Lemon Sky

"Lemon Sky" presented by the Keen Company at the Theatre Row, September 24, 2011

(photo by Richard Termine)

My experience with the Keen Company has usually been very good - solid productions and strong scripts.  This production is a tribute to the late Lanford Wilson in this autobiographical play.  This is the first time they have missed the mark for me.

17 year old Alan (Keith Nobbs) has traveled west to live with Douglas (Kevin Kilner) his estranged father who has remarried and has two sons by his second wife Ronnie (Kellie Overbey).  Douglas is eager to make up for lost time, and Alan is at first receptive, but as time passes,  Doug's old habits resurface.  Complicating the matter are the two foster daughters, Penny (Amie Tedesco) and Carol (Alyssa May Gold), who bring in needed cash to the household budget with their monthly state allocation.

Director Jonathan Silverstein has some strong actors among the uneven cast, but doesn't maximize their strengths.  Mr. Nobbs, last seen in a similar part as narrator/character in Broadway's Lombardi admirably carries much of the load, sharing lots of exposition in direct-address monologues, then quickly stepping into a scene as a confused high school graduate in the early 70s trying to figure out what his life will be. Ms. Overbey also steps up to an underwritten role.

Scenic designer Bill Clark makes excellent use of space for the California suburban ranch house setting, complemented by Josh Bradford's unobtrusive lighting.

Mr. Wilson has many other better-remembered titles in his canon.  Other than the autobiographical nature of this play, it's unclear what drew Keen Company to select it.

I'm hopeful for better results with their next production.

Lemon Sky runs through October 22.

Benefactors

"Benefactors" presented by Keen Company at Theatre Row, April 2, 2011

Photo: Richard Termine, Theatremania

Once again, Carl Forsman and Keen Company prove that producing off-Broadway with a limited budget doesn't have to look like community theatre.  Their current revival of Michael Frayn's Benefactors is a well-paced and thoughtful presentation of two couples in semi-urban London, struggling to be helpful to each other without getting too involved in each other's business.

It's the late 60s and David (Daniel Jenkins) has been assigned the impossible urban renewal task of tearing down a shabby and dying neighborhood, and building new housing to increase the population density, while improving life for the residents.  His wife Jane (Vivienne Benesch) supports the effort, surveying the displaced and helping push the change through.  Neighbors Colin (Stephen Barker Turner) and Sheila (Deanne Lorrette) spend as much or more time at  Daniel and Jane's than they do at home.  Sheila can't quite seem to get ahead of the tasks of running her household, preparing meals and seeing to their two children.  Most days Jane feeds everyone tea and dinner.

Spoiler Alert

As the project faces political opposition, Colin loses his job, and he and Sheila struggle and separate.  Colin takes up the opposition's cause, increasing the already heightened tension after Sheila has moved in with David and Jane.

Colin, David and Jane all serve as benefactors in one form or another.  Colin, pushing the agenda of the political opposition, David, trying to build better housing for the less fortunate and ultimately, Jane, who ends up helping everyone in one way or another throughout the play.

Director Carl Forsman has assembled a strong cast and generally keeps things moving along.  There are a couple of scenes that get bogged down in the construction and design details where additional visuals might have helped.  Ms. Benesch's Jane is the most powerful performance of the evening, balancing love and loyalty to her husband while making the effort to find and express her own voice in the heyday of "Women's Liberation" at the time. Dane Laffrey's simple and elegant set conveys both the period and the concept of construction with walls of gray-washed plywood.

Benefactors runs through April 30, 2011.

Finding Focus on a Dream

"The Conscientious Objector" presented by the Keen Company at the Clurman Theatre, Theatre Row, March 11, 2008

Michael Murphy's play presents us with Martin Luther King, Jr. at the height of his reign as a civil rights leader. The program notes that while it "...is first and foremost a play. It is a dramatization and some liberties were taken." Personally, I can only vaguely remember when Dr. King was shot in Memphis in 1968, so I cannot speak to the historical accuracy in Mr. Murphy's work, or lack thereof.

What Mr. Murphy does give us in his interpretation of Dr. King (DB Woodside), is a reluctant and unsure man. The evening begins in 1965 when Dr. King first spoke out against the Vietnam War. Mr. Murphy puts forth that Dr. King felt compelled to take this position despite the fact that it would pull him away from the civil rights struggle. He has written a Dr. King who practically bows and scrapes in the first meeting we see with Lyndon Johnson (John Cullum). President Johnson needs Dr. King to back off the Vietnam issue so that he can continue to get similar legislation passed to the Voting Rights Act. King retreats briefly, but can't disregard the issue for the sake of politics. His advisers, Ralph Abernathy (Bryan Hicks), Stanley Levison (Steve Routman), Andrew Young (James Miles) also want him to choose his battles and stay with those he can win. James Bevel (Jimonn Cole) is the lone dissenter of his supporters and keeps pushing him to fight against the Vietnam war.

Mr. Woodside's King is certainly the reluctant hero. His resolve only forms when pushed forward by others whom he respects, or when forced on the defensive. I'm afraid, though, Mr. Woodside (and Mr. Forsman) have been very poorly served by their dialect coach, Meagan Prahl. I've complained about inaccurate southern accents before, and Mr. Woodside's is simply appalling. I would much rather he had spent his time finding the rhythm and music in King's voice and making the role his own. Consider the choices that Frank Langella and Anthony Hopkins made in their respective interpretations of Richard Nixon. Neither imitates, yet both captured the character in vastly different ways.

Note to Ms. Prahl: While I congratulate you on your first coaching gig, be informed that substituting "uh" for "er" sounds and "eh" for "ee" do not a southern accent make. I have no idea where you grew up, but the Brown/Trinity Consortium pedigree leads me to conclude it was well above the Mason-Dixon Line. I know you're excited about your coaching debut in NYC, but you may want to consider spending your coaching fee to pay the Keen to reprint their playbills without your credit for the remainder of the run.

As Lyndon Johnson, Mr. Cullum (thankfully) avoids an imitation of the late president. He also had significant struggles getting his lines out. Having been in previews for a week, one might expect more from such an accomplished actor.

Rachel Leslie's Coretta Scott King gets little do to, other than look lovely and concerned. Seemed a bit of a waste of talent to me.

Mr. Cole's James Bevel suffers from the substitution of volume for passion at the expense of diction and clarity. Bryan Hicks as Ralph Abernathy couldn't pick up a cue if the other actors dropped it in his lap. Jonathan Hogan, in multiple roles, demonstrates the kind of skill one obtains after 25 years with Circle Rep, not to mention his numerous Broadway, film and television appearances. The younger actors in this cast would do well to study his performance and choices.

Director Carl Forsman seems at times overwhelmed by the material (or at least by the actors in it), unable to fine tune performances when needed. At other times, his touches are quite sensitive and thoughtful - the scene when Coretta is boosting Martin up on the telephone, knowing exactly what his physical appearance is and mothering him in support to give.

Once again, Beowulf Boritt's set is the real star of this production. An American flag drapes the back wall and gently raked stage, interpreted in shades of grey - an absence of color yet not reduced to simple black and white. Josh Bradford's lights make a good start, but could use a bit more refinement to distinguish time and location on the abstract set.

I admire the efforts of the Keen Company. I think this is a group who truly attempts to create valid and relevant theatre in New York. I look forward to their next outing.

I Think She Was Married to Ernest Hemingway

"The Maddening Truth" presented by the Keen Company at the Clurman @ Theater Row, February 7, 2008

The Keen's latest production maintains their high standard of production values with a beautiful set by Beowulf Borittt and serviceable lighting and costumes by Josh Bradford and Theresa Squire, respectively.

The play is a less successful piece by David Hay, whose writing includes an eclectic array of independent films and articles on art and architecture as well as this and another soon-to-be-produced play. The playbill notes state: "The events in this play are inspired by the life of Martha Gellhorn." Ms. Gellhorn (Lisa Emery) was an active war correspondent covering conflicts from Franco's Spain to the liberation of the concentration camps at Dachau to Vietnam to the US invasion into Panama. She was also the third wife of Ernest Hemingway. Mr. Hay takes this fertile opportunity and spins it into a less than interesting mix of action and flashback, awkardly fashioned around a professional relationship with another writer, Peter Wilkinson (William Connell). Mr. Hay pulls from many devices from the theatrical bag of tricks: direct address to the audience, flashbacks, radio broadcast readings from Ms. Gellhorn's writing, internal dialogs with a dead Hemingway.

In the end, the dialog feels forced and unnatural, Ms. Gellhorn's lines sound particularly British, though she was American born and raised (repeated used of words like "piffle," "palaver," and "buck up").

Ms. Emery works hard, but is ultimately miscast since her character is in her middle 60's for the majority of the play. She does her best to make the ill-fitting lines work. Mr. Connell is more successful as the young writer who befriends Ms. Gellhorn, alienates her and regains the friendship late in her life. His British accent helps him through the stilted language he's given with a bit of Hugh Grant style. Peter Benson as Wilkinson's boss at the unnamed British newspaper is wasted here in a small role. Terry Layman doubles as Hemingway and a radio actor. He doesn't have enough material to communicate the first character and is merely an instrument of the plot as the second. Richard Bekins as Laurance Rockefeller does what he can with the apology of a role he's taken.

Director Carl Forsman has also worked hard to make a compelling evening and manages to do so in spite of the weak material. Pacing is good and he makes some nice choices to add depth to the play.

A Moment at the Table

"The Dining Room" presented by the Keen Company at The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row, September 27, 2007

A. R. Gurney's wonderful 1981 play presents a series of overlapping vignettes that give a glimpse into the many ways a dining room is part of the core of the American WASP. We get to be as much voyeur as audience in this delightful production by the Keen Company. With a cast of six, three men and three women, each actor plays so many roles that they are described in the program as merely, Man 1, Woman 2, and so on.

Director Jonathan Silverstein has assembled a pretty even cast, including Dan Daily, Claire Lautier, Mark J. Sullivan, Samantha Soule, Anne McDonough and Timothy McCracken. Their ages span a generation, but each actor at one point or another plays either parent or child. Stronger among the cast were Samantha Soule, Anne McDonough and Dan Daily.

Ms. Soule had a rather lovely moment as an aging, doddering, family matriarch who no longer recognizes her own family and is terribly uncomfortable at her son's home on Thanksgiving. When she asks to be driven back to her mother's house, her confusion at being told the house was no longer standing was quite touching.

Ms. McDonough also gave a nice turn as an aging aunt, showing her grand-nephew the ins and outs of tableware, from the silver flatware, to the china to the crystal finger bowls. When he reveals that his interest is only for a college anthropology project, her indignation is palpable. She was soon channeling my 13 year old niece with every requisite "duh!"

Mr. Silverstein keeps the pace moving very nicely across Dana Moran Williams' lovely set of a bordered parquet floor with an eclectic mix of Chippendale and Sheraton style furniture, topped with an clever ceiling treatment that turned the Clurman's black box into a much warmer space. Josh Bradford's lighting complemented nicely. Theresa Squires costumes, all in shades of blue tied together well.

I remember seeing "The Dining Room" in the mid 1980s, in another wonderful production under the direction of someone less than talented. Mr. Gurney's writing truly comes through as the strength of this show. It's a wonder there aren't more productions of it - it almost seems fool-proof.

As I Speak of This, I'm Trying to be Kind

"Tea & Sympathy" presented by Keen Company at the Clurman Theatre, Theatre Row, April 3, 2007

I have a certain fondness for "T&S" because one of the first acting scenes I was assigned in high school was from this play.

I was pleased at how well Robert Anderson's script held up since its initial Broadway run of 712 performances beginning in 1953. His tale of a sensitive young man suffering under unfounded suspicions remains a compelling tale.

It's less fortunate that this production is so uneven. As Tom Lee, Dan McCabe (who's building some nice off-Broadway credits) brings the timeless discomfort of a sensitive teenager trying to fit into a boy's school which values virility over intelligence.

Seeing qualities in Tom that remind her of her late first husband, Laura (Heidi Ambruster) aches over his pain and is eager to make up for things she didn't do or couldn't have done the first time. Ms. Ambruster, pretty and eager, doesn't manage to bring the quiet dignity that this role requires. She seems stuck in her craft of awkward poses, arms akimbo, and looking off to nowhere in particular when delivering some of her lines. While Laura is not happy in her current environment, she is certainly comfortable in her own skin. Ms. Ambruster seems to have missed that. She is almost glib when she talks about her first husband, hidden behind a nervous smile that undercuts many of her lines.

As Laura's husband Bill, who is the housemaster where Tom lives, he's got his own set of issues demonstrated by a glimpse of paranoia when he shares his own difficulties with Laura about growing from a boy into a man, almost confessing to the sins of which Tom is wrongfully accused.

As Al, Tom's uber-jock roommate, Brandon Espinosa has a nice turn trying to be loyal to his friend, but torn by pressure from classmates and his own father to separate himself from Tom.

Tom's father, Herb Lee (Dan Cordle) looks more uncomfortable about being on stage that uncomfortable about the situation with his character's son.

Director Jonathan Silverstein treats the script with a nice touch of reverence, but doesn't seem to have been able to communicate that to his cast, with such uneven performances. The set by Beowulf Boritt and Jo Winiarski looks like some of their concept might have gotten lost in translation or just jumbled in the metaphors. All grey set pieces on a wash of blue stage and walls, with a roof frame outline that extends over the audience leaves me wondering how many things they are trying to say. Is the empty roof trying to convey inclusion and safety? Are the "shades of grey" a representation of perception and interpretation? Is the blue background a false sense of the blue-sky 1950s? (If so, the shade of blue was a bit dark.) Josh Bradford's lighting accomodates the proceedings.