With Bootleg Shakespeare, you gotta want it.
Meaning, you gotta be willing to eat a late lunch (3:45 at Garnett's, where I run into the guy who recently gave me a mix tape and thank him for his mix making) and stand in line for a good, long while.
Say, from 4:45 to 6:10 when Pru and I finally procure tickets and are free until the 7:30 curtain time.
Waiting for tickets, the head usher comes out in an ensemble that could stop traffic: leather lace-up pants, a vest, heels and a red, white and blue stars and stripes shirt he bought for his first concert back in the '70s. Naturally, I had to inquire what that show was and was told it was the Fifth Dimension at Franklin Street gym. He came *this* close to dancing with Marilyn McCoo, he said.
Whoa.
Another usher is dressed in silver lame pants with silver boots and lots of bling. It's a magnificently '70s ensemble. The man in line ahead of me eventually joins our conversation about the people butting in front of the line and later gives me a quizzical look and says, "You're the one who writes the blog, right?"
How the hell did you know that? "I figured it out," he claims. Yea, right.
Leaving the ticket line to kill time, we pass the waiting line, now well past Staples, and I hear someone call out to me, "Hey, beautiful!" As Pru and I discussed, those are words no woman ever tires of hearing.
Back inside, director James Ricks explains that the beauty of doing a play like "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is that it's infrequently produced, thus there are no expectations. No ghosts of Richard Burton, as he explains it.
Just 17 actors, no rehearsals and absolute fun.
The bootleg production has a band and they begin the play by playing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" with the entire cast dancing like Charlie Brown characters in the Christmas special.
Nick Aliff is immediately awesome as Antiochus, complete with Brando-like mumbled vowels and an incestuous relationship with his daughter, played by the lollipop-sucking, knee sock-wearing McLean Jesse. John Mincks' character is at once getting laughs as he continually loses a lens to his glasses.
Fittingly for bootleg, sailing ships are depicted with paper cut outs and sticks bobbing behind the backdrop. When Pericles lands on famine-starved Tarsus, he saves them with candy corn and bags of Cookout burgers.
Because of the lack of rehearsals and time to study lines, the evening is filled with actors calling, "Line!" as well as creative ways to bring dialog onstage: inside a breastplate, written on a palm, using a phone, reading off a "letter."
The French get skewered by Adam Mincks wearing a turtleneck, smoking a cigarette, saying "merdre!" and dancing like a '50s beatnik. Absolutely hysterical.
Led Zep is played between scenes, songs like "Black Dog," "Rock and Roll," and, for a moment, "Stairway to Heaven," before the cast revolts and shouts, "No 'Stairway to Heaven'!" Thaisa's suitors do a dance-off to determine who will win her hand while she (Grey Garrett) sips a juice box.
One of the most charming scenes involved baby Marina, held in the arms of the nurse and following Evan/Pericles side to side, watching him everywhere he moved.
During intermission, one lucky attendee won the raffle to play a pirate in the second act, hook, parrot and all.
Late in the play when John Mincks' character is trying to make a deal with McLean Jesse's, his shorts around his ankles, he repeatedly asked for his line until eventually letting prompter Kerrigan Sullivan read the entire passage. "All of that!" Mincks shouted with a flourish and walked off stage.
Yet again, the beauty of the bootleg.
He wasn't the only one feeling the fatigue of a long play and little rehearsal; eventually during Pericles' rough period, Evan said, "I am great with wine," when the line was really, "I am great with woe."
Wine, woe, potato, potah-to.
Because I'd never read or seen "Pericles" produced, it was a pleasure to watch the story unfold, never quite sure what might happen. Who knew there'd be so many presumed dead still alive? So much incest? So much attempted prostitution?
Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
I love to hear whatever the participants of bootleg Shakespeare want to act.
Line!
I am great with bawdy appreciation.
Showing posts with label barksdale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barksdale. Show all posts
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Monday, October 17, 2011
And the Award Goes to...
I got to play dress-up tonight because no cute boys were available.
My friend the theater critic hadn't met anyone he wanted to invite to the Richmond Theater Critics Circle Awards so he settled for inviting me.
"It's formal," he wrote. "Do you have a nice evening dress?'
Conveniently, I do and I can cover up my legs when it's required.
Despite me not being of the sex of his dreams, my date was gallant enough to pick me up since driving in a full-length dress is a pain.
The evening began at Popkin's for a reception and the first person I saw was singer Desiree Roots in a dress with a train.
A train. In Popkin's. Think about that.
After schmoozing and glad-handing for an hour, we moved across the street to the Empire Theater for the awards.
I didn't see many open seats and the crowd was a lively and stylish one, so it felt more like a seated party than a stuffy awards banquet.
And because these were theater people, there were not one but two intermissions to allow people time to get their drink on.
The entire show had been scripted with loads of inside jokes and lots of theater humor, including critic roasting.
When two of the presenters talked about acting versus teaching, one said that the advantage of teaching was that you could send difficult students to the principal..
Or even suspend them.
"I know some critics I'd like to suspend," actress Susan Sanford cracked. "From a bridge. Or a tall building."
Singer Susan Greenbaum asked co-presenter UR basketball Coach Chris Mooney why he'd wanted to participate, given his non-arts occupation.
He answered, "I'm not really known in this part of town." The audience loved that.
One of the biggest laughs went to Anne Holton when she was asked about the high points of being First Lady.
She mentioned the Queen's visit in 2007 and the challenges of learning all the protocols required.
"Thank God there are no queens here tonight," she deadpanned.
Another good pairing was Culture Works' John Bryan with DJ Melissa Chase.
Talking about the contribution of costume design, Bryan said, "Without costumes, theater would just be a bunch of naked people sitting around."
Pause. "Like in radio," he said.
"Hey, we wear headphones," Chase corrected him.
But it wasn't just banter. A song from each of the nominated musicals was performed throughout the evening.
Favorite lyric: "I'd rather be nine people's favorite than a hundred people's ninth favorite."
I, too, aspire to be nine people's favorite. I just want some say in who the nine are.
Like any awards show, there were surprises.
The very first award winner wasn't present.
Another acknowledged how surprised she was with her win by saying, "I was so unprepared that I'm still chewing gum."
The very talented Alan Sader got my vote for most dapper evening attire for a male in his red plaid kilt and high socks.
He looked magnificent accepting his award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (for King Lear).
My money is on him winning next year for playing Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Best Musical was a tie between "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "Title of Show," prompting comments about RVA having room for the biggest musicals as well as the smallest (budget).
I had just turned to my (critic) seatmate and commented that Henley Street Theater hadn't won anything (she gave me a cryptic smile) when lo and behold, they won Best Play for "Last Days of Judas Iscariot."
When all was said and done, the crowd was well-lubricated, a bit hoarse after so much yelling for favorites and savoring the camaraderie of the Richmond Theater community.
What else could we do but go for munchies and rehash it all?
My handsome date who opened doors for me and introduced me all night long by saying, "This is my date. Isn't he pretty?" and I were joined by another couple at Third Street Diner.
Over diner food of nachos, cheeseburger, chicken fingers and fries (in our defense, they were out of lettuce), we watched a waitress clean the floor with the vacuum cleaner strapped to her back.
We talked about gay men with girlfriends for beards and which lecture topics attract lesbians.
And before we left, we ogled the contents of the vending machine at the front of the restaurant
Cigarettes, Advil, tampons; all the essentials of life were there.
Our server said the machine used to have candy and condoms, too but, alas, no longer.
Not that my date and I needed either. We were full and neither of us was getting that kind of lucky tonight.
Not that we hadn't looked fine enough to tempt a couple of (very different) guys.
We just didn't meet the right ones.
My friend the theater critic hadn't met anyone he wanted to invite to the Richmond Theater Critics Circle Awards so he settled for inviting me.
"It's formal," he wrote. "Do you have a nice evening dress?'
Conveniently, I do and I can cover up my legs when it's required.
Despite me not being of the sex of his dreams, my date was gallant enough to pick me up since driving in a full-length dress is a pain.
The evening began at Popkin's for a reception and the first person I saw was singer Desiree Roots in a dress with a train.
A train. In Popkin's. Think about that.
After schmoozing and glad-handing for an hour, we moved across the street to the Empire Theater for the awards.
I didn't see many open seats and the crowd was a lively and stylish one, so it felt more like a seated party than a stuffy awards banquet.
And because these were theater people, there were not one but two intermissions to allow people time to get their drink on.
The entire show had been scripted with loads of inside jokes and lots of theater humor, including critic roasting.
When two of the presenters talked about acting versus teaching, one said that the advantage of teaching was that you could send difficult students to the principal..
Or even suspend them.
"I know some critics I'd like to suspend," actress Susan Sanford cracked. "From a bridge. Or a tall building."
Singer Susan Greenbaum asked co-presenter UR basketball Coach Chris Mooney why he'd wanted to participate, given his non-arts occupation.
He answered, "I'm not really known in this part of town." The audience loved that.
One of the biggest laughs went to Anne Holton when she was asked about the high points of being First Lady.
She mentioned the Queen's visit in 2007 and the challenges of learning all the protocols required.
"Thank God there are no queens here tonight," she deadpanned.
Another good pairing was Culture Works' John Bryan with DJ Melissa Chase.
Talking about the contribution of costume design, Bryan said, "Without costumes, theater would just be a bunch of naked people sitting around."
Pause. "Like in radio," he said.
"Hey, we wear headphones," Chase corrected him.
But it wasn't just banter. A song from each of the nominated musicals was performed throughout the evening.
Favorite lyric: "I'd rather be nine people's favorite than a hundred people's ninth favorite."
I, too, aspire to be nine people's favorite. I just want some say in who the nine are.
Like any awards show, there were surprises.
The very first award winner wasn't present.
Another acknowledged how surprised she was with her win by saying, "I was so unprepared that I'm still chewing gum."
The very talented Alan Sader got my vote for most dapper evening attire for a male in his red plaid kilt and high socks.
He looked magnificent accepting his award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Play (for King Lear).
My money is on him winning next year for playing Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Best Musical was a tie between "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "Title of Show," prompting comments about RVA having room for the biggest musicals as well as the smallest (budget).
I had just turned to my (critic) seatmate and commented that Henley Street Theater hadn't won anything (she gave me a cryptic smile) when lo and behold, they won Best Play for "Last Days of Judas Iscariot."
When all was said and done, the crowd was well-lubricated, a bit hoarse after so much yelling for favorites and savoring the camaraderie of the Richmond Theater community.
What else could we do but go for munchies and rehash it all?
My handsome date who opened doors for me and introduced me all night long by saying, "This is my date. Isn't he pretty?" and I were joined by another couple at Third Street Diner.
Over diner food of nachos, cheeseburger, chicken fingers and fries (in our defense, they were out of lettuce), we watched a waitress clean the floor with the vacuum cleaner strapped to her back.
We talked about gay men with girlfriends for beards and which lecture topics attract lesbians.
And before we left, we ogled the contents of the vending machine at the front of the restaurant
Cigarettes, Advil, tampons; all the essentials of life were there.
Our server said the machine used to have candy and condoms, too but, alas, no longer.
Not that my date and I needed either. We were full and neither of us was getting that kind of lucky tonight.
Not that we hadn't looked fine enough to tempt a couple of (very different) guys.
We just didn't meet the right ones.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Dirty Rotten Reckoning
The last time I went to a Barksdale production where people walked out, it was the older contingent and because of full frontal male nudity.
Today it was wholesome families and because of crude humor and loads of sexual references ("Wrap your legs around my head and crush it like a grape").
Kudos to Barksdale. I say if you can't stand the heat of comedy, stay out of the theatrical kitchen.
We went to the matinee of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" at the Empire Theater, making for an easy five-block walk from my apartment to our ninth row center seats.
The story of two con men trying to see who can score with a wealthy woman first allowed for lots of physical humor and bawdy talk, but also several local references.
During Scott Wichmann's masterfully-done "Great Big Stuff" rap, he was singing about the things he could afford if only he had money.
"I can finally see a Barksdale show!" he sang to much amusement among the theater-going set.
Later when the seasoned con goes to divide up the world into con territories, he gives the newcomer the lowest locations: China, Iceland, El Salvador...and Goochland. Ouch.
Dialog was funny, often raunchy and quick, so some of the oldsters near me missed a lot of good lines.
You need to stay awake at the opera!
It was six hours!
It was WAGNER!
I don't want to have sex and eat bacon for SIX hours!
Because, as we all know, the barometer by which we measure pleasure in life is having sex and eating bacon. No, really.
But I think it was the references to shaved testicles, genital clamps, KY Jelly, and milkshake enemas that may have caused the happy family next to me to jump ship at intermission, leaving candy wrappers and soda cups strewn in their part of the row they had just vacated.
I could tell when they didn't laugh at seeing Wichmann in boxers with one cheek fully visible, much less at the political jokes, that Mom was not enjoying herself.
Too bad they couldn't just focus on the humor, like the character singing about her heart's desire:
Let me have love unending
Let me look good in shorts
What she said.
I know, it's asking a lot, but it's funny. That's why it's called comedy.
Today it was wholesome families and because of crude humor and loads of sexual references ("Wrap your legs around my head and crush it like a grape").
Kudos to Barksdale. I say if you can't stand the heat of comedy, stay out of the theatrical kitchen.
We went to the matinee of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" at the Empire Theater, making for an easy five-block walk from my apartment to our ninth row center seats.
The story of two con men trying to see who can score with a wealthy woman first allowed for lots of physical humor and bawdy talk, but also several local references.
During Scott Wichmann's masterfully-done "Great Big Stuff" rap, he was singing about the things he could afford if only he had money.
"I can finally see a Barksdale show!" he sang to much amusement among the theater-going set.
Later when the seasoned con goes to divide up the world into con territories, he gives the newcomer the lowest locations: China, Iceland, El Salvador...and Goochland. Ouch.
Dialog was funny, often raunchy and quick, so some of the oldsters near me missed a lot of good lines.
You need to stay awake at the opera!
It was six hours!
It was WAGNER!
I don't want to have sex and eat bacon for SIX hours!
Because, as we all know, the barometer by which we measure pleasure in life is having sex and eating bacon. No, really.
But I think it was the references to shaved testicles, genital clamps, KY Jelly, and milkshake enemas that may have caused the happy family next to me to jump ship at intermission, leaving candy wrappers and soda cups strewn in their part of the row they had just vacated.
I could tell when they didn't laugh at seeing Wichmann in boxers with one cheek fully visible, much less at the political jokes, that Mom was not enjoying herself.
Too bad they couldn't just focus on the humor, like the character singing about her heart's desire:
Let me have love unending
Let me look good in shorts
What she said.
I know, it's asking a lot, but it's funny. That's why it's called comedy.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
So You Think You Know Me? Okay, You Do.
What I don't know if my friends even realize is that it's not the gifts they give that I truly appreciate (although of course I do), it's what their gifts say to me about how they see me that is my favorite part.
A friend gave me two tickets to any production at Barksdale. Upon seeing the two, I made a joke about such optimism (like I'm going to be able to scare up a date for the theater?). "Well, you'd be just as happy seeing two plays by yourself anyway," she said. "So shut up." Nothing I can say to that argument.
From a long-time friend I got a gift certificate to Chop Suey. Since you get to choose the paperback cover that the gift certificate comes on, she'd specifically chosen Dickens' Hard Times, knowing I'd get a kick out of the reference.
After all the conversations we've had about my hard times of the past two years, it felt like an inside joke. Besides, she assured me that 2011 will be much better for me and I believe her. They don't call me Pollyanna for nothing.
As much as I love collecting local art, I couldn't have been more thrilled to receive a piece by a a little known Richmond calligrapher from a friend. I told him that for me, the true pleasure comes with deciding where to hang it. Maybe near the Adam Juresko? Or over the Chris Milk Hulbert? This may take an enjoyable while, deciding where its place of honor will be.
Then there was one of my favorite musicians and conversationalists, who gave me a digital holiday present, an end-of-the-year mix featuring some of his favorite music of 2010 and a brand new song of his. I wasn't surprised at Spoon or The Books (he knows I will always give him crap for going to see The Books without me), but Benoit Pioulard and Marni Stern? Be still my musical heart.
One of my very favorite people in the entire world gave me a book called Bad Girls: The Most Powerful, Shocking, Amazing, Thrilling and Dangerous Women of All Time. As a huge fan of non-fiction, I know it'll be right up my alley. Even better was the inscription:
To my favorite "bad girl" - Keep up the good work! Love you with all my heart!
That's the kind of Christmas gift that makes a girl feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Even a bad girl.
A friend gave me two tickets to any production at Barksdale. Upon seeing the two, I made a joke about such optimism (like I'm going to be able to scare up a date for the theater?). "Well, you'd be just as happy seeing two plays by yourself anyway," she said. "So shut up." Nothing I can say to that argument.
From a long-time friend I got a gift certificate to Chop Suey. Since you get to choose the paperback cover that the gift certificate comes on, she'd specifically chosen Dickens' Hard Times, knowing I'd get a kick out of the reference.
After all the conversations we've had about my hard times of the past two years, it felt like an inside joke. Besides, she assured me that 2011 will be much better for me and I believe her. They don't call me Pollyanna for nothing.
As much as I love collecting local art, I couldn't have been more thrilled to receive a piece by a a little known Richmond calligrapher from a friend. I told him that for me, the true pleasure comes with deciding where to hang it. Maybe near the Adam Juresko? Or over the Chris Milk Hulbert? This may take an enjoyable while, deciding where its place of honor will be.
Then there was one of my favorite musicians and conversationalists, who gave me a digital holiday present, an end-of-the-year mix featuring some of his favorite music of 2010 and a brand new song of his. I wasn't surprised at Spoon or The Books (he knows I will always give him crap for going to see The Books without me), but Benoit Pioulard and Marni Stern? Be still my musical heart.
One of my very favorite people in the entire world gave me a book called Bad Girls: The Most Powerful, Shocking, Amazing, Thrilling and Dangerous Women of All Time. As a huge fan of non-fiction, I know it'll be right up my alley. Even better was the inscription:
To my favorite "bad girl" - Keep up the good work! Love you with all my heart!
That's the kind of Christmas gift that makes a girl feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Even a bad girl.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Bootleg Saturday Night
Denied last year, I was going to make damn sure it didn't happen again, even if it meant getting in line two and a half hours before show time. Which we did.
Henley Street Theater was doing their second annual Bootleg Shakespeare and this year's production was Titus Andronicus, that bloodiest of Shakespeare's plays, and one which I've never seen performed live (probably because it's rarely produced).
Last year a friend and I had arrived at Barksdale an hour and a half before curtain only to find all the tickets gone. This year my couple date and I arrived by 5:30 and stood in the fading sun of Willow Lawn to score tickets.
People were playing cards, eating everything from fresh kale salad to Five Guys burgers, playing guitar and singing, knitting and chatting amongst themselves to kill the time. Maybe they'd been denied last year, too.
Because we were near the front of the line, when the box office did open at 6:30, we had tickets in hand within five minutes. That left until 7:55 to eat and get back in our seats. The problem was our location; we were in that chain restaurant hell of Willow Lawn and I don't do chains.
So we hopped in the car and headed over to the Grill at Patterson and Libbie, sure we could get a quick bite and not feed the corporate machine. Since my last visit, they'd added umpteen screens so every game in the world can be on, but I just sat under the screen and never had to look at it.
Knowing that the Barksdale serves cake (tonight's were coconut and chocolate torte) during intermission, I ordered the excellent wedge salad (actually two wedges with loads of bleu cheese chunks and bacon, grape tomatoes, red onions and drizzled in balsamic) and finished most of it, feeling quite virtuous for a change.
Our early placement in line had yielded tickets in the center section of Barksdale, fifth row (also the last) so we were surrounded by the same people we'd shivered with outside. There's not a bad seat in the entire theater because it's so small, but a center vantage point gave us an excellent view of all the action.
Henley's creative director James Ricks explained the bootleg process of actors being given 30 days to learn their lines, told to bring their own costumes and props and show up at 8 a.m today for blocking. As he quipped, "So we hearsed, but not rehearsed."
And therein lies the charm of a bootleg performance; the actors are experiencing things as the audience is. Even the lighting guy told me he was winging it (and beautifully, I might add).
The play began with characters campaigning for emperor by spray-painting their names on hanging sheets, soon to be further tagged by another with words like "douche" for emphasis.
Because Titus Andronicus is such an incredibly bloody play, fake blood was a requirement and pink Silly String was the creative substitute found for it. When characters died, and they almost all did, their can of Silly String spurted and squirted as they gasped and shuddered to death.
During the first act, the cell phone of a woman sitting in the front row rang. Actor Foster Solomon (playing the evil Aaron), a pro whom I'd seen in countless Shakespeare productions previously (and he's always superb), handled it perfectly.
He glared at her, he tried to grab her purse and finally, he sat down on a nearby bench and waited for her to turn it off and put it away. The people around me said they were hoping he'd dump her purse out on stage and fully humiliate her, but he didn't.
The appeal of these productions is the brilliant asides that lighten the darkest scenes. After the off-stage rape and disfiguring of Lavinia, the perpetrators come back on stage, one shirtless and one in his underwear. After their uncouth crowing about what they'd just done, they head off stage, one saying to the other's back, "Put some pants on, dude!"
And, like any Shakespeare, there is the timelessness of the dialog.
She is a woman, therefore may be wooed,
She is a woman, therefore may be won.
Or should I have picked a line by Publius?
The two musicians (guitar and bass) providing the sporadic soundtrack leaned heavily (pun intended) on AC/DC and Ozzy Osborne (with one White Stripes nod; it was definitely my day to hear "Seven Nation Army") to convey the mood of the play. They also had to occasionally dodge a dying character.
Pumpkins substituted for heads, fists for severed hands and sex was simulated repeatedly. More than one actor had to call for "Line!" which was not surprising given the lack of rehearsal.
During the intermission the stage manager said that she doesn't get to enjoy seeing the production because of having to follow the script so closely just for that reason.
But the occasional forgotten cue didn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the experience. Toward the end, both actors and audience were getting a little punch-drunk with all the death and irony in the dialog and more than one "dead" body could be seen convulsing in laughter. Sometimes heads had to be turned away until smiles disappeared.
Luckily the audience didn't have to worry about masking our smiles. Considering that I had not been denied this year, I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face if I'd tried.
Then, too, wooing quotes always make me smile.
Henley Street Theater was doing their second annual Bootleg Shakespeare and this year's production was Titus Andronicus, that bloodiest of Shakespeare's plays, and one which I've never seen performed live (probably because it's rarely produced).
Last year a friend and I had arrived at Barksdale an hour and a half before curtain only to find all the tickets gone. This year my couple date and I arrived by 5:30 and stood in the fading sun of Willow Lawn to score tickets.
People were playing cards, eating everything from fresh kale salad to Five Guys burgers, playing guitar and singing, knitting and chatting amongst themselves to kill the time. Maybe they'd been denied last year, too.
Because we were near the front of the line, when the box office did open at 6:30, we had tickets in hand within five minutes. That left until 7:55 to eat and get back in our seats. The problem was our location; we were in that chain restaurant hell of Willow Lawn and I don't do chains.
So we hopped in the car and headed over to the Grill at Patterson and Libbie, sure we could get a quick bite and not feed the corporate machine. Since my last visit, they'd added umpteen screens so every game in the world can be on, but I just sat under the screen and never had to look at it.
Knowing that the Barksdale serves cake (tonight's were coconut and chocolate torte) during intermission, I ordered the excellent wedge salad (actually two wedges with loads of bleu cheese chunks and bacon, grape tomatoes, red onions and drizzled in balsamic) and finished most of it, feeling quite virtuous for a change.
Our early placement in line had yielded tickets in the center section of Barksdale, fifth row (also the last) so we were surrounded by the same people we'd shivered with outside. There's not a bad seat in the entire theater because it's so small, but a center vantage point gave us an excellent view of all the action.
Henley's creative director James Ricks explained the bootleg process of actors being given 30 days to learn their lines, told to bring their own costumes and props and show up at 8 a.m today for blocking. As he quipped, "So we hearsed, but not rehearsed."
And therein lies the charm of a bootleg performance; the actors are experiencing things as the audience is. Even the lighting guy told me he was winging it (and beautifully, I might add).
The play began with characters campaigning for emperor by spray-painting their names on hanging sheets, soon to be further tagged by another with words like "douche" for emphasis.
Because Titus Andronicus is such an incredibly bloody play, fake blood was a requirement and pink Silly String was the creative substitute found for it. When characters died, and they almost all did, their can of Silly String spurted and squirted as they gasped and shuddered to death.
During the first act, the cell phone of a woman sitting in the front row rang. Actor Foster Solomon (playing the evil Aaron), a pro whom I'd seen in countless Shakespeare productions previously (and he's always superb), handled it perfectly.
He glared at her, he tried to grab her purse and finally, he sat down on a nearby bench and waited for her to turn it off and put it away. The people around me said they were hoping he'd dump her purse out on stage and fully humiliate her, but he didn't.
The appeal of these productions is the brilliant asides that lighten the darkest scenes. After the off-stage rape and disfiguring of Lavinia, the perpetrators come back on stage, one shirtless and one in his underwear. After their uncouth crowing about what they'd just done, they head off stage, one saying to the other's back, "Put some pants on, dude!"
And, like any Shakespeare, there is the timelessness of the dialog.
She is a woman, therefore may be wooed,
She is a woman, therefore may be won.
Or should I have picked a line by Publius?
The two musicians (guitar and bass) providing the sporadic soundtrack leaned heavily (pun intended) on AC/DC and Ozzy Osborne (with one White Stripes nod; it was definitely my day to hear "Seven Nation Army") to convey the mood of the play. They also had to occasionally dodge a dying character.
Pumpkins substituted for heads, fists for severed hands and sex was simulated repeatedly. More than one actor had to call for "Line!" which was not surprising given the lack of rehearsal.
During the intermission the stage manager said that she doesn't get to enjoy seeing the production because of having to follow the script so closely just for that reason.
But the occasional forgotten cue didn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the experience. Toward the end, both actors and audience were getting a little punch-drunk with all the death and irony in the dialog and more than one "dead" body could be seen convulsing in laughter. Sometimes heads had to be turned away until smiles disappeared.
Luckily the audience didn't have to worry about masking our smiles. Considering that I had not been denied this year, I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face if I'd tried.
Then, too, wooing quotes always make me smile.
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