Joe Szek sees modern relevance in 'OKLAHOMA!' presented by Scarborough Music Theatre

By Joe Szek
Theatre Reviewer

It’s a long one, but this 'Oklahoma!" is still entertaining even though ‘times have changed’

Clocking in at nearly three hours with one intermission, I’m still amazed Messrs. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Oklahoma’ draws in the crowds. It was the first collaborative effort between the two men who would then go on to write and score other audience favourites including ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘The King and I’. Yes, there are tuneful ditties, corny jokes, and puns to make an audience laugh; nevertheless, there is a darker side to this story given our current world context that I’ll address later.

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Whitby Courthouse Presents “Next To Normal”

By Paul Love
Guest Reviewer

“Next to Normal” tackles the important — and often misunderstood — topic of mental illness in an unflinching manner. The brainchild of Brian Yorkey (lyrics and original book) and Tom Kitt (music), it found great success in its original run on Broadway, and is now being staged at Whitby Courthouse Theatre.

Diana Goodman (Catherine Marzola) is a caring wife to Dan (Brian Hargan) and mother to Natalie (Sophia Daunt) and Gabe (Devin Dos Santos). We discover that Diana has been battling bipolar disorder for more than 16 years, and this has greatly tested the strength of the Goodman family. The approach of modern Western medicine to treat mental illness —throwing medication at the problem — is clearly on trial here, as the medical treatments Diana receives to make herself more “normal” only seem to make matters worse.

Catherine Marzola portrays Diana as a woman who genuinely cares about her family, but who has moments where they feel like strangers to her. Ms. Marzola makes us feel Diana’s confusion, detachment, and fear very succinctly in a performance that is both powerful and subtle. Her quiet, inwardness contrasts nicely against her bombastic song moments, where her great singing voice lights up the stage.

Brian Hargan presents a Dan who is struggling to hold his family’s world together, particularly when Diana is absent (physically as well as emotionally). He is likeable and funny, adeptly mining laughs from the audience, but then just as quickly tugging at your heartstrings with a moment of deep melancholy. Add a powerhouse singing voice to the solid characterization, and you’ve got one masterful performance.

Photo by Raph Nogal Photography

Taking on the role of Gabe with abandon and a tireless energy — and an excellent singing voice to match it — is Devin Dos Santos, who presents Gabe as a typical teenager — staying up late and ignoring his parents — but also atypical in the way he spends much of his time away from his friends, doting on his mother, almost sensing when she’s struggling, and doing everything he can to pick her up. It is in the moments where he fears losing a connection with his mother that Mr. Dos Santos wonderfully contrasts his gleeful high spirits with a devastating fear and sadness.

As the younger sister living in her brother’s shadow, Sophia Daunt imbues Natalie with a tough, evasive exterior protecting the sad, lonely, young woman inside who just wants to connect and be appreciated. Her struggle to maintain a semblance of a life amid the turmoil of her mother’s illness is such a believable portrayal that it makes Ms. Daunt’s Natalie instantly relatable. Her incredible singing rings with such passion and energy that you are riveted whenever she has the stage. The chemistry she shares with Nathan Simpson, as Natalie’s love interest, Henry, makes for some great moments between these two characters as they desperately try to create a little umbrella of happiness amid Natalie’s stormy family life. Mr. Simpson also displays some great comedic instincts in his brief scenes.

Photo by Raph Nogal Photography

Yorkey and Kitt didn’t give the performer playing the dual roles of Dr. Madden and Dr. Fine a lot to do in this show, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Jay Da Costa’s standout “rock ‘n roll moments” as Dr. Fine.

Almost acting as the seventh member of the cast is Erastus Burley’s stunning set. It is not often that you see a set that encapsulates and combines a play’s setting and main thematic elements so perfectly. The majority of the two-level space is representative of the Goodman household, but is presented in an altered fashion: a kitchen framed at one side by a monotonous, greyed-out pyramid of cans that stack off into the distance; a tangled mess of empty picture frames (possibly representing Diana’s lost memories), starting at a small table by the door, climb the wall and grow out of control up to and along the ceiling; more anonymous, greyed out appliances and containers are stacked wall-like along one side of the upper level; and a huge, dishevelled wall of clothing stage centre of the upper level, the centre of which acts as an entrance. It’s as though we’re seeing the clutter and the chaos of everyday life through the lens of Diana’s mind.

I have always thought that a musical theatre production that is performed with a live band instantly places itself in a higher class. Kudos to the talented band that gave so much energy and soul to this production.

Director Shael Risman keeps the action flowing nicely from scene to scene, never allowing any moments to feel bogged down, and using the marvelous set to his full advantage. Mr. Risman makes a beautiful choice with the final number by having a video screen display a montage of people (alive and deceased) who have struggled with mental illness, such as Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Margot Kidder, and Marilyn Monroe. The most indelible of these images is the final one, of Mr. Risman’s brother, Carey, who lost his own battle with mental illness 22 years ago.

Whitby Courthouse Theatre’s production of “Next to Normal” is not to be missed, and if you want to see it you should act quickly because tickets are selling out very fast. Remaining performances are November 15th, 16th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th at 8 pm, with a 2 pm matinee on Saturday, November 17th. Your best bet for getting tickets would be to visit the website.

Photo by Raph Nogal Photography

Durham Shoestring Performers' “The Long Road” ends this weekend

By Paul Love
Guest Reviewer

“The Long Road” is Shelagh Stephenson’s exploration into the realm of grief, loss, and forgiveness, based on prisoner research, and produced for the first time at London’s Soho Theatre a decade ago. The Durham Shoestring Performers are currently presenting this intense drama.

A happy, unassuming family is torn asunder when Danny Pritchard, a mere 18 years old, is killed by a young stranger (Katie Lunman) in a random, senseless attack. Left to pick up the pieces of their broken lives are Danny’s mother, Mary (Raissa Chernushenko), father, John (Kevin Shaver), and his older brother, Joe (Carey Risman). Each member struggles in their own way to come to terms with Danny’s absence from their lives.

I must say that it was a refreshing choice by Director Joe Szekeres to keep the play set in London while dispensing with potentially distracting British accents.

As Danny’s brother, Joe, Carey Risman is locked in and ready to go from the second the lights come up. His opening monologue, wherein he describes the moment where he witnessed Danny’s murder, is a punch to the gut that immediately and succinctly sets the tone for the entire play. The way in which his Joe is giving an account of the events of the murder, while trying to make sense of them at the same time, is remarkable. Mr. Risman creates a character who is very human and real. His struggle to be loved by parents who are emotionally damaged is heartbreaking.

Photo by Phil Ireland

Kevin Shaver presents us a father who is dealing with his grief by finding a means of escape from the pain. At first he takes up running, but eventually that gives way to a deep cycle of drinking. Mr. Shaver portrays John as a proud man who doesn’t want to be treated any differently than he was before Danny was killed. Seeing John struggle to maintain his sense of dignity while the alcohol turns him into a stumbling, disheveled, angry man is tragic. In lesser hands, this character could’ve been easily unlikeable, but Mr. Shaver makes you hurt right along with him and hope he finds his way back.

Katie Lunman plays the young killer, Emma Price, with a put-upon energy that perfectly belies the frightened young woman inside. Much of the time, Ms. Lunman’s Emma grandstands from behind her carefully constructed emotional wall, smirking and ranting about the evils of avocado and which liqueurs are the best. It’s in the moments where Emma struggles to pull down the wall and connect with someone — anyone — that Ms. Lunman is truly riveting to watch. Patti Wilson, as social worker Elizabeth McKellan, gives you the sense of a woman who is adept at keeping her emotions in check even when they’re bursting at the seams, leaving Ms. Wilson to do some wonderful characterization with her eyes. The contrast created by these two performances is powerful to watch.

Mothers are arguably the centre of every good family, and Raissa Chernushenko’s performance as Mary is the beating heart of this production. Not content to accept the notion that she needs to move on with her life, Mary struggles with why it has happened and what must she do to forgive her son’s killer, if anything. Ms. Chernushenko’s journey of emotions from deep sadness to confusion, anger, hope, fear, and frustration while she screams and sobs and struggles to keep her surviving family intact is heart-rending and a wonder to behold.

Mr. Szekeres staged the production well; movement was kept to a minimum, appropriately supplanted by the powerful dialogue of this piece. The transitional music by Elius Caruso struck just the right tone, and the Peter Katz song “Forgiveness” made for a poignant finish.

“The Long Road” has only two remaining performances — November 9th and 10th at the Arts Resource Centre, 45 Queen St, Oshawa. Both shows are at 8 pm. Tickets are available at the door or visit the website for more information.

Photo by Phil Ireland

Verve Theatre Company presents “Blood Money”

By Paul Love
Guest Reviewer

“Blood Money” was written in the late 1990s by Neil, Lea, and John Heather — known in the theatre world as the Heather Brothers. The play is a modern-day comedy-thriller with a few twists thrown in. Before launching into my review of Verve’s Canadian premiere of “Blood Money”, I feel it needs to be said that the play itself is definitely not without its flaws. There are character transitions that seem too forced and abrupt in places, choices by characters that don’t seem to make sense, and the ending feels a bit sudden.

Having said all that, it is my belief that the review of a theatrical production should be based not on the quality of the source material, but on how well the cast and crew worked with the material they were given. And in the case of this cast and crew, they rose above the material, presenting a show that seemed to keep its audience entertained.

The play is about a womanizing celebrity game show host, Mike Mason (Aaron Sidenberg), whose relationship with his wife, Liz (Kendra West), has been crumbling for years, mainly because of a horrible, life-changing incident in their past that they’ve tried to keep buried. Seven years later, that incident seems to be coming back to haunt them.

Mr. Sidenberg plays Mike effectively, with a nice mix of charisma, charm, and a thin veneer of lechery. You always get a sense that nobody in his life really knows the real Mike.

Ms. West’s turn as Liz is most powerful in the character’s smaller, quieter moments. Sure, the arguments between Liz and Mike are fine, but it’s in her more inward moments that we see the hurting soul beneath the bluster. Ms. West plays drunk with a convincing subtlety — a feat some Hollywood actors have yet to master — which is so important because instead of making the drinking seem like a laughable personality quirk, she gives a sense of Liz’s drinking as a means of drowning out her inner demons.

Alanna Stewart plays Sue, Mike’s neighbour and affair of the moment, with a naïve but definitely not innocent effervescence that contrasts Mike’s smarm perfectly. If only the Heather Brothers had given her more to do. I am not able to mention her best moment for fear of giving away too much; suffice it to say that she plays terror well.

Dr. Campbell, Liz’s therapist, is a complex character. Christine Fraser plays her as a woman with passion and drive, and an enigmatic mixture of moods. It was in her character’s more relaxed scenes that I found it hard to make out some of her lines. However, it is in one particular monologue (the spoilery details of which I cannot divulge) where her performance shined its brightest.

Director Vicki Tompkins moved the cast about the stage naturally, matching the blocking with the technical aspects of the show well. Speaking of which, special acknowledgement must be given for how the complex technical side of this show was handled. Stage Manager (and Effects Designer) Sidnei Auler, ASM Jane Hickey, Sound Operator Linda Brent, Stage Hand Avery Ierullo, and whoever was working the lights deserve kudos for putting on a technical show that was as tight as a drum — and that’s no small feat in a production with so many intricately timed effects.

“Blood Money” has only two remaining performances — November 8th and 9th at the Newmarket Old Town Hall, 460 Botsford St. Both shows are at 8 pm. Tickets are available at the door or visit www.verve-theatre-company.com.

Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre Ensemble Presents 'Wait Until Dark'

By Paul Love
Guest Reviewer

From the moment The Capitol Theatre Ensemble’s production of Wait Until Dark begins, we know something bad is going on. A prowler searches a deserted apartment at night, with only a flashlight to light his way. Then another, seemingly more dangerous, criminal shows up and that sense of dread becomes downright sinister. Based on Frederick Knott’s 1966 play (famously adapted for film the following year), Wait Until Dark is a story of a blind woman who is terrorized by criminals who are after a very lucrative item, and who will stop at nothing to acquire it.

The aforementioned blind woman, Susan (Kristy Bird), lives in a basement apartment in Greenwich Village with her husband, Sam (Stacy Main), a photographer. Gloria (Alexia Boyagian), a young girl who lives in one of the building’s other apartments, visits Susan to keep her company, run errands for her, and occasionally be a thorn in Susan’s side. A bumbling ex-cop/ex-con by the name of Carlino (Neil Torrie) and a smooth-talking criminal named Harry Roat, Jr. (Craig Norton) attempt to pull a con on Susan in order to acquire a very important and valuable doll. At the same time, Susan is unexpectedly visited by a man named Mike Talman (Tim Houghton), who is one of Sam’s war buddies and was hoping to stop by for a visit with him.

Blindness is still a fairly new part of Susan’s life and the sense of her still learning and adapting to this new aspect of her life (particularly when she is overwhelmed by a stressful situation) is clearly present in Ms. Bird’s performance. Also present, and absolutely necessary for this entire show to be believable, is the sense of Susan’s strength and determination, which Ms. Bird portrays very nicely. Susan spends much of her time alone, and another great challenge for the actor is expressing feelings and reactions without dialogue. Ms. Bird handles this challenge effectively, and in particular, there is a moment where she reacts to a major turning point in the plot, and her visibly shaken — yet almost silent — reaction sent a chill down my spine.

Every great hero needs a great villain, and Roat is that villain. The actor who plays Roat must be able to portray a sociopath who has the intelligence and wherewithal to make you not even think for a second that he is a sociopath — until something or someone gets in the way of his plans. Mr. Norton does this beautifully with his performance. His Roat is smooth-talking — charismatic even — and disturbingly detached emotionally, which makes the moments where his frustration explodes into a fit of rage chillingly effective.

Neil Torrie’s Carlino is the perfect archetype of the bumbling, all-brawn-no-brain “New Yawk” wiseguy. There were volume issues with some of Mr. Torre’s lines, but I imagine this is due to the show being early in its run. Tim Houghton plays Mike Talman with just the right mixture of warmth and clipped emotion. Kudos to Ms. Boyagian for marvelously creating Gloria’s pertinent, fair weather attitude. The true standout moments were those where Gloria quietly pushes back against Susan’s scolding, giving a wonderfully subtle sense of Gloria’s troubled home life which, although not important to the overall story, gives a deeper understanding of this all-important character.

The costumes were appropriately ’60s, and set designer/director Jim Finan’s set had a comfortable, lived-in feel. The exposed brick wall was a nice touch. My only complaint is that the all-important centre stage window seemed a bit high for the sight lines, but the cast were convincing enough to make me believe.

Mr. Finan stages the action of the play well, particularly in the opening scene, which establishes the mood of the play perfectly, while also giving a sense of realism with Carlino’s flashlight flitting about, casting light on the audience, and drawing us into the action that is taking place.

Show Details

The show is being staged until October 31st, 2018 at the beautiful Cameco Capitol Arts Centre, 20 Queen St., Port Hope.

Evening performances are at 8:00 pm (except the performance on October 31st, which is at 7 pm) and matinees are at 2:00 pm.

The show is approximately 2 hours with one 20-minute intermission.

More details are available at capitoltheatre.com.