Mistakes Were Made

Hartford Stage, Hartford
www.hartfordstage.org
through November 22, 2009
by Shera Cohen

Hartford Stage has a deserved excellent and long-running reputation of presenting quality productions - in all areas including costumes, special effects, sets, acting, and direction. First and foremost, however, is play selection. Certainly, no one anticipates that every audience member will enjoy every play mounted at Hartford Stage. That is an unrealistic hope, not only in Hartford, but for all theatre companies. That said, "Mistakes Were Made" singles itself out, unfortunately, as the play that puts a crimp in a long list of years of A+ work.

You can't win them all, and "Mistakes Were Made" has many mistakes. Plays about plays usually don't work. Save for "Noises Off" (a hysterical comedy at HS last season), the dialogue is too inside, with the playgoers either unsympathetic to the characters or not understanding the roles. Another general problem is that many audience members do not wish to attend a one-actor piece. There is an offstage female voice - a woman who does appear once for a minute - and a couple of fish, but they don't count much. Yes, there are the exceptions; i.e. Hal Holbrook has become synonymous with Mark Twain. In this case, the character is a theatre producer (Felix) with Will Lebow in the role. While Lebow makes a monumental effort and does yeoman's work, the script is not sufficient enough to warrant his labors. Felix is a fast-talking, used-car salesman in show biz. His specialty is schlock shows. The entire play is a series of phone calls with soliloquies directed to the fish interspersed. "Mistakes" tries to combine Bob Newhart's exasperation (the rotary phone has been replaced) with Neil Simon one-liners. Neither work very well.

Playwright Craig Wright has excellent credentials. In many ways, this seems to be a first draft of a play that could go somewhere. The story builds and adds moments of drama, but these are only teases. Fleshing out the plot along with glimpses of substance earlier in the dialogue will help this play immensely. Billed as a comedy, there are some audience smiles and chuckles.

Horton Foote's The Orphans' Home Cycle

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT
www.hartfordstage.org
in repertory through October 23, 2009
by Donna Bailey-Thompson

Superb! The Hartford Stage world premiere of Horton Foote's "The Orphans' Home Cycle" - Part One, "The Story of a Childhood" - foretells that Parts Two ("...Marriage") and Three (..."Family") will build and deepen the compelling story of Horace's journey from ages 12 (1902) to 38 (1928).

This elaborate production prompts superlatives. A cast of 22 playing 70 roles wears authentic period costumes (David C. Woolard), hair and wigs (Mark Adam Rampmeyer). Subtle lighting design (Rui Rita) enhances the many scenes which dissolve seamlessly thanks to the engineering legerdemain of scenic designers Jeff Cowie and David Barber: huge flats glide sideways and props move forward and back - where stood a boy, now stands a man.

Responsibility for this dramatic tour de force belongs to Artistic Director Michael Wilson. He convinced the aging playwright that the full nine-play cycle Foote had hoped to turn into nine movies (he and his wife succeeded in bringing five to the screen).could be staged in repertory. "The Cycle" is co-produced with New York's Signature Theatre Company where it will play from November to March.

Horton Foote's scripts suggest that he was light years distant from being pretentious. A gifted storyteller who eschewed any tricks, especially maudlin sentimentality, his characters are multi-dimensional; identification with their human nature explains one aspect of Foote's popularity. Another is quite simple: the man could really write.

Act I ("Roots in a Parched Ground" about 60 miles SW of Houston) opens with the dying of Horace's father whose excessive drinking alienated his wife. She marries Mr. Davenport who doesn't drink, smoke, or chew. "He has no problems," she states, except he's a dry drunk with profound control issues. Mr. Davenport's job transfer to Houston includes Horace's mother and sister but young Horace is left behind. In effect, he's an orphan. By Act II, age 14, ("Convicts") he's clerking in a scruffy store on a hardscrabble sugar cane plantation owned by an alcoholic skinflint who uses cheap convict labor. By Act III ("Lily Dale"), Horace is 20. A short visit in Houston with his uneasy mother and self-centered sister is prolonged when he is stricken with malaria. When he leaves, he's still weak but resolved to succeed.

The casting is inspired: Bill Heck (adult Horace), Henry Hodges (Horace, age 14); James DeMarse (plantation drunk), Annalee Jefferies (Horace's mother), and Pamela Payton-Wright (Mrs. Coons) who gives new meaning to "church lady." Michael Wilson's directing reflects the gentle yet precise cadence of Horton Foote's script. The result is immersion in Horace's odyssey - Greek tragedy, Texas style, never hurried, never drags.

Because scheduling of this three-part cycle is complex, theatergoers are encouraged to visit www.hartfordstage.org for ticketing information. Each three-hour performance includes three short plays and two intermissions.

Yesterdays/An Evening with Billie Holiday

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT
www.hartfordstage.org
through August 22, 2009
by Donna Bailey-Thompson

Playwright Reenie Upchurch was 16 when she met Billie Holiday. "I told her I wanted to be just like her. Billie replied, never in a billion years would I want to be like her. I didn't understand that statement then, but I would a couple years later...Billie was staggering around the stage talking out of her head, trying to make a connection, laughing and crying sporadically." This is the Billie that Upchurch's play focuses on.

"An Evening with Billie Holiday" May 1959. New York City. A small club. Three musicians wander onto the stage. Levi Barcourt (Musical Director/Pianist), resplendent in a shimmering sharkskin suit, sits down at the piano and blisters the keys with a hands-blurring arrangement of "The Lady Is A Tramp." A master is in charge. Plucking the bass is another pro, David Jackson. On drums is Bernard Davis; his sticks never over shadow, they always enhance. But no Billie. The musicians wonder, "Where is she?" and "I'm getting tired of this." In she drifts, slightly swaying, clinging to glamour in a white satin halter neckline gown; matching gloves top her elbows. Stuck in her hair is a shiny white artificial flower, not a real gardenia like back when times were good. She holds a short, fat glass, half full of a clear liquid, as much as saying, "I don't give a damn." Pure bravado. She fools no one.

Billie, as interpreted by Vanessa Rubin, charms and breaks hearts with her soulful songs. Rubin doesn't impersonate Billie; she embraces her memory and out pours loneliness, sadness and psychic pain. The Washington Post has raved, "Vanessa Rubin is one of the most gifted jazz vocalists of her generation." Officers wait to arrest Billie - again; she knows they're there. Within a few months, at age 44, she will die of heart and liver failure, a direct result of the demons she couldn't conquer.

The naturalness of this musical portrait disarms: the musicians' concern for her well-being, Billie's sly asides, her rough life (she was raped when only nine), the arc of her love for and from the audience; her phrasing that beguiles - she was a natural. Bravo Director Woodie King, Jr.

Dividing the Estate

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordstage.org

through July 5, 2009

by Shera Cohen

Broadway comes to Hartford in the package "Dividing the Estate." This tragicomedy was nominated as one of Tony Awards best plays of the year and The New York Times pick among the10 Best Plays of 07/08. The entire play and nearly the full cast was lifted up and placed at Hartford Stage without skipping a beat. In fact, Michael Wilson's direction is the essence of perfect timing of actors reacting to each other and movement on stage. In addition, the 1980s Recession somewhat mirrors today's economic times.

To write that "Estate's" characters depict a dysfunctional family is too broad and simple. Is not every family a bit dysfunctional? The location is the home of the extended Gordon clan. They employ African-American servants who, from the start, let it be known that they are equals to their bosses. Plot points include sibling rivalry, greed, shallowness, death, and selfishness. Doesn't sound too funny, but it is one of the best black comedies written (by the late Horton Foote) in many years.

It is difficult to single out any particular performance in this ensemble cast. Watch the actors whose turn it is to speak, and watch the others who are silent and even seated in the corner. Do they react in character? That's one sign of an excellent production. Wilson makes sure that every person and piece of furniture has a purpose at every moment. Speaking of furnishings, Scenic Designer Jeff Cowie deserves and did receive special kudos from his opening night audience; the scrim lifted to reveal a majestic plantation home to great applause.

All difficulty aside, some actors must be recognized as superb. Arthur French (Doug) portrays a delightful nonagenarian whose moments onstage are precious. Hallie Foote's "Sister" (yes, characters call each other Sister, Son, Mother-in-Law) sparkles annoyingly with fast one-liners in her steadfast avarice. Gerald McRaney depicts Brother/Uncle with an unexpected poignancy.

About 200 floor seats were added in the theatre in anticipation of large audiences. That was a smart decision, as every chair was needed for the full house. Hartford Stage should take a bow as it ends this 2008/09 season as one of their best in decades.

Noises Off

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT
through May 17, 2009
by Shera Cohen

"Noises Off" is either a director's dream or nightmare, depending if the fun of working such a production outweighs the torture of creating a play-within-a-play, three times. From the end result, it seems as if director Malcolm Morrison had a wonderful time, and took the audience along for the fast and furious joy ride. It is difficult enough for a good director to mold the script, actors, and crew into a successful play. Add on, purposeful bad directing of a pathetic play within the umbrella play. Confusing? Yes, and it works fabulously at Hartford Stage.

Before the lights dim, three clues let the audience know that this is a play(s) for laughs. There's the pompous British voice-over advising turning off cell phones, the playbill's cover is a misnomer including the hysterical bios of the pretend cast, and the set has 10 doors. Lots of doors equals farce - the more doors, the funnier the production.

The plot is a behind the scenes look at an English theatre troupe as they rehearse and then tour. The ensemble of nine actors begin their roller-coaster ride at a moderate pace, rev up to full throttle, and then to warp speed. It's hard to image that on some days, Hartford Stage mounts a matinee and evening show. The actors must be exhausted. The characters are caricatures. There's the proverbial dumb blonde, the funny drunk, mistaken identity, sexual innuendos, a burglar, love triangles, an IRS agent, and sardines. Props, particularly dead fish, are key to "Noises Off."

Scenic Designer Tony Straiges deserves endless kudos for his ingenious creation of two entirely different sets - the elegant "fake play," and the backstage 2-by-4 "real play." A line in the script credits actor "Tim" as having built the stage himself in just 48-hours. While Straiges' skills are obviously A+, he certainly had help from a very talented crew, and undoubtedly it took at least three days of hammering and drilling.

Physical humor, with a capital "P" and "H" abounds, from pratfalls to pantomime, dropping pants to (of course) slamming doors.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Hartford Stage, Hartford
through April 4, 2009
by Shera Cohen


Why would anyone who has already read the book, or watched the movie, or both (perhaps a couple of times each) want to spend time seeing a theatrical production of “To Kill a Mockingbird”? The answer is not necessarily “wanting” but “needing”. Every decade or so, audiences/readers must be reminded of the tale of the mockingbird and its themes of justice and courage amidst ignorance and fear.

Hartford Stage has, thankfully, brought this Depression-era story set in the Deep South to today’s New England audiences. While Harper Lee’s characters lived 70-years ago, it is not hard to understand and empathize with many of the important issues that, to a large degree, remain the same.

Throughout the play, a narrator (the adult Scout) reflects on episodes in one particular year in her young life. Her presence, coupled with floating sets and seamless onstage movement by cast and crew, creates an unbreakable line of content and emotion that build to the perfect crescendo. All the time, director Michael Wilson uses every scene – even those that are but three minutes long – to subtly maximize the audience’s belief of the times, struggles, and characters.

Matthew Modine is one of those actors seen often on TV and in movies, but few remember his name. He’s not an “A List” guy, but he should be. To be equally excellent on screen and on the stage is rare. This man is the consummate professional. Modine’s Atticus Finch personifies a man of integrity who, by the way, is one of the wisest father figures in literature.

The three child actors (Olivia Scott, Henry Hodges, and Andrew Shipman) probably have the most onstage time and dialogue, yet each is ideal in his/her role. It’s hard to imagine others cast in these parts. They create the mold that structures the play with their innocence, respect, fearlessness, lack of prejudice, and frankness (“out of the mouths of babes”). Their characters exemplify the qualities that ought to be and that there might be hope for the future.

A visionary director, exemplary actors, and skilled crew make “Mockingbird” a piece of theatre to experience more than once.

Dying City

Hartford Stage, Hartford
through February 8, 2009
Donna Bailey-Thompson

A spirited discussion among strangers following the play demonstrated that the advance publicity description of "Dying City" remained accurate even after the play had ended: the "mystery drama" generated more questions than it answered. From the tension-filled disjointed dialog of the opening scenes through switchbacks in time and attitude, the story line resembled the stop and go rewinding of a ball of yarn. Unlike the unfolding of a linear plot, "Dying City" demands unbroken attention while it parries, thrusts, twists and dodges. If playwright Christopher Shinn’s intent was to mimic dysfunctional behavior spawned by the family of origin, this Pulitzer Prize-nominated play scores.

Simply stated, Peter (Ryan King) is a self-absorbed actor chasing love while his twin brother, Craig (Ryan King), a soldier bound for Iraq, can’t accept the love given to him by his wife, Kelly (Diane Davis), a psychotherapist whose compassionate beliefs are ridiculed. Their interlocking personal dramas are played out within a setting, designed by Wilson Chin, that reflects their circumscribed characters – a boxy greatroom (perhaps a loft) that contains utilitarian kitchen counters and a living area dominated by a massive, multi-paned cantilevered window that frames the silhouetted cityscape of New York. The decor is stark, almost sterile, appropriate for the walking wounded.

Director Maxwell Williams keeps the brothers’ flawed emotional development teetering on the edge of awakening while simultaneously maintaining Kelly awhirl within bewilderment. Alejo Vietti’s clever costume designs double as calendar clocks which help the audience keep track of time and year.

Actors Davis and King (and King) are well cast. As twenty-somethings, they contend with ongoing international instability personified by the Iraq debacle. While macho Craig champions a shooting war, his gay twin’s mouth unleashes supposedly innocuous words that give new meaning to dying by a thousand cuts. Davis, as their verbal punching bag, strives to discover the origin of the brothers’ anger.

Perhaps the best way to "get" the allegorical "Dying City" is to see it twice.

Resurrection

Hartford Stage, Hartford
through Nov. 16, 2008
By Bernadette Johnson

It’s not arbitrary that "Resurrection" cast members are identified in the program initially by their ages, then by the roles they play. From 10 to 60, the six male figures who bring this powerful drama to Hartford Stage are separated by decades. They share the same plight, however, lives rooted in the history of oppression of the black man, the context from which author Daniel Beaty draws so eloquently.

From 10-year-old Eric (Thuliso Dingwall) to The Bishop (Jeffery V. Thompson), a sexagenarian, there are no weak characters on this stage. Set against a single backdrop of a stylized cross, "Resurrection" tells the story of five black men and a boy who individually struggle with their collective past and personal demons all the while clinging to shared hopes and dreams, a vision that moves them beyond an “historical identity based on being property.”

The characters share the multi-level set for much of the 90-minute (no intermission) performance. Dingwall is the youngest cast member and holds his own remarkably well for a 10-year-old as a child scientist in search of a magic formula that will heal all ills. He is everyone’s hope, the future embodiment of “the better life.”

There are several powerfully moving scenes. In a tribute to black mothers who have sacrificed themselves for their sons, the litany “Dance, mama, dance” (for all the dreams you forgot) resounds, a plea increasing in intensity with each repetition. Che Ayende, as 30/Dre, recently released from prison and trying to build a new life for his “family,” his girlfriend and their baby, but seeing past mistakes catching up to him, delivers a heart-wrenching “how to be a man for you” monologue.

Not to be forgotten is 60/The Bishop, who adds a touch of humor Overeaters Anonymous style. It’s hard to know if the Amens from the front and center section were plants or spontaneous responses, but either way, they added a spark of authenticity to Thompson’s delivery.

Symbolism plays a role, as African robes yield way to tattered cloaks. Finally, although the ending seemed a bit too pat and predictable, there is great theatre here.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Hartford Stage
through October 5
By Bernadette Johnson

“Up and down, up and down, I will lead them up and down.” What the mischievous Puck has planned for Shakespeare’s crisscrossed lovers is a mere fragment of the merry chase Shakespeare leads us on in this, his great dream play. He offers us not merely a dream, but dreams intersecting with reality, fairies, sprites, forest creatures, and a play within a play.

It’s all very simple? Hermia loves Lysander, but must marry Demetrius, her father’s choice. Helena loves Demetrius, but he is smitten with Hermia. Hermia and Lysander plan to escape through the forest, but not before Hermia tells Helena, who tells Demetrius. The four head for the forest as does a troupe of would-be actors (a company of misfits) rehearsing a play for the Duke of Athens’ wedding. Add a magic love potion, a vengeful fairy king, mistaken identities, masks and transformations, and you get the picture.

Director Lisa Peterson has updated the production. We are “lost in the fifties” and love the reminders. Despite its simplicity, Rachel Hauck’s set is intricate and ingenious and transforms readily from town to forest. Interestingly, Hauck chose to retain a single window casement throughout. Puzzling at first, it becomes a constant reminder that all is not as it seems.

Of all the delightful creatures that roam the forest, two in particular stand out. Hartford Stage newcomer Susannah Flood as Helena definitely steals the spotlight as the woman scorned. “Not made to woo,” she nevertheless stoops to just about anything to further her cause, including her hilarious “I am your spaniel” tail-wagging declaration of love, delivered on all-fours. Lucas Caleb Rooney is top-notch as Bottom the Weaver. His John Wayne imitation and his “ass-inine” song are priceless.

Paul James Pendergast’s original score lends a fairytale atmosphere, evoking a dreamlike state, convincing us to “let the magic take us away.” And it does.

Wishful Drinking

Hartford Stage
through Aug. 17
By Bernadette Johnson

Carrie Fisher reels in her audience hook, line and zinger. What an entrance. To a star-studded backdrop a la “Star Wars”, Fisher showers the audience with handfuls of glitter as she belts out “Happy Days are Here Again” (yes, she can sing too) while fake tabloid headlines from the lives of her famous Hollywood icon parents, Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, the not so happy days, stream behind her. Then comes the standard AA introduction “…and I’m an alcoholic.”

The audience feels almost guilty laughing as Fisher recounts the ordeal of waking up next to a corpse, her “gay, Republican drug-addict” friend who died in her bed. “Republicans contributed to his death,” she assures us and thus sets the no-holds-barred tone for the evening. Everyone and everything is fair game for her hilarious anecdotes, from her matinee idol parents, to George Lucas and his wardrobe theory (“There is no underwear in space”), to her famous Princess Leia honey-bun hair, to her first husband, Paul Simon, and finally to her own mental illness, drug dependency and ill-fated romances. Not even her “blue blood, white trash” Texan grandmother is immune.

Fisher, dressed mainly in black with a slight wardrobe variation in Act 2, paces the stage, frenetically at times, smokes clove cigarettes and constantly interacts with the audience, particularly patrons in front-row seats. She is the quintessential story teller and stand-up comic. A hilarious first act “Are they related?” segment titled “Hollywood Inbreeding 101” takes the form of a CSI-style photo board/flow chart of the generations, tracing Debbie’s and Eddie’s descendents through their marriage, breakup, subsequent marriages (multiple), their exes’ subsequent marriages and so forth.

For those in the audience who fall in Fisher’s generation, “Wishful Drinking” is a trip down Memory Lane, tabloid sensationalism plus all the juicy details, the inside scoop. Fisher‘s formula for comedy is “tragedy plus time.” She doesn’t lay blame, doesn’t offer excuses for herself or others, doesn’t provide any psychological insight. It is what it is. The “funny slant” is her key to survival. It’s not surprising that among her “Special Thanks” in the program she includes “all 12 of my shrinks.”

ELLA

Hartford Stage
50 Church Street
Hartford CT
Now through July 27, 2008

July 9, 2008
By Donna Bailey-Thompson

"I guess what everyone wants more than anything else is to be loved. And to know that you loved me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don't have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you'll understand." – Ella Fitzgerald.

On opening night, a packed house, the audience understood. The real Ella may have been gone a dozen years but her stand-in, Tina Fabrique (almost a reincarnation), resurrected Ella’s essence and with it a renewed appreciation of Ella’s remarkable vocal gifts: how she could bend a note without blurring it and still hit it true, take a hurtin’ song as prickly as a briar patch and croon the barbs into a pool of healing tears, and then with finger-snappin’ playfulness – about as sly as a fox – swing into an upbeat novelty song that she wrote when she was still a skinny, snake-hipped young girl, "A Tisket, A Tasket."

Throughout the performance, Fabrique pattered, a la Ella , relaying the First Lady of Song’s story of early hardships, poor romantic choices, winning first prize for singing at the Apollo’s amateur night the first time she was ever on a stage, hired by Chick Webb – the beginning of her 58-year career, the springboard for thirteen Grammys and the sale of more than 40 million records.

Set Designer Michael Schweikardt’s creation of a 1966 art deco-influenced curved five-level stage in a Nice, France concert hall, is home to a swinging foursome – Piano/Conductor George Caldwell; Drums, Rodney Harper; Bass, Clifton Kellem; and Trumpet, Thad Wilson, who in one number resurrects Louis Sachmo Armstrong.

Lighting Designer John Lasiter piggybacked clues from about two dozen songs to set and enhance the music’s moods (during "That Old Black Magic," a low horizontal spot ends on Ella’s face), and the changing of colored gels keeps the staging fresh.

For an evening of fine musicianship, honed by hours and years of growing their collective talent, Tina Fabrique as Ella, and the boys in the band, swing. Ella also bebops, scats, and caresses ballads that stretch one’s soul until it aches.

The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT
May 21, 2008
By Bernadette Johnson

Academy Award-winning Olympia Dukakis is Flora “Sissy” GoForth, a formerly glamorous American widow sequestered in her mountaintop villa on the Italian Riviera who is frantically dictating her memoirs to her secretary, both day and night. She has two deadlines, one with her publishers, the other with death. Confronted by her own mortality, she lashes out at all around her, in particular her secretary, “Blackie” (Maggie Lacey), a prim and proper Vassar girl.

Christopher Flanders (Kevin Anderson), a good-looking young poet and mobile sculptor who has earned the nickname “Angel of Death” due to his reputation for bringing “comfort” and companionship to rich dying ladies, gains access to the villa, but is unwelcome. “Passports expire; so do invitations,” GoForth reminds him. “Sissy GoForth is not ready to go forth yet.”

Realism and symbolism are interwoven throughout the play, and the audience is never quite sure who the characters really are or what they represent. One thing is certain. For a play with such a morbid theme, the laughs just keep coming. Dukakis gives a superb performance. She is callous and sarcastic, and her delivery and sense of timing are impeccable. From her sickbed (deathbed), she shifts into high gear effortlessly when she realizes there is a young man, possibly a last chance for love, on the premises. Her hysterical take on a Kabuki dancer (in full regalia) is priceless.

It is Dukakis who keeps the tone light. Anderson is at his best (read that “funniest”) as the neglected uninvited houseguest who is denied food. At more serious moments, talking about his life and his role as a “helper,” his delivery was sometimes flat and at times, his words were unintelligible (acoustics?).

Scenic designer Jeff Cowie offers an imposing three-villa set separated by semi-sheer curtains against a mountainous backdrop. A terrace in front of the main villa, complete with bridged ravines, provides the main setting. The constancy of crashing waves sustains the mood.

The Scene

Hartford Stage, Hartford
through May 4, 2008
April 13, 2008
By Donna Bailey-Thompson

This lively, well-written play bears one essential resemblance to the sophisticated drawing room comedies of yesteryear: actors perform. And oh my, do they! Warts and all. The first act is awash in superficiality. By intermission I didn’t care about any of the four characters. If I had not returned for the second act, I would have crafted an ending and it would have been deader than a doornail wrong. Or, said another way, "Don’t judge a book by its cover," because in Act 2, the covers come off.

Here’s some of what is learned in Act One. Clea (Christy McIntosh) has come to NYC from Ohio bringing her annoying Valley Girl sing-songing mannerisms with her. Lewis (Liam Craig) is a bachelor and faithful friend to Charlie (Matthew Arkin) an actor who has not landed a role worthy of his talent in several years, and to Charlie’s wife, Stella (Henny Russell) who hates everything about her work she loves. (Yes, you read that right.) On a rooftop exposed to the city’s light-twinkling skyline, Cleo prattles on to Lewis and Charlie about being interviewed by a woman she describes as a "Nazi Priestess," not realizing that the woman is Stella. Not that Cleo would care: she is hedonistically uncaring. However, she is sensitive to Charlie’s body language and tone as it applies to her and she challenges him to be honest. In spite of his initial dislike of the airhead, he allows himself to be drawn into her web. Exasperated, he exclaims, "How can you know so much and so little at the same time?"

Surely all four actors were recruited from Central Casting: they are ideal in roles they honed at the George Street Playhouse (New Brunswick, NJ), with whom Hartford Stage has formed a new partnership – an alliance that fosters the artistic and business needs of any successful theater.

Playwright Theresa Rebeck headlines her blog with this revealing quote, "As a writer, I have always considered it my job to describe the world as I know it; to struggle toward whatever portion of the truth is available to me." She dips into her characters’ subterranean closets and while there, she eschews cheap jokes and instead burnishes lines that range from ruefully funny to piercingly hysterical. And in the process, she crafts a dynamite script.

The Bluest Eye

Hartford Stage, Hartford
Through April 20, 2008
By Bernadette Johnson

“There were no marigolds in the fall of 1941,” begins the narrative to a backdrop of sheets hung out to dry. As the sheets are taken down and folded, a simple set is disclosed gently and deliberately, as are the ugly secrets and the harsh realities in the coming of age of Pecola Breedlove (Adepero Oduye), a poor, 11-year-old black girl growing up in Ohio in the 1940s. Pecola’s family life, such as it is, is defined by an abusive father’s drunkenness and a mother’s bitterness.

Based on Toni Morrison’s Nobel-prize-winning novel of the same name, the play unfolds through a combination of convincing dramatic portrayals and transitional commentaries, offered sympathetically by Pecola’s grammar school friends, sisters Claudia (Bobbi Baker) and Frieda (Ronica V. Reddick), who share their perspectives (as adults) on Pecola’s tragic vulnerability.

Society’s mirror tells Pecola she is ugly. She prays for blue eyes, not to see the world differently, but to be seen differently, like the little white girls that fill the pages of her “Dick and Jane” reader.

Oduye expertly conveys Pecola’s angst through her remoteness and wistful reflection: her stooped shoulders, her cringing, her expectation of rejection. Particularly heartrending is her explanation of disappearing, piece by piece, except for her eyes, which, of course, she “sees” as blue.

Baker, on the other hand, adds pathos and humor as she releases her pent-up anger and jealousy of “white girls” by beheading and dismembering her white doll.

Also offering comic relief are Ellis Foster’s dissertations (as Daddy) on kindling and coal, and Miche Braden’s mock diatribe (as sharp-tongued but compassionate Mama) on milk consumption. There is so much more: Silhouettes, gossiping women, a magician, stardust, Braden’s soulful Gospel hymns and a dramatic storm that floods the stage.

Through it all, Pecola’s inner storm rages unceasingly. She carries her emotional scars with her straight through to a chilling, but not totally unexpected, ending. This is drama at its finest.

"Zerline's Tale"

Hartford Stage, Hartford CT
through February 10, 2008
By Donna Bailey-Thompson

The accomplished actress Elizabeth Ashley in, essentially, a one-woman play, holds an audience’s attention for 75 minutes as she stirs a cauldron of major emotions that stem from a time in Zerline’s life. Burbling from the past into the present are desire, jealousy, abandonment, revenge, all woven into a narrative that Ashley spins with the skill and aplomb of a Scheherazade. As Zerline tells her story, she re-experiences the feelings that surfeited her being forty years earlier. Within an aging female servant, there still lives a flirtatious country girl, once innocent but now worldly wise, who revels telling about her romances, and who especially relishes the memories of perfect bliss and of schemes to avenge her heartache.

Ashley as Zerline represents the epitome of type casting. She’s the right age (she comfortably acknowledges she is 68). Like Zerline, to borrow a reference to Agnes Gooch, she’s lived. Among her professional kudos is the Tony Award she won when 22. In 1974 when 34, she sizzled as Maggie in a Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." In 2005 in Hartford Stage’s "Cat..." she was Big Mama ("Elizabeth Ashley’s Big Mama endures her husband’s verbal abuse; across her face play waves of grief as she braces for his fatal illness.") As Zerline, a maid who absorbed many of her employer’s refinements, her fluid gestures reflect her study of ballet, lo so many moons ago.

Adapted and translated by Jeremy Sams, this is the American premiere of "Zerline’s Tale" and the first English-language production. The play is based on one chapter from a novel, "The Guiltless," by Hermann Broch.

Scenic Designer Alexander Dodge has replicated a typical small bedsitting room in a substantial European home – high ceiling, mammoth wardrobe, a shuttered window, a fireplace that burns large chunks of coal, a narrow bed, and more – and two people occupy that space, Zerline and Man (Jon David Casey) who is almost as mute as Zerline is verbose. Casey is attentive, caught up in Zerline’s memories. Let’s face it: we’re all suckers for a good story well told.

This polished production is Director Michael Wilson’s ninth project with Elizabeth Ashley, a collaboration that works exceedingly well.