The Fourth Was With Us

Call me oblivious, but I'd never noticed the swift creek at Swift Creek Mill Theatre before.

It's not like I hadn't been there, I just hadn't heard the roar of the creek that I did today, undoubtedly a result of the almost non-stop rain we've had since Prince died. And roaring is no exaggeration. The original gristmill must have been wildly productive with that kind of water behind it.

Foto Boy and I were there for "Little Shop of Horrors," which, like the creek, I hadn't seen before. Oh, sure, I'd seen the 1986 film version but the play? Never.

And the eight-month run at Swift Creek Mill in 1986? That was the year I landed in Richmond and was far too busy adjusting to life in the county after Dupont Circle to pay attention to the local theater scene. Today allowed me to correct that.

Our pre-show lunch of salads, Nicoise and Cobb, at Garnett's ran long and as we slid into our seats a few short minutes before curtain, the woman next to us observed, "You're late!" and then smiled to show she was joking.

Everyone's a mother (or grandmother) at Swift Creek it seems.

Everything about the play was fun and well-executed, from helium-voiced Audra almost unrecognizable in a blond pageboy wig as Audrey, to Ian's earnest and nebbishy Seymour to Adam's shape-shifting takes on too many characters to count - the abusive dentist, the Life magazine reporter, the bum barfing on the street, Mrs. Luce - to the do-wop girls acting as a Greek chorus in bouffants, everybody hit their marks and projected energetic devotion to the comedy horror story.

Director Tom Width ably filled in for the actor who usually plays shop owner Mr. Mushnik, giving us a different "Little Shop" than most people have seen.

It was also a thrill to hear Audra and Ian sing "Suddenly Seymour," a song I've heard plenty of times at the Ghostlight After Party and any number of theater parties, but never live as part of the show.

Let's just say I can see why certain boys love to ham it up singing it after a few drinks.

And when all was said and done, the action wrapped up with a gaping Audrey II advancing on the theater audience while leaves and branches dropped down from the lighting to engulf us.

What else would we do during intermission but trek down to the creek to admire its high water and relentless rushing despite the enormous tree trunks clogging it? When I requested that Foto Boy snap me in front of this watery marvel, he tells me his cloud is full.

Do I even have a cloud, I ask of him. "No, of course you don't, you're Karen," he says. Which means if, as the cast sang, the meek will inherit, chances are slim I'll be getting any of that action, either.

Not meek
Don't have a cloud
Slow to notice a creek
Living out loud

Surely there's a song in there, right?

May the Bard Be with You

Last time, it was for brisket. Tonight, iambic pentameter.

Tonight the Weinstein JCC lured me in, not for food but because they were hosting HenShakes' one night production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Abridged. Revised."

Abridged so we weren't there until our butts fell off. Revised so they could insert topical humor and current references.

Meaning an evening for the intellectually flaccid of 37 plays in 97 minutes by three of Richmond's finest actors: John Mincks, Evan Nasteff and David Janosik, with a whole lot of fake vomiting, sexual references and dramatic dying going on.

Because, you know, all the world's a stage.

They began with a stripped down version of "Romeo and Juliet" that had Romeo saying, "I wanna kiss you, dude" and Juliet waxing poetic with, "That which we call a nose would still smell."

When Romeo begins to muse, saying, "Call me but love," Juliet interrupts with, "Did you call me Butt Love?" Naturally this becomes her new term of endearment, as in, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, Butt Love."

While the three energetic actors spent a whopping twelve minutes on "Romeo and Juliet," they went much briefer on the primitive revenge drama, "Titus Andronicus," which they managed to turn into a cooking show because after a long day of killing, severing and cannibalizing, who really feels like cooking?

Hilarious.

Moving on, the trio discussed whether they should do "Othello" in black face ("Do you want to piss off Tyler Perry?" pause "Kind of"), finally deciding to don sunglasses and rap it while throwing gang signs.

Seeing that time was ticking, they chose to condense all Shakespeare's comedies into one with hysterical results.

David, easily the largest of the three actors, took all the female roles throughout the evening, including the heroine for the mass comedy.

In a blond wig and skirt, he used his most lilting voice to say, "Oh, Father! I am so young and pubescent on this island," as he skipped around the stage.

But in Shakespeare's plays, girls always pretend to be boys and when he/she comes on to our hero, he responds to her as if she's a he. "I swingeth  not that way, boy!" Poor thing, she never realizes she's bi-curious.

Macbeth required the trio to don plaid knickers and adopt thick Scottish accents (very well executed, too), funny enough but the dialog was even better.

I was from my mother's womb untimely ripped.
I support a woman's right to choose.

"Julius Cesar" lasted about 60 seconds before someone decreed, "On to my play," and "Antony and Cleopatra" got underway.

There was another onstage discussion, this time about the lost play "Two Mobile Kinsmen," except not really. That turned out to be "Two Noble Kinsman," one of the plays that is neither comedy, tragedy or history. An obscure play.

The only one of these the trio deemed worth doing was "Troilus and Cressida" because, as Evan said, "It's not crap at all."

He read a synopsis off his phone while David and John did an interpretive dance of the plot that involved wings and getting between Evan's legs.

"Richard II" and "Richard III" were done as a football game, with each taking a turn as the announcer, often sounding a lot like Howard Cosell, and saying things like, "Poisoned on the ten yard line."

There was a penalty for "fictional character on the field" when King Lear put in an appearance and he was disqualified.

They ended with a cheer, yelling, "Henry V, Richard the third, the whole royal family is fricking absurd. Go sports team!"

By now all three were looking pretty sweaty after countless costume changes, much running in and out of the audience and more sword fighting and death scenes than I could keep track of.

As if I was trying. It was enough just to keep up with the rapid fire dialog and shenanigans of the actors.

Then they realized that they still had "Hamlet" to do ("Oh, crap, Hamlet!") and John asks for a summary of it.

"A young prince struggles with his conscience after his uncle kills his Dad." Evan looks at him like he's crazy. "Dude, that's the "Lion King."

Wait a minute...

That's when intermission kicked in but afterwards only John returned. He tried to stall by showing us an index card with all 152 of Shakespeare's sonnets on it, saying Even had told him he couldn't cover them all.

He laid the card on the stage, and laid his hat over it. Covered, done.

The entire second act was given over to "Hamlet" with Horatio being called fellatio and "To sleep, perchance to dream" devolving into, "To sleep, perchance to nap, perchance to snooze, perchance to doze."

During Evan's important "to be or not to be" speech, he broke down about a dilemma on "Full House," a show her admits he's currently watching in reruns.

But it's when David does Hamlet's "Man delights me not" soliloquy that you could have heard a pin drop in the room, his voice and perfect diction feeding the soul of every Shakespeare lover in the room.

A volunteer was plucked from the audience (and called Bob despite her name being Julia) to do the screaming of Ophelia's id, but the audience was soon asked to join her in a group scream-a-thon.

Of course, David played Ophelia and to play her drowning scene, threw a cup of water in his face.

As you may already know, all did not end well there, either. That's why they call it a tragedy.

Just when the last of Shakespeare's plays had ended, the actors got even sillier.

First they did a two minute version of "Hamlet." Then a 30 second version.

Then, perhaps most brilliantly, a backwards version, with the classic line, "Be to not or be to?"

Moving backwards, undying and, yes, Ophelia spitting water out of her mouth to un-drown.

"You thank!" they yelled to the standing ovation the audience gave them.

Effort fine damn, gentlemen. Truly one for the books.

Abridged and revised. I definitely swingeth that way.

Not That There's Anything Wrong with That

Unconventional space, young company, new playwright. Totally worked.

TheaterLab, the upstart ensemble dedicated to cultivating new talent, has brought another fresh play to town, this time for its east coast premiere.

I fumbled my way to Plant Zero's RVA event space (I'm getting marginally better at navigating Manchester with each foray there) to take in "See Jane Quit," a play about a young restaurant worker determined to finally quit smoking.

Because well know that restaurant workers who don't smoke are few and far between.

Waiting in a long line to pick up my ticket, I saw lots of familiar faces, not necessarily of people I knew, but of faces I knew from seeing theater productions.

It turned out it was "industry night" so lots of actors were there on their night off.

Let's see, I saw one from "Race," which I'd seen Saturday and a couple others from "It's a Fabulous Life," which I'd seen Thursday and another from "Wild Party," but also grade A boring non-actors types like me.

The artistic director was working the waiting group like it was a receiving line at a wedding, hugging and kissing left and right.

I'd been inside the space before - for the Italian film fest, to see Hotel X, to hear Ian MacKaye- but tonight it had been configured with the set in the middle of the room and rows of chairs on two sides.

Maggie Bavolack, who'd been so impressive in "Riding the Bull," played Jane with all the piss and vinegar of a 29-year old who lives with her cantankerous, deaf, southern grandmother ("That's because your generation places no value on language!") and works endless double shifts.

Her brother (played by the reliably good Adam Mincks), friend/sister-in-law (Louise Mason, whom I remembered as a fine Helena in "Midsummer"), grandmother (Linda Beringer playing Bessie, my grandmother's name) and even love interest (awkwardly funny Chandler Hubbard) are all eager to do whatever it takes to avoid stressing Jane so she won't reach for cigarettes.

Seems it takes a team to quit.

So major secrets are kept from Jane, but not the audience, as we learn that practically all of them are undergoing some major life change.

The dialog was fast and funny and by intermission even Jane had revealed a major secret.

It was hysterical how, once the first act ended, half the audience bolted for the cold environs of the building to have the cigarette Jane had been denying herself.

When the group behind me got up to go smoke, one asked another if she could have a sip of his soda before they went out. No, he said, he was very sick.

On returning reeking of smoke, the sick one was lecturing the others about his need to inhale.

"You know, they say never try quitting while you're sick because it makes you sick just to quit."

Smoker logic of the highest order.

The second act picked up six months later when everyone is dealing with the outcomes of their secrets.

By then everyone has figured out that life seldom works out the way you plan for it to. True story, kids.

TheaterLab may be young, but they're wise beyond their years.

We're a better theater town for having them raising up a new crop of theater artists...but Grandma was wrong. Their generation clearly does place value on language.

As Bessie would say, praise the lord (and pass the biscuits).

Upon a Midnight Pillow

It was exactly as I liked it.

A talented group of actors were putting on a Shakespeare play at Sycamore Rouge in Petersburg.

The room was small, the admission was free and none of the actors knew what play or role they'd have until they showed up at the theater.

Hell, the audience didn't even find out until 60 seconds before the play began.

Answer: "As You Like It," which I'd last seen in March of 2012.

Three of us drove down soul-sucking I-95 in time to get seats, but not all together.

And that's why we have discussions after the play is over.

What passions put these weights upon my tongue?

There were plenty of contemporary touches - a servant taking pictures with his cell phone, two ladies repeatedly high-fiving each other- and plenty of ad-libbing.

"He's an old one," quipped Orlando as his ancient servant Adam slowly trundled off stage. "He needs time."

Costumes were based on suggestions from the director, Adam Mincks, so we saw one character in shiny, yellow gym shorts with a matching headband, another with sideburns attached to the chin strap on his hat and a priest in a robe that looked more like a dress your aunt wore in the '70s.

Beauty provokes thieves sooner than gold.

There was a good amount of singing, sometimes to "Greensleeves" and sometimes to the theme from "Gilligan's Island" with a last minute ad-lib of "Mary Ann was hot" for those paying attention.

If I was a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me.

The play was funny because, well, Shakespeare wrote comedy well, but also because the actors took every opportunity to milk their lines for everything they could.

And why shouldn't they?

If you can't mug for a devoted Shakespeare-loving audience on a Saturday night, you may as well hang up your couplets.

I was just thrilled to sit in the front row and watch the spit fly. And for free.

Fortune reigns in gifts of the world. True story.

I Like My Strumpets

I was told more than once that I'll go see anything, no matter how obscure or obtuse, just to go out.

Tahitian acrobat cymbalists? Sure.  Moroccan throat singing mimes? Okay.

So naturally I perked up when I saw that the next in the Richmond Shakespeare Bawdy Bard staged reading series was just such a hybrid.

Improv comedians and Shakespearean actors doing, what else, Shakesprov.

Shoot, I was at Capital Ale House an hour before doors opened.

Don't tempt my sense of humor and my intellect unless you mean it.

I'd brought along an improv master (or so he claimed) to laugh with me.

When the host said we had to wait until 7:30 to go in, I asked of him the time.

Glancing at his watch, he told me it was 7:11, much to my amazement.

That's so cool that you wear a watch, I told him.

He instinctively went to thank me and instead got a knowing grin on his face and said, "Right?"

Right, indeed. We had a ten-minute conversation about the lost art of watch-wearing and I got a peek into why a 25-year old chooses to daily wear the watch his mother gave him for his eighteenth birthday.

Pulling it off his wrist, he pointed to the back of the face proudly. "No battery!" he boasted. "It's got a spring."

Just like in the olden days.

But food waits for no time talk, so we sent him on his way and began by scoring white chicken chili at the bar while waiting for the doors to open.

On the plus side, the cannelini was toothsome and the bits of fresh jalapeno added a nice heat to each bite. On the minus side, it wasn't nearly hot enough, especially on a frigid night like this.

Once the doors opened, it was an easy walk to a front table in the music hall.

Part of the beauty of comedy and iambic pentameter intersecting tonight was that it was happening in a bar, meaning we were supposed, nay, even encouraged, to eat, drink and chatter during the show.

You don't have to tell me twice (Cobb salad, chocolate cake and any number of asides).

The Shakesproving jumped right in with a game where two people had to argue the pluses and minuses of an issue thrown out by the audience.

You now, stuff like, global warming (yea or nay) or lead paint poisoning (good or bad?).

I see now that was just to warm us up, get our laughing muscles loosened up.

Next came a game called Replay where crowd suggestions formed the device, in this case, cross dressing, murder and love, all then executed Shakespearean-style.

The replay came in when they then had to redo that scene through other lenses.

We saw it done with hate, as a coking show and Al Capone gangster-style.

You might be surprised at how the same scene was funny all four ways.

The next game, Playwright, used technology, so I would have been useless to them.

Each of the four onstage had their phone set on the script of one of three plays (Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Julius Cesar), ready to use whatever lines from it they chose.

With an improv comedian to facilitate the scene between them, each actor had to use only lines from the play he'd been given to further the dialog.

When Adam grabbed himself and uttered, "I fear it is too choleric a meat," the audience about lost it.

There was a game where they had to mime pre-determined components of a murder (dog park, painter, gouging out eyes and then poisoning) and get the contestant to guess the scenario, "Clue"-like.

You can't imagine how amusing miming eye gouging can be until you've seen it.

Buzz/Ding, the next amusement, required the Bawdy Bard's guiding light, Kerry, to come onstage and, much like with Richmond Comedy Coalition's "Richmond Famous" nights, share tidbits about her life, job and friends.

It's overshare and then be skewered for it, pretty much.

From there, four of them improved Kerry's life while she sat there with a human "buzzer" and a human "dinger" and hit the appropriate one depending on how accurately her life was being depicted.

Hysterical as their depictions seemed to the audience, most of the time she was buzzing.

And now all the room knows her boss likes booze humor and bathroom jokes.

So, yes, laughter always comes back to potty humor, even with the Bard.

The longest game was Story, wherein we helped create a many-chaptered book while eliminating people from the stage.

"The Dark Prince Emerges," became the title by default when a man yelled it out first.

He continued to announce the name before each new chapter, varying his voice for dramatic value.

From there we had eight chapters, including a particularly enthusiastic and protracted one on breasts, nipples and milk.

The guys could have run with that all night, but Katie tried to curtail them eventually, suggesting we moved on from mammaries.

Aw, do we have to, their faces seemed to say.

There was a different component added in for each new chapter and whichever person lost the thread (sometimes in mid-syllable or final consonant) was eliminated.

Stacie ended up being last breasts standing, no small accomplishment.

The Dating Game used stock Shakespeare types - Ophelia, a rich father and sad blood (the most melancholy Thomas ever)- as the bachelors while the lusty bachelorette asked animated questions to find her Mr. Right.

Only occasionally did things get a little skeevy.

"We'll edit that out later," host David said to the studio audience more than once.

Soliloquy required any of the four people in the skit to stop and do a monologue when pointed to.

To their credit, each one was fearless about taking center stage with made-up words while all froze around him.

After so much effort on their part (all we'd had to do was cackle), we closed with a fun game, a little number called I Like My Strumpets.

We'd throw out something (clowns, chainsaws, Julius Cesar, ruffled shirts) and they'd take turns making analogies.

"Shakespeare used a lot of puns," host Matt said, "But he also talked about butts a lot."

So you can imagine where that took us.

I like my strumpets like I like my chainsaws...with teeth!

The women in the group quickly tired of strumpets and began using lords instead to convey their points.

I like my lords like I like my ruffled collars...a little rumpled and stiff.

Wah, wah.

So here goes.

I like my evenings like I like my dark princes...funny, smart and good kissers.

And they can mime their choleric meat, but I don't need to see it.

Of course, with Shakesprov, we can always edit that out later.

Theory of Want

Steven Spielberg be damned.

I didn't say that, Sycamore Rouge did (figuratively, of course) when the director, who's shooting in Petersburg these days, asked if he could buy out the house for Friday and Saturday nights this weekend to cater for the crew.

Gambling, Sycamore Rouge said no. In a great cosmic payback, they sold out the house both nights.

Tonight, my girlfriend and I were the last patrons to arrive and duck into our table just as things were getting started.

"Picasso at the Lapin Agile," a play about a fictional meeting between Picasso and Einstein at a Parisian bar in 1904 was written by comedian Steve Martin.

In fact, at times, the dialog sounded far more 1993 (when it was written) than 1904 when it was set.

References to girls being no good at science and "Men want, women are wanted" had a contemporary ring to them, although the science comment elicited loud groans from the crowd.

Picasso: But I appreciate women. I draw them, don't I?
Suzanne: Well, that's because we're so goddamn beautiful, isn't it?

Like Martin's comedy, the play was full of wordplay and one liners, like when a girl is explaining how she couldn't say no to sleeping with Picasso.

"The word became as unpronounceable as a Polish town." But then how many girls did say no to an advance by Picasso?

Adam Mincks played Einstein and I always enjoy watching him perform because his timing and delivery are typically spot-on.

After coming out looking very circumspect, one of his best moments came when he let loose his long curly hair to look more like the popular culture image of Einstein.

Picasso and Matisse's art dealer was played by understudy Elise Boyd tonight and she brought great presence and humor to the Gertrude Stein-like role.

The play was short, but the dialog flew fast and furious and there was almost always something to laugh at.

My friend and I agreed that Sycamore Rouge, although cooler than we would have liked on such a cold night, was very much to our liking.

Sitting at tables with tablecloths and candles (and a nearby bar) made it feel like a night at a club in another era.

Walking outside afterwards, though, by an adjacent movie set and the attendant bright lights brought us right back to the 21st century.

So rather than settle for a bar with patrons not likely to offer up the likes of Picasso and Einstein, we went back to her place and drank our wine there.

We may not have had the philosophical arguments those men did about art versus science (since we already knew it takes both to make the world go round) but I think we pretty much cleared up that whole "men want, women are wanted" business.

It's as simple as Einstein's theory of relativity, really.

Women are wanted and women want.

Fact, not theory.

Adam's Bottom Made Up for the Rain

The law of averages finally caught up with me.

I've been attending Richmond Shakespeare Company's summer performances at Agecroft for years.

Unlike my tall friend Thomas, who finds these evenings painful (citing the heat and those awful plastic chairs), I love the outdoor ambiance.

I think it's great the way the actors use the stone walls to climb over, when they spout dialogue from windows or gesture to the stars.

I especially like enjoying a play that begins in the light of a summer evening and ends in darkness and, when I'm lucky, moonlight.

Last night was the final, final performance for A Midsummer Night's Dream, a play whose run I had missed because it coincided with my fortnight at the beach.

And, yes, I'd seen them do this very play just a few months ago at Second Presbyterian, but Midsummer is a play that begs to be performed outside.

Which it was for about 35 minutes until the threatening sky finally opened up and canceled the rest of the show. I felt better that the actors seemed to be as bummed about it as the audience was.

Luckily, my front row seat had already afforded me a very cool moment before the rain came.

Adam Mincks' character Nick Bottom (who had just been assigned the role of Pyramus) was reveling in anticipation of the role when he grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes and delivered his lines to me.

So yea, I thought I was pretty special for a hot minute there...until an off-stage voice shouted, "Actors, halt!" and that ended that.

I'm not complaining in any way, though.

After years of outdoor productions, this was my first rain-out, so I was probably long overdue.

Up next: Hamlet...and I feel sure the gods won't rain on me again.