Until Next Year

Texas Shakespeare Festival performances are orders of magnitude above any of the other venues I've attended, but I'm not sure exactly why.

It has little to do with the physical space. The Van Cliburn Auditorium at Kilgore College is nice enough, but The Shreveport Little Theatre is much nicer.

It's not the sets. They did have beautiful sets this year, but Beauty and Beast's rotating castle was an amazing piece of stage work, and I've no doubt if TSF had performed Love's Labours Lost on a bare stage, it would've still been the highlight of my year.

Obviously the actors and actresses are a huge part, but I don't think it's the quality of the individuals so much as the quality of the troupe overall. That's what stood out so much at BPCC's performance of Rumors. When everyone on stage is performing to a high level, it profoundly lifts the whole experience. Conversely, if you've got one or two actors doing outstanding work but also a few of noticeably less skill, it keeps the experience as a whole from enveloping the audience in that suspension of disbelief which swallows all attention and presence. Don't get me wrong, I've loved almost all the shows, and don't require profundity to find enjoyment, but when it happens, MMMMM!

Also obvious is source material. If the story is not interesting or well told by the author, the performance of it will bound and weighted by those original failures. Of the plays I haven't enjoyed to the fullest, most of the issues can be easily traced back to confusing or uninteresting source material. By it's nature TSF is choosing to work with older, well known stories of particularly high quality.

Finally, there's direction. Like sound and lighting, this is a realm to which I don't think I've given enough respect. As I try to find the difference between what happens on stage during TSF performances compared to others' I've enjoyed recently, there is a heightened feeling of precision and intentionality. A sense of holistic narration, where each action or word, each individual performance, however beautiful in itself, is a piece of a larger story enhanced by the piece fitting perfectly with it's mates. Referring again to Love's Labours Lost, there was a distinct sense of Matthew Simpson's careful hands sculpting each part of the experience, the costumes and performances, the set and songs, purposefully into a delightful whole.

The Eyes Always Have It

Last night's performance of Love's Labour's Lost by the Texas Shakespeare Festival was so impossibly enchanting I was certain I was dreaming. Director Matthew Simpson and his brilliant cast were magical from start to end. Having the actors sing assorted 1920's era love songs during scene changes was inspired and deeply endearing.

Sound and Light

I had honestly not previously given much thought to the requirements of the sound and light team behind a live production. I guess in ideal circumstances they disappear in the narrative, if you can hear and see what the actors are doing to move the story forward, you’re not really thinking about how great a job the sound tech is doing balancing out the volume of the various actors or sound effects or music. Similarly, if you’re attention is being focused where it’s meant to be on the stage, and you can see it as intended, you’re probably not thinking about the effort going into illumination.

I’ve become more and more aware of it only because I’ve been noticing when those aspects fail to live up to the ideal. It’s become particularly obvious in the case of musicals where the balance of instruments and vocals is so imperative. Outside of a good song being a joy in it’s own right, in a musical the songs are important to advancing the story, and if you can’t hear the words, you miss out on development of the narrative.

Godspell, presented in the Engine Room by Stage Center, used recorded music, but even though the sound tech, who was also the director was set up about four feet from where we were sitting, he often had the volume of the instrumental track so loud it was difficult to hear the singers. More problematic was the mic on the actor playing Jesus which was either defective or not connected properly, and when he would move around while singing or speaking his mic would cut in and out. We were hoping it would be fixed during intermission, but it was about as bad after as it was before. I felt for the young man, but have to hand to him, he powered through it all completely unfazed.

In Beauty and the Beast at RiverView Theater, the production used a full, live orchestra, but because the orchestra pit is between the audience and the actors, when they got too loud it became impossible to hear the singers who weren’t micced, and depending on how well the sound person was doing their job, it was also difficult to hear the micced actors at times. This production was by the Shreveport Opera, and as some of their productions are classic operas in non-english languages, they project translated lyrics on a small screen above the stage as the players sing. No translation was need in this production, but because of the volume disparity I often found myself having to look up at the subtitles to see what was being sung. Unfortunately, who ever was running this aspect of the production was often running either behind or ahead of the performers, and at least once or twice it seemed their slides were mixed up. Ideally I would rather have not had to bother with the subtitles at all, but because I had to and they weren’t being done well, it made the experience more frustrating.

In Shreck: The Musical, presented by the Texarkana Repertory Company at Texarkana College, they also made use of the orchestra pit, though it was with a more limited selection of musicians (guitar, keyboard, percussion, and horn, far as I could discern), even so the volume of the music again was prone to drowning out the vocals.

In contrast, The Hunchback of Notre Damme presented by Stage Center at the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, used a live choir, but recorded instrumentals to back the performers, and they had carefully dialed in the volume of the recording. The combination of a beautiful choir and properly balanced instruments made for a breath taking, powerful experience. Even so . . . Many of the actors were individually micced in this production, and there were a few instances where the sound person didn’t have the right mics lit on time.

My complaints aren’t meant to be as mean spirited as they likely sound, but a confession of my own ignorance in how difficult these off stage jobs are, while being an integral part of the performance. I understand better now the tradition of actors during their curtain call directing the applause and attention of the audience to off stage performers, and how warranted such direction is.

How Did I Miss That?

Scanning in a bunch of programs from the last year's worth of performances and had a bit of a shock when getting to the bottom of the pile and looking at the program for 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' from last July at SLT.

Camille Schmoutz made such an impression as Mrs. Meers I've been very aware when she's appeared in other things, and I was pretty sure I recognized Liesl Cruz when seeing her recently in Fun Home (though I didn't realize from where until reading her bio in that program), but it also turns out to be the first place I saw Mikah Thomas (my favorite player from this years drama class at Bossier Parish Community College). The same for Sarah Lord whom I saw later in 'Godspell', and Yoon Lee, later in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'.

Truly surprising was discovering this is also when I first saw Cassidy Giddens, who did such a wonderful job as Esmeralda in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' that I don't know how I missed her connection to this earlier show.

It's not surprising, and often a joy, to see the same actors performing in multiple productions with different groups, it just confounds me to not have remembered seeing so many of these wonderful performers not even a year earlier.

All That and Mrs. Meers!

It’s hard to say how profoundly I was effected by last night's performance of Fun Home by Stage Center. I was honestly speechless by its end, trying to process the things I had been led to feel. It was a perfect storm of powerful story, intimate setting, and some of the most magical performances I’ve seen:

Mary Kate McLaurine's grown, narratorial version of the author, Alison Bechdel, haunting the stage with a mature desire for truth and a palpable, confused anguish. The hope and heartbreak she communicated as she sang "Telephone Wire" trying to engage her father in a shared truth, knowing it wasn't to be, was stunning.

Aubrey Buckner as Middle Alison, so wonderfully embodied the struggle of a fearful young woman, feeling utterly out of place in the world, emerging into a freeing truth she wasn't sure was possible. Her rendition of “Changing My Major” was so joyful for the hope, life and passion Ms. Buckner brought to it.

Lauren Matthews as Young Alison, struggling with wanting to be the self she felt she was, but not knowing what that meant, especially as her father bullied her into a mold similar to the one destroying him. When she stood in front of us, just feet away, singing "Ring of Keys" about the wonder of seeing someone real in the world embodying the things she felt about herself, the bright smiles, the shy foot shuffling, the coy glances away, it was impossible to imagine a performance any more perfect than she delivered, and I will treasure my experience of it.

There was much more to the musical, all of it amazing, but the way these three ladies told the story of a woman trying to come to grips with her relationship to the world and her father was stunning, heartbreaking, and truly beautiful.

Put Me In The Front

I have seen live performances before my recent engagements with the theatre. Most memorably I saw All That Jazz at a huge venue in LA sometime in the late 80's and The Phantom of the Opera at a similarly large stage in Norfolk, Virginia in the the late '90's.

I did not much enjoy either performance which led me to believe I didn't enjoy live shows on the whole. It turns out, though, what I didn't enjoy was watching small homunculi move around on a far away stage as I tried to figure out what they were doing and feeling.

My habit in the past was to go to shows late and cheap which tended to put me and my poor vision too far from the action to feel at all involved.

But now I have discovered the first three rows and center stage. For me, that's where the magic lives: effected by every detail of the actors and the scenery, being able to see emotions dance and war across faces, to hear all the whispers and sighs.

I want to be absorbed into a scene, so even if it's a bad play or performance, at its end I'll feel as though I've lived, and suffered, and rejoiced as someone else in a way which allows me to incorporate new experiences and ideas into myself.

All The Great Shows!

A bit more than six months ago it was brought to my attention that I had basically given up on living and being a part of the world. It was an abrupt and shocking revelation, more so as I realized it was true. An unintentional but highly curated diet of anxiety, depression, and sense of failure had grown about me a kind of mobile tomb.

I have long had unacknowledged tendencies towards social anxiety and introversion which I often let interfere with my ability to live outside my head, but in the last several years I had let those tendencies become controlling forces, and realizing what I had allowed myself to become was a painful and disconcerting wake up call.

Thankfully, with the help of a loving, supportive family and a bit of medication, I was able to begin the process of deconstructing that tomb, acknowledging and facing my struggles with anxiety and depression, start finding my way back to being alive in the world, and to sharing that life with the people around me.

Part of that path has included discovering the treasure trove of local live performance venues and the many talented people willing to share stories and songs and bits of themselves in spellbinding and life affirming ways.

Almost every Friday night for most of the the last six months my wife and I (and my mother more and more often) have made our way to one of these venues to experience the comfort of being with people and sharing with them joy.

So far for 2018:

Crowns (Mahogany Ensemble Theatre) Shreveport Little Theatre is a beautiful, comfortable, well equipped theater and is easily my favorite venue.

Crowns was billed as a musical exegesis on the evolution and role of hats in the community of African American women of the South, something I was eager to learn about.

In truth, the hats themselves, and there were a great many, were never really explained as social artifacts so much as being lead-ins to stories about what it meant for black women in the Jim Crow South struggling to gain and maintain a sense of dignity and worth. A vastly more important lesson.

Neverlyn Townsel as Mother Shaw and Wilma Moore Young as Mabel sang with such power and grace it was hard not to be moved.

Taste of the Norton I've become a big fan and supporter of the Longview Museum of Fine Arts, and after my stop over in Chicago last year where I was able to spend an afternoon at The Art Institute of Chicago (Thank you, Luke!) I've discovered a deeper enjoyment of art in general.

When the opportunity to mix adventuring to a new museum along with sampling exotic food came up, I bit at it. We had a wonderful time at The RW Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport enjoying the art inspired nibbles of Chef Blake Jackson.

I was particularly enthralled with the works of Albert Bierstadt. The way he used light to bring his landscapes to life was like nothing I've seen before. I could be absorbed into 'Garden of the Gods' for days.

We stayed until our feet wore out and we still didn't get to see everything.

The Lyons (Stage Center) Central Artstation in Shreveport was a new venue for us and we ended up in the front row of a stage-less performing area for this dark comedy about a deeply dysfunctional family.

Sitting directly in front of Earleen Bergeron, who spent most of the play in her role as Rita Lyons dispensing the largest share of the plays dialogue from a hospital room chair, she did an amazing job, and I was deeply impressed with her performance by the end.

That said, the opening of the second act was creepy and fairly disturbing, beyond what the point it was trying to make needed, as far as I was concerned, and the presence of the father's ghost was lost on me.

Peter and the Starcatcher (Texarkana Repertory Company) An origin story for the characters of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys based on the novel by humorist Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, I am lost for superlatives regarding this performance.

An incredible cast (particularly John McDonald as Black Stache, Emily McDonald as Molly, and Alex Rain as Mrs. Bumbrake) executing complex roles as actors, props, and scenery flawlessly. What these lads and lass did with boxes, lengths of ropes, and their own bodies to help tell the story was innovatively, hilariously, brilliant.

The second act got a little weird, opening with a musical number by cross dressing mermaids, but the cast was committed, and it was a truly wonderful way to spend an evening.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this ends up being our favorite show of the year, and I'm looking forward to seeing more by TexRep.

Vinegar Tom (Panola College) A variation on The Crucible focusing on, as much as anything, the way social systems designed and controlled by men not simply affect, but are often internalized by women, thinking back two days later I feel like I have a better sense of the play's intent than I did at the time.

We saw The Crucible last year at Kilgore College and found the story to be rather bland (I had not read or seen it before), so came into this performance with limited expectations.

Things lifted early on as we recognized the female leads from their roles in last years moving performance of Steel Magnolias. It was fun to see how much they had improved in the intervening months, seeming more comfortable in their lines and actions.

I will say this variation was more interesting, and more relevant, than The Crucible, I'm just not that into stories about old timey witch hunts as tools for exerting social power. But I'm still thinking about it days later, so a win for the author and performers.

And we're only two months in! This year we're planning to expand our Friday evening adventures to include the local ballet, opera, and symphony, and I'm looking forward to the start of this years Texas Shakespeare Festival and spending more time sharing the experience of being amazed and wondered.