Philadelphia playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger was pregnant with her twins when a prenatal test came back with a little bit of an odd result. Everyone’s fine now — the twins are 7 — but the episode, along with the research Goldfinger did at the time, eventually gave birth to her new play, Babel.
It’s having its Philadelphia premiere Feb. 13 through March 8 at Theatre Exile.
Babel tells the story of two couples, one a lesbian couple, one a straight couple, who receive the results of prenatal tests and then wrestle with decisions.
They do get some assistance from a “talking stork who wants to be a
stand-up comedian,” Goldfinger said. “He gives his insight because he
has carried so many babies.”
Courtesy of Theatre Exile
Anita Holland and Frank Nardi Jr. as the stork in Jacqueline
Goldfinger’s “Babel,” playing at Theatre Exile from Feb. 13-March 8.
Goldfinger’s play gets into the ethics of reproductive technology,
which can be uncharted territory here in the U.S. “It’s scary,” she
said. In Europe, there are already protocols about what is ethical, but
not so here. “We’re going to be the testing grounds for many of these
new technologies.”
“That’s what’s wonderful about theater,” said Goldfinger, a rising star
nationally. “We can take these huge terrifying ideas and put them into
active stories that make you laugh and also make you think.”
Read the full article from The Philadelphia Inquirer by Jane M. Von Bergen here.
‘Little Shop of Horrors’ in Pasadena: Secrets of a radically reconceived Audrey II
“Strange.” “Weird.” “Exotic little beauty.” “Like something from another world.”
These
are ways in which the plant of “Little Shop of Horrors” is initially
described by its characters. They’re perplexed by its presence, its
mysterious origins, its unidentifiable genus. But the botanical
fascination is so enticing that it boosts the business of a skid row
flower shop — and convinces its caretaker to commit a bit of murder in
exchange for fame and fortune.
Countless stagings of the Howard
Ashman-Alan Menken musical have remained visually devout to the sprout
that debuted off-off-Broadway in 1982. Based on the 1960 Roger Corman
cult classic and popularized by Frank Oz’s 1986 musical film, the
Faustian fable has been mounted again and again with a green, podlike
growth resembling a Venus flytrap and a bountiful head of lettuce.
The 1986 film starred Rick Moranis opposite a pod-like creature, often re-created onstage. (Warner Bros. / Shutterstock)
“The classic look can be nostalgic but also predictable,” said Mike
Donahue, who directed the Pasadena Playhouse production set to close
Sunday. “All of the language that’s in the piece is about how the plant
stands out, how it catches people’s eyes immediately when people are
walking by. There’s gotta be something about it that, in this drab and
depressed and bleak world, just pops.”
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The Playhouse questioned those optical expectations and answered with
a radical redesign of the plant, Audrey II, nicknamed Twoey. Housed in a
large tomato can, its flower is a fantastic fuchsia hue, the five
appendage-like tendrils glistening and sparkling. When closed, a bud of
polka dot petals resembles a head with lips. It opens into a lily with a
playful yellow tongue. This Twoey is indeed a new sight for those
onstage and in the audience, and now that the run is ending, her secrets
are being revealed in new photos presented exclusively here.
“I
wanted to make something that seems alien and extraterrestrial but also
that gives an emotional reaction — you can’t help but smile,” said Sean
Cawelti, who led the show’s puppet design, direction and choreography.
“And when the plant opens its petals for the first time and reveals
what’s inside, it’s not inherently scary but surprisingly whimsical and
magical.”
With a new look and strategic puppetry, Twoey comes off as friendly and adorable to Seymour and the audience. (Courtesy of Pasadena Playhouse)
Fear is the furthest thing from anyone’s mind during the song “Grow
for Me.” A first version of Twoey — which “faints” via remote control —
is swiftly swapped for a rod puppet plant with hard-to-spot cables
controlled by three puppeteers under a metal table.
Read the full review by Ashley Lee from the LA Times here.
Theater Review: A Hollywood Screwball Comedy for Today
Charlotte Munson is Lina and Jordan Gullikson, Roberto, in the Vermont Stage production of “The Last Wide Open.”
BURLINGTON – Two misfits – the
waitress Lina and the Italian immigrant busboy Roberto – have been
working together seemingly forever in the same Italian restaurant.
Although they have seldom spoken, there is an undeniable attraction.
They have three opportunities to figure it out, each at a different time
in their lives. Will they?
Vermont
Stage opened a charming production of the oddball romantic comedy “The
Last Wide Open” this week at the Main Street Landing Black Box Theatre.
Thursday’s performance enjoyed its fine cast of two reverting to the
screwball comedies of 1930s and ‘40s Hollywood – with a decidedly
contemporary twist.
This is only the second production of this play with music. With book and lyrics by Audrey Cefaly and music by Matthew M. Nielson, the comedy premiered in January at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, where Vermont Stage Company founder Blake Robison has been artistic director since 2012.
The
play’s unique structure is alluded to in the play’s complete title.
“The Last Wide Open: A Love Song in Three Movements” is told in three
segments, separated by folk-style songs: in the first, Roberto has been
in the restaurant and the country for five years, and he and Lina,
finding themselves alone in the dining room one, talk for the first
time; in the second, Roberto has just come to the U.S. and barely speaks
English, yet he and Lina find a way to communicate; and, in the final,
some 10 years later, finds both married – unhappily – meeting together
unexpectedly.
Lina wants to be a
nurse and is marrying Todd, though she has very little good to say
about him. Roberto isn’t having such good luck with his girlfriend Anna
in Italy either. Of course, they figure it out – but oh what fun along
the way.
Directed by Jamien
Forrest, Vermont Stage’s general manager, Charlotte Munson and Jordan
Gullikson are well cast as Lina and Roberto, and seemed to have great
fun in this gentle battle of the sexes. Although Munson hid any
vulnerability to the very end, she proved a witty and feisty Gina. (She
also was quite a fine singer.)
Gullikson
presented a more dimensional and sympathetic Roberto, from meek to
tender to angry to loving, but always irresistible. Most importantly,
their interaction was natural, convincing and very funny.
Vermont
Stage has benefited greatly from its move to the Burlington Waterfront,
with much fewer limitations than FlynnSpace, its longtime home.
Designer Jeff Modereger took advantage of the malleable space to create
an attractive and decidedly Italian restaurant interior (and exterior),
dramatically lit by Joe Cabrera. Rébecca Lafon devised the novel
quick-change costumes, and Dylan Friedman’s sound design underscored the
stage activity including some particularly dramatic moments.
Vermont Stage’s “The Last Wide Open” is a happy return to screwball romantic comedies of yesteryear.
Read the full article by Jim Lowe from the Times Argus here.
Elijah Alexander and Kate MacCluggage as the title characters in “Gertrude and Claudius” at Barrington Stage Company. (BSC publicity photo by Daniel Rader.)
The most theatrically engaging and emotionally complete production I’ve seen so far this summer, “Gertrude and Claudius” combines the brawn of a medieval history play with the intelligence of a contemporary revenge drama.
Commissioned by the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, where it had its world premiere last year, “Gertrude and Claudius” is receiving a rousing production at Barrington Stage Company, with which its author, Mark St. Germain, has a long artistic association. (The company’s smaller stage was named after him seven years ago.)
Essentially a prequel to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that explores the origins of the relationship between the title characters – the mother and stepfather of the moody Danish prince – “Gertrude and Claudius” was adapted by St. Germain from John Updike’s best-selling 2000 novel of the same name. According to Updike’s son David, a writer who happened to be sitting in the same row as me at Sunday’s opening performance, St. Germain was chosen by Updike’s estate from among multiple proposals to adapt the book for the stage.
St. Germain succeeds brilliantly, crafting language that synthesizes the formality and eloquence of Shakespeare with a modern, accessible vernacular. At one point, a character says, “I got away with it!,” an exclamation rather more contemporary than anything from pre-Renaissance Denmark or Elizabethan England but which sounds perfectly right here, in a production directed by the finesse and acuity we’ve come to expect from BSC’s artistic director, Julianne Boyd.
Covering about 30 years, “Gertrude and Claudius” begins with the arranged marriage of Gertrude to Hamlet’s father, King Amleth. It continues over the decades while the king, a generally caring and considerate husband distracted by affairs of state, misses the affair of the heart between his wife and his world-traveling brother, Claudius. The unfulfilled lovers see one another occasionally, building their bond primarily through letters, until Gertrude asserts her royal prerogative and essentially orders Claudius to return, starting them toward regicide and the beginning of the story in “Hamlet.”
Performed on a handsome, imposing set of high castle walls, designed by Lee Savage and lit to perfection by David Lander, with gorgeous costumes by Sara Jean Tosetti, BSC’s “Gertrude and Claudius” has an outstanding title pair in Kate MacCluggage and Elijah Alexander. Both acutely aware of the constraints of the era and the weight of their respective places in the royal family, they nonetheless build a deeply affecting connection. Claudius wanders the globe because the only thing harder than being away from Gertrude would be to see her daily; she is a proper, strong queen, wife and mother, but, her mind often far away, she also comes to consider Elsinore as much prison as castle, haunting its hallways as her husband’s ghost will after his murder.
With an excellent Douglas Rees as Amleth, guilty of little more than neglect on the domestic front, Berkshires veteran Rocco Sisto as the chattering royal adviser Polonius, reliable and comedic Mary Stout as Gertrude’s matronly handmaiden and Nick LaMedica as vital though largely silent Hamlet, the production moves toward its inevitable end. Though the conclusion is foregone, the journey there is not, and some of its stops offer surprise and insight. The best of them is a scene that closes the first act, when Claudius introduces Gertrude to his trained falcons. (The puppetry is by Brandon Hardy, who also worked on BSC’s season-opening “Into the woods.”)
Rich in metaphor and emotion, the falcon scene ends with a moment of theatrical magic that it would be unfair to reveal further. St. Germain is said to have been pacing at the back of the balcony, agonizing that the essential moment would work as intended. It does. Gertrude and Claudius together make an irrevocable choice, forever altering lives and history.
Review by Steve Barnes from the Times Union. Link to the full article can be found here.
Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical The Beast in the Jungle Black Light Girl from the North Country The Hello Girls Midnight at the Never Get
Outstanding Book Of A Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway) Robert Horn, Tootsie Conor McPherson, Girl from the North Country Peter Mills and Cara Reichel, The Hello Girls Anaïs Mitchell, Hadestown Jeff Whitty and James Magruder, Head Over Heels
Outstanding New Score (Broadway or Off-Broadway) Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin, The Prom Joe Iconis, Be More Chill Peter Mills, The Hello Girls Anaïs Mitchell, Hadestown David Yazbek, Tootsie
Outstanding Director Of A Musical Rachel Chavkin, Hadestown Scott Ellis, Tootsie Daniel Fish, Oklahoma! Joel Grey, Fiddler on the Roof (in Yiddish) Cara Reichel, The Hello Girls
