Press – CHAZ MENA

On Brian Evenson's Good Night, Sleep Tight

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 20:38:50 GMT

Brilliant Collection of Stories by
One of America's Most Innovative Writers

As I turned the last page in Brian Evenson ‘s, Good Night, Sleep Tight, came to me why the title story in his latest collection is chosen. Throughout the book, the reader (this reader, me) decides whether the numinous triggers its characters’ neuroses, victims -- sometimes told in third person, past, sometimes shared in first, present -- or does the opposite occur: neurosis invites/summons the uncanny? In other words, are individuals' trials with the uncanny reactive or affective? Brian Evenson encourages his characters to explore their fears, providing a comfortable parenthetical escape, a respite in memories. This is useful to readers. Does Brian Evenson invite his readers to laugh at or defang existential obstructions in ‘being’, that is, attending to what is needed at any moment, with laughter?

We shouldn’t ask him. It’s reductionist, and takes away the charm of writing: not knowing where a story may take you. To paraphrase poet Paul Muldoon: good poetry/prose comes from above and goes THROUGH the writer, not FROM him/her/they.

I found many of the stories, especially "Good Night, Sleep Tight," equally funny as disturbing. That's brilliant. I guffawed when I got to its most telling (betraying?) line:

Miki Maniac now on Amazon Prime Video

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 18:42:22 GMT

This multi-award winning feature has caused a stir in dozens of film festivals around the world, and it was my privilege to have been part of the team. Thank you Bistoury Physical Theatre & Film.

Who wants to see the most provocative and madcap, feature length film about faded and celebrity culture?

Click the following link to ...

... Rent Maniac Miki on Amazon Prime Video, A Study on Faded Glory and Celebrity Culture.

Starring: Carlos Antonio León , Lola Amores , Chaz Mena Produced by Bistoury Physical Theatre & Film. Written & Directed by Carla Forte, Cinematography & Editing by Alexey Taran .

MANIAC MIKI follows Miki and his friends as they grapple with reality after being cast away from a world of magic and unfulfilled dreams. Now depressed and stuck somewhere in South Florida, the trio looks back at an era of fame and glory that will never come back. - IMDB Page

Gridlock , by Cody Goodfellow

183:809978686 (Carlos Mena) — Fri, 03 May 2024 19:00:55 GMT

Splatterpunk Primer: Gridlock

On Grady Hendrix's Southern Book Club Guide for Slaying Vampires

183:809978686 (Carlos Mena) — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:23:08 GMT

On SBCGTSV, by Grady Hendrix, 2020

Why Custer Lost?

Wed, 03 May 2023 22:07:44 GMT

Authour Gary Rodgers Provocative Answer

The Shining, Novel

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 21:25:00 GMT

Having Just Finished King's Novel, The Shining

Meditation on January 6, 2021

Fri, 21 May 2021 16:39:53 GMT

Reacting to the attack on the Capitol in Washington, D.C, 2021

Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence," Oil on Canvas, 12' X 18'

Meditation on January 6, 2021

We are outside the painting . You know the one.

We were raised under the scene in classrooms -

Trumbull’s.

Jefferson handing his draft to Hancock.

Edited and emended, amended,

by those who stand behind-

Adams, Sherman, Livingston and

Skeptic Franklin. A waiting Hancock

President of the Second Continental

Con- Gress.

Trumbull stages a way of being

for us, attenders forever

vigilant for signs

that paint over,

rapines.

It is a touchstone by which we test our mettle.

This emblem impressed

onto the Capitol Rotunda.

We have only to look up to

and wonder at our republican

God/No-God.

One that made Us equal in its Eyes.

And the world spun on different axes

from top to bottom, re-created

but yet realized upon the face of the earth

where one becomes another.

It isn’t facile “to be made equal.”

It is facility itself. And scandalous.

Dumbed-down as republican dictis must

turn majesty in the un-utterable,

perhaps the only Truth worth a damn:

that we are part of the inestimable

Past, Present and Future -

and so, of a right, equal.

But what axiom have we pressed on

once-barbarous foreheads?

Once a man or woman (and those

points in-between) is decreed fully

human, an august claim to that

tall order, neither(s) will ask nor

accept any less. WE are unequivocal.

This is not indulgence,

we would extend The Right-to-Be.

They would exclude, corral,

assign numbers to, erase names

niched in sacred cenotaphs,

housed within arc piers, our enemies

Those who are free, would-be slaves

and Slaves, free. And depravity begins

in heedless waste, willful and insatiable,

for its own sake. It ends in defilement,

defecation of the sacred halls, sancto santorum

bespoken with our audacity

distributing our mislaid grossen -importance

with others.

Then let it be for Republics to die

hollowed-out, consumed from within

made paper-thin outside.

An Interview with Poet Celia Lisset Alvarez

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 06:05:59 GMT

Where alternate lives play out...

Interviewed by Chaz Mena

15 March, 2021

Celia, you've been a poet for a while, published in many literary journals around the country. You're a mother of two beautiful little girls, the editor of Prospectus: A Literary Offering. You’re keeping house with your husband, Rafael Montes , a renowned professor at St. Thomas University. HOW DO YOU DO IT?

I don’t! I haven’t done the laundry in over a month! It seems like I do because I’m very good at assessing and prioritizing. I figure out what the most important thing that needs to get done now is, and I do it until it’s done. The bad part of that attitude is that I let things that are not priority no. 1 fall away, like the laundry, for example. But often it’s more serious things, like my writing and my constant battle with mommy guilt. But I’m a workaholic. It’s what I’m best at.

Is Multiverses your first book-length collection? How did Finishing Line Press come across your manuscript? Was yours an unsolicited submission, or had they contacted you? Tell us.

Yes, I had two chapbooks before Multiverses , my first full-length collection. I was looking for places to send it to when I came across the fact that Finishing Line was now publishing full-length collections. That was not the case when The Stones came out. Of course I sent it to them, and they accepted it right away.

The genesis of Multiverses is clear to your reader. Would you feel comfortable describing to us that moment when you decided - if it was a conscious choice at all! - to have it become book-length? Were you planning an arc or a structure from the beginning?

I knew I had a lot to say, and that it had a narrative arc, but I wasn’t thinking about length as I wrote. I wrote until I finished saying what I wanted to say, and then I looked at the page count and realized I had gone beyond chapbook length. At that point I was surprised because it’s very hard for me to write things that go well together, which is what you look for when you’re trying to write a full-length collection. My writing is all over the place, so it’s hard for me to publish more than individual poems in journals.

I'm struck by the many epic conventions implemented: beginning in the middle, a tribute to ancestors, a type of arming for battle as you and Rafael prepare for the infant's arrival, the inciting loss as the gods turned their backs to you, the subsequent katabasis (descent into the Underworld) wherein long-passed relatives file in, rehearsing family memories helping you in your trials, etc.

Think of it as a mini-epic. The events were epic to me, and I wrote them so. I still don’t believe it’s possible to capture in words the loss of a child. The gut-wrenching, universe-shaking, time-bending nature of seeing such a tiny, innocent creature suffer so much only to die in such a horrific way as my son did. It can’t be spoken of, only remembered. That’s the epicenter of the book, and from there sprout other losses and memories so that it seems like there’s a sort of temporal journey taking place. The past is haunted by the present—the glossy photographs and memories of parents and grandparents when they were young and full of vigor that you know now went nowhere. Our parents’ immigrant generation was epic. I still remember when they used to talk about getting back to their Ithaca, Cuba. They never made it. What was to be a temporary home became their last resting place. If there is no pathos in that, I don’t know where there is. Thinking about it makes me cringe. When I lost my son, I became unhinged. I had to remake someone new from scratch. The materials I had at hand were memory and desire. The memories grounded me while the desire to erase that one event in my life and make everything okay again sent me flying apart. Multiverses comprises pieces that don’t fit. They are shards of a broken mirror that can’t be glued back together no matter how hard you try. Pieces are lost, shattered irretrievably . From there comes the sense of an epic quest at hand, a quest to rebuild my psyche, perhaps. But it’s a failed quest that’s resolved only in fantasy.

Let's talk about the verse. The meter is dactyl in the beginning, fitting for a lament, as it begins with a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed: a sudden lashing out, followed by a limping recovery. The narrator's voice is tripped up as if wounded, hobbling. It's very evocative and draws great sympathy from your reader. Later, the voice changes and more disparate tones (meters) play out. You also change lengths - even using alexandrines! Was this planned?

Yes and no. I was very interested in preserving the breath of the words, of writing as if I were speaking directly. When I noticed there was a certain pattern or the possibility for a certain pattern—the dactyl and the alexandrine, as you point out, the trochee, too—I chose to follow that pattern as long as it didn’t result in violating my idea of the breath. I didn’t feel that this subject fit with too much structure; the whole point of the book is that “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” That doesn’t jive well with neat little patterns, so I let anarchy reign when it should. There is one sonnet, but it’s a nonce sonnet.

The word and/or concept of "illusion" in English and its translation into Spanish crop up. Illusion connotes a mirage or a quixotic striving for something not there, misinterpreted. But in Spanish, ' ilusión’ evokes hoping for a hidden desire, cherished and kept secret - a furtive wish for something beyond your means, perhaps. Is this a thread worth examining in this work?

Definitely. In the English sense, illusion has somewhat of a negative connotation, a foolish belief that often occludes the truth. In that sense, all the narratives that take place in parallel universes, with the last poem especially, are illusions, frustrations of the mind that cannot accept the truth. You and a few other readers have mentioned that I give equal weight to the parallel universes as I do to the one we really inhabit. I meant to do that. I wanted the stories of the parallel universes to seem just as truthful as the truth. It was very satisfying emotionally, which is where the Spanish notion of ilusión comes in. I had ilusiones for my family that were broken. In the Spanish sense, there are a lot more pathos involved. I tried not to give in to that pathos (though I’m sure I failed a couple of times) because it would break the illusion in the English sense. The emotional charge of the real narrative would set it apart from the parallel narratives, and I did not want this to be a memoir plus fantasies (though I have used that word to describe the parallel narratives). I wanted to give credence to the multiverse theory by keeping the reader in a constant state of flux.

OK, 'multiverses': one of the most satisfying aspects of this work is how you play out its conceit of alternate existence (s) with such detail. You give integrity and specificity to every life played out in alternate universes. Nothing is derivative, and all possibilities are legitimate. May you speak to that?

This question is connected to your previous one. Had I made any of the parallel narratives anything less than hyper-realistic, the project would have fallen apart. It would have become a regular narrative, musing on different fantastical possibilities. So I tried very hard to keep to that notion that a butterfly flaps its wings halfway around the world and it can change everything. I think I achieved this mostly in the sequence of poems after they discharge my father from the hospital “healthy.” I have often berated myself for not having reacted to that situation differently—to have demanded a diagnosis for his collapse, to have been able to take him to a cardiologist or even to a witch doctor if necessary instead of having waited a month to watch him die. Could his death have been avoided by calling the social worker at the hospital and demanding he not be discharged so abruptly? By a phone call? I allowed myself to explore these possibilities in poems that are near identical, yet wholly different. The only poem in which I let the curtain part to reveal the wizard is the last poem which is so obviously a fantasy of closure impossible to achieve in the actual memoir.

You've begun reading parts of the poem to audiences (online, for now); what has been the response so far?

Mixed. Some people have commented that the poems moved them. My favorite comment I have received is from a woman who said she felt “met.” She is a caretaker and could relate to the poems where my father loses his mind. No one has accused me of being aloof, but the implication of some comments (such as “you are very brave to be able to write about these things so unflinchingly”) is that I perhaps don’t feel the weight of the emotions that’s because of the events I narrate. I think it might be difficult for some readers to realize the almost clinical detachment I had to create in order to write about this. I wanted the truth to be spoken, recorded, not glossed over in any way. To think of it cinematically, I wanted the camera to pan in and focus on the hardest events. Why I wanted that is difficult to explain. I think it has something to do with the way we grieve in this culture, how we are expected to show our strength by moving past disaster as quickly as possible. Like the old Nike slogan, “Acknowledge, move on.” That can be very helpful in minor situations, but I think catastrophic events are more suited to the mourning we used to do—covering mirrors, stopping clocks, wearing black for a full year. It was an acknowledgement that something horrible had happened. In Multiverses I don’t hesitate in including even the most gruesome details, because they happened, and I wanted them to be acknowledged.

The narrator is so Miamian - Cuban. You bring in place names and ethnic food, contextualizing the poem so specifically. How did that help you tell this story (ies)?

Multiverses was the first time I didn’t write with a white American audience in mind. I was writing these poems for myself, so I didn’t feel the need to explain baffling details such as my parents living with us, or to smatter the poems with Spanish words and then translate them. I did that only once, I think, when I called my father ‘un vividor’ and I couldn’t find the right word in English to express the same idea. Otherwise, I just wrote in English words that were spoken in Spanish. When my father, for example, confuses the words plane and bird, he is confusing avión and pájaro. But what would have been the point of emphasizing that? I wasn’t writing about being Cuban, I was writing about being human. So the references of my life just worked themselves into the book. I felt the Cuban influence more strongly when writing about my granduncle Arturito, who to the day he died loved tangos and reminisced about being young, which meant being in Cuba.

Incorporating those details helped me pin him down as an individual, and not just some generic grandfather figure.

What's next Celia, what are you working on between making meals, going through scores of submissions for Prospectus , and being interviewed? Has quarantining hindered or helped your writing?

I hate to say it, but the pandemic has really helped my writing! I wrote the entirety of Multiverses at the beginning of the pandemic. I also started sending some older poems out again, and so far have found eight of them new homes. Now what I’m doing is assessing. I took a long hiatus from writing (four years) while I was teaching high school, so I’m reacquainting myself with my work and trying to see what’s there that has potential. I have a bunch of really good pop-culture poems, but that has so been done already (and by better poets than I) that I don’t know whether pursuing that theme is worth the time. I think I might just want to write all new poems, like I did with Multiverses . It was very liberating, not having to write to a “theme.” The problem is running Prospectus , which is time-consuming. I might just have to concentrate on being an editor for a little while.

PREORDER SHIPS MAY 7, 2021

Multiverses

by Celia Lisset Alvarez

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Celia Lisset Alvarez , born in Spain to Cuban parents fleeing Fidel Castro’s regime, immigrated to Miami in 1974, where she has been living since. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Miami, and proceeded to publish two chapbooks of poetry, Shapeshifting (Spire Press, 2006) and The Stones (Finishing Line Press, 2006). Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Multiverses (Finishing Line Press, 2021) is her first full-length collection. She is currently the editor of Prospectus: A Literary Offering , and lives with her husband Rafael, daughters Lucy and Sara, and her mother, Sonia.

Quarantined...

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 14:41:51 GMT

...but still wandering.

All that made me split hairs in argument

in debates over which end of the egg

should be cracked, are muted by days

which run out of purpose, blanketed

over by a mimed virus. A dumb show.

'Scrambled or fried?' to my daughter who plays

with a doll that has an eye missing. Another

is armless for which we compensate. We hug

her over and over. We join hands behind

each other’s backs and keep at bay the dusk

of reason and the dawn's caprice.

I know that we have been here before, plagued

by suspicion held close to our bosoms, cards

kept close to our wheezing chests, a two-card

draw where bets are sheared and yawned.

We are at a littoral standstill, bereft of people

whom would wade in slow moving tides -

the marsh behind, the dunes' rise.

‘Taking your shawl?’ I ask my wife and she submits

for once, itself an event. Whips it over her shoulders,

evoked Iberian mothers who at Finisterre looked out

at anarchy, an unkind ocean and waited for their lost

men, though foretold of their deaths. Augured. Sure.

We pack lunches and eat on marmalade porches,

pour olive oil over salted bread. We eat in silence.

We keep to ourselves in temps de peste , a virus which

sends word ahead but comes and waits on the landing.

We hide inside and not answer the door. Seclude.

Have I forgot our deca millennium-old marches?

Exoduses up a levant that skirted untread beaches

sylvan sands where predecessors drew in deep breaths,

filled their neolithic lungs with trekked salt spray

our short-lived friends risked all as if called forward,

as if summoned up from richer game and recorded

sandprints that veered into being 'forever-ago.'

I'll listen to them. They will call me and I'll answer.

Reading Robert Aickman…

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 06:45:00 GMT

Tartarus Press has printed a limited edition of Robert Aickman ‘s complete works in ten volumes. I have been reading this author–known as “Britain’s best-kept secret” in short story literature–for close to a month. His prose is among the best that I have ever read. He is extra-genre, sur-genre, making “horror” a poor descriptor of his work. (It would be like calling Lolita a crime novel because it tells the story of a child molester evading justice.)

His work affects you in ways that few authors can. Devoid of short-hands or euphemisms which do crop up even with the best writers, Aickman is brave to go to places that may seem at first irrelevant, even trivial to his story, when he’s seeding pertinence coming to full bloom sometime after you’ve finished reading him.

I am very happy to say that I now own Aickman’s complete fictional works, published by award-winning Tartarus Press in North Yorkshire in the U.K. and run by Raymond Russell and Rosalie Parker . Special thanks to Raymond who was very generous and personable, throughout.

Below, is a 2015 article from The Guardian by which I discovered Robert Aickman–by accident, surfing the web whilst researching Susan Hill that other, great author. I believe it the best, pithy introduction for those whom have never read him. Very, very grateful to have discovered this worthy author, one who took the ghost story and gave it a post-modern shine, with loose ends in the story-telling, where insignificant details add up to something very moving if unsettling, allowing for many varied readings that each of his tales provide.

by Chris Power for The Guardian , 12 Jan 2015.

The lending history of my ex-library copy of The Attempted Rescue , one of two volumes of autobiography produced by the British horror writer Robert Aickman, tells a story of declining interest spanning 60 years. The book was checked out 13 times between 1966 and 1970, but just once in 1971, and once again in ‘72. After that it was ignored until 1981, the year of its author’s death, then ignored again for a further 22 years. As in Aickman’s own work, the dates tell their story by implication. Ultimately, it is up to us to discern the meaning that lies in the blank spaces between each blurred stamp.

After his death (from cancer, which he elected to treat homoeopathically), Aickman’s books were largely neglected. Like one of the abandoned houses or secluded dells of his fiction, they became places rarely visited, lying far from the thoroughfares of mainstream popularity. In recent years more attention has been paid to him , and much of his work has been reprinted, but aficionados must have found it hard to resist the selfish wish that he stay mostly forgotten: so many of his stories hinge on characters straying into, or being unwittingly drawn towards, mysterious spaces beyond everyday reality, that obscurity has suited him very well.

“I could not recall that the map had showed a wood”, runs a typical Aickman line, this one from The Inner Room (1966). In The Stains (1980), a man watches his lover hurry off across a moor “into what the map depicted as virtual void”. In The Trains (1951), two hikers who lose their way in a dreary, apparently inescapable valley repeatedly pin down their map with stones to stop the wind snatching it away. Each time they move on, Aickman is careful to mention that they leave behind them “four grey stones at the corners of nothing”. The image – the placement of the stones clearly deliberate, but their exact purpose mysterious – is an apt metaphor for his enigmatic storytelling.

Aickman wrote ghost stories, but only a handful can be considered traditional examples of the form. In their commitment to ambiguity, and the active yet at times inscrutable psychologies of their characters, Aickman’s stories have more in common with modernist writers than with an Edwardian like MR James . Their cryptic, occluded character place them in the lineage of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and the later ghost stories of Kipling, They and The Wish House.

Aickman preferred to describe his own work as “strange stories”, maintaining that “the horror story is purely sadistic; it depends entirely upon power to shock”. In fact he could be concertedly nasty, as in The Cicerones (1968), a memorable case of being in the wrong place (a Flemish cathedral) at the wrong time (elevenish). But in his very best stories, and perhaps in the most powerful ghost stories generally, the phenomena we encounter have as much to do with the characters’ internal conflicts as with any external presence. As Peter Straub wrote in 1988,

“After the shock of the sheer strangeness fades away, we begin to see how the facts of the stories appear to grow out of the protagonists’ fears and desires, and how the illogic and terror surrounding them is their own, far more accurately and disturbingly than in any conventional horror story. The Trains is a perfect story of this type, and The Inner Room is even better, one of Aickman’s most startling and beautiful demonstrations of the power over us of what we do not quite grasp about ourselves and our lives.”

This psychological depth explains why one of the chief pleasures of reading Aickman lies in determining which details are significant, and how they fit together. Take this passage from Bind Your Hair (1964), where a young woman wakes up depressed on a visit to her fiancé’s parents in the countryside:

“Then she got up, turned on the big electric heater, and felt that her thoughts had been the morbid produce of lying too long abed. Moreover, the flying swathes of fog were most beautiful. She stood in her nightdress by the window looking at them; with the heater behind her sending ripples of warmth up her back. It was an old sash window with the original well-proportioned glazing bars. The new white paint covered numerous under-currents in the surface of the earlier coats. Clarinda liked such details in the house; always kept neat and spruce, like an old dandy whom people still cared about.”

The new white paint, a whitewash covering those “under-currents”, is an image of psychological repression, suggesting a crisis in Clarinda between the conformity of marriage, and a desire to escape suffocating convention. It also suggests, as later events in the story make apparent, the wild paganism that exists covertly beneath the prim respectability of the village. Now the “well-proportioned glazing bars” of the window, the “neat and spruce” house, imply both an efficient, not-unpleasant prison for Clarinda, and a defence for her fiancé’s family, while the “flying swathes of fog” signal the allure of the uncharted unknown. The passage is a key with which to unlock at least part of the story, but Aickman dispenses almost entirely with the scaffold of exposition. To an unusual extent for stories of this kind, it is left to the reader to do, or not do, the interpretive labour.

Even in those instances where clues are waiting to be discovered, Aickman nearly always refuses to provide a neat conclusion. When he does, as in The Waiting Room (1964) and The Wine-Dark Sea (1966), the results are disappointing. “In the end”, reads the epigraph to his 1975 collection, Cold Hand in Mine, “it is the mystery that lasts and not the explanation”, and in extreme cases like The Next Glade (1980), with its strange blend of sexual tension, bereavement and personal awakening, or The View (1951), where a man recovering from a breakdown falls in love with a mysterious woman (a recurring theme), the total effect is only more powerful for the story being, to some degree, impenetrable. Yet he arrives at strangeness patiently, his stories often running to 30 pages or more. This gives him the space he needs to build a vivid environment for the reader to inhabit before things begin to warp into more disturbing perspectives. As Richard T Kelly describes, Aickman’s “construction of sentences and of narrative is patient and finical. He seems always to proceed from a rather grey-toned realism where detail accumulates without fuss, and the recognisable material world appears wholly four-square”.

This is of a piece with Aickman’s belief that “[i]n the right hands, ghosts can stand a surprising amount of clear, strong light”: in fact some of the most troubling scenes in his fiction – a naked man peering silently over a wall, a woman ascending stairs, her face turned to the wall – occur in daylight. It is the graspable reality of the details he notes that make individual scenes so uncanny, and – an impressive trick, this – he only increases our unease by working hard to pull us away from the typically supernatural. Consider this passage from the nakedly Freudian story The Swords (1969), in which a travelling salesman, in a tent at a shabby fair, watches men paying to stab a woman on a rickety stage. Brilliantly, Aickman both undercuts and intensifies the weirdness of the scene by describing the mundane particulars of the swords themselves:

“There was nothing gleaming about them, and nothing decorative. The blades were a dull grey, and the hilts were made of some black stuff, possible even plastic. They looked thoroughly mass-produced and industrial, and I could not think where they might have been got.”

And in The Stains, when the protagonist walks into an abandoned cottage that we, by this stage of the story, have every reason to suspect is enchanted, Aickman wrong-foots us with the mundanity of the decoration: “Much of this furniture, Stephen thought, was of the kind offered by the furnishing department of a good Co-op”.

This unexpectedness of tone lurks around every corner of The Hospice (1975), an extraordinary story where Kafka and Fawlty Towers collide (I’m sure Magnus Mills must have read it, if not all of Aickman’s work), and which might or might not be an account of one man’s passage from life into death. It also characterises the solemn Into the Wood (1980), about a sanatorium for insomniacs located in a maze-like forest. Reading these stories, both of which carry echoes of The Magic Mountain (in his correspondence Aickman cited Thomas Mann as an influence), we are primed for a horrific conclusion that never arrives, or at least not in the way we expect. Instead, both stories attain a deeper, more profound oddness.

Aickman wrote that there are “only about 30 or 40 first-class ghost stories in the whole of western literature”. His very best, such as The Hospice, The View, Into the Wood and The Stains – which, despite its share of frightening incident, is more lastingly and hauntingly an account of grief – swell this number, and extend the possibilities of the genre. “It’s impossible to get lost in these woods”, one of his characters states of her small corner of Surrey; but she does get lost, of course, albeit in an entirely unconventional way. And with Aickman as our reticent guide we can follow her, if we choose to.

My sudden email to Harold Bloom:

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 02:07:00 GMT

…an impulse after all these years. Professor Bloom had been a major force in my life in the nineties, as I was earning my English degree in a liberal arts college in Florida. He was to all of us a supreme, first reader of American & European Literature. Bloom dedicated his life to the certainty that there is a standard in literature that was not defined by cultural forces, modalities, or narrative. This put him squarely in conflict with academia - not solely with literary studies - that was at the time fully post-structuralist and dedicated to opening the field of study to a more inclusive canon of authors.

Since then, I have come to believe that there is great value in expanding the list of authors to be read, 'The Canon'. For instance, I resent the fact that studies in the interwar years are dominated by Faulkner and Joyce without enough attention being paid to Virginia Woolf, whose prose, for my money, is the most richly august in the English language--honest, forthright, durable. To this day, I will direct anyone to read "To The Lighthouse" or even "Orlando" as the best example of an extended modernist work.

But there must be recognition for those works that will be read in every era. Eliot's view of what a classic is defined by this. Harold's view was that we have lost the art of reading, of selecting those authors that will school us on living. Are we not a sum of all that we have paid attention to written or told to us, observed by each one of us in our respective cultures? Then, why not determine those works that merit our attention? How do we decide what merits our attention? Let that be determined by every culture, perhaps. Standards are important in any genre. Be those standards recognize inclusivity, diversity of opinion, healthy debate, challenging perspectives to power structures.

Bloom's main contribution came early in his career with The Anxiety of Influence where he successfully argues that every author engages in an unstated program to throw off the influences of his past reading, paradoxically those authors that helped form who she is as both writer and thinker. The other important contribution is the study of the "Daemon" in American Literature. That is an unbound spirit who would make the world anew, conquer Nature or bend it to his purpose. It is a satanic character that shows up again and again, in varying degrees: from Ahab to Gatsby to Portnoy. An Edenic-breaking soul that would take itself - and us - to ruin or to constant reform, endlessly re-making itself to fit the Times to its program.

I was able to exchange a few emails with Prof. Bloom on the eve of his passing. He said that my e-mail had moved him. Rather, I was moved (and perhaps even realized?) by our correspondence.

Partner, Bruno Irizarry, Featured in Puerto Rican Daily, La Voz

Mon, 09 Sep 2019 19:38:00 GMT

El cannabis medicinal y las vivencias en Puerto Rico luego de los estragos del huracán María en 2017, sirvieron de base para la nueva película del director boricua Bruno Irizarry, titulada Yerba Buena y protagonizada por Karla Monroig.

El filme, en agenda para estrenar a principios de 2020, cuenta la historia de tres amigas durante la recuperación de la Isla luego del siniestro: Sonia (Monroig), una maestra con licencia para mercadear cannabis medicinal; Mary (Isel Rodríguez) y Juana (Jessica Rodríguez).

“Una de las amigas (Juana) está recuperándose de su proceso de quimioterapias, está en remisión. Como no hay agua ni luz, Sonia decide hacer brownies con cannabis para ayudarla a dormir y a relajarse. Le dijo: ‘tiene pitorro y yerbabuena, no le des a nadie’. Pero ella le da a su papá y a la vecina y los brownies se convirtieron en un hit; y las tres amigas deciden juntarse para vender brownies”, reveló sobre la trama Irizarry, en entrevista con EL VOCERO .

La producción se rodó a finales de mayo entre Cataño y Guaynabo.

“Es un trabajo para el cual fui contratado para coescribir el guión con el productor ejecutivo y dirigir. Trata sobre la adopción y la experiencia de una pareja. Estamos esperando nos contesten de los créditos contributivos para filmar aquí, en Puerto Rico”, adelantó.

Por cierto, Monroig también formará parte del elenco de su siguiente película, llamada Bella.

Irizarry se mantiene centrado desarrollando proyectos cinematográficos y al presente escribe un drama y una comedia.

“Siempre estoy bien ocupado porque son muchas cosas; podría ser más rápido pero dependo de los créditos contributivos. Estoy contento como Pedro Piquer (director del Programa de Desarrollo de la Industria Cinematográfica) está manejando todo. Tiene la mentalidad correcta porque está pensando en el cine puertorriqueño y en crear trabajo para nosotros”, comunicó.

Igualmente, para el año entrante —específicamente para mayo— programa estrenar 23 horas, un sci-fi criollo protagonizado por Jeimy Osorio y Roy Sánchez-Vahamonde.

“Tiene muchos efectos especiales. Soy fan de la ciencia ficción y los thrillers. Como es un presupuesto limitado uno puede hacerlo mejor utilizando los efectos como apoyo. María me atrasó más de un año porque las personas que estaban trabajando la película perdieron su infraestructura”, indicó.

Entre tanto, desarrolla una serie de 12 episodios para presentarla a cadenas y empresas como HBO, Netflix y Amazon Prime. Para este proyecto, a nivel internacional cuenta con el ‘casting director’ Sig de Miguel.

“Es parecido a un thriller sicológico/ciencia ficción, fantasía. Ya hablé con una de las cadenas y estoy desarrollando el proyecto; de darse va ser bastante grande para todos. El presupuesto es millonario por la envergadura de talento boricua e internacional. La meta es presentar a Puerto Rico como un hub (un punto) internacional para hacer cine. No es que vengan de afuera a hacer cine aquí, es que nosotros estamos aquí haciendo cine internacional”, afirmó.

Bruno fue el creador y director del filme 200 cartas (2013), estelarizado por Jaime Camil, Dayanara Torres y Lin-Manuel Miranda, a quienes tiene en mente para otros proyectos.

“Lin-Manuel se ha convertido en una súper estrella y con el proyecto correcto se podría hacer una alianza nuevamente con él. Tuve mucha suerte con ellos en 200 cartas; todas las estrellas se alinearon y por el presupuesto”, aseguró.

Sobre Dayanara agregó, “la tenemos en mucha oración para que mejore. Hablé con ella y quería participar en Yerba Buena, pero estaba empezando su tratamiento. Gracias a Dios no se le regó el cáncer (de piel)”.

Mientras tanto, contempla la posibilidad de transmitir por televisión su ópera prima, Shut Up and Do it! (2007), que marcó el debut cinematográfico de Pedro Capó.

“Tuve la suerte de que nos conocimos y somos muy buenos amigos. Pedro hizo un trabajo espectacular. Estoy pensando sacarla pronto y ofrecerla a Wapa TV, aunque la película es en inglés. Se hizo con mucho cariño y sería bueno que la presentaran. Tengo que ‘remasterizar’ el sonido por la música —porque se hizo para festivales— y así evitar que al pasarla por televisión haya problemas legales”, explicó.

Dictionary of Martíano Thought

Sun, 18 Aug 2019 17:57:00 GMT

Diccionario Del Pensamiento Martiano by Ramiro Gallaraga, (Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 2002). Out of Print, alas.

Galarraga’s seminal work (in Spanish) is an indispensable reference for all Martí readers and the result of thousands of hours of painstaking work, combing through the entire ouvre of this most eclectic of thinkers and authors.

This was a labour of love: as any work related to José Martí should be. A gift to the world. I have spent my adult life with José Martí’s work always at arm’s reach.

Featured on World War II podcast, “We Have Ways of Making You Talk”

Fri, 12 Jul 2019 10:15:00 GMT

I was greatly honored or as our cousins across the ocean say, "chuffed to bits" to being interviewed by one of my all-time favorite historians and authors, master storyteller James Holland . This was taken on the grounds of the Chalke Valley History Festival , the world's largest outdoor fair dedicated to the past. You MUST make it someday if you're in the UK, come summertime. Family atmosphere coupled with insightful and definitive historical scholarship in the way of author lectures, historical re-enactors and "pop-up talks" (informal talks with experts from different fields).

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN:

On Martin Drove End

Fri, 12 Jul 2019 02:50:00 GMT

On a bicycle—and they rarely lie—down Martin Drove End

it seemed as if the Wiltshire Hills winked

as I rode past. Cradled w/in grassland waves

the lambs bleated me into Blake’s epigraph:

“Dost thou know who made thee …?” etc.

As I rode I knew that I’d record how one time

the sun was abruptly veiled and all went dark

like when I passed my hand over my father’s

eyes that last time. Then, just like that, a miracle:

a cloud passed on and my father was awake again

riding alongside. He said: “Do this with me ”

and then, he lifted his hand off the handle bars.

He quickly rode past me. I’d never catch up.

Last I saw of him was on the crest of the next hill.

He glanced over his shoulder to me and disappeared

downhill at break-all speed (Which was OK, being that he

was dead), with his hands up in the air, balancing

on a human hair’s width of track, of eye-blink.

Meanwhile the slope too steep to pedal,

(for me)

I walked my bicycle, pulse and breath one,

nigh on passed out. This musta’ been a mirage

or maybe I had dreamt it as I blinked, as I exhaled

when sunlight had sluiced the waving Cow Parsley

that had flowered on the west bank of hedgerows

on Martin Drove End: cupped country lane which is

canopied by beech trees, strong shouldered and arched

over my labored way. Time plays tricks there.

Here you are made atemporal. Rendered unborn.

Maybe a radiator leak in a five-ton Yank truck or a

hosed wheelwright who had skimped on a yew axle

that broke, or hippy lovers who fell off the Yamaha.

All whom traveled this lane were sure of their way.

“All travel has the element of faith in it!”

I heard my father yell in perfect Cuban glee

coasting down the other side of that Wiltshire hill

which I had pistoned-pedalled all morning to raise.

Come to think about it, it may not have been he.

My Dad.

What if it were only me, myself, only much older—

a tease, a phantom recorded on a loop?

Once used, a road is informed by its traveler,

but especially in Wiltshire’s at the edge of Empire.

–Chaz Mena, The Little Coach House, Tidpit, Wiltshire, UK, 2019

Clues

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 11:50:00 GMT

A drawer you left open invited dead parents

to visit demanding that you tidy up. Or it may be

a promise unfulfilled or maybe the clue to a crime,

or a prompt to mend your ways and reform.

Suddenly, you hear your child say “there is no

one” in her sleep which you take personally

as if you had neglected her. A lapse of duty

an action not taken: have you failed her?

You close the drawer in her room and watch her

dream of being abandoned in an empty house.

You renew your vow, she’s all you’ve got.

Sit dry-docked by her bed, built like a boat

watch her bear away, tack, & turn back to you.

A New Film: “The Last Rafter”

Tue, 09 Apr 2019 18:25:00 GMT

Very proud of this new, independent film that I had a supporting role in.

The latest from the award-winning film-making, dynamic duo Carlos Rafael Betancourt (director) & Orlando Ortega (Screenwriter & Director of Photography), of El Central Producciones !

The Last Rafter premiered at the 2020 Miami Film Festival to rave reviews and a standing ovation. It truly was a pleasure beyond words to work with such a select cast and crew. World-class filmmakers from the famed, International Film School at San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba and the Instituto Superior de Arte (Senior Institute of Art) Havana, Cuba, brought together an intense group of people to make a movie in Miami and in New York City.

A pithy, realistic and moving story of the immigrant experience in America today.

…Watch “EL ULTIMO BALSERO/THE LAST RAFTER" teaser below:

EL ULTIMO BALSERO_Teaser from El central Producciones on Vimeo .

Meditation on Care Giving

Sat, 06 Apr 2019 10:22:00 GMT

Meditation On Caregiving by on Scribd

A Pair of Silver Wings by James Holland

Fri, 22 Feb 2019 16:14:00 GMT

Few novels can truly claim to be both fictional and factual. The much abused “based on real events” really only gives license to hyperbolize historical events. This is as it should be. Any story is a crafted work, condensing and omitting tangential episodes, creating new ones to serve its main purpose: engage and entertain.

In Holland’s A Pair of Silver Wings we can enjoy an engaging story, along the lines of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress , an epic that can only unravel with its protagonist, Edward Enderby traveling through space (and time, effectually) in order to loop back and pick up where he left off at the end of World War Two. Actual historical events are pulled from Holland’s seminal history the HIGHLY RECOMMENDABLE Italy’s Sorrow and laced into the Enderby’s fictional story. Here you have a well-told yarn inspired by a minute and empirical study of the Western Alliance’s Mediterranean & Italian campaign in the second world war. Holland’s novel gives you both: real and factual events coupled with an engaging and heart-breaking story.

An almost somatic understanding of PTSD is present here. This effect was reached by Holland after the many hundreds of hours that he has spent interviewing survivors of the war’s bloodiest massacres and veterans from all the major, contributing nations that fought in the Italian campaigns: the heroically strenuous, and often quagmired effort exhibited by the Allies. One long peninsula with a determined enemy making our effort against them similar to the stalemate felt by the Allies in the First World War. Impossible terrain, mountainous country taken one peak at a time, unending rains, an internal civil war, a parity of numbers between the armies, roving bands of partisans and paramilitaries from both sides behind the fronts: hell on Earth. Holland has been able to study all the effects mentioned above on combatants and non-combatants alike. His is an almost anthropological understanding of that time and place–so much so that you can either read A Pair of Silver Wings or Italy’s Sorrow and walk away with an equal understanding of what it must have been like. “Soft under-belly,” indeed!

As to a “Spielbergian” ending: I would like to say that Holland is sharing his own enlightened observation that those men and women with whom he spoke to felt better by not ignoring those horrible years in their lives but by incorporating them into their own life’s narratives. We carry a novel in our heads and we’re our own protagonists. By failing to incorporate the traumatic effects of our most heinous moments we risk becoming detached to our loved ones, not valuing them as key factors in whom we’ve become. To put it a simpler way: you’re living a lie by ignoring or suppressing your past. Memory leads to mending– which inevitably leads to loving. This is what Holland is suggesting with Enderby’s Scrooge-like, sea-changed awareness. What’s worth noting is how said discovery was made by Holland via personal exchanges with the people who lived it.

It was generous of him to share.

Landscaping

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 16:24:00 GMT

We seldom question and who

considers the gaps in between

those tucked away places our field of vision

crudely splatters and forces into display

this is another way to say “landscape”

sable palms frame a green composition

really a myriad-pocketed schema

which within its pockets the wind dies

murdered by us for whom nothing but

the margins seem to sway to create

an event in time which only happened

to this viewer myself, say,

at the car park of my girl’s school.

Both composer and spectator

make-up any given moment alive

Both victim and perpetrator…

…both seer and non-seen

Now back to my green-framed landscape

where the mundane miracle occurs

witnessed but dreamt

apportioned & man-made

a perceived summary to an heir of a savanna simian

deluded into seeing clear to the horizon

wherein he thinks his safety lies he thinks,

… a deliverance

but really where he’s collected a whiff

of his own demise, a simple death

achromatic & chicken-kicking

hung upside-down on a wire bled white

pockmarked & plucked–rubbed out

Amor a/de/por Cuba…

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 19:09:00 GMT

De veras que soy atrevido por ser licenciado en Literatura Inglesa, y solo me han publicado en ése idioma…pero daría el huevo izquierdo para poder escribir con soltura en Español. Me identifico culturalmente como Cubano, pero los Cubanos en Cuba no […]

“Morning Coffee”

Fri, 23 Mar 2018 11:52:00 GMT

I am more than what I decide to get done today

part mole on my grandmother’s cheek

some belittling gesture my grandfather made.

The indignant patriot before a righteous machete charge,

I was in his cold coffee this morning.

My aunt’s secret Charleston dances, when she decided to cut her hair short

the raindrop that fell into my mother’s eye at her wedding

my father’s ashes leavened with regret for having left Cuba,

and the pair of shoes he got when his mother died.

I’m standing between two mirrors forward and aft,

back and forth, as on a ship, and focus past

the echoes of my ancestors reflected to a point

just past the horizon….

…I am an unseen decision made in the dark.

The dead just collected, the pots of piss thrown out

the windows during some war, the bombing

to begin again as I dip my croissant into

my coffee,

this morning,

now.

Re: Amelia Earhart Mysterious Death

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 22:51:00 GMT

Review of WW1 Historian, Nigel Atter’s In The Shadow of Bois Hugo

Sun, 31 Dec 2017 14:54:00 GMT

Atter’s book covers the story of a battalion going first into action in the Battle of Loos, France in 1915. The Lincoln’s (Lincolnshire County’s) 8 Battalion is an example of what was even then being called Kitchener’s Army. This was the first nationwide enlisting effort in Britain, personified by Lord Kitchener in his personal appeal for more men, in reaction to the fact that the original BEF was all but gone by 1914’s end. There was a critical shortage of manpower on the British front facing the German trenches from Ypres snaking southwards to Artois.

Enlistment, Training, Transport, and Deployment are all covered in this pithy book of only 144 pages. Both bird’s eye and worm’s eye view are well mentioned as diary entries from Sir John French, Gen. Douglas Haig and all ranks down to personal letters from Lincolnshire privates are showcased throughout. Atter’s book is an elegant if tragic account of a small corner during the opening days of Britain’s hastily conceived Loos Campaign in 1915, a battle hardly mentioned in the usual timeline of events of the First World War, Western Front: Mons-Marne-Ypres-Verdun-Somme-Passchendaele-Cambrai-Kaiserschlacht-100 Days.

“Paucity” is a word that keeps coming up describing the short shrift given the enormous effort to train and deploy this band of men that heard the call of their country’s need. There were shortages in every phase of their handling. Poor logistics, mistaken orders, lack of communication, ineffective artillery too sparse to amass an effect, tired and hungry after two days and one night’s march, sans food & water, and then told to take German bulwarks (their second line of trenches) studded with machine guns providing enfilading fire–well, the perfect storm for massive disaster! It is heartbreaking the level of neglect shown to these proud men by French & Haig’s general staff.

Yet, they held their unit cohesion through most of it and even managed sustained attacks for hours on 26 of September only to have to retire with irrevocable losses. The official report dismissed them as having cut and run, even leaving their rifles behind in their wake.

Atter shows the lies and scapegoating that these men were judged by. Here is a clear example of generals blaming the men for their own lack of understanding, planning or willingness to learn from some earlier battles that should have shown them that a sustained, creeping barrage was vital for any frontal attack; that the German reserve system discouraged a “breakout” mentality with the cavalry “leading the way;” that men need to be fed and watered during long marches. The British were still two years away from knowing that “bite & hold” was more feasible than “breakout” but the former lessons should have been learned by 1915. The general staff was not listening to subordinates and learning, fighting past wars. (Similar to American Chief of Staff’s failure to innovate after the Tet Offensive in ’68 Southeast Asia; they were still fighting the Japanese.)

If you don’t hold that remembering the sacrifices of past generation who safeguarded your civil liberties is an honorable pastime (and I do), then you will agree that righting a historical wrong is of vital interest to all of us today. Contemporary historians in 1915 were wrong to have characterized 8 Battalion’s epic efforts & gallantry to simply saying that “they [had] bolted,” as Atter’s ending reminds us.

What does this say to us in our time of purported “fake news” and hyper-information? Perhaps that historiography should become the prime purpose of today’s historians.

Nigel Atter is a former student of Professor Gary Sheffield and Dr Spencer Jones, and is an independent scholar of the Great War (his primary area of interest being the Western Front in 1915 – particularly the Battle of Loos). He is, perhaps, unique in his interest related to the 8th (Service) Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. Nigel was a founding member of the Leicestershire and Rutland Branch of the Western Front Association and has presented papers on a range of diverse topics, such as the Indian Corps, Lord Kitchener and the Battle of Loos. As military history advisor and secretary to the ‘Oadby Remembers 1914-1918’ project, Nigel undertakes research on individual soldiers and oversees all the published research from the wider team. He has delivered research findings on topics as diverse as the Leicestershire Regiment in Mesopotamia and papers on individual battles and biographies of local soldiers. His recent publications includenbsp ;’Their name Liveth for Evermore: a military history of the men from Oadby Baptist Church’ andnbsp ;’A Difficult Year: Offensive Operations on the Western Front in 1915′, which was published in Stand To! (the journal of The Western Front Association).

Interviewed on Stephan King Short Movies – SKSM Film Website

Sat, 14 Oct 2017 11:39:00 GMT

Aman Mehra – October 12; 2017

Published 14 October 2017

(See Original at: http://www.stephenkingshortmovies.com/interviews/chaz-mena-october-14-2017/)

Chaz Mena played "Cleve Ferrell" in Sara Werner‘s The Things They Left Behind.

SKSM: Could you start with telling me a bit about yourself? Who are you and what do you do?

Chaz is a Freedoms’ Foundation Award winner (2014) for his PBS teleplay, Yo Solo… and is currently a “Revolutionary in Residence” at Colonial Williamsburg, VA (2017). Chaz plays “Vicente Cruz,” a recurring character in Netflix’s hit series Bloodline. He is a published poet in some leading poetry journals around the country and has written four, 1-person shows that he performs at any given time. Chaz is also a company member of Zoetic Stage, a regional theatre company housed at the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center. Partnering with Vanguardia Films (San Juan, PR), Chaz has co-produced independent feature films in Puerto Rico. He is next preparing to shoot a horror film in Cuba.

SKSM: How did you become involved in The things they left behind Dollar Baby film?

Chaz Mena: I auditioned. Duba Leibell (producer) has seen my work and asked me to audition, which were held at the University of Miami School of Communications, where Duba teaches screenwriting and many other wonderful things to her students. She is devoted to them on par to her craft as a writer and developer of new work.

SKSM: What do you think it is in the story that attracts people so much?

Chaz Mena: Culturally and historically, 9/11 is the moment that changed everything. Not only has it changed our foreign policy forever, but in our very lives, I mean existentially, we’re affected. It the most cruel thing that we’ve witnessed since WW2 in size, planning and execution. It’s given voice, unfortunately, to the most reactionary in all our societies in the west. The rise of Nationalism and its unfortunate, hateful face can be linked to 9/11. It’s more than a “where were you when it happened” chapter in our lives. It’s a central event that still affects us all. My wife was in the towers the day before the tragedy. We lived in NY at the time. She works in finance. We’re all—all of us, even those unborn at the time of the attack—living with it.

SKSM: Did you have to audition for the part or was it written directly for you?

Chaz Mena: I did audition. It was not written for me as the script was finalized and “locked in” weeks if not months before. This was a well-crafted, well-thought-out written piece. Its recet success speaks to that.

SKSM: You worked with Sara Werner on this film, how was that?

Chaz Mena: Sara’s a delight. She believed in rehearsing the week before the shooting and it made all the difference. Now that I’ve been executive producer on some other projects, I’ve advocated for that. Sara was very respectful, keenly sensitive to the theme of the work we were engaged in. Some of us had actually lost friends or acquaintances in the events we portrayed. We always, crew and actors kept that in mind. How you handle a subject informs how you portray it. Know what you’re handling. I’m not saying she was unduly sensitive or pedantic. She hit the right note—exceptional for so young a person.

SKSM: Was there any funny or special moment when they made the movie that you would like to tell me about?

Chaz Mena: Tom Frank and I are francophone. We were speaking French on the set, telling jokes aloud and people didn’t know what to make of us. My French is heavily accented, being a Spanish speaker, and he was kind enough to suffer through it without commenting on it. Tom is a friend. I think he’s wonderful.

SKSM: Do you still have any contact with the crew/cast from that time? If so with who?

Chaz Mena: I’ve talked to Tom Frank and Duba as well. Who I consider a good man, a friend.

I have to tell you that the Crew was the model of professional. They do a great job at the School of Communications, UM. For some in the crew, it was their first time working in anything other than in their assigned work in class. First time working with professional actors. You couldn’t tell. They were (are) remarkable. I hope to work with them again soon!

SKSM: What are you working nowadays?

Chaz Mena: I’m in pre-production with Phonograph Films (Juan Carlos Zaldivar) on a horror story that we’re planning to shoot in the Caribbean… can’t tell you more yet! I continue partnering with Van Guardia Films (Puerto Rico) on a sci-fi film that is in post now entitled “23 Hours.” Writing two plays: one in development with Hannah Ryan (resident director, Hamilton) and I’m in the research phase for a play about the American revolution, being a “Revolutionary in Residence” for Colonial Williamsburg. On top of all that, I’ve been hired as a lecturer at the University of Miami, Theatre Dept. Lot’s to do!

SKSM: Are you a fan of Stephen King’s work?

Chaz Mena: Of course, just like everyone else. I follow him on Twitter. I love, love, love his short stories having read most of his short story collections. “Night Shift” is unparralled, in my view. I mean, up there with Le Fanu and M.R. James in craftsmanship.

SKSM: What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?

Chaz Mena: I’m a fast reader. It mostly works against me. I curb my tendency to do it. You miss things. I have a degree in English Literature.

SKSM: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Is there anything else you want to say to the fans that read this interview?

Chaz Mena: Support women in film. One-half of Humanity is not being heard! We’re all the less for it.

SKSM: Do you like something to add?

Chaz Mena: Be a story teller. Stories are all we have. It’s all we do, in any field.New Paragraph

To-Do List

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 20:07:00 GMT

Day old bread and this morning’s coffee

tastes like opportunity all over again

I know the milk is off by now, the coffee saccharine

the bread’s crust limp with rancid butter

but so is my forgotten To-Do list from much earlier

written in tired pencil, no room for error

its eraser long since gone

thus goes my life I’m tempted to say

and another day drips off

I didn’t visit my ailing mother

and my father’s ashes still lie here, in an alien country

one that showed itself to him with as much promise

as my to-do list did me this morning

I feed my daughter fried zucchini and finish this poem later.

All I ever am is one man with one day to fill right.

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 00:44:00 GMT

Played to sold-out audiences. It was a pleasure to work with my dear friend, Michael McKeever’s on his new play. The trailer below produced by Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, Coral Gables, FL.

Miami Herald, July 17, 2017

Christine Arnold Dolen

Fans of the South Florida-based playwright’s recent award-winning “Daniel’s Husband” and “After” will encounter a different side of McKeever in “Finding Mona Lisa.” But those who have experienced his many dramas, comedies and short plays over the past two decades won’t be surprised that art and history, among the subjects that interest him most, are at the heart of his newest work.

Structurally, “Finding Mona Lisa” departs from the straightforward storytelling of “Daniel’s Husband” and “After” for a more fluid, time-traveling approach. Rooted in research or imaginatively invented, the stories McKeever tells in “Finding Mona Lisa” have one thing uniting them: that iconic masterpiece.

From the outset, McKeever and director David Arisco make the play’s tone and style clear.

Actors Capote, Adjan, Anna Lise Jensen, Paul Louis, Chaz Mena and Tom Wahl play a total of 25 roles, their multiple transformations accomplished through the playwright’s character-defining writing, the actors’ vocal and physical prowess and costume designer Ellis Tillman’s gorgeous century-hopping work (two of his designs for Adjan are breathtakingly beautiful). Eric Nelson’s painterly lighting and Shaun Mitchell’s sound design are also key to evoking the play’s multiple eras as one flows into another.

Watching these acting pros appear and reappear as wholly different human beings is a joy.

Adjan, for instance, is beguiling as Ellen, a vibrant American woman whose anniversary trip to Paris with her grumpy husband leads to an encounter worthy of a romance novel, sending her home with her own version of a Mona Lisa smile. Then she’s cool and slightly imperious as a wealthy woman circa 1911 who is willing to part with a small fortune to possess the stolen Mona Lisa.

Mena is chameleonic as a nobleman who, to his later misfortune, urges King François I to remove the Mona Lisa from one of his steam baths and display it to the masses; then as a randy Napoleon, who has the painting in his bedchamber because he can; then as Vincenzo Peruggia, a rampantly sexist Louvre Museum employee who made off with the painting in 1911.

Louis, too, is vastly different from role to role, particularly as the charming but lethal François I and then as the meek but deeply talented art forger Yves Chaudron. Besides Villegas, Capote plays Ellen’s sexy stranger, the enforcer for François I, the mastermind behind the selling of Mona Lisa forgeries and, finally, Da Vinci’s in-demand rival Michaelangelo.

Wahl and Jensen shine in two very different scenes together. The first, set in 1962, involves a back-and-forth between Kenneth, who works for the director of Washington D.C.’s National Gallery, and Colette, an incredulous Louvre employee who cannot believe that the Mona Lisa is to travel to the United States at the behest of first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

In their second scene, the play’s last, Wahl portrays da Vinci, Jensen his subject. A normally modest Lisa Gherardini appears for her sitting heavily rouged, her hair in a snood, her lavish jewelry and ornamental scarves someone else’s idea. When painter and subject are finally alone, the two talk, and da Vinci senses Lisa’s essence. He has her remove the makeup, then lets down her hair, places her right hand over her left, takes off the scarves. Then he says something that makes her smile, ever so slightly. And voilà — there she is, the Mona Lisa.

McKeever’s writing in the play ranges from straightforward to serious to comic as he explores everything from changing attitudes toward women to the way great art inspires adoration, envy, avariciousness and more. Arisco at times pushes the performances in the comic scenes into caricature, which is overkill. And as he’s rewriting — inevitably, new plays get rewritten — McKeever would do well to excise contemporary expressions and word choices from scenes that travel back in history.

Still, for those who know only McKeever’s recent plays and for others who find the Mona Lisa mysteriously alluring, “Finding Mona Lisa” is an entertaining and enlightening way to contemplate an enduring masterpiece.

Recent article published on MakingHistoryNow.com, Colonial Williamsburg ‘s official blog.

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 11:55:00 GMT

This article is a response to my month-long residency at Colonial Williamsburg published on their official blog, MakingHistoryNow.org My residency in Williamsburg will remain a shining time in my life and in my family’s. I remain forever indebted to Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for its generous recognition of my work. Look for “Miralles & Rendon” a new play I’m writing describing the strange sojourn of Spain’s first, de facto ambassadors to the recently named country: “The United States of America.”

Knowing at 50

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 12:04:00 GMT

“In Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the doctrine of “non-self”, that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in living beings.” -“Anatta,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatt. In the Zen tradition, coming to that awareness is […]

“In Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the doctrine of “non-self”, that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in living beings.” -“Anatta,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatt. In the Zen tradition, coming to that awareness is called the “Great Death.” In western, psychological terms we would describe it the death of the ego. Ridding oneself of the fallacious “self” is considered as the only one, true death in Buddhist orthodoxy.

Knowing at Fifty

Everything stems from a certitude that time is running out
…You use hourglass metaphors without a hint of irony

Cleaning electric razors upset you because there’s only white stubble
…You actually choose one side of the bed over the other

Sex is a rarely-visited, exotic destination
…you buy a selection of colognes as consolation.

Women don’t look back at you when you walk past
…so dogs become a sudden and unanticipated blessing

Your attention is directed to leaves,
…fallen, veiny and brittle

You pick up other people’s trash the flotsam/jetsam of more earnest (read “younger”) people.

You’re good with your hands in your pockets
…and fondly remember telegraphs you once received.

Younger People indulge you, each one of their smiles a charitable gift
…and so you smile back, gratefully.

Your wife doesn’t come to you when you call for her
…but yells “WHAT??!” from the other room.

Blessing to know that “You” are, after all, a lie
… so good to die the One True Death.

JUAN MIRALLES TRAYLLÓN, A Merchant from Havana who died in Washington’s Home

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 23:45:00 GMT

JUAN MIRALLES TRAYLLÓN, EL ESPAÑOL QUE MURIÓ EN LA CASA DE GEORGE WASHINGTON por Luis Manuel Moll Juan “En plena guerra de la independencia, este español, ayudó a George Washington a obtener la victoria sobre las fuerzas inglesas.” Juan de […]

JUAN MIRALLES TRAYLLÓN, EL ESPAÑOL QUE MURIÓ EN LA CASA DE GEORGE WASHINGTON

Mahāyāna School of Buddhism from Sri Lanka, a Primer

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 22:53:00 GMT

The Buddhist Path – Footprint of the Buddha A look at how Buddhism is practised in Sri Lanka and India. Ronald Eyre meets [the late] Venerable Ananda Maitreya a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka. Categories: Ananda Maitreya, Theravada, Video Tags: […]

I never mention my practice as I guard it very closely in my life. It’s too personal. I’ve been a Buddhist for over 4 years now, after having taken my vows. Please enjoy this primer to the Mahayana School of Buddhism–it’s an oldie but a goodie…

Colonial Williamsburg: Largest Collection of 18 Century Weapons in the Nation

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 11:54:00 GMT

http://makinghistorynow.com/2016/03/building-a-400-year-old-collection-of-weapons/

At the Governor’s Palace alone, 230 muskets—including 80 original pieces—are on display along with 18 reproduction pistols and nearly 300 reproduction swords. But that’s just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the arms and militaria collection of Colonial Williamsburg.

Palace SwordsErik Goldstein, Curator of Mechanical Arts and Numismatics (coins, paper currency, and medals), showed me some of the highlights of our rather large collection, which contains hundreds of objects the “fighting man of the colonial period carried and used.”

“These rare items span from tiny unit-marked uniform buttons to cannons, artwork, and even a regimental flag of the 1760 period,” he said. Colonial Williamsburg also holds a general’s uniform coat of the sort worn at the Siege of Yorktown. That still isn’t anywhere close to the amount of items we have. In fact, the collection of British military firearms is well known to be the finest and most complete in existence!

Colonial Williamsburg began collecting weapons right from the time it was founded by Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin. After World War II, when much of England was decimated by German bombs, the structure of Death Duties, or inheritance taxes, was changed in order to rebuild Britain. When the next generation inherited grand estates, many couldn’t afford to keep them and the estates were broken up. It was then many pieces went on the market. This was around the time Colonial Williamsburg acquired the Magazine, and we needed to fill it with muskets. Reproduction weapons weren’t really being made, so we had to purchase originals. Erik told me the Foundation wasn’t buying one musket at a time like one might do at a gun show. Instead, we were purchasing 20, 30, even 50 muskets and the majority were acquired between 1949 and the early 1950s.

In his 14 years at the Foundation, Erik has only been able to purchase one infantry musket to fill a hole—that’s how complete the collection of British weapons is.

We currently have more than 300 longarms (which includes rifles, muskets, and fowlers) and nearly 100 pistols as well as dozens of swords dating from 1650-1820. Some of our weapons belonged to famous names of the Revolution, including Nathaniel Greene’s silver-hilted sword and a good chunk of Lord Dunmore’s gun cabinet. If you want to see those weapons, they are mostly on display in the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg and the Governor’s Palace. Ask your guide

We also have a South Carolina Royalists belt plate, which Erik says is the only known piece of Southern military silver from the Revolutionary War as well as an unaltered French musket, which was the type of gun Ben Franklin arranged to have shipped over from France.

There are a handful of pieces Erik would like to have in the collection. For instance, he would love to acquire a sea service musket from the French and Indian War period. Erik says we currently have one from a later period, but we don’t have one from that particular time. So if you have one in your family or know where one can be acquired, let us know.

All in all, Colonial Williamsburg’s arms and militaria collection dates back to around 1600 and is rather complete. You can see many of the items on display at the Magazine or the Governor’s Palace, and there’s also an incredible exhibit on display at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg called Lock, Stock, and Barrel. Stay tuned for another blog post about the exhibit!

For more information, be sure to check colonialwilliamsburg.com or call 855-296-6627.

David Hare on Playwriting, National Theatre 2011 Interview

Wed, 31 May 2017 19:02:00 GMT

David Hare on playwriting Interview with David Hare about his career as a playwright. He offers advice to young writers and an insight into his technique, the source of inspiration and what drives him to continue writing. Interview with David […]

Interview with David Hare about his career as a playwright. He offers advice to young writers and an insight into his technique, the source of inspiration and what drives him to continue writing.

“The first person you have to get ‘right’ in a play is yourself…Yourself…meaning, from what point of view am I writing this play? Who is the person writing this play? Of what do they approve or disapprove? Or, do they not what to show their approval or disapproval at all? [Again:] Who is this person writing this play?”

To my Fellow Castmates, All The Way LBJ, Actor’s Playhouse, Coral Gables, 2017

Fri, 24 Mar 2017 18:11:00 GMT

Tonight. Tonight in Camaguey in 1870 My great-grandfather joined the Rebels who fight slavery after seeing a woman’s baby pea shucked out onto the square her “master” in name only hadn’t given his property permission to have it. Ce […]

Obsession, passion and rejection on the way to creating a masterpiece

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 15:45:00 GMT

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN, Photo: Justin Namon JANUARY 23, 2017 12:58 PM ArtburstMiami.com / The Miami Herald ( Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/performing-arts/article128205614.html#storylink=cpy ) Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat was an influential visionary whose pointillist work launched a movement before his untimely death in Paris […]

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN, Photo: Justin Namon

JANUARY 23, 2017 12:58 PM

ArtburstMiami.com / The Miami Herald
( Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/performing-arts/article128205614.html#storylink=cpy )

Obsession, passion and rejection on the way to creating a masterpiece

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 15:45:00 GMT

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN, Photo: Justin Namon

JANUARY 23, 2017 12:58 PM

ArtburstMiami.com / The Miami Herald
( Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/performing-arts/article128205614.html#storylink=cpy )

Dropping ‘Bella off at School

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 15:05:00 GMT

I don’t know how she can tell it but whenever I say goodbye to her she lowers her eyes and looks down briefly to keep from telling me that there is too little time left that we’re parting in […]

Petite Soldat

Mon, 07 Nov 2016 12:12:00 GMT

My historical research has been of great value in my work onstage. Understanding a playwright’s place in history: what may have formed her, what discourse did he have access to. My interest in military history is attributable to something else. My family had fought imperialism against the Spanish in Cuba, then against fascism in Spain in the 30’s, and in the 50’s my father actively worked against Batista, a usurping autocrat who nullified the country’s 1940 constitution. When my parents decided not to participate in their country’s experiment with a softer, centralized socialism, Castro-ism, they immigrated to the United States after having been sickened at seeing Soviets arriving in Cuba. I am proud to say that my family has always reacted to autocrats wherever they’ve lived. This explains my revulsion to Trump and what he is offering: the One God, One Language, One America, inchoate monolithic thinking devoid of subtlety and nuance. The handing over of one’s sovereignty, one’s civil rights, to one person…in this case an unthinking reactionary with no sense of how the world or his country works.

Here’s a sonnet I wrote some years ago that may further shed light:

Petite Soldat

“The Sky reminded me of a Klee painting: where are you from, where are you, where are you going?”

-from the film “Le Petit Soldat,” Jean Luc Godard, 1963.

It’s just that on the year I was born

we measured our success in lunches served.

We’d fight poverty and all who kept us back.

I was raised to attend the fight and not look away:

if needed, become fodder to earn a place in the honor

roll, a niche into the pantheon, etched above the bones

From Le Marne, Somme, El Ebro, Moncada, Bastogne—

those places found in the 800 section of the duodecimal

that reared me raised to be snuffed out in a flash

like that poor miliciano forever frozen, arms out flying,

forever immolated at Jaráma by Robert Capa…

…Instead, I fight traffic, run home to walk the dog.

Looking the other way whenever Bosnia, Syria, Rwanda,

Somalia is spoken. I worry about our self-cleaning oven.

Narrated for Chilling Tales for Dark Nights

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 18:46:00 GMT

Thrilled to have been asked to narrate for the most frequented radio podcast in the country. With an unprecedented panoply of horror stories for every taste imaginable CHILLING TALES FOR DARK NIGHTS stories are made to come to life with the […]

Thrilled to have been asked to narrate for the most frequented radio podcast in the country. With an unprecedented panoply of horror stories for every taste imaginable CHILLING TALES FOR DARK NIGHTS stories are made to come to life with the help of a host of among the most professionally sought-after radio artists, narrators, and voice actors around.

Here’s my first contribution. More to come!

I recommend their weekly podcast , among the most frequently downloaded podcasts today. If you’ve liked what you heard, and no doubt you will, follow them on Twitter and like them on Facebook .

CTFDN is the premiere horror-themed storytelling and short horror film channel with hundreds of posted videos and 10+ million accumulated video views. You can become a regular subscriber for only $2.oo a month …this is the best deal on the internet. I did it, and love it!

Sweet Dreams…

…or NOT!

An Ancient City

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 14:49:00 GMT

This is an ancient city
On an old stretch of land by the sea
Whatever I can say about
It, this country,
No matter how I flatter its flora
Serenade its birds
Praise, pay due homage to its elegance
Its ladies who handle their woven fans
Genuflect to its porous Taíno gods
Made red from baked earth
Though they all listen to my exhortation,
…politely,
They know better.
This is an ancient city I walk in.

returning to abandoned books

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 13:12:00 GMT

There are many of them I’m ashamed to say too many I’d admit to they stand staring at me so erect intermingled with the ones I’ve devoured show offs, everyone of them as if they had beat me in a […]

Mention in “The Hollywood Reporter” on Bloodline, Season 2

Fri, 27 May 2016 18:59:00 GMT

OMG, Thank You Hollywood Reporter for my mention on the eve of Season 2 Bloodline! “Vicente Cruz” mentioned as one of the things to look out for.

I find the writing in Bloodline to be among the best on television today (humble opinion). I find its stars to be terrific people, funny and hard working. Anything you could ever want in a show is fully present and accounted for. It’s a pleasure to work and learn from Kyle Chandler and Enrique Murciano.

“But unless you watched (or re-watched) the first season far more recently than when it debuted 14 months ago, you might not remember some of the more intricate details and subplots, which resurface in the second season. For instance, do you recall hearing that Danny once robbed a drug store in Miami? That in framing Wayne Lowry (Glenn Morshower) for Danny’s death, John and the youngest Rayburn brother Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz) texted his girlfriend Chelsea O’Bannon (Chloe Sevigny) from Danny’s flip phone? Or did you stumble over the name Wayne Lowry? What about Rafi Quintana (Gino Vento)? Or Vicente Cruz (Chaz Mena)?”

The Demise of Guys? -P. Zimbardo

Fri, 29 Apr 2016 21:13:00 GMT

This is alarming. I have family members that behave in the same way as Zimabardo (of Stanford Prison Experiment fame) describes below. In a nutshell, the internet’s ability to supply constant and almost instantaneous novelty in all fields is opaquing our ability to socialize in orthodox ways for lasting relationships.

Creature Comforts

Mon, 04 Apr 2016 12:51:00 GMT

Another Poem Published, thanks to Jewish Literary Journal

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 15:56:00 GMT

Lots of us remember being a kid in Miami during the 1970s. The small, sleepy southern city was just becoming the cross-cultural metropolis it is today. Denizens of Miami Beach, mainly retirees from the northeast–many of them survivors of the […]

Closed an Unprecedented Success for Colony Theatre, Miami Beach: The Golem of Havana

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 16:46:00 GMT

This was a joy for me to work on from beginning to end. Thank you Michel Hausmann and Salomon Lerner for considering me worthy of such an enterprise as Golem of Havana ended up being for all of us. […]

¡Muchas Gracias a todos!

The Golem of Havana is Miami New Drama’s original, critically-acclaimed musical that explores the lives of a Jewish family in Cuba on the brink of revolution. It is an epic story with an exciting score that blends Cuban and Jewish music.

REVIEWS, TO DATE:

Miami Herald Review

Huffington Post

Florida Theatre Onstage Review

Music by Salomon Lerner
Lyrics By Len Schiff
Book and Direction by Michel Hausmann

SYNOPSIS
The Golem of Havana tells the story of a Hungarian-Jewish family living in Batista’s Havana on the brink of the Cuban Revolution. When their maid’s son, a guerrilla fighter, is injured, they must choose between protecting him and guarding their first fragile grasp on prosperity since their arrival. The Golem of Havana weaves together the music and traditions of two worlds, asking questions about family, community, religion, and politics.ABOUT
Developed at the prestigious New York Theatre Workshop, The Golem of Havana has enjoyed sold-out productions Off-Broadway at La MaMa E.T.C. in New York City and in the Berkshires at Barrington Stage Company, an award-winning theatre company in downtown Pittsfield, MA. There, the musical became the fastest selling new show in the theatre’s history. The musical was also a Richard Rodgers Award finalist for New Musical Theatre and an Independent Reviews of New England Award (IRNE) nominee for best play.

Closed an Unprecedented Success for Colony Theatre, Miami Beach: The Golem of Havana

Mon, 22 Feb 2016 16:46:00 GMT

¡Muchas Gracias a todos!

REVIEWS, TO DATE:

Miami Herald Review

Huffington Post

Florida Theatre Onstage Review

Music by Salomon Lerner
Lyrics By Len Schiff
Book and Direction by Michel Hausmann

Miami Herald Review: ‘The Golem of Havana’

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 21:44:00 GMT

Liba Vaynberg stars as Rebecca, the narrator, in Miami New Drama’s ‘The Golem of Havana’ at the Colony Theatre. BY CHRISTINE DOLEN, for the Miami Herald & artburstmiami.com When trials and fears beset our lives, we humans find myriad ways to […]

“Weird and Wonderful Golem of South Beach,” Huffington Press

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 21:39:00 GMT

Myra Chanin aka ‘Mother Wonderful’; Radio/TV Personality, Former Producer, ‘The Joey Reynolds Show’ I have always avoided spending more than seven consecutive days in balmy Boca Raton. Why? Because there ain’t much culture there. Actually the major artistic activity of palm-sheltered […]

Myra Chanin aka ‘Mother Wonderful’; Radio/TV Personality, Former Producer, ‘The Joey Reynolds Show’

I have always avoided spending more than seven consecutive days in balmy Boca Raton. Why? Because there ain’t much culture there. Actually the major artistic activity of palm-sheltered snowbirds is sneaking into three multiplex potboilers for the price of one senior citizen admission — hardly proof of intellectual perspicacity.

So why was this winter different? The certainty of the Mother of All Blizzards encouraged me to entertain heartfelt offers from casual acquaintances to squat in their guest bedrooms for “as long as I liked,” However, judging from their expressions of dismay when my luggage and I actually appeared on their thresholds I could see that these invitations had been sincere only until I accepted them.

A few days after I’d ensconced myself in a soon-to-be-a-former friend’s condo and was zapping a previous evening’s early bird scraps, my iPhone pinged a discount ticket offer to a musical drama, The Golem of Havana at the Colony Theater on Miami Beach’s fashionable Lincoln Road. It was the first production by Miami New Drama, a company just co-founded by Moises Kaufman, the lauded Pulitzer/Tony award-winning director of I Am My Own Wife, playwright of Gross Indecency, The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Laramie Project and the equally talented Michel Hausmann, a Venezuelan-born playwright/director with impressive international credits.

i was intrigued by the title and theme of Hausmann’s contemporary version of the tale of the Jewish Frankenstein monster, created by the 16th Century Chief Rabbi of Prague to protect his exiled flock from local oppressors. I felt it had great prospects for attracting an audience in a city replete with Jewish and Cuban refugees who’ve often shared, with their descendants, their fears and feelings of helplessness as foreigners in a strange land. The Golem of Prague, who initially killed only tormentors of Jews, eventually murdered everyone including those it was created to protect, forcing its deactivation. The Golem of Havana sounded well worth a drive to South Beach, even though that meant sharing 42 miles of I-95 with seniors anxious to arrive early for early bird specials. Besides if The Golem of Havana proved less than magical, we’d only be a stone crab’s claw away from Joe’s Stone Crab, which always made any trip to Miami Beach worthwhile.

The theater was filled with an even mix of yarmulked snowbirds and brightly clad Cubanos, who all felt the haunting truths in the opening words of Hausman’s magnificent play, as uttered by the young narrator Rebecca Frankel (Liba Vaynberg).

The miniskirted, sweet-voiced Rebecca sang the story of the Golem of Prague to a Yiddish melody against a imaginative backdrop of illuminated cartoon shadow puppets before the setting and actions shifted to pre-Castro Havana where the entire cast performed Ray Sullivan’s exuberant Latino choreography to the you-walk-out-of-the-theater-humming-it title song by Salomon Lerner, a brilliant composer who’d mastered melody and rhythm in both Jewish and Latin genres with Len Schiff’s clever lyrics supplying additional pizzazz.

The story wove together the lives of three families — the displaced Jewish Frankels, the native Cuban Rondons and the-united-by-ambition-and-greed minions of the about-to-be-ousted-by-Castro’s-rebels Dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

The Frankels were economically and emotionally impoverished Holocaust survivors. The father, Pinchas (Allen Lewis Rickman) was a superb tailor who lacked any connections that would reward him with financial success. His dour wife Yutka (Yelena Shmulenson) was plagued with guilt about a decision made by her that led to her sister’s death, an event replayed in their daughter Rebecca’s nightmares which fuels her need for a magical protector.

Their maid, Maria Rondon (Rheaume Crenshaw) a descendant of slaves, was widowed when her husband was mistaken for a rebel and murdered by Batista’s thugs. She prays to an African goddess to protect her son Teo, an actual Castro rebel. Rebecca, who is closer to Maria than to her mother, joins in Maria’s rituals. When Rebecca’s prayer is actually answered, the family prospers.

Arturo Perez (Chaz Mena) an “adviser to the military” is actually a charismatic, manipulative Batista henchman. One of Arturo’s schemes, funded by Pinchas, gives the Frankels enough money to open a shop. Arturo also arranges for Pinchas to become Batista’s tailor.

The dilemma the Frankels face is whether to hide the wounded Teo and risk their newfound prosperity.

The direction is subtle and superb. The characters are real and the actors playing them are never maudlin. Sets, lighting and costumes display the triumph of imagination over funding. Special kudos to all, especially National Yiddish Theater and Coen Brothers favorites, Allen Lewis Rickman and his stage and actual wife, Yelena Shmulenson, the exquisite singing of Rheaume Crenshaw, her stage son Ronald Alexander Peet, Liba Vaynberg’s compelling innocence as well as Felipe Gorostiza and Chaz Mena playing the only thugs I ever wanted to dance with.

As for the identity of The Golem of Havana, I’ll never tell. You’ll have to see this play to find out. Suffice it to say that this Golem in South Beach will supply your spirit with sustenance that’s even more satisfying than anything but the jumbo claws you’ll find at Joe’s Stone Crabs.

Haunting Jewish-Cuban ‘The Golem Of Havana’ Explores Cross Cultural Tragedies

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 21:37:00 GMT

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Bill Hirschman Liba Vaynberg as Rebecca and Ronald Alexander Peet as Teo in Miami New Drama’s The Golem of Havana / Photo by Jenny Abreau We are in one of the busiest months in […]

January 18, 2016

Zoetic’s “Betrayal” & “Stripped” Named Amongst “Top Ten Best Shows in Miami,” Miami New Times

Wed, 27 Jan 2016 03:29:00 GMT

from the Miami New Times’ December 29, 2015, edition… by John Thomason (All Photos by Justin Namon) [Regarding Zoetic’s Stripped] “For many American actors, it would be difficult enough to recite a lengthy soliloquy in a convincing Russian accent. But […]

Miami’s Top Ten Stage Shows of 2015

1. Betrayal , Zoetic Stage

2. Constellations , GableStage

3. Summer Shorts, City Theatre

4. Stripped , Zoetic Stage

5. Ragtime , Actors’ Playhouse

6. Frankie and Johnny at the Clair de Lune , Alliance Theatre

7. New Jerusalem , GableStage

8. Leveling Up! , New Theatre

9. The Toxic Avenger , Actors’ Playhouse

10. Disgraced , GableStage

Named Best Supporting Actor in 2015 by New Times’ Best of Edition

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 13:18:00 GMT

Best Supporting Actor | Chaz Mena | Arts & Entertainment | Best Of Miami | Miami New Times miaminewtimes.com Henry David Thoreau, the original hipster, famously wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Occasionally, a performance […]

Henry David Thoreau, the original hipster, famously wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Occasionally, a performance will so accurately convey that axiom that it’s almost uncomfortable to witness. Chaz Mena accomplished this feat in Zoetic Stage’s Detroit at the Arsht Center. He found the quiet desperation in Ben, an unemployed husband of Anytown suburbia who was perennially building a financial website that never materialized, watching NASCAR programs on max volume in a zombified stupor, and staring a few beats too long at his younger, blonder, always underdressed new neighbor. No matter what the script dictated for Mena, from cooking real meat onstage to nearly breaking his leg on his neighbors’ unfinished porch, he never lost that hard-wired sense of existential malaise that we call the midlife crisis. And when he unveiled a game-changing secret in the play’s discomfiting, climactic bacchanal, the result was both hilarious and heartbreaking. Detroit may have been an equal-opportunity ensemble piece, but Mena took the reins and stole the show.

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 01:56:00 GMT

Thursday, November 5 – Sunday, November 22, CARNIVAL STUDIO THEATER, ADRIENNE ARSHT PERFORMANCE ARTS CENTER A Terrific Cast, A Superb Director, A Committed Playwright…All adds up to an unqualified success. Thanks to Zoetic Stage, South Florida is a place for solidly […]

Thursday, November 5 – Sunday, November 22, CARNIVAL STUDIO THEATER,

ADRIENNE ARSHT PERFORMANCE ARTS CENTER

A Terrific Cast, A Superb Director, A Committed Playwright…All adds up to an unqualified success. Thanks to Zoetic Stage, South Florida is a place for solidly crafted world premieres.

Click on the the links below to read reviews and reactions to Chris Demos-Brown’s “Stripped.”

Broadway World

Florida Theatre On Stage

Miami Art Zine

Miami Herald

Historic Spanish Governor of Louisianna Honored by Congress

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 20:19:00 GMT

So Happy to be remembered for my performance, excerpted in a recording of the same below by the City of Pensacola, in there celebrations following de Galvez’s being awarded an honorary citizenship to The United States. I miss Pensacola and […]

Historic Spanish Governor of Louisianna Honored by Congress

Mon, 20 Jul 2015 20:19:00 GMT

Closed “Betrayal” by Harold Pinter, dir. by Stuart Meltzer, Zoetic Stage at Arsht, PAC

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 19:31:00 GMT

This was considered to be the highest grossing, straight play in Zoetic’s history. Among the highest-selling for the Carnival Studio Theatre at the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center. See my Press Page to read the unanimous acclaim for Zoetic’s production of this, […]

“The most influential dramatist of his generation!”
– The New York Times

For seven years Emma and Jerry engage in a passionate love affair, deceiving their spouses, each other and, at times, even themselves. One of the 20th century’s most influential dramatists, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, innovatively explores the complexities of love, guilt and duplicity.

BETRAYAL originally premiered at London’s National Theatre in 1978 and was immediately hailed as one of Pinter’s masterworks, winning the 1979 Olivier Award for Best New Play and becoming an instant classic. Never before seen in Miami, the play closes Zoetic Stage’s fifth season at the Arsht Center.

Zoetic Stage’s ‘Betrayal’ Satisfies, The Anatomy of Adultery Dissected, BROADWAY WORLD.COM

Sat, 23 May 2015 04:02:00 GMT

By Roger Martin, ATCA Ah, the happy night at the theatre when everything is just right, simply brilliant; an experience not often found. But, lucky you, there’s such a pleasure on display right now, thanks to Zoetic Stage. Photo Credit […]

By Roger Martin, ATCA

Ah, the happy night at the theatre when everything is just right, simply brilliant; an experience not often found. But, lucky you, there’s such a pleasure on display right now, thanks to Zoetic Stage.

They’re back at the Arsht Center with their production of Pinter’s Betrayal, a classic of the English stage. Marriage vows? Who needs ’em?

Two Oxbridge cads, life long friends and the wife of one who’s mistress of the other; love and rue through the years until the inevitable end. Which, as Pinter has it, is actually the beginning. The first scene is the final parting, the last the start of the seven year affair. And it works.

Chas Mena is Robert, publisher and cuckold. Nicholas Richberg is Jerry, literary agent and betrayer and Amy McKenna is Emma, Robert’s much wandering wife. To say that these three are terrific would be the understatement of the year.

Robert is the epitome of the well educated, blindly arrogant Englishman. Mena’s handling of the letter scene in Italy, tormenting, Emma, is a lesson for any aspiring actor.

Richberg’s Jerry is the vulnerable, guilty Best Man. His wife and two children weigh on him. He doubts her and himself. He loves Emma. Richberg, once again, at his best.

And McKenna’s Emma is the happy catalyst, queen of two homes and lover of two men. At least.

Stuart Meltzer’s smoothly unobtrusive direction has his actors moving in a constant dance of accusation and revelation on Michael McKeever’s beautifully designed two-level set, an all blonde wood, two tiered thrust with a large playing area. The actors, when not on stage, sit in subtly lighted archways on the upper level.

And Meltzer has added a sublime touch: bassist Dave Wilkinson playing ’60s inspired riffs during the eight scene changes.

Danny Llaca, student at New World, gets every minute of his small role as the waiter. More please.

Playing the pauses in a Pinter play (sorry) is an art more than ably demonstrated by this cast. There’s a constant edge to every second of the show and well done, Zoetic, for that.

The excellent lighting design is by Rebecca Montero with costume designs by Estella Vrancovich.

Zoetic Stage delivers a stunning ‘Betrayal’ at the Arsht Center, MIAMI HERALD

Sun, 17 May 2015 03:07:00 GMT

Christine Dolan, May 16, 2015 cdolan@miamiherlad.com The silences in Zoetic Stage’s emotionally devastating production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal are complicated, haunting and riveting. Coached before the show begins by young actor Daniel Llaca who has a brief comic turn as a waiter, the […]

Christine Dolan, May 16, 2015

cdolan@miamiherlad.com

The silences in Zoetic Stage’s emotionally devastating production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal are complicated, haunting and riveting.

But the theater lovers in the Betrayal audience isn’t simply following instructions. They’re mesmerized by a fascinating, superbly acted production of a play by a Nobel laureate who turned the emotional lessons of his own long affair into an absorbing work of art.

Photo: Justin Namon

Zoetic, which has won acclaim and a number of Carbonell Awards since it launched at the end of 2010, has had plenty of artistic highs in its relatively brief history. But director Stuart Meltzer’s production of Betrayal, so richly acted by Chaz Mena, Amy McKenna and Nicholas Richberg, belongs at or near the top of Zoetic’s body of work.

Pinter’s 1978 script unfolds largely in reverse chronology, beginning two years after the end of a seven-year affair between a literary agent named Jerry (Richberg) and gallery owner Emma (McKenna). Emma is married to Robert (Mena), a publisher and Jerry’s best friend, while Jerry is married to the never-seen Judith, a doctor. Each couple has two children.

Meltzer has unmoored the play from its original time frame, which begins in 1977 and tracks back to 1968. A key plot point involves a letter Jerry sends to Emma while she’s vacationing in Italy with Robert — this is before the internet and cellphones made long-distance communication between illicit lovers so much easier — but the vagueness about time makes this Betrayal seem even more timeless.

So does the sleek yet classically inspired set design by Michael McKeever: a trio of elevated archways, each containing a single chair, to which the characters can retreat when they’re not playing out a scene. Beautifully illuminated with ever-changing hues by lighting designer Rebecca Montero, the set underscores the essential loneliness and isolation of three people whose lives have been bound together in joy and pain.

McKenna’s attractive Emma is a bit ill-at-ease and brittle as she reunites with Jerry for a drink and a confession: She has spilled the beans to Robert — who, as it happens, has been doing plenty of cheating himself. Richberg’s handsome Jerry is nonplussed. After all, it’s one thing to carry on a long-running affair with your best friend’s wife, another thing for him to know about it. Yet when an emotionally jittery Jerry gets together with Mena’s coiled Robert later that evening to somehow sort out the mess, his friend seems almost nonchalant as he reveals that, not for the first time, Emma lied.

Bridged with music by bass player Dave Wilkinson, the scenes create a rich, cumulative portrait of a triangle capable of betrayal both casual and calculated. Pinter explores jealousy, possessiveness, narcissistic self-interest. He does this in words and subtext-filled silences, periods of thought and reaction that the three actors fill so vividly you can almost hear the ideas running through their heads.

McKenna and Richberg expertly navigate their reverse journey from exes to burned-out lovers to a couple ravenous for sex. In the play’s final moments, which reveal the start of the story, he is drunk and ardent, she bemused and reluctant. But one touch establishes a connection that will affect three lives and cause plenty of collateral damage.

Like his fellow actors, Mena employs an impeccable British accent as he crafts one of the best performances of his career. His reserve as Robert is all surface, just another manipulative tool. Mena’s use of simmering anger and aggression, his ability to say one thing while clearly discussing something entirely different, add up to impressively layered work.

Professional productions of Pinter’s plays are rather rare in South Florida, and for those who love drama that’s both intellectually and emotionally engaging, that’s a shame. Zoetic’s Betrayal is a reminder of just how powerful an insightful production of a great play can be.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/performing-arts/article21166638.html#storylink=cpy

Affair In Reverse Provides Thoughtful Fodder In Betrayal, FLORIDA THEATRE ON STAGE

Sun, 17 May 2015 02:48:00 GMT

By Bill Hirschman If God is omniscient, He must be inconsolably sad. Zoetic Stage’s superb production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal puts its audience in that poignant and painful position in which Knowledge is, indeed, the poisoned apple in Eden. Since […]

By Bill Hirschman

If God is omniscient, He must be inconsolably sad. Zoetic Stage’s superb production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal puts its audience in that poignant and painful position in which Knowledge is, indeed, the poisoned apple in Eden.

Since Betrayal charts the dissolution of an adulterous affair in reverse chronological order, we know at each receding step what will happen to these people. Watching the lovers and the woman’s cuckolded husband, we easily chart the tragic arc. It begins with a final regret-tinted reunion tamped down by civilized don’t-make-a-fuss good behavior and ends with a scene of the erupting unbridled passions that initiated the relationship nine years earlier.

Few companies in South Florida could conquer this elliptical tale in which little substantive is actually said and even that is usually suffocated in banal chit chat separated by pregnant pauses. Emotionally, everything happens below the surface like lava roiling under the volcano’s cooled crust.

Zoetic’s arsenal here encompasses a trio of actors and a creative team all precisely and deftly molded by artistic director Stuart Meltzer. They shine particularly in that the audience always knows exactly what the characters are thinking and feeling despite the maddeningly oblique banter and silences.

To glean the most out of the irony and poignancy, in fact to get anything out of it at all, the audience must invest itself and its attention for the entire uninterrupted 90 minutes. But it is well-rewarded.

Set among the “veddy British” intelligentsia, Betrayal opens with gallery owner Emma (Amy McKenna) and literary agent Jerry (Nicholas Richberg) having drinks at bar two years after their affair ended. After a perfunctory but protracted round of innocuous inquiries about their families, Emma tells Jerry that she is leaving her husband Robert (Chaz Mena) who is Jerry’s oldest and best friend, as well as the publisher of Jerry’s clients. She says that in the heat of an all-night fight, she revealed to Robert the seven-year illicit relationship.

But in the next scene in which Jerry and Robert have a “civilized” confrontation, it becomes clear that Emma has lied to Jerry. She confirmed the affair to Jerry four years earlier – long before the lovers broke up and while the three maintained their various relationships. In a paradigm that is repeated in different ways in succeeding scenes, we realize that Robert has kept his knowledge of the betrayal a secret from Jerry. Jerry, in fact, feels betrayed that Robert never revealed that knowledge in some kind of anger.

Pinter addresses several issues simultaneously, although obliquely enough to provide fodder for many a post-show debate. He has created a triangle not so much with three sides so much as with three razor sharp corners.

The late actor/director/screenwriter/political activist and Nobel laureate, of course, was and is one of the most influential British playwrights of the second half of the 20 ^th Century. His works are so difficult that they have rarely been attempted in South Florida ( The Dumbwaiter by The Promethean Theatre back in 2010 and Old Times at Palm Beach Dramaworks last year). His scripts are famously sketchy blueprints filled with meaningless chatter and pauses that require directors and casts to discover, develop and insert crucial subtext.

Fortunately, the play is in the hands of Meltzer who keeps revealing an ability to analyze, pace and mount an astonishing range of work from satirical comedy (such as Clark Gable Slept Here ) to harrowing social commentary ( Fear Up Harsh ) to musicals ( Assassins ). While Betrayal was evolving, he also directed a New World School of the Arts production of Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth .

His essential colleagues here include that cast. Richberg and McKenna were Zoetic members when the troupe was initially envisioned in 2010 as a loose repertory company. Mena was part of the Assassins cast last season and Detroit last fall.

Usually, critics use adjectives as space-saving shorthand to describe performances. But all three actors create beings so fully credible that their essence can no more be adequately reduced to traits than if you were trying to describe your neighbor.

The lovely McKenna exuding a casual sexiness has constructed someone cradling secret knowledge deep in her being. Much of the time, Emma’s private knowledge is neither a curse nor a source of power, but a fact of life that must be monitored. Oddly, but believably, McKenna’s Emma does not seem plagued by guilt at her betrayals of both men in various ways, only concerned at avoiding the devastation she knows will follow if the secrets tumble into the light.

As Jerry, the handsome Richberg (equal time here for physical description) initially seems more the model of a controlled upper-middle class British, but over the course of the play Richberg reveals Jerry to be a hapless slave to the emotional high and lows as the relationship devolves – or actually evolves.

Both actors’ characters change so subtly by millimeters that you become aware in the middle of some scene that these people have morphed from who they were two or three scenes ago. Compare their cauterized reigned emotions in the first scene with the ardent declarations in the later scenes.

But the triumph, a word we often overuse, belongs to Mena in a performance that once again makes you feel cheated that he simply isn’t seen often enough. His Robert, who also is a serial adulterer, prizes a seemingly impenetrable veneer of correct civilized behavior imbued in all classes of British society. Yet, Mena brilliantly exposes the tumult underneath when the shell briefly cracks open.

There’s a terrific moment when Robert confronts Emma that he sussed out the existence of the affair the day before, quietly reveling in his ability to keep his composure in the exchange. But when she tells him the affair actually has been going on years, his smugness vanishes in a paroxysm of stunned anguish.

Once the audience knows that Robert knows — but that in separate scenes Jerry and Emma don’t know he knows — Mena is a fascinating portrait of a spring-loaded bear trap flawlessly camouflaged from his prey.

One of the best executed scenes thanks to Metlzer and company is when Robert blithely tosses off a bunch of meaningless small talk in an Italian vacation hotel while his wife tries to read a manuscript. At some point, long after the tipping point has actually occurred, the audience realizes that Robert has been pricking ever more pointedly at Emma until she knows that he has tumbled to the affair. From a scene of domestic banality, we see Emma frozen still in the bed and Robert digging ever deeper without actually spelling out that he knows of the liaison.

As always, the creative team at Zoetic does exemplary work including Michael McKeever’s thrust setting of bleached blond wood to contrast with Estella Vrancovich’s stylish black outfits. The lengthy scene changes were made palatable with the jazzy plucking at an upright bass by Dave Wilkinson.

The fact that Zoetic Stage would attempt such a piece, artistically and commercially, let alone succeed so thoroughly, is validation of what has been increasingly evident: that Zoetic no longer is an up-and-coming company of great promise; it has arrived as a mature, reliable purveyor of fine theater.

Side note: Zoetic went the extra mile opening night by having Daniel Llaca, who later played a waiter in café scenes, give a genial, collegial but clear admonition to the audience to take out their cellphones and turn them completely off. He then asked everyone to raise their phones in the air to confirm they had complied. You know what’s coming: About 15 minutes was all one privileged self-centered woman could stand; she had, of course, somehow thought the plea did not apply to her, not her. She read emails and texted until someone cleared his throat for the fourth time.

On the Ocassion of My Father’s Birthday, born 11 April, 1932

Sun, 12 Apr 2015 02:35:00 GMT

A New Pair The boy had a new pair of shoes. How did they find out?—he hadn’t complained! It wasn’t his place. Even if invited to. Especially then. Paired right there, on the bed while he slept dreaming of another […]

Honored to have been Nominated for Two Carbonells, 2014

Thu, 09 Apr 2015 21:45:00 GMT

I was thrilled to have been a double Carbonell Award Nominee for both Best Supporting Actor, Play and Best Supporting Actor, Musical, both for Zoetic Stage‘s Detroit & Assassins, respectively. Click here for the complete list of 2014 nominations. Congratulations to […]

Click here for the complete list of 2014 nominations. Congratulations to all who won! Was very happy for Assassins , directed by Stuart Meltzer produced by Zoetic Stage at the Adrienne Arsht PAC, Miami. We won best musical for 2014. Congratulations to all fellow cast members:

At Miami Theater Center, a guy scratches his ‘Seven Year Itch’ by Christine Dolan, CDOLEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 05:47:00 GMT

Aaron Glickman chats up Diana Garle in Miami Theater Center’s ‘The Seven Year Itch.’ Photo, DANIEL BOCK All you gals out there, have you ever wondered what you’d find inside your guy’s noggin if you could be privy to his […]

All you gals out there, have you ever wondered what you’d find inside your guy’s noggin if you could be privy to his fears and fantasies?

Playwright George Axelrod offers some insight in The Seven Year Itch , a 1952 Broadway smash that still has plenty to say about a man stepping into the quicksand of a midlife crisis.

At Miami Theater Center, director Stephanie Ansin and designer Fernando Calzadilla have done some nipping, tucking and adapting of Axelrod’s script, which famously became a 1955 Billy Wilder movie starring Tom Ewell and an impossibly tempting Marilyn Monroe. The film’s iconic image — Monroe wearing a white halter dress, the skirt billowing upward as she stands on a subway grate — is one that has launched a million fantasies.

The play, however, stays focused on the actions and interior life of one Richard Sherman (Aaron Glickman), a New York publishing executive charged with marketing steamily packaged paperbacks that sell for 25 cents (remember, it’s the ‘50s). With his wife Helen (Betsy Graver) and daughter Sally (Shira Abergel) away in Cohasset, Mass., for the summer, Dick Sherman is living like a bachelor in the family’s chic apartment — albeit a “bachelor” who has been told not to smoke or drink booze by a wife who says she’ll call every night at 10 to “check in.”

All that alone time gives the restless Sherman a chance to reflect on his life, imagining how Helen and other women see him. The play is not quite a farce, but The Seven Year Itch is definitely a comedy (though it’s one with sobering undertones). The action flows back and forth between real-world encounters and fantasy scenes, and it’s the latter that really spark director Ansin’s imagination.

Example? That famous Monroe image gets a startling reference at the top of the show, reappearing several times in a way that indicates Sherman’s jumbled inner life. Another? Sally (in the original production and movie, Sherman’s kid was a boy) tap dances at a talent show to My Heart Belongs to Daddy (a song Monroe delivered in the 1960 movie Let’s Make Love ), and at the end flashes her ruffled panties. Oh, what a tangled Freudian web this Seven Year Itch weaves.

Glickman, publisher of SocialMiami.com, returns to the acting career he left behind when he came home from Los Angeles a decade ago. Sherman is the play’s focal point, and Glickman adroitly plays an average guy who’s wondering, as Peggy Lee put it, “Is that all there is?” His Sherman is kind of a mess, physically and emotionally, and though he goes where no married man should, Glickman’s amiability, precise comedic tone and sometimes manic energy make the audience hang in through his misadventures.

There are two other male characters in the play, stuffy celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Brubaker (James Howell) and Sherman’s fantasy rival Tom MacKenzie (the very funny Chaz Mena), but it’s the gals who power Sherman’s incessant fantasy life.

And in the “Monroe” part of The Girl, Diana Garle is a more wholesome-looking but undeniably tempting beauty, one who illustrates that it does indeed take two to tango.

Graver makes Helen a no-nonsense, glamorous women more than capable of inspiring jealousy in her guilt-ridden hubby. Jessica Farr is a Jessica Rabbit-style bombshell as Miss Morris, Sherman’s secretary. Abergel doubles, this time in a pixie cut and black bustier, as Sherman’s spied-upon neighbor Pat. Anaridia Burgos, playing a might-have-been conquest named Maria, teases Sherman solely in Spanish. As Elaine, an older pal of Helen’s, Linda Bernhard becomes a Ladies Who Lunch seductress.

Composer and sound designer Luciano Stazzone mixes original music with snippets of songs linked to Monroe (Sherman’s ultimate fantasy gal) and even an homage to the Leave It to Beaver theme song. Set, costume and lighting designer Calzadilla has given Sherman a stunning period pad and has dressed the women in a striking array of costumes, though his choices for the attractive Garle don’t always suit her body type.

Richard Sherman of The Seven Year Itch predates Don Draper, and he’s certainly no bad-boy hunk whose temptations are frequent and real. But as Miami Theater Center’s take on the comedy demonstrates, longing can quickly become a slippery slope.

Water from the Tap

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 02:45:00 GMT

I would be a water from the tap man no taste no color no sparkle no packaging, no popping it open just a jar under the running tap it’s a teat afterall-a waterfall- so check the washers, fix your drips […]

I would be a water from the tap man

no taste no color no sparkle

no packaging, no popping it open

just a jar under the running tap

it’s a teat afterall-a waterfall-

so check the washers, fix your drips

and take my bones out someday

if there’s anything left after this wet mess

take a good long look at me

with a tall, cool drink of tap water.

Cassanova Was A Woman by Jezebel Montero

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:28:00 GMT

My most heartfelt congratulations to the Cast & Crew of Cassanova Was a Woman, to Jezabel Montero & Margo Singaliese who wrote and produced this hilarious take on LGBT issues, the nature of love and commitment, and just […]

My most heartfelt congratulations to the Cast & Crew of Cassanova Was a Woman , to Jezabel Montero & Margo Singaliese who wrote and produced this hilarious take on LGBT issues, the nature of love and commitment, and just making relationships work! I was so happy to contribute to this. XOXO Jez!

Demente Criminal, Venevision Intl., Sebastian Ligarde

Sun, 04 Jan 2015 04:20:00 GMT

Recently wrapped Demente Criminal by Venevisión International. Watch the trailer above. Was honored to play Sebastian Ligarde’s (lead, Dr. Acosta) wily, American lawyer, having enjoyed 8 weeks of working with this consummate artist. Ligarde’s performance is electrifying and coming to […]

Actors’ Workshop

Having read Max Hastings’ “Catastrophe” published by Knopf

Sun, 14 Dec 2014 21:45:00 GMT

The national debate that is ongoing this year in the U.K. where one side contends that the 1914-1918, “Great War” was nothing other than a mighty conflagration ignited by warring empires v. those that believe the war was a serious […]

Max Hastings is squarely in the camp that says that World War One cannot be explained away as a war that was essentially for naught and that it would make no difference who actually won, the Central Powers or the Allied Entente Nations. Some critics have gone to say that if Germany would have come on top, the only thing that would occur is that the European Union would have made its appearance that much earlier!

As an American this argument is fascinating. We are ourselves, and have been since World War Two, unapologetically wielding Pax Americana, now rounding out into our recent historical disasters like the Invasion of Iraq. I think we will be similarly and hotly debating whenever American hegemony loses its grip on worldwide affairs– as there is no doubt we will inevitably (sooner than later) lose our superpower status.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

This is my third of Hastings books. It is by far the best I’ve been able to read about World War One and should stand as a companion piece to Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August.”

Dashed American Dream at the Center of Zoetic Stage’s Marvelously Rich “Detroit”

Sat, 06 Dec 2014 13:58:00 GMT

By Michelle F. Solomon, Florida Theater On Stage Just before the lights go up on Mary and Ben’s backyard patio in Lisa D’Amour’s play Detroit at Zoetic Stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Hootie and the Blowfish’s ‘Time” plays. The lyrics […]

By Michelle F. Solomon, Florida Theater On Stage

Just before the lights go up on Mary and Ben’s backyard patio in Lisa D’Amour’s play Detroit at Zoetic Stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Hootie and the Blowfish’s ‘Time” plays. The lyrics are something to be paid attention to as they echo the sentiments of where our four characters have arrived in their current state of affairs: “Time, why you punish me, like a wave crashing into the shore, you wash away my dreams.”

Life at Mary and Ben’s appears on the surface to be copacetic, from their Pier 1-esque outdoor table amid a quaint suburban setting, to their relationship, which seems like its weathered a few storms and is now settled into apathetic domesticity. A sign visible through the sliding glass door reads “Home is where our story begins,” and in the case of D’Amour’s play, it certainly is.

Yet, there are subtle indications that what lies beneath may be a bit bumpier than what’s first perceived. D’Amour offers symbolic gestures: The patio door that doesn’t slide smoothly and the tabletop umbrella that has its own ideas about staying upright.
It seems that with all the friendly banter, the individuals, whether of their own making or not, have become shaped by circumstances.

Sharon snaps a rubber band, part of a conditioning ritual for her to stop her barrage of using four-letter words in conversation. She has no filter, basically blurting out whatever hits her at the moment. When she realizes that Mary and Ben’s backyard is so close to hers, she says “I could spit, it’s so close,” and she does.

Despite the financial setback of her husband losing his job, Mary still wants to keep up appearances. She serves the new neighbors caviar and crackers. She brags about Ben working at home on his new financial planning business. That is, until she starts drinking. Late in the evening, she runs next door, banging on the door and unloads on Sharon.

The layers begin to peel away. In vignette after vignette, the audience watches as the weaknesses begin to unravel. Ben has been spending time during the day on the internet, but not as devoted to his financial planning business as he has let on. Sharon slips and smokes pot with a neighborhood electrician and she’s worried she could slip even further back into her addiction. “I open my eyes every morning and all I want is a pipe to smoke. It’s like there’s a fire burning in the center of my head,” she tells Mary, “and the pipe is the water that will put it out.” Kenny only wants to let loose and go to a strip club.

The title of the play, too, is a metaphor. The play isn’t set specifically in the Michigan city, but represents a place where the American dream that was once held so dear has rotted away. There are other messages about the general malaise of life in the 21st century. Sharon perhaps has the most telling line in the play when she says: “It’s so weird how nothing ever happens. You keep hoping something is going to happen, and it never does.”

While it’s easy to take the play at its face value, director Stuart Meltzer offers a purposeful pacing that gives the show its perfect ascent. Every once in a while, ambient noise of planes flying over the suburban houses can be heard, and it adds to the energy — this slow ascent that arrives to full throttle. By the time, the four characters are creating mayhem in a manic and drunken backyard barbecue dance, we’re engaged in the frenzy.

Each of the characters climb, too — their peaks and valleys in tune to the direction of D’Amour’s script. Graver’s Sharon is the most volatile. The actress uses every opportunity to dig deep for a surprise whammy of teeter-totter emotions. Adjan’s Mary is more slow burn, yet fragile and brittle — giving the back story that’s she’s become accustomed to a life that ended up not of her own making. Mena peppers Ben with idiosyncrasies – he fiddles with the reading glasses that dangle on a thin strap around his neck, he laughs sometimes nervously, sometimes full on, he’s entirely self conscious, yet keeps up a veneer of confidence.

Stabile’s Kenny plays like a caged animal, calm on the surface but ready to break free at any moment. When he leads the group in the backyard ritual, he’s the Alpha Dog and Stabile has perfectly positioned his character to take on this role. David Kwiat shows up as Frank at the end of the play for a telling monologue that puts previous events into perspective. Kwiat’s monotone delivery works best as he conveys the way things used to be. “Such a perfect memory,” he says as he describes what the neighborhood was like when it was a real community.

Michael McKeever’s realistic set undergoes a transformation late in the play in a “how’d they do that?” moment. The rest of the production team delivers on creating the realism so necessary to keep the show rooted in believability with costumes by Estela Vrancovich and Marcelo Ferreira’s lighting design. Matt Corey’s ambient sound adds bucolic effect.

D’Amour’s play, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is a thought-provoking piece of theater. The Zoetic Stage production finds its own complex groove in Detroit to present a must see in Miami.

Superior performances make Zoetic Stage’s ‘Detroit’ a must see, Miami Herald

Sat, 06 Dec 2014 13:53:00 GMT

By Christine Dolen Photo: Justin Namon Miami Herald Reviewer One could craft a compelling play about the disintegration of a once-great American city and call it Detroit, but that wasn’t Lisa D’Amour’s aim when she wrote her play, a finalist […]

By Christine Dolen

Photo: Justin Namon

Miami Herald Reviewer

One could craft a compelling play about the disintegration of a once-great American city and call it Detroit , but that wasn’t Lisa D’Amour’s aim when she wrote her play, a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in drama.

D’Amour’s Detroit , now kicking off Zoetic Stage’s season in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, is part withering comedy, part character study. Its characters’ lives are refracted through the lens of the economic downturn, as the American Dream transforms from aspiration to myth. What the play depicts is, by turns, funny, stress-filled and cautionary — much like life itself these days.

Mary (Irene Adjan) is a paralegal and, of necessity, the breadwinner since her hubby Ben (Chaz Mena) lost his bank job. She’s pleasant enough when she’s sober, but that’s usually not the case in the evenings when vodka adds some sting to her commentary. He’s notably eccentric and socially awkward, his glasses dangling from a cord around his neck, his laugh forced, and he doesn’t seem to be making much progress in getting his new financial planning website up and running.

The couple next door, who met not-so-cute in rehab, has nothing except each other and a tenuous sobriety. Sharon (Betsy Graver), who works in a call center, is a blond bombshell who wears a rubber band on her wrist so she can snap herself back into the moment whenever she feels self-destructive impulses creeping into her thoughts. Her husband Kenny (Matt Stabile), a guy who knows how to fix things (unlike Ben), toils at a warehouse job that isn’t the best career choice for a guy who has a pending lawsuit over a slip-and-fall back injury. Not that Kenny and Sharon have many options.

How events unfold is something Zoetic audiences deserve to discover in the moment. But under Stuart Meltzer’s artfully detailed direction, this volatile but fascinating quartet heads toward a conflagration, as bad decisions, bad influences and bad old habits prove disastrous. A fifth character, Kenny’s great uncle Frank (David Kwiat), appears briefly near the end of the show to provide a reality check. But by that point, a neighborly friendship has been torched.

As is usually the case in a Zoetic show, the acting is uniformly fine — and, in Graver’s case, masterful. Reading the script, you don’t get a sense the play belongs to Sharon, but Graver claims it. Though Sharon is the definition of hot mess, Graver shades the character with an enthusiastic simplicity so winning that the audience, like Stabile’s quietly empathetic Kenny, forgives Sharon her flaws.

Adjan and Mena put Mary and Ben in that testy place between comfortable familiarity and overt hostility. The actors let the audience see how, despite the couple’s attempts at social graces and keeping up appearances, the economic downturn may well prove fatal to their marriage.

Zoetic’s design team — Michael McKeever (set), Marcelo Ferreira (lighting), Matt Corey (sound) and Estella Vrancovich (costumes) — delivers first-rate work, and the play’s daunting technical challenges come off without a hitch.

D’Amour has said that, as she created Detroit and saw it get its 2010 world premiere at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, she wondered whether economic recovery might soon make the play seem dated. No worries. No matter how greatly the economy rebounds, the much-produced Detroit will remain a vibrant, insightful piece of theater.

Examiner Review for Zoetic’s “Detroit” by Charlotte Libov

Sat, 06 Dec 2014 13:49:00 GMT

Photo: Justin Namon As the play “Detroit,” enters its final weekend at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, theatergoers still have the opportunity to see this work that blends comedy with drama to create an unsettling character study of […]

Photo: Justin Namon

As the play “Detroit,” enters its final weekend at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, theatergoers still have the opportunity to see this work that blends comedy with drama to create an unsettling character study of four people on the edge.

Finished Mary Szybist’s “Incarnadine”

Tue, 21 Oct 2014 11:52:00 GMT

The unmentionable moments that escape us because we don’t dare acknowledge them, the grass informing your body, impaling gently. The wisp of air that one feels, or makes, when a loved one glances your way, the unavoidable element of rape […]

(Traveling north to Canada, January 2014)

Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:57:00 GMT

Father Hudson What silence do you hold Under this caked ice? Encased and frigid, perhaps of a piece, What anima have you stilled; Quiet meetings made null, suspended all of a sudden under there… What sleeps inside you now As […]

Father Hudson
What silence do you hold
Under this caked ice?

Encased and frigid, perhaps of a piece,
What anima have you stilled;
Quiet meetings made null, suspended
all of a sudden under there…

What sleeps inside you now
As I glide by inside the heated train?

‘Bella’s Getting It

Fri, 15 Aug 2014 00:40:00 GMT

You are my daughter… because your sweater and socks which I folded but forgot on the breakfast table, seeing them only now after I put you to bed, …tell me so. You’re learning about what’s funny. I looked at you, […]

You are my daughter…
because your sweater and socks
which I folded but forgot on the breakfast table,
seeing them only now after I put you to bed,
…tell me so.

You’re learning about what’s funny.
I looked at you, I mean straight at you for maybe minutes
To see what could happen but also to look just the same
You turned this way and that, averting my stare–
Then you right back to me and glared…
The other night, with an empty bottle in your hand
you pretended to sleep, drink drinking drank away…
Your eyes suddenly opening as if to see if I’d “gotten it”

I am so grateful for all this…

Venevisión estrena Los Secretos de Lucía

Sat, 17 May 2014 19:39:00 GMT

Los Secretos de Lucía es producto de la sinergia que existe entre nuestras compañías productoras Venevision y Venevision Productions. Persecuciones en lancha, motos, secuencias con helicópteros, barcos, rascacielos, con profusión de efectos especiales, son parte de las escenas que se grabaron tanto en Venezuela […]

Los Secretos de Lucía es producto de la sinergia que existe entre nuestras compañías productoras Venevision y Venevision Productions . Persecuciones en lancha, motos, secuencias con helicópteros, barcos, rascacielos, con profusión de efectos especiales, son parte de las escenas que se grabaron tanto en Venezuela como en el Sur de la Florida’, comentó Jonathan Blum , presidente de Cisneros Media .

‘La producción reunió a más de 400 actores y actrices, 1.000 extras y un elenco estelar que dan vida a las diferentes tramas, como Chaz Mena , Claudia Rocafort , Eduardo Ibarrola , Gloria Mayo , Luis Gerónimo Abreu , Aroldo Betancourt , Sissi Fleitas , Plutarco Haza , Roberto Escobar , Mimí Lazo , David Medel , María Dalmazo , Yul Burkle y Albi De Abreu ’, ageregó Blum.

El estreno de Los Secretos de Lucia sigue la línea de la programación de teleseries de Venevision Plus , que comprende series como La Reina del Sur , El Capo , El Cartel de los Sapos y El Señor de los Cielos .

Los Secretos de Lucía forma parte de la propuesta de programación de Cisneros Media Distribution para MIPTV 2014, que finaliza hoy, jueves 10 de abril, en la ciudad de Cannes, Francia.

ALL POWERFUL CAST TURNS ZOETIC’S ‘ASSASSINS” INTO A SHOWCASE FOR YOUNG SOUTH FLORIDA TALENT

Fri, 07 Feb 2014 13:25:00 GMT

By Ron Levitt Florida Media News MIAMI — Assassins, the politically incorrect Zoetic Stage musical which opened at the Arsht Center’s blackbox Carnival stage Friday night,scores as a winner on several levels: It is a lesson in democracy and a […]

By Ron Levitt
Florida Media News

MIAMI — Assassins, the politically incorrect Zoetic Stage musical which opened at the Arsht Center’s blackbox Carnival stage Friday night,scores as a winner on several levels:

The musical first opened Off-Broadway in 1990, and the 2004 Broadway production won five Tony Awards. It is by any standard a totally different kind of musical. Except for the closing reprise Everybody’s Got the Right, one does not come out humming one of the show’s songs, even though the ballads are of historical elements and are noteworthy for their Americana interpretations and liberal philosophical lyrics. Nevertheless, it is such an original musical – much in the style of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd – it is hard to forego its message emblazoned on a carnival flipboard in this production –Take Your Shot.

Assassins begins as the Proprietor of the game (a noteworthy Shane Tanner) entices a host of unsavory characters to play, promising that their problems will be solved by killing a President. ( that’s when “Everybody’s Got the Right” comes in) . Leon Czolgosz, John Hinckley, Charles Guiteau, Giuseppe Zangara, Samuel Byck, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, and Sara Jane Moore are given their guns one by one. John Wilkes Booth (a vibrant portrayal by the talented Nicholas Richberg) enters last and the Proprietor introduces him to the others as their pioneer before he begins distributing ammunition. The assassins take aim as “Hail to the Chief” heralds Abraham Lincoln’s offstage arrival. Booth excuses himself, a shot rings out and Booth shouts, “Sic semper tyrannis!”

Meanwhile, The Balladeer (a memorable Chris Crawford) portrays the personification of the American Dream — as well as Lee Harvey Oswald ) as a host of characters are unveiled whose claim to fame is their firearm attack on a President.

There are so many memorable moments and star-quality actors participating in this musical, one can easily be distracted recalling a school history lesson when a teacher named a President and the assassin who either tried to kill or did assassinate one of our country’s leaders.

Among the standout performances (including Balladeer Tanner) are Nick Duckart, Clay Cartland, Gabriel Zenone, Henry Gainza, Chaz Mena, Lindsey Forgey, Irene Adjan, Nicholas Richberg, Chris Crawford and ensemble members Kristian Bikic, and Stephanie White.

It is the kind if show with so many standout moments, one would have to rewrite history to describe Assassins in full. Cartland’s describing a John Hinkley and his obsession with Jody Foster (and his attempt to impress her by attempting to kill Ronald Reagan) while strumming his guitar is such a moment!

Nick Duckart’s interpretation of Czolgosz (who killed President McKinley) is a constant in this production, as are Irene Adjan and Lindsey Forgey who have spectacular moments as would-be killers Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme ( both after Gerald Ford) respectively (but not respectfully).

Chris Crawford – fresh off his successful Florida debut in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ Carbonell-nominee The Lion in Winter) comes on as a South Florida wannabe star in his double role as the Balladeer and Oswald (who left his mark on the death of President John F. Kennedy) Henry Gainza, Chaz Mena and Gabriel Zenone also all shine as actors playing real-time gun-obsessed characters one would hopefully forget!

Assassins is three year old Zoetic’s first musical and puts it on par with several other companies musically inclined. When you Google Assassins – and, well you should – you will discover you can see the entire show on a DVD and that there is even an online action game so entitled to give one the thrill of being part of similar action -behind all the carnage and mayhem which the title implies. Although it is set in another century, it implies we all have the same DNA to execute the carnage as echoed in this production.

Assassins: Bold Musical About Presidential Killers, Miami New Times

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 22:10:00 GMT

By John Thomason Thursday, Feb 6 2014 Legend has it that at the end of Edwin S. Porter’s pioneering 1903 short film The Great Train Robbery, when an actor playing a bandit points his gun directly into the camera and […]

By John Thomason
Thursday, Feb 6 2014

Legend has it that at the end of Edwin S. Porter’s pioneering 1903 short film The Great Train Robbery, when an actor playing a bandit points his gun directly into the camera and fires, many moviegoers were scared out of their wits. The medium was too new for a camera angle this sophisticated and Brechtian, so audience members were afraid the bullet would pierce the screen.

They’re a cauldron of schizophrenics, false patriots, cult followers, and bargain-basement kooks.

One hundred eleven years later, during the opening number of Zoetic Stage’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins at the Arsht Center, it’s clear this trick doesn’t get old, even if we happen to know better. Dressed in all black, a character known as the Proprietor (Shane Tanner) dispenses guns to various miscreants; we’ll eventually come to recognize these disturbed souls as nine assassins, or would-be assassins, of sitting presidents. But at this time, they’re simple trying out their new toys and singing about their freedom to wield them. There’s something more than a little unnerving about eight people pointing pistols at the audience of a packed theater.

They’re prop guns, of course, handled by actors who, in this case, studied with a credited firearms instructor. This doesn’t do much to alleviate the unease. But if we weren’t fully absorbed in the fiction, twitching in our seats with every piercing pop of smoky gunfire, it wouldn’t be good theater, would it?

The reason a scene like this works so well is that director Stuart Meltzer has struck the perfect Sondheimian balance between danger and beauty, a delicate tightrope he’ll spend the next two hours walking. When done right, carnage and loveliness intermingle in many Sondheim scenes, with comic irony often acting as their offspring. Just as when Judge Turpin croons gorgeously about “pretty women” while Sweeney Todd waits for the right opportunity to slit his throat, here we have John Hinckley Jr. (Clay Cartland) and Squeaky Fromme (Lindsey Forgey) pining for their paramours, real or imagined, in “Unworthy of Your Love,” a number that, were the vocalists not deranged and packing heat, would sound pure and heartfelt, the kind of tune one would envy receiving.

That said, there are probably no songs inAssassins that reach the heights of the best of Sweeney Todd or Into the Woods or Company. There are only nine original songs in this piece, some of them 20 minutes apart. This is a show that relies at least as much, if not more, on John Weidman’s book — a plotless, surrealist concoction in which the assassins are liberated from time and space to gather in a bar, influence one another’s dark thoughts, and ultimately justify, in their minds, their actions.

The characters include the actor and Civil War avenger John Wilkes Booth (Nicholas Richberg); the agitated factory worker and McKinley assassin Leon Czolgosz (Nick Duckart); Charles Manson acolyte Fromme and bookkeeper Sara Jane Moore (Irene Adjan), who bumbled through an attempt to shoot Gerald Ford; Charles Guiteau, the political wannabe who shot James Garfield; and Samuel Byck (Chaz Mena), the mentally unsound former tire salesman who attempted to hijack a plane bound for the Nixon White House.

Collectively, they’re a cauldron of schizophrenics, false patriots, cult followers, and bargain-basement kooks, each of them an all-too-familiar archetype in our sad, roiling, repetitive history of malcontents.

Under Meltzer’s direction, each assassin is bestowed with character quirks that leave a powerful impression. Richberg’s Booth, with his dark suit and ostentatious red-felt vest with a gold pocket watch, projects erstwhile Southern gallantry — a pitiful B actor with a wounded leg, limping around a Virginia barn about to be set ablaze by the authorities. Richberg is such a good actor, imbuing this cretin with such tragic torment, we actually sympathize with him a little. Mena’s Byck is America’s irate id, a fount of delusional outrage in an absurd Santa costume who, if he were around today, would probably earn high ratings on hundreds of Clear Channel talk stations.

Zenone plays Guiteau like an unctuous dandy, hilariously waving jazz hands as he’s led to his gallows. Cartland’s Hinckley is a sensitive, guitar-strumming nerd with an unhealthy obsession with a certain Taxi Driver costar, a role that feels as informed by Cartland’s own body of work as by the real-life Hinckley. As Fromme and Moore, Forgey and Adjan are the Keystone Kops of presidential assassins, and Meltzer draws some of the show’s wittiest exchanges from these two actors. The Sondheimian balance doesn’t extend to them: We never get any sense of a genuine threat when they’re onstage, but they’re so funny we don’t miss it.

The only performance that doesn’t resonate is Henry Gainza as Giuseppe Zangara, the would-be assassin of FDR. There’s not much in the script — his only characteristic is intense stomach pain. But Meltzer and Gainza do little to bring this caricature to life, and his one tune, from which he sings while strapped to an electric chair, is static; it’s the only time the production approaches boredom.

There are no complaints about the design qualities, which are some of the best in some of the best in Zoetic’s history. This is a production that continually goes the extra mile to surprise and impress, from Michael McKeever’s intricate set design — a carnival booth complete with a lighted “Take Your Shot” marquee hanging overhead, rotating presidential portraits mounted on a wall, and the presidential seal carved into the wooden floorboards — to Ron Burns’ lighting design, with its multiple spotlights and red and blue police lights hidden in crates. The amusing props, courtesy of Jodi Dellaventura, result in a couple of knockout gags I won’t spoil.

Zoetic Stage’s triumphant production

Sun, 02 Feb 2014 16:09:00 GMT

By Bill Hirschman The most stunning aspect of Zoetic Stage’s triumphant production of the dark musical Assassins is how deafening its themes resonate nearly a quarter century later in today’s polarized world of disaffected people feeling impotent unless they resort […]

By Bill Hirschman

The most stunning aspect of Zoetic Stage’s triumphant production of the dark musical Assassins is how deafening its themes resonate nearly a quarter century later in today’s polarized world of disaffected people feeling impotent unless they resort to violence to be heard above the din.

Truths that were so discomfiting that the world premiere tanked trying to find a mainstream audience during the Gulf War, now seems frighteningly prescient -– and an accepted part of the norm.

That Zoetic has chosen this uncommercial Stephen Sondheim /John Weidman opus for its first musical – and succeeded in scaling its genius – is cause for local celebration. Director Stuart Meltzer and a superb collection of actors and designers have scored, forgive me, a bull’s eye.

Assassins is a gathering at a carnival shooting gallery of eight successful and unsuccessful Presidential assassins, from the infamous John Wilkes Booth to the nearly forgotten Sam Byck who planned to fly a plane into Nixon’s White House. The book scenes and songs tell their stories from inside their mindset. All of them, especially Booth, are really there to encourage an ambivalent Lee Harvey Oswald to fulfill his destiny.

Despite a surprisingly wry and occasionally farcical tone, Assassins asks whether the root cause of these tragedies says something about the marrow of this country. The answering hypothesis is unambiguously crystalline. They result from our society propagating the specious fairy tale of the American Dream: Success is guaranteed if you apply yourself enough.

As the chorus sings with joyful entitlement, “Everybody’s got the right to be… different / Even though at times they go to extremes / Aim for what you want a lot / Everybody gets a shot / Everybody’s got the right to their dreams.”

When that promise proves hollow, some people vent their pain and disappointment in violence. They may seem a disparate group ranging from John Hinckley wanting to impress actress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan, up to disappointed office seeker Charles Guiteau who shot James Garfield on the orders of God. But, in fact, the authors see a commonality that might strike an unsettlingly familiar chord in most people’s dissatisfaction.

The musical’s creators in no way excuse the assassins’ actions; they portray them as vain, selfish, weak, deluded and often downright insane. Yet each is someone who feels cheated of a birthright — the fantasy of America as promulgated by teachers, politicians, the media and a society at large. But the show also underscores that a chastened, saddened but essentially decent America always rebounds and prevails, or at least that’s what they wrote in 1990.

Sara Jane Moore accidentally discharging of her pistol, and the profound emotional agony at institutionalized injustice driving the downtrodden Leon Czolgosz.
Further, the cast and band under Caryl Fantel’s music direction do justice to a challenging score that riffs on classic musical Americana, encompassing Sousa marches, a barbershop quartet and minstrel show cakewalks. But the traditional melodic strains are played off against anarchic atonal passages of angst and anger. Echoes of Sondheim’s other work are clear, such as the nimble wordplay of Into The Woods and the dissonance of Passion.

The book, which Sondheim always credits for much of his inspiration, is by Weidman who earlier wrote the script for Pacific Overtures and later for Wise Guys/Bounce/Road Show . His scenes aren’t connective tissue between musical numbers but a fully fleshed-out play with integrated music. This gives Meltzer and his cast some dramatic and comic meat to work with.

Which brings us belatedly to the 13-member cast. In any other review, the quality of every performance would rate at least a couple of paragraphs. But with such a large assemblage, we’ll have to give some people short shrift. While these players certainly work together smoothly, ensemble isn’t quite the right term. Every one creates an independent vibrant individualized performance as evidenced by their spotlit solos. They can be terribly funny in the extremity of their delusions, then not so damn funny when they tumble over the edge of violence. Plus, several of the featured performers step into other transitory supporting roles.
If only because he has the most showy role, start with Nicholas Richberg’s Booth. The actor ( Cock and All New People ) exudes Booth’s mixture of self-deluded ego and patriotic altruism. A matinee idol’s charisma pours off him as he seduces Oswald from killing himself to killing Kennedy.

Then comes Chaz Mena as the hapless loser Sam Byck. He is simultaneously a hilarious and terrifying cartoon in a rumpled Santa Claus suit as he munches greasy junk food and dictates taped manifestos destined for Leonard Bernstein, Jonas Salk, Jack Anderson and Hank Aaron. Mena, a criminally underemployed actor, nails the two long diatribes in which Byck vents his barely reined fury. Mena skillfully brings a variety of tones and emotional levels to what could have just been an unrelieved spewing of bile.

Nick Duckart ( Usnavi in In The Heights ), as Czolgosz who shot William McKinley, embodies the outrage of the blue-collar worker at the system’s inequity. Singing in the basement of his register, Duckart brings the intensity of a barely controlled explosive. Thanks to Weidman, Duckart delivers the most relatable motivations to the piece. Duckart also believably plays a tender scene in which the troubled young man expresses his adoration to the revolutionary speaker Emma Goldman.

The certifiable Charles Guiteau as portrayed by Gabriel Zenone would be laughable if we didn’t know he was so dangerous. Zenone, who played Sylvia St. Croix in Actors Playhouse’sRuthless, makes Guiteau gleefully living in his own fantasy. He’s also the most fey Guiteau we’ve ever seen, a strange choice since he comes on to Sara Jane Moore. But Zenone is memorable for bugging out his eyes as they see doomed dreams of glory, even as he mounts the scaffold.

Chris Crawford (who had a beard last month as Richard II in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ The Lion In Winter ) has a strong clear Midwestern decency that he emanates for most the show as The Balladeer, a narrator who sees the assassins for who they really are. But later, he is completely plausible as the conflicted Lee Harvey Oswald.
Just as good are Lindsey Forgey as Charles Manson’s acolyte Squeaky Fromme who tries to kill Gerald Ford; Irene Adjan as the addled but ordinary looking Moore (and Emma Goldman); Henry Gainza as Giuseppe Zangara who failed to hit Franklin Roosevelt but killed a Chicago mayor during a state visit not a mile away from the Arsht Center at Bayfront Park; Shane Tanner as the proprietor of the shooting gallery amorally arming the assassins for a buck; Clay Cartland as a woebegone John Hinckley who sings a lovely love song along with Forgey about how they would kill to prove their love; and a nod to young ensemble members Kristian Bikic, Stephanie White and Aidan Neal.

Partly responsible for everything you see, Meltzer’s staging also is dead on and he adds dozens of little fillips of his own such as a well-timed somersault whose context we won’t spoil here. While there are scene changes in blackouts, he makes the evening seem to slide by gracefully.

If you have seen the show before, Zoetic’s team brings their own fresh vision to every aspect from Michael McKeever’s set to Ron Burns’ lighting to Alberto Arroyo’s costumes. Applause is also due to the off-stage band, which includes Andrea Gilbert on woodwinds; Greg Chance, on guitar, bass and banjo; Roy Fantel on percussion and conductor Caryl Fantel playing keyboards that stand-in for another dozen instruments.

Created as a very loose repertory company, Zoetic has established itself in three seasons as a major theatrical force in the region mixing contemporary plays and acclaimed world premieres by two of its members, Michael McKeever and Christopher Demos-Brown.

But this is an unusually hefty bet being placed by Zoetic. Besides being its first musical, it has the largest cast – and therefore investment—that Zoetic has ever dared. Assassins is not one of Sondheim’s better known shows and the title is not likely to attract casual ticket buyers. The first off-Broadway production in 1990 played about three months and the Broadway production in 2004 ran only slightly longer. A production slated for 2001 closed before it opened in deference to sensitivity about 9/11. Locally, the only group to try it was Boca Raton’s Slow Burn Theatre Company in 2010 which champions challenging work.

Like some other Sondheim shows, Assassins has been tweaked over the years. Among the most prominent addition is the song, “Something Just Broke.” Meant to give the show a view from outside the minds of madmen, it depicts ordinary citizens recalling where they were when they heard of an assassination.

In the spirit of full disclosure, this critic is a Sondheim fanatic; I even value parts of Passion . I didn’t find this edition as chilling, thrilling or shocking as others I have seen, but that is likely due to my over-familiarity with the material. Others in the audience certainly felt transfixed by what Zoetic had wrought.

Any Sondheim fan understands that his work is not everyone’s cup of saltpeter. But for those who seek intelligent, thought-provoking musical theater, there are few pieces as superb as this.

Zoetic Stages an all-to-relevant “Assassins” at the Arsht Center, The Miami Herald

Sun, 02 Feb 2014 16:05:00 GMT

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN CDOLEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM As the possibility of achieving the American dream grows fainter for too many, as fresh examples of unfathomable acts of violence feed a voracious 24/7 news cycle, Assassins just may be the musical of the moment. […]

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
CDOLEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM

As the possibility of achieving the American dream grows fainter for too many, as fresh examples of unfathomable acts of violence feed a voracious 24/7 news cycle, Assassins just may be the musical of the moment.

Yes, composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and playwright John Weidman created their thought-provoking, surprisingly entertaining musical in 1990. But as the excellent new production by Miami’s Zoetic Stage abundantly demonstrates, Assassins remains all too resonant in 2014.

Sondheim’s work is more intellectually and musically challenging than most, so props to the still-young Zoetic and artistic director Stuart Meltzer for choosing Assassins as the company’s first musical. Presented in the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the show is a riveting, first-rate exploration of the way dreams and beliefs can turn into dangerous disillusionment.

Unfolding in a carnival-style shooting gallery, Assassins imagines a gathering of successful and would-be presidential killers from different eras. After the game’s provocative Proprietor (Shane Tanner) supplies the nine men and women with guns, the Balladeer (Chris Crawford) starts to tell their stories, beginning with the “pioneer” John Wilkes Booth (Nicholas Richberg).

Over the course of two hours, though not in chronological order, the Balladeer explores the stories of Charles Guiteau (Gabriel Zenone), Giuseppe Zangara (Henry Gainza), Leon Czolgosz (Nick Duckart), Sara Jane Moore (Irene Adjan), Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Lindsey Forgey), Samuel Byck (Chaz Mena) and John Hinckley (Clay Cartland), finally transforming into Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin whose televised act took societal grief to a new level.

Given that some of the real-life killers were murderous misfits or clearly deranged, you might think that Assassins would make for a grim piece of theater. Not so. Sondheim, whose work stylistically embraces the different eras in which the assassins lived, and Weidman, who captures the thematic connections among the characters in substantial scenes, embrace humor and irony as storytelling tools.

Adjan’s accident-prone Moore and Forgey’s delusional Fromme share a kooky scene in which the women confide their daddy issues and discover a mutual link to Charles Manson. Fromme and Cartland’s loner Hinckley sing a melodically lovely, lyrically unsettling duet on Unworthy of Your Love, thinking respectively of Manson (Fromme) and Jodie Foster (Hinckley). Zenone’s appealing Guiteau is an amusingly cheerful man with grandiose thoughts, right up to the moment he ascends to the gallows. Mena’s scary-funny Byck, dressed in a Santa suit and chowing down junk food, is the kind of nut case whose anger at being ignored could make him flip on a dime from eccentricity to murderous rage.

With intricately detailed staging by Meltzer and musical direction by Caryl Fantel, Assassins really does sing. To a man and woman, the cast has the vocal skills and finesse that the material requires. Richberg is a mesmerizing Booth, utterly convincing as a 19th century actor who went out in an inglorious blaze. Duckart, with his deep voice and tormented demeanor, makes Czogolsz emblematic of those who work themselves nearly to death and get exactly nowhere. Ditto Gainza’s ailing Zangara, whose soaring voice is silenced by the electric chair.

The design work on Assassins — Michael McKeever’s shooting gallery set, Ron Burns’ mood-shifting lighting, Alberto Arroyo’s period-evoking costumes, Meltzer’s sound — expertly serves the show. Be advised, if you’re one of those who jumps at the sound of a gunshot, that the production’s theatrical firearms get quite a workout.

There’s a place for theater that simply wants to entertain its audiences, but a piece like Assassins aspires to much, much more. Theatergoers who take the leap with Zoetic and experience a musical that remains all too relevant will go home thinking, talking and enriched.

Chaz Mena evokes spirit of the American Revolution in lightly-attended Saenger show

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:13:00 GMT

By Lawrence F. Specker, Press-Register Published: Saturday, September 22, 2012, 11:52 PM Updated: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 12:03 AMMOBILE, Alabama — Saturday was a day for daunting battles. Florida Atlantic University faced grim prospects in Tuscaloosa, LSU ventured into peril […]

By Lawrence F. Specker, Press-Register
Published: Saturday, September 22, 2012, 11:52 PM
Updated: Sunday, September 23, 2012, 12:03 AMMOBILE, Alabama —

Saturday was a day for daunting battles. Florida Atlantic University faced grim prospects in Tuscaloosa, LSU ventured into peril in Auburn, and Bernardo de Gálvez invaded Mobile for the second time.Gálvez came in with a winning record, though his sole previous victory had taken place more than 200 years ago. Back then, it was Gálvez himself, leading a fleet that took the city away from the British home team. On Saturday, it was actor Chaz Mena, depicting Gálvez in the one-man play “Yo Solo, I Alone” at the Mobile Saenger Theatre.

The original Gálvez had it easy: He just had to lay siege to Fort Charlotte after having his fleet wrecked by a storm in Mobile Bay. Mena sailed in at the end of a gorgeous September Saturday, meaning he had to compete with every outdoor charm the Gulf Coast has to offer. He also went head-to-head with an Auburn-LSU match that had turned out to be particularly interesting.

Mena, like Gálvez, was undaunted by the odds. He schmoozed the audience just as charmingly as Gálvez, in his depiction, entered New Orleans society as governor of Spanish Louisiana. He worked every inch of the stage, making the most of every prop, up to and including the three members of the Mobile Symphony Orchestra who were on stage to provide accompaniment.

Like Gálvez, Mena brought fire as well as charm, portraying a man with a thirst for victory that ran through each of his colorful anecdotes. The first army he led out of New Orleans, the one that took Baton Rouge from the British, was a bunch of “misfits,” he said, a ragtag band of irregulars who spoke in French and Spanish and cursed in English. As he described his epic battle for Pensacola, even the slow, humble work of trenching seemed dramatic.

The real delight of the evening came from Mena’s ability to relate Gálvez’ Gulf Coast campaign – which ultimately drove the British out of a stronghold at Pensacola – to the broader context of the American Revolution. Mena’s Gálvez quoted John Adams (“Fear is the foundation of most governments”), praised Gen. George Washington and marveled at the way that in this new land, diverse groups of men could come together to fight for their liberty.

For anyone driven to despair by the squabbling of the current presidential campaign, such talk could serve as a welcome tonic. In this sense at least, the presentation couldn’t have been better timed.

Chaz Mena’s “Yo Solo” takes Gálvez to a wider audience

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:48:00 GMT

From The Pensacola Digest, May 22, 2012 Interview by Joe Vinson Last May, Chaz Mena performed “Yo Solo: A Visit with Bernardo de Gálvez” at the Saenger Theatre, a one-man show about the Spanish general and viceroy who besieged British […]

From The Pensacola Digest, May 22, 2012
Interview by Joe Vinson

Last May, Chaz Mena performed “Yo Solo: A Visit with Bernardo de Gálvez” at the Saenger Theatre, a one-man show about the Spanish general and viceroy who besieged British Pensacola in 1781 and ultimately changed the course of the American Revolution. It was the culmination of a year of research for the New York-based actor and Florida Humanities Council scholar.
This past January, Mena returned to Pensacola to record a version of the Gálvez show at WSRE, to be edited into a PBS-formatted TV program. Since then, Gálvez has been named a “Great Floridian” by the state, and his award was recently presented to the T. T. Wentworth Museum. This past Sunday, around 250 people — most of whom were involved in the production in some form — gathered at the Jean & Paul Amos Performance Studio for a preview showing of the finished program.

“Yo Solo” will be released on July 2 and air locally on WSRE and on other PBS affiliates in Florida and the region. (It will be submitted for consideration by national PBS, though Stringfield said it’s very difficult to get a show on national PBS, “so don’t hold your breaths there.”) The program will also be made available to Florida teachers, along with a comprehensive packet of educational materials, to incorporate Gálvez into their history curriculum. In addition, DVDs will be taken on a delegation to Spain at the end of June and presented to both the King of Spain and the mayor of Gálvez’s hometown, Macharaviaya.“It’s going to be a story that tells us about our past and also tells us, in many ways, who we are as Floridians,” said Margo Stringfield, the UWF archaeologist and Florida Humanities Council board member who spearheaded this project. “And we’re bringing this out because we want people to be prepared for what’s happening in 2013, when we celebrate 500 years of Florida history.”

Mena was kind enough to sit down with me after the January recording session and discuss the production. We had such a good conversation, it’s taken me these four intervening months to transcribe it all.

Tell me a little about the project.
The project goes back about a year now, a little over a year. The University of West Florida Archaeology and Anthropology Departments asked me if I’d be interested in doing this type of one-person treatment on Bernardo de Gálvez and how his life culminated with the taking of Pensacola from the British. The historical importance of that particular battle is that the clock starts to count down to Yorktown, to the end of the war — or the inception of our republic — from the point at which Pensacola was taken from the British. Because then that frees up the Gulf and the whole Caribbean for the allies, which were at that time the French, the Spanish, and the navies of the different colonies, as well as the Continental Navy, to kind of sail up and down the east coast and into the Gulf with impunity. It was the last big bastion of British power in the Gulf, and the Gulf became again a Spanish lake, or an allied lake, and by extension an American lake. And that moment on, you can also say another clock was started, and that’s the clock that ended up with Florida becoming a state in 1821.

This was your third such role. Can you tell me about the other two, and how you got started?
The first two… I’m a scholar with the Florida Humanities Council, and I’ve been living in New York City for about fifteen years, making a living as an actor there, as well as blogging and stuff like that, but mainly as an actor. My own personal career stems back to 1996, when I graduated from grad school, I worked in major theaters around the country, off Broadway, in a number of films — big roles in small films, small roles in big films, a lot of independent films, a lot of commercials — you know, all the stuff that actors have to do. The lucky ones. I have to knock on wood, because I’ve been able to clothe myself and have somewhat of a life doing this, but it’s always a struggle as an actor.

So I decided, how neat would it be to write your own play and generate your own work? So it kind of worked hand in hand with what the Florida Humanities Council was looking for. They were looking for a scholar and researcher, and I had always done research for my own work. And I love writing, so it was kind of a perfect fit.

My first play was about José Martí, a 19th century Cuban poet and political figure and arguably one of the most important men to come out of this whole hemisphere. Simon Bolivar, Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Benito Juarez, José Martí, and Abraham Lincoln of course… these are all mentioned in the same breath. So it’s a tall order to come up with a show. Because it’s the Florida Humanities Council I had to find some kind of Florida link to Martí, and there were plenty, because he made over forty trips to Tampa, and Tampa became the place where the Cuban independence movement was born. The cigar that dealt the signal to start the revolution — the “Paul Revere of the Cuban revolution” — was written as an order and rolled up in a cigar and sent to Cuba from Tampa. And all of that was Martí’s thinking and ideas. On top of being a major poet and journalist of the day, he was also a revolutionary, so he wore a lot of hats.

That was successful, and then they asked if I’d be interested in doing a similar show about Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who was the first governor — actually the title was adelantado, which was a Spanish word which meant “substitute for the king,” or “the king’s forward man,” literally. We would call him a governor, but in Spain it has a different kind of nomenclature. He founded St. Augustine, which is, you know, our oldest continuous city in 1565.

That’s a bit of a sensitive topic around here.

Not the first city, but the oldest continuous city. Pensacola just got a bad stroke of luck with that hurricane in 1559. Otherwise Pensacola would have been the oldest city.

Who doesn’t unpack their ships, you know?
Tristán didn’t do that because he couldn’t really trust the environs. He hadn’t done enough of his homework, I think. In fact, Pedro Menéndez had an interview with Tristán de Luna in what is today the Dominican Republic, at that time Santo Domingo, to see how to approach this colony that he had accepted from the king.

So they owe us, is what you’re saying.
Yes! The brainchild of St. Augustine goes back to Tristán de Luna and his failure. He was a depressed man, an interesting man, Tristán de Luna. Someone should do something about that, about chronicling his life. So “Pedro Menéndez” has been vastly, vastly successful, thank goodness, and Margo Stringfield from the University of West Florida saw it, and she was on the board of the Florida Humanities Council, and she thought it was a good fit to see if I’d like to come in and either do a treatment on Tristán de Luna or Bernardo de Gálvez, and they opted for Bernardo de Gálvez, and I’d say that was about fourteen, fifteen months ago, and here we are.

We performed it at the Saenger to a huge audience, great fanfare and success. I’ve since done different drafts of it for schools and stuff like that. But last night [January 21] was important because last night we actually put it to tape, high definition. And the idea is to sell it, to give it a more national spin. And to that I worked — the script that was performed at the Saenger was not entirely what was filmed yesterday. I wanted to make it certainly about the Battle of Pensacola and about this very very very resourceful Spanish officer and freedom-lover, but to gear it towards more of a national audience.
Because of the impact on the American Revolution.

Which is sizable. The Spanish contribution to aid our Continental armies and navies rivaled — and some sources say bettered — the French contribution, which is amazing. There’s a good book written by Thomas E. Chávez. He’s a master historian, and the book is called Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift — as it was.

Clearly you did an enormous amount of research into all these figures.
Yes, yes. I should mention that here at the University of Florida, Special Collections, which is all things Gulf-related and phenomenal. Really world class. It’s fantastic. You could spend lifetimes down there rifling through the primary and secondary [sources]. Dean Debolt is fantastic. I worked very closely with Dean, and he’s something else.
So, not only do you have to know all the facts — numbers, dates — but for your role you need to find the personality of the figure and things that aren’t as easy to see in historical documents alone.
I kind of come to that as a default because of my training. My background is dramatic arts. But I also have a degree in English and have done a lot of research. I’m one of those chaps that like to really do his research work, when it’s a play or not. Whenever I do a play I find out: when does the play take place, what were the seminal economic and political forces going on in that setting, who these people might be, what forces kind of contributed to who they became — I’m talking about the character in the play — what conditional forces were there to kind of create this person, and maybe get an idea of why a person is a certain why. And then of course I like to read other plays that the author, the playwright has written, and see why he choose this play. None of which has anything to do in the playing of it, but certainly as you rehearse, I’m of the belief that the more research you do, you can make more informed acting choices.

But you can also get stymied. You can say stupid things like, “My character wouldn’t do that. He’s a Prussian officer of the late nineteenth century, he wouldn’t say that.” Well, yes, he would say that, because the author decided he should say that. Do you know what I mean? So you can get kind of silly about it too. That’s why it’s important to know why the author wanted to write this play.

Am I correct that you’re of Cuban descent?
My parents are Cuban.

Did having a grasp on Spanish help you in reading some of the historical documents?
No. Well, yeah. I mean, I also read French. My Spanish is probably better than my French. I can write pretty passably well in Spanish. My French is… I get stuck on the spelling, on the orthography. Because in Spanish everything’s so uniform. It’s a phonetic alphabet — one sound, one symbol. Not so in English. How many different ways do we say “A”? And in French the same thing. But the more reading I do in French, the better I get. And I do read in French. I read the dailies, La Monde especially, it’s an excellent newspaper.

I’m talking about, like, a lot of the old letters…

Yeah, the letters were written in French. A lot of the letters were written in French.

I didn’t realize that.

Well, it made sense. He was coming into what was once a French province, now he was the Spanish governor. But the people still spoke French and related to each other in French. A lot of the primary sources — the letters, the private letters to his officers in Louisiana — were in French. However, whenever he would write to Cuba, it was in Spanish. So it’s good to know both languages.

We speak English here because of the French and Indian War, really. The English had very small, small colonies. They were just basically littoral, up against the sea, and that’s it. The rest was Spanish and French. But the English in 1763 defeat the Spanish and French, and by conquest of war, they take in this whole continent, virtually, which is then again lost after the Revolution, except for Canada. Canada of course remained within the English sphere of dominions.

Most people in Pensacola, I hope, know Gálvez from the Battle of Pensacola and…

You’d be surprised how many people don’t. I’ve been asking. Whenever I go to a place I go, “Hey, by the way, do you remember…?” I bought some flowers for some friends here, and I went to [redacted] and I asked, and nobody knew. But the one person in the back came out and said, “Oh, my daughter’s in middle school, and I know all about Bernardo de Gálvez!” So I thought that was kinda cool. But nobody else, at all, knows, and that’s what we’re trying to remedy, because it’s important. It’s important. It really is. I mean, he’s as important to the American Revolution as Lafayette. Everybody knows about Lafayette and von Steuben, but Gálvez’s contribution has more lasting influence than any of those two men. I mean, by far.

The Battle of Pensacola was punctuated by the powder explosion, but what were some other things that stuck out to you as highlights of that campaign?
Well, Gálvez’s army would’ve looked like what our army looks like now. People of every color, shade, and economic station. Pretty damn democratic army in that sense. I mean, we’re talking about a European, monarchical army, so let’s not kid ourselves. This is not a republic, no. But certainly from the outside it looked like that, and the Spanish army was vastly more humane than the British army that used to flog people arbitrarily, and their soldiers were treated likeuntermenschen. Like second-class, third-class citizens — I mean, it was the rabble that would go into there. And the French and Spanish weren’t necessarily like that. Certainly the Spanish army wasn’t like that, because you had professional soldiers that came to fight here.

You had over 2,000 Cubans that made up two regiments from Havana. Well, one regiment, the permanent regiment from Havana, which was professional, and then you had a Cuban militia that was semi-professional. But certainly by the time of the end of the war, they were pretty good. They were as good as any European army that was in the field. Much like Washington’s army became pretty good — the Continental Army, not the militia. You had regiments from the Canary Islands come over. You had a cavalry regiment from Mexico. Mexicans fought here! You know, those people who mow the lawn now and we want to kick out of the country? Yeah, they were here. You had free negro regiments. You also had volunteers who were erstwhile slaves, and they were promised their freedom afterwards, and for very few of them was the promise held. They were forced back into slavery, a lot of them. This is after Gálvez’s death, of course. Otherwise he would’ve followed up on it.

By all intents and purposes, he was pretty caring as an officer and also as a governor. Wherever he officiated, he really had an idea of “the people.” I mean, just to have an idea, just to refer to “the people” as a true estate of a country, that was revolutionary. And he was very much a child of the Enlightenment and very inspired by our forefathers and foremothers.

So the army was a professional army. They were pretty well fed. They didn’t have enough cannon. They ran out of cannons fast, so Gálvez was paying — I’m not sure, I think it was sixteen, fifteen pesos per spent cannonball. So you had all these soldiers picking up these hot cannonballs: “Phew, ah, hot, take this one! Put me down for one!” You know what I mean? They were risking their lives for these cannonballs—

They were picking up the cannonballs that were shot at them?

Yeah! If it wasn’t a fragmentary cannon, the ones that would rain shrapnel down over their heads, which were awful, very deadly. Sometimes they were solid shot, and those were brought in and reclaimable. You could shoot them off, and you could go back and forth for weeks that way.

But the big thing that I found astounding about Bernardo de Gálvez was that, time after time, he was always stymied by the weather. There was always a hurricane, there was always a tropical storm, some depression that stopped him. He tried to come over to Pensacola twice before he actually [did], and to have that gumption and to have that resilience to stay on the program, it paid off. It was backbreaking work — over three miles of trenches. I don’t know if you’ve ever dug a hole, but imagine digging a trench where four people can fit astride — and three miles long. And some of that was covered, so you could go in under a semi-tunnel and come out the other side. It was hard work! And they stuck to it, and they did it.

It was the most complex battle fought in North America, including Yorktown, because you had different branches of the military working together as they would later in the Civil War, when another army and navy in the U.S., Farragut and Grant, worked together very well. That had never happened before. You had all these different people from around the world come together, yes, to fight for Spain — let’s be clear, they were fighting for Spain — but by the same token, they knew what they were doing. They knew that every British soldier, regiment that was brought down to fight them in the Gulf relieved Washington, and it was expressed as such. They were working in cohesion.

In fact, the Battle of Yorktown is a Spanish and French idea that was borne from Bernardo’s very close friend Francisco de Saavedra, who gave a wonderful description of Pensacola, I think in the island of Martinique, they thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could draw Cornwallis down to a place where we can trap him.” Because the English army would always fight, and when things got hairy they would get in their boats — because they had a navy — they would get in their boats and simply go to any part of eastern North America they wanted to. Or leave North America. They had this escape through their fleet. But what if the combined Spanish and French fleet could get there, and that would block the British from bringing their navy in? Well, then their army would be trapped. “What if we can trap them into a peninsula?” So this was a French and Spanish idea that was later suggested to Washington, and he jumped on it. And that’s when he brings down the Continental Army to beef up the southern department, which was headed by Horatio Gates, and that’s when they come down and the American army fights a pretty full battle, and they do it with aplomb.

Not that this country was based on an army, but the army’s existence guaranteed the republic at that time. It shouldn’t be like that now; now we have a civilian government. And we did back then, but as long as the army stayed together, we had a chance to win. Not only did it stay together, but it flourished into a pretty competent fighting force that, by the end of the war, the Continental Army could certainly stand head-to-head and toe-to-toe to the British army. And that’s something, because the British were excellent fighters. Very regimented. They were automatons, but we weren’t. We were free men.

Many people, like Stephen Ambrose and Thomas Fleming and Barbara Tochmann, and other historians would agree that, when you have an army of free men, you can kill all the officers you want, but each and every person on that rank and file can become an officer, potentially, because they know how to think for themselves. That’s really important, because that’s what happened at D-Day. At D-Day, all of our non-com officers and first lieutenants were killed out on Omaha Beach. So what happened? Corporals stood in and said, “Okay fellas, you know, we had a plan, so [now] we have to improvise.” You didn’t do that in the nineteenth century army where people were automatons. You killed the officer and you’re dead in the water. [In British accent] “Roit, what we do?” “Let’s get the f— out of here, roit!” If you’re working with a group of guys and you say, “Let’s do this.” Somebody says, “I got a better idea. Let’s do that.” That’s democracy. Ten heads are better than five, which are better than two, which are better than one. It’s kind of like a no-brainer, but people forget that.

What were some of the other interesting aspects of Gálvez’s life?

He was madly in love with his wife. They were supposed to wait a certain amount of time to get married so he could bring her into the governor’s mansion in New Orleans, where he was officiating as governor of Louisiana, and he couldn’t wait. So they had a private ceremony with a priest and brought her in, because he was head over heels, and she followed him everywhere. She was in Havana at the time of the Battle of Pensacola because he had been there for a number of months, planning the battle. She followed him all the way to Mexico, and he had a child by her called Guadalupe, named after this patron saint of Mexico, our lady of Guadalupe, and she was born and baptized after he was dead. It’s a particularly sad story. And she died in poverty, basically, the daughter did. She was the last person alive of that particular family nucleus.
At the end of the war, and after Gálvez becomes viceroy and dies, they go back to Spain. And he was much loved in Mexico. He’s still considered one of the few viceroys that really cared for the people and could have averted the terrible series of revolutions that happened in Mexico. You can argue that if the Enlightenment ideas that were beginning to become put into practice — child labor laws, a lot of public works to make traveling easier, city lights in Mexico, reform of jurisprudence, fairer labor laws, getting away from absentee lordism, land reform — these were all things he was beginning to institutionalize. But after his death, of course, everything goes back to what it was before, to a very retrograde Spanish colony, and all was lost within a generation. There was a chance for an early Spanish republic, and that died when Napoleon invaded Spain, so that went awry, and the reason why Spain lost all of its dominions is because of poor planning, poor policy towards the Americas, corruption, and, really, retrograde politics, where there was a landed gentry that paid the taxes and screw everybody else. Everybody else were peons, you know? So those enlightened ideas which were completely opposed to that, that we have here — well, we can see the fruits of that in our life. Things would have been different had the Gálvez family, and had the Spanish republic that happened about ten years after Gálvez’s death, if that would have blossomed, history would have been different.

So what’s next for you and the project?

Well, we’ve taped this thing. Golly, if I had my way, I’d like to have this in every classroom in the United States. There’s no reason why people in Montana shouldn’t know the west was important and played a vital role in the Revolution. It wasn’t just a little thing that happened in Massachusetts and Virginia, up against the coast. No. It embroiled a whole continent. It was a world war. It was one of our first world wars.
The American Revolution was fought by different people in Nicaragua. Gálvez’s father, Mathias, viceroy of New Spain before him, was fighting in what we call today Nicaragua and Guatemala, a very successful campaign against the British and won very key battles down there. So this was a family affair also. His uncle, José de Gálvez, was the foreign secretary to the Americas of the King of Spain, and that’s probably how he got his governorship in Louisiana. Nepotism was unapologetically the way of the world back then. It still is, but we like to at least cover it up a little bit now, right?
I’d like for the DVD to be as successful a teaching tool as it can be. It should be downloaded and played in every classroom. It should be aired on every major PBS station. Certainly where there’s a sizable Hispanic community, I’m sure Hispanics would be relieved to find out there were Hispanics fighting for this country as well, because it’s a particularly bad time to be Hispanic.
I think we’ve covered it all. Is there anything else that you can think of?

Yes, there is something else. I’d like to thank the Pensacola community. I’d like to thank the University of West Florida community, specifically the Theatre Department, especially the Archaeology and Anthropology [Departments], the Special Collections. The people of Pensacola, that they’ve opened up their hearts, and their minds, and their houses for me. I’ve stayed in people’s homes. I feel very privileged, and my wife and I appreciate that tremendously, because I’ve been able to come up with a program that may have real, real importance and do some palpable good to our country. So for all of that, thanks to the city of Pensacola, its people, its brain trust, its economic trust, and all the good citizens that I’ve met.

‘Superior Donuts’ both substantive and sweet

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:19:00 GMT

By Christine Dolen cdolen@miamiherald.com A donut is no rational person’s idea of a light snack, but if you’re in the mood for something with both sweetness and substance, that donut can seem just about perfect. Similarly, Tracy Letts’ most recent Broadway […]

By Christine Dolen
cdolen@miamiherald.com

A donut is no rational person’s idea of a light snack, but if you’re in the mood for something with both sweetness and substance, that donut can seem just about perfect.

Similarly, Tracy Letts’ most recent Broadway play, Superior Donuts, doesn’t have the heft or dramatic depth of his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County. But Superior Donuts, a conflict-laced comedy that opened at GableStage a day after August: Osage opened a few miles away at Actors’ Playhouse, has much to say about living in a diverse 21st Century America, surviving life’s traumas, and the war between resignation and hope. And at its heart, the play stands as a testament to the healing power of friendship.

Like his most honored play and the earlier Killer Joe, Bug and Man from Nebraska, Superior Donuts displays the talented Letts’ many gifts: snappy dialogue, an engaging plot, the way he laces even the funniest moments with darker undercurrents (and vice versa). This one, artfully and entertainingly staged by Joseph Adler, is set inside a tidily kept donut shop in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, a crime-ridden area that gentrification hasn’t transformed, the new Starbucks notwithstanding.

Presiding over his longtime family business is Arthur Prsybyszewski (Avi Hoffman), a depressed Vietnam-era draft dodger with both a mangy ponytail and a receding hairline. Sartorially, his taste runs to tie-dyed T-shirts that fail to conceal his 60-year-old’s paunch, and when business is slow — as it often is — he’s apt to lock the door and indulge in a toke or three.

His shop — a place so authentically rendered by designer Lyle Baskin that you want to claim a stool at the counter and order a donut — is a fleeting way station for everyone from beat cops Randy Osteen (Patti Gardner) and James Bailey (John Archie) to the neighborhood’s gentle alcoholic, Lady Boyle (Sally Bondi).

Max Tarasov (Chaz Mena), a flamboyant Russian immigrant who owns the DVD store next door, comes by often, fruitlessly trying to persuade Arthur to sell him the shop so that entrepreneurial Max can grow his version of the American dream. Later, bad guys Luther Flynn (Gordon McConnell) and Kevin Magee (Paul Homza) show up, as does Max’s hulking nephew Kiril (Alex Alvarez), all participating in a fight scene so well choreographed by Homza that it looks like Hoffman and McConnell are doing real damage to each other.

But the key “other” character in Superior Donuts is Franco Wicks (Marckenson Charles), a smart, energetic young black man Arthur hires to work in the shop. As rough as his life has been and is about to get, Franco is as powered by hope as Arthur is drained of it. The true sweetness of Superior Donuts flows from an evolving bond that betters both men.

The acting in Superior Donuts is, as is so often the case at GableStage, first-rate.

Hoffman has to cope with Arthur’s character-revealing monologues that, truth be told, could have been integrated as dialogue, and playing depression presents another challenge. But the actor crafts a character who is both an appealing mess and a stand-up guy. The funny, scene-stealing Mena makes you wish Letts would write a play about this wily Russian. In his short scenes, McConnell exudes smiling, exasperated menace.

Charles, a recent New World School of the Arts graduate, finds all the layers in the beautifully written Franco — charm, hustle, despair, joy, humor, the gift of inspiration. Watching him is exciting, both in the moment and because you realize you’re catching a talent at the beginning of what promises to be a brilliant career.

“Donuts” proves compelling yet problematic at GableStage

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 02:09:00 GMT

by Bill Hirschman South Florida Theatre Review Two elements injected electricity into GableStage’s entertaining production of Tracy Letts’ flawed script for Superior Donuts: Marckenson Charles’ breakout performance as a street kid with unfettered dreams, plus one of the most convincing […]

by Bill Hirschman
South Florida Theatre Review

Two elements injected electricity into GableStage’s entertaining production of Tracy Letts’ flawed script for Superior Donuts: Marckenson Charles’ breakout performance as a street kid with unfettered dreams, plus one of the most convincing brawls ever seen on a Florida stage.

Charles first gained notice in Mosaic Theatre’s Groundswell last year. Earlier this season, he grabbed more attention in GableStage’s A Behanding in Spokane with a role similar to Letts’ fast-talking, wisecracking character here.

But under Joe Adler’s direction Saturday night, Charles blossoms fully as Franco Wicks. He delivers Letts’ steady stream of irreverent chatter and banter with the smart-aleck stand-up rhythms of Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock.

Ironically, his straight man is played by Avi Hoffman who subsumes his sunny persona to play a 60-year-old hippie whose life froze in 1968 when he fled to Canada to avoid the draft.

After Jimmy Carter’s amnesty, Arthur Prsybyszewski returned home to take over the family doughnut shop in uptown Chicago. His estranged father’s repudiation, a failed marriage and other disappointments have shut him down emotionally and psychologically to the point that Arthur has no dreams and only perfunctory human connections. Arthur’s only desire is to never open himself again to pain and disappointment.

He is a good-hearted soul, regularly giving free donuts to a homeless woman (Sally Bondi). But his closest relationship is a forced friendship with an effusive Russian businessman who won’t recognize rejection (an indefatigable Chaz Mena). Arthur seems pointedly blind to affectionate overtures from a tough-talking beat cop (Patti Gardner, nicely cast against type).

Wicks barges into Arthur’s life like an encyclopedia salesman sticking his foot in the door, an ebullient bundle of pipe dreams and energy who convinces Arthur into hiring him. It becomes clear that the 21-year-old is unusually gifted, although he’s hiding a shady past. The thick stack of notebooks bound with bungee cords that he lugs around is his just-completed manuscript of what he claims is The Great American Novel.

Reluctantly, Arthur begins to connect with the young man, still refusing to place enough value in anything to fight for it. But Franco’s past returns in the guise of a Luther, a loan shark (Gordon McConnell) who clothes unnerving menace with an apologetic demeanor as he demands a $16,000 debt that Wick can’t meet. The inevitable crisis that forces Arthur to come back to life culminates in a bruising, bloody knock-down, drag-out fist fight.

It’s a ritualized, schematic plot played out in a wide range of movies and television series from Chico and the Man to The Pawnbroker. Since this script followed Letts’ scorching Bug, Killer Joe and August: Osage County, audiences need to be warned that he set out to write a gentle humanistic comedy with a moral. It has a William Saroyan The Time of Your Life feel with quirky characters bringing their aspirations and baggage into a communal gathering place and evil invading to upset the balance.

You have to credit Letts for providing Franco with a wide-open faucet of hilarious quips, retorts, one-liners and opportunities to tease Arthur. As good as Charles is, the actor who originated the part for Steppenwolf Theatre Company was just as good. They both nail the material Letts gave them.

But the script has one serious weakness and it undercuts this production as well. Arthur has to carry the play for the first half-hour until Franco arrives. But Letts has written him – and Hoffman plays him faithfully – as a profoundly shut-down human being. Hoffman and Adler bravely choose not to make him some charismatic curmudgeon with a heart of gold. This is a deeply wounded person who does not expose his sorrow.

But the upshot is the audience has no protagonist to connect with. Letts tried to get around this by writing interior monologues for Arthur, but Hoffman dutifully plays those nearly as blunted. So until Arthur reaches his epiphany, the show shuffles along between Franco’s appearances.

You can argue Hoffman even plays him too tamped down, but when Arthur awakens, so does Hoffman. When Arthur rises phoenix-like, Hoffman does not sink to creating some fearless storybook hero. Hoffman expertly shows the dread under the resolve; his Arthur knows before he begins that there will be no clear-cut victory accompanied by a swelling soundtrack. Which makes his resurrection all the more courageous.

That rebirth leads to the knock-down, drag-out fist fight between Hoffman and McConnell, two actors on the far side of 50 slugging it out like they were reenacting the last reel of Rocky. Paul Homza, who also plays Luther’s chief thug, has staged a stunning battle. Most stage fisticuffs look fake even from a distance. This one looked as real as you can hope for, even ten feet away. Homza’s choreography is impressive, but also credit the actors, huffing and staggering like middle-aged men would while beating the hell out of each other. The supporting cast is solid but Mena (who was Hoffman’s sparring partner in The Quarrel last season) steals every scene with his cartoonish emigre complete with fractured English, slicked-back hair, garish bling, booming voice and an infectious joy at living the American Dream.

Superior Donuts at GableStage is a sweet treat

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:21:00 GMT

By Chris Joseph Thursday, Mar 24 2011 Written and presented in a kind of ’70s sitcom vibe (think Chico and the Man with F-bombs), Superior Donuts is Tracy Letts’s followup to his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County(currently playing at Actors’ […]

By Chris Joseph Thursday, Mar 24 2011

Written and presented in a kind of ’70s sitcom vibe (think Chico and the Man with F-bombs), Superior Donuts is Tracy Letts’s followup to his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County(currently playing at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre). If August is a cauldron of familial complexities and dizzying dysfunction, Superior Donuts gives us the opposite. It’s lighthearted, simple, and oftentimes sentimental. That doesn’t mean it isn’t filled with nuance or substance.

Avi Hoffman plays Arthur Przybyszewski, a white, aging, pony-tailed proprietor of a doughnut shop on Chicago’s North Side. Arthur was once a ’60s radical who marched against the Vietnam War, but now he’s letting life ease by without putting up much of a fight. His shop is dilapidated and empty, save for the homeless lady who comes around for free doughnuts and coffee every other day. He is worn down, and his life has hit some rough waters. His ex-wife recently passed, and he hasn’t seen his daughter in decades.

When Arthur walks into his shop to open it for the day, he finds shattered glass on the floor and the word pussy scrawled in huge letters on the wall. The neighborhood cops are there, as is Max, the Russian owner of a DVD store next door. Max called the police, and he’s railing against the “black bastards” who did this to Arthur’s store. Without a trace of anger or bewilderment, Arthur shrugs and begins to clean up. Here we see him in all his defeatist glory. Life just beats you down at every turn, so why bother trying?

Not until Franco Wicks (played by a scene-stealing Marckenson Charles) strolls into Arthur’s shop looking for a job do we see some vitality enter the world-weary hippie. Franco is everything Arthur isn’t. The young man is energetic, charismatic, ambitious, and filled with new ideas and dreams. He’s also black. Of course, this is where a play such as this can easily fall into the clichéd traps often seen in old-white-man/young-African-American-man dynamics. In the hands of a lesser playwright, the relationship between the two men would lapse into a sort of tired Do the Right Thingaesthetic where lessons on race relations are shoehorned into the plot. But Letts doesn’t do that. The differences between Arthur and Franco go beyond skin color. Sure, there are the requisite scenes where Franco uses his race to make certain points. But it’s mostly in jest and mostly because Franco is a smart kid who likes to see how far he can get under Arthur’s skin.
Franco’s sharp wit and likability get him hired, and it’s not long before he’s badgering Arthur to spruce up the joint. Franco envisions a modern shop with more healthful choices, wireless capability, and poetry reading nights. “Poets don’t pay the bills,” Franco tells a begrudging Arthur. “But poets drink coffee like a motherfucker.” Throughout the play, Franco tries to steer Arthur in the right direction to lure more customers, while sharing with him his own ambitions and goals. He also nudges the old man into asking police officer Randy Osteen (played by Patti Gardner, who put in a valiant performance despite a case of laryngitis) on a date. Officer Osteen is obviously into Arthur, constantly dropping hints and giving him her personal cell phone number.

But trouble is simmering beneath Franco’s otherwise genuine bravado. When a pair of two-bit loan sharks enters the doughnut shop one day, we learn that Franco is in debt way over his head. His minimum-wage job working for Arthur just isn’t cutting it.

It’s the colorful characters strewn throughout the play that give Superior Donuts its substantive ebb and flow. DVD storeowner and Russian immigrant Max (hilariously played by Chaz Mena) remains steadfast in trying to buy Arthur’s shop to expand his business. Gordon McConnell and Paul Homza’s loan sharks lend some weight as the play’s heavies; McConnell in particular gives his character, Luther Flynn, depth via his passive-aggressive threats toward Franco and Arthur. Sally Bondi turns in a touching and authentic portrayal as Lady, the homeless woman who frequents the doughnut shop, while John Archie is solid and comical as the Star Trek-loving Officer Bailey.
Superior Donuts’s dialogue is filled with quick banter and comedic rants, mainly involving the incorrigible Franco, though Letts probably could have done without the brief soliloquies Arthur gives throughout the story. They fill in Arthur’s backstory and help explain what makes him tick, but they seem forced and unnecessary in the otherwise fast-paced story.
Director Joseph Adler has done a masterful job with this production’s ensemble. Led by the talented Mr. Hoffman, Superior’s actors all have stage presence and great comedic timing — essential in a play where the dialogue is everything.

As with every GableStage production, Superior Donuts has an outstanding set. The entire two-act play takes place inside Arthur’s shop, and thanks to set designer Lyle Baskin, as well as GableStage’s intimate setting, the audience not only feels as if it’s sitting inside a genuine doughnut and coffee shop, but also that the weather outside is wintry. The stools, the smell of brewing coffee, and the fresh doughnuts in the display case put the audience inside Arthur’s shop.

To top it all off, a fight scene choreographed by Homza is as graphic and violent as you’ll see performed during a live production.

At a little less than two hours, Superior Donuts makes for an entertaining evening of theater.

2010 OUR YEAR IN REVIEW – (Mentioning Chaz Mena & Avi Hoffman in The Quarrel)

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:31:00 GMT

by Christine Dolen MIAMI HERALD December 26, 2010 The economy played the villain (again) in South Florida theater, leaving the venerable black theater troupe M Ensembletemporarily homeless, keeping younger companies like Ground Up & Rising and The State Theatre Project […]

by Christine Dolen
MIAMI HERALD

December 26, 2010

The economy played the villain (again) in South Florida theater, leaving the venerable black theater troupe M Ensembletemporarily homeless, keeping younger companies like Ground Up & Rising and The State Theatre Project on the move, forcing even the most established theater companies to find creative ways to do more with less. And yet they do: Boca Raton’s Caldwell Theatre Company did another concert version of a big Stephen Sondheim musical, this time FOLLIES;GableStage took slimmed-down Shakespeare into the schools; the Internatioanl Hispanic Theatre Festival (now 25) and CityTheatre’s 15-year-old Summer Shorts celebrated anniversaries that stand as testaments to art and adaptation.

Serious Spanish-language theater continues to blossom, enough so that Teatro en Miami founders Ernesto and Sandra Garcia cooked up TEMFest 2010 to showcase homegrown fare. Meanwhile, despite the announcement a year ago thatGableStage’s Joseph Adler would become artistic director at a smaller-sized Coconut Grove Playhouse, local theater’s most drawn-out drama – will Miami’s historic theater, closed since 2006 and coveted by politicians, corporations and developers, every really reopen? – continues to unfold at a molasses-like pace.

TOP FIVE

1. GREAT PERFORMANCES:

A few actors pushed their craft to a higher level, including Barbara Bradshaw, as a complex short-story writer in Mosaic Theatre’s COLLECTED STORIES; Elena Maria Garcia as the conniving tastemaker in Zoetic Stage’s SOUTH BEACH BABYLON; Gregg Weiner and Erin Joy Schmidt as a couple in marriage meltdown in GableStage’s FIFTY WORDS; Schmidtand Ricky Waugh in Mosaic’s DYING CITY and Chaz Mena and Avi Hoffman as Holocaust survivors sparring over God and faith in GableStage’s THE QUARREL.

2. MOST DARING:

GableStage’s BLASTED by the late British playwright Sarah Kane featured the most fearless acting ensemble. Artistic director Joseph Adler deftly plunged performers Todd Allen Durkin, Betsy Garver and Erik Fabregat into Kane’s mysterious, hellish representation of the infinitely varied nature of human cruelty. The designers’ depiction was just as artful.

3. SOUTH FLORIDA ONSTAGE:

Playwrights Christopher Demos-Brown and Michael McKeever turned the spotlight on life in a place where it’s hard to top real-life headlines – Demos-Brown in WHEN THE SUN SHONE BRIGHTER, a Florida Stage world premiere about a Cuban-American Miami mayor contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate; McKeever in SOUTH BEACH BABYLON, the Zoetic Stage Company’s debut at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

4. SUCCESSES RECONNECT:

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, Tony nominated actor Raul Esparza and award winnning playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney are Miami talents, who have had major influence on theater nationally and, for McCraney and Cruz, internationally. Each came back to work at home – Cruz for the world premiere of THE COLOR OF DESIRE at Actors’ Playhouse, Esparzafor an electric performance in BABALU at the Arsht Center, and McCraney for a fund-raising evening (built around his acclaimed BROTHER/SISTER PLAYS) to benefit students at his alma mater, the New World School of the Arts.

5. BROADWAY BRILLIANCE:

A pair of Tony Award-winning, music-driven shows – IN THE HEIGHTS at the Broward Center, SPRING AWAKENING at theArsht Center – rose above the same old spectacle-driven fare to tell captivating, brilliantly performed stories.

Talkin’ Broadway Review by John Lariviere

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:42:00 GMT

The Gablestage, in association with The Sue & Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, U.M., presents the Southeastern premiere of the play The Quarrelby David Brandes and Joseph Telushkin. The Quarrel is based on the Yiddish story My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner by Chaim Grade (1910 -1982), who is considered one of the foremost Yiddish writers of the modern era. The Quarrel describes the chance meeting of a Holocaust survivor with an old friend from the mussar Yeshiva. The narrator (Chaim Kovler) has lost his faith, while the friend (Hersh Rasseyner) has continued to lead a pious and devoted religious life. The former friends debate the place of religion in the postmodern world.

Avi Hoffman’s portrayal of Hersh Rasseyner is heartfelt and true. He shows a kindness that allows his convictions to pour forth without the declarations sounding judgmental or harsh. His character’s connection to his faith is so strong that it seems like many moments are also personal truths for the actor. Chaz Mena as Chaim Kovler matches Hoffman’s ardent portrayal with one that is smooth and emotionally detached (save for one brief moment) from the subject of religion. This works well, as again the focus remains on the friendship, and one can sense his character’s detachment is a defense mechanism. The dialogue between the two actors shows excellent pacing and timing, and avoids milking the audience for response. The role of Joshua, played by Mark Della Ventura, stops rather than furthers the action in his brief appearance on stage. He is clearly out of his league with two such seasoned actors, and looks petrified on stage. Most of the play involves just the two main characters, and this production is well acted by Hoffman and Mena, and very cleanly directed by Joseph Adler.

Chaim Grade was born in what is now Vilius, Lithuania. He received a secular as well as Jewish religious education, studying for several years with one of Judaism’s great Torah scholars, Rabbi Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, the Chazon Ish. In 1932, Grade began publishing stories and poems in Yiddish, and in the early 1930s was among the founding members of the “Young Vilna” experimental group of artists and writers. During WWII Grade fled to the Soviet Union and lived briefly in Poland and France before relocating to the United States in 1948. His postwar poetry is primarily concerned with Jewish survival in the wake of the Holocaust. Among his novels, novellas, short stories and poetry are works such as The Sacred and the Profane, The Yeshiva and Mayn Krig Mit Hersh Rasseyner.

The Quarrel will be appearing at The GableStage through May 23, 2010. The GableStage is located in the eastern section of the Biltmore Hotel, at 1200 Anastasia Avenue, in Coral Gables, Florida. Valet parking is available, or free parking is available in the Biltmore parking area west of the hotel. Performances are 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are normally $42.50 Friday-Saturday and Sunday matinee, $37.50. For tickets and information you may reach them at 305-445-1119 or on line at www.GablesStage.org. The GableStage, formerly known as the Florida Shakespeare Theatre, is a professional theatre presenting classic and contemporary theatre year round. They are members of the Theatre League of South Florida, the Florida Cultural Alliance, the Theatre Communications Group, SouthFloridaTheatre.com and the Dade Cultural Alliance. The GableStage hires local a nd non-local Equity and non-union actors and actresses, and is involved with the educational community in promoting educational theatre programs.

Summer Shorts, 2010–Miami Herald Review, 6/7/10

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:52:00 GMT

Annual fast-paced Summer Shorts Festival runs hot, cold BY CHRISTINE DOLEN CDOLEN@MIAMIHERALD.COM City Theatre’s annual Summer Shorts Festival, the event that signals summer for any theater-crazed South Floridian, has just kicked off its 15th edition at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center […]

Annual fast-paced Summer Shorts Festival runs hot, cold

Miami New Times’ Review, 4/27/10

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:55:00 GMT

By Brandon K. Thorp Thursday, Apr 29 2010 The Quarrel is aptly named. Its two protagonists spend the play’s 90 or so minutes walking through a big park in Montreal arguing about God. Does He exist? Does He intervene in […]

By Brandon K. Thorp Thursday, Apr 29 2010

The Quarrel is aptly named. Its two protagonists spend the play’s 90 or so minutes walking through a big park in Montreal arguing about God. Does He exist? Does He intervene in human affairs? And if He does exist and He does intervene in human affairs, is He worth worshipping?

These rather serious questions take on some urgency when you consider the men asking them.Rabbi Hersh Rasseyner and journalist Chaim Kovler are former best friends, long estranged due to theological differences. Each thought the other was dead. It is 1948, and they are Holocaust survivors. Kovler saved himself by leaping around Europe and keeping one step ahead of Hitler. He could not save his family. Rasseyner, also alone among his family, managed a jailbreak from Auschwitz. By freakish coincidence, they have found themselves on the same cloudy afternoon walking through the same Montreal park (it might be Mont Royal, because somebody mentions there’s a cross in the middle). And after their initial delight, they resume their old argument.

But forget the theological argument. Anyone who cares about such things will have heard it before anyway. The Quarrel’s beauty lies in its learned, passionate language; elegiac tone; and utter sincerity of its leading men. Chaz Mena, who plays Kovler, is revelatory: Big, strong, and with a warm and resonant baritone, he projects both confidence and an almost invisible pain — a reminder of how hard Kovler’s confidence was to come by. As a humanist, Mena’s Kovler tries desperately to become a powerful, capable, and just man. As the rabbi, Hoffman is Kovler’s inverted double. He seems smaller than his true dimensions, almost disappearing behind his beard, locks, hat, and jacket. If the Holocaust has convinced Kovler that humanity must take control of its destiny, it has convinced Rasseyner that humanity must never be trusted.

Yet he has a fiery and jolly sense of humor when he forgets he’s supposed to be withdrawing from the world. One senses there is something salvageable between these two men. As they walk through Lyle Baskin’s lovely park-scape set — full of gentle curves and the silhouettes of trees, bridges, and small gazebos — there is a sense that, for all their differences, they share an understanding that they either can’t or won’t articulate.

The Quarrel at Gables Stage, Closing May 23, 2010

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:04:00 GMT

By Christine Dolen cdolen@miamiherald.com The argument has been going on for centuries, transcending any particular faith. One thread goes something like this: If there is indeed a God, if He is responsible for man’s moral and ethical behavior, why does […]

By Christine Dolen

cdolen@miamiherald.com

Originally a Canadian film based on a 1950 short story by Yiddish writer Chaim Grade, The Quarrel is now an intense, emotion-filled, provocative piece of theater brought vibrantly to life by director Joseph Adler, starring Avi Hoffman and Chaz Mena and, in a small but incendiary role, Mark Della Ventura.
In less than 90 minutes, Hoffman and Mena paint portraits of two men whose youthful friendship shattered over questions of faith, men who lost everyone and everything during the Holocaust.

In the rhythms of their sometimes volatile debates, they reveal the boys they used to be when they were at a yeshiva in Lithuania, their stolen lives as husbands and fathers, their need to reconnect with the past through each other. The work that Hoffman and Mena create together is so moving that, at the end of opening night, one man tried to speak through his tears and couldn’t. He wasn’t the only one.
Set in a Montreal park in 1948 — the moody set, with its stonework and mural of pale trees, is by Lyle Baskin — The Quarrel turns on the chance meeting of Rabbi Hersh Rasseyner (Hoffman), who is preparing to observe Rosh Hashanah, and Chaim Kovler (Mena), a Yiddish poet who has come to Canada from his home in New York to do a reading.

Though each man is elated to discover the other has survived, their conversation soon moves from old friends and family members to their still-festering differences. It takes a while, but Hersh eventually confesses that when Chaim turned his back on the yeshiva and Judaism, he felt broken.
During a rainy afternoon, the two debate questions of faith and morality as they must have at the yeshiva so many years ago. A brief interruption by Joshua (Della Ventura), one of Hersh’s students in his Montreal yeshiva, leads to the young man spewing zealous recriminations at Chaim. The attack is an extreme version of what Hersh feels, but its verbal brutality leads Chaim to hit back hard.

As sparring partners, Hoffman and Mena at first seem to be unequally matched. Hoffman’s Hersh is soft-spoken, friendly yet restrained. Mena’s Chaim is a dashing literary star, a man who’s rather full of himself, and the actor is so vividly alive onstage that it’s tough at first to give equal weight to the characters.
And yet, as the two watch sundown begin to tint the park’s sky pink and gold, they share their stories of guilt and loss, their need for forgiveness. Together, in a combination of mourning and joy, they sing. And that’s when we know they aren’t so different after all. That’s when the tears come.

Christine Dolen is The Miami Herald’s theater critic.

“N.Y. actor immersed in role of Menendez”, St. Augustine Record, 8 February, 2010

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:03:00 GMT

By Anthony DeMatteo Preparing for his initial portrayal of St. Augustine’s founder last November, Chaz Mena became so enthralled by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, he committed to a lifetime studying the historic figure. Mena, the New York City actor who […]

By Anthony DeMatteo

Preparing for his initial portrayal of St. Augustine’s founder last November, Chaz Mena became so enthralled by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, he committed to a lifetime studying the historic figure.

Mena, the New York City actor who plays Judge Marc Montaldo on NBC’s drama Law & Order, will portray Menendez again during the Feb. 27 Noche de Gala birthday celebration at The Lightner Museum.

Mena played Menendez — whose birthday the gala celebrates — last November in the opening of the “Legacies of La Florida” series sponsored by the city’s 450th Commemoration Committee.

Mena has become an amateur historian on the first governor of Spanish Florida, in part, by reading his 16th-century letters to Spain’s King Philip II.

“Menendez is important in a lot of ways: cartography, geography,” Mena said. “He founded six settlements and is responsible for making the seas outside of Spain safer for commerce. I have accepted a lifelong commitment to learning about your city, the Menendez expedition and how it played out.”

On Sunday afternoon, Mena arrived with a Key lime pie at the home of local seamstress Heidi Mosier, trying on the Menendez costume Mosier made for him.
He planned to bring the flan that she favors, but spent too much time practicing sword fighting Sunday to prepare it.

A museum artisan in the Spanish Quarter for almost 20 years, Mosier has been making costumes for local actors for three decades.

She made the Menendez gala costume with the red dagger medallion on its breast in her home, weaving its white collar and sleeve ruffs with her husband’s tie rack she modified for the purpose.

“It feels great,” Mena said of the new outfit, as Mosier tugged at the garment and quizzed him on its suitability in front of a mirrored armoire. “It’s just a wonderful costume.”

Mena’s wife, Ileana, will attend the gala, playing a friend of Menendez, whose wife Maria did not travel to St. Augustine with him, Stuart said.
Similarities with Menendez Mena said he and Menendez are similar in at least one way — a love of family.

“He loved his wife and his kids,” Mena said. “He lost his son Juan in Florida, in 1563. That is one reason he thought it important to accept the king’s mandate to make the journey.”

Menendez never found his lost son, who might have disappeared in Bahamian waters or been captured by natives, said Mena, adding Menendez rescued a group of Christians enslaved by natives in the search. Despite sorrow over the loss of his beloved “Juanino,” Menendez continued his mission, settling Florida by different means than Spaniards who previously failed.

“The people of La Florida were not about to be conquered,” said Mena, who credits his father Carlos with imparting lessons of his own heritage. “Menendez was going to persuade the founding Floridians into the fold and convince them to be faithful to the crown. And he succeeded. Many natives called him “big brother.” That’s a clear flight from what the more war-like Spaniards tried to do.”

Gala tickets available

Tickets remain for the Feb. 27 gala. Each ticket is $185, which includes the show, a cocktail party, dancing, and a dinner catered by the Casa Monica Hotel. Tickets for the cocktail party alone are $50. Both can be purchased by calling 904-825-5088. Guests are asked to attend in “black-tie” outfits or 16th-Century attire.

The gala begins at 5 p.m. with Mena, as Menendez, leading a precession of about 100 reenactors to the Lightner Museum from the old City Gate. The area outside the museum will simultaneously bustle with gymnasts, fire-breathers, ribbon dancers and re-enactors, all free for public viewing.

The cocktail party will be in Lightner’s third-floor ballroom from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Mena will sword fight with local experts Scott Brewer and Chad Light, sit at a head table at the dinner following the cocktail party and, Noche de Gala Director Melissa Stuart said, interact with guests and entertain in ways not yet revealed.
“I don’t know what he has in mind,” Stuart said of Mena. “He’ll address the crowd above and interact with the colonists.”

Timucuan artifacts, Pedro Menendez outline city’s story

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:06:00 GMT

By PETER GUINTA, St. Augustine Register A reflective yet self-justifying “Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles” took the stage Monday at Flagler College Auditorium and recounted details of his founding of St. Augustine in September 1565, his successful attack against Fort […]

By PETER GUINTA, St. Augustine Register

A reflective yet self-justifying “Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles” took the stage Monday at Flagler College Auditorium and recounted details of his founding of St. Augustine in September 1565, his successful attack against Fort Caroline and his massacre of 150 shipwrecked French sailors.

The presentation was the second of seven in the Discover First America: Legacies of Florida series.Just before “Menendez” spoke, Kathleen Deagan, the University of Florida’s distinguished research curator of Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, described the search for archaeological evidence found in scores of digs at the Fountain of Youth and the Mission of Nombre de Dios.She said he arrived here in five ships of 11 he started with in Spain.

However, the location of his first fort has not been determined, she said.Two accounts contradict one another. The first says the Spanish soldiers dug a trench quickly to act as protection against the Timucuan. The second says Menendez was offered a large house in the Timucuan village of Seloy.He arrived with 800 people — 300 soldiers, 200 sailors and several hundred “useless” people, he reported. But by November of that year, the colony was down to 200 people

“It was a hard beginning,” Deagan said. “There was hunger and the Indians were becoming hostile.” In 1566, Menendez moved the city to Anastasia Island for seven years, she said.“No trace of that settlement has ever been found,” she said, adding that high tides, storms, seasonal floods and soil erosion may be the reason both sites have not been located.She did show photographs of the very few Timucuan artifacts uncovered by her digs.In 1572, Menendez moved the city back to the mainland, to where it is today.When he first arrived, Menendez held the first Thanksgiving in the New World.

“There wasn’t turkey, but garbanzo beans, ham, olives and fish and small game,” she said. “There were very few deer.”“We are fairly certain that the first fort was somewhere near the area of Hospital Creek,” she said.The energetic Mena acts in movies, such as “Miami Rhapsody” with Sarah Jessica Parker, plays a judge on Law & Order and performs in off-Broadway plays. His research and performance were so thorough that one might think Menendez had been channeled.“There is an old Asturian saying, ‘Once you have a reputation, especially a bad one, go to sleep, you cannot change it.’” he said.

He had been a merchant with his own ships when Phillip II, king of Spain, asked him to go to the New World to counter the French, who were already there, he said. He had been with his wife for only four of his 20 years of marriage, he said.He called the Gulf Stream “a river given to the Spanish people by God.”Trying to explain his sometime cruelty, he said, “I was reared in violence and governments depend on people like me.”

Oldest City’s founding brought to life on stage | StAugustine.com

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:14:00 GMT

25 November Oldest City’s founding brought to life on stage | StAugustine.com By PETER GUINTA A reflective yet self-justifying “Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles” took the stage Monday at Flagler College Auditorium and recounted details of his founding of St. […]

25 November

Oldest City’s founding brought to life on stage | StAugustine.com

By PETER GUINTA

Television actor Chaz Mena portrayed Menendez as passionate, noble, ambitious, callous and devout.“I am not a conquistador,” he told the packed 800-seat auditorium. “I want to be your founding father.”The presentation was the second of seven in the Discover First America: Legacies of Florida series.

Just before “Menendez” spoke, Kathleen Deagan, the University of Florida’s distinguished research curator of Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, described the search for archaeological evidence found in scores of digs at the Fountain of Youth and the Mission of Nombre de Dios.She said he arrived here in five ships of 11 he started with in Spain.

He arrived with 800 people — 300 soldiers, 200 sailors and several hundred “useless” people, he reported. But by November of that year, the colony was down to 200 people“It was a hard beginning,” Deagan said. “There was hunger and the Indians were becoming hostile.”

In 1566, Menendez moved the city to Anastasia Island for seven years, she said. “No trace of that settlement has ever been found,” she said, adding that high tides, storms, seasonal floods and soil erosion may be the reason both sites have not been located.She did show photographs of the very few Timucuan artifacts uncovered by her digs.

In 1572, Menendez moved the city back to the mainland, to where it is today. When he first arrived, Menendez held the first Thanksgiving in the New World.“There wasn’t turkey, but garbanzo beans, ham, olives and fish and small game,” she said. “There were very few deer.”“We are fairly certain that the first fort was somewhere near the area of Hospital Creek,” she said.

The energetic Mena acts in movies, such as “Miami Rhapsody” with Sarah Jessica Parker, plays a judge on Law & Order and performs in off-Broadway plays.His research and performance were so thorough that one might think Menendez had been channeled.“There is an old Asturian saying, ‘Once you have a reputation, especially a bad one, go to sleep, you cannot change it.’” he said.

He had been a merchant with his own ships when Phillip II, king of Spain, asked him to go to the New World to counter the French, who were already there, he said. He had been with his wife for only four of his 20 years of marriage, he said. He called the Gulf Stream “a river given to the Spanish people by God.”

Trying to explain his sometime cruelty, he said, “I was reared in violence and governments depend on people like me.” Discover First America The Discover First America series celebrates the city’s 450th commemoration, 2013-2015. All programs are free and are held in the Flagler College Auditorium beginning at 7 p.m. The series continues with the following programs:

* Dec. 9 — “Pirates! Fact and Fiction,” with Pat Croce, Pirate Soul museum curator, author and entrepreneur; and Brendan Burke, Lighthouse Archeological Maritime Program.

* Jan. 7 — “The British are Coming!,” presenting Bill Barker as Thomas Jefferson (through the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation), John Stavely as Jesse Fish and the British Night Watch.* Feb. 5 — “The Great Southern Cracker Roadshow,” with Janis Owens, author and storyteller; Dana Ste. Claire, author and Cracker historian; and bluegrass musicians.* Tuesday, April 13 — “Palaces in Paradise: Flagler’s Age of Opulence,” with Tom Graham, professor emeritus of history, Flagler College; John Blades, executive director of Flagler Museum; and a special “Conversation with Henry Flagler,” with Flagler played by Tom Rahner and Mayor Joe Boles as himself.* Tuesday, May 18 — “Road to Freedom: African-Americans in Florida,” by Derek Hankerson and James Bullock, both actors and creative directors.

‘Charla — A Chat With José Marti’ at HCC in Ybor City, St. Petersburg Times

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:13:00 GMT

11 October SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009 ‘Charla — A Chat With José Marti’ at HCC in Ybor City, St. Petersburg Times Talk about resonance. A one-man show about José Martí performed in Ybor City, where the Cuban national hero made […]

11 October

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009

‘Charla — A Chat With José Marti’ at HCC in Ybor City, St. Petersburg Times

Talk about resonance. A one-man show about José Martí performed in Ybor City, where the Cuban national hero made some of his most important speeches to rally the cigar workers in support of Cuban independence.

Chaz Mena stars in Charla — A Chat With José Martí, which is done in interactive style, with the audience encouraged to pose questions and participate throughout the show. “Chaz Mena’s portrayal of José Martí taught my students more about Cuban history, North American politics and virtuoso acting in 40 minutes than any of them had learned in an entire semester,” said Ron Cooper, a professor at Central Florida Community College, in a news release.

Mena is familiar to Tampa Bay area theater audiences, having starred as sportswriter Mitch Albom in Tuesdays With Morrie a few months ago at American Stage, as well as an exiled Cuban novelist in By the Waters of Babylon at the St. Petersburg theater in 2008.

Charla is performed at 7:30 tonight and Friday night in the Mainstage Theater of the newly renovated Performing Arts Building on the Ybor campus of Hillsborough Community College, Palm Avenue and 14th Street, Tampa. This is near a couple of Martí sites: the Cuban Club at 14th Street and 10th Avenue and José Martí Park at the corner of Eighth Avenue and 13th Street.

Tampa Bay Weekly, Creative Loafing, Tuesdays…Review

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:04:00 GMT

01 July Tuesday With Morrie, A Production to Cherish at American Stage June 15, 2009 at 11:52 am by Mark E. Leib Tuesdays with Morrie is a lovely play about dying and living, about making the most of one’s life […]

01 July

Tuesday With Morrie, A Production to Cherish at American Stage

June 15, 2009 at 11:52 am by Mark E. Leib

Tuesdays with Morrie is a lovely play about dying and living, about making the most of one’s life and learning the importance of expressing love. In Jeffrey Hatcher’s intelligent adaptation of Mitch Albom’s bestselling book, all the drama in Albom’s story is gently brought to life, and Albom’s message to the planet — you’d better love now, tomorrow is the night — is communicated with only occasional wandering into sentimentality. Much of the success of the American Stage production is due to the wonderful direction of T. Scott Wooten and the superb acting of Michael Edwards as sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, and Chaz Mena as sportswriter and former Brandeis student Mitch. I’d seen Morrie before — several years ago at Sarasota’s Asolo Theatre — but the St. Petersburg version showed me possibilities that only remained latent in the earlier one. It’s true that the play has its limits — its vision of a well-lived life is surprisingly narrow, and it reaches a thematic plateau about halfway through its length which it only surpasses in its very last moments. But still, this is the sort of drama that gets under your skin and challenges you to evaluate not just its characters’ lives but your own. Unless you’re planning on living forever, it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.

Hatcher’s approach to the material has the play’s only two characters — Mitch and Morrie — addressing the audience directly and then stepping into conventional scenes of fourth-wall realism. What we’re introduced to through this method is Mitch’s first meeting, as a Brandeis student, with charismatic Professor Morrie Schwartz, who insists on becoming friends and who then encourages the impressionable student to pursue his dream of becoming a jazz pianist. But after graduation, Mitch doesn’t get very far with his music, goes back to school in journalism, and with surprising rapidity becomes a successful sportswriter and broadcast personality based in Detroit. He forgets about Morrie — until one night on ABC’s Nightline he sees Ted Koppel tell the story of Morrie Schwartz, a popular professor who’s been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease and warned that he only has a few months to live.

Mitch flies into the Boston area to pay his last respects, but later, covering a tennis tournament at Wimbledon, he finds that he can’t get the old guy out of his mind. He returns for another visit — which becomes another and another, until he’s expected every Tuesday. Morrie doesn’t only dispense wisdom during these encounters: he also, visibly, deteriorates, finding it more and more difficult to shift his body in his wheelchair, to lift food to his lips, to move his head in any direction. Mitch helps as best he can, but first, and importantly, he has to overcome a coldness in his own character, a certain narcissism and careerism. So we don’t only watch Morrie die over these many scenes: we also watch Mitch come to life. You can’t help but wish that this counterpoint were more pronounced, or that Morrie had some sort of socio-political conscience along with his belief in family and friends. Still, the point is made clearly. As W.H. Auden said — in a line of poetry Morrie treasures — “we must love one another or die.”

And we must cherish these actors and director. Edwards as Morrie cannily underplays everything, never gives way to mawkishness or manipulation. Mena as Mitch is at first hurried and harried, then allows himself — almost against his will — to physically touch Morrie, to not be afraid of touching. Wooten directs with real intelligence, finding humor and pathos between the lines and in gestures and facial expressions that fill in gaps in the human stories, and Tammy “Ty” Massola’s costumes, from Morrie’s red bathrobe to Mitch’s unfashionable sports coats, make this emotion-laden story all the more credible. And yes, the new American Stage space is splendid; let’s hope there’ll be lots of successes in this beautiful environment.

Anyway, check this show out: it’s unembarrassedly aimed at every mortal in the theater, and it’s about a subject that no one can claim is irrelevant. It may even change you a little. And that’s more than most theater — even greater theater — can achieve. Tuesdays With Morrie has been extended through July 5 at American Stage, 163 Third St. N., St. Petersburg, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, $24-$39, student rush $10, 727-823-PLAY. Mark Leib’s Rating: Four Stars

Tampa Tribune’s Review of Tuesdays with Morrie

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:14:00 GMT

12 June ‘Morrie’ brings a poignant lesson By KATHY L. GREENBERG | Tribune correspondent Published: June 12, 2009 American Stage Theatre Company’s production of “Tuesdays with Morrie” is tender, warm and sentimental. The play reflects all the qualities the company […]

12 June

‘Morrie’ brings a poignant lesson

By KATHY L. GREENBERG | Tribune correspondent

Published: June 12, 2009

American Stage Theatre Company’s production of “Tuesdays with Morrie” is tender, warm and sentimental. The play reflects all the qualities the company has imparted to audiences for the past 30 years. As the first show in the Raymond James Theatre, American Stage’s new home, it’s the perfect segue for many years more of the same.

In 1997, Mitch Albom published his best-selling memoir “Tuesdays with Morrie,” which Jeffrey Hatcher adapted for the stage in 2001.

The story begins with Albom attending Brandeis University in the 1970s. He majored in sociology, in part because of the close friendship he developed with his professor, Morrie Schwartz. Albom promised Morrie he would stay in touch after graduation. He didn’t.

He worked as a jazz pianist in New York before entrenching himself in the world of journalism. Albom became a columnist for the Detroit Free Press, a nationally syndicated radio host for ABC and a panelist on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters.” He was a busy guy, and then one day he saw his old professor on ABC’s “Nightline” with Ted Koppel.

Morrie was dying. He had ALS (more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), and he wanted to teach the world what death was all about. Albom decided to visit Morrie for what he thought would be a final goodbye. It wasn’t.

Every Tuesday thereafter, in continuance with Tuesdays’ classes Albom took at Brandeis, he visited Morrie in his Massachusetts home. Albom asked questions and Morrie answered them, imparting a legacy of wisdom, love and affection into a tape recorder.

Morrie died in 1995. Two years later, Albom shared his story, which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller List four years in a row.

For the American Stage production, directed by T. Scott Wooten, actors Chaz Mena and Michael Edwards played Mitch and Morrie, respectively. Both were exceptional.

As the young Mitch, Mena was enthusiastic and boyish, full of the promise that Morrie first saw in his student. Mena brought a freneticism to the superstar reporter phase, and later tempered that to accommodate Morrie’s slower pace. In the end, Mena emoted a change of heart – an expansion of his ability to embrace life fully, pain and joy included, just as Morrie had done.

Charming, facetious and droll, Edwards’ performance was spellbinding. He was so good his character’s death was nearly as heartbreaking as losing a loved one in real life. So be prepared to laugh and cry. As Morrie says, “I’m on the last great journey here; and people want me to tell them what to pack.”

St. Petersburg Times’ Review of Tuesdays with Morrie

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:12:00 GMT

June 10: ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ at American Stage through June 28 By John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic Published Tuesday, June 9, 2009 ——————————————————————————– I don’t get it, I really don’t. Tuesdays with Morrie — first the book, then the […]

June 10: ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’

at American Stage

through June 28

By John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic

Published Tuesday, June 9, 2009

——————————————————————————–

I don’t get it, I really don’t. Tuesdays with Morrie — first the book, then the TV movie, now the play — has been this national phenomenon, with a message that is said to have changed peoples’ lives. But judging from the current production by American Stage of the play, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from Mitch Albom’s autobiographical book, the vaunted insights of Morrie Schwartz, the dying sociology professor whom Albom spent Tuesdays with, are little more than greeting-card homilies, conventional pieties on the meaning of life and death that you’ve heard a million times before.

The problem is not the handsome production, directed by T. Scott Wooten, with Chaz Mena as Mitch, the Detroit sports writer, and Michael Edwards as Morrie, who is suffering from incurable ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), or Lou Gehrig’s disease. (A popular disease in theater these days, it’s also what Jane Fonda has as the dying Beethoven scholar she plays in 33 Variations on Broadway.) Mena and Edwards clearly enjoy each other’s company, and that sense of camaraderie is crucial to the play and comes across loud and clear.

Mena is especially good as the driven, self-absorbed columnist on the make, filing stories from the Super Bowl, the Olympics, Wimbledon and the World Series, fending off calls from editors who want the copy now. His portrayal of Mitch’s puppyish nostalgia for the carefree utopia of his college days at Brandeis, where he called his beloved mentor “Coach,” is affectingly delusional.

Albom has turned death into something of a cottage industry (another of his bestsellers is The Five People You Meet in Heaven), and Morrie is his seminal expert on the subject. But the professor’s pearls of wisdom tend to run along the lines of aphorisms like “As you age, you grow” or “It’s hard to find your way in life.” It’s not exactly Samuel Beckett or even Neil Simon.

Edwards, a big, jovial presence, has the thankless task of playing a character who gets progressively weaker as the play goes on, and his death rattles are convincing. Still, Morrie remains remarkably lucid for someone who can’t feed himself.

Tuesdays with Morrie is supposed to be about the elderly sage, but it is much more about Mitch and his sports writer’s view of the world, in which every episode has a clear outcome, a neat little ending with a moral to the story. It’s great stuff on the sports pages, not so great on stage.

There’s one good thing about Tuesdays with Morrie, the first production in American Stage’s new Raymond James Theatre. Albom’s play just happened to be on the schedule when the company was able to move into its new home, and the play’s popularity (the theater was full for Sunday’s matinee) should introduce a lot of people to this splendid new space.

John Fleming can be reached at fleming@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8716. He blogs at Critics Circle at blogs.tampabay.com/arts.

Reverence guides actor’s portrayal, Tampa Tribune, 24 April 2009

Sat, 25 Apr 2009 04:11:00 GMT

25 April Reverence guides actor’s portrayal, Tampa Tribune, 24 April 2009 By JOSE PATINO GIRONA Since age 6, Chaz Mena has revered Jose Marti, the 19th century Cuban patriot, poet, journalist and thinker. His Cuban-born grandfather gave him a book […]

25 April

Reverence guides actor’s portrayal, Tampa Tribune, 24 April 2009

By JOSE PATINO GIRONA

Since age 6, Chaz Mena has revered Jose Marti, the 19th century Cuban patriot, poet, journalist and thinker. His Cuban-born grandfather gave him a book of Marti’s writings for children and a picture book of the Cuban leader. He has kept the Cuban writer at a reachable distance from that first encounter. When he went to study theater in Russia, he took a book of Marti’s writings to have a familiar companion. Two years ago, the Florida Humanities Council asked Mena, a New York-based actor, to perform a one-act play connecting Marti’s work to Florida’s history. He will perform “Charla, a Chat with Jose Marti,” at 1 p.m. Saturday at the West Tampa Branch Library, 2312 W. Union St. Mena’s Chautauqua performance begins when Marti came to Ybor City for one week in November 1891.

The Cuban Workers Federation had invited Marti to speak and promote Cuban independence from Spain. After Mena completes his monologue, the performance turns into a question-and-answer session with the audience while Mena remains in character. In Marti, Mena found someone who easily empathized with others. “It is said that once you met Marti you were a different person from meeting him,” Mena said. People were struck by Marti’s loving and comforting approach, Mena said. He easily could focus and listen to people, he said. “He unapologetically tried to perfect his humanity,” Mena said. “Those that give to others receive 10 times more.” Mena said Marti’s writings have changed him. It has pushed him to be more understanding, compassionate and loving to others, he said. It has also helped motivate him to learn about his family’s homeland and to expand his intellect. Mena, 42, is no starving artist.

He has a master’s in fine arts degree from Carnegie-Mellon University. He has performed in plays throughout the country and appeared in films, television shows and commercials. He plays a recurring character in the television show “Law and Order.” But Marti is a passion for him. About 10 years ago, his wife, Ileana Musa, encouraged him to write a play about Marti but other work got in the way. He said he performs the play because he sees a value in people learning about Marti and is moved when he receives comments from people saying they picked up Marti’s writings after seeing his performance. He also wants people to see that Marti remains relevant. “We are at a crossroad in our American democracy,” Mena said. “We need to decide which way to go. Marti was dealing with those issues in his day.”

Miami mayor tale stands out at 1st Stage New Works Festival

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:25:00 GMT

14 March Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Theater commentary: Miami mayor tale stands out at 1st Stage New Works Festival By Hap Erstein Fewer and fewer theaters these days devote themselves to producing new plays, as Florida Stage does, because they […]

14 March

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Theater commentary: Miami mayor tale stands out at 1st Stage New Works Festival

By Hap Erstein

Fewer and fewer theaters these days devote themselves to producing new plays, as Florida Stage does, because they take nurturing and development, which is hard work.

But the Manalapan company has come up with a entertaining way to include its audience in the process with its 1st Stage New Works Festival. Now in its third year, the festival gave six new plays their initial public exposure and scrutiny over the course of two days — Monday and Tuesday of this week.

Beyond just allowing playwrights an opportunity to hear their plays read by some of South Florida’s best actors, Florida Stage has selected a couple of these scripts each year to produce fully in its following season. And from the quality of material at this year’s festival, it seems likely that such elevation to “next stage” status will continue.

I was able to attend the readings of four of the six scripts, and while none of them seemed fully formed or completely satisfying, most seemed very promising and within a draft or two of being ready for production.

Probably the most successful script was Miami resident Christopher Demos-Brown’s When the Sun Shone Brighter, though it was also one of the more conventional plays amid others that were interestingly experimental in form.

When the Sun Shone Brighter concerns a Cuban-American mayor of Miami-Dade County who is considering a run for the U.S. Senate, despite some skeletons in his closet, and trying to understand the politically motivated murder of his Cuban-exile father decades earlier.

Demos-Brown has a good ear for politico-speak as well as the ethnic rhythms of Miami. The play slips too far into the familiar ground of a police procedural drama, but the playwright’s overlapping dialogue helps elevate it beyond prosaic realism. In the festival, the presentation was also aided considerably by the crafty performance of Chaz Mena as Mayor Jose “Joe” Sanchez-Fors.

A familiar voice to Florida Stage audiences is playwright Carter W. Lewis, whose Golf with Alan Shepard, Women Who Steal and, just last season, Ordinary Nation, have been performed here. A writer of widely varying interest and styles, he was represented at 1st Stage by The Storytelling Ability of a Boy, a verbally nimble, triangular tale of two troubled teens and a young female teacher who tries to befriend them.

The play goes exactly where you think it is headed, towards a shooting incident, but it too avoids linear realism by weaving in and out of the literary efforts of Peck, the title boy, to the point where there is ambiguity as to what actually happens and what is inside Peck’s imagination. The compact, intermission-less play may be too focused on teenage angst to attract Florida Stage’s substantially older audience, but Carter captures the sullen expressions of the teens well and the script will surely be produced somewhere.

“Ambitious” is the word to describe 27-year-old Andrew Rosendorf’s three-act coming-of-age, family slice-of-life memory play, Levittown, or The Fall of the Lone Ranger. Rosendorf is the Emerging Playwright-in-Residence at Florida Stage through the National New Play Network and he is a writer to be reckoned with, even if his imaginative script overreaches and is overwritten.

It takes place in the 1950s in the waning days of the Golden Age of Radio, as the influence of television is about to arrive in the Edelman home in Westchester, N.Y. Fifteen-year-old Ronnie fancies himself a writer, as is his father, who works for a formerly popular radio comedy show. So while we observe the stresses of Ronnie’s bickering parents, his Hollywood-bound older sister and his Korean War-damaged brother, Ronnie envisions them all as characters in radio — sound effects included.

The play’s strength is in its dual levels of real life and radio life, and it becomes a lot less interesting when Rosendorf moves away from that idea in his naturalistic, sentimental third act. Nor does it help that Levittown has such strong echoes of Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound. Considerable more reworking is needed before the play is ready for production, but Rosendorf is a writer to keep an eye on.

Curiously, the effort of the most experienced playwright in the festival was the most disappointing. Veteran dramatist Israel Horowitz (The Indian Wants the Bronx, Park Your Car in Harvard Yard and some 68 other scripts), this year’s keynote speaker, was also represented by a new play, The P Word.

It is the story of a blue-collar New England family, the teenage daughter’s unexpected pregnancy and her mother’s parallel dilemma when her biological father comes back into her life, however briefly. The play was inspired by, but is only tangentially about, a “pregnancy pact” among 19 high school girls in Horovitz’s adopted town of Gloucester, Mass.

Centering the play on that pact, or at least a character who consciously wanted to become pregnant, would have taken the story beyond the ordinary. Instead, it is about the evils of unprotected sex and the mistakes of mothers and daughters, and feels too familiar.

Although Horovitz is much smarter than The P Word comes across at this point — and he conceded after the reading that he has much more revision ahead — at the moment it feels like a television after school special.

If only the Horovitz who delivered a very personable, clever keynote speech about how the son (and grandson) of a truck driver grew up to be befriended by Samuel Beckett and become the most produced American playwright in France had been more evident in The P Word, the play would have been a lot more compelling. But at almost 70 years old, with as many plays to his credit, he probably is not far from writing another play. The P Word is one to stick in a drawer somewhere.

Cruelly, Florida Stage scheduled a new comedy called Sirens by one of its genuine finds, Deborah Zoe Laufer (The Last Schwartz, End Days), at 10 a.m. Tuesday, too early for me to get to. I also missed former actor and author of garden books Jack Staub’s Running Out.

Still, for the assembled new play fans that Florida Stage has amassed over the years, 1st Stage is a treasured part of the local theatrical landscape.

Tampa Tribune on BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 20:12:00 GMT

‘Waters of Babylon’ has great chemistry, but formula’s off By John Fleming, Times performing arts critic In print: Thursday, September 25, 2008 The story: Boy meets girl, except they’ve got more baggage than usual in By the Waters of Babylon, […]

‘Waters of Babylon’

has great chemistry,

but formula’s off

By John Fleming, Times performing arts critic
In print: Thursday, September 25, 2008

The story: Boy meets girl, except they’ve got more baggage than usual in By the Waters of Babylon, the two-person play by Robert Schenkkan that opens American Stage’s 30th anniversary season. It’s about the unlikely relationship between Catherine (Julie Rowe), the widow of an abusive college professor, and her gardener, Arturo (Chaz Mena), who turns out to be a novelist, exiled from Fidel Castro’s Cuba because he wouldn’t knuckle under to censorship.

Why we care: Schenkkan won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1992 for The Kentucky Cycle, an epic that calls for 20 actors and is rarely produced because of the expense of hiring them all. Babylon, set in Austin, Texas, and directed by Drew Fracher, is a chance to experience this important playwright’s work on an intimate scale. Why we like it: Strong chemistry between Rowe and Mena energizes the opposites-attract scenario. She’s got loads of screwball charm — “You know why Baptists don’t have sex?” she asks. “It’s too much like dancing!” — and he’s got soulful speeches on the glories of Cuban music and mixes a killer mojito.

Why we don’t: It’s a bit too convenient that Arturo is such a cultivated fellow, a day laborer who just happens to be fluent in French and quotes Ernest Hemingway. And Catherine’s transformation from wise-cracking ditz into psychotic whack job right out of Fatal Attraction strains credulity.

The sexy part: Woman winds up in bed with her gardener (or pool cleaner or cable guy): Babylon could be seen as a high-class homage to a million porn fantasies. The bedroom scene between Catherine and Arturo is pretty steamy. There was an audible gasp from the Sunday matinee audience when Mena dropped the purple sheet draped around him to flash some bare butt. Reminds us of: Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, another play about the developing relationship of two ordinary people, a short-order cook and a waitress.

Should you go? Sure, especially if you’re interested in some gardening tips.

What is the best way of making money? HELIUM ONLINE MAGAZINE

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:09:00 GMT

12 November What is the best way of making money? HELIUM ONLINE MAGAZINE by David Gittlin Chaz Mena is a man of passion. Whether it is creating roles for the stage and screen or spending time with family and friends, […]

12 November

What is the best way of making money? HELIUM ONLINE MAGAZINE

by David Gittlin

Chaz Mena is a man of passion. Whether it is creating roles for the stage and screen or spending time with family and friends, there is nothing this forty-one year old, Cuban-American actor does half way.

Chaz was born and raised in Miami, Florida where his earliest memories included scenes of his parents and grandparents telling each other stories of daily life in their long lost homeland of Cuba. Today, the population of South Florida is predominantly Spanish speaking. A large segment of the Hispanic population is Cuban-American. This is the exact opposite of the situation in the early Sixties. At the time, the first waves of Cuban exiles were literally lost in America. Chaz remembers “coming alive” when listening to the colorful stories his family members acted out on the front porch of their two story home in “Little Havana.” In hindsight, Mena realizes that telling these stories in a theatrical style enabled his family members to reconnect with their history and culture. These childhood experiences and an innate drive to tell a story that creates a shared experience have made Chaz Mena the man he is today.

After completing an MFA in Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, Mena arrived back in Miami with eighty thousand dollars in debts from his undergraduate and graduate studies. Even worse, he didn’t have a single lead or personal contact that might lead to gainful employment. It took a full week of sleeping in bed and the encouragement of wife Ileana before Mena was able to face the situation. He had been brought up to be a man of action rather than words. This led him to bravely pursue his childhood dream of becoming an actor without worrying about the consequences. Now, the first of many gut-wrenching reality checks Chaz Mena would have to learn to deal with waited unannounced on his doorstep.

By working odd jobs, Mena scraped together a nest egg of three thousand dollars. He set sail for New York City to establish himself as a legitimate, working actor. Chaz leased an apartment and began searching for an agent and acting roles. A few months later, Mena was penniless. All he had to show for his earnest efforts was a case of walking pneumonia. Then, serendipity or something akin to Divine Intervention changed Mena’s fortunes. While auditioning for a stage role, Chaz met the manager of the Spanish Repertoire Theater. The manager, whose name was Gilberto, recognized Mena’s family name. It turned out Gilberto had gone to college with Chaz’s father. He liked the father and enjoyed having his son, who bore a striking resemblance to Gilberto’s old college mate, around. “It made him feel young again,” Mena explains. So Chaz became a regular member of the theater company, which gave him the opportunity to play as many as six roles at a time in classical and contemporary Spanish speaking plays written by Spanish playwrights. The Spanish Repertoire Theater was the vehicle that launched Mena’s career. He began landing roles on TV and in Independent films. Mena was now living his dream as a respected and well-reviewed New York actor. Yet something was still missing.

Mena says he felt like “a fisherman constantly casting his line for roles with no real anchor. ” It isn’t hard to understand this statement since most actors live from role to role in their working life. One night, as Chaz was lamenting about the situation to his best friend Juan Carlos, something amazing happened. Instead of commiserating with Mena, Juan Carlos came up with an inspired idea. He knew Chaz had been, from early boyhood, a fan and avid reader of the work of Jose Marti, a 19th century Cuban Poet, Humanist, and Revolutionary. Juan Carlos suggested that Chaz write a one man play about Marti and act the role of the man whose ideas were instrumental in helping Cuba win independence from Spanish colonization. Chaz’s response to his friend’s idea might have been, “Are you kidding?” if not for the fact that Juan Carlos was a member of the Board of Directors of the Florida Humanities Council. All Chaz needed was his resume, some head shots, and of course, the play, Juan Carlos explained. He chose to ignore the fact that Chaz had never written anything for the stage or screen before in his life. Nevertheless, the next morning, Mena woke up with the first sentence of the play in his head: “Jose is still with us.”

Nowadays, between stage and screen roles, Mena travels to colleges and universities to enact the one man show with the sponsorship of the Florida Humanities council. As part of the presentation, audience members can ask questions and hear a carefully researched answer from the actor who has brought a great historical figure and his ideas to life. Getting into character, Mena expresses a “Martiano” idea: “That which is beautiful is moral. That which is moral is beautiful.

Cuban hero a man of passion, action–Florida Today

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:08:00 GMT

04 November Cuban hero a man of passion, action–Florida Today BY LARRY JOHNSTON • ALWAYS LEARNING MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2008 For more than 45 years, the U.S. has had no diplomatic ties with Cuba. This is sad. It’s as if […]

04 November

Cuban hero a man of passion, action–Florida Today

BY LARRY JOHNSTON • ALWAYS LEARNING
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2008

For more than 45 years, the U.S. has had no diplomatic ties with Cuba. This is sad. It’s as if ignoring something will make it go away. Here is a country only 90 miles away, and our government pretends it doesn’t exist. This is the type of logic we expect from a child. Have you ever tried to think something away? It doesn’t work. There is so much we don’t know about Cuba. For example, can you name any one of its historic national heroes? Fidel Castro doesn’t count.

I’ll give you one: Jose Marti. You might say he was the Cuban equivalent of a Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau all in one. Though he was born in 1853, I had the privilege of meeting and listening to the man as played by Mr. Chaz Mena. This engaging performance came courtesy of the Brevard Reading Festival. The year was 1891, and it was the day before an important speech to a group of Cuban exiles living in Ybor City near Tampa.
Mr. Marti practiced his speech before those of us in the audience. He asked us which phrases and inflections might be more convincing and effective.

We learned his fight for independence started early. He was jailed at 16 and spent two years in prison for treason. Following his release, he lived in France, Mexico and the U.S., picking up ideas and gathering important friends along the way. He must have left quite an impression on the people of New York. They erected a statue of him on horseback in Central Park. It still is there. He must have left a pretty good impression on the citizens of Ybor City, because there is a bust of him there, too.

My brief encounter with the reincarnated Marti exposed me to a multifaceted man. He was a man of passion and action, who, together with everything else, wrote poetry and children’s books. He told us about a teacher who taught him that verbs are the heart of sentences, not the adjectives. He realized the same is true of humankind. Our worth is measured by the actions we take, not how colorful we are.

Marti returned to Cuba to fight for his country. He died leading a raid against the Spanish in 1895. But Cuba did gain its independence eventually, though some may say only temporarily.
It was a pleasure meeting Mr. Marti through Mr. Mena. Mr. Marti left behind some words you may know. Let me quote a few of them.

“I am a sincere man from where the palm tree grows, and before dying I want to share the verses of my soul . . . With the poor people of the earth I want to share my fate. The brook of the mountains gives me more pleasure than the sea.”Sound familiar? It should. His words became the lyrics to the once very popular song by the Sandpipers called “Guantanamera.” It also is the unofficial national anthem of Cuba.

Now you have no excuse for not remembering at least something about one of Cuba’s national heroes. Of course, you will be humming that song for the rest of the day. Try thinking it away and see how well it works. Then report your success to those in Washington who want to think away Cuba.

Johnston is a retired juvenile court judge who travels the country to see what he can discover, proving you’re never too old to learn something new.

Fiddler on the Roof

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:33:00 GMT

For a Jewish theater company staging its first show in a new venue, “Fiddler on the Roof” would seem an obligatory choice. After all, that musical still reigns as the big papa of the Jewish theatrical canon. And its central […]

For a Jewish theater company staging its first show in a new venue, “Fiddler on the Roof” would seem an obligatory choice.

After all, that musical still reigns as the big papa of the Jewish theatrical canon. And its central theme, making the best of change, makes for one mighty metaphor.

Thankfully, there’s nothing perfunctory about the “Fiddler” being produced by Arizona Jewish Theatre Company – the professional company uprooted from its central Phoenix playhouse and now, opening its 20th season, having settled into the 300-seat performing arts center at Paradise Valley Community College.

On an elaborate and intricate set (on loan from the Wichita Music Theatre) suggesting a quaint Disney village rendered in pastels, this “Fiddler” offers something emotionally rewarding, exceedingly amusing and entirely fresh.

Much of that has to do with the star, pro New York import Chaz Mena. He plays Tevye, a poor milkman in Tsarist Russia whose daughters’ marriages progressively defy religious tradition. It’s a performance, directed by “Fiddler” vet Claude File, that makes all the usual nods to Broadway’s

Zero Mostel – but with the addition of a wry wit, a boyish twinkle in his eye, and a hint of F. Murray Abraham in his delivery, adding up to something wholly charming and great.

It helps that Mena’s backed by some of the Valley’s brightest acting talents, including Cathy Dresbach as Yente, the comic local matchmaker, and Maria Amorocho as Tevye’s wife, Golde. Some surprisingly wonderful performances come from locals Michael Stewart, Carly Vernon and Amanda

Kuchinski, as well, as three of the six young wooers eschewing custom.

The new venue affords certain luxuries unavailable to Arizona Jewish Theatre Company in its former, smaller space, including an orchestra pit – Daniel Kurek’s 12-piece group delivers solid accompaniment to the show’s beloved tunes (“If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” “Miracle of Miracles”) – and walkways stretching from the proscenium out alongside the audience, which director File takes advantage of, spilling his large cast out to surround us in Sabbath ceremony.

If there’s any fault in this “Fiddler,” it’s the nagging sight of a few awful, rather phony-looking beards scattered among the natural ones. (They don’t grow ’em like they used to, perhaps.)

There are those of us who’ve seen more “Fiddlers on the Roof” than a flood at the Grand Ole Opry – yet here’s a production of the musical proving there are always new delights to be found within.

Talk about miracle of miracles.

Arizona Jewish Theatre Company’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ runs 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sundays, closing Oct. 21, at the Paradise Valley Community College Center for the Performing Arts, 18401 N. 32nd St., Phoenix. $40-$60, discounts for children and seniors, $15 student rush. (602) 264-0402 or www.azjewishtheatre.org .

Grade: A-

American Stage puts on Schennkan’s by the Waters of Babylon

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:16:00 GMT

Published 10.01.08 By Mark E. Leib By the Waters of Babylon 2.5 stars American Stage, 211 Third St. S., St. Petersburg, 727-823-PLAY. Runs through Oct. 12. 7:30 p.m. Wed. and Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., and 3 p.m. Sat. […]

Published 10.01.08

By Mark E. Leib

By the Waters of Babylon

2.5 stars

American Stage, 211 Third St. S., St. Petersburg, 727-823-PLAY. Runs through Oct. 12. 7:30 p.m. Wed. and Thurs., 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat., and 3 p.m. Sat. and Sun. $24-$39, student rush $10.

Let’s call it the “Conjunction of Opposites” type of play: Two people who couldn’t seem more different are thrown together by fate or law or need or accident, and come, after some difficulties, to respect and love one another. These plays come in the form of Visiting Mr. Green, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, Educating Rita or, these days at American Stage, By the Waters of Babylon. The subtext of the play is idyllic and politically correct: Deep down we’re all the same, plus we’re wonderfully understanding, and anyway we need each other’s help in order to heal our secret wounds. Who wouldn’t be uplifted by such a play and such a message? So what if it’s formulaic and even manipulative? Who’d be so churlish as to say that he or she wasn’t uplifted — or even moved?

Me. Liberal, soft-hearted, I-wish-things-were-this-simple me.

It’s not that author Robert Schennkan doesn’t know where our sympathies lie and how to jerk them around. Schennkan is an accomplished wordsmith whose dramaturgy is nearly flawless and who gives two talented actors — in this case Julie Rowe and Chaz Mena — the opportunity to play everything from gentle lyricism to violent madness in the course of two perfectly calibrated acts. But the whole problem of the play is that it’s utterly transparent: We know so exactly what we’re supposed to feel from moment to moment that it becomes impossible to feel it.

I’m glad to know that there are writers like Schennkan — with the right values, with deep respect for women and immigrants. But it takes more than moral clarity to make a play work. If life were as manageable as this drama ultimately suggests, most of human history would never have happened.

By the Waters of Babylon is about Catherine, a widow, and Arturo, the Cuban man whom she employs one day as her gardener. Catherine, we learn, is being “shunned” by her neighbors as a “harpie” and “slut,” for reasons that will ultimately become clear. Her late husband Edgar, she says early on, was a tight-fisted academic, possibly an alcoholic, and he died of a heart attack — though she “jokes” at one point that she murdered him herself. Catherine’s great regret is that she never had a child, that she miscarried the one time she was pregnant. As to her connection to Cuba, the only one she can think of is that her parents honeymooned there before Castro took over. Catherine is lonely and neurotic and just ready for some kind of relationship with Arturo. In a play this formulaic, it’s inevitable that they’ll connect.

Arturo is a little more interesting than his employer. He’s a poet who found Cuban censorship just too hard to take, and on an impulse set out with a few other men on a fishing boat for what should have been a short journey to Florida. But the boat ran out of gas, the brief transit turned into a long nightmare, and now he has such a severe case of survivor’s guilt, he can’t bring himself to write another word. After establishing his equality with his American boss, he teaches her to dance (I found this whole sequence a cliché), how to make a mojito (lots of rum), and just maybe how to transcend certain terrible memories.

Most of all, though, Arturo is a stereotype: the romantic Latin with poetry in his soul, unafraid to cry openly, a born lover but temperamental. Arturo has a kind of grudging respect for “El Jefe” — nobody in Cuba calls Castro by his name, he tells us — and has a few fine moments utterly untouched by cliché, as when he defines Cuban music as the merging of the spirit of two groups of exiles, Spaniards and slaves (and his explanation of Che Guevara’s continuing popularity in Cuba is brilliant and persuasive).

If you don’t know what’s coming for Catherine and Arturo, you haven’t been watching much television or reading supermarket novels. The only really suspenseful question is: What’ll happen to them afterward? Can a well-off Anglo woman find happiness with a Cuban day laborer? And can this laborer give her 20 years of psychotherapy in 10 minutes?

The acting is luminous even as the narrative fails, again and again, to rise above triteness. Mena as Arturo is a dream of good intentions and emotional availability, while the ever-dependable Rowe offers us an initially likable image of dotty loneliness, social insecurity and, ultimately, dangerous anger. Director Drew Fracher’s skillful staging contains some moderately explicit moments (sexually and confessionally), and Jeffrey W. Dean’s two sets give us a credible exterior and interior of Catherine’s house. The last half or so of Act 2 is genuinely surprising — which means things finally get interesting — but no sooner has author Schennkan given Catherine a really serious, apparently intractable problem than he purports to solve it with some imaginative hocus-pocus. Not wanting to give anything away, I’ll just say that if this solution works, then so should Sarah Palin’s vast experience in geopolitics.

I didn’t buy it. I don’t think you will either. I think you’ll walk away from the theater wondering, as I did, whether anybody actually went where this utterly manipulative drama tried to take them.

At least its heart is in the right place. That has some virtue. All that’s missing is the mystery, the ambiguity and the messiness of artistic honesty.

Theatre Times (California Press)

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:57:00 GMT

Alexandros by Melinda Lopez, directed by David Ellenstein World Premiere Laguna Playhouse • June 6-July 20, 2008 (Opened 6/6, rev’d 6/7) WITH Saundra Santiago, Katharine Luckinbill, Maria Cellario, Chaz Mena, Kevin Symons PRODUCTION Marty Burnett, set; Julie Keen, costumes; Paulie […]

Alexandros

by Melinda Lopez, directed by David Ellenstein World Premiere

Laguna Playhouse • June 6-July 20, 2008 (Opened 6/6, rev’d 6/7)

WITH Saundra Santiago, Katharine Luckinbill, Maria Cellario, Chaz Mena, Kevin Symons PRODUCTION Marty Burnett, set; Julie Keen, costumes; Paulie Jenkins, lights; David Edwards, sound; Rebecca Michelle Green/Jennifer Ellen Butler, stage management. Commissioned by Laguna Playhouse

It takes some time to determine where Melinda Lopez is going in ‘Alexandros,’ the second of her Cuba-America bridge plays to play at the commissioning Laguna Playhouse (through June 29). Unfortunately, once we’re at our destination, even with a ‘come out, come out’ subplot that’s easier said in 2008 than done in the play’s Watergate-era setting, the package feels dull on arrival. Getting there, clearly intended to be more than half the fun, is an uneven ramble of farce, superficial character study, and stock characters. There’s the forgetful grandma, the extroverted but self-obsessed party-mom, and the quiet piano-student teen who harbors insights capable of unlocking the full potential of her older, inauthentic kin.

Lopez challenges director David Ellenstein to balance the serious messages of living honestly (which we ignore, as the excerpted resignation speech of President Nixon attests, at our peril) and the wacky doings of the oddly constructed characters. He achieves only mixed success. The best realized performance is that of Chaz Meña, vaguely invocative of some Andy Garcia – Ron Silver hybrid (not that weird a description when you consider this Latino has starred as Tevya). Whether he’s running around like a lost Marx brother or sincerely peeking out the closet door, Meña is not only believable but likable.

His scenes with Kevin Symons, who also rises above the material, are always engaging, which begs the question of why it is the men who fare better in a story largely about women by a woman. It may be that she has written them more simply, and objectively. The real women who Lopez has grown up with, and who are inescapably sources for her work, may present more important characteristics to wrestle into the work. The men are more simply drawn, and colored with more empathy.

The story centers around a reunion of sorts for a shrinking family of Cuban émigrés. (The play title is the family dog’s name, and points to the Greek showbiz persona one character adopted to hide his true ethnicity.) There are: Abuela (Maria Cellario), the forgetful grand dame whose memory is a convenience store for plot and playwright; her son, Tio (Meña); her daughter, Maritza (Saundra Santiago); and her granddaughter Marty (Katharine Luckenbill). Marty, named after Radio Marti, will honor her namesake as the play’s voice of freedom. The fifth wheel is Eric (Kevin Symons), the extra-familial and overly familiar gardener, whose only possible landscaping talent is back-hoeing.

Despite the appeal of the clarity given the male lovers’ story, it’s Lopez’ three generations of women who demand our attention. In the center is Maritza. The first question is, can her ten-year absence from her declining mother be excused, when it was only the distance between Texas and Florida separating them? As NASA’s Lisa Nowak proved, if you care enough, you can make that drive in no time.

Probably, because it was necessary for Marty to have become mature enough to make her assessments of the others as a semi-equal without them all being so inside each others’ lives so that there was no need for disclosures and revelations. But, for the plot to work, the logic of this family doesn’t. Not without there being some exculpatory dialogue. That would also be useful to make Maritza more likeable, especially challenging after we’ve come to realize that the only reason she has returned: she’s down to her last $4000 after the wheels have come off her second marriage. Her relationships with husbands, daughter, mother and brother are unclear, and it’s hard to keep sluicing through dialogue to mine greater definition when we have a demented grandma with psychic powers and her cruise entertainer son with the faux-gardener boyfriend making sure we don’t take things too seriously.

All these sins are forgivable if the comedy works. But on a set that often seems too big, with an emotional range in Luckenbill’s pivotal performance that seems too narrow, it mostly does not. Luckenbill needs to find a way to play glum and still invite us in.

One of the funniest bits, when characters communicate through a patio door using sign language to avoid detection, really works, and shows both the comedy and subtext about the silliness of deception. However, given the too-small door they must play through, it may be a directorial flourish that came after design meetings would have allowed Marty Burnett to opt for a wider door that would really let us enjoy it more.

Still, the message is a good one: Don’t hold back your true feelings. Be honest, forthright and don’t worry about what the others in the family are going to think. So, we have written our feelings in kind.

‘Alexandros’ is

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:07:00 GMT

fitfully successful in Laguna Playhouse premiere A new comedy about a dysfunctional Cuban-American family struggles with problems of tone but presents some memorable characters. By PAUL HODGINS, The Orange County Register Abuela appraises her 15-year-old her granddaughter Marty for the […]

fitfully successful

in Laguna Playhouse premiere

A new comedy about a dysfunctional Cuban-American family struggles with problems of tone but presents some memorable characters.

By PAUL HODGINS, The Orange County Register

Abuela appraises her 15-year-old her granddaughter Marty for the first time in a decade. “Enorme!” she says, marveling over how much the girl has grown.

“She says you’re very beautiful,” Marty’s mom, Maritza, quickly adds.

That moment near the beginning of “Alexandros,” a new play by Melinda Lopez making its world premiere at the Laguna Playhouse, nicely captures its themes. This dysfunctional Cuban-American family walks gingerly on a bed of lies, and Maritza’s decision to leave her Miami clan and raise her girl in Texas has created a gulf between Abeula and Marty that a simple reunion won’t solve. Their language barrier (Marty doesn’t speak Spanish, and Abuela’s English is limited) is only the beginning of the problem.

Lopez presents some thorny issues in this script, which was commissioned by the playhouse after positive response to its West Coast premiere of her play “Sonia Flew” last season. But the tone of intermittent farce punctuated by serious interludes isn’t always a comfortable fit for the material. And Lopez’ attempts to make this family’s situation resonate with the bigger picture (it’s the summer of 1974, and President Nixon is about to pay the ultimate price for his lies) isn’t convincing.

“Sonia Flew,” about the relocation of Cuban children in adoptive American homes after Castro’s ascendancy, weaved together elements of Magic Realism and straight-ahead drama, and Lopez worked with assurance in that language. Lopez isn’t as familiar with the mechanics of domestic dramedy, and at times “Alexandros” devolves into sitcom shallowness.

But at its best, the play achieves what I think Lopez set out to do: illuminate both the tragedy and comic absurdity of a family that copes with past traumas and present difficulties through denial and dissembling.

Maritza (Saundra Santiago) has been persuaded by her brother Tio (Chaz Mena) to travel from her Texas home to see her mother Abuela (Maria Cellario) in Miami. It’s Abuela’s 75th birthday, but she’s in no mood to celebrate. “Welcome to my funeral,” she announces to her shocked well-wishers.

The opening scene sets the tone. It begins in the dark, and chaos reigns. Alexandros, Abuela’s ancient lap dog, bites Maritza when she tries to greet him. After the lights go up, the frenzy of hugs and kisses excludes Marty (Katharine Luckinbill), who stands near the door, suitcase in hand, looking like a stranger who’s wandered into the wrong home. As Marty’s sullen attitude and peace-symbol earrings hint, Maritza will soon be in for a couple years of full-blown teen ‘tude and open rebellion.

To all appearances, they’re a loving and successful family. Abuela lives in a ’70s-stylish Miami home. Tio is a busy entertainer on cruise ships. Maritza, whose first husband died, is married to a wealthy Texas doctor, dresses like a well-kept woman and drives a Mercedes. Marty is thriving in an expensive music school, where she studies classical piano.

But all is not what it seems. Why didn’t Martiza’s husband tag along for the visit? Why did she drive all the way from Texas to Florida? Why does the gardener, an affable guy named Eric (Kevin Symons), insist on dropping in for the birthday celebrations? And why does Tio put on a cheesy Greek accent when he talks to Eric?

These questions and many others are answered in the course of this two-hour show. Along the way are moments of clever comedy, along with stretches of shtick that seem forced. In the second act, when things get more serious and the light of truth is finally shined on everyone, “Alexandros” gains gravitas and, not surprisingly, pulls us in.

Some actors seem more at ease with Lopez’ hybrid tone than others.

Mena is well suited to this kind of script. He’s an energetic performer who knows how to get a laugh out of manic pratfalls, but his serious scenes are persuasive, too. Santiago has her poignant moments, but seems less adept than Mena at switching from pathos to humor. Cellario plays an archetype – the loving matriarch whose warmth hides a backbone of steel – but brings humanity to the role.

As troubled Marty, Luckinbill’s bag of tricks seems limited at first. There’s more to seething teen angst than slumped shoulders and bad posture. But Marty is given more pivotal scenes in the second act, and Luckinbill rises to her character’s demands when it counts.

Symons plays the story’s least plausible character (for reasons that I can’t reveal without spoiling the plot), but the actor’s powers of charm somehow power through his character’s obvious weaknesses.

David Ellenstein directs with a good feel for the dictates of physical comedy, although Marty Burnett’s broad, smooth-flowing set presents problems with certain crucial bathroom scenes that even the most capable director couldn’t solve. Julie Keen’s costumes capture the glorious, colorful train wreck that was fashion in the ’70s.

Though “Alexandros” is flawed, it shows promise. Lopez should keep writing in this vein – perhaps even about this clan. There’s enough baggage here for five more plays, and I want to see the fireworks that result as new realities are dealt with and everyone endures a family’s worst nightmare: a disgruntled and self-righteous teen.

Contact the writer: 714-796-7979 or phodgins@ocregister.com

In Melinda Lopez’s comedy ‘Alexandros,’ a gathering of a Cuban American clan doesn’t go as planned.

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:06:00 GMT

By David Ng, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer June 2, 2008 If for no other reason, family reunions exist to give writers ample material for their stories of dinner-table dysfunctionality. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Other people’s domestic traumas […]

By David Ng, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

June 2, 2008

If for no other reason, family reunions exist to give writers ample material for their stories of dinner-table dysfunctionality. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Other people’s domestic traumas have yielded some of theater’s finest masterpieces.
Unfortunately, Melinda Lopez’s “Alexandros” isn’t one of them. This ensemble piece, having its world premiere at the Laguna Playhouse, is a family-reunion comedy that uses ethnic spice to enliven its reheated premise. A Cuban family living in Miami reunites to celebrate the 75th birthday of its matriarch (Maria Cellario). The party brings three generations together under one tempestuous (and pink-tiled) roof.

This occasionally funny play adheres to the family-reunion axiom that buried secrets must be revealed at the most awkward possible moments. The eldest daughter, Maritza (Saundra Santiago), is a vivacious society lady who doesn’t want her family to know about her impending divorce from her wealthy husband. Her brother, Tio (Chaz Mena), is a cruise ship performer who prefers to keep his relationship with the family gardener (Kevin Symons) buried deep in the closet.

Emotional catharsis arrives courtesy of two unlikely interlopers. The old lady’s lap dog, Alexandros (played by a stuffed animal), experiences a mysterious fate that throws the entire household into chaos. Meanwhile, the granddaughter, Marty, accidentally discovers her uncle’s clandestine liaison and must do everything to keep herself from spilling the secret. She’s played by Katharine Luckinbill, who is best known as the granddaughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Perhaps appropriately, much of “Alexandros” plays like a 1950s sitcom. The characters are often pulling their faces into exaggerated expressions and constantly running around the set like a bunch of lunatics. The dialogue seems timed to match an imaginary laugh track. And the obligatory family-values lessons of the third act are dutifully reinforced.

The actual setting of the play is August 1974, on the eve of President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The historical backdrop provides some convenient story parallels — the toppling of authority, the outing of secrets and the beginning of a new era. It’s a rather grandiose metaphor for such a modest play, but it does have the benefit of allowing the production team to indulge in garish ’70s fashion, including bell-bottoms, big-collared shirts and fluorescent hot pants.

“Alexandros” contains some marvelously off-kilter scenes, most of them involving the flamboyant Tio. In one moment of stress, he performs an outrageously hammy rendition of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” on the family piano. Later, after much has been revealed, he childishly buries his face in a pillow for what seems like an eternity. Mena’s wild but controlled performance turns a cliched role into something verging on experimental art.

The female cast members aren’t nearly as successful with their parts, though that’s mostly the fault of the playwright, who has created a gallery of stock Latinas. The grandmother is an overbearing matron obsessed with fortune telling, while her daughter is a hot-tempered firecracker who is always breaking out into cha-cha-cha dance moves. But worst of all is the granddaughter, a fully Americanized teenager who is predictably hostile to her ethnic relatives but then comes to embrace the value of her cultural heritage.

Directed by David Ellenstein, “Alexandros” is pitched as a screwball comedy, but the production’s aim is slightly askew. The play teeters indecisively between outright frivolity and moments of psychological gravitas. “He was a lot of sad with his happy,” says one character, and that line sums up the play’s rather unbalanced tone of tragicomedy.

Lopez, whose “Sonia Flew” premiered last season at Laguna, knows how to juggle characters and write fast-paced scenes. But no amount of cleverness, or Latin exoticism for that matter, can conceal that she’s essentially serving up leftovers.

Actor transforms into José Martí for one-man show

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:39:00 GMT

BY BARBRA HERNANDEZVOZ LATINA OCALA – Chaz Mena cannot conceal his excitement. Even if he wanted to, the joy in his words would be enough to give him away. He speaks of Cuba and its heroes with nostalgic pride. The […]

BY BARBRA HERNANDEZVOZ LATINA

OCALA – Chaz Mena cannot conceal his excitement. Even if he wanted to, the joy in his words would be enough to give him away. He speaks of Cuba and its heroes with nostalgic pride. The same one his father, an exiled Cuban, instilled in him as a child.But among all the men and women Mena grew up listening to stories about, the name of José Martí evokes special memories.”Martí, to me, is like a family member,” Mena said in a telephone conversation. “It’s hard to be Cuban and talk about him objectively because it’s like talking about an uncle or a cousin.”Today, the childhood stories take on a bigger meaning as Mena prepares to embody the renowned Cuban independence leader. The seasoned actor will recreate moments in the life of Martí in the theatrical performance “Charla: A Chat with José Martí”. In it, members of the audience will be able to “interact” with the famous political figure.Mena will take the stage at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Central Florida Community College’s Webber Center. Admission is free and open to the public.Born in New York to Cuban parents, Mena grew deeply interested in his cultural heritage at an early age. Martí’s name, he acknowledges, was as common in the Mena household as that of any other family member.The revolutionary’s literature accompanied Mena almost at all times. He especially recalls how, as a drama student in Russia, Martí’s poetry served him as inspiration.”Every time I read his verses, I pulled out more strength. It restored my spirit,” Mena said.All the years of reading and listening about his favorite Cuban leader were but a preamble to Mena’s transformation into his latest role. Becoming Martí represented a challenge – one he was not willing to give up.With a research scholarship from the Florida Humanities Council, Mena plunged into Martí’s extensive literature, translating and condensing ideas into a 45-minute performance. Most of the script is based on the political discourse “With All and for the Good of All.”Remaining objective, Mena says, was the hardest part about a project that took him nearly six months to prepare for.”My investigation of the character mostly focused on divorcing the person from the myth,” Mena said. “I wanted to focus on a personal level because I had to transform into him … not an easy thing to do.”The presentation follows the Chautauqua style, a theatrical model that was pioneered in New York near the turn of the 19th century. In it, actors recreate the life of a historical figure and interact with the audience as though they were the person they embody.Although Mena in no way denies his admiration of Martí, he says he aimed for a faithful characterization of the revolutionary. Dressed up in an epoch costume and wearing a thick mustache, Mena will receive his audience with one purpose in mind.”I want them to learn more about Martí and the sociohistorical context of 1891,” he says. “We should not deify our heroes. Instead, we should think about them, or through them.”

Everything Goes Right, Delightfully, After Frau Loses Her Underpants

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:47:00 GMT

From: The Cleveland Plain Dealer Date: March 8, 2004 Author: Tony Brown The Underpants” is exactly the kind of entertainment the Cleveland Play House has been searching for: a play smart enough to be considered literature and slam-bang funny enough […]

From: The Cleveland Plain Dealer
Date: March 8, 2004
Author: Tony Brown

The Underpants” is exactly the kind of entertainment the Cleveland Play House has been searching for: a play smart enough to be considered literature and slam-bang funny enough to qualify as slapstick.

It’s an unbeatable combination that gives us a fun and funny night out that will also satisfy a theatergoer’s hunger for just a little substance.

Although the pacing is a tad slow — the Cleveland production runs about 10 to 15 minutes longer than the zippy, 90-minute version seen off-Broadway in 2002 — the Play House gets just about everything right in this comedy about sex and sexual politics.

The play, about a neglected housewife, Louise Maske, who loses her underpants in public one day and suddenly finds herself pursued by strange men, began life in 1910. It was one in a series of social satires by German playwright Carl Sternheim, who saw his job as poking fun at the grim culture that would someday produce both Adolf Hitler and the Volkswagen Beetle.

Steve Martin, the wild-and-crazy guy who proved himself a playwright in 1993 with “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” takes Sternheim’s already very funny play and sticks a comic arrow through its head.

The resulting play has a quaint, old-time comic feel with a hip, post-feminist edge. There are a couple of clunkers among the flood of jokes, and the story at brief intervals feels a little like a “Saturday Night Live” sketch that is about to go on too long. But the play just barrels ahead, and you can’t help going along for what turns out to be a happy ride.

Most significantly, Martin adds a twist to the ending, introducing a Molieresque deus ex machina to the dramatis personae, a royal character who allows our heroine, she of the fallen bloomers, to triumph over all those exasperating men.

The Play House production, directed with invention, if not always with alacrity, by Artistic Director Peter Hackett, starts off right, from the first instant we see set designer Bill Clarke’s witty take on Dusseldorf’s industrial/suburban landscape.

As Louise’s thoroughly shocked and selfish husband, Theo, Chaz Mena looks like a roly-poly, barbershop-quartet version of a pipsqueak Hitler, the kind of guy who enjoys scolding his wife for being beautiful: “You are much too attractive for a man in my position.”

Happily, Tanya Clarke’s Louise proves him absolutely correct, with her blond ringlets and her cheeks rouged liked a doll’s, not to mention the frilly underthings costume designer Kristine Kearney provides her with. Louise endears us with her innocence while at the same time agreeing to engage in an extramarital affair as a series of men suddenly start showing up, ostensibly to rent a room from the Maskes.

It’s an illicit affair that never takes place, thanks to the flustered urbanity of Sam Gregory as Frank Versati, the poet who is too in love with his words to actually make love to Louise.

Louise gets encouragement from upstairs neighbor Gertrude, played with a randy brand of nosiness by Johanna Morrison. Brad Bellamy works tirelessly as Benjamin Cohen, a shaggy barber who denies his Jewish heritage with the same fervor with which he attempts to protect Louise’s virtue from Versati.

And, as an oddball scientist named Klinglehoff, who really does only want to rent a room and knows nothing of the underpants incident, cutely hapless Ron Wilson brings an extra dose of eccentricity to the proceedings.

Hackett and company play Martin’s surprise addition to Sternheim’s original script with fanfare and blinding light and fog, which may at first seem like a bit too much.

But all the hoo-ha proves just the thing to go out on. And “The Underpants” proves to be just the thing the Play House has been desperately in search of: a bit of a laugh, along with a bit of something to think about on the way home with your own spouse.

The rabbi has something to say

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:46:00 GMT

The rabbi has something to say From: The San Diego Union-Tribune Date April 2, 2001 Author: Anne Marie Welsh Like the wisdom of the Meister Eckhart or Lao-Tzu, the tales of Rabbi Nachman, the last Jewish mystic, come down to […]

The rabbi has something to say
From: The San Diego Union-Tribune
Date April 2, 2001
Author: Anne Marie Welsh

Like the wisdom of the Meister Eckhart or Lao-Tzu, the tales of Rabbi Nachman, the last Jewish mystic, come down to us as sayings: “Through joy the spirit becomes settled; through sadness it goes into exile.” So what’s the meaning of a 225-year old enigma in the age of information? Everything, it turns out, for Elliott Green, the San Francisco nebbish who leaves word processing behind when he meets the rabbi and his creations during Yehuda Hyman’s wild and raw music-and-dance fable, “The Mad Dancers.”

The quirky and surprisingly funny work-in-progress opened Friday at the Lyceum Space as the kickoff to the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival. Don’t worry, be happy, “The Mad Dancers” doesn’t require much historical knowledge of the rabbi from Breslov, impersonated here by John Campion, in a wizardly shape-shifting performance as sweet as it is sharp. Philosopher Martin Buber, who compiled and commented upon Nachman’s 13 published tales, said the nature-loving mystic told his Hasidic stories in response to questions from his disciples. How to rejoice in the midst of sorrow? The answer to that one came in “The Seven Beggars,” the only tale the rabbi did not finish and the one that inspired Hyman’s still-in-process musical.

It opens with Nachman and four followers gathered for one last story-telling session, a confab that rises magnificently into song, before the beloved rabbi fades away from consumption. Stroking the cheeks of his dear friends, his eyes lit with love, Campion’s Nachman pulls us into the narrative, himself becoming some of the beggars, speaking cryptically, time-traveling to meet Elliott, the IBM-er chosen to become a prince of the soul. “May you be as I am,” the rabbi-as-blind man tells Elliott, planting a big wet one on the baffled crack typist’s cheek.

The nerdy anti-hero meets other beggars bearing messages, his strange journey punctuated by comedy sketches, some so hilarious they could play “Saturday Night Live.” Leaving his cubicle behind early on, Elliott heads out onto San Francisco’s Market Street for the compulsive ritual of his morning break. Sip, Bite, Read. A latte, a chocolate croissant, the Chronicle. Sip Bite, Read. Madonna. Britney Spears. Johnny Depp. Writer/choreographer Hyman plays Elliott with a bewildered innocence that’s part Bill Murray, part Candide.

A later sketch is the comedic high point. Elliott has almost made it to the allegorical garden planted by a deaf, sign language-speaking farmer (Jaye Austin-Williams). Instead he chooses the seductions of the Cafe Torrero where a belly dancer undulates, pillows cushion his generous behind and a manic waiter (Chaz Mena) describes the oiling, spicing, rolling, and baking of a chicken with sex-chat gusto.

There’s a wonderful Yemenite song for Steve Gunderson, the local musical comedy pro who’s thoroughly convincing in the curls and robes of a disciple. And playing multiple tempters and villains is Dimiter D. Marinov, sleek, sly, and insinuating.

Director Todd Salovey has managed to unify an evening of many conflicting strands and styles, mostly by the strength of his cast, though also by the simple imaginative power of the staging. The ensemble often performs, whether dancing or not, with the unanimity of a dance company.

Still, there’s a flatness to the action as its sprawling, fairy tale-like narrative circles around a couple of themes rather than gathering momentum and moving forward. Elliott Green is a satiric creation and as he moves deeper into the mystic tales, we expect a soul-revealing discovery, a kind of emotional sea change. Instead the ending relies on external dramatic events, and feels tacked on rather than organic.

Performances, however, are tiptop. Campion has been here often in tough, scary roles, including Yank in “The Hairy Ape” at La Jolla Playhouse, and the sicko womanizer Menelaeus last year at the Old Globe. The range of his talent is quite amazing in “The Mad Dancers.” As Elliott Green, Hyman brings sharp timing to the Yiddish humor and infectious moments of abandon.

If the slow-going second act could find the more effective rhythms of the opening scenes, the show might be more consistently compelling. With some deepening of Green’s character, and an ending that feels more organic, Hyman and Salovey’s revised piece could have a joyous theatrical impact that exactly parallels its life-giving mystical message.

WELL-VERSED ACTORS BRING BLOODY POETRY TO LIFE

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:44:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: November 2, 1993 Author: CHRISTINE DOLEN You might assume that a play about Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, those two great and decidedly unconventional 19th Century British romantic poets, would be arty and full […]

From: The Miami Herald
Date: November 2, 1993
Author: CHRISTINE DOLEN

You might assume that a play about Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, those two great and decidedly unconventional 19th Century British romantic poets, would be arty and full of more poetry than you’ve heard since freshman English. That it would be a literary history lesson, probably a little on the dull side.

Wrong. Oh, I’m sure you could dramatize the Shelley-Byron relationship that way, but British playwright Howard Brenton certainly defies all those expectations in Bloody Poetry, his 1984 play now being given a thrillingly acted revival by the Florida Shakespeare Festival.

With its second production since Hurricane Andrew’s destruction led to a change of both venue and administration, the Coral Gables company further demonstrates its commitment to excellence, staging a provocative play that probably wouldn’t otherwise be seen here — and doing it very, very well.

Bloody Poetry IS a play of ideas, but it also is as juicily lusty a script as you could want. It’s a ready-made romp for good actors, and the six in Florida Shakespeare’s company dare to play it big. Under John Briggs’ intelligent, many-layered direction, they vividly convey the story of reformer-dreamers who inevitably left sorrow in their wake.

Bloody Poetry, whose title is both a curse and a vivid evocation of the poets’ duality (artistic genius coupled with spiritual chaos), spans the time from the first meeting of Shelley (John Baldwin) and Byron ( Chaz Mena ) at Switzerland’s Lake Geneve in 1816 to Shelley’s drowning in Italy in 1822.

Along for the exhilarating/misery-filled sojourn are Shelley’s common-law wife Mary (Liz Dennis), then working on Frankenstein, and her charismatic sister Claire Clairemont (Blaine Dunham), the unapologetic mistress of both men. Also on hand are Byron’s biographer, Dr. William Polidori (Adam Koster), to serve as a scandalized narrator; and, first as a guilt-inducing spirit, then as a ghost, Shelley’s legal wife, Harriet Westbrook (Stephanie Heller).

The actors artfully convey the discrepancy between philosophy and action. When Shelley receives word of Harriet’s death (pregnant by another man and long ignored by her husband, she drowned herself in a shallow lake), Mary’s first reaction is to ask the distraught Shelley to marry HER, though they have both disdained the institution of marriage. Free-loving Claire, pregnant with Byron’s daughter, schemes fruitlessly to wed the overweight, alcoholic, syphilis-ridden poet, who freely admits he prefers making love to boys. These four are unconventional in the extreme and, for all the pleasure it affords them, it also leads to misery and the deaths of their illegitimate children.

The acting, as noted, is wonderful.

Baldwin, often seen with the Acme Acting Company, is strikingly handsome in his frequent agitation, and he artfully conveys the disparity between Shelley’s political idealism and his careless amorality. (You should know that the script calls for him to moon the audience, but the moment is brief and tastefully done.)

Mena , one of South Florida’s best and most versatile actors, brings a detailed wantonness to his Byron, giving the man a slight hobble and a drunken expansiveness. His is the most over-the-top performance, but it works.

Dennis’ Mary initially seems much too restrained, but her cool logic and wounded spirit makes the choice work, as well as providing a contrast to the flamboyance of the others. Dunham is a revelation, making Claire a husky-voiced yet childlike seductress who actually seems to glow. What an alluring performance!

Bloody Poetry is really a kind of ghost story, so David Trimble’s classic and simple set — white curtains, behind which spirits can be outlined in shadow — is a striking and effective design choice.

If you see Bloody Poetry — and you should, if you love good acting — you will most certainly hear some of the verse that made Shelley and Byron literary legends. But you will also get lost in the far more complex and less orderly lives of geniuses who couldn’t shape their lives with anything close to the skill they brought to their poetry.

Havana: Self-Indulgent Destination

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:42:00 GMT

From: The Cincinnati Enquirer Date: September 29, 2002 Author: Jackie Demaline Playhouse in the Park’s Shelterhouse embarks on theatrical adventure this season, inviting audiences to places they haven’t been before. First stop: Havana, an attempt to discover identity by revisiting […]

From: The Cincinnati Enquirer
Date: September 29, 2002
Author: Jackie Demaline

Playhouse in the Park’s Shelterhouse embarks on theatrical adventure this season, inviting audiences to places they haven’t been before.

First stop: Havana, an attempt to discover identity by revisiting the past, a tentative and complicated gay love story (featuring some brief, heavy necking).

The play, in fact, opens with Federico (Chez Mena ) in bed (alone), speaking what, to a melody, would be the sappiest of love songs with gushy rhymes and overly rapturous allusion. This love song isn’t to a longed-for partner, it’s to a long-lost homeland.

Look a little more closely at the largely bare stage and, inlaid in a Caribbean blue floor the silvery shape of Cuba slashes a diagonal across the playing space.

Federico (clearly a stand-in for playwright Eduardo Machado, who is in part inspired by personal experience) was one of the 14,000 Cuban children sent to the United States back in 1960 on now-controversial Pedro Pan airlifts, as parents tried to save their children from a life under Fidel and Communism.

Federico has been consumed by that rupture in his life for three decades. The play’s topic is his eventful first return trip to his homeland even as the issue of a new lost boy, Elian Gonzalez, rages around him.

Under the sure hand of director Ron Daniels, Mr. Machado’s drama gets a far better production than in its world premiere two years ago at the Humana Festival of New American Plays (under the title When the Sea Drowns in Sand).

Federico and his “straight” best friend Fred (Paolo Andino) and their Cuban driver Ernesto (Antonio Edwards Suarez), play off each other beautifully as they explore definitions of identity, friendship – even patriotism.

The topic “embargo” is intermittently dropped into the conversation, usually with the grace of a lead balloon – Mr. Machado doesn’t blend the personal and political with ease.

The performance is flavored by the underscoring of Richard Marquez, playing a variety of Cuban drums on a tiny balcony overlooking the stage.

But Havana is also underscored, far more monotonously, by the “me-me-me” of Federico’s self-involvement.

Mr. Mena does a terrific job of making Federico, an essentially egocentric, self-concerned intellectual, likable.

But his gleeful, ongoing self-torment – “Did I abandon my country? Did it abandon me?” – gets old, in large part because, as a 9-year-old, it wasn’t his decision to stay or go.

I couldn’t help thinking the playwright is as self-indulgent as his central character, whom he has romanticized even as he avoids the scariest questions – and most pertinent – dramatic questions like “Why can’t I let go?”

Leading off a Shelterhouse season that is going to be risky business compared to the recent past I wish the risks were being taken for a better play.

`PICASSO’ PLEASANT, BUT VERY UNEVEN EXTENDED MONOLOGUES A STRONGPOINT

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:39:00 GMT

From Richmond Times-Dispatch Date: May 20, 2000 Author: Roy Proctor Early in Theatre Virginia’s uneven production of Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” the young Albert Einstein (Richard Ruiz) examines a drawing on a scrap of paper. “I never […]

From Richmond Times-Dispatch
Date: May 20, 2000
Author: Roy Proctor

Early in Theatre Virginia’s uneven production of Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” the young Albert Einstein (Richard Ruiz) examines a drawing on a scrap of paper.

“I never thought the 20th century would be handed to me so casually,” he muses after a long pause. “Scratched out in pencil .*.*. tools thousands of years old, waiting for someone to move them in just this way.”

The audience silence is appropriate and profound.

Even though the 1904 happenings in the real Paris bar in Martin’s play are fictional, we have that spine-tingling feeling that we’re standing on the threshold of modern history.

That drawing was made by the young Pablo Picasso ( Chaz Mena ), who will arrive soon at his favorite Montmartre haunt.

Picasso was beginning to attract a following in his “blue period.” He was only three years away from painting his revolutionary cubist masterpiece, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” which turns into an emblem at the back of the stage before the final fade.

Albert Einstein was totally obscure in 1904 – he worked in a patent office in Switzerland – but his moment would come even sooner. He was only a year away from publishing “The Special Theory of Relativity,” which would revolutionize science as thoroughly as “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” would upend art.

Einstein apparently never set foot in Paris – much less the Lapin Agile, which still exists – in 1904. But Martin’s fictional situation is a clever conceit for a play that is philosophical, absurdist, sophisticated and cornball by turns.

At bottom, “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” is a comedy on the edge of farce. Call it a happy valentine to the 20th century.

Some of those profound silences have their effect.

Too often in George Black’s staging, however, they are symptoms of legitimate laughs missed in a production that often runs short of energy, lacks a compelling directorial vision and is finally a matter of each actor fending for himself for shine.

Martin is at his best in extended monologues, and some of the actors run with these to great effect.

Listen to Picasso’s art dealer Sagot (Allan Hickle-Edwards) hold forth on the reasons people won’t buy paintings picturing either sheep or Jesus.

It’s a hoot.

Hear Einstein expound on the virtues of baking an E-shaped pie.

In Ruiz’s telling, it’s delectable.

Or revel in several company members as they speculate on changes the new century will bring and hit on everything from Hiroshima being “completely modernized” to “a craze for automobiles” that will pass.

Martin also springs some nice surprises toward the end.

A “time traveler” (Scott Duffy) arrives in blue suede shoes and proves to be about as startling as the transformation of the pharaoh in “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.” The bar’s walls finally break away to reveal a starry sky full of promise for the young century.

Picasso may be in the title, but this is much more Einstein’s show. Ruiz plays the physicist as a fastidious man with self-assurance in reserve. His laid-back portrayal is not nearly so colorful or interesting, however, as Mena ‘s macho take on the womanizing and occasionally flamenco-dancing Picasso.

Kate Konigisor makes something of the bartender’s mistress, but Jana Thompson has difficulty creating three distinct characters in the other female roles. David Sennett, as a zany inventor, and David Bridgewater, as the bartender, do the expected. Jim Hillgartner’s character tag – continually retreating to the bathroom – soon wears out its welcome despite Hillgartner’s efforts to make it fresh.

Sarah Eckert’s tellingly detailed paneled-bar setting is warmly lighted by John Carter Hailey, but one can question whether it’s not all a bit too dark to set and maintain the mood for comedy. Eckert’s period costumes are more than serviceable.

AT GROVE BERTH, RAFTERS’ PASSAGE IS STILL MOVING

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:35:00 GMT

From The Miami Herald Date: October 5, 1996 Author: CHRISTINE DOLEN Passage, Loretta Greco’s moving and deeply felt play about Cuban rafters who risked life itself for freedom, has found a brief new berth at Miami’s Coconut Grove Playhouse, where […]

From The Miami Herald
Date: October 5, 1996
Author: CHRISTINE DOLEN

Passage, Loretta Greco’s moving and deeply felt play about Cuban rafters who risked life itself for freedom, has found a brief new berth at Miami’s Coconut Grove Playhouse, where it runs through Sunday.

The play’s journey from the tiny, 49-seat Area Stage on Miami Beach to the comparatively vast expanse of the Grove has been a lengthy one — spanning almost six months, involving much shaping of the piece’s stories, adding or changing cast members, earning Passage an incredibly warm embrace from Miami’s Cuban exile community. Drawn from Greco’s interviews with dozens of Cubans in exile and some still in Cuba, this theater-of-testimony is — after all — a story that so many in the play’s audiences have lived.

Moved to the Grove to benefit Facts About Cuban Exiles (FACE) and the Guantanamo Refugee Assistance Project (GRASP), Passage has been physically broadened, with J.C. Rodriguez adapting James Faerron’s artfully run-down set. Two musicians have been added, as have several actors. And since Passage originally opened at Area, the gifted Chaz Mena has assumed the part originated by Carlos Orizondo.

Director John Rodaz has, necessarily, reworked his staging for the Grove’s much broader stage. Time and fine-tuning have tightened the piece, and several performances have grown stronger. Yet curiously, given all the tinkering, most of the flaws and virtues evident in Passage last May remain.

Understand, if you haven’t seen Passage and have a desire to understand what hundreds of thousands in South Florida have endured — or if you’re one of those who endured it — Passage will make that pain, hope, spirit and fear vividly real.

You won’t soon forget Emiliano Diez, as a veteran of Brigade 2506, voicing his frustration at taking in tiny children at Stock Island. You’ll hold your breath as Nattacha Amador tells a mother’s story, of watching a huge shark shadowing the spot where her son sat on a raft, and of the vision of a Chinese man who guided those rafters to safety. You will exult right along with Iris Delgado as she shares a young girl’s tale of plunging into the ocean clad in a black lace dress and satin shoes. And, far more than before, you will feel tears welling as Mena and Delgado tell the story of rafter Eddy Gonzalez, forced to leave his wife and sick baby behind in Cuba.

Still, Passage is political theater that could benefit from broadening of the points of view it represents. It needs more honing, more shaping, stronger focus in some of its stories. You trust that Greco, an astute and gifted ex-Miamian, will achieve that before Passage finds its next berth.

AREA STAGE SCORES WITH SHOCKING BUT HILARIOUS KVETCH

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:33:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: November 14, 1992 Author: Christine Dolan So you say your wife never has dinner on the table when you get home, and when it comes, it looks like burnt mush. And your husband pays you […]

From: The Miami Herald
Date: November 14, 1992
Author: Christine Dolan

So you say your wife never has dinner on the table when you get home, and when it comes, it looks like burnt mush. And your husband pays you a romantic courtesy call maybe once a month, if you’re lucky. And your mother-in-law has more gas than Chevron, a fact you’re reminded of over dinner every damned Friday. And you’re panic-stricken at accepting a dinner invitation because if you do, oh God, you’ll have to reciprocate and you just can’t handle that!

Calm down already. Steven Berkoff understands.

Berkoff’s Kvetch, which has just opened at Miami Beach’s Area Stage, is a kind of owner’s manual of free-floating anxiety. Hilarious and deliberately offensive, it bridges the vast chasm between what we say and what we think.

There’s no easy way to describe the plot of Kvetch,
because the absurdist play constantly stutters back and forth between interactive scenes and monologues revealing the hysterically agonized tapes constantly playing in the characters’ heads.

Frank ( Chaz Mena ) is a Jewish salesman, a blustering basket case who’s never, ever happy. His wife Donna (Karen Gordon) is a nervous wreck as she anticipates Frank’s next tirade, which should occur in two seconds from whenever. Donna’s mom (Ellen Davis) comes to dinner once a week because she thinks she should, not because she wants to, and her daughter’s lousy cooking provokes a symphony of belches and worse. Hal (Dennis Hall), Frank’s soon-to-be-single co-worker, reluctantly comes to dinner, erroneously imagines Frank and Donna to be a charming couple, and drives himself mad with feelings of withering inadequacy. George (Mike Benitez), a cigar-chomping businessman who shows up later, takes pleasure sticking it to Frank and Donna, in different ways.

Berkoff’s stylistic device, which admittedly wears thin now and then, must have been a real killer for director John Rodaz and the cast to master. The playwright rapidly flips from words to the thoughts behind them. Whenever someone voices his or her inner thoughts, the others freeze, the focal character goes nuts, then the action resumes. It requires split-second timing and concentration, and Rodaz has coached his actors to near- perfection.

Mena , Gordon and Hall give the key performances, and they’re a fabulously matched trio. Mena , who just won the Carbonell Award as last season’s best actor for Lisbon Traviata at Area Stage, speaks in a kind of Cuisinart accent (Jewish New Yorker, lapsing into vaguely British speech) but clearly articulates Frank’s constant, frenzied rage. Gordon plays a princess turned bitter, and her deft delivery of two sex-fantasy monologues makes the speeches simultaneously funny and erotic. Hall, with popping eyes and a fixed grin, just looks hilarious, and he makes Hal a man who can barely conceal an ongoing, lifelong nervous breakdown. Darin Jones’ set design is as unorthodox as the play: a giant, crimson-lipped screaming mouth that spews forth these kvetching characters.

A word of warning: If you can’t take nasty humor about Jews, “shiksas,” blacks, old people, bodily functions, gay urges, sex and so on, stay away from Kvetch, ’cause you’ll be enraged. But if you can, go for it. Area’s got another hit.

ACME’S DOLORES RAIN IS LOUD, FLASHY, DERIVATIVE

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:32:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: July 21, 1989 Author: Christine Dolan The spirits of Indians — and of Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard and David Mamet — are alive if not entirely well this week in the Acme Acting Company’s world […]

From: The Miami Herald
Date: July 21, 1989
Author: Christine Dolan

The spirits of Indians — and of Tennessee Williams, Sam Shepard and David Mamet — are alive if not entirely well this week in the Acme Acting Company’s world premiere production of Janyce Lapore’s Dolores Rain.

The play, which is the first offering in Acme’s three-week new play festival in its performance space at Miami Beach’s Strand Restaurant, combines Mamet’s penchant for obscenity, Shepard’s love of myth and violent confrontation, and a maddened and emasculating Williams-style mama — but the result is only sporadically intriguing.

Dolores Rain (Kathleen Emrich) is a tough-talking, middle- aged mama who is loath to cut the umbilical cords, much less the apron strings, that bind her two grown sons to her.

She has managed to keep the stuttering, slightly dim Cassie (Gino Cabanas) close by and under her crushing thumb. But Johnny ( Chaz Mena ), who seems the reincarnation of the drunken Indian husband who long ago got wise and abandoned Dolores — well, Johnny’s gone off and got himself hitched to a silent Southern gal who does nothing but sit in their bedroom and paint her toenails scarlet.

Johnny has brought his bride (who is much-discussed and who ultimately perishes without ever making an appearance) back on the bus to beg Mama for $400 to get set up in his intended career as a novelist. (Sure, he could have saved the dough he spent on two bus fares and avoided the whole incestuous quagmire that is his mother, but then Lapore wouldn’t have had a play.)

Dolores, however, has other ideas. Though she’s a poor- woman’s Hugh Hefner — her favored attire is a tattered blue terry cloth bathrobe, even for takeout trips to Burger King — Dolores is determined to seduce Johnny back into her life on a full-time basis, little scarlet-toed wife be damned.

I don’t envy any actress the challenge of breathing credible life into such a lunatic, but Emrich is wildly out of control. Her Dolores finds and strikes every false note the playwright has composed for her, and rather than being seductive, she seems in need of being sedated. At least she’s already dressed for the trip to the psychiatric ward.

Mena and Cabanas are less interesting when acting with Emrich than when they’re on their own. Director Juan F. Cejas has guided Mena to a charged, highly physical performance that would be at home in Orphans or almost any Shepard play. Cabanas is funny and twitchy, his work full of subtle and appealing touches. The production is classic Acme — loud, flashy theater for the rock-and-roll generation. Lapore, a Pittsburgh playwright who now lives in Hollywood, has done some of her loveliest, most poetic writing in the characters’ pre-recorded monologues. She’s a woman with talent, but her own voice seems too muffled by the echoes of others in Dolores Rain.

CHARACTERIZATIONS ARE COMIC IN T- BONE

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:31:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: May 31, 1993 Author: Christine Dolan T Bone and Weasel are two petty South Carolina crooks who keep going back to the pen as reliably as the buzzards return to winter atop the Dade County […]

From: The Miami Herald
Date: May 31, 1993
Author: Christine Dolan

T Bone and Weasel are two petty South Carolina crooks who keep going back to the pen as reliably as the buzzards return to winter atop the Dade County Courthouse.

It’s not that T Bone (James Samuel Randolph) and Weasel (Jon Elliott Matchen) especially like prison life. It’s just that, as lawbreakers, the only thing they seem to do really well is get arrested.

Jon Klein’s darkly funny T Bone N Weasel, first done at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky., has now burrowed into Miami Beach’s Area Stage. In cramped quarters against walls sporting a giant South Carolina map, T Bone and Weasel undertake a peripatetic and star-crossed crime spree, with a few boxes and prop guns and the wonderfully chameleonic Chaz Mena as their only companions.

Mena , voted South Florida’s best actor by the area’s critics last season, plays all the characters the hapless pair would love to victimize, unfailingly turning the tables on them.

He’s Mr. Fergus, the proprietor of a country store (called “De Sto”), who just happens to be cleaning his rifle when the guys walk in with robbery on their minds. He’s also Happy Sam, the used car dealer who smugly refuses to pay T Bone any more than $105 for a stolen Buick worth $5,000. And “Reverend Gluck,” a homeless “preacher” who demands an offering at gunpoint. Also Verna Mae Beaufort, a less-than-attractive steel magnolia (“That woman could gag a maggot”) who demands real special service from her new employee Weasel. And so on.

It can’t be easy to do nine variations on redneck types, but Mena pulls it off zestfully and convincingly. His versatility is a large part of the fun in T Bone N Weasel.

As the oddball buddies, Randolph and Matchen are well cast and thoroughly believable.

Randolph is an accomplished classical actor and drama professor, yet he’s got all the rhythms and attitudes of T Bone — a cynical African-American graduate of the prison system who rightfully sees racism wherever he turns — down cold. He brings just the right understated tone to lines such as, “Ain’t too many black folks name they kids Bob.”

Matchen makes Weasel a whiskey-voiced Creedence Clearwater Revival fanatic who has obviously pickled a few thousand too many brain cells. Yet, for all the jail time, he’s a genuine innocent who really doesn’t see the color of T Bone’s skin, which leads to recurrent problems for them both and gives deeper meaning to Klein’s twisted comedy.

T Bone N Weasel is something of a technical horror, since the guys are never in one place for long, but director John Rodaz and designer Darin Jones have solved the problem with spotlighted titles announcing locale (“A Stolen Buick on U.S. 21,” for instance).

Very early in its run, T Bone N Weasel needs to get tighter technically and lighter in spirit. Still, it’s another appealing production from Area Stage.

DEFT ACTORS HAVE `SUMMER SHORTS’ UP AND RUNNING

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:30:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: June 10, 2003 Author: Christine Dolen Showbiz gets its due, and then some, during City Theatre’s Summer Shorts 2003, the company’s annual smorgasbord of bite-sized theater. Theater-as-hell, tres gay cable access TV, lives played out […]

From: The Miami Herald
Date: June 10, 2003
Author: Christine Dolen

Showbiz gets its due, and then some, during City Theatre’s Summer Shorts 2003, the company’s annual smorgasbord of bite-sized theater.

Theater-as-hell, tres gay cable access TV, lives played out from an actual script, an aspiring poet-performer’s life cut short – all flow from the imaginations of playwrights delving into write-what-you-know territory.

Grouped into two programs, this year’s 15 short plays (now at the University of Miami’s Ring Theatre, next month at the Broward Center) run the gamut from artsy theatricality to naturalistic warmth to hilarious parody. The deftly versatile eight-person acting company – Chaz Mena , Stephen Trovillion, Elizabeth Dimon, Kim Ostrenko, Brandon Morris, Gary Lee Smith, Lauren Feldman and Jenny Levine – is a joy to watch, even if that doesn’t apply to every single one of the plays, staged by eight different directors.

Program A begins with Mark Harvey Levin’s Scripted, in which a couple (Trovillion and Levine) wakes up to discover a script containing every word they’ll utter throughout the day. It’s a look at free will and boredom, the latter applying to the play itself.

In Bret Fetzer’s Capsule, a cosmonaut who has never been alone ( Mena ) freaks out as he prepares for a space walk. Frightened into silence, he responds only to the voice of his German lover (Levine). A ground communicator (Smith) and narrator (Dimon) are the other voices in this so-so theater-as-high-art piece.

William Mastrosimone’s 5 Minutes offers a vulgar, funny, tender look at a dying man (Trovillion) who makes a last request of his best friend ( Mena ), exacting a promise that will benefit both his buddy and his soon-to-be widow.

Hell becomes an audition, with Lucifer ( Mena ) as a superstar director, in Jon Robin Baitz’ Show People. Though it’s an inside-theater piece – the man in the very hot seat, Jerry (Smith), is modeled on Shubert Organization chairman Gerald Schoenfeld – it’s a furiously funny play, with Mena sparkling as a self-satisfied, almost pixieish devil.

Susan Miller’s The Grand Design at first seems a dullish lecture by a scientist (Morris) on the subject of images sent into outer space. But after his down-to-earth mother (Dimon) appears, the play finds its human connection and tenderness.

Popcorn Sonata by Jenny Lyn Bader speaks to the perfectionist, having-it-all moms (Ostrenko in this case) who find managing their difficult little darlings nearly impossible, though a teenage sitter (Feldman) makes it look maddeningly easy.

José Rivera’s Impact, which might have been heart-rending, instead is a bafflingly calm recitation of treasured memories by co-workers leaping from the burning World Trade Center – though you could be forgiven for missing the context entirely.

In My Name is Leslie, customers (Trovillion, Morris, Feldman) declare war (and utilize the conventions and clichés of war movies) on a waitress (Ostrenko) who blithely promises to take their orders – then smilingly ignores them.

Program B, also with more treasures than duds, begins with Shel Silverstein’s One Tennis Shoe, in which a middle-class man (Smith) confronts his wife (Dimon) about her not-so-inner bag lady tendencies. It’s followed by the bizarre Merge from Neil LaBute, whose characters inevitably act out our worst fears. This time, a woman (Levine) returns from a business trip, and on the drive home slowly (and nonchalantly) confesses to her husband ( Mena ) the details of a drunken group sex experience. Ugh.

In Louis Felder’s Flight of Fancy, a seasoned salesman (Smith) and hot-shot young “marketing” rep (Feldman) explore the commonalities and differences in closing a deal. Marco Ramirez’ lovely Pipo and Fufo: 1969 considers the easy, mock-insulting friendship of two Cuban men (Morris and Mena ). Mary Gallagher’s First Communion, in which a woman (Dimon) remembers the pure ideal and dispiriting reality (including a rampaging nun) of that experience, will mean most to those who have lived through it, little to anyone else.

Feldman stars in her own soaring play Asteroid Belt, juxtaposing a doomed woman-child dreamer and her worried parents (Trovillion and Ostrenko). And Paul Rudnick’s outrageously funny Mister Charles, Currently of Palm Beach is the gem of both programs, giving Trovillion the chance to dazzle – tastefully, of course – as the droll Mr. Charles, host of his own gleefully gay cable show.

Design-wise, the festival similarly ranges from terrific (Steve Shapiro’s evocative sound) to tepid (Michael M. Williams’ rolling metallic grids, a distracting and cheap-looking background). But on the whole, Summer Shorts 2003 is one of City Theatre’s meatier efforts.

ROAD TO NIRVANA IS PAVED WITH OUTRAGEOUSNESS

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:29:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: September 26, 1994 Author: Christine Dolen And you thought David Mamet’s plays were dirty. Heed this warning: If you’re offended by the foul poetry of Mamet’s writing, you’ll probably require hospitalization should you stumble into […]

From: The Miami Herald
Date: September 26, 1994
Author: Christine Dolen

And you thought David Mamet’s plays were dirty.

Heed this warning: If you’re offended by the foul poetry of Mamet’s writing, you’ll probably require hospitalization should you stumble into Arthur Kopit’s Road to Nirvana, a satire of both Mamet and Hollywood that’s turning the air inside Area Stage blue.

Deliberately and relentlessly offensive, Nirvana is a kind of gloves-off version of Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow; indeed, when it premiered at Louisville’s Humana Festival, the Kopit play was called Bone-the-Fish.

In Kopit’s Hollywood, noses sport more white powder than a baby’s bottom, and the only certainty is that the other guy is lying — usually while assuring you of his sincerity as he does a major kiss-up. Nirvana tracks the deliberate debasement of Jerry ( Chaz Mena ), who has slid from moviemaking’s fast track to making sex-education films. Nevertheless, he’s been summoned by his former partner Al (Dave Caprita) and Al’s ladyfriend Lou (Elle Maslanova) to see if he’s got the right stuff for another try at the brass ring.

The prize, fame and fortune, hangs on the success of Al’s new property: a biopic of Nirvana (Ariane Nicole), America’s hottest female rock star. (The similarity of “Nirvana” and “Madonna” is deliberate.) So what if the script is a bad rewrite of Moby Dick, with Nirvana as Ahab and a giant penis as the whale? Her fans will love it.

You must, by now, get the drift. Outrageousness is like breathing in Road to Nirvana. To demonstrate his loyalty, Jerry is asked to slice his wrists and to act upon the vulgar expression “eat s—.” His ultimate sacrifice would give John Wayne Bobbitt flashbacks. But Jer? Takes it like a mensch.

Despite its title, Road to Nirvana is as far in tone from a Hope and Crosby road picture as Madonna is from Debby Boone. And it is no real surprise that Area would hire Joseph Adler to direct it. Adler’s extensive experience includes both Mamet and more than a few productions that incorporate elements that are loud, violent, shocking or sexual: Who better in these parts to stage a play involving toplessness, castration and repeated use of the “F” word? That said, Adler has elected to emphasize what’s real and truthful in Kopit’s script rather than its over- the-top outrageousness. The choice may blunt some of the satire, but it allows the actors to achieve far more complex performances.

And that is the real thrill of Area’s Road to Nirvana: an absolutely killer ensemble.

If you’ve only seen Mena do his multiple-character stuff at Area, you won’t believe how subtle, moving and multifaceted he is as Jerry. Caprita, perhaps better known as the morning guy on Love 94 radio, brings out the unalterability of Al’s character — he’s a mean-spirited sycophant — but also depicts his struggle to give up drugs and booze. Maslanova’s Lou is a deadpan wonder and far more complicated than she initially seems. And Nicole makes Nirvana both victim and savvy bully. In terms of design, Road to Nirvana is another stunning Area achievement. Darin Jones fits not one but two Hollywood palaces inside the theater’s narrow space, and his lighting is California bright for Al’s place, movie-star mysterious for Nirvana’s. Steve Shapiro’s thumping music and Stephen Simmons’ striking costumes are similarly impressive.

The Road to Nirvana is a wild one. Travel it at your peril. Or pleasure.

NY Theatre Archive 2002-03 Theatre Season Reviews: O Jerusalem

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:28:00 GMT

From: NY Theatre Online: NY Theatre Archive Date: March 20, 2003 Author: Aaron Leichter We are a nation in search of answers. Our leaders act cocksure and other countries revile their overconfidence. But we ordinary citizens, switching channels between a […]

From: NY Theatre Online: NY Theatre Archive
Date: March 20, 2003
Author: Aaron Leichter

We are a nation in search of answers. Our leaders act cocksure and other countries revile their overconfidence. But we ordinary citizens, switching channels between a barrage of embedded reporters and the usual junk food of sitcoms and reality shows as we brood on that thought that if it happened once, it will happen again, we ordinary citizens want answers and may fear that there are none. Theatre can no more answer our questions than television, but it can phrase them so that we ourselves can begin to. For most of O Jerusalem , now at the Flea Theater in Tribeca, A.R. Gurney inquires into the nature of the politics of the Middle East, in a manner at once simple and complex, spurring the audience to think carefully about global politics. But in the last scenes, he mewls platitudes. Because of this failure of nerve, O Jerusalem is a thudding disappointment.

Set in some Vonnegut-style future, where a book-length essay called “O Jerusalem” has transformed the world into a utopia, the play flashes back to the summer and fall of 2001 and the events that led to the revolutionary book. Gurney parodies the discursive structure of many nonfiction adaptations by relating events through a talky chorus. The actors break character and skip scenes. Within the action itself, O Jerusalem is a kind of postmodern Shaw play, where people argue as if their lives depend on it because their lives do depend on it: it’s discussion as action.

In the play-within-a-play, Hartwell (Stephen Rowe), a self-centered mid-level American diplomat in the Middle East, meets an old flame, a Christian Palestinian idealist named Amira (the superb Rita Wolf). Her son has heard rumors of a large-scale terrorist action still in the planning stages, an attack by air somewhere on the US eastern seaboard. Hartwell desperately tries to pass this grain of intelligence on to his superiors, but the State Department won’t listen, the White House won’t listen, the CIA won’t listen, even another ex-lover, Sally (Priscilla Shanks) won’t listen. When the towers fall, he steals away to a New England cabin to write out his thoughts. Those writings are the ideas that will change the world.

It’s these post-9/11 scenes that sink the show. Hartwell’s obsession for blowing the whistle on the calcified American policy doesn’t track with his earlier character, while his conversion to activism lacks a basic dramatic foundation. Most damningly, his ultimate

message—and the play’s—is ridiculous and simplistic: “We’re all in this thing together.” Beware political plays that can be summed up in one sentence.

The impression given is that Gurney didn’t polish his play past a rough draft. Small plot holes and extraneous information—why is Amira a Christian Palestinian?—don’t ladder the play’s fabric until the final scenes tear it apart. O Jerusalem provokes frustration because it could’ve been so much more. Despite his occasional sloppiness, Gurney goes further than the authors of other political plays running Off-Broadway today in teasing out the horrifying complexity of the present situation. He makes some very good points about how water rights are as important as oil rights in the Middle Eastern deserts. And the triangle of Amira-Hartwell-Sally gives the play a sexy edge that dramatizes the intellectual subject matter (it’s worth mentioning that Gurney’s previous plays have tended to be wry dramas populated by mandarins; here, the politics give the relationships a welcome heft).

For their part, director Jim Simpson and his design team approach the script playfully by stripping the stage to essential elements: locations are suggested through large photographs on easels; only a few props appear onstage. A LED strip, like the newsribbons in Times Square, announces the date of each new scene, adding suspense as the play moves closer to September 2001 and then past it. Clever references to the past bring the play alive in the present (as opposed to the future where it’s set): to show Hartwell’s stops in the Mediterranean, the Chorus refers to a map of the Roman Empire.

And throughout, there’s an ad hoc quality to the ensemble’s performances. Actors-playing-actors-playing-characters directly address the audience with hilarious effect, filling latecomers in on what they’ve missed. Chaz Mena, as one of the pair of choral members who plays several roles, steals the play in a great scene as an Israeli cabbie who can’t help arguing with Amira. Their interaction, both in dialogue and in performance, captures the nuances of the Israeli-Palestinian bond of fraternal hatred: when she hears that her son has been killed, it is this minor character who comforts her.

O Jerusalem has several such scenes that are both dramatic and intellectual, that raise as many questions as they answer. And through most of the play, Gurney uses a deft theatrical touch. But his ending squanders the goodwill that he’s built up. Audiences may remember the first hour and a quarter, or they may recall the last fifteen minutes. Their reactions will rest on which of those two sections lingers most in their minds.

‘Mad Dancers’ turns on absurdities: The odd story focused on a typist for IBM has its roots in modern Jewish comedy.

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:27:00 GMT

From: The Riverside Press-Enterprise Date: April 4, 2001 Author: Jim Trageser, Special to the Press-Enterprise It’s a tale the Marx Brothers would have loved: An 18th-century European rabbi who is dying without a son to succeed him as leader of […]

From: The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Date: April 4, 2001
Author: Jim Trageser, Special to the Press-Enterprise

It’s a tale the Marx Brothers would have loved: An 18th-century European rabbi who is dying without a son to succeed him as leader of his ultra-Orthodox community uses his mystical powers to travel to the future in search of an heir. His ultimate choice? A portly, balding, gay — and very secular — typist for IBM.

If Yehuda Hyman’s “The Mad Dancers” sounds a bit odd, well, think about some of the story lines at the heart of the Marx Brothers’ — or even Woody Allen’s — movies. As the centerpiece of the San Diego Jewish Arts Festival, the world premiere of “Mad Dancers” at the San Diego Rep is firmly rooted in modern Jewish comedy. By turns dark and uplifting, it also mixes the absurd with the everyday. Or the absurd from the everyday.

Playwright Hyman — who also portrays the portly, balding, gay and secular Elliott Green — breathes a spirited life into his characters. While the outside world may not be able to see beyond the forelocks and black robes of the Hasidic community, Hyman delves into the very human joys of dance and song at the heart of their religious celebrations.

And in following the seven trials of prince-elect Elliott Green, the audience also gets a chance to immerse itself in Jewish mysticism, in the larger-than-life status given to a rebbe in some Orthodox communities.

Chaz Mena , who portrays one of the rebbe’s followers who also turns up in Satan’s restaurant as a waiter, gives a comedic introduction to the chicken dish worthy of Groucho himself. Jaye Austin-Williams does fine in multiple roles ranging from Elliott’s IBM boss, Brenda, as well as the deaf-mute gardener and the rebbe’s follower, Liebowitz.

In John Campion, Hyman has the perfect rebbe — Campion projects a leader who is charismatic, passionate, and able to carry his burden of leadership by leavening it with huge doses of humor.

But Hyman is also the perfect Elliott Green — a modern, narcissistic American worried only about his own happiness. He’s not particularly enamored of the tasks presented him by the rebbe, but when events spin out of his control, he does find new resources of strength and community he’d never imagined he possessed.

`BALTIMORE WALTZ’ PUTS FARCICAL SPIN ON AIDS CRISIS

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:25:00 GMT

From: The Palm Beach Post Date: May 6 1994 Author: Hap Erstein The theater has addressed the AIDS health crisis in a variety of eloquent ways, but only recently has it gotten around to the comic response. But laughter can […]

From: The Palm Beach Post
Date: May 6 1994
Author: Hap Erstein

The theater has addressed the AIDS health crisis in a variety of eloquent ways, but only recently has it gotten around to the comic response. But laughter can lead to understanding too, as Paula Vogel demonstrates in her funny, cathartic play, The Baltimore Waltz.

Named for the city in which her brother died of the disease, the wildly imaginative work is her elegy to him in farce form. It is performed with an aptly manic frenzy by a nimble Area Stage cast that captures Vogel’s comic punch and poignance.

Actually, AIDS is never mentioned in the script. But such is the pervasiveness of its plague that Vogel merely has to put Carl, a young, gay male librarian from San Francisco, onstage with a doctor hovering in the background and she knows the audience will make the connection.

Vogel attacks her subject obliquely, from a satiric distance, by making Carl’s sister Anna the patient. According to her doctor, who spouts mouthfuls of medical gobbledygook, she has contracted the dreaded ATD – Acquired Toilet Disease. It is a fatal syndrome that seems to afflict mainly single elementary school teachers who contract it from using the potty seat of their students without taking proper precautions. The government has no answers to the disease beyond the cautionary sloganeering, “Squat, don’t sit.”

So, off go Anna and Carl on an escape through Europe, from Paris to Amsterdam to Berlin to Vienna. She takes her first and probably last trip to the Continent as an opportunity to give in to repressed sexual escapades as well as to seek a miracle cure from the elusive experimentalist, Dr. Todesrocheln. He has a purported treatment for ATD, as well as an uncanny resemblance to Dr. Strangelove.

Film references abound, as Carl goes in search of Harry Lime, The Third Man, in a loopy spy-vs.-spy plot involving something mysterious and sinister in Carl’s childhood stuffed bunny.

The production succeeds at establishing its cinematic pace and transitions, thanks to John Rodaz’s playful direction, his film noir lighting and surreal set design, as well as a vigorous, versatile performance by Chaz Mena as all the men Carl and Anna encounter on their odyssey.

Vogel paints these characters in broad national stereotypes, from amorous Frenchmen to brusque Germans to the fabled Dutch boy of dike-plugging fame, now at middle age. Yet when Carl pauses to shows us his travel slides, it seems possible that they never left for Europe at all. At many junctures, just as The Baltimore Waltz seems headed for sheer silliness, Vogel sidesteps that fate with several disquieting speeches and ultimately with a stunning final twist.

As Anna, Phebe Finn has a sweet, earthy quality and is both comic and moving racing through the generic mental stages of a terminal patient. Jerry Pacific’s Carl is a caring helpmate to his sister, a man of considerable mystery and, when we first see him, someone with a droll capacity for anger. Ultimately, though, it is Mena who walks off with the production with his quick-change tour de force, some dozen separate, vivid and continually amusing roles.

The Baltimore Waltz is a highly individual, heartfelt response to AIDS, but delivered through the funnybone.

`ROAD TO NIRVANA’ PAVED WITH RAUNCHY FUN

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:24:00 GMT

From: The Palm Beach Post Date: October 4, 1994 Author: Hap Erstein What highly personal sacrifices would you be willing to make to produce a movie that could reap untold fortunes? That’s the question of the day in Arthur Kopit’s […]

From: The Palm Beach Post
Date: October 4, 1994
Author: Hap Erstein

What highly personal sacrifices would you be willing to make to produce a movie that could reap untold fortunes? That’s the question of the day in Arthur Kopit’s Road to Nirvana, a raunchy, overtly comic stage sendup of Hollywood deal-making and spiritual values. It is an amusing entertainment, but not for the tame of heart or tender of ears and not to be taken too seriously.

The theater loves to snipe at the movie world and Kopit does so with a gleefully outrageous and foul-mouthed verve here. True, he doesn’t have much to say beyond moviemakers are incorrigibly two-faced vermin who will do anything for a box office blockbuster. But he expresses the unoriginal notion with such unabashed excess that – for the first act, at least – he is able to sustain the trashy merriment.

It would help your enjoyment of Road to Nirvana and the very hip, free-wheeling Area Stage production if you were familiar with David Mamet’s dig at Hollywood pomposity and duplicity, Speed-The-Plow.

Kopit is both satirizing and paying homage to that tug-of-war scenario, as well as trying to outdo the master’s obscenity output. Lest we miss the parallels, Kopit originally named his prank play Bone-the-Fish.

He reunites two former producing partners – Al, a successful packager of big feature flicks and Jerry, whose conscience and taste removed him from the studio fast lane and onto the dead-end track of educational films. For motives not entirely clear, Al offers Jerry a chance to team again on a hot property written by and starring egocentric rock star Nirvana (who has more than a coincidental resemblance to Madonna).

But first, Jerry’s commitment must be tested. Does he want the project enough to slit his wrists? To eat excrement? To give up a highly personal part of his anatomy? Ah, the big issues of show biz.

As he escalates the tests, Kopit also raises the comic stakes. He has a been-there command of Hollywood meetings and of the movie executive’s smiling insincerity. He spoofs the mind-set by giddily expanding on the patter and patois, which renders the verbal exchanges at least as comic as the loyalty tests. Unfortunately, he stretches the fun too far with a repetitive second act that – worst of all – begins to take seriously what he had just savaged.

The good news is the Area Stage cast, directed with an assured, inventive hand by Joseph Adler, remains on course even when the play goes south. Chaz Mena (Jerry) and Dave Caprita are wonderful comic foils for each other, getting impressive variety from their cat-and-mouse mind games.

Elle Maslanova gives a canny spin to the role of Lou, Al’s seemingly dimwitted business partner. Her deadpan sarcastic line readings are very much on target and her nonchalant toplessness in the play’s opening scene certainly sets the evening’s tone effectively.

Darin Jones cleverly manages two visually stunning sets – Al’s palatial patio and Nirvana’s temple-like digs – on a shoestring. Kopit has stretched his Hollywood joke beyond the breaking point, but Area Stage fulfills his scabrous vision and keeps the laughter coming longer than it deserves to.

A FUNNY PLAY ABOUT SERIOUS ISSUE: AIDS

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:23:00 GMT

From: The Miami Herald Date: May 7, 1994 Author: Christine Dolen Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz, a work born of guilt and sorrow, is one of the two funniest AIDS plays ever written (Paul Rudnick’s Jeffrey being the other). John […]

From: The Miami Herald Date: May 7, 1994 Author: Christine Dolen

Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz, a work born of guilt and sorrow, is one of the two funniest AIDS plays ever written (Paul Rudnick’s Jeffrey being the other).

John Rodaz’s production of Waltz, newly opened at Area Stage on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, isn’t just amusing. It’s riotous. And without going into details (because the moment defies description), anyone who sees Area’s Baltimore Waltz will never again be able to hear the word “encore” without smirking.

When Vogel’s brother Carl asked her to go with him to Europe in 1986, she turned him down, saying she couldn’t afford it. What she didn’t know was that Carl had learned he was HIV- positive. By the beginning of 1988, he was dead.

The Baltimore Waltz is the trip the brother and sister never took, an extravagantly imaginative allegory that Rodaz has his three actors play in a fevered frenzy. Though it begins and ends realistically — the play’s Carl (Jerry Pacific) meets the same fate as Vogel’s brother — the bulk of the play is a role- reversed romp.

In this wild dream, Carl’s sister Anna (Phebe Finn), an elementary schoolteacher, discovers she has a fatal illness called ATD — Acquired Toilet Disease, a growing epidemic among single female teachers. She also learns that the disease can’t be transmitted sexually, so when Carl takes her to Europe in search of a cure, Anna vows to give herself over to every appealing sexual opportunity that comes her way.

And do they. She beds a snooty French waiter (who pronounces “Diet Pepsi” so that it comes out “Dee-it Bep-see”), a virginal German bellboy, the former Little Dutch Boy (gone soft with middle age), and a German radical, all played lustily (and with perfect accents) by Chaz Mena .

Mena also plays the mysterious Harry Lime (there are a number of allusions to Orson Welles’ The Third Man, all pretty meaningless if you’re not up on the film) and the insane Dr. Todesrcheln (the name translates as “deathgasp”), a quack who makes ATD patients drink their own urine. In the showiest acting assignment, Mena is fabulous.

Finn and Pacific are both strong, funny and very sympathetic. No matter how absurd the turns of Vogel’s script, the two actors never let you forget the life-and-death struggle that underlies it.

Rodaz, who has directed sensitively and with a wild comic touch, also did the colorful lighting and the Magritte-inspired set, which communicates instantly that the journey you’re about to take involves fantasy. Steve Shapiro’s sound and original score (with its homage to The Third Man ) make the journey much more vivid.

Laughter, at the very least, offers a necessary respite from sorrow. The Baltimore Waltz is no dance of death, but rather a celebration of a bond that transcends time and mortality.

TRAVIATA A DEEP DISH OF COMEDY AND PATHOS

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:17:00 GMT

From: Miami Herald, Date: August 11, 1992 Author: Christine Dolen The voice that binds them, a sound they consider divinity in female form, is the impassioned soprano of the late Maria Callas. The flamboyant Mendy (John Felix) and tormented Stephen […]

From: Miami Herald,
Date: August 11, 1992
Author: Christine Dolen

The voice that binds them, a sound they consider divinity in female form, is the impassioned soprano of the late Maria Callas. The flamboyant Mendy (John Felix) and tormented Stephen ( Chaz Mena ) are gay men with little else in common, but their devotion to Callas — as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of opera and a gift for the bitchy remark — have led to a friendship that sustains them both.

Dining and dishing on a stormy night full of hilarious digs, a night underscored by loneliness and worry, Mendy and Stephen seek escape. And in Terrence McNally’s The Lisbon Traviata, now being given a terrific production at Miami Beach’s intimate Area Stage, the men sweep us right along on their bumpy, rollicking ride.

McNally, the author of such plays as Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune and Lips Together, Teeth Apart, wrote The Lisbon Traviata in 1985, and revised it — for the better, critics said — in 1989. It remains a schizophrenic work, with a funny first act and a pathos-filled second; if this were opera, it would be a double bill of opera bouffe and tragic grand opera.

The linking character is Stephen, a witty editor whose soaring career at Knopf has lately gone into a tailspin because of his disintegrating relationship with Mike (Carlos Orizondo), a once-married doctor who has been Stephen’s lover for eight

years. Because of their agreement about an “open” relationship — an arrangement Stephen actually loathes — Stephen has been cast out for the night so that Mike can romance Paul (Richard Jason Ascher), a social work grad student at Columbia.

Edgy and annoyed, Stephen is engaging in the mental equivalent of thumb-twiddling over dinner and the Diva at Mendy’s opulently baroque apartment, awaiting a call for a late date of his own. The men engage in a game of operatic one- upsmanship, testing each other’s knowledge of productions, dates, conductors and singers. Then Stephen “gets” Mendy by revealing a pirated recording of Callas singing La Traviata in Lisbon (hence, the title), a recording Stephen possesses, a recording Mendy decides he must have this very minute.

This first act is more typical McNally, which means it is sometimes riotously funny. Stephen, reminiscing about Mike, comments, “There’s something beyond masculinity.” To which Mendy replies, “I know. Me.” And though McNally’s opera references are extensive, you needn’t know much about the art form to appreciate, say, the labeling of Joan Sutherland as “the Beast
from Down Under.”

Act Two switches to Stephen and Mike’s minimalist modern flat on what is literally a sad and sober morning after. Stephen comes home early to find the living room strewn with the remnants of pizza and passion. A nude Paul emerges from the bedroom to collect his clothes, then makes a surprised retreat. Later, Stephen smilingly torments his young rival, “sharing” graphic Polaroids of himself and Mike in the early days, when passion consumed them. Exit Paul and, after a confrontation that is painful both physically and emotionally, Mike.

Area Stage’s production, directed with sensitivity and an engaging theatricality by John Rodaz, is a wonderful example of how imagination and talent can more than compensate for a limited budget. For instance: The transformation of the tiny stage from Mendy’s extravagant digs, framed by Lazaro Amaral’s paintings of bawdy “angels,” to Stephen’s stark space is breathtaking.

Mena , one of South Florida’s best actors, displays his depth and range in The Lisbon Traviata, infusing his performance with rich physical detail and making Stephen’s emotional immolation deeply affecting. Felix demonstrates his versatility by gleefully digging into every one of Mendy’s campy lines. Ascher is quite good and understated as a “victim” who can more than hold his own against Stephen. Only Orizondo, at this point, falls short; playing Mike more like a street kid than a youthful doctor, he focuses so relentlessly on the character’s problem that he seems dour and humorless.

Perfection in anything is rare — even Callas, Stephen and Mendy would reluctantly admit, could “flat” a note. But Area Stage’s lively, turbulent production of The Lisbon Traviata is just about as good as it gets in South Florida’s burgeoning small theater scene — which is very good indeed.

DUO’S ACTING HELPS REDEEM FLAT `KISS’

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:17:00 GMT

From: The Palm Beach Post Date:January 29, 1999 Author: Hap Erstein In 1976, Argentinian Manuel Puig wrote a powerful novel about two prisoners in a squalid, inhumane jail cell, reaching out to each other for their mutual survival. Called The […]

From: The Palm Beach Post
Date:January 29, 1999
Author: Hap Erstein

In 1976, Argentinian Manuel Puig wrote a powerful novel about two prisoners in a squalid, inhumane jail cell, reaching out to each other for their mutual survival. Called The Kiss of the Spider Woman, it later became an Oscar-winning movie and, even more unexpectedly, a Tony Award-winning musical.

It is a story whose dramatic punch is undeniable, regardless of the adaptation. Still, Puig is not much of a dramatist and his own stage version of the political saga – translated by Allan Baker – is rudimentary, at best. Now at the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s renovated, intimate Encore Room, the production’s saving graces are the performances of cellmates Tomas Milian and Chaz Mena.

Milian, an international film star, invests the role of apolitical homosexual window dresser Molina with an ethereal delicacy, conveying the man who escapes the harsh realities of prison with his vivid memories of the movies. Mena is aptly brutish as rabble-rouser Valentin, for whom the political cause is everything. Although the weak-willed Molina agrees to spy on Valentin for the warden, he finds himself falling in love instead. Initially, Valentin has no use for the effeminate queen, but Molina’s movie narratives help the time pass and ultimately Valentin gains a lesson about tenderness from him.

There are advantages to Puig’s adaptation approach of keeping the focus tight on the two main characters, but also disadvantages. It lacks a sense of the world outside – the police lurking just beyond their cell, Molina’s dying, doting mother, Valentin’s guerrilla confederates and his girlfriend.

Just as important and just as missing is some theatrical representation of the movies in Molina’s mind, a romanticized image to contrast with the sordid conditions of their reality. This Kiss of the Spider Woman still works, even though Puig seems to have narrowed his own creation.

That abstract lyricism that is absent on the page is certainly present in Milian’s performance. With a blond wig tucked under an arty beret and a draped feather boa for gestural effect, he visually captures the anomaly that is Molina. Early on, he sweeps the air with his masculine hands and hairy arms, flailing flamboyantly, sucking in his cheeks for histrionic poses. Gradually, he lets Valentin – and us – see the smaller, pitiable man behind the mask, an achingly honest act of openness.

It is probably inevitable that Molina overshadows the more conventional Valentin, but Mena manages to hold his corner of the stage with his bold characterization. Spider Woman is a study in contrasts, and Mena is most memorable when he is at his most vulnerable. Weakened by tainted food and unable to take a shower, he goes into an itching fit that will have theatergoers scratching in response.

Although director Roberto Prestigiacomo’s production is not elaborate, Eric S. Nelson’s lighting design is starkly mood-setting, notably with a film flicker effect which frames the evening and helps transitions between scenes. Also a plus is Steve Shapiro’s sound design, an aural dimension that adds to the bleak atmosphere.

Ultimately, though, despite the flat, by-the-numbers adaptation, Kiss of the Spider Woman spins a web of the triumph of the human spirit.

Biting adaptation of German farce at Play House

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:10:00 GMT

From: Cleveland Jewish News Date: March 12, 2004 Author: Fran Heller To be honest, farce, with its silly pratfalls, madcap humor, and preening puns, has never been my play of choice. But, despite my misgivings, I found myself chuckling through much […]

From: Cleveland Jewish News
Date: March 12, 2004
Author: Fran Heller

To be honest, farce, with its silly pratfalls, madcap humor, and preening puns, has never been my play of choice. But, despite my misgivings, I found myself chuckling through much of “The Underpants,” Steve Martin’s witty adaptation of Carl Sternheim’s 1911 German comedy, “Die Hose.” It’s at The Cleveland Play House through March 28. “The Underpants,” about a pair of lady’s bloomers that accidentally fall down in public, is a bawdy sex farce with bite. For Jewish audience members, that bite is particularly menacing. What keeps the silliness from being completely insubstantial, especially for the Jewish viewer, is a painfully sardonic sense of history. What is merely hinted at in the turn-of-the-20th-century piece, becomes, in hindsight, a chilling reminder of a horrifically tragic fact.

Director Peter Hackett’s frolicsome production emphasizes the humor, but with an ominous undercurrent that is unmistakably clear.Presented without an intermission, the play loses comic steam and runs 15 minutes longer than its projected 90-minute length. Theo Maske is a boorish, middle-class civil servant concerned with appearances. When his comely wife’s undies fall to her ankles during the king’s parade, he is mortified by the prospect of scandal. Those witnessing the event, including an aspiring poet and a hypochondriac barber, are smitten, and both are eager to take up lodgings in the room for rent at the Maske household.

The absurdist plot becomes the vehicle for a satire on bourgeois morality and topics ranging from sexual hypocrisy (married men can have affairs, but not their wives) to antisemitism. Carl Sternheim, a prolific writer and playwright, was the son of a wealthy Jewish banker and a Protestant mother. According to sources, throughout his
life, Sternheim struggled with his confused religious identity. Sternheim used “The Underpants” to tweak the monolithic and unimaginative society that would eventually promote the rise of Hitler; his works were banned by the Nazis. Between the laugh lines, the references to Germany’s political future are unmistakable. Theo himself is the perfect German bureaucrat who doesn’t rock the boat or question the system. “I do my duty. I blend in,” says thestocking (“Die Hose”) studded with red valentines. A cuckoo clock with a distinct personality announces each segment change. Robin Heath’s sound effects and Richard Winkler’s lighting add to the allure.

The action takes place in the kitchen/living room of the Maske flat. A bird in a cage symbolizes the tight leash with which Maske keeps his pretty young wife in tow. Tower-like walls and a high window emphasize the wife’s imprisonment, like the storybook character Rapunzel, who must climb a tall ladder to see the outside world.

The squat, mustached Chaz Mena is perfectly cast as the priggish Theo Maske, whose clownish character is part Charlie Chaplin and part Adolf Hitler, whom Chaplin satirized in his 1940 film, “The Great Dictator.” (Chaplin also played a Jewish barber in the movie; in this play, there is also a Jewish barber.) With a tangle of Shirley Temple curls and a wide-eyed naïve ingenuousness to match, Tanya Clarke charms as Theo’s exceptionally pretty wife, Louise. The love-starved hausfrau daydreams about sexual adventure and romance while burning her husband’s dinner, with real smoke emanating from the kitchen stove. Johanna Morrison titillates as the sex-starved middle-aged woman and meddlesome neighbor, Gertrude Deuter, who lives vicariously through Louise while lusting after her husband. “I am 42,” says Gertrude, to which Theo replies, “Blood still courses through rusty pipes,” drawing an especially loud guffaw from the audience. The humor wears thin in spots, including a stretch of toilet humor that is neither funny nor tasteful.

Cloaked in costumer Kristine Kearney’s elegant tails and high-hat, Sam Gregory has the looks and grandiloquence of the debonair unpublished poet, Frank Versati. Versati finds his muse in the beautiful Louise, but his sexual ardor is smothered in verbal bombast. Brad Bellamy hams it up as the sickly barber, Benjamin Cohen, who competes with the poet for Louise’s affection. “That’s Cohen with a K,” says the Jewish hairdresser, whose slip-of-the-tongue Yiddish expressions are hastily concealed in response to the antisemitic Theo. With split-second timing, Bellamy hilariously switches gears from lecher to mouse when the husband unexpectedly appears. Ronald Thomas Wilson suits the elderly Klinglehoff, the unexpected third suitor who is not above a leer or two of his own. There’s a lot to laugh at in “The Underpants.” But what stays with me,after the laughter fades, is the crescendo of goose-stepping boots.

A feast of Lorca. (Federico Garcia Lorca’s plays performed in several countries in commemoration of his 100th birth anniversary)

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:10:00 GMT

From: American Theatre Magazine Date: July 1, 1998 Author: Mona Molarsky Plays by the Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca are being performed by various theater groups around the world in commemoration of the artist’s 100th birth anniversary. His controversial play […]

From: American Theatre Magazine
Date: July 1, 1998
Author: Mona Molarsky

Plays by the Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca are being performed by various theater groups around the world in commemoration of the artist’s 100th birth anniversary. His controversial play entitled ‘El Publico’ will be performed for the first time in New York by the Repertorio Espanol. Lorca’s plays that are being performed in other countries include ‘Blood Wedding,’ ‘Yerma,’ ‘Buster Keaton’s Bike Ride in Barcelona’ and ‘The House of Bernarda Alda.’

A spate of international productions serve up the passionate depths of Garcia Lorca’s plays

Three days before opening night, New York’s Gramercy Park Theater is dark inside. It’s so black you have to feel your way down the aisle. Then a soft, dream-like spot appears upstage left and gradually brightens.

“A little more, just a little more!” calls director Rene Buch from the depths of the balcony. “Yes. Perfect. Que bonita!” he laughs, shifting into Spanish. A young man walks downstage, draped in white chiffon. “Do you like it, Flor?” he asks Buch, doing a slow turn. “No. No quiero! It looks like Carole Lombard,” Buch complains to the costume designer. In a minute she’s up on stage, snipping and pinning the fabric.

Tonight is the pre-dress rehearsal for a long-overdue New York premiere. Written in 1930 by Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, El Publico has had to wait almost 70 years to get produced in the same city where it was conceived. Dubbed by Lorca his “impossible theatre” because of its technical difficulties and then-taboo theme – homosexual love – El Publico “disappeared” after Lorca’s 1936 execution by Fascists during the Spanish Civil War. When it reemerged, 20 years later, the play stayed unperformed for another whole decade. El Publico has since been published, translated and performed numerous times, but never – until now, that is – in New York. This year, to honor the 100th anniversary of Lorca’s birth, Buch, and the company of which he is artistic director, Repertorio Espanol, is producing the still-subversive play.

Lorca has been a mainstay at Repertorio, which over the last 30 years has produced all his major works, including Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba, his three tragedies set in the Spanish countryside. Staging El Publico is clearly an act of love for the company – and a way for it to be judged in the international arena during Lorca’s centennial year.

Throughout the world, from Buenos Aires to Tokyo, theatre groups are mounting tributes to the playwright, who was born in on June 5, 1898, in Granada. Every one of his 15 plays is currently in production somewhere – including Madrid, Brussels, Havana, Cairo, Lyon, Moscow and New York, among other cities. Even his lesser-known plays – the comedies, tragicomedies, puppet shows, and “experimental” works like El Publico – are finally getting the attention they deserve.

This year, Spain alone is hosting a vast array of events to commemorate Lorca, who remained censored there from the Civil War until Franco’s death in 1975. There are festivals, poetry readings, dance performances, concerts, exhibitions and lectures dedicated to Lorca, offering the chance to see unusual productions like Lorca’s short, experimental piece Buster Keaton’s Bike Ride in Barcelona. In the spirit of La Barraca, Lorca’s traveling theatre group that brought classics to the poor during the early ’30s, several companies are now touring rural Spain. An unprecedented number of puppet productions are scheduled, too. Lorca was fond of puppetry and wrote several puppet plays, including The Billyclub Puppets and The Puppet Play of Don Cristobal.

Lorca’s work has long been venerated in the Spanish-speaking world. As Buch puts it, “When he published his poems, The Gypsy Ballads, in 1928, he became a torero, a bullfighter. Everyone in Spain knew his poems and quoted them.” At this time, as Lorca was being hailed “the people’s poet,” he was also working on various experimental theatre projects, plans for a traveling puppet troupe and an avant-garde magazine. His friends and artistic collaborators included painter Salvador Dali, filmmaker Luis Bunuel and composer Manuel de Falla. In 1930, Picasso designed the costumes for Lorca’s comedy The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife, which premiered in Madrid with Spanish star Margarita Xirgu in the lead role. By 1933, when he arrived in Buenos Aires, where Blood Wedding was a hit, Lorca had become a celebrity in Latin America as well. He remains beloved there to this day.

But Lorca in translation is another matter entirely. In 1935, the same year that Waiting for Lefty catapulted Clifford Odets to fame, Blood Wedding opened at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse to bemused reviews. What could Americans make of a play that included among its characters the Moon, personified as a woodcutter, and Death as a beggar? Plain-talking actors from the land of Jimmy Stewart found themselves speaking lines like “with a knife/with a tiny knife/that barely fits the hand/but that slides in clean/through the astonished flesh.”

In the six decades since, Lorca has never become a staple of the American theatre, but south of our border and in much of Europe, he’s mentioned in the same breath as Synge, Brecht, Pirandello and Genet. Some American directors have been frightened off by supposedly difficult works like El Publico, and translation problems have dogged his plays. One critic, reviewing Ted Hughes’s version of Blood Wedding in London two years ago, said, “Its poetry – at once flinty and florid – is damnably hard to make work in English.”

But Lorca’s troubled relationship with Anglos involves more than just language. The author, whose American visit in 1929 compelled him to write Poet in New York, a book containing poems like “Landscape of the Vomiting Multitudes,” has an emotional temperature many on these shores find unnerving. Once famous for declaiming his writings at the drop of a hat, Lorca is vibrantly theatrical and emotional to the core. What might read like “The Surrealist Manifesto” on paper reveals a potently visceral force on stage.

That much was clear when I returned to Repettorio on opening night. From the first moment when veteran actor Ricardo Barber made his entrance down the center aisle, the house was spellbound. A ghostly light, the sound of whispers and wind blowing – little in the way of costumes or sets was necessary. Director Buch had stripped El Publico down to its essentials – actors on a stage, engaged in wild, intense, free-flowing dialogue. The play, like so much of Lorca, attacks the conventions of theatre and gender, arguing for a more flexible, profound reality. Early on, two men fall into a lover’s quarrel:

A: If I turned into a cloud?

B: I’d turn into an eye.

A: If I turned into caca?

B: I’d turn into a fly.

A: If I turned into an apple?

B: I’d turn into a kiss.

A: If I turned into a breast?

B: I’d turn into a white sheet.

A: And if I turned into a moonfish?

B: I’d turn into a knife.

Actors Edward Nurquez-Bon and Chaz Mena batted the images back and forth as if they were so many humorous little insults. Their grace and inimitable timing had the audience roaring. Deep in this modernist text, Repertorio Espanol has located Lorca’s soul, subversive and passionate as ever.

Mona Molarsky, a New York-based arts and travel writer, has written for The Nation and the Los Angeles Times. She is deputy editor at Glamour magazine.

‘O Jerusalem’ a Thrilling Journey

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:01:00 GMT

From: AP Online Date: March 18, 2003 Author: Justine Glanville Dateline: NEW YORK It’s true that “O Jerusalem,” an exhilarating new play by A.R. Gurney at off-off-Broadway’s Flea Theater, seems especially timely because of its subject matter. After all, it […]

From: AP Online Date: March 18, 2003 Author: Justine Glanville

Dateline: NEW YORK It’s true that “O Jerusalem,” an exhilarating new play by A.R. Gurney at off-off-Broadway’s Flea Theater, seems especially timely because of its subject matter.

After all, it touches on many of the issues now preoccupying people around the world: the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, American foreign policy, terrorism.

But at least in this expert production, Gurney’s play manages to reach beyond its topical premise to pack a big, heartbreaking wallop. This is not a story about anything so cold as politics. Above all, it’s about a man struggling to balance his ideals and personal relationships against a high-pressure career.

Although it lasts only 90 minutes, “O Jerusalem” feels like an epic, partly due to its unusual structure. It opens sometime in the future, when a theater troupe has discovered a lost play set around the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. They perform only excerpts from the work _ described as “long, rambling and tormented” _ and summarize the parts they consider boring.

The play-within-a-play structure allows Gurney and company to cover an astonishing amount of ground. With the flip of a scenery card and an announcement by one of the actors, scenes switch from Washington, D.C., to Tunisia to New England and back.

At the center of all that globe-trotting is Hartwell Clark (Stephen Rowe), a backslapping oil magnate appointed to be a U.S. envoy to the Middle East. His job exposes him to anti-U.S. sentiment abroad, and he begins to turn against capitalism. As Hartwell’s new convictions take root, he gives in to his long-repressed love for Sally (Priscilla Shanks), an information officer.

Gurney works with a wider geographic and cultural lens than usual. His previous plays have dealt mostly with domestic turmoil among white, upper-class Protestants; here, although the conflicts are still personal, they have global repercussions. And one of the main characters is decidedly nonwhite: Amira (Rita Wolf), a Palestinian activist, completes a kind of love triangle with Sally and Hartwell.

Wolf, Rowe, Shanks and two swing performers ( Chaz Mena and Mercedes Herrero) all deliver vital performances, helped in no small part by Gurney’s crackling dialogue. Each scene pulses with life _ the sign of a playwright, a cast and a director (Jim Simpson) working in complete unity.

Like anything truly alive, “O Jerusalem” isn’t always tidy. The relationship between Sally and Hartwell isn’t fully developed, and the play ends on a preachy and falsely tragic note.

But like Stephen Adly Guirgis’ “Our Lady of 121st Street,” it has a scattershot energy and an ear for emotionally charged situations that make it totally engrossing.

When a play has those assets, it doesn’t need current events to be relevant.

O Jerusalem

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:57:00 GMT

From: Variety Date: March 24, 2003 Author: Charles Isherwood A little irreverence might not be a bad thing when it comes to the endlessly fraught Palestine question. And A.R. Gurney’s new play on the subject–yes, I did say A. R. […]

From: Variety
Date: March 24, 2003
Author: Charles Isherwood

A little irreverence might not be a bad thing when it comes to the endlessly fraught Palestine question. And A.R. Gurney’s new play on the subject–yes, I did say A. R. Gurney–starts out in a pleasantly playful manner, promising to bring a light touch to a painfully fraught subject. But the pleasure gradually fades as the play devolves into an odd mixture of soap opera and op-ed column, and by the time it concludes, with the central character, an American diplomat, having become a martyr for the cause of peace, it has all but evaporated.

The play’s elaborate conceit presents the text as having been written just after Sept. 11, then lost for some time. We are watching it at some distant time in the future. “Because it is a long, rambling and tormented piece,” we are told, the actors narrate and edit as they go along, stepping out of character to explain what’s happened in scenes they’ve decided to skip or shorten.

The story follows the quixotic diplomatic career of Hartwell Clark (Stephen Rowe), an oil man recruited by President Bush, pre-9/11, for a minor post in the ministry of Near Eastern affairs, as it is called. “Why do they say that?” asks his scornful wife, who has no interest in leaving comfy Houston for the scorching deserts. “Maybe it’s nearer than we think,” comes the answer, suggesting things won’t be all fun and games.

Does this slick oil guy, who went to school with W, seem an unlikely figure for such a tense time? “Here’s where we’ve cut some clunky lines which remind us that at this time the Bush administration had turned its back on the Middle East,” comes the plausible explanation. “Which makes Hartwell’s appointment possible, if not probable.”

Such frank interjections continue intermittently as Hartwell dives into his job, although plausibility becomes a problem that can’t really be brushed aside by a shrug of the shoulders in the text. Hartwell quickly becomes a figure of controversy when an old flame, a Palestinian intellectual with whom he had an affair at school, Amira (a sharp Rita Wolf), accosts him at a meet-and-greet cocktail party in Jordan and insists on a secret meeting. The womanizing Hartwell thinks romance is in the air, and risks official disapproval by pursuing the relationship.

But Amira has more urgent business. She warns Hartwell of an imminent terrorist attack on the U.S., the info coming from her son, a member of Hamas. More details will follow if Hartwell will take her son’s peace plan for the holy land to his bosses. Eventually he does so (both warnings and plan are ignored, obviously), and becomes a crusader intent on finding a solution to the Palestinian problem that puts him at odds with his government’s official, staunchly pro-Israel position: “When in God’s name are they’ going to realize that we are all in this together?” he asks, exasperated at gossip that labels him anti-Semitic for his position.

Unfortunately, Gurney’s analysis of this complex territory doesn’t get much more sophisticated than that query, which recurs more than once and is ultimately proffered as the play’s unifying idea. The implicit suggestion, that the events of 9/11 might have been prevented if the U.S. had taken a more open-minded, and forthright, interest in the Palestinian question, is provocative, but it’s also simplistic. And the points that Gurney makes throughout the play–on the hypocrisies and cruelties of U.S. policies, the peculiar attitudes of fundamentalist-Christians toward the question of the holy land, etc.–often reduce his characters to mere TV pundits in street clothes.

The interrelationships among the characters aren’t explored with much more nuance. The dialogue tilts toward the soapy. (“We had a good thing going, didn’t we, Amira?”) And what are we to make of Hartwell’s womanizing, anyway? When the fling with Amira doesn’t pan out, he hits on another old friend, Sally, a U.S. Information Office exec who is somewhat tangential to the proceedings. If it’s an attempt to give him some humanity, it backfires, since he comes off as a bit sleazy and desperate. Or are we to take Hartwell as a stand-in for the U.S.’ love-’em-and-leave-’em politics? That’s even more iffy.

The play is performed with chipper, informal professionalism by its cast of five, under the brisk direction of Flea a.d. Jim Simpson. But the characters remain two-dimensional, and Gurney’s plotting only gets more ham-fisted as the play moves toward its tragic conclusion.

Presenting the text with a self-conscious wink–as if to excuse its implausibility by emphasizing its status as a fablelike commentary on events, not a depiction of them–doesn’t really excuse the playwright’s simplifications and sentimental contrivances. And the self-editing conceit eventually begins to beckon us: When the actors cheerily make reference to scenes they’ve edited out, it’s hard not to wish the audience, too, could be let in on the process.

`El beso de la mujer arana’ y la real validez de la audiencia

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:55:00 GMT

From: El Nuevo Herald Date: January 26, 1999 Author: Norma Niurka Entre los logros de la novela El Beso de la Mujer Araña, de Manuel Puig, convertida en película y musical de gran fama, se encuentra la perdurabilidad del tema […]

From: El Nuevo Herald
Date: January 26, 1999
Author: Norma Niurka

Entre los logros de la novela El Beso de la Mujer Araña, de Manuel Puig, convertida en película y musical de gran fama, se encuentra la perdurabilidad del tema y una extraña flexibilidad para transformarse a otros medios sin perder su esencia.

La novela llegó al celuloide en 1985 con el protagonismo de William Hurt, Raúl Juliá y Sonia Braga; prosiguió su camino de éxitos como Musical de Broadway, en versión de Terence McNally, alternando a Chita Rivera y María Conchita Alonso en un fantasioso papel de diva cinematográfica.

En ambos casos, el argumento gozaba de las ilimitadas posibilidades del cine o del musical, y la glamorosa mujer-araña tenía gran importancia. En el Encore Room, del Coconut Grove Playhouse, se ha estrenado como obra, desprovista de afeites (sin música, bailes, pantalla ni mujer-araña), otorgando a la puesta en escena la validez de la audacia.

Aquí el reto es representarla con el peso de la obra sobre sus dos intérpretes y sobre la profundidad del texto.

El autor ubica en una celda a dos hombres de diferentes extracciones sociales, políticas y sexuales, para confrontar la opresión, los prejuicios, la discriminación en un régimen dictatorial latinoamericano, al tiempo que explora la complejidad de las relaciones humanas.

La confrontación entre Molina, un diseñador de vidrieras, homosexual que se siente mujer, encarcelado con acusación de conducta impropia; y Valentín, heterosexual, marxista militante de una organización clandestina, revela el encuentro entre opuestos que genera un acercamiento de los opuestos; la influencia de las circunstancias en el comportamiento.

En este contexto de sexo y política, El Beso no es una historia de amor en un sentido romántico, pero sus ingredientes realzan las distintas formas del amor, la amistad y la complicidad.

El director Robert Presigiacomo ha realizado un montaje sobrio, sin pretensiones, que enfatiza precisamente texto y actuación. En el reducido espacio que permite este teatro semicircular, donde el público se acomoda alrededor de los actores, éstos gravitan en la celda que les ha tocado compartir, definida por la alambrada de púas que corona el escenario.

Dos camastros marcadamente diferenciados revelan cada personaje: el de Valentín está desnudo y sólo posee un libro; Molina tiene sobrecama de flecos, cojines y portaretratos. Una máscara blanca es el elemento unitario entre ambos ámbitos, la fantasía que va a sellar la relación cuando Molina inicie sus viajes al mundo cinematográfico para ahuyentar el tedio.

La escenografía resuelve los encuentros entre Molina y el carcelero, con una transparencia en un plano superior adonde acude el preso para resumir el diálogo mediante una grabación. El vestuario es correcto, dota a Molina de fantasía e irreverencia, y a Valentín de cierto desparpajo.

En la creación de un Molina divertido, tierno y sufrido, Tomás Milián revela una vez más su ductilidad interpretativa. El actor cubano-italiano, que ha trabajado en inglés gran parte de su carrera, parece buscar siempre papeles que representen un reto, y aquí lo encuentra. El amaneramiento y el patetismo de su personaje es sutil y sostenido, dando lugar a un delicioso careo entre la vulnerabilidad de Molina y la técnica de Milián. Su binterpretación, al desgaire, de una estrofa de un bolero (en español), es un detalle encantador del personaje.

Chaz Mena enfrenta con fuerza el personaje del revolucionario idealista lleno de dudas, encerrado con un homosexual delicado y soñador, que le muestra un aspecto de la vida desconocido para él (los mismos ingredientes que tuvo más tarde Fresa y Chocolate). Su actuación, plena de acciones lógicas, motivaciones y memoria emotiva, es un buen ejemplo del Método, además de que el joven actor posee vitalidad e intención dramática. Sus lágrimas caen ante los ojos de unos espectadores tan cercanos, que fisgonean hasta adentro de una bolsa de papel que éste abre.

La interrelación entre Milián y Mena , aún cuando existe una animosidad subterránea en los personajes, es total. Esto ayudó a superar la lentitud de los primeros momentos de la presentación del domingo. Tal parece que la obra necesita más ensayos para que fluya mejor; y la iluminación pudiera poner más énfasis en Molina, cuando éste se convierte en narrador de películas.

En cuanto a la escena clave de acercamiento entre los dos hombres, el director la resolvió de manera tan lúcida, comedida y precisa, que no se movió ni uno sólo de los cabellos blancos que poblaban la totalidad de los asientos en la matiné del domingo.

Un Universo Entre Rejas

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:53:00 GMT

From: El Nuevo Herald Date: January 22, 1999 Author: Norma Niurka “Dos personas completamente diferentes en términos políticos, humanos, sexuales, se encuentran en un calabozo y tienen que forjar una relación; no queda otro remedio que compartir ese espacio. Cuando […]

From: El Nuevo Herald
Date: January 22, 1999
Author: Norma Niurka

“Dos personas completamente diferentes en términos políticos, humanos, sexuales, se encuentran en un calabozo y tienen que forjar una relación; no queda otro remedio que compartir ese espacio. Cuando empiezo a ver a este hombre como ser humano, cambia mi percepción de él y cambia el espacio. Lo que era antes un calabozo viene siendo ahora un universo”.
Habla Chaz Mena , que interpreta al preso político Valentín, uno de los dos personajes de El beso de la mujer araña. La obra se estrena mañana viernes (en inglés), en el Encore Room, del Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Tomás Milián, la estrella del cine italiano y estadounidense, que vive en Miami Beach desde hace dos años, personifica a Molina, prisionero común confinado por homosexual, quien comparte su celda en una cárcel latinoamer??? ana.

El concepto de Mena sigue la pauta del desaparecido autor de El beso…, el argentino Manuel Puig, quien exploró las circunstancias que llevan a juntarse a dos seres opuestos, y sus consecuencias.

“La obra es una alegoría que se puede aplicar a cualquier conflicto, como por ejemplo el de irlandeses católicos y protestantes”, dice Mena , de 32 años, en perfecto español. “No nos queda otro remedio que amarnos”.

Mena es conocido aquí por su trabajo en teatro, cine, TV y anuncios comerciales. Ha actuado en Acme Theater, Florida Shakespeare Theater (cuando se llamaba FS Festival) y Area Stage Theater; ha intervenido en episodios de Miami Vice y Wise Guys; y en las cintas Miami Rapsody y Ace Ventura, filmadas aquí.

¿Quién puede decir que este muchacho bailador de son, que conversa en español hasta por los codos, usa palabras como “enjuto” y “forjar”, y cita constantentemente a José Martí, nació en Nueva York, se crió en Miami y jamás ha visitado Cuba?

Pues sí, Chaz Mena es un actor “americano” que achaca su hispanización absoluta a la crianza de sus padres, y sus expresiones en castellano a la lectura.

“Siempre viví con mis padres en la sagüesera”, apunta Mena , quien llegó a Miami a los seis años de edad, en 1972. “Desde que tengo uso de razón estoy oyendo hablar español, oyendo los cuentos de mi bisabuelo mambí que se hacían a la hora de comer. Oía de este lugar mágico que yo creía no tenía colores porque los retratos que me enseñaban siempre eran en blanco y negro”.

A pesar de que el actor está en forma, se puso a dieta para rebajar de peso y, a las 6 de la mañana, se le ve correr por Coconut Grove, mucho antes de empezar los ensayos diarios.

“El personaje debe ser más delgado que yo; quisiera estar enjuto, si pudiera, por la referencia visual, es importante para la obra”, explica. “Veo la actuación como un trabajo físico, no cerebral, cada vez que termino una obra, me pregunto cómo soy capaz de hacer las cosas que hace ese personaje”.

Mena es un actor del método Stanislavsky, que dio su primera clase de teatro en el último año de la secundaria, en el Miami Senior High School, entusiasmado al ver trabajar a Jim Puig, actor miamense bastante conocido, que en ese momento era asistente de la profesora (también en esa escuela conoció a la que es su esposa desde hace dos años).

Estudió becado en la Universidad de Miami y se graduó de bachillerato en literatura inglesa de Barry University. Empezó a trabajar como profesional en 1988, y sacó una maestría en teatro del Carnegie Mellon, de Pittsburgh, donde estudió con profesores invitados del Teatro de Arte de Moscú, quienes le facilitaron estudiar en esa prestigiosa institución rusa, de 1995 a 1996.

“En Rusia, las artes siempre fueron ayudadas por el gobierno y, desafortunadamente, el arte tenía que ser servicial al gobierno, ayudar en el adoctrinamiento”, explica. “Eso lo sé por colegas rusos que me contaban cómo ellos mismos hacían obras de realismo socialista, que odiaban, pero que tenían que hacer. Entonces, cuando yo estuve allá, los teatros ya se tenían que sostener por ellos mismos, y estaban haciendo obras baratas, casi pornográficas”.

El joven actor piensa que, en la actualidad, la comercialización del teatro es extensiva al mundo entero.

“Cuando un actor tiene sólo dos semanas para ensayar una obra es porque hay que poner una y después otra, y vender boletos”, dice. “Yo creo que el actor es un artesano, si soy muy bueno algun día me llamarán artista, pero no me gusta cómo se usa la palabra artista. Se puede tratar de vivir del arte, pero es difícil ser un artista”.

Hace dos años, sintió que estaba repitiéndose en sus personajes y desviando sus metas artísticas. Marchó con su esposa a Nueva York en busca de otros aires, pero siguió viajando entre una y otra ciudad. Aquí lleva un tiempo con los avatares de El beso…

La pieza se estaba ensayando en Area Stage y el local se vio obligado a cerrar. Cuando Arnold Mittelman, director del CGP, quien se hallaba gestionando los derechos de la obra, y se enteró de que ese grupo los tenía, propuso montarla en su teatro. Más tarde, hubo que posponer nuevamente el estreno porque la renovación del Encore Room no estuvo a tiempo.

“Esta es una oportunidad de expresar la opresión en todas las culturas”, señala Mittelman. “Aunque el sentido de opresión que la obra dramatiza se siente más en Latinoamérica, la realidad es que la popularidad que ha tenido la obra en todas partes señala que el tema es universal”.

Chaz Mena quisiera que el público acudiera a ver la pieza por una razón muy particular: “Me interesa que por un rato se congregue un grupo de personas para pasar un buen rato, pero también para celebrar todo lo que es humano”.

José Martí at NCU, ACTOR PRESENTS DIALOGUE WITH JOSÉ MARTÍ

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 05:00:00 GMT

by Sara Weist, Co-Editor Daily Tar Heel Chaz Mena, an actor from Florida, came to UNC on Nov. 17 to perform a short theatrical work about the life of José Martí. Cuban intellectual José Martí (1853-1895) is most famous for […]

by Sara Weist, Co-Editor
Daily Tar Heel

Chaz Mena, an actor from Florida, came to UNC on Nov. 17 to perform a short theatrical work about the life of José Martí.

Cuban intellectual José Martí (1853-1895) is most famous for his works of literature, his diplomatic endeavors and his role in the fight for Cuban independence from Spain. “He’s like an uncle, like a member of the family, he’s always there,” Mena said. “You just can’t get rid of him. He’s always there; he’s always present.” Mena’s presentation was in the Chatauque style, which is a dramatic attempt to represent a historical figure outside the context of a specific scene. This Chatauqua work was in the form of a conversation between the audience and the historical figure Martí. Kathy Ibarra, a UNC junior, said she liked the Chatauqua style. “It made it possible to speak with a historical figure that no one from our generation will ever be able to talk to,” she said. “I am studying abroad in Cuba in the spring, so for me this was an awesome opportunity because Martí is a very important figure in Cuban culture.” In the presentation, Mena spoke about the all aspects of Martí’s life, both personal and political. “The Spanish say that in Cuba we are bitter,” Mena said. “We are not bitter; we are dying.” Mena also spoke about Martí’s family life. “I was married, but my wife has since left me and returned to Cuba,” he said. “But sometimes in the mornings, I feel something, and I know that what I am feeling is that my son is going to wake up.” Mena is traveling throughout the country presenting his work, and he said he was especially looking forward to coming to UNC. “I was really excited about coming to UNC, more that anything because of what I had learned about Louis Pérez and the work that he is doing here,” Mena said. Pérez is a history professor and director of the Latin American Studies program. His research focuses mostly on the history of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean during the 19th and 20th centuries. Pérez, who also attended the performance, said he was happy with how things had gone and he thought it is important for more people to learn about the life of José Martí. “I want everyone to read Martí’s works,” he said. “He is a central figure in the history of Latin America.”

Miami Dade College Forum, “Telling a Hero’s Story Through Interactive Performance”

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:53:00 GMT

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2007 Author: Christopher C. Gregory-Guider Although the celebrated Cuban Icon and writer Jose Marti died more than a century ago, actor Chaz Mena talks about him with an infectious immediacy and intimacy. “Marti was a constant subject […]

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2007

Author: Christopher C. Gregory-Guider

Although the celebrated Cuban Icon and writer Jose Marti died more than a century ago, actor Chaz Mena talks about him with an infectious immediacy and intimacy. “Marti was a constant subject at the dinner table when growing up, “ says Mena. “He was like a member of the family.”

With a grant from the Florida Humanities council, Mena immersed himself in Marti’s voluminous writings over the past year in preparation for a one-man theater production that will bring the fallen Cuban hero to life. In a return to the city where he spent his formative years, Mena will perform “Charla, A Chat With Jose Marti in the Chapman Conference Center on MDC’s Wolfson Campus. The performance promises to shed new light on Martí’s tireless efforts to expose injustice and his role in Cuba’s long struggle for independence.

Mena anticipates that the theme of the performance will deeply resonate with his Miami audience, but he is quick to point out that the play ultimately promotes a universal message that transcends any one ethnic group. “The message of quality Marti expressed through his life and writings is one that applies to all and one that has special meaning to Floridians,” Mena explains the connection to Florida is immediately apparent in Mena’s performance, which focuses on Marti’s trip to Ybor City in 1891 as part of his efforts to rally the region’s Cuban exiles to rise up against colonial Spain.

The play is far more than a history lesson, though. Performed in the Chautauqua style –a mode of theatre originating in fin de siecle New York—audience members will be able to interact with Mena’s character and pose questions, much as would have been the case in Marti’s actual discussions with South Florida’s late 19-century Cuban community.

Marti’s championing of the cause of the downtrodden was not without cost. He was imprisoned and deported multiple times, although Cuban officially gained independence from the U. S. in 1902, Marti was not destined to see it: He fell at the Battle of Dos Rios on May 19, 1895 after charging Spanish troops.

“Charla” A Chat With Jose Marti proves that Marti’ spirit has secured an afterlife through artists like Mena, whose performance reminds us that history is not a closed chapter of the past, but a living and breathing voice that continues to call out to us in the present.

‘HAVANA’ TOO AMBIGUOUS

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:55:00 GMT

From: The Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, OH) Date: September 27, 2002 Author: Stein, Jerry Byline: Jerry Stein Post staff reporter Playwright Eduardo Machado challenges Thomas Wolfe’s admonition that ‘you can’t go home again’ in his play ‘Havana Is Waiting.’ But the […]

From: The Cincinnati Post (Cincinnati, OH)
Date: September 27, 2002
Author: Stein, Jerry

Byline: Jerry Stein Post staff reporter

Playwright Eduardo Machado challenges Thomas Wolfe’s admonition that ‘you can’t go home again’ in his play ‘Havana Is Waiting.’ But the journey home for Machado’s character Federico is a painful one.

Machado’s autobiographical play, which opened Thursday night at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, is set in 1999 when Elian Gonzalez washed ashore in Miami. It is this year when Federico (Chaz Mena), after great indecisiveness, decides to return to Cuba with a friend Fred (Paolo Andino). He has been away 38 years.

Federico and his brother were among the 14,000 children who were spirited away from Cuba in a secret operation known as the Peter Pan flights between 1960 and 1962.

Once back in Cuba , Federico’s head is a jungle of emotions. There is guilt about leaving Cuba even though Federico as a nine-year-old didn’t have much to say about being put on a plane for the U.S.

Conversely, Federico also initially finds joy in the completeness he feels being back in his native country. He describes it as having ‘new pupils.’

Performed on set designer Riccardo Hernandez’s simple set that features a large cut-out map of Cuba on a blue stage floor, the play is ultimately too ambitious. Ron Martin must have felt like he had a theatrical tiger by the tail while directing this play.

‘Havana’ contains a plethora of themes and psychological complexities. But Martin mostly succeeds in maintaining clarity amid the crashing of all the ideas. But emotionally many scenes go over the top.

Not only does the play deal with Federico’s trauma, but there is a whole secondary theme of his relationship with Fred. Meanwhile, Machado finds time to delve into the love-resentment of Federico’s driver Ernesto (Antonio Edwards Suarez) and the whole world political climate.

If the multiplicity of concerns is at times difficult and emotionally exhausting to wrap the mind around, director Daniels’ actors certainly give dimension to their characters’ anxieties. Mena makes Federico and engaging, unpredictable man who takes Valium to control his warring emotions.

Andino’s portrayal of Fred and his journey into self registers both the fear and courage of such a psychological trip.

‘Havana Is Waiting’ makes you wait and wait for dramatic movements. But when they come, it is difficult not to respond to a most admirable investigation into one man’s conscience even though the play is too conscientious in revealing it.

HAVANA IS WAITING, Thursday night at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Eden Park, Mount Adams. Playdates: Tuesdays-Sundays through Oct. 20. Tickets: $37-$45.(513) 421-3888

Monólogo en inglés del pensamiento martiano

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:52:00 GMT

El Nuevo Herald, June 14 Interview June 14, 2007 SARAH MORENO El Nuevo Herald El escenario es el Club Cherokee en el histórico hotel El Pasaje de Tampa, los sentimientos son la duda y la resolución, y el personaje es […]

El Nuevo Herald, June 14 Interview
June 14, 2007

SARAH MORENO El Nuevo Herald El escenario es el Club Cherokee en el histórico hotel El Pasaje de Tampa, los sentimientos son la duda y la resolución, y el personaje es José Martí.

Esta noche en el Wertheim Performing Arts Center, de FIU, el actor cubanoamericano Chaz Mena recreará en su monólogo en inglés ‘Charla’, a Chat with José Martí, la madrugada del 25 de noviembre de 1891 en que Martí llegó a Tampa invitado por los tabaqueros para ofrecer un discurso en memoria de los ocho estudiantes de medicina fusilados por el gobierno colonial español.

El monólogo de Mena llena el vacío que los historiadores no alcanzan a cubrir: esas horas de Martí en solitario, en su habitación, después de una noche de emociones, en que fue recibido por decenas de simpatizantes, bajo una lluvia torrencial, en que departió hasta altas horas con “los pinos nuevos”, los jóvenes de la comunidad cubana tampeña. Al día siguiente pronunciará su histórico discurso, tendrá el primer encuentro oficial con hombres y mujeres clave para su proyecto independentista.
“Van a ver a un hombre angustiado, preocupado, batallando. Tiene dudas porque se pregunta cuál es su función política, qué representa para esos tampeños. Está asombrado de la manera en que lo han tratado, del obsequio que le dieron –una pluma y un tintero de oro–. También sabe que estas personas esperan algo de él y debe responder. Siente que tiene un compromiso”, dice Mena, que a los 6 años de edad conoció por primera vez una biografía de Martí ilustrada con fotos, gracias a su abuelo, un gran martiano y masón, que nació en 1902, el año de fundación de la República de Cuba.

“Mis padres dejaron todo para venir a este país, por unos ideales que se funden con la idea martiana”, dice Mena, que nació en Nueva York y se crió en Miami.
En tertulias familiares en la puerta de su casa de la 27 avenida miamense, entre tazas de café y anécdotas repetidas, que se volvían a contar con la fruición del primer día, presenció Mena esa forma de teatro popular, la historia que se “actúa” de boca en boca, que definió su vocación.

En 1995, Martí fue compañía en el duro invierno ruso del actor, cuando luego de graduarse de una maestría en artes del Carnegie Mellon University, en Pittsburgh, fue a estudiar un postgrado de actuación en la prestigiosa Moscow Arts Theatre, fundada por Stanislavsky y Nemirovich-Danchenko. De una edición en español de la Poesía completa de Martí, repetía: “Verso, nos hablan de un dios/adonde van los difuntos/verso, o nos condenan juntos/, o nos salvamos los dos”.

“Cuando los leía, sentía que no estaba solo, que estaba conectado con mi cultura, porque una de las flores más bellas de mi cultura son los versos de Martí, una reacción a la intolerancia, a la crueldad, a la apatía sobre todo”, dice Mena, que siente que el texto martiano cambia con cada lector, y que a él, que se define como “hijo de la diáspora”, lo ha llevado a un mayor entendimiento de su identidad.

El epistolario de Martí es una de las fuentes para su monólogo. “A través de las cartas se conoce al hombre”, dice. También lo sedujo la obra de investigadores como Enrico Mario Santí –“que dice que debemos pensar a través de Martí, y no sobre él”-, y la de Carlos Ripoll, de este último en especial la noveleta Julián Pérez, que sitúa a Martí en la Cuba de los años 70.

El reto de Mena en esta “Charla” con Martí, que también establece un diálogo con el público, fue cumplir con uno de los requisitos de la organización patrocinadora, Florida Humanities Council, que establece en sus parámetros que se ofrezcan datos biográficos del personaje.

“Hay que hablar del personaje y encarnarlo. Desde el punto de vista artístico eso es difícil, porque, quién va a hablar de sí mismo sin tener una razón”.
En la obra, salpicada con textos martianos traducidos al inglés por Mena, se cuentan los amores de Martí, su testimonio de la esclavitud, el dolor por la separación de su hijo, los encontronazos con su padre, su experiencia en el presidio político y las lecciones que recibió de su maestro Mendive.

“No puedo ser tan pretencioso de intentar alcanzar la psicología de Martí, pero sí tengo derecho a usar mi imaginación como actor, para ver cómo actuaría en su situación”, explica Mena, que tiene experiencia representando personajes famosos en Picasso at the Lapin Agile, y a Lord Byron, en Bloody Poetry.
“Hay que ir más allá de las nociones preconcebidas. No actuar como un gran hombre”, opina Mena.

Y este acercamiento hubiera complacido a Martí que, con humildad, pudo dedicar casi toda la víspera de un día importantísimo en su misión de libertador, a hablar con los hombres, de cualquier raza y credo, que le permitirían hacer realidad su empresa. ¤

smoreno@herald.com

‘Charla’, a Chat with José Martí’, presentado por el Cuban Research Institute, hoy a las 7:30 p.m., en el Wertheim Performing Arts Center, en 11200 SW 8 St. Entrada gratis.

Another Write-up in Spanish, Diaro Las Americas

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 01:42:00 GMT

Diario Las Americas Publicado el 06-07-2007 Presentarán en FIU Charla con José Martí El Instituto de Investigaciones Cubanas, el Departamento de Teatro y Danza, y el “Honors College” de la Universidad Internacional de la Florida (FIU) presentarán “Charla, A Chat […]

Diario Las Americas Publicado el 06-07-2007
Presentarán en FIU Charla con José Martí

El Instituto de Investigaciones Cubanas, el Departamento de Teatro y Danza, y el “Honors College” de la Universidad Internacional de la Florida (FIU) presentarán “Charla, A Chat with José Martí,” el jueves14 de junio a las 7:30 p.m en el Wertheim Performing Arts Center, 11200 S.W. 8 Street. El evento es gratis y abierto al público.

Un monólogo con música de fondo inspirado por las obras de José Martí, “Charla…” fue escrito y es actuado por Chaz Mena para el “Road Scholars Program” del “Florida Humanities Council.” En palabras de Damián Fernández, director del CRI, “a través de este monólogo, Mena demuestra que José Martí es una figura vigente.” Martí le habla directamente a la audiencia, ensayando con ellos un discurso que debe ofrecer a los exiliados cubanos la noche siguiente en Tampa, Florida, en 1891. Lo político se torna personal, cuando vamos aprendiendo sobre Martí, el hombre. Su infancia, sus estudios, sus escritos y sus amores se entrelazan a medida que el líder cubano reflexiona sobre el curso a tomar en su primer encuentro con el exilio cubano en la Florida. Martí debe inspirar a su pueblo, que en esos momentos disfruta de una vida pacífica y lucrativa en la Florida, para que lo arriesgue todo en un esfuerzo final por liberar su país. Deben aspirar a lo más alto, una Cuba libre.

“Es una ocasión magnífica para que los jóvenes cubanoamericanos conozcan más sobre Martí,” comentó Uva de Aragón, subdirectora del CRI.

Nacido en Miami pero actualmente residente de Nueva York, Chaz Mena actuó recientemente en el estreno mundial de la obra de Susie Westphal, “The Boy from Russia”, en el Actor´s Playhouse de Coral Gables. Otras actuaciones recientes incluyen la premier en Estados Unidos de “Murder of Isaac” del dramaturgo más sobresaliente de Israel, Motti Lerner, en Centerstage en Baltimore. En 2006 fue parte del elenco de la obra ganadora de un premio Tony, “Anna in the Tropics” de Nilo Cruz, representada en el Arena Stage de Washington, D.C.

Después de la presentación, que será en inglés, habrá una recepción, con cócteles cortesía de Bacardí, U.S.A., Inc. Puede aparcarse en el Blue Parking Garage. Para RSVP o para más información, llamar al (305) 348-1991.

Burning Passion; Reading Aloud Is Incendiary in ‘Anna’.

Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:45:00 GMT

Burning Passion; Reading Aloud Is Incendiary in ‘Anna’. Byline: Jayne Blanchard, THE WASHINGTON TIMES Amazing what seems risque these days. With expanses of bare flesh – everywhere from prime-time to the playground – the human body has become a bit […]

Burning Passion; Reading Aloud Is Incendiary in ‘Anna’.

Byline: Jayne Blanchard, THE WASHINGTON TIMES Amazing what seems risque these days.

With expanses of bare flesh – everywhere from prime-time to the playground – the human body has become a bit of a snore. On the other hand, a cigar…now that’s sexy. The warm, tobacco-colored cylinder lolling in the mouth, the blue smoke-rings rising languidly to the skies, the scent redolent of everything from island spices to the earth just before it rains – the cigar beats the centerfold hands-down in what is forbidden, taboo. The cigar, in fact, is much more than a smoke in Nilo Cruz’s voluptuous, Pulitzer Prize-winning play (never thought you’d see “voluptuous” and “Pulitzer” in one sentence, did you?), “Anna in the Tropics,” about the startling effect words have on a group of Cuban-American cigar factory workers in Florida in the 1920s. Mr. Cruz’s play is an orgy of language. Not only are there salient passages from the gulag bodice-ripper “Anna Karenina,” but his descriptions are enough to propel you into a cold shower. This is a play where metaphors accrete like the finest silk lingerie – layer upon layer of words that well in the mind like kisses. How can you not love a writer who comes up with lines like “I have the heart of a seal and when I get excited it wants to swim out of my chest”? Sometimes the prose gets purplish, but for the most part, you just lie back and think of Cuba. The play’s catalyst is Juan Julian (the princely Jason Manuel Olazabal), the plant’s new “lector,” someone who, in the Cuban tradition, read aloud to the workers as they bunched tobacco and rolled cigars. In the play, Juan Julian is a courtly man who chooses “Anna Karenina” as his first effort, unaware of how this book will ignite passions both grand and violent in the men and women. In the women, naturally, Juan Julian arouses passion, particularly in the disenchanted housewife Conchita (Yetta Gottesman), whose husband Palomo (Felix Solis), has taken a lover. She finds, in the words of Tolstoy, “a new way of loving” in the arms of Juan, which also fans the flames of her husband’s desire for her. Once an unhappy frau in an apron, Conchita’s reawakened sexuality – and new Clara Bow hair – turn her into a modern woman, one who controls both her spouse and her lover with sensual ease and dominance. Her assignations with Juan are scorching with the lust of the new; while her scenes with Palomo are more complex sexually. These are people who know each other too well when trying to recapture the mystery and strangeness of lovemaking. Juan’s presence also beguiles the young, impressionable Marela (Michele Vazquez), who drifts in a world of movie star photos and literary fantasies as gauzy as the cigar smoke that floats around her at the factory. Unfortunately, this innocent is preyed upon by Cheche (Chaz Mena), the owner Santiago’s (Mateo Gomez) half-brother, a corroded soul trying to push the plant into blunt modernization. Juan Julian also represents the tug between a slower, older, more savored way of life and America in the 1920s; a world of fast cars, movies, a quick smoke, and the perpetual clang of machinery. As a lector, Juan cultivates the art of listening – of letting images and words bloom in your head like small flowers. His way of life has given way to what we see today: a nation of talkers and takers who prefer to “zone out” rather than use the imagination. An enchanted quality hangs over “Anna in the Tropics,” as if Mr. Cruz’s language has cast a spell over the action of the play. Everyone moves as if caught in a dance, or between the pages of a book where only one person knows the ending. The actors, under the clear direction of Jo Bonney, capture this familiar, yet other-worldly realm of “Anna in the Tropics.” Everything they do, every word they speak, is touched with an unhurried sensuality that never veers into the cheap or overblown. The tactile is a world in which they move freely, whether they’re lifting a glass of rum, rolling a cigar, or wrapped in an embrace. And the overall sense of friskiness is not reserved for the young. Marian Licha proves to be an older woman of both dignity and abandon as Ofelia, the owner’s wife, while Mr. Gomez’s Santiago is a tippler and a gambler with an ingratiating vigor. “Anna in the Tropics” is a play of stirring words and emotional timbre. Its effect is like having someone read aloud to you, or savoring a good cigar. The potency of these acts is revealed slowly, carefully, and remain in the mind long after.

+++++ FOUR STARS

Press – CHAZ MENA

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