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CHS community explores South Pacific

Beau LeBlond, Parker Nelson and Valery Duron confront modern issues through an updated approach to the 1949 musical South Pacific. Photo by Eze Amos

Premiered on Broadway in 1949 and revived in 2008, South Pacific tells the story of American naval officers (both nurses and sailors) stationed on an island during World War II who are forced to confront their own racist attitudes amidst love and war.

This month the musical comes to life on stage at Charlottesville High School. CHS drama teacher and director David Becker says he was compelled to do the show even before August 12, partly to inform his students about the musical theater songbook pre-1960, but also because, “We’re still trying to learn how it’s even possible that people can be bigoted or hateful,” he says. “And so, while it is what appears to be an old piece, its message is more relevant than ever.”

South Pacific
Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center at Charlottesville High School
February 22-25

Senior Kayla Gavin plays the female lead, Nellie, an American nurse, for three out of the four performances. Nellie is in love with Emile, a French ex-pat, but withdraws when she learns he had a previous relationship with a Polynesian woman and fathered two children with her. Over the course of the musical, Nellie has a change of heart. Although Nellie’s initial prejudices make her a challenging character to play, Gavin says, “I like the idea that love is greater than any kind of prejudice so that makes me feel more connected to the character.”

Valery Duron, also a senior, plays Bloody Mary, a Tonkinese woman who sells local wares to the Americans, and encourages Lieutenant Cable to marry her daughter, Liat. While Cable and Liat love each other, Cable eventually declines her hand because of her race. “Especially now and in our community, I feel like this show can really get to people,” Duron says.

Surrounding these interpersonal dramas is the larger-scale drama of the war itself. Through the character of Captain Brackett, senior Liam Hubbard explores the challenges of war. Hubbard describes his character as a warmonger who “has this sort of gut drive to keep the conquest going.” But he also “has this peripheral feeling of, what’s the end cost of this and are the measures that we’re taking really worth it?”

Kayla Gavin and Beau LeBlond play Nellie and Emile respectively in CHS’ South Pacific. Photo by Eze Amos

One way Becker has tried to engage young people with these issues is through the music and dance. “It’s probably one of the most lush, most memorable scores of musical theater written during the golden age,” he says. “What I was really interested in doing with the show was finding a way to bridge then with now.” Enter Torain Braxton, a senior who’s been dancing since she could walk. Becker asked her to add contemporary movement to Bloody Mary’s song “Happy Talk,” as well as some other numbers.

The result, Becker says, makes the show less “rigid and inaccessible. …With older pieces we have to find ways to excite the viewer, the actors, the creative people, to entice them into being involved. Sometimes it takes pizza, too.”

What has been most meaningful to Braxton about this collaborative experience is the “commitment and passion and love that we create in this whole production,” she says. “It’s going to be a really good show.”

While Braxton was drawn to the production through dance, senior Beau LeBlond, who plays Emile, was drawn to it through song. “I got into it because I started taking voice lessons for choir,” he says. He learned to sing “Some Enchanted Evening” as part of his vocal training well before auditions opened. When he learned Becker was putting on South Pacific, he thought, why not audition?

Another student, Alyce Yang, lent her creative talents by drawing the scenic backdrops. Yang drew her inspiration chiefly from the 1958 film adaptation. “There were a lot of beautiful scenes and colors used that aren’t actually seen in nature,” she says. Moved by “the power of the colors,” she drew her own scenes with Adobe Illustrator.

“We involve everybody when we put on our shows at CHS,” Becker says. In this production, that even includes two young children of faculty member Tina Vasquez, teacher of English Language Learners at CHS. Her daughter and son, Ariana and Leo, will play Emile’s children, Ngana and Jerome.

The diverse program includes LGBTQ students, students from different countries, first-year language learners and students of color. “That is Charlottesville,” Becker says, and it’s important to him that kids acknowledge the diverse makeup of their community. “Theater is community,” he says, “We can learn about how to improve our communities if we go and see how theaters run and how they work because it’s all collaboration.”

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A View From Some Broads breaks with casting tradition

Linda Zuby gathers an all-female cast to sing an eclectic set of show tunes for A View From Some Broads, as part of Four County Players’ Songs in the Cellar cabaret series. Photo by Linda Hogan

In “Bosom Buddies,” the famous duet from the Broadway musical Mame, eccentric bohemian and title character Mame Dennis gives her friend, actress —and famed lush—Vera Charles a bit of advice: “I feel it’s my duty to tell you it’s time to adjust your age / You try to be Peg O’ My Heart, when you’re Lady Macbeth.”

It’s a biting observation that stings all the more because it’s true: The passing of time is inevitable, and there comes a point in every actor’s career when she no longer makes a convincing teenage Irish heroine a la Margaret O’Connell in “Peg O’ My Heart.” Instead she is cast in roles like the ruthless, power-hungry and—let us not mince the important word here—older Lady Macbeth (who isn’t that old)—a deliciously complex role that appeals to many actors, but Mame’s point here is that Vera needs to come to terms with the reality of her age, which Mame declares to be “somewhere between 40 and death.”

And while there’s plenty of life to live after 40, there aren’t many theater roles for women of this age, says Linda Zuby, a local actor and director who, at 60, knows this reality firsthand. She’s played a slew of great roles (including Lady Macbeth), but there are some—such as Gwendolen in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest—that she’s aged out of.

While lamenting the lack of juicy roles, Zuby and a few other women decided to make a performance for themselves, something in which they’d sing the songs they want to sing, age limits be damned. The resulting revue, A View From Some Broads, to be performed as part of the Songs in the Cellar series at Four County Players this weekend, features nine women, ages 30 to 64, performing songs made famous by some of Broadway’s most legendary dames. Together, the songs tell a story about the journey from young womanhood to adult womanhood, says Zuby, who directs the show.

At the top of the performance are songs usually sung by children, including “When I Grow Up” from Matilda the Musical (it takes on a whole new meaning when sung by women, says Zuby), and moves into songs from Once Upon A Mattress and other musicals, songs that take a look at “some of the things you think about when you’re younger,” particularly the “get married to my prince kind of thing” that you buy into until your experience teaches you otherwise, says Zuby.

The revue’s second act includes “Before the Parade Passes By” from Hello, Dolly!, “Sister Suffragette” from Mary Poppins (you know the one, originally sung in the 1964 film by Glynis Johns as Mrs. Winifred Banks, a “Votes for Women” sash draped across the chest of her powder blue gown), which, Zuby notes, is as relevant today as it was decades ago.

“Bosom Buddies” that classic, frothy comment on the nature of female friendship, is in there, too, along with plenty of other well-loved numbers.

Ultimately, A View From Some Broads is “about the journey that women take,” says Zuby, a group of women reminding themselves that roles like Lady Macbeth—and for that matter, Mame and Vera—are just as good as Peg O’ My Heart.

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ARTS Pick: Romeo and Juliet—Reconstruction of Love

Shakespeare may have formalized the tale of star-crossed lovers on stage, but the heart of tragic romance stretches back to antiquity. Directors Boomie Pederson and Brad Stoller take the Bard’s script and push it forward with Romeo and Juliet—Reconstruction of Love, a modern retelling that pulls from a range of dance styles, accompanied by an original soundscape. The production is intended as a companion to West Side Story, which opens in the spring.

Through November 5. $5, times vary. V. Earl Dickinson Building at PVCC, 501 College Dr. 961-5376.

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ARTS Pick: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)

Andy Davis, Jack Rakes and Kendall Stewart rip through plots and costumes at a blistering pace, navigating shortcuts with tactics such as turning Othello into a rap and replacing the comedies with an improv Mad Libs session. Publicity photo

Three actors, 37 plays and an hour and a half to perform The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Andy Davis, Jack Rakes and Kendall Stewart rip through plots and costumes at a blistering pace, navigating shortcuts with tactics such as turning Othello into a rap and replacing the comedies with an improv Mad Libs session, while frequently breaking the fourth wall to include the audience in their endeavor to complete the performance in time.

Through October 28. $10-15, times vary. Gorilla Theater 1717 Allied Ln., Ste. B. gorillatheaterproductions.com.

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ARTS Pick: St. Nicholas

Michael McGee stars in Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas, a one-man show about a jaded theater critic who’s obsession with an actress leads him into the cold, soulless world of vampires who challenge his selfish ways. Publicity photo

Michael McGee stars in Conor McPherson’s St. Nicholas, a one-man show about a jaded theater critic who’s obsession with an actress leads him into the cold, soulless world of vampires who challenge his selfish ways. The Los Angeles Times says McGee, who initally performed the play on the West Coast, uses “perfectly inflected cadences [to] sweep us up in McPherson’s signature combination of Irish gift for gab and intricate, tightly paced narrative form.” The role also earned McGee a nomination for an LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Solo Performance.

Friday, October 13. $10-15, 8pm. Gorilla Theater Productions, 1717 Allied Ln., Ste B. gorillatheaterproductions.com

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Theater review: Four County Players resurrects Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit

Chris Baumer and Tiffany Smith star as novelist Charles Condomine and his deceased first wife, Elvira, in Blithe Spirit. Photo by Linda Hogan

Is there any comedy trope that’s been kicked around more often than the bickering husband and wife at home? Domestic discord has been a go-to gag for centuries and the cornerstone of TV sitcoms for a reason. We all know the excruciating grief of slogging through a never-ending argument with our significant other, but whether it’s PTSD empathy or black-hearted schadenfreude, we love to listen to zingers coming at the expense of a couple of fictional suckers who can’t get on the same page. Luckily for the audience at Four County Players, it’s exactly that kind of oh-that’s-rich, bitter tit for tat that makes Blithe Spirit a fruitful extended exercise in comic contention.

British playwright Noël Coward was well aware of how comedy can be born from conflict. That is to say, he was astute enough in his conception to realize that if a lady and gentleman are tearing each other down to the subatomic level with sharp repartee—and it gets laughs—then it stands to reason that throwing an ex into a heated squabble should theoretically be that much funnier. It is. Just like a husband and wife locking horns, going bigger is an old idea, too. Even in the time of his early comedies, Shakespeare figured out that if one set of bumbling identical twins is amusing, two pairs of identical twins are hysterical. Sometimes more is, truly, substantially more, and Coward expands on the traditional blueprint with sidesplitting results.

Blithe Spirit
Runs through May 21
Four County Players

Written in 1941 during the height of the London Blitz, Coward’s wartime black comedy serves up caustic, hilarious one-liners that burn exasperated husband Charles Condomine and his second wife, Ruth, right where they stand—in the stuffy confines of their English country house with dry martinis in hand. Though there’s nary a passing mention of World War II, the timeless premise of farcical matrimonial anguish remains anything but textbook, thanks to the surprisingly funny consequences of hashing out relationship issues in the unexpected and interfering shadow of death; there’s also a thoroughly hefty comic bounty wrangled from decrying what sounds like the bureaucratic miseries of the afterlife. I’ll explain.

Apparently, Coward’s initial idea was to simply write a play about disagreeable ghosts, but Blithe Spirit ultimately used an apparition to reveal just how difficult it is for marriages to stay happy.

The story pits novelist Charles in the most bizarre of love triangles when he invites Madame Arcati (Kate Monaghan) to hold a séance. While his sly motive is to note her methods as research for his next book, the spiritualist act quickly gets out of hand. The quiet mockery of the medium produces the ghost of Charles’s deceased first wife, Elvira, who appears in the Condomines’ living room. Madame Arcati, Ruth and guests Dr. Bradman (Charif Soubra) and Mrs. Bradman (Barbara Roberts) are blind and deaf to Elvira; Charles is unnerved to find that he isn’t. Quite suddenly, he’s haunted and harangued by two very unsatisfied women with strong personalities. And, as the cliché goes, hilarity ensues.

Entertaining as Blithe Spirit is, make no mistake: This is a comedy almost entirely predicated on the strength of its dialogue. There’s precious little in the way of silence, mimicry or physical comedy, barring the brief bits involving the nervous stammering of servant Edith, portrayed in a timely, frantic awkwardness by Linda Zuby. Other memorable moments free to please without Coward’s words derive from the bloodcurdling screams of flummoxed Ruth, played with precision by Claire McGurk Chandler.

Chandler handles her considerable quantity of intricate insults and outrage with the accuracy and bombast appropriate of a well-trained opera singer. In her wide-eyed indignant scowls and stares lurk the stylistic touches of Amy Poehler, but her delivery also reveals a delightfully bottled restraint that continually gives way to a stunned reaction reminiscent of Margaret Dumont, the haughty straight woman of many Marx Brothers’ movies. Perhaps more startling than Chandler’s uncanny ability to speak her lines with such hardened grace is the flawless accent that pops out of her. Indeed, her believably formal manner of speaking never wavered throughout the show; it sailed effortlessly beyond the cynicism of this recent New York City transplant, who wouldn’t have guessed that I might hear put-on snobbery reverberating so convincingly from the rafters of a community stage tucked behind the Barboursville post office off of Route 33.

Credit is due to dialect coach Carol Pedersen, who did an impressive job with the entire cast. They admirably clung to their proper English voices while navigating roller coaster-like lines designed to jut out, cut back and thrust between each other in alternating freefalls. Director Miller Murray Susen rightfully calls the language “beautifully complex,” and certainly, Chris Baumer made sure that it came across that way in his sturdy portrayal of Charles.

Complicating things in the best and most irritating ways, the cloying and petulant Elvira, embodied by Tiffany Smith, offered a respectably impertinent counterpoint to Chandler’s just-so Ruth. The visitor from beyond the grave attempts to reclaim her former home at every turn: languidly rolling on the sofa, whirling gleefully around the gramophone and—to the audience’s joy—giving everyone hell.

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ARTS Pick: Spring Awakening

Gorilla Theater Productions’ takes a contemporary approach to Spring Awakening. Courtesy Gorilla Theater Productions

Taking on the topic of sexual oppression at the turn of the 19th century, Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening drives straight through the soul of puberty. Gorilla Theater Productions’ contemporary approach to the coming-of-age story confronts themes of reproduction, rape and suicide so incisively it’s subtitled A Children’s Tragedy.

Through May 14. $10-15, times vary. Gorilla Theater 1717 Allied St., Ste. B. gorillatheaterproductions.com.

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ARTS Pick: Mary Poppins

Albemarle High School Players presents Mary Poppins through April 30. Publicity photo

Take some kite flying, throw in a little bird feeding, add an uber-nanny, a chimney sweep and two precocious kids, and you’ve got the makings for a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious evening when the Albemarle High School Players present Mary Poppins. Based on the popular Disney movie, the musical, directed by Fay E. Cunningham, follows the story of “practically perfect” Mary, who floats in to sort out the complicated relationship between Jane and Michael Banks and their stressed-out parents.

Through April 30. $10-20 (with a $35 dinner theater on Saturday evening), times vary. Albemarle High School auditorium, 2775 Hydraulic Rd. ahsplayers.webs.com

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Theater Review: The Realistic Joneses at Live Arts

The Realistic Joneses relies on a cast that can convey the authenticity of human interaction—ranging from hilarious one-liners and abrupt observations to the meaning behind half-formed compliments. Photo by Will Kerner

There’s something a bit off about The Realistic Joneses.

“Maybe it’s me,” you think at first. You’re sitting so close to the middle-aged couple you’re practically on top of them. She’s talking about the beauty of the night air and the owl she can hear in the distance. He’s staring down at hands twisted together, harrumphing with irritation. It’s awfully intimate, the way you’re hovering in other people’s tension.

But you’re in a theater and you’ve paid to watch this, so that’s exactly what you do: eavesdrop on the world’s most realistic conversation and try not to squirm with discomfort.

The Realistic Joneses
Live Arts
Runs through May 13

Outside a small kitchen, pacing a small AstroTurf lawn, she tosses up conversational softballs and he smacks them down with frustration.

“Maybe we should paint the house,” says Misses.

“Why?” Mister asks. “Won’t we just have to paint it again after that?”

His logic is silly, childish, perfect. Once you start laughing, it’s hard to stop.

You realize this curmudgeon is inadvertently funny. You also find out that he’s sick.

His wife hints at something serious and confusing, but he refuses to talk about it. You see her repressing her own frustration, but she refuses to talk about that.

The night air may be lovely, but it’s also tense. That’s why your heart jumps (as do Misses and Mister) when a muffled crash sounds from offstage.

Could it be a strange animal? A prowler? A plot twist? You pray for something to break the soupy, suburban stillness.

That’s when a young couple appears, offering a bottle of wine. As they introduce themselves as new neighbors John and Pony Jones, you learn Mister and Misses are named Bob and Jennifer Jones. Four Joneses, one neighborhood. What are the odds?

At this point, the dialogue starts throwing off sparks, hilarious one-liners and abrupt observations, and you finally realize what felt off at first. It’s like watching a play about real people, all of whom are a little bit weird.

You’ve stepped into an alternate universe populated by strangers, but they all feel so damn familiar. You’re listening to non-sequitur dialogue, but it mirrors the scattershot logic of your brain. The Realistic Joneses is realistic, yes; it’s a human, authentic comedy, but it’s also borderline absurd.

Welcome to the wild world of Will Eno, the playwright who penned Joneses in 2014. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, Eno is known for his unique brand of comedy, which turns on quirky, true-to-life conversation.

Fran Smith, the director of Live Arts’ version of Joneses, certainly had her work cut out for her. A play like this depends on timing, nuance and actors who can take their cues apropos of nothing.

To her credit, Smith gives her audience a world that ought to do Eno proud. She’s given her actors room to play, to deepen their characters and develop unscripted backstories that rush into the silence between sentences. Like the simple but effective set pieces, we understand how a half-formed compliment or bad joke conveys discomfort, or longing, or lust.

The Realistic Joneses can be described as a series of short sketches happening in chronological order. Each sketch features a few (or all) of the same four characters. Time is progressing, and a plot is unfolding, but it rambles and hints rather than progressing in strong, linear strokes.

For that reason, perhaps, I found myself getting impatient somewhere in the first act. More thematic development! More narrative clarity! Show me some progress and make me care!

Beneath my brain’s demands, however, I recognized Eno’s integrity. This show is committed to authentic patterns of human behavior. I couldn’t fairly demand a cinematic character breakthrough every time someone cleaned the kitchen.

By the second act, though, I was fully invested. I saw glimpses of depth in each of the characters, I craved resolution to unfolding mysteries, and I definitely wanted to laugh some more.

In fact, the actors deserve applause for bringing this show to life. In the wrong hands, I’m sure it could easily be rendered unwatchable, but Live Arts’ version was actually fun. 

I loved Jack Walker’s manic take on John Jones, the young, doting husband full of quirks and secrets. He embraced his character’s most unusual brain, hardening with anger, softening with pain, and delivered one-liners with total conviction. (My personal favorite: “I saw you crying and eating a PowerBar, and I thought, ‘Wow. That is one sad, busy person.’”)

Adrienne Oliver plays Pony Jones, a germophobe who tends to avoid thinking too hard about the hard stuff. She warms her character’s self-centered behavior with earnest sweetness and flickers of self-doubt, holding fast to the good in herself and others despite any evidence to the contrary.

Jennifer Jones is the long-suffering wife who gives up her job and her travel dreams to become a full-time caregiver. Kate Adamson manages to express the full range of her character’s tangled emotions—frustration, tenderness, outrage and resignation—often in just a few sentences.

Bill LeSueur (C-VILLE Weekly’s creative director) plays Bob, who looks at his own mortality sideways. Bob joins us closed off, self-centered and awkward, but LeSueur’s blossoming across two acts was incredibly satisfying.

Lucky, because The Realistic Joneses isn’t the sort of play that gives you a satisfying ending. It’s not unhappy or frustrating, I’m pleased to say, but it doesn’t wrap up with a neat little bow.

It’s like life, after all. Most chapters don’t end with a scripted flourish and a heroic kiss. It’s more like an unsung conversation or the hoot of an owl, a moment that passes without our awareness and appears only in hindsight how whole and human it was.

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ARTS Pick: The Realistic Joneses

Jack Walker and Adrienne Oliver play couple John and Pony Jones in Live Arts' production of The Realistic Joneses. Photo by Will Kerner

Merging the profound with the trivial, Will Eno’s absurdist script for The Realistic Joneses plays out like a tough-topic sketch comedy. When new neighbors arrive, two couples get to know each other through unlikely circumstances that bring them together and push them apart in unexpected ways. The Hollywood Reporter calls the story a “mordant, melancholy existential sitcom.”

Runs through May 13. $20-25, times vary. Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. 977-4177.