Ideation

Brought to New York by the San Francisco Playhouse, Ideation starts as a workplace dramedy set in the generic conference room of a nameless corporation. Hannah is trying to put her assistant Scooter in his place by making him prepare the room for the brain storming session, while the spoiled brat tries to play on equal terms with senior staff, Brock, Ted and Sander. Scoter ends up being fired despite the fact that he is the son of a member of the board of directors. 

photo Carol Rosegg

As the team starts working on their secret assignment, project Senna, we quickly realize that something is terribly wrong with these people and the job they are doing. They joke around discussing what the plural for “crematorium” would be while designing one for the disposal of one million dead bodies. And when Sandeep points out that this is unethical, Brock quotes his colleague from a different project: “Laugh about it, cry about it, the job is the job”. Ted supports this approach and wants to finish with the assignment in time so he can make it to his daughter’s soccer game. 

More and more details of the personal lives of these four come up as they continue working and start questioning the morality of what they are doing and if they should continue doing it due to the limited information they’ve been provided. Conspiracy theories start coming to play and mad graphs appear on the erasing board. Never has waiting until somebody stops writing seemed so suspenseful!

The time limit the team is given to complete the assignment (which equals the running time of the play) has the effect of a ticking bomb. The closer to the 00:00 mark, the wilder the theories, and the madder the participants become. The playwright Aaron Loeb gave us a broad spectrum of human behavior in a critical situation under time pressure.

Here is sensitive and uncompromising Sandeep (Jason Kapoor); here is a witty joker Brock (Mark Anderson Phillips) with his lively mimic and no shame for what he is doing and yet he spins down the funnel of paranoia the first. Than there is Ted (Michael Ray Wisely), a friendly and down-to-earth man who is constantly trying to reason with everybody but snaps pretty aggressively a few times; and then there is Hannah (Carrie Paff) struggling to stay calm. She is probably in the most vulnerable position because of the team leadership obligations and her office affaire.

Director Josh Costello did an excellent job by enriching this single set play with action. Initially consisting mostly of dialogues and writing on the erasing board, the play doesn’t seem stale at all. Actors move around the room organically, motivated by their tasks and emotions. The choreography of the scene of looking for bugs and essentially destroying the office is especially beautiful.     

The transformation from a team of confident professionals with their polished looks and sunglasses to a bunch of mad paranoids trapped in the messy conference room by their fear is remarkable. They show their human side, which is not always pretty but which also includes the option of questioning and doubt. Operating the familiar business ideas and terms like Tier I and II, Vision Holder and so on, characters of Ideation are desperately trying to make sense of it all until the god-like voice of the chief executive, J.D., is calls via Skype and it is time to make the presentation.          

Death for Five Voices

Death for Five Voices is a chamber musical drama with Broadway ambition. It tells the story of a Renaissance composer named Carlo Gesualdo, famous for his musical genius as well as the fact that he entrapped and brutally murdered his wife with her lover.

There are only seven characters in the show played by seven actors: the troubled composer himself (Nathan Gardner), his wife Maria D’Avalos (Manna Nichols), his friend and, later, Maria’s lover Fabrizio Carafa (Nicholas Rodriguez), Carlos’s mother Giroloma Gesualdo (Meghan McGeary), his uncle Bishop Alfonso Gesualdo (Jeff Williams) and finally two servants, Pietro Marziale (Ryan Bauer-Walsh) and Sylvia Albana (L.R. Davidson).             

Voices intertwine into a beautiful and vibrant tapestry, which at times brings characters forward to tell their stories and then joins their voices into chorus for us to hear the storm of passions roaring in Gesualdo’s head. In the original score by Pitter Mills, we hear adaptations from music composed by Gesualdo, as well as some Renaissance inspired tunes. The solo and duet numbers are immediately followed by transitions without leaving any gaps for applause. Hence there is no chance to escape the oppressive atmosphere of Palazzo San Severo in Naples. 

Director Cara Reichel keeps up with the thickness and intensity of the score by making characters moving on stage in a ballet-like way impersonating voices in Carlo’s head. Two servants are moving furniture between numbers allowing for the seamless transitions between numerous scenes.

Scenic Design by Ann Bartek consists of a stone-coated columns cascading towards the depth of the stage. When somebody is exiting or entering the room, we see them serpentine between these columns, which gives us the impression of a dark and mazelike castle. The scenography utilizes the staircase leading to the balcony of the theater leaving no corner of the stage unused, which not only gave an opportunity to diversify the set, but also worked for the over all “thickness” of the show’s canvas.

Death for Five Voices features a bold lighting design by Susan M. Nicolson, which was a little disturbing. Saturated LED light and opposite color combinations that she uses aims to create something like Suspiria (dir. Dario Argento, 1977) but lands not far from catering hall lighting design.

With that said, I must admit that the contrast of this 21^st century lighting paired with costumes by Sidney Shannon, resembling clothes of 16^th-17^th century very closely, gives the Death for Five Voices its unique visual style and echoes the eclectic score. With that and a wonderful cast with no weak link the show is destined to make it to Broadway.

A Celebration of Harold Pinter

photo by Carol Rosegg

I know the place.
It is true.
Everything we do
Corrects the space
Between death and me
And you.

Harold Pinter 

This solo show of the English actor Julian Sands, directed by John Malkovich, is a deep and personal meditation on Harold Pinter’s poetry. On the bare stage, surrounded by cozy the blackness of The Irish Repertory Theater Sands unfolds the life of Pinter the playwright, the poet the political activist, the friend.

They first started working together in 2005 when Pinter asked Sands to recite a selection of Pinter’s poetry at the charity event in London. Pinter himself was unable to appear in front of the audience due to a medical condition and so began the collaboration, which later gave the fruit of this show. Sands shares his memories about working with Pinter among which is this pearl:

“When he gave me one of the poems I said: “Harold, I think there is a typo here. It says here “corrects” and it surely should be “connects”. “You just read it, one day you might understand”!”

The poem he is referring to is “I know the place” which became a sort of the emblem of the evening and was repeated a few times. “I know the place” as a symbolic epigraph for the show. “I know the place” comes to Sands memory again when he is telling jokes about Pinter’s temper mocking his voice in a friendly manner. Finally, “I know the place” appears as an almost epitaph at the end of the show.

 A Celebration of Harold Pinter is reminiscent of a funeral speech, with the exception of the pain of recent loss. A well-fitted, dark gray suit on Julian Sanders against the black velvet curtains of the theater only makes this impression stronger. There is no “acting” so to speak, Sands is being himself. 

Besides Pinter’s poetry and prose fragments, we hear other people’s stories and impressions of him, including some quotes from the book written by Harold Pinter’s second wife, Antonia Fraser, “Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter”. Sands handles other peoples words with great care, adding them as strokes to the verbal portrait of Harold Pinter he paints in front of us. This is not a ceremonial portrait of Harold Pinter the playwright, but a very intimate portrait of the soul of the poet.

The Widower’s Houses

photo by Marielle Solan

The Widower’s Houses, the first play written by George Bernard Shaw was completed in 1892. This is the story of arranging a marriage between a young aristocrat, Dr. Harry Trench (Jeremy Beck), and the daughter of a self-made businessman, Blanche Sartorius (Talene Monahon). It starts as a romantic comedy with Harry accompanied by his friend William De Burgh Cokane (Jonathan Hadley) meeting Sartorius (Terry Layman) and his daughter on vacation in Germany. 

At first everything seems boringly light-minded: a naïve young man falling in love with a hot-tempered girl and flirting with her behind her father’s back while his restless friend Billy is trying to please the father and to ensure that the marriage arrangements go smoothly.      

But things start to get ugly once the company comes home to London. Harry finds out that his future father in law is a slum lord and the fortune that comes with the marriage comes from the pockets of the most poor and miserable. The knowledge of this nasty reality for their economic conditions bursts into his perfect world through the encounter with Lickcheese, the rent collector (John Plumpis). The decision to make is not an easy one. Should he join forces and finances with Sartorius for the sake of money or should he remain faithful to his humane beliefs and stay uninvolved?

The feeling of being trapped within the economic system and the pressure to make a decision is conveyed by the lighting design (by Peter West) in two brief scenes, one in the very beginning and one towards the end. Harry steps down from the platform on which the most of the action takes place and stairs at the audience. We can only see his face lit brightly from beneath. The rest of the characters are aligned, heads turned towards Harry.

The same lighting technique is featured in the scene following Harry’s discovery about the origin of his bride’s money. He is numb on the sofa, his thoughts are spinning and we hear “voices in his head”. These simple and cleverly staged moments spread an uncanny, Kafkaesque mood on the entire production, which is otherwise very conventional.

Another gem of The Widower’s Houses is Talen Monahon portraying Blanche, a character that could make an interesting case for Dr. Sigmund Freud. She starts strong, as a manipulative gold-digger with an inherited sense for a good deal. With Harry, not only did she find a romantic adventure and a prospect of a beneficial marriage but also another potential “puppet” to serve her and admire her.

Throughout the play we observe her violently abusing her maid (Hanna Cheek), puling her hair, using her as a human recliner, yelling in her ear that she hates the very sight of her. Blanche is also trying to manipulate her father and in an intimate conversation with Sartorius, Blanche whines that she doesn’t want to get married; all she wants is to stay with her father forever. And yet she doesn’t mind being a “down payment” when the business deal is on the table.

          

The Widower’s Houses, produced by The Actors Company Theater and directed by David Staller, overall leaves an uneven impression. With its very good cast dressed and styled flawlessly in costumes by Barbara A. Bell, but a flimsy set design (by Brian Prather), it seems like the set was built for a different, smaller stage that was too tight for some of the scenes. For example, the slapstick sequence between Blanche and Harry.

The only time when Staller was able to utilize the dead space was the moment when Harry is making a life changing decision. By practically stopping the play and making Harry step out of the stage, Staller shows the significance of the moment not only for the individual character but for all of Europe, with its rapidly changing class system.