Adrian Peguero and Sabrina Lynne Sawyer stand out as siblings no longer rivalrous. But it is Mishka Yarovoy who chews up the scenery as Logan, Kenny’s neurotic Woody Allenesque partner whose spot on physical comedy is matched by his impeccable timing.

Erik D. Diaz’s economical and effective set magically transforms the Mabry home into a church by removing of a few panels to replace windows overlooking a tree-lined street with stained glass panes. M. Berry’s lighting design and Anna Drummond’s sound design complete the effect.

By the end of the one hour and 45 minute (no intermission) performance, the audience has bonded with this family and is ready to join them in their cathartic denouement of digging into chicken, biscuits and all the fixings, Bernard’s favorite dinner. After all, we’ve been riding shotgun on the messy journey that pulled them apart. It’s only fair that we share the glory too.

Chicken & Biscuits’ — Written by Douglas Lyons. Directed by Lyndsay Allyn Cox; Scenic Design by Erik D. Diaz; Costume Design by Zoe Sundra; Lighting Design by M. Berry; Sound Design by Anna Drummond. Presented by The Front Porch Arts Collective at Suffolk University Modern Theatre, 525 Washington St., Run has ended.

‘Little Women: The Broadway Musical’ Is Another Home Run for Greater Boston Stage

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Cast of ‘Little Women’ at Greater Boston Stage Company – L to R Sarah Coombs, Liza Giangrande, Amy Barker, Abriel Coleman, Katie Shults

‘Little Women: The Broadway Musical’ – Book by Allan Knee based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott. Lyrics by Mindi Dickstein and Music by Jason Howland. Directed and Choreographed by Ilyse Robbins. Music Directed by Matthew Stern. Scenic Design by Shelley Barish. Lighting Design by Katie Whittemore. Costume Design by Gail Astrid Buckley. Sound Design by John Stone. Presented by the Greater Boston Stage Company, Stoneham through December 23.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Greater Boston Stage Company has a knack for picking the perfect material and director for its holiday offering. Last year, the musical, ‘All Is Calm,’ also directed and choreographed by the talented Ilyse Robbins, was a crowd pleaser that raised the bar and spoke to audience members of all faiths with a message that transcended the usual Christmas pablum. This year, with its flawless production of Little Women: The Broadway Musical, that bar got even higher. At 150 minutes (including intermission), the play didn’t seem too long, a feat in and of itself.

Based on Louisa May Alcott’s tale of four respectable sisters growing up poor but honest in Civil War-era Concord, MA, the musical follows the adventures of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. Their individual personalities bubble up from the get go. Meg (the riveting Sara Coombs) is the eldest and most traditional of the sisters, prim and proper but romantic and sweet-natured. Jo (Liza Giangrande, giving a grand performance), the willful, spirited center and Alcott proxy in her novel, “Little Women”, is a perfect musical-theater heroine. Equally driven to become a published author and challenge stereotypes about what it means to be a woman, she belongs on the masthead of Ms. Magazine.

Beth (third year Boston Conservatory at Berklee student Abriel Colemanis) is timid, musical, and selflessly encouraging and helpful. By contrast, Amy (Katie Shults) is the spoiled baby of the family, overindulged and used to getting her own way. Shults plays her perfectly, capturing her pouty, tantrum-prone outbursts without erasing her underlying puppy-like irresistibility. At the helm of this brood is Marmee (the rock solid Amy Barker), the backbone of the March family who manages to remain strong in spite of the difficulties she faces.

The play opens in New York, where Jo is living at Mrs. Kirk’s boarding house, trying to peddle her wild, swashbuckling stories to anyone who will listen to her pitch. Fritz Bhaer (subtly and effectively played by Kevin Patrick Martin), the sensible German professor also boarding with Mrs. Kirk, tries to persuades Jo that she is better than the “blood and guts stuff” she has chosen to write. She should try, he urges, to write more from her heart about what she knows.

In a magnificent flashback that establishes the cast’s astonishing vocal and physical abilities, Jo tells him about the “Operatic Tragedy” she wrote and had her family perform on Christmas one year. The actors bring Jo’s story to life in true melodrama form. Coombs, in particular, shines.

Thanks to a well-designed triptych set (Shelley Barish) and spot-on lighting (Katie Whittemore), the audience has no trouble following the action as it moves from the March home to New York to the March attic, which is Jo’s special writing cave.

Along the way, we are introduced to characters who add spice while moving the plot along. Wealthy Aunt March (a terrific Deanna Dunmyer) wants to take Jo under her wing and treat her to a tour of Europe, but only if she agrees to change from a tomboy to a proper society lady. Their duet, “Could You?” is as musically stunning as it is hilarious. Dunmyer steals every scene she is in with her acerbic wit and perfect, sing-song cadence.

When Meg and Jo are invited to a St. Valentine’s Day ball, they meet Theodore “Laurie” Laurence (Kenny Lee, talented and poised beyond his years), the lonely and guileless boy next door who infiltrates the March sisterhood and becomes an honorary brother. He and Jo share an ease and intimacy that, unfortunately for Laurie, doesn’t translate into romance.

While hardly the most sophisticated or musically unforgettable show to hit Broadway (critics gave it a lukewarm reception when it played in 2005), the cast and crew at Greater Boston Stage hone in on its strengths and wring it dry. Robbins’ director and choreographer chops are on full display and Music Director Matthew Stern is worth his weight in gold. Gail Astrid Buckley’s period costumes add just the right touch.

But the real standing ovation goes to the universally airtight performances by an impeccable ensemble cast. What a gift to their audience, especially to this viewer, who has the enviable pleasure of writing an effusive review of a not-to-be-missed show. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.greaterbostonstage.org/

Cirque de Soleil’s ‘Twas the Night Before…’ Is True Family Holiday Fare

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Cirque du Soleil’s ‘Twas the Night Before…’ at the Boch Center

by Shelley A. Sackett

‘Twas the Night Before…, Cirque de Soleil’s first Christmas show, delivered a sunny holiday respite from the blinding rain last Wednesday night. But the 85-minute intermission-less show was more than just shelter from the storm — it was a family-friendly retelling of the familiar Christmas classic with all the thrill, glitz, and mind-boggling contortions that have become Cirque de Soleil trademarks.

The lighting, set design and costumes were nothing to sneeze at, either.

Inspired by Clement Clarke Moore‘s poem, “A Visit From St. Nicolas,” the updated Cirque version tells the story of teenaged Isabella (Alicia Beaudoin) and her journey from world weary self-absorbed indifference to renewed wide-eyed reverence and appreciation for the magic that is the Christmas spirit.

The show opens on Christmas Eve, and Isabella and her father (Benjamin Thomas Courtney) are set to read “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” as they do every year. Only this year, Isabella feels she is too cool for such an old fashioned and boring tradition. She is simply too trendy for her father and his outdated ways.

Alicia Beaudoin and Benjamin Thomas Courtenay

Her dad is frustrated that his once close relationship with his daughter has been disrupted by smart phones and social media. He hopes reading the poem together will rekindle Isabella’s passion for Christmas. He tries everything, but not even the gift of a bow-adorned bicycle can snap her out of her Scrooge-like mood.

Suddenly, like magic, the poem comes to life. A snowstorm comes out of nowhere, , separating Isabella and her father and sending them on a fantastic journey full of — you guessed it — circus performers.

And this is where the show really takes off.

Isabella wanders through this wonderland, and we walk in her shadow through an enchanted wonderland of tinsel arches (12,200 linear feet of garland) and piles of glistening snow (5,000 cubic feet, or five large dump trucks’ worth). Each change of hue in the lighting creates a new mood and dream-like charm, signaling a new act that is inspired by separate lines from the poem.

In the Land of the Poem, Isabella encounters the Straps Duo, an aerial act performed 20 feet in the air. Jolly the Juggler is a colorful and comedic character who befriends her and becomes her guide. The Acrobatic Table Act features naughty children who make a ruckus while waiting for Santa to arrive. Their charming striped pajama costumes with animal ear hoodies evoke children’s cake toppers come to life.

There is the saucy and spoiled starlet, Ava, who performs remarkable feats on a gilded luggage rack in a sequined outfit that makes her look like the gift she thinks she is. Two disco-clad green-haired roller skaters reach speeds up to 30 mph on a platform just six feet in diameter. Most remarkably, an artist is suspended by her hair, performing 100 turns at a top speed of seven turns per second. Clad in a silver sequined costume and palming globe lights, she is breathtaking, part spritely ballerina, part sexy Tinkerbelle.

There is a snowball fight that overflows into the audience, disco dancers, performers in the aisles and other tricks guaranteed to thrill the youngsters and keep them engaged. In short, it is good old-fashioned family entertainment with something for everyone.

Eventually, Isabella and her father reunite, and together they read aloud the familiar lines that introduce Santa’s reindeer — and the Cirque Hoop Divers, acrobats dressed in charming and effective gold lamé. They look like globs of human mercury as they sail through hoops as high as 10 feet and as small in diameter as 18 inches.

Although the recorded soundtrack is an energetic mixture of original and traditional Christmas, it is way too loud to enjoy. (I wish I had had earplugs. It was that loud). The costumes are, as always, superb and the makeup and hair departments bring life to the show’s colorful characters.

There would be no Cirque de Soleil without the remarkable cadre of Cirque performers who exact the super-human from their human bodies, and ‘Twas is no exception. “How do they do that?” my friend and I kept asking each other, knowing full well that for our earth bound selves, these questions were merely rhetorical.

‘Twas the Night Before…’ – Conceived and Directed by James Hadley. Production by Cirque de Soleil at Boch Center Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont St., Boston through December 11.For more info and tickets, go to: https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/twas-the-night-before

With ‘The Orchard,’ Arlekin Players Theatre’s Igor Golyak Continues To Push The Artistic Envelope 

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Cast of ‘The Orchard’ at Emerson Paramount Center

by Shelley A. Sackett

Anton Chekhov’s play, ‘The Cherry Orchard,’ opened at the Moscow Art Theatre on January 17, 1904, under the direction of the actor-director Konstantin Stanislavski. During rehearsals, the director rewrote Act Two, changing the play from Chekhov’s intended light and lively comedy into a tragedy. Chekhov is said to have disliked the Stanislavski production so much that he considered his play “ruined.”

One can’t help but wonder what the Russian playwright would make of ‘The Orchard,’ Igor Golyak’s creatively incomparable and technologically unparalleled reimagining of this iconic classic.

The live version (there is also a simultaneous livestream version with many bells and whistles and interactive options) takes place on a surreal, stylized stage anchored by an enormous white robot arm that is strangely animate and huggable, like the Pixar hopping desk lamp on steroids. It also has the less endearing quality of a giant dental X-ray machine or unipedal CT scan.

The stage floor is covered in fluffy piles and the entire area is flooded in a blue light that feels like a cross between a dreamy moonscape and a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Are these mounds of fallen cherry blossoms or radioactive fallout? A Holo-Gauze screen (a highly reflective and transparent projection net which supports 3D polarized projections) separates the audience from the players. Large scale projections connect live and virtual audiences with feedback loops that expand the otherworldly sense of chaos and charade.

This is not a production for literalists, purists or those unable or willing to let go of the notion of control when it comes to live theater viewing. It also helps to have a cursory familiarity with Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’ to keep from getting totally disoriented when Golyak takes us on a chaotic journey down the rabbit hole of his inventive artistry.

There’s so much happening onstage that looking for plot threads is as frustrating as it is fruitless.

In a nutshell, the Chekhov version revolves around Madame Ranevskaya (played by the ethereally luminous Jessica Hecht), an aristocratic Russian land-owner who returns to her family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. Unresponsive to offers to save the estate, she allows its sale to the son of a former serf named Lopakhin (played by the prodigiously talented Nael Nacer). As they struggle with the destruction of their world as they knew it, Ranevskaya’s family leaves their home to the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down.

Chekhov intended his comedic farce to dramatize the socioeconomic forces in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, including the rise of the middle class after the abolition of serfdom in the mid-19th century, and the decline of the power of the aristocracy.

Seeing a new riff on a Russian classic, however, is hardly what packed the house on opening night.

The real reason many attended the performance was, of course, to see the extraordinary Mikhail Baryshnikov in person performing as Firs, the 87-year-old former serf turned manservant. The esteemed actor and ballet genius did not disappoint.

The opening moments of the black-clad Firs twirling dervish-like and being blown about by the wind are worth the price of admission. Baryshnikov pirouettes across the stage with breathtaking grace and ease. For the remainder of the play, he handily steals every scene he is in.

The problem is that watching him is like trying to drive at night through the cloudy lens of a cataract. While the Holo-Gauze screen adds immeasurably to the virtual production, it is an annoying impediment for those watching live, like sitting in a seat marked “obstructed view.”

Nonetheless, ‘The Orchard’ is worth seeing if for no other reason than to follow the contemporary take the extraordinary Golyak has on the ‘The Cherry Orchard.’ His production reimagines both the classic and the ways in which the theater experience itself can be reinvented.

It is also great fun. There is a mechanical dog (Robotics design is by Tom Sepe), the captivatingly whimsical performance of Darya Denisova as Charlotta, and Anna Fedorova’s set enchantingly lit by Yuki Nakase Link. Oana Botez’s costumes are added eye candy.

Having seen both the live and online versions, I must say that rather than being duplicative or fungible, they are actually complementary visions of a single experience. Neither is complete without the other and each sheds light on its counterpart.

In the online version, for example, viewers can choose the camera angles from which they want to see the action and can exit the main stage to various other virtual rooms of the old house in which the play occupies but one part. It’s as if the audience has been put in charge of its own theatrical experience.

The live version has the opposite effect. With all the projected images and splicing in of the zoom gallery shots of the online audience, we are not only aware of the play’s concomitant virtual experience; we are captives in it.

When one of the actors say, “I have this strange feeling that I’ve just landed on the Moon,” the audience nods in agreement.

Golyak, whose family fled the Ukraine’s antisemitism in the 1990s, is a global leader in the virtual theater movement. In a press release, he highlighted the play’s personal and ongoing relevance as an analogy for so many current societal ills.

“This is a story about the delicate relationships at the center of a family facing the end of the world as they know it,” Golyak said. “We are living through an unimaginable time of change and destruction with the war in Ukraine. As humans, we are perpetually losing our cherry orchards, losing our worlds. This play is about us today.”

‘The Orchard’ — Conceived and Directed by Igor Golyak, based on ‘The Cherry Orchard’ by Anton Chekhov. Anna Fedorova, Scenic Designer. Yuki Nakase Link, Lighting Designer. Oana Botez, Costume Designer. Alex Basco Koch, Projection Designer. Tei Blow, Sound Designer. Jakov Jakoulov, Composer. Tom Sepe, Robotics Designer. Presented by Groundswell Theatricals and Arlekin Players and its Zero Gravity Virtual Theater Lab, at Emerson Paramount Center, the Robert J Orchard Stage, 559 Washington St., Boston through November 13.

For tickets and information, go to: https://www.arlekinplayers.com/the-orchard/

SpeakEasy’s ‘English’ Explores The Tipping Point Between Identity and Heritage

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Cast of ‘English’ at Speakeasy Stage. Photos by Nile Scott Studios

by Shelley A. Sackett

SpeakEasy Stage’s production of Sanaz Toossi’s ‘English’ starts out simply enough. Four Iranian students are studying in Karaj for the Test of English as a Foreign Language Exam (TOEFL) , an English proficiency exam they must pass if they hope to pursue university study abroad, immigration and more. Their teacher, Marjan (a first-rate Deniz Khateri), rules her classroom with an iron fist. They will speak only English during class, and when anyone slips into Farsi, she posts a strike against them on her giant blackboard, practically snarling with scorn.

This is language immersion that is the equivalent of throwing a baby into the deep end to teach them to swim. Yet, her motive, at least in the beginning, seems pure and altruistic. She studied in Manchester, England, an experience that changed her life for the better and one she speaks of with near religious veneration. She believes that she and she alone can help her flock find this same path that opened her world, and she takes her role as their shepherd with the seriousness and zeal of a missionary.

[An effective and engaging scripted touch is that when the actors speak their native Farsi, they do so in fluent conversational English. When they practice English, their speech is more staccato, with a heavily accented cadence of a beginning foreign language student.]

Marjan insists her students leave their Iranian identities outside her classroom door. “English Only!” is underlined twice on the blackboard. The implication is clear — Farsi and all things Iranian are baggage that need to be shed if one is to “make it” in the global arena. “Speaking English is one of the greatest things two people can do together,” she coos, and she means it with all her being.

Her students don’t always agree. Roya (the splendid Layla Modirzadeh) needs to learn English so she can join her son and his family (including a granddaughter whose English name Roya can’t pronounce) in Canada, where they have emigrated and assimilated. She is the oldest of the students and the one with the longest and deepest roots in Iran.

When she learns that Marjan happily gave up her identity in England, letting others call her “Mary” for their convenience and ease, she chafes. People should not have to give up their names to learn a language, she says. “Our mothers get to name us. Not foreigners.”

Zaven Ovian, Deniz Khateri, Josephine Moshiri Elwood

Elham (compellingly played by the feisty Josephine Moshiri Elwood) has taken the TOEFL before and failed. More than the others, she needs to pass this test to pursue her goal of studying gastroenterology in Australia. In addition to her thick Farsi accent and lack of facility with languages,  she faces two other barriers: she despises English and how her voice sounds when she speaks it, and she can’t stand Marjan and her autocratic ways. That Marjan deliberately humiliates and picks on her adds fuel to her hot-blooded flame.

Goli (Lily Gilan James, a senior at Boston Conservatory at Berklee) is a compliant and reticent 18-year-old who happily does as she is told. She is the least interesting, with no axe to grind and nothing to prove. She just wants to pass the exam so she can go to a university outside Iran.

On the other hand, 29-year-old Omid (Zaven Ovian) is an enigma. His English is better than the teacher’s, and he comes up with complex and specific vocabulary, like “windbreaker” during a word game. He and Marjan bond inside and outside class over their seeming shared love of all things foreign, but Omid has a secret he keeps tight to his vest until the play’s end. Ovian splendidly plays out the mystery.

Director Melory Mirashrafi, a first generation Iranian-American, makes the most of Janie E. Howland’s well-designed set and a script that at times moves slowly.

Playwright Sanaz Toossi (who won this year’s Lucille Lortel Award for “English”) takes her petri dish of varied and complex characters and, over 100 intermissionless minutes, seamlessly interweaves engaging theater with an existential examination of identity, heritage, assimilation and alienation.

She poses many important and timely questions. Is there is a tipping point at which the loss of cultural identity outweighs the materials of life in one’s non-native land? Is voluntary immigration something to be encouraged or grieved? What about the generations, like Roya’s granddaughter, who will grow up without hearing Farsi or understanding her cultural heritage?

Is it worth leaving your homeland voluntarily, Toossi questions, to forever be branded a foreigner with an accent, the “other” who will always be asked, “where are you from?” [Toossi’s mother immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in the mid-1980’s following the Iranian Revolution].

When Elham returns to the classroom after taking (and passing with 99%) the TOEFL, it is not to gloat or thank Marjan, but to offer by example a lesson of how you can gain English language proficiency without losing your Iranian soul.

“You are Iranian but your English is a lot of things. It wants to be American and some of the time British and now it does not know what it is. When I speak English, I know I will always be a stranger,” Elham tells Marjan. “I hear my home. What do you hear?”

English’ –Sanaz Toossi, Playwright. Melory Mirashrafi, Director. Janie E. Howland, Scenic Designer. Nina Vartanian, Costume Designer. Amanda E. Fallon, Lighting Designer. Ash, Sound Designer. Emme Shaw, Props Designer. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage at the Roberts Studio Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St. Boston, through November 19, 2022.

For tickets and information, go to: https://www.speakeasystage.com/

Bill Irwin Is Brilliant in ArtsEmerson’s Not-to-Be-Missed “On Beckett.”

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Bill Irwin in “On Beckett” at ArtsEmerson

‘On Beckett’ — Conceived and Performed by Bill Irwin. Produced by Octopus Theatricals; Scenic Design by Charles Corcoran; Costume Consultation by Martha Hally; Lighting Design by Michael Gottlieb; Sound Design by M. Florian Staab. Presented by Arts Emerson at the Emerson Paramount Center, 559 Washington St., Boston, MA through October 30.

by Shelley A. Sackett

Bill Irwin is a legendary actor, writer, director and clown artist. The Tony award-winner is as known for serious theatrical roles on Broadway as he is for his beloved Mr. Noodle on television’s “Elmo’s World.”

With “On Beckett,” his solo exploration of his decades long relationship with the Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett, Irwin takes on yet another role — that of compassionate guide through the sticky wickets of Beckett’s intimidating and often baffling prose and plays.“Here is what I am proposing to you this evening,” he tells the audience with an intimacy and earnestness that has them in the palm of his hand from the get-go. “I’m not a scholar or a biographer,” he says almost apologetically, implying that those who expect a pedantic lecture from the head will be disappointed. “I am an actor and a clown and what I have is an actor’s knowledge” of Beckett, he says. And what a trove of treasures that is.

What Irwin brings to the table and generously shares is of far greater value and infinitely more enjoyable than a straight out lecture. He discloses what it has been like for him to experience Beckett’s language from the inside out, as one who has been entrusted with the sacred task of memorizing the writer’s words, processing them through his Bill Irwin persona, and then speaking them to a contemporary audience as he imagines Beckett himself intended.

For an absorbing, enlightening and entertaining 90 minutes, Irwin shines his inner light on four works by Beckett: Texts for Nothing, Watt, The Unnamable and Waiting for Godot. He peppers his readings/performances with anecdotes and observations, revealing what it feels like as an actor and as a human being to mouth the words of the great existentialist and arguably the greatest playwright who ever penned a line of dialogue.

His approach blends the physical (often hilarious) and emotional as he digs deep into Beckett’s “character energy,” managing to keep the evening challenging enough for aficionados of the work and light enough for novices. “These are like people I’ve known. Like my own mind — me, myself and I in conversation,” he says, bringing Beckett’s often lofty language down to earth.

Which is not to say he doesn’t pose heady questions meant to expand our thinking about Beckett, ourselves and the world we live in. “Was Beckett a writer of the body or mind?” he asks. Midway through the enjoyable and impactful evening, Irwin addresses the elephant in the room. “Is this a portrait of existence?” he asks of a passage in The Unnameable. “What is it?”

eckett

He then gives an easy-to-digest short treatise on existentialism, pithy and humorous, yet also the product of a deep thinker who has spent years pondering these questions both on and off stage. It is no surprise to learn he has won Fulbright, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts and MacArthur Fellowships. His explanations and analyses are brilliant. “These are the precise but undefinable questions that keep us awake,” he says before adding,” and put us to sleep.”

As expected of a lauded actor and director, his timing and punctuation is perfect. But Irwin is also a clown, and when he grabs his bowler and baggy pants, the evening shifts gears. Although Beckett’s words carry no less weight and Irwin’s performance embodies that gravitas, it is now clothed in the shimmering gossamer of physical comedy, taking the sting out of some of the words by allowing us to laugh at them and, by extension, at ourselves. Sure, existence is tough and death is even tougher, but let’s not forget that we were also created to laugh, Irwin reminds us.

Irwin appeared with Steve Martin and Robin Williams in the Lincoln Center Off-Broadway production of Waiting for Godot in 1988, in the role of Lucky. Lucky’s only lines consist of a famous 500-word-long monologue, an ironic element for Irwin, since much of his clown-based stage work was silent.

He treats us to a remarkable rendition and, at the end of the show, frankly admits that even after all these years, some of Beckett’s language remains beyond his grasp. “I keep discovering new things in the words,” he says. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how an airplane stays up in the air either, but I still want to climb onboard.”

Act NOW and you might just be lucky enough to catch one of the last Boston performances. Whether you’re encountering the Nobel Prize winner’s writing for the first time, or building on a body of Beckett knowledge, this dynamic showcase is not to be missed.