Tag: Performing Arts

Onstage, a fine-featured woman removes her skirt, collapses her bustle, and adjusts the corset nipping her waist. Her hands are pale and flighty as she sits on the doctor’s bench and pulls a medical drape up to her chin. Diagnosed with hysteria, a Victorian umbrella term for ailments including headaches, light sensitivity, and predisposition to tears, Mrs. Sabrina Daldry reclines only when the nurse pushes her shoulders backward.

Flush with the thrill of domestic electricity, Dr. Givings reveals a mechanical wand with which he will administer “pelvic massage via mechanical manipulation.” A flipped switch, a high-pitched buzz, a fumbling, jerky prod beneath sheets—and we, silent voyeurs, watch Sabrina grimace, flinch and exclaim to God with the strength of her medically-induced orgasm.

Almost immediately, she begins to cry. The concerned doctor reanimates his vibrator. “Please,” she weeps, “don’t do it again. It—hurts.”

In an instant, we’re ambushed. Even as the scene gets funnier, as Sabrina redefines pain as pleasure and agrees to return for daily treatments, we linger on the familiarity of her reaction—our fear of desire and its sterile handling, the vulnerability that comes with letting go. Check your vapors at the door, because Live Arts’s production of In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) is not for the faint of heart.

Written by Broadway darling Sarah Ruhl and nominated for three Tony Awards, the show explores sexuality and satisfaction, motherhood and marriage, the limitations of science and the limits of love. Live Arts’s version is funny and sharp, featuring several well-articulated orgasms and a vibrator shaped like a drill. It’s an edgy choice for local theater, and C’ville should count its blessings—this production is one of the best I’ve seen in a very long time.

Set in two adjacent suites of a prosperous Victorian household, In the Next Room follows the parallel lives of Dr. and Mrs. Catherine Givings. As the doctor treats patients with his office door closed, Catherine watches a wet nurse feed her newborn, grappling with mother guilt as strange sounds leak through the wall. Eventually she begs Sabrina to show her the electric device—to demonstrate how to treat the hysteria her husband refuses to diagnose in his wife. But, as both women quickly discover, pelvic massage via mechanical manipulation cannot cure an absence of emotional intimacy.

As Dr. Givings, Bill LeSueur  (C-VILLE Weekly Art Director) is sincere and unapologetic, a man of science whose preoccupation with “paroxysm” is both earnest and refreshingly innocent. As his free-spirited wife, Catherine (Melissa Charles) is a fast-talking foil to his scientific deliberations. She’s enthusiastic, anxious, and consistently vulnerable, tantalizing the sympathy-starved Mr. Daldry (Kurt Vogelsang) and overwhelming artist Leo Irving (William Smith), a dandy who serves as comic relief and prefers the torture of exotic love to its homestead counterpart.

Despite multiple on-stage orgasms, Sarah Elizabeth Edwards plays Sabrina with dark-hued restraint, a picture of Victorian decorum whose passion reveals itself in flickers, brief looks and gestures. Katelyn Sack’s Annie is likewise dedicated to decorum; she seems resigned to heartache even as she makes bold moves against it. As Elizabeth, the wet nurse grieving the loss of her own child, Sharon Millner is firm and truthful, offering reactions that sometimes speak for the audience.

Double entendre and puns abound—this is a comedy, after all—but the show’s director (and Live Arts’ artistic director) Julie Hamberg understands that the show hangs on the strength of its fourth wall. She nurtures dramatic irony, a spirit of restrained authenticity, and this allows the story to come to life. Actors do not acknowledge the script’s puns, do not aggravate the awkward silences. No one indulges in a wink-wink-nudge—and wisely, because doing so would make the script cheap and uncomfortable. Avoiding the shallows of schtick and easy laughs, Hamberg leads us to deeper currents.

Ultimately, the success of In the Next Room leans on emotional truths that transcend the 1880s. While no single theme is explored in great detail—the script takes on too many ideas to delve very deeply—I guarantee you’ll be moved by one of them. Mark the clever metaphors of candles versus lightbulbs, precipitation versus preparation. Wonder if technology can replace human touch.

If you approach the show with a Freudian eye, you’ll no doubt find what you’re looking for. But may I suggest you relax your analysis, your text- or tweet-length commentary. Mrs. Daldry isn’t the only one squirming beneath the sheets, struggling to name what she truly desires. Go to the show and silence your cell phone—you might see yourself on the stage.

Through March 23/In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play/ Live Arts

Growing up in Charlottesville in the ’80s and early ’90s his name was Ben Jones. In the years since, he’s lived in many cities, and has been a cartoonist, a musician, a stand-up comedian, a member of an improv troupe, a professional illustrator, a small gallery owner, a radio show host, puppeteer, and owner of a comic book store. After finding a well-established artist with the same name in each city he moved to, Jones has returned to Charlottesville where uses his last name only, and is currently handling social media and executive assistant duties at Live Arts.

His latest creative project is “Raygun Radio.” Inspired by the popular radio serials of the 1930s and ’40s, the audio comedy “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet,” is a screwball homage to the naïve sci-fi adventures of the mid-20th century, as well as a chance for Jones to write harebrained characters and let the personalities bounce off each other with sidesplitting results. Douglas Adam’s original “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” radio serial is a significant inspiration, though Jones’ sensibility owes a lot to Abbott & Costello routines and the zany vaudeville-inspired antics of the original “Muppet Show.”

“Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” is a loose rewrite of a vintage sci-fi film, which already has a storied history of re-interpretation. Originally a 1962 Soviet flick by the name Planeta Bur (Planet of the Storms), it was re-adapted for the American market by legendary low-budget producer Roger Corman, who kept the original’s charming sub-Harryhousen effects but shot new scenes to go between them.

The remake starred a slumming, late career Basil Rathbone, and was shot by Curtis Harrington, an avant-garde filmmaker trying to break into Hollywood. It was soon forgotten, but Corman tried again three years later, once more retaining the Soviet effects, and this time hiring a young Peter Bogdanovich to shoot new framing scenes. The second attempt was graced with the more saleable title Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. Neither Harrington nor Bogdanovich wanted any director’s credit under their real names, and today both films are in the public domain.

“Originally it was the idea of taking an old science fiction premise that wasn’t very good, and using it as a basis for sketch comedy,” Jones said. “But then I found this movie, that had everything I wanted. I didn’t even know the history—I have one of those boxes of 50 old sci-fi movies that are all in the public domain. I flagged all of the ones that sounded promising, and had evocative titles. There were a couple I started watching, and I shut them off—‘This is too good,’ or ‘this is too visual.’ I wanted something that would translate to radio well.” Ultimately, Voyage won out because of the sheer number of classic sci-fi icons—rocket ships, robots, and rayguns, but also lizard men, dinosaurs, and an underwater hovercraft.

This rewrite is partly a spoof, but also a loving homage to now dated sci-fi tropes used as a framing device for his character-based comedy. The cast includes Richard Craig as a handsome, egotistical spaceship captain, and Dan Sterlace as his cheerfully boneheaded son. Alli Villines plays a lovelorn lady astronaut, and Josephine Stewart adds a much-needed dose of sanity and reason to the madcap idiocy surrounding her character. Jones himself plays the role of the narrator, and assorted minor parts. “I also gave myself the role of the robot,” he said, “because I wrote it to be performed a particular way, and it was easier to do it myself than to tell anyone else how to do it.”

Jones held an impromptu run through during his 38th birthday party in September, and was pleased enough with the results that he is performing the show publicly. “If people are digging it, we’ll see about recording it, maybe taking it to a radio station, or podcasting it. Or we might just say, ‘O.K., that was fun,’ and stop there,” he said. “We haven’t even had a rehearsal yet. Everyone involved is really busy. [All the players are from Live Arts.] The whole concept is to get together and do something fun that will scratch the itch of performance without taking up too much of our time.”

“That’s part of why this came together,” he said. “I have a big list on my door [of potential creative projects], and it’s a way of forcing myself to get things done. On pain of punishment, if I don’t do at least 15 minutes of something artistic every day, I have to give away a DVD from my collection. And writing doesn’t count—I have a separate rule for that one—if I don’t write, I can’t drink. It’s a way of incentivizing myself to be a responsible adult, by giving in to my childish desires. I have to be a grown-up every day, or I have to give up one of my toys.”

“Radio Raygun” is co-produced by Live Arts, and the live performances will take place at the Black Market Moto Saloon, on two consecutive weekends.

“For a few years, we’ve talked about trying to do more stuff off-site, and this seemed like a good opportunity to try that,” Jones said. “I always wanted it to be a cabaret-seating thing, with tables and chairs and food. It was easier to go somewhere where that was already set up than to try to create that at Live Arts.” Episodes one through three of “Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet” will be performed on Saturday, March 9 with episodes four and five on Saturday, March 16. The shows begin at 8pm, and Jones notes “the suggested donation is $3 to $5, but we also accept drinks.”

All in

Who’s in for some piracy, bootlegging, black market comedic goods, and overflowing libations? When things of this nature come forth legally and with little cost, the answer seems pretty clear. In Bent Theatre’s upcoming improv gig, they’ll go all the way—with a bit of “Saturday Night Live,” a dash of “Whose Line is It Anyway?,” a touch of “MadTV,” and plenty of other side-splitting schticks—all while maintaining their own motley brand. This calls for you to bring your own A-game, because after all, you say it and they’ll play it. Adults only.

Saturday 3/2 Free, 8pm. Black Market Moto Saloon, 1304 E. Market St. 218-2368.

Early February. Three and a half weeks before the opening of Live Arts’ new main stage production, In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), and a major scenic element for the climax of the play was not coming together well at all. The design called for the climactic sequence to be played in front of a backdrop, but the lighting was all wrong and the sight lines wouldn’t work. What was intended to be a magical coup started to look more like a major distraction. “I was not happy,” said Julie Hamberg, who is not only director of the piece but also Live Arts’ newest artistic director.

Well, newish. Hamberg was hired in mid 2011 and started the job in September of that year, taking the reins just as a new season, put together by the Live Arts programming committee, was being launched. One of her first tasks was to begin the long process of talking to volunteers, talking to staff, talking to the board, and to start building the first Live Arts season that would bear her stamp. That season opened one year later, in October 2012, with a slate that included the first ever amateur production of Pulitzer Prize winner Clybourne Park and one of the most lauded musicals of all time, A Chorus Line.

Now it’s Hamberg’s turn to step to the plate, taking on the first play she’s chosen to direct in her new artistic home. She comes to Live Arts with a 25 year history in the theater. She trained at the legendary Circle Rep in New York. The LAB program there was a veritable boot camp for bringing new work to the stage, and her career has borne that out. She’s been involved in over 75 productions of new work in one form or another—producing, directing, or assistant directing—in significant venues from New York to New Orleans to Ann Arbor, Michigan, 15 miles from the small town where she grew up.

The Vibrator Play, which opens on March 1, fits her M.O. It’s written by Sarah Ruhl, one of the current favorites of daring theater companies everywhere. Live Arts has produced two of her plays in recent years—The Clean House in 2007 and Eurydice in 2009. The Vibrator Play is a rich, poetic, funny, humane, and moderately shocking meditation on desire, propriety, and the barriers that separate us from what we want, and from the people to whom we are closest. It takes place in the home and office of Dr. Givings, a physician in the late 1800s, who uses the new convenience of electricity not only to illuminate his home but to treat his patients. He has invented an electrical device to stimulate “a paroxysm” in his female patients, to release “the pent-up emotion inside the womb that causes [their] hysterical symptoms.” As a doctor, he’s compassionate but aloof. But as a husband, he is completely insensitive to the emotional needs of his wife, Catherine, who is condemned to hear and wonder about the tantalizingly intimate sounds coming from her husband’s office.

Ruhl is a canny playwright. She uses the layout of the stage to help dramatize her story. On one side of the stage we have the doctor’s office, on the other, the Givings’ drawing room—one the most private, the other the most public—space in the house. Each room is served by a door, which becomes the focus of the action. One leads into the husband’s inner sanctum, a world where the clinical and the passionate are all mixed up. The other leads out to the wide world of freedom. Which one will they take? Will they choose together, or alone?

With the themes of the play inscribed so starkly in the stagecraft, the setting for the climax (no pun intended) needs to be just as clear. So here is Julie Hamberg, 17 months into her tenure as artistic director, in the throes of directing her first piece at Live Arts, and the damned backdrop for one of the critical moments of the play is just not going to work. “This fits my general philosophy of theater,” she said, with a shake of her abundant dark hair and an easy laugh. “Expect the unexpected. How do you embrace it?”

How? Acceptance is the key, according to her colleague and counterpart, executive director Matt Joslyn. The two are equals at the head of the organization, each answering directly to the board. He is tasked with the business side, she with the creative. Joslyn has had a chance to see up close that Hamberg has what it takes to embrace the unexpected. “Julie is an absolutely excellent artistic director,” he says “She has an incredible sense of craft, an incredible sense of theatricality. She knows how to solve problems, she knows how to talk to people, and she knows when to push and when to accept—and I say ‘accept’ and not ‘settle’—the knowledge that ‘this is where it’s going to get, and I can accept that.’”

So the decision is made. The backdrop is cut from the final scene. Another direction provides another, better, opportunity to serve the play, to serve the characters, and to serve the audience. The final scene, she says, “will be as simple as we can make it. I would rather have simplicity and beauty and clear focus on the actors than some distracting scenic element.” Virtue, meet necessity. Charlottesville, meet Julie Hamberg.

The Vibrator Play is a rich, poetic, funny, humane, and moderately shocking meditation on desire, propriety, and the barriers that separate us from what we want, and from the people to whom we are closest.

In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)/March 1-23/Live Arts

Poetry emotion

The best new plays are always hard to categorize, and Jenny Schwartz’s God’s Ear is no exception. Staged by UVA’s drama department, it is a powerful and intentionally disjointed examination of deep loss and finding ways to cope. Beneath the plot is a mosaic of language, bursting with fractured thoughts that tether the characters to a fleeting reality rife with playfully mournful fantasies of GI Joe as the family therapist and the Tooth Fairy as a singing confidant.

Through 3/2 $8-14, 8pm. Helms Theater, 109 Culbreth Rd., UVA. 924-3376.

Catty lady

If you can’t quite place Paula Poundstone, try imagining her with a red brick wall behind her while she dishes out a brilliantly composed cat joke. There’s also a pretty good chance you’ve heard her yucking it up as a regular panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.” Poundstone holds the honor of first female comedian to win the CableACE Award for best stand-up comedy special, has hosted numerous HBO comedy features, and is currently looking forward to her second book release in which we can expect more intelligent wit about politics and pop culture.

Saturday 2/23 $29.50, 8pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. 979-1333.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w3NwND6wZc

Even by typical 21^st century Vaudeville-style comedy act standards, the Flying Karamazov Brothers are unexpected and uncontrollable. A quick click-through of their website’s trivia page has the words “Bull’s Testicles” and a question about angels who count in Hebrew flashing across your monitor. As far as anyone can tell, this is only the beginning.

While the group has built an impressive theatrical résumé since 1973’s inception at the University of California, Santa Cruz, putting on loose Shakespearean adaptations, performing in countless widely renowned venues, and sharing the stage with individuals ranging from the Beat Generation’s Allen Ginsberg to McDreamy, these guys are also known for playing amped-up versions of themselves on shows like Seinfeld. They even had a major role in the Michael Douglas action vehicle/disaster The Jewel of the Nile, which says quite a bit about the group’s propensity for variety.
http://youtu.be/_nPpDBqXq5k

None of this implies that familiarity with the Flying Karamazov Brothers leads to fulfilled expectations. Classic acts such as their Terror Trick, which curiously involves dry ice, champagne, and a torch all at once, are sure to make recurring appearances, but nothing about this group of faux siblings is designed for predictability. With these guys, everything boils down to insane levels of comedy growing naturally out of such zaniness and audacity. Their typical wardrobe of kilts and tutus only serves to underscore their inherent eccentricity.

With this sort of a diverse background, it’s tempting to describe the target audience of the Flying Karamazov Brothers as eclectic. This, however, would be to miss the point altogether, for these men simply strive to appeal to everyone from prison inmates to the most refined theatregoer. It’s all about laughter and sheer absurdity. Target audience be damned.

The Flying Karamazov Brothers/February 17/The Paramount Theater

Reading into it

For those who would gladly toss out the flowers, pink teddy bears, and heart-shaped greeting cards, your redemption lies in Raunchy Love Letters. Hosted by Scheherazade, the open reading series features spoken word performances and old-fashioned storytelling with short works by local talents. Past years have included everything from break-up e-mails to the bonding of soul mates, salacious verses about lady parts, and “Tom Cruise whack-jobs.” Broken-hearted playwrights, forlorn poets, and lovers of all the anguished arts are welcome to participate in a night of heartfelt, and often gut-wrenching, candor.

Thursday 2/14 $5, 7pm. The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, 209 Monticello Rd. 984-5669.

Debate teen

When a daring show like Stephen Karam’s Speech & Debate comes along—about a trio of teenage outsiders who discover the truth about a sex scandal in their hometown of Salem, Oregon—it garners well-deserved buzz. Dealing with heavy themes like sex, money, trust, and the nebulous transition from adolescence to adulthood, the dark comedy doesn’t pull any punches just because the roles are played by teenagers. Sort of like the way real life operates.

Through 2/16 $25, 8pm. Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. 977-4177.