Dell'Arte Memories

When we were living in Pittsburgh, Margaret came back from a national theatre conference somewhere with a load of brochures and other handouts.  One day I spread them out on my bed and began reading the ones that looked most interesting.  I read about this theatre called Dell'Arte in some place with the lovely name of Blue Lake.  I liked what I read about theatre and community, theatre of place, nurturing and generating new work on the spot.

Margaret and I were both playwrights at the time.  It was more or less how we met.  When in the course of time she interviewed for some teaching jobs in California,  I was rooting for Humboldt: because of the climate, the redwoods and the sea, and the proximity to Indian tribes.  Nearby Dell'Arte was also part of the draw.

It turned out that Dell'Arte was not going to be a creative home for me, and I got a different role to play, as a theatre columnist, which I performed as best I could for the past 9 years. Dell'Arte was a big part of those years.

We started seeing Dell'Arte shows as soon as we got here in the fall of 1996.  I began writing about their shows in 2005.  I laughed, I was dazzled, I was frustrated, I appreciated, I was puzzled, I learned. But after all that time and all those shows, I'm still not sure what I think or feel about devised work or commedia.  Which means I've constantly been challenged and engaged, in the process of learning about these ways of doing theatre, and learning about my own responses.

I've certainly come to know more about and appreciate commedia and its role.
I've learned enough about "devised" or group-created theatre to know I can't understand it from the outside, though I expect the process is different for each project and with each group.

I love the idea (and when I've experienced it, the process) of a seat-of-the-pants group creation that's funny--a cabaret, a burlesque, a series of skits.  One of my dreams was a kind of theatrical That Was the Week That Was every month. But for a sustained, single theatre piece, i.e. a play,  I certainly haven't lost my preference for a playwright.

Of course the playwright's process may well include others. Some, maybe many playwrights work with the director, cast and other creative agents on the production, often reimagining and rewriting parts of the play.  I knew of one wonderful play that began with creative contributions from a class (Becoming Memories by Arthur Giron, which I've seen in three different productions, including one directed by Margaret Thomas Kelso.) And I've seen close up the contributions that actors as well as others can make to a play in process, at the O'Neill Center.

 But I can't help believing that the inchoate quality of some such productions, the missed opportunities for both depth and finish, for a vision is often a result of compromise or just too many cooks.  However, I've felt this not only with devised work, but with some plays that go through the workshop and development process, and come out homogenized or confused, or both.

It may not even be fair to compare devised work with the work of a playwright.  But I get the feeling that the first is fashionable now, crowding out the other.

But on with the shows...

Out there right now is the latest of Dell'Arte's annual Christmas holidays shows.  The performers and co-creators are generally from the Dell'Arte School, directed by Michael Fields, Joan Schirle or Ronlin Foreman.  Over the years I've seen them in at least four venues: the Carlo, the Van Duzer, the Adorni Center and McKinleyville High School.

For Dell'Arte, it keeps them visible in the communities, and gives the school's students some experience before audiences and especially in touring--that process of packing out, setting up, playing the show, breaking it down, packing it back in the truck, and heading for the next venue.  For audiences it is free holiday season entertainment,  near where they live.

I recall The Hunting of the Snark as the most visually impressive, with sets by Jody Sekas and costumes by Lydia Foreman.  This interpretation of the Lewis Carroll poem happened the same year (2007) as Ferndale Rep did a children's show based on the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice in Wonderland.

I remember images and impressions from other shows (one with a lot of doors and people running in and out, for instance.)

  But my favorite is the 2009 show, A Commedia Christmas Carol. That was the Dickens Christmas year, as NCRT did A Christmas Carol and Ferndale Rep did Oliver!

  This show gave us the framework of the familiar Dickens story but with contemporary twists (though none of them were Oliver.)  Scrooge's nephew and his wife, paragons of middle class virtue in Dickens, are spoiled Yuppies.  Most daring and most effective was Tiny Tim, not as a crippled waif, but as afflicted with the contemporary American scourges of obesity and asthma.

So it was contemporary, full of verbal as well as physical humor, and it was commedia, for Scrooge is a version of the ancient character type, the Miser.  And while it was not entirely faithful to the spirit of Dickens' tale, it gained by both resemblances and contrasts, and it pleased both children and adults on different levels.  This is perhaps different from saying it was a family show--I suppose some others were better at being that.

Throughout the year there might be another Dell'Arte Company show locally, they might tour, or simply be involved in other projects.  The School produces shows as projects from courses in clown work, melodrama, tragedy and so on.  In the spring are the culminating shows, the Finals and the Thesis Projects.

I've previewed and reviewed a number of these shows over this years.  For the purposes of this retrospective, I'm most interested in what simply comes to mind, without refreshing my memory by looking back at what I wrote about these shows, though doing so does tend to organize the fragments and images I spontaneously recall.

I remember the excitement, the ambition of Between Two Winters, a project in tragedy that had enough legs to travel.  I remember vividly the lovely story of Annie Edison Taylor, the first woman to deliberately tumble over Niagara Falls in a barrel, as one of the 2012 Thesis shows.

Many shows seemed like lesser variations on themes of Beckett, Kafka, etc. or constructed from a checklist of physical theatre skills, or elaborate illustrations of a complex and heartfelt idea that only the participants and their friends understand.  In other words, student work.

Occasionally however something original and whole emerged, and this happened just last spring with 'Night Mother, a Comedy.  The characters were believable, not caricatures, and the situation was fresh.  They reacted to each other, they changed or revealed other aspects of themselves.  But at the same time, there were familiar comic bits and tropes and basic situations. The performers were excellent.  It was a real play and a very funny one.

Not everything on stage has to be "a play" in that sense.  Using physical movement, visual design, sound and music, and words, a piece can be created with beautiful parts, images and impressions, that relate to each other and the whole, and to an  effect that is both cumulative and unified.  Care must be taken not to disturb it with anything that pushes the audience out of the experience; this is usually a narrative problem.

 But it is something else that Dell'Arte does--most recently with Elisabeth's Book, played last spring and summer.  This piece made very strong and lasting impressions.

Then there are the big, sprawling summer shows.  Unique on the North Coast, the Dell'Arte Company is a theatrical presence elsewhere in California and especially in Europe where it is artistically respected.  But the parent Company always returns for the outdoor show that begins the annual Mad River Festival.  There its relationship with a broad local audience is renewed.

My own favorite as the most successful evenings of theatre among these shows I've seen remains Blue Lake: The Opera.  But the most significant must be the Mary Jane shows.  There had been a long silence about Humboldt County's most important cash crop, which the first show broke in a big way.  Dell'Arte took a real chance doing it, and I believe they knew it.  But by the second, darker version, the engagement was firmly made, and the topic opened up more generally.  Now there's to be a movie combining the theatrical elements with documentary.  It's the apotheosis of theatre of place.

Dell'Arte is also remarkable for the other theatrical groups it has spawned, and though they've spread out across the country and the world, many have visited (some more than once) with productions.

Dell'Arte is also unique for its continuity, and the continuous contributions of its principals, most notably Michael Fields and Joan Schirle.  I wrote about the extraordinary year that Michael had in 2013 (once I had the title "Plenty of Fields," the column was inevitable), at HSU and beyond as well as at Dell'Arte.  But that's just one year among many.  His presence, inspiration and his work have been of inestimable value to North Coast stage for many years.

The same can be said of Joan Schirle, whose contributions to Dell'Arte and North Coast theatre have been profound.

She brought Mary Jane to life and infused those shows with continuous energy.  Her performance was also the occasion of my favorite Stage Matters lines: Surely Schirle should eschew sleuthing and choose chanteusing.  I know, easy for me to say.

 I am particularly grateful to Joan for including me in the anniversary readings of  It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis that celebrated the great unknown triumph of the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s.  She helped organize a national series of readings, and gave me a part at Dell'Arte.  So now I've looked out from that Carlo stage as well as looked into it.

Salmon Is Everything: Event and Book

I attended the reading at Northtown Books by members of the Klamath Theatre Project on Friday evening.  Marlon Sherman, Suzanne Burcell and Theresa May talked about how the project came about, and Mary Campbell (member of the original cast) and co-director Jean O'Hara read excerpts from the play.

From Marlon Sherman and Suzanne Burcell (Karuk), I was impressed by how open they were to the idea in the beginning, which was suggested by Theresa May, a new member of the HSU theatre faculty at the time, in response to the massive fish kill on the Klamath in 2002.  They were instrumental in recruiting Native students, conspicuously absent (then and much of the time since) from HSU theatre.  These students went back to their Karuk, Yurok and Hupa families and gathered relevant stories.

In reading excerpts from her chapter in the book, Suzanne Burcell described the rebellious shock of Native students to the idea that the point of view of competitors for Klamath water, the farmers and ranchers upriver, had to be represented.  She also noted with humor how Teresa May reacted to her suggestion that they also had to include the point of view of the fish.

The first part of the book describes the process of developing the script.  I also attended the first reading of the script in progress, and confess I didn't see how a theatre piece was going to emerge from it.  But according to the book, this reading inspired more people to come forward with personal and family stories, and these provided the human and cultural dimensions to the political and scientific that made the moment so alive on stage.

I reproduced my immediate response to that first production in the post below.  Since I've had cause recently to reflect on my nine years of writing about North Coast theatre, I would still place the 2006 HSU production of Salmon Is Everything near the top of my theatre experiences here.  For one thing, it was the most alive, especially in the emotional connection between those on stage and those in the audience.  And it meant something.  Certainly it spoke at the time to several areas of my experience here--working for Seventh Generation Fund, writing the script for the environmental video Voices of Humboldt County: Cumulative Impact which was cited in at least one forest court case, and writing the grant for the Native Performance Fund, still going now as the Native Art Fund. Even beyond the textures represented by these and other experiences, as a live theatre event it was singular in my experience here.

The heart of the book is the script itself.  Jean O'Hara describes touring it to Hupa, Yurok and Karuk communities.  In 2011 it got a full production at the University of Oregon, where Theresa May now teaches.  Her own chapter details what worked and what didn't in the process of creating the play, for she means this book to be a kind of guide to community-developed theatre.  A foreword by Gordon Bettles provides some historical context, and here and elsewhere in the book there are updates on what has happened since.

The book is Salmon Is Everything: Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed by Theresa May with Suzanne Burcell, Kathleen McCovey and Jean O'Hara, published by Oregon State University Press in their First Peoples series.  It's at Northtown Books and presumably other booksellers.

This North Coast Weekend: A Special Event

Back in 2006, a community-based play was presented at HSU and elsewhere called Salmon Is Everything. At 7 p.m. on Friday October 10, several participants in that process and production will be at Northtown Books, with their book about it all: Salmon Is Everything: Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed.

Scheduled to be present are Theresa May, Jean O’Hara, Suzanne Burcell (Karuk), & Kathy McCovey (Karuk) and special guest Marlon Sherman.

The invitation reads: "After a devastating fish kill on the Klamath River, tribal members and theatre artists developed a play to give voice to the central spiritual and cultural role of salmon in tribal life. Join the authors for readings from the play and hear their own stories about the creative collaboration and the significance of salmon among the people of the Klamath River."

Here's my Stage Matters commentary from 2006:

Going to theatre is an act of faith in its potential, and an act of hope that this will be one of the times it is realized. Of all that theatre is capable of, the expression and even creation of community around public issues is one of the most complex, and possibly, the most rare. But on a Friday evening early in May in the Studio Theatre at HSU, I saw it happen.

 It was the opening night of three performances by the Klamath Theatre Project, an ad hoc group of Native and non-Native faculty and community members, and some 30 students, most of them from local tribes, who worked for two years to collect interviews, studies and stories, and to create presentations arising from the 2002 Klamath River fish kill, a watershed event in all senses. But I doubt anyone involved could have predicted what would happen on that stage.

 Salmon Is Everything dramatized a series of interweaving encounters of fictional characters---a young Yurok-Karuk fisherman and his wife, a non-Native rancher and his mother, a graduate student in biology and a Hupa fish biologist, several Karuk, Yurok and Klamath elders, plus family members, a farmer, tourists, a reporter and a priest, among others. Their interaction illuminated some of the ways the Klamath water crisis affected them all, though the emphasis was on the Native communities where salmon has been the center of life and culture for untold generations.

 The cast was composed of Natives and non-Natives (as was the audience): elders, youth and children. Not many had acting experience, but there was not an abashed breath of amateurism anywhere--from the first moment everyone was poised, clear, warm and authentic. It was an illuminating ninety minutes, and a powerful night of theatre.

 There were heartfelt declarations presented with such conviction and authority that several actors (Native and non-Native) were moved nearly to tears by their own words. Yet the cast also moved in and out of dramatic scenes with the skill of theatrical veterans.

 There was power also in a simple scene of women beginning to weave baskets as they talked: this clearly is from their lives. And when two Brush Dance skirts were brought out, you could feel the intake of breath in the audience. As Native and non-Native characters talked of their lives and those of their forbearers, such historical terms as “Termination” and “allotments” attached themselves to real consequences and fates.

 The Project’s attempt to bring a community together without any culture losing its integrity, to find common interest and common ground, turned out to be mirrored in the form of this presentation. It brought together key elements of European-based theatre with elements of Native cultures derived in part from storytelling and ceremony.

 Though they are sometimes reluctant to express their concerns to outsiders, I have heard Native people speak their thoughts and from their hearts in primarily Native gatherings. I have also seen several well-meant, polished but inadequate theatre pieces concerning Native history and culture presented by non-Natives. But even as a work-in-progress, I have never seen anything like this. I wish I had space to name everyone who had a hand in creating it. I felt my faith restored, and my hope rewarded.

Korbel V: The Secret

Since 1992 there have been five episodes (including an unnumbered one) in Dell’Arte’s soap opera saga of the working class Dugan family in the fictional North Coast mill town of Korbel. Korbel V: The Secret, now on stage in the outdoor Rooney Amphitheatre at Dell’Arte in Blue Lake, is intended both as a continuation and “an entirely new Korbel for the present day which would stand on its own,” according to writer and director Lauren Wilson in her program note.

 Tommy Dugan (played by Michael Fields) is back, living in a ramshackle trailer in the woods. Also returning are his estranged wife Lu Ann (this time played by Zuzka Sabata) and Tommy’s dead mother Dorothy (Joan Schirle.) The new principal characters are Tommy’s callow young companion Lowell (Anthony Arnista), and Bert (James Peck), a self-styled militia leader exiled from the UK. Yan Christian Collazo plays fledgling sheriff’s deputy Manuel, Ryan Musil is the mayor of Korbel, and Bert’s militia co-conspirators are a supermarket manager from Glendale (Andrew Eldrege) and a crafter and mom from McKinleyville (Emily Newton.)

 Korbel V begins with Manuel reciting a prologue in rhymed couplets that suggests the prologue to Shakespeare’s Henry V with an assist from Carl Sandburg. It’s the first of several echoes and quotes from Shakespeare and others.

 The deputy concludes: “Here’s Korbel, this is fog, and here is sun.” At that moment on opening evening, sunlight broke through the overcast and bathed the stage. How did they do that? (Yes, the line was scripted.)

 The action begins with Tommy in a terminal funk: 17 years unemployed, a failed marriage and a pot-grower son who won’t speak to him are bad enough, but now his doctor demands he stop drinking. After a clumsily creative suicide attempt fails, Tommy learns that the Korbel Timber mill is closing and will evict families living in company housing. Suddenly he finds purpose: to go on a hunger strike to save the mill, emulating the hero he saw on the History Channel, “Mohammed Gandhi.”

But his resolve is tested when Lu Ann shows up, promising love as well as reconciliation with his son, who has provided his mother a lavish Eureka lifestyle financed by what she calls his “firewood business.” Meanwhile Bert organizes an armed revolt against government oppression. By the end the stage is littered with a Shakespearian tragedy-load of bodies (though not all of them dead), and a certain body part familiar from Macbeth.

 There are magical moments: Fields and Schirle acting together is irresistible, and Fields delivering Tommy’s final soliloquy is memorable. The principal actors built real characters (especially Arnista as Lowell and Sabata as Lu Ann) and the supporting players were generously funny, particularly Eldrege as one of the conspirators.

 Less high-spirited than some past summer shows, this play is well crafted and directed, with the usual comic local references, physical humor, surprise effects and other treats in sight and sound, including music by Tim Gray, performed by Sabata and the band of Maria Joy, Mike La Bolle and Tim Randles.

 But I found the two overlapping storylines disappointing, with too little of Tommy’s story and too much of Bert’s (even with its perceptive twist at the end.) Bert’s paranoid rants seemed too frequent, long and unvarying, familiar from weary years of talk radio and Internet rhetoric, except for the copious instances of “wanker” and “bollocks” spewed by this incongruously English character.

 “The Secret” in the play’s title refers most obviously to the movie and book of that title about the power of positive thinking that Lu Ann praises. While some in the audience got the reference, I’m not sure why a 2006 self-help fad features so prominently.

 At the end of the play it seems the Dugan saga is over—but maybe not. One more dancing Dugan ghost has been added, but somewhere offstage is a next generation. Korbel V: The Secret runs through July 6.

 Coming Up Next at the fest: Taken Away, an acrobatic theatre event, opens June 21 for five performances. Clowns Without Borders gets the Prize of Hope on June 28 and a benefit headlined by clown Mooky Cornish on June 29 at 2 p.m. Then Cornish performs at the Blue Lake Center of the Universe party at 4:30.

 On July 2, Mad Lab consists of three works-in-progress by Dell’Arte alums: “Camel Camel,” a vaudeville review by Glitter Gizzard, Janessa Johnsrude and Meghan Frank; “Life Lessons with Pat McKensie,” a satirical comedy by Emily Newton; and “La Fenetre,” a clown comedy by Darci Fulcher and Emily Newton.

The Big Mad (and This North Coast Weekend)

Korbel V begins this year's Mad River Fest

For more than a generation it’s been Mad in Blue Lake in June, ever since Dell’Arte created the Mad River Festival of stage performances. The festival got pretty hefty for awhile in the 90s and in more recent years it’s been smaller. But this year it’s bigger than ever, absorbing seven weeks of the summer with much more than the usual number and variety of events. It starts June 19 and ends in August.

 There’s more music: in additional to the traditional Folk Life Festival (July 14-19) there’s also a Blue Lake Blues Festival (August 2) and the Eureka Symphony performing Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf on July 25. (Last summer’s Dell’Arte Life Achievement Award winner and Dell’Arte founder Jane Hill was recently named Eureka Symphony’s first-ever executive director.)

 A major catalyst for the festival’s expansion is a big ArtPlace America grant, which accounts for several Blue Lake-centered events, many of them free, including Trash Mash-Up community workshops July 10-13 and the “Blue Lake: The Center of the Universe Party” on June 29.

 There are additional Blue Lake venues, such as Perigot Park and the banks of the Mad River, where Laura Munoz will lead “One Multitude,” a “movement choir” of 50 participants of all ages performed at sunset on June 25.

 There’s a new performance venue as well. In addition to the Rooney Amphitheatre and Carlo Theatre, several shows appear in the new Pierson Building Center Big Hammer Tent, adding a circus big-top topography to the summer Madness. That’s particularly apt since this summer’s Prize of Hope (given by Dell’Arte in conjunction with the Danish Institute of Popular Theatre) goes to Clowns Without Borders International. The award dinner is on June 28.

 On June 29, former lead clown for Cirque de Soleil Mooky Cornish leads a benefit performance for Clowns Without Borders before entertaining at the Center of the Universe party in the big tent. Cornish also performs a solo show, The Glories of Gloria Revue, July 10 through July 13 in the Carlo.

 In addition to the annual Red Light in Blue Lake adult cabaret (July 5) and the acrobatic performance (this year called Taken Away, performed five times between June 21 and 27), there are several other stage events. Mad Lab (July 2) is an evening of works-in-progress by Dell’Arte School grads Meghan Frank, Janessa Johnrude, Emily Newton and Darci Fulcher.

 July 23-27 is the official world premiere of Elisabeth’s Book, created by performers Joan Schirle, Laura Munoz and Ruxandra Cantir and director Alain Schons, with original music by Schirle, Gina Leishman and Tim Gray.

 On July 31, Jeff DeMark brings his band The Gila Monsters (Rick Levin, Ron Sharp, Jean Browning and Paul DeMark) for an evening of music and stories about summer called Acting On A Dream (and of course, there’s a story about the title.)
Besides Jeff, storytellers include Marvin Samuels, Lizzy Moonbeam and Charlie Gilbert.

 It all starts with the big show in the amphitheatre beginning June 19 and continuing for three weekends. Korbel V: The Secret is the latest in Dell’Arte’s outrageously epic working class soap opera that has seen death, a wedding, a birth and a fateful accident amidst much local color and family angst.

 This summer’s story finds the surly and unemployed Tommy Dugan living in a ramshackle trailer, eventually confronting the Korbel Timber Company as it evicts workers’ families from company housing. It’s written and directed by Lauren Wilson, who wrote the memorable 2010 summer show, Blue Lake: The Opera.

 Returning to Korbel are Michael Fields as Tommy and Joan Schirle as his mother Dorothy, who despite having died in the first play has appeared in all the sequels. Music is provided by Marla Joy, Tim Randles and Mike LaBolle. In a TV commercial for the festival, Fields as Tommy Dugan describes the show: “They say it’s a comedy but my life ain’t so funny to me.” That nails the mood of this series. It’s been satirical, melodramatic, over the top, but with heart and eyes open to the Humboldt of the moment.

 “It is pure ‘theatre of place’, Dell’Arte style,” Fields said (off-camera). “I don’t know of another theatre that follows characters over decades with keen attention to the times, looking at it all through the lens of place.”

 Dell’Arte is offering a festival pass to any four shows plus some extra benefits. (707) 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

 Coming Up: Thursday (June 12) at Ferndale Repertory Theatre is an Actors Benefit performance of the ongoing production, The Dixie Swim Club by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Mamie Wooten. All proceeds on this night go to cast and crew. Otherwise the production continues Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 2 through June 22. This comedy portrays four North Carolina reunions of five women who met as members of their college swim team and got together one weekend a year for 33 years. Directed by Leira V. Satlof, it features Marilyn McCormick, Marilyn Foote, Rae Robison, Dana Zurasky and Natasha White. Scenic design is by Ray Gutierrez, with costumes by Lynnie Horrigan. 786-5483, www.ferndalerep.org.

Mad River Festival Preview and This North Coast Weekend

Even the high priestess Mary Jane of the past two summers might think this is pretty far out: Dell’Arte opens this year’s Mad River Festival on June 20 with its production of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors.

 “It’s a little daunting,” director Michael Fields admitted. “But it’s good for us to push into new territory.” It’s the first Shakespeare in Blue Lake since 1975, when Fields and Joan Schirle co-starred in As You Like It.

 Not that Dell’Arte is abandoning its “theatre of place.” This Shakespearian comedy is set in a mythical but recognizable version of a Farmers Market on the Arcata Plaza.

 Shakespeare’s story involves two sets of identical male twins separated not long after birth: two are nobles, both named Antipholus (don’t ask) and two are their servants, both named Dromio. Only in the Dell’Arte version the noble twins are Antiphola—two women who are both played by Mary Jane herself, Joan Schirle. The servants remain men but some other characters are also gender-flipped, so their relationships run almost the Humboldt gamut.

 The traditional band is on hand, and part of the story is told in song, but Fields suggests that some proportion of Shakespeare’s words will survive. He also promises an elaborate set and lots of visual appeal, as well as the usual mayhem.

 But why Shakespeare? The idea came from KEET, responding to a push by PBS for local Shakespeare productions. That project didn’t materialize here, but the idea intrigued Dell’Arte. “We looked at the plays to see what we liked,” Fields said, “and The Comedy of Errors is certainly the most adaptable. There’s some weight to it too, with those questions of identity. So it’s not just a knockabout, which is how people usually choose to do it.”

 The Comedy of Errors plays for three weekends in the outdoor amphitheatre at Dell’Arte, beginning June 20. Then this year’s Mad River Festival continues with more theatrics than usual, beginning with Between the Lines, a 45-minute acrobatic show that plays after Shakespeare on Friday and Saturday, June 21 and 22, but inside on the Carlo Theatre stage (and the walls, etc.) It’s created and performed by Dell’ Arte School’s Andrea M. Martinez, Audrey Leclair, Juliana Frick, Moses Morton, Alyssa Huglett, Nicholette Routhier and Joe Krienke. If you’re really hip, you can call it “sexy acro.”

 The second weekend (June 29 and 30) features a noontime show out in “the back yard” especially for children called IN-Tents (A Conservation Comedy), created and performed by Dell’Arte’s Pratik Motwani, Meghan Frank and Janessa Johnsrude.

 Also on June 29 is the Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony and dinner, honoring Dell’Arte International co-founder Jane Hill. Since securing the building that still houses Dell’Arte and directing the International School, she went on to rescue the Omaha Opera and expand the activities of the Sacramento Philharmonic as executive director.

 Michael Fields suggests he may interview Jane at the event in the manner of Inside the Actors Studio’s James Lipton. (Including perhaps the ostentatious French accent when mentioning the questionnaire developed by Bernard Pivot.) It all begins at 4 p.m.

 The third weekend features not one but two nights of the notorious Red Light in Blue Lake: Adult Cabaret, this year with special guests, the Va-Va Voom Burlesque Vixens. “It sells out immediately,” Fields noted, “so we’re doing two this year.” “It gets the weirdest audience,” he added unnecessarily.  Shows begin at 10:30 p.m. on July 5 and 6.

 The fourth weekend—just before the Humboldt Folklife Festival takes over—Dell’Arte brings The Submarine Show to Blue Lake for four performances. Created and performed by Dell’Arte School alums Slater Penney (an Emmy winner) and Jaron Hollander (formerly of Cirque Du Soleil), this family-oriented comedy employing both pantomime and vocal sound effects was a popular and critical hit in San Francisco and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (There’s a short YouTube video to give you the flavor.)

 Supported by the Nancy Lafrenz Memorial Scholarship, The Submarine Show plays Thursday through Saturday, July 11-13 at 8 p.m. and Sunday July 14 at 4 p.m.

 Though bigger than in recent years, the Mad River Festival may be substantially larger next summer. That’s because Dell’Arte just received a $350,000 grant from ArtPlace America to develop the Mad River Industrial Art Park. In addition to funding arts programs and projects that link the arts and economic development, part of the grant will be devoted to expanding the Mad River Festival into the Industrial Art Park.

Also Coming Up: On Saturday, the latest Murder By Dessert interactive play, Black Tie Murder Mystery is performed at the Arcata Hotel.  Reservations are required. www.MurderByDessert.com, (707) 223-4172.

Announced last week: Ferndale Repertory Theatre is adding a “Stage Two” program to its previously announced “MainStage” lineup. These shows will still be on the Ferndale stage and integrated into the season, but with lower admission prices. The idea is to present newer and more cutting-edge work in less elaborate productions. Added so far are Backwards in High Heels by Chicago playwright Jim Henry (which is not the musical about Ginger Rogers with that title) that will run in April, and the musical The Spitfire Grill by James Valcq and Fred Alley, which will play next July.

The Year That Was: Topical and Timeless on North Coast Stages

A version of this year-end retrospective appears in the North Coast Journal "Top 10" issue.  I didn't do a top ten, though.  It's not practical.  Though I see a lot of shows, I don't see everything, so it wouldn't be fair.  And I've got multiple conflicts of interest when it comes to HSU shows.  But it's not fair to ignore those shows either.  So this is my compromise.

“Drama is a mansion with an almost infinite number of rooms,” wrote Michael Billington, the great drama critic for the Guardian. “I see no point in shutting off any of them.” As I’ve noted on other occasions, there are gaps in the North Coast theatrical ecology. But it’s worth noticing the variety that does exist, and that this past year’s productions supported and altered that ecology, however subtly.

Dell’Arte pioneered “theatre of place” on the North Coast, and this year saw a unique example in the second version of Mary Jane: The Musical. It’s unique precisely because it’s the second version. Dell’Arte has brought shows back before, updating their topical and local references. But this time they re-conceived a show from just the summer before, and so the 2012 version was actually the product of two successive years, which resulted in a deeper (and darker) show. I still recall their Blue Lake: The Opera as the more successful production (a coincidence of talent, music and story), but certainly Mary Jane is more relevant to local identity and its future.

Another successful “theatre of place” show was Women of the Northwest at the Arcata Playhouse. It also was a group effort, part of the national fascination with “devised theatre” that worked in these two productions, with adequate time and thorough process.

  It wasn’t so successful in the Dell’Arte holiday show, The Fish in My Head— well-performed and produced, but so disjointed that it’s the first show I can recall that got me to root for the villain: the guy who wanted it to make more sense.

  This year also brought an unusual number of topically relevant dramas written by actual playwrights: Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room at Ferndale, Justin Lance Black’s 8 and Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus at HSU, for example. HSU and College of the Redwoods also contribute classics (Moliere at CR, Noel Coward at HSU) and a glimpse of a different cultural approach in HSU’s version of the Sanskrit drama Shakuntala. A theatrical ecology is sustained by educational inquiry for both participants and audience.

   Humboldt Light Opera Company added to its high quality contributions with Damn Yankees and Cinderella. Redwood Curtain continued to concentrate on small cast contemporary American comedies, but took a few more chances this year with plays of challenging form and content, such as Circle Mirror Transformation, Dusty and the Big Bad World, For Better and The Language Archive.  These forays work largely because Redwood Curtain nurtures a high level of acting.

  Our two community theatres (Ferndale and North Coast in Eureka) have the words “repertory” in their names, which refers to producing shows from “the repertoire,” or the roster of successful plays (artistically, commercially or both) of the accessible past. There are a lot of judgments involved: some shows are too big (and expensive) or too small, too new (rights are unavailable) or too old.

But how old is too old? Looking back at this year yields a rule of thumb. Dramas can be quite old, though Shakespeare is about the limit. This year we got a searing drama from the 1950s (Look Back in Anger at Ferndale Rep) and a mystery from the 1940s (Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap at North Coast Rep.) Comedies and musicals are usually more recent. Which is another reason that North Coast Rep’s production of the pioneer musical comedy Anything Goes was so fascinating.



There are few if any Broadway musicals older than Anything Goes that get produced anymore. In fact, only 3 previous shows are generally classified as modern musicals (Show Boat in 1927, The Band Wagon in 1930 and Of Thee I Sing! in 1931.)

Songs have since been stolen from other Cole Porter shows for this version of Anything Goes, and the script is not exactly the same as the show that premiered in 1934. That script began with legendary Brits P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton but the Broadway version was quickly assembled by its director Howard Lindsay with a press agent named Russel Crouse.  They were so successful at it that they themselves became a legendary Broadway writing team.  The script was revised for the 1987 revival by John Weidman and Timothy Crouse, Russel's son and the author of one of the great books on U.S. presidential campaigns and the press, The Boys on the Bus (1972).  I knew him for a few years around then.

Anyway, the changes in the latest, the Tony-winning 2011 version that’s on tour into 2013 seem to be in musical arrangements, etc.  So I don't actually know who is responsible for my favorite bit of dialogue.  Asked by a ship's officer if he'd seen infamous racketeer Snakeyes Johnson somewhere on the ship, one of the characters says he saw him at the mizenmast. “ But this ship doesn’t have a mizenmast.” “Oh. It must have been somebody else.” 

The constant in all this is Cole Porter.  His songs have not changed. His music is timeless, but his lyrics are very topical—particularly in one of this show’s most famous songs, “You’re the Top.”  They haven't been revised, so the lyrics are still a kind of mini-tour of 1934. While some of the places and the famous people named in the song are still well known, others mostly aren’t. Quite a few clever references go right by a lot of the audience nearly 80 years later.

 So how does the song still work? It was interesting to watch how Molly Severdia and Erik Standifird relieved anxieties by acting out contemporary reactions to some references in their performance of the song, a highlight of the North Coast Rep production. For instance, they gave the line “You’re broccoli!” the icky vegetable look, but in 1934, broccoli was new to the U.S. and quite fashionable.

They simply ignored other references, like Jimmy Durante, a showman who was often parodied into the 1960s. In fact some lyrics are now so obscure that there are several online attempts to track down their meaning. There was a long and involved theory about “you’re a drumstick lipstick” (which involved ice cream and kissing) until somebody uncovered an old ad that showed that Drumstick lipstick was a 1934 brand name.

 Still, it isn’t necessary to know that moisture-proof cellophane was a modern miracle in the 30s to laugh at the exuberant brilliance of “You’re the National Gallery/You’re Garbo’s salary/You’re cellophane!” The strange alchemy of the topical and the timeless in a play that lasts is one of the wonders of theatre, as it is in other arts. So it’s a vital part of our theatrical ecology.

Women of the Northwest

Women of the Northwest, on stage at the Arcata Playhouse, celebrates 14 or so individual women in local history. But in performance, the lively, inventive, and relatively brief vignettes about them do something more: they shine a different light on that history itself.

 Many of these women are appropriately remembered for individual accomplishments. Elta Cartwright, a track star at Eureka High (which itself made history by becoming the first high school to allow girls to run races in shorts) became the first woman in America to qualify for the 1928 Olympics.

 As Mayor of Eureka from 1926 to 1931, Emily Jones was the first female mayor west of the Mississippi. After Martella Cone Lane moved to Fortuna with her husband in 1899, she revealed the redwoods to the world in her paintings.

 Emma Freeman was a prominent photographer who chronicled Eureka and Humboldt scenes from 1907 to 1920. Known as “The Lady of the Hills,” Margaret Smith Cobb lived in the wilderness near Garberville in those years, and wrote poems and romantic novels that were championed by Jack London.

 Susie Baker Fountain, columnist for the Arcata Union and the Blue Lake Advocate through the 1950s, collected a century of Humboldt County history. Humboldt State claims her as its first graduate in 1915, and houses her historical records in its library.

Stella Patterson, who came north after the San Francisco earthquake, had a full life but found herself alone in 1946 at age 80. She decided to live in an isolated cabin in the mountains on the Klamath River west of Happy Camp, where the two miners who were her nearest neighbors called her simply “Dear Mad’m.” That became the title of her book about the experience, which is still available.
 “I have lived the life I wanted,” she says in this play, “and the life I’ve loved.”

 The core cast of 12 actors presented aspects of these women’s lives, and storyteller Charlene Storr honored her grandmother, Sadie Gorbet (Tolowa), who at the age of 72 was the only Native American in the California delegation to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. She counseled her family to take the good parts of their tradition and of the modern world, and throw the rest away.

 Besides historical figures, the play depicts some legendary ones as well as composite characters and representative figures (a telephone operator, prostitutes, suffragettes.) Historical material was gathered and shaped by Jackie Dandeneau, Edith Butler and Tammy Rae Scott, but the presentation was created by the actors. They came up with an entertaining, very theatrical combination of monologues, dialogues, dramatic and comedic scenes, music and movement, plus bustling and lyrical meditations on themes such as food and motherhood.

 The first act was mostly a mosaic of lives, ending with a memorable moment: members of the Native Women’s Collective sang some of the songs associated with the Flower Dance, a coming of age ceremony for girls that local tribes basically have in common. Reviving this dance has been a priority for at least 15 years, as I recall.  They also spoke of the needs it addresses to restore a sense of self-respect, support and belonging to young women.

 The second act had more thematic threads, culminating in a final evocation of childbirth and motherhood, children and the lineage of women. Though the actors typically play several roles each, there were strong individual moments.

 With that peculiar 1930s diction, Dandeneau conveyed the scary if somewhat comic authority of Mayor Jones. Laura Munoz moved easily from an American Indian woman known only as one of Emma Freeman’s favorite photographic subjects to Antoinette Chartin, a cultured French woman who became one of the first non-Native pioneers in Blue Lake of the 1870s, opening a hotel there with her husband. Ali Freedlund was a spirited Elta Cartwright.

The most amazing feature of Siena Nelson’s performance as a cowboy who was secretly female (a not uncommon subterfuge) wasn’t her perfect gait and vocal cadence: it was the hardness in her eyes. There were vivid performances by Jada Owen and Ciara Cheli Collado in the final thematic sections. Musicians Julie Froblom, Jill Petricca, Dharla Curry and Jan Bramlett joined the action as needed. Other onstage participants were Tammy Rae Scott and Rebecca Zettler.

 These roughly two hours did not offer complete portraits, nor were all ethnic groups and occupations represented. But by including themes from women’s lives that influence common events, this production as a whole evokes in dynamic fashion a dimension of experience often neglected in the usual histories.

From a rhythm of life revealed by cooks for a lumber camp to the “river of blood” of childbirth, the play suggests a perspective it is vital to include. Set design is by Siena Nelson, lighting by David Ferney, costumes by Lydia Foreman. Women of the Northwest continues at the Arcata Playhouse Friday and Saturday (Oct. 19-20) at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. before shows in Petrolia Oct. 27 and Briceland Oct. 28.

Additional Notes: A Preview

Women of the Northwest features a dozen actors portraying at least that many women who figured in local history from 1900 to the 1930s and beyond. Actor/writer Jacqueline Dandeneau, researcher Tammy Rae Scott and historian Edith Butler got the project started this summer, but the cast combined to shape the final show. The Native Women’s Collective is also involved.

 “We tell some of the stories through song and movement,” Dandeneau said, “so it’s not all talking heads, which is the danger with a history piece.”

Women involved in logging, mining, ranching and politics, as well as teachers, artists, athletes, mothers, prostitutes and even a stage coach robber are all represented. “These pieces are about women who figured out—by necessity or from some spirit within them—how to live life on their own terms, given what terms might be available,” Edith Butler said.

For background on the women’s suffrage movement in Humboldt, they brought filmmaker Martha Wheelock up from L.A. Coincidentally, her film on the subject airs on KEET next Monday (Oct. 15) at 7:30 p.m. “She told us that it was the men in rural areas like Humboldt that made the difference in voting for women’s suffrage,” Dandeneau said.

 It was in 1912, exactly 100 years ago, that women voted in their first California election (they didn’t get to vote for federal candidates until 1920.) “So we’re hoping to have the League of Women Voters registering voters in the lobby for our shows,” she said. “There are a lot of women’s issues right at the top of this year’s election—things that have been assumed, and things that have been fought for.” By Humboldt women, among others.

Jason in Eureka: Story Power

As noted earlier, there were four openings this past weekend on North Coast stages. For my North Coast Journal column, I get an 850 words, about twice a month. So in this week's issue I reviewed two shows, and will do the other two next week. What follows is a longer version of what I wrote about Cornerstone Theatre's Jason in Eureka, based on its opening night Thursday. It closed with its third performance Saturday.

Under uncertain clouds on a warm August evening, the crowd standing inside the entrance to the Blue Ox Millworks Historic Park heard a witty prologue concerning Jason and the Golden Fleece, performed by a barbershop quartet (the Millworks’ chief, Eric Hollenbeck, sang bass), assisted by a puppet show.

Then a funeral scene on a grassy hill to the left, where a young man on his cell phone learns from his lawyer that he has just inherited a Victorian house in Eureka (“C and Cedar—that area”) from the mysterious great-great aunt now being buried. The mythological theme was sounded again, and there to the right, high on the prow of the Millwork’s historic wooden ship, was Jason himself.

Then the audience was led farther into the park, to the bleachers in front of the large stage where in the quickening darkness the collaborative production of Jason in Eureka unfolded, captained by the Los Angeles based Cornerstone Theater.

As directed by Laura Woolery, half the action was set in the street facing the century-old Victorian house in contemporary Eureka, where the young heirs, John and his wife Maggie, decide to clean out its legacy of old books and make substantial repairs so they can live there. Born in Eureka, John recently lost his timber mill job. Maggie works at HSU. That she’s Wiyot figures profoundly in the ensuing story. They meet neighbors and various others, including those responding to the stranger sleeping in the yard, a silent veteran named Jason.

He is of course the link to the alternating half of the play, which depicts the classic quest of Jason and the Argonauts for the golden fleece. The contemporary Jason is looking for “gold,” too, which causes Maggie some concern, with its reminders of the Gold Rush.

Playwright and founding Cornerstone member Peter Howard used months of interviews and other encounters in Eureka for the contemporary story, and adapted the Jason story from a book for children by Victorian author Charles Kingsley, partly because it was written in the Gold Rush era of Eureka’s birth. (Kingsley is also notable for the phrase “Westward Ho!,” the title of his novel that includes a search for gold in the Americas.)

With Howard’s skillful script but also the elegant scenic design by Nephelie Andonyadis (including a delightfully old-fashioned “wave machine”), clever prop designs and especially the acting, singing and stage movement, these two stories together made ragged magic.

Most of the music and movement and other more theatrical elements were featured in the Jason and the Argonauts story, while the contemporary story was more naturalistic, and chatty. Stylistically, the theatricality along with characters making declarative statements suggested an evening out of the 1930’s Federal Theatre Project: Greek myth meets The Cradle Will Rock. But its content was more careful (so politically balanced that one character expressed sentiments on both sides of the recent Timber Wars) and relentlessly positive. Everyone’s individual quest is honored, beginning with the community’s response to the homeless Jason.

What this is about ultimately is the power of story to help define a community to itself. It combines local facts and testimony with an outsider perspective--much as a journalist might, who asks questions, listens and senses a pattern or story, tests it with more questions and probing, and then shapes it all into a narrative that allows for contradictions and ambiguity. In this case, it is a story that finds a pattern in linking Eureka's past to its future.

It is perhaps a failure of North Coast journalism that this journey was not better documented, so the larger community could participate, absorb this story and test it against other stories. But some version of that will probably occur, especially among the participants and the participating organizations: Blue Ox Millworks, Ink People Center for the Arts, Sanctuary Stage and local schools.

The triumph of this complex collaboration can only be symbolized by the onstage ease and energy of Cornerstone’s Helen Sage Howard (as Maggie), North Coast community theatre’s Sam Cord (Jonathan) and 6th grader Joana Barragan Carrillo (a neighbor girl), each seeming to inspire the other. Adina Lawson, who teaches theatre at Eureka High as well as acting in community theatre, seemed to be having a great time working with the Cornerstone actors and amateur actors in the Argonaut segments. In the contemporary story, Rob Hepburn of Veterans for Peace brought particular reality to the part of Dennis, a local veteran leader. In general, the "non-actors" worked well within the play, and whatever Cornerstone has learned to do to help them do so, seemed to work pretty well.

To name many more isn’t possible: the program has 65 individual bios, ranging from local grade schoolers to elders with no previous experience, to North Coast community theatre veterans, and Cornerstone Institute participants. This local participation included scenic and technical duties.

Dan Stone’s flawless technical direction is just one North Coast contribution to brag on. But those who witnessed Peter DiMuro’s enchanting choreography, or Cornerstone actors like Andres Munar (playing both Jasons), Sage Howard, Brandon Spooner, M.C. Earl and singer Michele Denise Michaels may well have future reason to brag that they saw them here.

All of this plus the outdoor setting made “Jason in Eureka” an enthralling theatrical experience. However, 90 minutes without intermission trapped in bleachers a dark distance from portajohns was probably more than should be asked of even a North Coast audience.

With this weekend, Cornerstone leaves the North Coast, but besides the experiences of participants and audience, it leaves behind the example of its beliefs, summarized in its "Values Statement": "We believe society can flourish when its members know and respect one another, and we value theater made in that spirit. We value art that is contemporary, community-specific, responsive, multilingual, innovative, challenging, and joyful. We value theater that directly reflects the audience. We value the artist in everyone."

Jason Coming to Eureka

Cornerstone Theater Company, the Los Angeles group famous for its collaborations with communities it visits, is preparing a production in Eureka which will be performed August 6-8.

The process began about eight months ago, with visits by the playwright, Peter Howard and others from the company, making contacts and gathering information. Howard worked out a story that combines the myth of Jason and the Argonauts with Eureka history and present day reality. Last week, the rest of the Cornerstone people involved in the production arrived, headquartered at St. Bernard's School, hosted by Sanctuary Stage.

The Cornerstone process involves participation by local people in most facets of the production, including on stage, so auditions are being held this week. The last scheduled audition is today, July 14, between 1:30 and 4:30 pm at St. Bernard's Elementary School. The first auditions were held at the Ink People.

"No experience is necessary to participate" their statements say, but professional actors from Cornerstone will be on hand to help everyone out. There are no age, gender or other restrictions for potential participants, as long as they can take direction. The final script will reflect who shows up and participates.

So if you're interested and can't make it to St. Bernard's this afternoon, call 1-800-385-7791 and you can probably arrange for a suitable time. Rehearsals will be at the Blue Ox Millworks, which is also where the production will be.

Saturday we met some of the people already working on the production at St. Bernard's. Everyone from Cornerstone was open and engaged, and they seem to have a well worked out process for combining professional theatre with community participation. An early script looks promising. Playwright Peter Howard seems sensitive to the possible pitfalls of outsiders coming in--he used the word "presumptuous" several times, as something they don't want to be. On the other hand, an outside point of view can see patterns and hear music that it's harder for people who live here to see and hear.

Dell'Arte's Origins: Fishy Business

Intrigue at Ah-Pah is playing its final weekend at Dell'Arte. This is my review, more or less as it appeared in the North Coast Journal. I note that I stop just short of suggesting theatregoers ought to see it. I try not to cross that line. I'm not interested in writing a consumer guide, partly because I won't presume to tell people how to spend their money, and partly because my columns reflect my response--or more specifically, how I saw it on the night I saw it. Everyone is entitled to their own response, so my general recommendation is to see what you'd like to see, and make up your own mind.

Dell’Arte was basically a mime and comedy school with a summer festival when its fledgling company of players developed their first full-length ensemble work: a script gleaned from fishing trip experiences at a volatile time, plus community input and an obsession with Raymond Chandler novels, called Intrigue at Ah-Pah. After outdoor premieres in Humboldt, the actors went to L.A. in 1981 to sleep on borrowed floors and perform the show at the small Odyssey Theatre. One morning they awoke to a rave on the front page of the L.A. Times arts section (“a happy marriage of humor and concern, intelligence and discipline…Extremely funny, don’t miss a moment of it.”) Their six-week run sold out in three hours, and they looked out from the stage to see the likes of legendary comedian Milton Berle in the front row.

That was the show that got Dell’Arte on the map in Humboldt as well as the rest of the world. Now it’s back for this year’s Mad River Festival, with an entirely new cast, all young graduates of the Dell’Arte school. Call it “Dell’Arte: The Next Generation.” Or like the new Star Trek movie: new Kirk, new Spock, so why not a new Scar Tissue, Wildflower, Woody, Deep Trout and The Man in White?

For those unfamiliar with this show or its sequels, Scar Tissue is a female detective in Eureka, up in the Yurok village of Ah Pah to fish the Klamath River, but she’s quickly implicated in murder and nefarious plots concerning land grabs and water rights, involving hilarious characters. Shannon MacMillan as Scar Tissue leads an ensemble cast that uniformly shines. Brian Moore, Andrew Phoenix, Tyler Olsen and particularly Kate Braidwood in multiple roles all bring an attractive energy and presence in crisp, confident comic performances. Though this version is inevitably different, this cast is fresh, capable and exciting.

Michael Fields’ direction, the scenic design by Jody Sekas, the special effects and the other elements of the production all combine invention and efficiency. Propelled by the cast’s energy, timing and interplay, this is a tighter than usual production for these outdoor festival shows. Even the music of the Dell’Arte band (Tim Gray, Maria Joy, Mike LaBolle and Tyler Olsen) and songs sung by members of the cast, seem more integrated with the bluesy, film noir mood. The result is fast-moving and funny, full of the elements and surprises expected of a Dell’Arte summer show, but with a delightful and satisfying wholeness.

After all this time, the still all-too-topical script is taut and tasty. Deep Trout still warns that “what you let happen today, your children must live with tomorrow.” But there are updates from the ongoing realities of dams and salmon kills, exploitation and misunderstanding—as well as a Sarah Palin joke. The comedy reveals important issues but by design doesn’t deal with them deeply. Salmon is Everything, a production developed a few years ago at HSU, would make an intriguing companion piece.

This production is an important historical moment in several ways. It reminds us of what the Dell’Arte founders pioneered: not just their unique applications of comedia dell’arte and physical theatre, but their approach to “theatre of place” (which they defined in 1991 as “theater about where you are, for the people where you are, based on an observation of the patterns of human and natural life where you live…”) and to what’s becoming known as “ecodrama.” From New Wave film directors Godard and Truffaut in the 50s to the Firesign Theatre’s Nick Danger in the 60s, the hardboiled detective genre was adapted for existential and satirical purposes, but Joan Schirle’s creation of a female private eye was new. And even though Native American characters seldom appear in Dell’Arte shows, this began their commitment to presenting a Native perspective, which is only a little less rare today than it was then.

This show is also historically important for what it portends. To go forward as a living institution, Dell’Arte has to eventually make the transition from its founders. This production of the show that started it all is the best evidence so far that Dell’Arte has a vibrant future. Both for that reason, and because it’s great fun and an excellent show, this Intrigue at Ah-Pah will itself be remembered. But the only way to remember it is to first go see it.

Korbel IV, Korbel Before and Thoughts on Live Theatre

First, the before IV of Korbel:

 The saga of the Dugan family in the mythical North Coast town of Korbel began in 1994. So before describing the new play, here’s a primer on the story so far, based on Michael Fields’ recollections:

“Korbel I: The Funeral” was centered on the funeral of the Dugan clan’s matriarch, Dorothy, who in financial despair, had committed suicide. Flashbacks revealed the truth about her son Terry, a transsexual Lesbian. Her other son, Tommy, was a logger “who was missing many of his body parts due to logging accidents, and was incapable of doing certain things,” though evidently that didn’t include fathering a child, because…

In “Korbel II: The Wedding,” Tommy had to get married in order to keep his child, but elsewhere in the Court House the Southern Korbel Unorganized Militia (SKUM) was planning a disruption. Meanwhile there was a fight at the wedding, and agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms invaded (“We had people rappelling off the roof at Dell’Arte.”) “Where’s Tommy Dugan?” the ATF demanded, and in a response that Fields says was stolen from the Spanish Baroque playwright Lope de Vega, but which most of us remember from “Spartacus,” several members of the cast—beginning with a 7 year old boy—proclaimed: “I’m Tommy Dugan! I’m from Korbel!” Then, Fields recalls, members of the audience spontaneously repeated it themselves: “I’m Tommy Dugan! I’m from Korbel!”

In “Kobel III: The Birth” the only industry left in the town was a company that dug a deep hole in the ground, and dumped stuff into it. “Nobody knew what was going into the hole, but it was a business, and it was in Korbel” so it was accepted. Until people noticed that no babies had been born since the company came to town. But Dorothy Dugan returned from the dead (as she had in Korbel II), to miraculously cause people to give birth. “We gave little water balloons to people in the audience, and everybody was giving birth—including her son.”




Going for IV

That was nearly a decade ago, and the series seemed to have run its course with what Fields admits was its weakest script. But several factors converged to bring Korbel back this summer. For one thing, there were local events that begged to become part of the saga, like the ongoing drama of Blue Lake’s disgraced police chief, the continuing transformations associated with the Blue Lake casino, and the rise of the marijuana grow house economy. “Kevin Hoover wrote a long article about grow houses in the Arcata Eye awhile back, and suggested in it that Dell’Arte should do a play about it,” Fields said. “The last line of the article was: ‘Are you reading, Michael?’”

But another impetus came from an unlikely source: the Campaign for Love and Forgiveness by the Fetzer Institute, and a series of local forums on the subject sponsored by KEET. The Dell’Arte School was to be one of the locations, so Fields attended. Eventually he went to all of them, and realized there was dramatic material there. “It seemed fitting to do it as a Korbel piece, because it has a past, and forgiveness is a lot about holding onto something or letting it go. You can’t change what happened, but how do you move on? There’s a great quote—I think it was Confucius: ‘Forgiveness doesn’t change the past, but it enlarges the future.’”

(Actually, Dutch botanist Paul Boese said that, but Confucius does have a great quote on the subject: “Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.”)

The question now, as Fields recognizes is, “if comedy and the theme of forgiveness can exist at the same time” in the same play. We’ll all get a chance to find out, starting June 26, the premiere of “Korbel IV: The Accident”… The emergency room of Korbel’s new for-profit hospital and casino, St. Mo’s (she’s the patron saint of gamblers) is suddenly filled with victims of an accident, when a mysterious taco truck driven by the police chief and filled with machine guns runs over several people. But since every second home in Korbel is now a grow house and uses seven times the power a normal home uses, there’s a blackout—only enough power at St. Mo’s to run three life support systems (and of course the slot machines)—but there are four criticals: so somebody has to die!

There are plenty of local references, Dorothy’s obligatory return from the dead and especially, lots of songs by a trio of nurses played by three of the best-known singers around: Joyce Hough, Jayse Lecyour and Lila Nelson. The cast features original Dell’Arte ensemble members Joan Schirle, Michael Fields and Donald Forrest, and local all-stars Jackie Dandeneau and David Ferney, Bob and Lynne Wells, as well as Jane Hill, Lynnie Horrigan, Soren Olsen, Josh Salas and Calder Johnson. Fields promises a spectacular stage set, designed by HSU’s Jody Sekas: “It’s what Vegas would look like if it came to your hospital.”

What's This Review IV?

Opening night of Dell’Arte’s Korbel IV: The Accident saw an overflow crowd in the Rooney Amphitheatre, cheerfully engaged in the annual rites of family mini-picnics, adult wine-sipping and general bundling-up after sundown, gathered to witness the resumption of a hometown participatory soap opera with the Dell Arte brand of comedy, music and local satire. They weren’t disappointed.

Michael Fields anchors the story as ex-logger turned hospital janitor and apparent gun-runner, Tommy Dugan, growling like a North Coast Jack Nicholson (“It’s not a Ken and Barbie world.”) Much of the comic action is in the winsome and capable hands of Jacqueline Dandenau and David Ferney, Bob and Lynne Wells, Jane Hill and Lynnie Harrigan as hit and run victims with backstories, and the singing nurses of St. Mo’s Hospital and Casino: Lila Nelson, Joyce Hough and Jaese Lecuyer.

 In our conversation, Fields likened their musical interpolations to those in Dennis Potter’s breakthrough TV miniseries, “The Singing Detective,” though I was reminded of Potter’s “Pennies From Heaven,” which shares the song “Life is Just A Bowl of Cherries” with Korbel. Josh Salas, Soren Olsen and Calder Johnson are the dancing orderlies.

 The show typically veered from topical local humor and slapstick to the Potter-like poignancy of the world-weary refrain, “Is this all there is?” There were the usual flamboyant touches—a real ambulance arriving at the gate, life support hoses pulsing with neon lights—a spectacular 1950s Las Vegas style set by Jody Sekas, and upbeat tunes by Tim Gray and the Dell’Arte House Band.

What about the question the playwright Michael Fields asked—can this comic mayhem be combined with saying something about love and forgiveness? The answer is yes, thanks to some nice second act writing (the Emily Dickinson lines were perfect), Donald Forrest’s eloquence as Terry Dugan, and Joan Schirle’s brief but delightful appearance as Dorothy, the matriarch. A lot was resolved, but is the story over?

 There’s something about the opening show of the Mad River Festival that inspires ruminations—or pontifications—about theatre itself. Last summer I looked to theatrical origins in traditional festivals. This year had me thinking about the “live” in live theatre, and its relation to the local and community.

These thoughts were also inspired by a conversation with Charlie Myers, my movie-reviewing colleague in these pages, after the benefit concert for Deborah Clasquin last Saturday. (An impressive turnout, though the proceeds will apparently pay for at most one of the three experimental treatments Deborah requires, so donations are still being accepted at the HSU Music Department.)

Charlie and I chatted about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of our respective beats. Although I envy Charlie’s access to on-the-job popcorn, and I’ve noticed that he can critique the latest Spielberg film without much chance of running into Steven at Wildberries (nor of receiving the evil eye from the ticket-taker on his next visit to the theatre), on the whole I think I have the better gig. And that’s even apart from the fact that these days I would only review movies on a sliding scale. If my base rate were $100 say, I’d have to charge $500 just to sit through an Adam Sandler comedy, $400 for Mike Myers, etc.

 Unlike movies, theatre is live and local in various ways, as exemplified by these Dell’Arte summer shows. They’ve become community rituals, and the shows respond to the occasion, even in seemingly small gestures, like a character blowing bubbles for no apparent reason but to interest the children on the blankets near the stage.

That the community sees itself reflected or refracted on stage is part of the “Theatre of Place” enacted in this year’s play, which works because the theatre has the depth of experience and credibility that can come with being located in the community, and because the story on stage can respond to the latest news with the speed and spontaneity of live performance.

 There are prices to be paid in dramatic focus, structure and depth, and references that not everyone knows enough about to find funny. But sometimes revealing the local does more. The Dugan story reflects characteristics of the North Coast, but in doing so it reveals something about many other small towns, counter to media images.

 The kind of differences and diversity symbolized by transsexual Lesbian Terry Dugan (and based on a real story—see Donald Forrest’s moving explanation in the program) is almost always associated with big cities--and “San Francisco values.” But the truth is that they are present in these smaller places, though perhaps less obviously than here on the North Coast. So the shame, guilt and conflict portrayed in this story may exist even more strongly there, and extends to all kinds of differences, not just this one. And the process of forgiveness—including self-forgiveness—or the failure to find it, is a more universal drama of real life.

 In locating an essential drama in the local, there is usually an element of the universal. Being human, the drama is shared, and the community is partly created by seeing it enacted. You can get that universality at the movies sometimes, too. But what you can’t get is the same kind of intimacy when the people on stage and the people in the audience face each other.

 An aspect of this was imprinted on my consciousness some years ago at a small theatre production in Pittsburgh of Arthur Miller’s play, “The Creation of the World and Other Business.” Though it’s comedic, the play deals with weighty themes of good and evil, individuality and community, fate and freedom. The audience was very close to the action, and I had my Satori moment when I saw right in front of me God’s bare feet. That is, the bare feet of the actress playing God. Somehow that made the play real and present.

 These were real people struggling with these big questions, as the human author did, and as we in the audience do. There is something about real bodies on the stage—at times uncomfortable, and yet vitally human. Audiences and actors breathing the same air demonstrates that apparently abstract questions may really be the most basic concerns of the human community. So how do you combine life and art, the everyday with its meaning? Create art. Present it live.