April, 2010

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12 Angry Men by Theatre Downtown

Monday, April 19th, 2010

The folks at Theatre Downtown are  performing the play 12 Angry Men.  I saw it Friday night and it was interesting, entertaining, and amazingly current.  It’s especially fun seeing the available diversity of the 13 male actors (and 13 almost entirely different characters) all on one stage in Birmingham, Alabama.  Also, since all the guys are in view almost all the time, it’s an unusual opportunity to let yourself listen to the dialogue, but wander your eyes around among the background actors and watch all the different acting and reacting.

The director, Mel Christian, posted the following “teaser” promotion on Facebook in the days leading up to the show.  I liked this kind of day-by-day advertising so much, I thought I’d just reprint them (with slight editing).  It’s such a great idea because it made me pay attention every day, REMEMBER that the show was coming up, and WANT to go see it.  Excellent marketing!

  1. Twelve days!  Twelve Angry Men!  Let’s count ‘em down!  Juror Number One Scott Nesmith is focused, consistent, dedicated, in the freakin’ moment and our history guru!  Billy Ray told me he’d be an asset.  Billy Ray knows all!  Thank you Juror One!
  2. Today’s tribute is to Juror 2 – Murrell Wilkinson!  Murrell gives our most timid juror a strong dramatic arc.  He’s able to take the few details the playwright provides and make them POP!  During the show you will see some interesting and endearing moments due to the work Scott and Murrell are doing.  I love it!
  3. Juror 3 is Brad Riegel!  I saw Brad in Pillowman more than three years ago and thought, THIS is a guy I wanna work with!  And what a joy to do two shows in a row!  Brad is gifted and passionate and completely generous, both as an actor AND a person!  Thanks for everything, Brad!
  4. Todays Juror of note is Terry Hermes!  This is my first time to work with Terry and what a prize!  He’s a complete taskmaster, very detailed, serious, yet warm and giving to his fellow actors.  You only have to give him a note once and it is signed, sealed, and delivered.  Director’s dream and Juror Four is Terry Hermes.
  5. I’m proud to introduce Rickey Frazier as Juror Five, the youngest member of our Jury!  Rickey has a wonderful intensity and it’s so gratifying to watch the way he plays off our veteran performers.   Kudos to Five!!!!
  6. Am so enamored of Steven Ross I’d do a NY play every year just to hear him do the dialect.  He’s given Six a genuine workin’ man toughness mixed with empathy.  Steven can take the simplest phrases and make them resonate.  He’s methodical, detailed and ever present.  Our bad ass with the big heart is Steven Ross: Juror Number Six!
  7. There is something electric about Doug O’Neil.  When he enters a scene the energy heightens, hell it goes to the moon!  The guys will tell you my favorite directing word is “crackle.”  Doug O’Neil snaps, crackles and pops! As our invasive, wise-cracking salesman he gives us funny moments, but there’s an edge there, too.  You’ll love to hate him!  Juror Seven is Douglas O’Neil, Jr.
  8. Patrick Johnson!  My glorious excavation!  I’d never met him when he auditioned and was knocked out by his incredible subtlety; how his generosity prompted the others to thrive.  THAT is what one looks for in a lead.  Patrick has an exquisite stillness next to Brad’s jangling ferocity.  And no wimp our Juror 8.  Simmering with passionate insight and strength, Patrick Johnson has made the role his own!
  9. John Wright, Jr. is the Gielgud of our masculine collective.  The room goes silent when filled with his beautiful, commanding voice.  He imbues “the old man” as one clinging to a last vestige of dignity, broken but still able to jar the others into introspection and empathy.  He is a Birmingham legend, considerate gentleman, and silly boy.  I love John Wright, Jr. as Juror #9!
  10. Ron Dauphinee was my biggest surprise at auditions.  I was leaning towards a gentler, kinder character for him when WHAM he read #10’s monologue with such chilling realism I almost swallowed my tongue!  He conjures up some pretty slimy dark forces for this role, whew!  He’s a thinking actor, intense about the process and it shows in every detail of this portrayal. Ron Dauphinee is Juror 10!
  11. Billy Ray devours writing, directing, and acting with an enthusiasm that is contagious and endearing.  Billy Ray’s “foreigner” has a beautiful, earnest, and surprisingly fiery presence, with one moment that almost makes me spring from my seat every time!  You’re going to be pretty surprised by his amazing work.  Not that he isn’t ALWAYS amazing, he’s just particularly amazing for ME!  Billy Ray Brewton is Juror #11!
  12. I’d like to say I was artsy and cast against type but in reality Ken Moorer is just as smooth & good natured as the character he plays.  He embodies Juror 12 with a boyish humor (LOVE his giggle) & a sense of truly wanting to do the right thing.  Like acorn to mighty oak, I had only to cast . . . and watch him grow.  A quiet, reliable, positive actor like Ken Moorer is a gift!  He’s my Juror #12!
  13. Meet our 13th man, the wonderful, gracious, perpetually smiling Dave Crabb – who plays the Guard.  Dave has been so committed and engaged in the process.  And I HAVE to kudo the best Assistant Director EVER, Christoph Hooks.  Christoph has made this daunting process a joy.  He is insightful and enthusiastic and most importantly, treats everyone with patience and grace.

Thanks again to Billy Ray Brewton and Theatre Downtown for putting together a season of good entertainment.

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Dance Critic Wins Pulitzer

Friday, April 16th, 2010

If you’re here because you’re interested in dance, I’d like to make you aware that Sarah Kaufman – dance critic for the Washington Post – was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer for criticism.

I’ve already linked to a couple of her earlier articles here and here.  You can also find her article on Michael Jackson here.

I’m going to reprint the first part of her excellent article, “One-Man Movement”, but you can find the rest of it at this link.

***

One-Man Movement: Cary Grant Set a Pace for On-Screen Grace That’s Left His Followers Mostly in the Dust

By Sarah Kaufman
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Washington Post Staff Writer

“North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s sprawling 1959 thriller that takes us to the top of Mount Rushmore by way of a near-miss with a killer crop-duster, begins with the basics. A man is walking down a corridor.

But because the man is Cary Grant, the moment is anything but ordinary. He has us at the first step: that long, brisk stride and its driving rhythm, a ticktock pace that telegraphs purpose, clarity and elegant efficiency. We watch him stroll out of an elevator toward the street, dictating correspondence to the secretary at his side. He’s not some stiff, starchy suit. There’s a relaxed, easy give in Grant’s body as he moves, and as he leans toward his secretary while he speaks to her — he’s so very pleased with his own labors, and yet so exquisitely courteous to his assistant. A nice guy, and smooth as whiskey, too. He’s getting further under our skin with every move.

What Grant’s character, advertising executive Roger Thornhill, is actually saying in this scene isn’t nearly as important as his movement. It’s the movement that hooks us. It always does. Intuition? Training? Astute directors? Whatever its source, Grant knew a timeless truth: There is nothing we watch so keenly as the human body in action, because the way it moves tells a story.

The art of moving well, call it kinetic acting, has nearly vanished from movies today. I don’t mean among dancers on the big screen — that’s a different subject altogether — but among actors. The attention to physical expression, to one’s carriage and gestures and their dramatic and emotional implications, has faded. I’m talking about a sense of grace. About acting that involves a meaningful motor impulse. A signature style of moving, bigger than just body language or bits of what actors call “business” — lighting a cigarette, picking up a drink. Think of Gary Cooper’s quick, impatient stride across town to the church in “High Noon,” when he thinks he’ll be able to round up a posse among the worshipers, folks to join his fight against a group of killers. And then his stiff, pained walk back to town after he fails to find help. He doesn’t say a word, but the heaviness he feels is right there in his legs. You ache watching him.

A person’s way of moving through space tells us something on a base, primitive level. It’s animal to animal. It’s something so subtle you may not consciously notice it, but when an actor moves honestly and with intention, your eye will follow him anywhere.

The trouble is, you don’t see it that much. The buzz around this year’s Oscar favorites got me thinking about how the artistic trend in acting has gone from the external to the internal. We’re in the age of the close-up. Realism and psychological truth rule, and you find them in facial expression, in the little muscles around the eyes. The focus has tightened. Sure, there’s gobs of emphasis on sexy bodies, but the body as an expressive instrument just isn’t much in the picture.

Perhaps this is because actors aren’t formally trained in dance and movement much anymore, as they were in the early years of filmmaking. There’s also the invasion of psychoanalysis, and the rise of Method acting starting about a half-century or so ago, with its emphasis on emotion, interior motives and lots of mental preparation. Actors started questioning the precise blocking of action — the choreography of the scene — that was so prized by Grant, Cooper, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn and other stars going back to the 1930s and ’40s. For that era, physical elegance signaled inner elegance. Actors today seek more of a warts-and-all approach.

More at this link.

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Alabama Ballet: Serenade and Rooster

Friday, April 9th, 2010

From the 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein (starting with a statement from Jubal Harshaw):

“Abstract design is all right – for wallpaper or linoleum.  But art is the process of evoking pity and terror.  What modern artists do is pseudo-intellectual masturbation.  Creative art is intercourse, in which the artist renders emotional his audience.  These laddies who won’t deign to do that – or can’t – lost the public.  The ordinary bloke will not buy ‘art’ that leaves him unmoved.”

“Jubal, I’ve always wondered why I didn’t give a hoot for art.  I thought it was something missing in me.”

“Mmm, one does have to learn to look at art.  But it’s up to the artist to use language that can be understood.  Most of these jokers don’t want to use language you and I can learn; they would rather sneer because we ‘fail’ to see what they are driving at.”

***

For pretty much the whole past year, I’ve been looking forward to seeing the Alabama Ballet perform Rooster by Christopher Bruce.  As soon as I saw them advertise a piece that paired rock and roll (by the Rolling Stones, no less) with ballet, I knew I had to be there.  Rock is a language I understand.

In putting together this piece, Bruce used eight Rolling Stones songs (Little Red Rooster, Lady Jane, Not Fade Away, As Tears Go By, Paint It Black, Ruby Tuesday, Play With Fire, & Sympathy for the Devil).  I’ve never in my life had such a hard time at a public event repressing an urge to sing along.  How can you resist air-drumming to Paint It Black?  Is there really anybody who hasn’t been in a car and crooned “Gooooood-bye, Ruuuuuuu-by Tuesday, Who could hang a nyaaaame on you?”  Howabout the irresistableness of singing the “Who, Who?” backup vocals during Sympathy for the Devil?

And that’s the genius of it.  Stones music is accessible.  It’s a good choreographer working in a language that people can understand, rather than tacitly suggesting that it’s somehow my fault when all that instrumental, orchestral music might fail to move me.  The first person who puts ballet to Radiohead (or OutKast) gets a gold star.

Can there really be any disagreement that rock is popular music and that orchestral music is not?  No offense for fans of classical music, but if we held a popularity contest, it’d be a landslide.  For example, how many people last year bought tickets to rock shows versus those who bought tickets to classical music?  Or, go check what portion of Wal-Mart’s CD aisles are devoted to each.  Do you ever hear orchestral music played over the speakers at football games?  Is there really any chance that Tchaikovsky is going to make a comeback?

I would suggest that if you’re making a serious effort to try to sell dance tickets to a general audience, you might consider scheduling more dance that exploits popular music.  Turning that around, if you’re not using popular music, then you might consider whether you’re fully committed to inviting and welcoming the general public.

As an aside, it makes me wonder whether someone could use modern software to remix Tchaikovsky (or other classics) for the ballet and give it a modern beat.  Or whether it would’ve been awesome to have any decent rock band at the performance to cover these songs live.  Dance needs music.  And any live music makes it better.

Not to bury this point too deeply in the text, I loved it.  Just as importantly, I would bet that the dancers loved it.  And not just because they think they have to say they did – but because they were genuinely having a blast.  I could be wrong, but I think that kind of enthusiasm shows up in a performance.  All props to the guys (Gauen Alexander, Noah Hart, David Kiyak, Benjamin Linn & Brandon Ragland) and girls (Jennifer Ferrigno, Ellizabeth Gamble, Jordan Mercer, Chinatsu Owada & Noel Pollard).  Also, after mentioning her several times in a row, I think it’s probably worth saying that I might pay money just to watch Jennifer Ferrigno chew spaghetti.

Serenade was a perfect and beautiful compliment to Rooster and, as a whole performance, it made the Alabama Ballet cool.  Not in that way that teachers and colleges try to convince girls that it’s cool to study science and math.  But in a way that’s actually cool.  So much, that I have no problem saying that if you’re a Birmingham resident who tries to stay in the know, but you missed this performance, I think you really missed something.  And if the Alabama Ballet can’t use this as an opportunity to move towards the young, hip, and relevant, then it may be missing something equally as important.

Finally, I laughed out loud that the girls’ costumes in Rooster looked a touch like Sith Cheerleader uniforms.  Since no one but the hard-core dorks will grok that, I’ll provide links here, here, and here.  Way cool.

Thanks to Leslie Cooper and the Alabama Ballet for giving me the unique experience of looking forward to a ballet for almost a year (who knew that was possible?).

Posted in Birmingham, Dance | Comments Off