By David Gordon
On Monday, Nov. 17, the Spectrum Players presented their annual evening of Experimental Works in the Spiegel Theatre. The five pieces, each of which totaled a half-hour or less, were written and produced by students. Here are capsule reviews of each one.
The evening began with Keith Pinault’s solid adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants.” The conversation piece about abortion, in not so many words, is a staple of every Intro to Creative Writing class, yet I find the story to be simply fascinating upon every encounter. Did it translate well to the stage? Yes and no; Hemingway’s imagery is lost, but the production, featuring the superb Kristin Nemecek, Adam Griffith and Rafael Benoit, was very involving.
Will Moore and Jaclyn Guerriero’s pleasant, predictable comedy “The Will,” was the result of when Tracy Letts’ modern masterpiece “August: Osage County,” and Horton Foote’s current Broadway comedy “Dividing the Estate” got drunk and had sex in Shubert Alley that night a few weeks ago. The set, as in “Osage,” was a high point, as was the performance of Catelynn Maloney, who earned a great deal of laughs as the drunken aunt. The monologues grew tiresome, though they were generally well written and some of the jokes had genuinely good payoffs, even if they were new versions of old classics.
Perhaps Cory Levine was wishing to explore the question “what do teachers do on their day off?” Perhaps not. Either way, his dumbfounding absurdist comedy “Mr. Wrightman” answered that question, whether he liked it or not. Pat Marran ably guided his large cast through a variety of primal growls, woofs and beat-downs. The back-and-forth, double entendre-filled word-play was delivered with skill from players John Ball and Erika Santosuosso. Ian Poake was utterly believable as he delivered monologues to an imaginary French-Canadian unicorn, and Matt Mavroides just sat there. I still don’t know what to make of anything that occurred; perhaps I’m searching too hard for a deeper meaning.
I didn’t know what to make of Kelly Wadler’s performance piece, “So this is growing up…” either, and when the shrill voices of angry women began ritually chanting “Why?!” so did I. However, my opinion changed entirely once the lights came up and I realized her piece of “drama group therapy” was a raw, thought-provoking study of what goes on under the imperfect surfaces of a gender that, according to most magazines, has to be perfect. I questioned the spontaneity early on, until the sniffles started, and the voices started breaking and eyes welled up with tears. Props go to performers Dani Thomas and Chelsea Frati for the most impassioned delivery. It was a tough piece to perform (and to watch) and the women involved deserve to be commended for bearing all. Truly, “So this is growing up…” was the highlight of the evening.
A cogent summarization cannot be written for Louis Aquiler and Jeremy Benson’s collaborative effort, “Arkham Asylum: A Serious Home on Serious Earth,” based on the Batman graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean. Just like during last summer’s “The Dark Knight,” it was very well-produced, 10 minutes too long and ultimately left me wondering for hours what I had just witnessed. The production hammered long-standing feelings that master of disguise Aquiler, (who played The Joker), could very much do justice to Dr. Frank-N-Furter in a production of “The Rocky Horror Show,” Lauren Cook (Harley Quinn) is an incredibly sexy minx, Travis Youssef is an exemplary fight choreographer; and, as established with “The Pillowman” last fall, Benson really knows how to develop one helluva spooky atmosphere. I know I jumped when Rich Traub (as one of the Arkham patients), seated behind me, started screaming mid-show and tossing oranges around the auditorium.
This version felt too long and confusing because they packed too much into the short time span. “Arkham” needs further development in order to realize the full potential that most audience members felt it had.