This North Coast Weekend and Coming Attractions

Sanctuary Stage presents its second annual 10 Minute Play-in-a-Day event on Saturday at 7 pm at the Eureka Theater. Beginning Friday night, six playwrights, six directors and up to 18 actors will create a ten minute play from scratch, and these six resulting efforts will hit the stage Saturday.

I participated last year, and wrote about it here. Bob Doran writes about it in the Journal this week--including writing about me writing about it; and Beti Trauth previews the process at the T-S. I'm not involved in it this year--for all the reasons I hinted at at the end of my piece on last year's--but I wish everyone well who is doing it. I still recall it as a good experience, something to do once, although in my case one that hasn't seemed to lead anywhere.

I also note in the Journal a review of the San Francisco production of Tom Stoppard's Rock & Roll; review by Jay Herzog. Lucky he got to see it, is all I've got to say.

Otherwise, The Merry Wives of Windsor continues at North Coast Rep. In the wings: The Michael Frayn comedy Noises Off opens at Ferndale Rep next weekend, and the HSU production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale opens the following week.

"Memories" at Signature Stage

Melissa Lawson and Tinamarie Ivey in
"Memories," Volume 1 in the year-long project
called Shades of Grey, by Signature Stage. It
plays this weekend only at the Eureka Theater.

Don't Forget to Remember: Memories at Signature Stage

There are these paradoxes: theatre, like movies, TV and major-publisher literature, is increasingly created by the young, to the extent that a writer for the Dramatist Guild’s magazine felt compelled to bravely suggest that good new plays could actually be written by playwrights over the age of 30. Yet theatre audiences are consistently and increasingly older.

And while arts and entertainment coverage in the local press is increasingly skewed to a young demographic (which is statistically less likely to read newspapers), Humboldt County’s population trends older.

But there are some attempts on local stages to address aspects of later life. For the past few seasons Ferndale Rep has produced a senior show, and brought this year’s play—by Humboldt’s own Dave Silverbrand—to the Eureka Theatre, where, not entirely coincidentally, the resident company called Signature Stage is beginning a year-long project exploring issues of aging called “Shades of Grey.”

Dan Stone and Tinamarie Ivey, founders of Signature Stage, together with the multi-talented Melissa Lawson and the omni-talented Gretha Omey, created the first show in this series, entitled “Memories,” on stage at the Eureka Theatre this weekend.

“Memories” is a theatrical mash-up of three plays that deal in different ways with the subject: Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape and Lost by Mary Louise Wilson, bookended by slices of Beckett’s Come and Go. After interviews and interactions with seniors, the ensemble created this experimental work-in-progress, which uses masks, movement, light and music as well as speech to suggest the fluid logic of dreams and memories.

As Gretha Omey suggested in the talk-back after the first preview performance last weekend, experimental theatre is by its nature more open to individual impressions. So here are mine:

The basic staging of Omey on one side interpreting snippets of Krapp’s Last Tape, while Lawson and Ivey performed scenes from Lost on the other worked well to evoke two perspectives on the topic: On the one side, the tragic or at least melancholic outcome of a man’s dimly recalled recurrent illusions, obsessions, unfulfilled promise and other losses, are emphasized by Omey’s slowly eloquent gestures. On the other, the apparently farcical preparations of two high-spirited women (delightfully performed by Lawson and Ivey) getting ready for a night out, feature so many consecutive senior moments that it takes forever for them to get out the door. Yet there are absurdly comic aspects to Krapp (even more so in the full Beckett play), and poignancy in the ladies who are lost.

All three performers enliven the evocative masks created by Dan Stone, who also edited the texts and directed. In moments when the characters reverted to youth, the masks came off to reveal the person inside, who is always younger than proclaimed by the mask each is forced by age to wear. Lighting (by Dan Stone) and especially the music (composed by Dan Stone) were essential to the performance. The Eureka Theatre is a huge place, but all of these elements contributed to the success of this intimate experiment. Maybe it’s the product of a youth misspent in movie palaces, but I’m comfortable in that theatre.

Then afterwards, the night sky outside was clear and Jupiter, Saturn and Mars were brightly visible (none of them, as far as I know, by Dan Stone.) Memories is at the Eureka Theatre this Thursday, Friday and Saturday (August 7-9) at 8 pm.

As for such projects regarding elders, while I welcome attempts to explore the vagaries of aging, I don’t think theatre about the old or for older audiences needs to concentrate exclusively on what is lost or troublesome. It seems to me rather that what theatre and this society are losing is the irreplaceable perspective of those who have lived long enough to actually have perspective, and maybe even to have learned something.

This North Coast Weekend: Godspell and More

Three shows open this weekend (four if you count the Ooh La La revue at the Eagle House):

Sanctuary Stage officially opens the "Memories" show of their Shades of Grey series at the Eureka Theatre, Thursday-Saturday at 8 pm. I'll post my review later today.

Ferndale Rep opens Godspell Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm. A little more on that show below.

Humboldt Light Opera opens The Wizard of Oz Friday and Saturday at 7:30 in the Van Duzer, with a 2 pm matinee on Sunday. It's described as featuring music and lyrics from the feature film.

Jeff DeMark continues his Willow Creek series with Writing My Way Out of Adolescence at 8:30 pm Saturday at the Redbud Theatre. Lend Me A Tenor continues at North Coast Rep.

Now here's the short preview of Godspell from my Journal column, with one correction--my editor, evidently not a Charlotte Bronte fan, changed a line about the off-stage romance which in some ways was at the heart of this production, or at least of my story about it. See if you can spot what I mean...

Back in 1996, Marilyn McCormick began her tenure as Artistic Director of the Ferndale Repertory Theatre with a production of Godspell, a musical that had a family connection: her sister Gilmer, who followed her to study drama at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University), was in the original cast when her fellow Tech student John-Michael Tebelek created it.

When Godspell moved to New York in 1971 with a new score, Stephen Reinhardt was hired as its musical director. That’s how he met Gilmer McCormick, and Reader, she married him. So when Marilyn suggested that Godspell should also be her last show as Artistic Director, her sister and brother-in-law came up from Los Angeles to put it on. It starts this weekend.

Gilmer McCormick directs, Stephen Reinhardt choreographs, but there’s also lots of local talent involved, including the cast of Patrick Croft, Bob Beideman, Denim Ohmit, Anthony Hughes, Tina Beideman, Shannan Dailey, Laureen Savage, Monica Schallert, Erin Jones-Martin and Dion Davis.

“It’s an excellent example of ensemble theatre, “Reinhardt told me. “This group reminds me of the original—all these wonderful kids, everyone contributing their talent to the whole. It’s very high energy, very funny, with totally infectious music—even all these years later.”

But this musical based on aspects of the life of Christ as told in the Gospel of Matthew is also “a transformative experience,” he said. “It’s reverent in its own way, and very honest about the gospels.”

This North Coast Weekend

Ferndale Rep and the Senior Repertory Company open Dave Silverbrand's comedy, Make Mine Metamucil, directed by Denise Ryles, at the Rep theatre in Ferndale, Friday and Saturday at 8, Sunday at 2p.m. But if you're in the Eureka/Arcata area and gas prices are stunting your social life, be advised, there will be two performances at the Eureka Theatre later in the month (July 26 at 8, July 27 at 2.)

The Mad River Festival moves on to its "Generation Next" portion with a piece called Curtains! by the southern Humboldt teen troupe, Recycled Youth. It is performed Friday and Saturday at 8, and Sunday at 7:30 in the Carlo. Sunday's performance is followed by the all-ages cabaret, Vaudeville Nouveau.

Sanctuary Stage has issued a CALL FOR ACTORS to perform a staged reading of a new play by Ken Gray--a Los Angeles playwright who has spent considerable time up here, and last year participated in the 24 hour 10 Minute Play event. Plus the play itself is Humboldt based. The rehearsal period begins August 11, and the performances are August 22 and 23. Contact Tinamarie for full details.

This North Coast Weekend (and coming attractions)

Dell'Arte's Korbel IV finishes its run this weekend, July 3-6. My Journal review is here. Jennifer Savage posts her Arcata Eye review here. The Festival’s adult cabaret, Red Light in Blue Lake, is after the July 5 Korbel performance, at 10:30 pm.

Ferndale Rep has its annual July 4th show, and will open its senior show, “Make Mine Metamucil” by local newsie and playwright Dave Silverbrand on the July 11th weekend in Ferndale, before moving it to the Eureka Theater July 26th.

North Coast Rep opens its next show, “Lend Me A Tenor” on July 17. Eureka Theater has summer classes in improvisation, commedia, acting and movement for adults, teens and children. Info at www.sanctuarystage.com.