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REVIEW: ‘The Broken Chord’ resonates with honesty, simplicity, beauty

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Mother (Saffron Henke, from left), son (Tim Budd) and daughter (Kristy Hartsgrove Mooers) embrace and dance during a March 27 rehearsal for "The Broken Chord," at the Englert Theatre in Iowa City. The play focuses on Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and uses emotion and body movement to illustrate ideas. The show opened April 12 and continues through April 14 at the Englert. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette-KCRG9)

IOWA CITY — At intermission, the woman next to me said what I was about to say to her: “This is my life.”

Afterwards, she was in tears and I was fighting back mine. A mutual friend introduced us Friday night, and who knows when or if we’ll see each other again. But for two hours, we were united in the shared experiences of “The Broken Chord,” onstage through Sunday (4/14) at the Englert Theatre.

This is another brilliant Hancher commission by Working Group Theatre, a small professional troupe of the highest achievement. Time and again, founders Sean Christopher Lewis, Jennifer Fawcett and Martin Andrews have gathered their colleagues to cast light on the shadows swirling around us all.

Theater originated to educate audiences through artistic expression — to present complex issues in a way the masses could understand. That is exactly what the Working Group cast and crew have done with the world of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

To call them “actors” seems inadequate. Their specialty is illumination through immersion in some of the most difficult situations facing society today, from Michigan’s crumbling auto industry in “Rust” to race relations in last year’s Hancher commission, “Mayberry.”

They spent a year researching Alzheimer’s disease through the eyes of patients, their families, medical professionals and caregivers. Several of the actors trained as hospice workers, to provide bedside comfort through patients’ final days.

They met with panels of health care professionals, shared their project with students across a wide variety of disciplines at the University of Iowa, conducted storytelling workshops with patients and presented mountains of material to playwright Fawcett.

Their deep, deep delving now sings with the utmost beauty onstage — a poetic ballet of heartbreaking humanity that brought the opening night audience to laughter, tears, gasps, silence and a most deserved standing ovation.

Every aspect of this show is elegant, with director Lewis seamlessly weaving theatrical devices into a rich tapestry that flutters and envelops the audience into the action.

Objects and poles and sails fly in and out, creating scenery real and unreal, sometimes stopping overhead, other times engulfing the characters. Gorgeous music captures the very essence of every mood, from harrowing to humorous, anxious to exhilarating. And the lighting. So stark one moment, so perfect in another, as delicate tubes and twinkle lights take us into the fragile realm of sweet memories.

The main story involves two adult children tearing themselves apart trying to join forces in caring for their stricken mother. This new mission reopens old wounds and their frustration is palpable.

On the periphery is a Greek chorus of actors who present other common scenarios — the husband of a wife with early-onset Alzheimer’s, a chaplain reaching out to physically and spiritually touch the afflicted, an older wife clinging to a lifetime of memories, and adult children on very different, yet similar paths.

All of the performances are stellar, but Saffron Henke is utterly magnificent as the mother, Helen, a Ph.D. archivist — a preserver of memories who cannot stop her own from slipping away. We see and feel her transformation, her anguish and her frailty every step of the way. Tim Budd and Kristy Hartsgrove Mooers sweep us into their journey through sibling anger, resentment, frustration, unity,  resignation and acceptance.

Dancer Elizabeth June Bergman brings fluidity to the churning emotions, like a delicate music box dancer embracing an invisible partner, cradling a child or cradling memories, savoring their touch. The other actors follow her lead, in moments charming and sweet.

This is an experience not to be missed. It will stay with you long after the lights dim and the memories fade.

ARTS EXTRA

What: Hancher presents “The Broken Chord,” by Working Group Theatre

Where: Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City

When: 7:30 p.m. April 13; 2 p.m. April 14, 2o13

Tickets: $10 to $35 at the door or Hancher.uiowa.edu

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REVIEW: Flawless ‘Summerland Project’ takes viewers into brave new world

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Christopher Cole (from left), Angela Billman and Marty Norton star in "The Summerland Project," on the Theatre Cedar Rapids mainstage through Feb. 2, 2013. (Von Presley Studios photo)

CEDAR RAPIDS — A lot was on the line at Theatre Cedar Rapids on Friday night. (1/11/13) A large crowd had turned out to see a new play by a local author. That weightiest of phrases, “world premiere,” was being bandied about. The show was TCR’s 400th production.

It was a significant moment.

And each and every person involved in “The Summerland Project” — writer Rob Merritt, director Leslie Charipar, a creative technical crew and an impassioned cast of seven — was ready for that moment. This was very nearly a flawless production of an impressive script.

Merritt’s play appears to draw from a variety of influences: the Pygmalion myth,  “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ” (source material for  “Blade Runner”),  “Frankenstein” and more. Nevertheless, “The Summerland Project” feels fresh and original. It posits a future in which the human brain can be uploaded into a synthetic body with its memories intact.

Would the resulting being be human? Even if it were, would it be moral to cheat death in this way? And what rights would be inalienable to these all but alien creations?

To pull off a high concept play like “The Summerland Project,” Merritt’s script must accomplish a lot: serve up the moral problems in a compelling way; deal with philosophical and scientific exposition in a manner that doesn’t slow the action down; subtly set up plot points that enable and drive the climactic scenes; provide the characters with complex, believable motivations and natural, flowing dialogue; and upset our expectations and problematize our biases.

“The Summerland Project” is successful in each and every one of these areas. Merritt’s program note points to the collaborative development of portions of the text over time, but it is clear that his guiding vision and skillful writing are at the heart of the play’s success. The script itself is a significant accomplishment.

The details

Derek Easton’s spare set, which is enhanced by two walls of video monitors, is perfect. The physical trappings of science fiction are kept to a minimum, which strenghtens the focus on the characters. The monitors could easily have become a distraction, but they are employed so deftly that they only serve to enhance the story, adding drama at key moments and elucidating the mind of the play’s central character.

But all of this — a sharp script, a striking set — would be for naught if the cast couldn’t deliver. Fortunately, with strong direction from Charipar and a clear commitment to the material, this cast was stellar. Each performer inhabited his or her role in such a way that we could see, hear and feel the struggles of the characters to bring huge dreams to fruition at any cost, to stand up for a moral code, to emerge victorious in the face of equally intractable opposition, to find love amid confusion and heartbreak. To a person, the cast — Christopher Cole, Jon Day, Scott Humeston, Matthew James, Marty Norton and Tierra Plowden — deserves kudos.

I’ve left one cast member out of that list because she has earned special commendation. Angela Billman is simply brilliant as Amelia Summerland. Billman’s portrayal of a new kind of person — a hybrid of artificial organism and uploaded personality — is thrilling. As her character relearned to be Amelia (and that formulation of what is happening is just one of a number of possible interpretations), she was by turns hilarious and heartbreaking. It’s a demanding role on which much depends, and Billman could not have been better.

“The Summerland Project” strongly engages both the heart and the mind. It reminded me of the classic science fiction tale which has appeared in many forms over the years, including as a stage play “Flowers for Algernon.” Like that seminal story, “The Summerland Project” is a devastatingly good piece of work.

I hope this is just the first of many stages from which Amelia Summerland will connect with and challenge audiences.

Related: Local playwright’s creation comes to life

Local playwright’s creation comes to life

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"The Summerland Project," opening Jan. 11 at Theatre Cedar Rapids. (VON PRESLEY STUDIOS)

We live, we die, the end.

But what if that wasn’t the end? What if we could live on?

We’re not talking organ donations or cloning. Both are realities borne of long-ago what-ifs.

What if the brain could live on, its waves coursing through a synthetic, robotic body designed to look like our dearly departed selves?

If we, in essence, could bring our loved ones back to life, would we? Should we?

It’s a question as old as “Frankenstein” in the 19th century, explored through “Pet Sematary” in the 20th century and “A.I.” in the 21st century.

And it’s at the heart of “The Summerland Project,” opening Jan. 11 at Theatre Cedar Rapids.

“It’s the story of a husband who is given the chance to possibly bring his dead wife back to life through a very revolutionary medical procedure,” says playwright Rob Merritt, 36, of Cedar Rapids. “But the question is, is it really her or is it simply a really good, fake copy of her?

“(From) that basic idea, it gets into all these questions about what makes us human. ‘The Summerland Project’ was driven by a question that I think everyone’s asked at some point,” he says. “When someone you love dies, you want them back. You would do anything to have them back.

“For a long time I wanted to write a play about that — about someone who wanted to talk to a loved one again, and then finally getting to. But I couldn’t figure out how to tell that story without going into some spiritual thing,” he says. “I couldn’t find a way to do it in the logical, realistic world without making the audience believe in same thing that I do.”

Science helped solve that dilemma.

“I’ve always been a big fan of technology and I’m fascinated by computers and by robotics, and a few years ago, I was reading about how every two years, computers essentially double in size and speed. It’s been that way since the ’60s,” Merritt says.

“It’s predicted that if computers keep advancing at the current rate, we will have a computer that’s big enough and fast enough to simulate every neuron in the human brain and run a fully functional human brain — that we will see this happen not only in our lifetimes, but possibly, in the next few decades.

“And if that’s true, and we succeed at doing that, then the question is, what would that mean? If you copied a brain that way, would it be human? If it can think and remember exactly like the original one did, then why wouldn’t it be alive? And if it isn’t, then what is it that makes us human? Our voices, our bodies, something spiritual?

“I felt like once I thought about that, not only did I have a way to tell my story — the one I wanted to tell for a long time — I knew that it was an opportunity to explore much bigger themes. And that’s where the play came from.”

The details

Writing is a natural vehicle for Merritt, a former Gazette Arts & Entertainment editor and former marketing director at Theatre Cedar Rapids. Ten years ago he penned a book on the Columbine school massacre and now makes his living as a freelance writer and editor.

Not surprising for a journalist, deadlines fueled the evolution “The Summerland Project,” named not only for the main characters, Carter and Amelia Summerland, but also for the realm where various faiths believe a soul goes between death and an afterlife, called “the summerland,” Merritt says.

He’d been kicking around the play’s central idea for some time, researching the science behind it during the winter and spring of 2011. When Theatre Cedar Rapids announced a June 30 deadline for its November 2011 Underground Theatre Festival, Merritt dived into his script. He developed an outline that April, wrote in May and June, then staged a reading with friends about a week before deadline — to give him “time” for tweaking his submission.

He says half the writing took place during rehearsals leading up to the November debut in the theater’s intimate Grandon Studio. Matthew James, the actor playing Carter Summerland, improvised a monologue at his wife’s bedside that was so striking Merritt wrote it into the script. (James is playing the robotics scientist this time around, and Christopher Cole is playing the husband.)

Everything about the 2011 bare-bones production was so striking that Theatre Cedar Rapids staff decided to place it on the mainstage this season and pump up the technical aspects with a multimedia treatment.

“It’s still a clean, simple, streamlined design, but what you’ll see this time is large screens that function as the walls of the lab, that then become projecting surfaces,” says TCR artistic director Leslie Charipar. “Those projections will function as the lab’s computer monitors, too, so whatever’s happening with Amelia (played by Angela Billman) or whatever biological reading the doctors are looking at will be projected up on the lab walls. …

“A lot of what happens in Amelia’s brain will manifest itself on those screens,” she says. “The idea behind the design, too, is to keep it visually simple.”

The sound design and live and taped shots will contribute to what Charipar calls “a bit of sensory overload … so that we’re sort of inundated with this technology.”

Merritt, who directed the show last year, has been involved every step of the rehearsal process this year, says Charipar, who is directing this outing.

“It’s a really cool experience for volunteers to go through, working on a new piece when the playwright’s sitting in the room,” she says. “It’s a whole different can of worms. We’re making changes on the fly, and they’re part of those changes and sometimes they’re the reason for those changes. It’s an exciting process that a lot of people don’t get to do.”

"The Summerland Project," features (from left) Christopher Cole as Carter Summerland, Angela Billman as the synthetic copy of his dead wife, Amerlia Summerland, and Marty Norton as Dr. Ellen Beckett.

Merritt describes the rehearsals as “very exciting and flattering.”

“The play is in such good hands with these incredible professional artists, that it allows me to focus on the script,” he says. “As a writer, it’s cool to see what happens to your material when completely different people get a hold of it and put their artistic spin on it.”

He hopes it continues evolving, with the ultimate goal of seeing it published and gaining new life on other stages.

But for now, he’s looking forward to its first steps at home, gauging audience reactions to his creation.

 

 

REVIEW: ‘War Horse’ is magnificent theatrical achievement

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Andrew Veenstra portrays Albert, riding atop Joey, powered by John Riddleberger, Patrick Osteen and Jessica Krueger in "War Horse." Mount Vernon native Alex Morf will play Albert on Dec. 15 and 16 when the production's national tour comes to the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines. (Brinkhoff/Moegenburg photo)

DES MOINES — “War Horse” is even more thrilling on stage than on screen.

The 2011 Tony Award-winning Best Play that inspired the blockbuster movie is a magnificent beast of beauty, power and grace. It opened to gasps, cheers and three curtain calls Tuesday (12/11/12) at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, and continues there through Dec. 16.

The show is even more special for Eastern Iowans, since Mount Vernon native Alex Morf, 32, who was wonderful in a supporting role Tuesday, will step into the lead role for all matinee and evening shows Saturday and Sunday.

While we’re used to seeing Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future this time of year, this play, wrapped in the harrowing trappings of war, has an overarching spirit of goodness, honor and kindness. It’s easily a two-tissue experience as we watch a young English boy fall completely in love with his new foal, Joey, a gift his father gave with much sacrifice.

Boy and horse grow together, developing a bond that transcends time, space and trauma when the strapping horse is sold to the British cavalry at the onset of World War I. Joey is shipped to France to serve as an officer’s steed, but through the bombings and strife, is hurtled into impossible peril pulling field guns, dodging tanks, struggling through barbed wire and staring down the barrel of a gun when it seems he can’t go on.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know how that all plays out. That doesn’t lessen the impact of this marvelous piece of theater at its best. It’s an amalgam of impeccable acting, breathtaking battle choreography, multimedia scenery, driving music and puppetry that blazes new trails.

The first national Broadway tour of "War Horse" is onstage at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines from Dec. 11 to 16, 2012. (Brinkhoff/Moegenburg photo)

Every actor in the huge ensemble is solid and crucial to the success of the show, but it’s the horses and auxiliary animals that captivate your attention. The life-size beasts are larger than life in the way they spring into action. Each of the half-dozen or so horses requires three people at the head, heart and hind, bringing such subtly and elegance to their movements and sound effects that the animals seem like breathing flesh and blood, instead of metal framework and transparent cloth.

The minute we see baby Joey onstage, we understand why Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of Handspring Puppet Company in South Africa received a special Tony award for their work. And when the actors mount the adult horses to ride into battle or frolic across the stage, the moments are truly monumental achievements.

All of the horse operators are dressed in the early 1900s garb of young men, which is another stroke of genius for the overall stage picture. We know they are there, but they are instantly at one with the animals — including an especially hissy goose — so when the horses charge into battle, we see “real” horses rearing on their hind legs. And we weep at their demise.

Music undulates throughout the show, sometimes through the Song Man, a lilting Celtic narrator and his accordion accompanist, other times through a brass band (where Morf plays a mean, crisp trombone) and several times, from the entire cast. The only permanent scenery is a giant swath of torn paper suspended above the stage, where pencil-sketch scenery is projected in animated form. Stark lighting and blinding bomb blasts engulf the stage and audience in the most intense sensory assault at the height of battle.

This is a play that will never grow old, shedding light on a horrible war eclipsed by ensuing 20th century violence. Above all, it is a story of a love and devotion that knows no cost.

The details

  • What: “War Horse”
  • Where: Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, 221 Walnut St.
  • When: Through Dec. 16; 7:30 p.m. through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday
  • Tickets: $45 to $90 at the Civic Center Box Office, Ticketmaster outlets, 1-(800) 745-3000 or CivicCenter.org
  • Extra: Alex Morf and musical friends from the show will play a bluegrass concert to benefit the Mount Vernon High School theater program, 8 p.m. Dec. 17, Cornell College theater complex

Related: Mount Vernon native saddles up for ‘War Horse’ lead role

 

Review: ‘Drawer Boy’ draws on full range of human experience

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"The Drawer Boy" at the Iowa Theatre Artists Company in Amana features Robert Gardner (left) as Morgan and Steve Shaffer as Angus, lifelong friends whose reality is shattered when a young drama student probes too deeply for a play he's helping to write. The play runs through Sept. 16, 2012. (Meg Merckens photo)

By Diana Nollen/ SourceMedia

AMANA — “The Drawer Boy” is the epitome of theatrical excellence. Its themes are universal, reflecting elements of human nature that are funny, sweetly sad and riveting in the hands of the superb professionals at the Iowa Theatre Artists Company through Sept. 16.

Two hours fly by as your heart aches and embraces two aging, lifelong buddies: Morgan, a farmer who tends to the land and to Angus, a one-time artist who now bakes their bread and adds numbers in his steel-plated head, damaged during a London air raid 30 years earlier. Before the doctors could close the hole, his memory escaped, Morgan explains to Miles, a city boy who seeks to observe their way of life to inform a play he and his college mates are writing.

It’s the summer of 1972, and all the action takes place in the kitchen and side yard of the men’s simple farmhouse in central Ontario. But that same farmhouse and those same circumstances slide seamlessly across the years and across the miles, easily landing in the Midwest. The farm crisis of the ’70s mirrors the farm crisis of today. The broken bodies and shattered dreams of World War II mirror the traumas of wars past and present.

And yet, the laughter flows freely until old wounds are re-visited and revised in Act 2, leaving Friday night’s audience (9/7/12) fiercely quiet, scarcely able to breathe.

Director Tom Johnson and co-producer Meg Merckens have assembled a flawless trio to handle the complexities of a show that seems so simple by design. We’ve all seen worlds collide when the naiveté of youth is thrust upon the wisdom of the elders. The way this plays out, however, is harrowing, charming and utterly entertaining.

Cedar Rapids native Steve Shaffer, one of the finest actors ever to trod the boards in Eastern Iowa, returns from the Twin Cities for his debut on the Iowa Theatre Artists’ stage. He has a long history with Johnson and Merckens, however, working with them through the ’70s and ’80s at the Old Creamery Theatre, first in Garrison, then at the Depot Stage in Amana.

As always, he is pitch-perfect with this most demanding role of Angus, slipping in and out of his reverie and anguish, amid moments of lucidity. His every movement rings true, with bewilderment wrapped around bursts of an almost frantic need to grasp clarity and cling to memories that surface with growing frequency before they fade away.

Robert Gardner of St. Peter, Minn., has become a familiar face to Amana audiences. He anchors the show with a mix of solidity, gruffness and humor as Morgan toys mercilessly with the hapless youth who doesn’t realize farmers don’t really rotate crops by hand or wash pieces of gravel before tossing them into a culvert.

Alex Shockley, a recent Central College graduate working this season for the Amana troupe, has the unenviable task of annoying the audience with the audacity of the young playwright Miles, who really is in over his head in every aspect of the story. This is the character that brings calamity and change to the men’s comfortable routine. Shockley is up to the task, opposite such seasoned pros.

As always, Johnson’s eye for an era dresses the set with all the right touches to recreate a farmhouse where the modern conveniences are at least 20 years behind the times. Undulating lighting and music carry the shifting moods.

This is a marvelous show that will stick with you long after the lights go out.

ARTS EXTRA

What: “The Drawer Boy” by Michael Healey

Where: Iowa Theatre Artists Company, 4709 220th Trl., Amana

When: Through Sept. 16, 2012; 7:30 p.m. Fridays; 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 1:30 p.m. Sundays

Tickets: $22.50 adults, $10 students, at the Box Office, (319) 622-3222 or email itac@southslope.net

Information: Iowatheatreartists.org

 

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‘Mayberry’: Bold Hancher-commissioned play looks at race relations in Iowa City

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“And my mom called me and said, ‘You gots to escape Chicago honey and come to Iowa. It’s like

Mayberry out here.’ And I said, ‘Mom! There ain’t no black folks in Mayberry.’”

 

From left, Barrington Vaxter, Kristy Harsgrove and Martin Andrews, all of Iowa City, practice a puppet scene with Mayberry (puppet at center) during rehearsal for "Mayberry" at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City. Hancher has commissioned Working Group Theatre of IC to develop and perform "Mayberry," a play examing how the influx of African-Americans from an urban area has changed the landscape of a liberal Midwestern city. (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

From that concept came a play. From that quote came a title.

Sean Christopher Lewis and his Working Group Theatre colleagues in Iowa City have spent two years interviewing, drafting and crafting “Mayberry,” a theatrical look at how an influx of urban blacks has impacted a Midwestern college town. As in Chicago to Iowa City.

The play that snowballed from controversy, headlines, online comments and interviews will premiere as a Hancher commission Thursday. That show, which was added just last week, and the originally scheduled performances on Friday through Sunday (4/27-29), at Riverside Theatre in Iowa City are all sold out. Tickets are still available for a fifth recently added show on Saturday at 2 p.m.

Eight actors of various ethnicities will tell the universal stories of local people, gleaned from 50 to 100 full and partial interviews folded into the kind of documentary drama in which the young theatrical troupe specializes.

“It has a lot of verbatim monologues and two narrative storylines we follow — one of a kid who moved from Chicago, is living in Iowa City now, and how he’s adjusting and is drawn back to the Chicago he’s trying to get away from,” Lewis says.

“Another is a fourth-hand story I heard of a girl easily described as quite liberal, working to help these families who come from Chicago, but her own liberal beliefs get challenged.

“We have a lot of music, a lot of manipulations of the set. We’re trying to find as many exciting and interesting ways to create a city onstage, tear it up and recreate it in new and exciting ways.”

It’s not just an Iowa City story, but a window into what is happening across largely white Iowa.

“The changing dynamics of this state is one of the major reasons we started this theater company,” says Lewis, 32, a New York native living in Iowa City since 2004. “We kept seeing how West Liberty and Columbus Junction are changing. What’s happening in Iowa City is not different from what’s happening in Des Moines with displaced populations. We just found it really fascinating.”

The show’s target audience is “everyone who lives in Iowa,” he says, with subsequent performances planned in Grinnell in early May and Council Bluffs next year. All will bear the Hancher stamp.

“I would love to tour throughout the state,” he says. “The issues are not isolated to Iowa City.”

Lewis, a 2007 graduate of the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop, has spent much of his career developing shows around hot-button issues. He talks to people on both sides, hoping to break down barriers and foster conversations about topics people are willing to discuss at home, but not in public.

“Mayberry” goes “way beyond race,” he says. “That’s the trick. Initially, the issue is black families moving from Chicago, but other issues from the community get dug up. Class comes up a lot in this show, and both sides of the liberal and conservative ideologies.

“When you talk about social services, distribution of wealth, education and schools, race might be what started the conversation to happen,” he says, “but this goes to other core value issues, not just ‘your kid is black and goes to my school, and my kid is white.’”

Working Group Theatre, a resident professional company based at Riverside Theatre, has ventured into community-based theater on previous outings.

Lewis’ award-winning solo show, “Killadelphia,” grew from interviews with inmates and victims of violent crime in Philadelphia. Working Group’s “Rust” collaboration tells the story of Michigan autoworkers after their General Motors plant closed. Lewis and his wife , Jennifer Fawcett, traveled to Rwanda last summer to create a play with youths orphaned through genocide. This season, Working Group staged “Telling: Iowa City,” part of a nationwide theatrical movement giving voice to local veterans of U.S. military conflicts past and present.

Lewis wanted to give that same kind of voice to Iowa City and its burgeoning population of urban immigrants, in light of vast media coverage in print and online about the change, conflict and controversy it’s created.

“The comment sections were exploding with the Press Citizen and The Gazette,” Lewis says. “With one article, the rhetoric was really inflammatory on both sides, conservative and liberal. But no one was really having a conversation — they were just posting. That made me start thinking about how well do I know my city. I didn’t realize there was a problem.

“Most projects I do to learn about something,” says. “I thought I should learn what this was all about.”

He brought the idea to Jacob Yarrow, Hancher’s programming director, who attended an afternoon performance of “Killadelphia” at City High School two years ago.

“It was a wonderful play,” Yarrow, 40, of Iowa City, says. “From there, he and I talked about other possibilities to work together.”

Lewis’ vision dovetailed with Hancher’s interest in establishing arts residency activities at the Broadway Community Center, in the heart of Iowa City’s most visible neighborhood embroiled in transitional challenges.

“Sean had talked to the same people about creating a play about the Broadway neighborhood, so we started talking about what those theatrical possibilities might be,” Yarrow says.

From there, the idea went to the rest of the Hancher staff and evolved into a commission, which gave Working Group Theatre $50,000 to devote to research, development, production and artist fees.

“It’s been a two-year process leading up to the debut of ‘Mayberry,’” Yarrow says.

And a two-year learning process for Lewis.

He employed lessons he learned the hard way in Philadelphia.

“You almost always need an invitation,” he says. “When I first started, I thought I could just show up and start interviewing people. I realized that’s idiotic.”

This time, he reached out to a teacher at Elizabeth Tate, Iowa City’s alternative high school, to introduce him to people at the Broadway Community Center.

“After that initial interview, then you’ll have five people who want to talk to you, then it just starts spiraling,” he says.

People were willing to talk, teaching him every step of the way.

“Every interview was surprising,” Lewis says. “I interviewed a pretty large selection of people. Interviews are funny. When you think ‘I bet this is what I’m going to hear,’ you’re always proven wrong.

“I sat down early-on with a group of blacks from Chicago who go to Tate. I’d throw out a question to see what their response would be,” he says. “I kept thinking their homes in Chicago were torn down; they don’t want to be here; they’ve met a lot of racism; in a part of the country that’s more white, they feel uncomfortable. But no. A few fell into that, but I was surprised most don’t mind it at all.

“They’re having a good time being here. They say they feel safe. My initial assumptions have been completely destroyed,” he says.

“I talked to older, longtime Iowa City residents. I thought a lot would come down to value issues and stereotypes. I was proved wrong. I thought they’d say ‘they’re loud’ or ‘they do this or do that,’ based on stereotypes,” he says. “That happened occasionally, but most of that has been wiped away.

“Now it comes down to specific issues, an idea of investment. What’s their investment in the community?”

He found the longtime residents were “totally fine with people moving here,” but wanted to know what they’ll give back to their new community. The prevailing attitude was, “If it’s nothing, I don’t want anything to do with them. If they’re giving back, I’m happy to help them.”

“People bring up things I haven’t thought about,” Lewis says. “It goes to the general things we’re always curious about. We as human beings have so much information around us all the time (via newspapers and other media). It makes us think like we’re experts on everything.

“People point at a school and say, ‘That’s a problem school,’ but once you start talking, it changes that perception,” he says.

“When you sit down and talk to them, it really does change everything.”

– Diana Nollen

 

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REVIEW: ‘A Steady Rain’ at Riverside Theatre is rare dramatic tour de force

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Jim Van Valen (left) stars as Denny and Martin Andrews as Joey in the searing cop drama

IOWA CITY — “A Steady Rain” is theater at its most powerful. No fancy scenery, no bells and whistles. Just two chairs, two brilliant actors, deft direction and a script that takes your breath away.

A rapt audience gasped, squirmed and exploded with applause March 30 at Riverside Theatre. Many stayed to listen and talk with the director and playwright for nearly 50 minutes following the production. The show plays through April 15, 2012.

Gritty, raw and honest, it’s a cop drama that rises above all but the very best moments of “NYPD Blue” or “Law and Order: CI.” We’ve seen good cop-bad cop scenarios before, but not with this kind of brutality bred from the inner turmoil both beat cops have faced since their rough and tumble playground days.

Denny and Joey have been friends since childhood. Denny looks bigger, badder, cruder and more loutish. He’s picked on  Joey since kindergarten, but as partners on the Chicago police force, he’s always had Joey’s back. Joey seems smarter, more thoughtful, levelheaded and polished. But that’s just on the outside.

They’re locked in a battle within themselves, each other and on the job. Because of their racist locker room banter, they’ve been chastised, ostracized and passed over for promotion three times. When trouble looms, they only have each other. No one else has their backs.

This is a tour de force for Jim Van Valen, head of acting at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, as Denny and Martin Andrews from Working Group Theatre in Iowa City as Joey. Each finds exactly the right tone to convey every emotional twist and turn, creating an ever-evolving cat-and-mouse game of audience allegiance.

Keith Huff of Chicago and Los Angeles, a graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, has given them harrowing words, choreographed with skill and artistry by director Joseph Price of Buffalo, NY.

The cadence of the dialogue propels the action in a brutal pas de deux as a single incident sets their lives on a hideous downward spiral. Of course, that single incident is only the accelerant for their already tenuous holds on might and honor.

Joey is a recovering alcoholic, getting a hand up from Denny, his beautiful wife and two doting young sons. Denny’s heart of gold and earnest desire to do whatever it takes to protect and provide for his family are his undoing. The way their roles meet, cross, entwine and unravel is nothing short of genius.

“A Steady Rain” is a captivating look at what happens when the battle on the streets moves inside their heads, their hearts and their homes.

 The language is coarse at times, but the swearing is never gratuitous. The dialogue conveys so much love and pain that it feels like a privilege to witness it in Riverside’s intimate venue. The action plays out over 90 minutes with no intermission, but director Price gives the audience moments to breathe between scenes, as the bang of chairs and raw orchestral arrangements of Beatles classics both stop and propel the action.

Do not miss this show. It played on Broadway in 2009 with Hugh Jackman as Denny and Daniel Craig as Joey. It’s been produced all over the world, from Hungary to Buenos Aires. Huff is working on the screenplay.

This is your chance to see its visceral energy in a way only live theater can do, and in the way Riverside Theatre always does so well.

Get out

  • What: “A Steady Rain”
  • Where: Riverside Theatre, 213 N. Gilbert St., Iowa City
  • When: Through April 15, 2012; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays, April 1 and 15 (no show on Easter)
  • Tickets: $15 to $28, Riverside Theatre Box Office, (319) 338-7672 or riversidetheatre.org
  • Information: riversidetheatre.org

 

Mount Mercy is Pinkalicious

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Pinkalicious: The Musical will be performed Thursday through Saturday (3/15-17) at 7:30 p.m., with a matinee on March 17 at 1:30 p.m.  in the McAuley Theater. Seating may be limited.

This popular show is currently playing in Chicago and has appeared on New York City stages. Pinkalicious, a young girl, has an obsession with everything pink – especially pink cupcakes. Despite warnings from her parents, Pinkalicious refuses to stop eating pink cupcakes and ends up with a case of Pinkatitis, which turns her pink from head to toe. Pinkalicious is thrilled to be pink, but the doctor tells her she must eat green foods to get better, leaving Pinkalicious with quite the dilemma.

Pinkalicious: The Musical is based on the book Pinkalicious, and serves as a good reminder that it’s always best to be yourself. Inspired by her two daughters who love eating cupcakes, playing dress-up, and everything pink, Victoria Kann served as a co-author and illustrator of the first two books, Pinkalicious, and Purplicious, as well as Pinkalicious: The Musical. Her sister and co-author, Elizabeth Kann, is a doctor, whose writing has been featured in various newspapers and print publications.

Tickets are $8 for the general public, $6 for students and senior citizens, and $2 for children ages 12 and under. Group rates are available at the student price for parties of 10 or more. For more information, or to order tickets, call (319) 363-8213, ext. 1229.

Tickets are available for pick-up at the box office the evening of the performance or may be picked up ahead of time from the University Center Information Desk. The McAuley Theater is located on the terrace level of McAuley Hall on the Mount Mercy University campus.