THE REP’S OTHELLO REVS MILWAUKEE WITH HARLEY DAVIDSON MOTORCYCLES

No shades of grey appear in William Shakespeare’s Othello. Or at the Milwaukee Rep’s production that opened Friday night at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. Artistic Director/Director Mark Clements shifted gears and set Othello’s world into contemporary motorcycle culture. Which revved Milwaukee audiences to their Harley Davidson heritage and a psychologically blacker tragedy.

The on stage presence of the iconic bikes heightened the darkness to Othello’s themes, a descent into man’s evil nature with ebony motorcycles, black leather jackets and chaps, and relatively little color in the costumes and scenery. Only the purity of Desdemona’s love and innocence, set apart by her white eyelet trimmed shirt, and her marital bed draped with cloud white sheets added contrast.

These overt distinctions collide quickly when Shakespeare compresses the action within two days time during the play. In the midst of a turf war and power struggle, rage and jealously first ignite when Othello, the black Moor, marries Desdemona, the fair maid, against her father’s will to Iago’s disgust and hate, all exemplified by excellent casting.   

The very dark, tall and sensual Othello played with passion by Lindsay Smiling portrays a dramatic visual counterpoint to the delicate, strawberry blonde Desdemona, Mattie Hawkinson. Smiling could easily choose to overpower Hawkinson unless the obedient Desdemona will do Othello’s bidding.

Resident Acting member Gerard Neugent embodied the villain Iago, appearing sleek in his pointed beard and spiked hair that when pulled properly in frustration stands on end. Nugent conjures a physical apparition of a devil incarnate, especially when placed front and center on stage in a fiery colored spotlight. Depicting the untamed beast a man can become for the audience to focus on.

What Iago turns the mind’s key on to in the first scene that begins the production presents an ultimate tragedy to humanity: his manipulations for evil and revenge affect everyone. Even deceiving the trustworthy Cassio, conveyed with suave cunning from Reese Madigan. Iago misuses his ‘wench” and wife Emilia, acted superbly by Deborah Staples. Who gives a worldly edge to a woman’s duty and role in these relationships where love can twist dangerously like a curve in the highway.

Most definitively after the production's intermission the resonant poetry in Shakespeare’s verse and the actors riveting performances, with the roar of bikes and music silenced, do these realities come into full view.  The sacrificial lamb-white sheets in the final scene bear the blood and bodies splayed for the evil others have committed.

Even the industrial, steely towers in the set designed by Scenic Designer Todd Edward Ivins reinforce these cold realities. Mankind without mercy, the mercy Desdemona begs for from Othello, becomes destructive. How telling that man’s nature rarely changes. Currently on view in the blockbuster film and novel The Hunger Games, Shakespeare’s deceit, manipulation, jealously, rage, and violence haunt the future. Four hundred years later and human hearts struggle with identical truths on a personal and political level.

Stark black and white colored ideals allow no room for shaded alternatives, in skin color, reputation, friendship or love. When Shakespeare’s Othello crashes into a compelling version of Hell’s Angels at The Rep’s contemporary Milwaukee garage, this magnetic live performance once again proves man without love releases the devils and bestiality lying within the soul. The survival of love and redemption discarded alongside life’s road for others to rescue.  

The Milwaukee Rep presents William Shakespeare’s Othello at the Quadracci Powerhouse Theatre through May 6. Season tickets are available for 2012-2013 and another year of spectacular performances beginning with Gutenberg! the Musical in the Stackner Cabaret on August 21 and Stephen Sondheim's Assassins on September 4. For information or tickets call: 414.224.9490 or click the link to the left.  by Peggy Sue Dunigan

TWO FRIENDS GET COUNTRY KITCHEN CRAZY IN ALWAYS…PATSY CLINE AT THE STACKNER

Two women cavort like crazy in a kitchen after midnight. A deep friendship will be forged between Houston’s Louise Seger and Nashville’s country music star Patsy Cline. Retelling a true story of how this unlikely bond began, The Milwaukee Rep’s Stackner Cabaret presents the uplifting musical Always…Patsy Cline.

Patsy Cline used the signature closing “Love, Always” when she wrote to Louise after that first night of down home hospitality in Louise’s kitchen before Cline died in a private plane crash at the age of 30. Louise treasured every moment and letter, her dynamic dedication embodied by the well-known Milwaukee actress Angela Iannone. Iannone plays the Southern girl with an informal drawl and sexy sway in her hips, clothed in “jeans that fit like a glove.” 

Kelley Faulkner brings Cline to ladylike life in the intimate setting, representing this pioneering woman who brought a country singer’s feminine voice to the forefront of the recording industry. Her petite frame demurely captures Cline’s on stage persona, acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. A demure that dissolves when Faulkner croons in a duet with Iannone “Come on In and Sit Right Down and Make Yourself at Home.” 

The audience feels at home from the show’s first minutes, often hands clapping in delight while they watch Iannone narrate Cline’s spectacular career, her rise to mythical fame in such a brief time. The 1988 Ted Swindley musical smoothly pieces together many of Cline’s hit favorites, including “So Alone Without You,” "The Lovesick Blues,” and “Walkin’ After Midnight…searchin’ for you.” 

Golden moments in the musical appear when Faulkner’s Cline takes the vocals down a notch to reveal the rich, velvety voice Cline was remembered for. After Louise whispers goodnight to Cline, Faulkner sings a lullaby to the infant son Cline left at home while on the tour and to Seger’s son supposedly in the room where she'll be sleeping that night: “If I Could See the World As A Child.” She follows with a nighttime prayer and gospel great “Just A Closer Walk With Thee.” 

Faulkner torched the cabaret with the legendary Cline’s presence, as did Iannone’s Louise in their duets, all accompanied by a trio of instrumental Bobs. Joe Bob on piano, Dan Kazemi, Jay Bob on electric bass, Jonathan Ziegler and Bob Bob on drums, Patrick Morrow. Although at times the reverberating microphones interfered with the sound to create a small glitch on opening night. Yet, when almost every tune in the performance soars over the top, the audience has scant opportunity to fully appreciate the nuances in Cline’s legacy or Faulkner’s talent. 

In Swindley’s musical the entire cabaret celebrates friendship and heart wrenching melodies from this star who made her inspirational mark with crossover music. After all, Cline and Seger were working mothers in a day and age when that was a rarity, trying to live their personal dreams. Chatting in the comforts of home (while lamenting the problems in true country style), they each appreciated their children even with the difficulties life brings. Everyone wishes on the same stars in the sky, celebrities and their friends, with Cline’s genuine affection for Louise reflected on stage. 

Only Louise and Cline rise out of their kitchen chairs to discover they “Gotta Lotta Rhythm” in their collective Southern souls. The audience will joyfully “Shake, Rattle and Roll” all evening with this pair that displays the power of music in life. Iannone and Faulkner definitely rock the cabaret house around the two-hour plus performance that portrays an uncommon devotion and began in letters signed, “Love Always.”

The Rep’s Stackner Cabaret presents “Always…Patsy Cline” at the Patty and Jay Baker Theater Complex through May 20. For tickets or information call: 414.224.9490 or www.milwaukeerep.com  by Peggy Sue Dunigan

SCIENCE AND SEXUALITY SPARK IN THE NEXT ROOM AT THE REP

Thank heaven for the differences between boys and girls. Girls that discover their talent, dreams and grow up into award winning playwrights such as Sarah Ruhl or acclaimed directors like Laura Gordon. Only a woman such as Ruhl could author a play that combines so much feminine sexuality with innocence and allows men to be the saviors in the world even when they need to be saved themselves. Ruhl wrote In the Next Room, or the vibrator play, the Milwaukee Rep’s striking production that opened in the Stiemke Studio and recalls the 1880's when women were treated for a psychological disorder named hysteria by using an electrical invention, the vibrator. Which then sparks all the right theatrical connections under Gordon’s masterful touch.

Ruhl’s Pulitzer Prize nominated play In the Next Room skillfully invokes modern dilemmas on Scenic Designer Philip Witcomb's exquisite Victorian stage. His circular shaped rooms snuggly fit the set together while decorated with plush seating and detailed medical equipment. In combination with Costume Designer Lorraine Venberg’s sumptuous gowns, the evening offers a visual delight that electrifies all the audience’s senses. 

Which is exactly what Ruhl desires to do for her audience. Hidden behind these Victorian trappings are four attractive women at odds with life, even as they would be in today’s culture: Annie (Jenny McKnight), the single woman who has a late biological clock. Sabrina Daldry (Cassandra Bissell), a married women suffering from infertility and hysteria. Catherine Givings (Cora Vander Broek), a married woman taking care of her infant girl who thinks she’s an inadequate mother while she supports her husband’s demanding career. And Elizabeth (Tyla Abercrumbie), the African American woman whose own baby boy died and comes to assist Catherine. 

Ruhl places the men in three equally different categories: Dr. Givings (Grant Goodman), the physician and scientist, Leo Irving (Matthew Brumlow), the unconventional artist, and Mr. Daldry (Jonathan Smoots), the bored, Victorian gentlemen. These seven characters play on and off each other similar to the electrical lights and vibrators they each toy with, switch on at a whim, which sends the appropriate emotional current to their awakening curiosities.  

While the audience laughs at the outmoded and historical 19^th century treatments performed under sanitized white sheets and demure social contrivances, what Ruhl really evokes centers on human beings who question the mechanical elements, even technology, in their life. Mrs.Daldry claims she no longer wants “the machine,” but the manual treatment to cure her hysteria. Leo desperately needs more than a mere meeting of lips, but women who kiss with their whole bodies. For all the convenience Edison’s new scientific advances afford them, Ruhl’s Victorian characters long for flickering candlelight, intimacy, passion and someone to illuminate their individual souls.  

All of Ruhl's smart, witty dialogue twists these conversational wires together where science meets art, the spoken word breaks silence, intellect needs the heart, the physical body transforms the mind, impulsiveness surprises restraint and curiosity fuels discovery. Closed doors open, even the locked one on stage that connects the living room to Dr. Givings' operating theater. Ruhl’s supposed “adjacent or in the next room” where these seemingly opposing ideas dynamically converge and charge the production, which climaxes with an amazing scene where the feminine uncovers the masculine. 

The wondrous part to Ruhl’s play and the Rep’s sophisticated production would be Ruhl pursues a point that people need both directions to all these opposing currents, the AC and DC, to create the ultimate life connections. Frayed wires and disconnects instill depressing maladies in men and women. How much of the 21^st century population exists on mood altering drugs and would long for candlelight on occasion instead of the computer’s glow? A tender touch instead of typing xoxo? More beautiful paintings than scientific questions?

The Rep’s near perfect, polished and provocative performance by the entire cast and production technicians should be seen twice to catch every thoughtful nuance. In the Next Room thoroughly engages and enlightens the audience, who will be enticed by the sexuality and then immersed in the sensuality to the very last second. After appreciating the thrilling performance, leave by saying as Leo might when he decides to paint in Paris, “Live for all these differences!” 

The Milwaukee Rep presents Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room or the vibrator play” as a co-production with Actors Theatre of Louisville through April 22. For tickets or information call: 414.224.9490 or click the link to the left.  By Peggy Sue Dunigan

Three Children Come of Age in The Rep's "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Author Harper Lee’s first and only novel To Kill A Mockingbird came to life for The Milwaukee Rep audience at the Quadracci Powerhouse on Friday night. Lee’s Maycomb, Alabama town transformed the stage under Christopher Sergel’s adaptation of her Pulitzer Prize winning book in The Rep's exceptionally transcendent production. Throughout this poignant story, three children named Jean Louise (Mallorey Wallace), her brother Jem (John Brotherhood) and a visiting friend Dill (Thomas Kindler), discover their youthful innocence stripped away when exposed to life’s cruel injustices. 

The adult Jean Louise, affectionately nicknamed Scout (Deborah Staples), opens the performance as Lee’s reminiscent narrator recalling the Great Depression deep in the rural South, rife with poverty and prejudice in 1935. Staples applies a winsome note to the role when retelling the story through Lee’s poetic language of a summer when Scout’s father Atticus Finch (Lee E. Ernst) defended a Negro man named Tom Robinson (Jerod Haynes) from wrongful charges. While there was scant evidence for Robinson’s conviction, the Negro was found guilty of his crime. Robinson waited in prison for an appeal to his case, although he was eventually shot 17 times supposedly trying to escape incarceration.

In accepting Robinson’s impossible defense, Ernst offers a composed persona to Finch’s character motivated by his convictions that captures a quiet respect. When Finch addresses the audience with his closing arguments for the innocent Robinson at the trial, everyone in their seats was riveted to the stage action with a solemn silence.  

An outstanding cast surrounds the gifted Ernst and Staples together with Brotherhood, Kindler and Wallace, the trio of young performers superbly representing their First Stage Children’s Theater experience. Equally compelling were performances by Eva Balistrieri as the poor victim Mayella Ewell or Jonathan Gillard Daly playing Heck Tate who inspires the audience when delivering his own speech. James DeVita returns to Milwaukee with a gritty cameo as Bob Ewell while Ora Jones’ Calpurnia lovingly navigates the children’s journey through their coming of age.   

Scenic Designer Kevin Depinet’s stage inventively resembles any Southern, small town street, shaded in deliberately subdued hues. Dilapidated and mysteriously eerie, the set transitions imaginatively from home neighborhood to courtroom. To complement the set, Sound Designer James Sugg’s variations on musical themes revisiting the blues and gospel melodies haunt the characters and heighten the drama. Reverend Sykes (Lee Palmer) evokes tears after the jury's guilty verdict when he begins to sing, “Moses., Moses…lead us to the Promised Land.” 

During the Friday performance, tears welled up in the eyes of a 19-year old Marquette University student, attending with three of her friends. “This was my favorite book,” she explained after the standing ovation. ”You only need to tell one great story that lasts forever.” 

One great story published in 1960 still resonates with contemporary audiences for the injustices and poverty still present in 2012. Milwaukee represents America’s most segregated city with one of the highest infant mortality and child poverty rates in the nation. These statistics might eventually motivate audience members to right these inequities, as they were visibly moved on Friday night, their own eyes wet with tears. When Jem begins to cry after Tom Robinson’s death, Atticus Finch declares with regret: “Only the children weep.” 

Fortunately for Scout, Jem and Dill, this one summer’s journey also leads the children to understand compassion and redemption when their neighbor Boo Radley steps out of his house to save them. This bittersweet ending offers promise. Promise that perhaps Director Aaron Posner’s elegant production of Lee’s profound story will move the young and old to weep for all the social injustice in the world.      

The Milwaukee Rep presents To Kill A Mockingbird at the Quadracci Powerhouse in the Patty and Jay Baker Theater Complex that has been extended through March 11. To coordinate with the production, the Rep hosts special events and programming promoting THE BIG READ, which encourages all ages to enjoy the delights of reading classic literature. For further information and schedules, call 414.224.9490 or click the link to the left.                              By Peggy Sue Dunigan

The Rep's Deviant Shakespeare: May the Bard Be With You

Wacky and wild and unconventionally witty. The Milwaukee Rep offers an evening’s romp through British playwright William Shakespeare’s entire career in their new production at the Stackner Cabaret The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). In a performance that will defame any college English class the audience might remember, the show presents Shakespeare similar to deviant Cliff Notes with half the pages missing.

The performance begins with a preface by The Rep’s resident actor Gerard Neugent when he tells the audience “your intellectual redemption is here...to send the word of the Bard to the masses.” Only after this highly "spiritual" introduction will actors Neugent, Joe Dempsey and Ernie Gonzalez jump start opening night with an irreverent tribute to the tragedy Romeo and Juliet.

Dempsey inhabits Juliet (and plays all the Shakespeare heroines costumed in disheveled drag) wearing a pink tulle costume and golden braids, more like a modern Bride of Frankenstein. The smaller Gonzalez attaches a rock star bravado to Romeo while Neugent fills in the lines that these slightly deranged actors leave out. 

With the scene set amid Designer Tom Burch’s 1970's bachelor apartment with avacado green colored appliances, the three roommates continue to desecrate Shakespeare with feigned adoration affecting Monty Python improvisation and repartee. Or perhaps it resembles an adult Pee-wee Herman's Playhouse, with wooden spoon daggers and cut basketballs stitched into soldier's armour. Nonetheless, during the entire evening the Cabaret’s front row seats see plenty of rowdy action, all perfectly good fun. In fact, this trio eventually proposes that all Shakespeare’s comedies can be condensed under the title “The Love Boat Goes To Verona.”

For producing Shakespeare’s history plays, the three roommates answer another provocative question: “Why can’t Shakespeare be more like sports?” From then on the English Crown, whether Henry’s or Richard’s, will be tossed like a football and the verse repeated like shouting maneuvers on the playing field to end the first half. 

In the second act, Hamlet seizes the audience’s attention with Neugent playing the Prince of Denmark in shiny Edwardian black patent leather. One scene becomes completely interactive comedy for the audience when Ophelia needs the necessary inspiration for her one line. Director Sean Graney completely takes the opening night production to over the top outrageous, the audience overcome with laughter when these three try to repeat Hamlet as fast as is humanly possible.  

For diehard Shakespeare lovers, the popular 1987 production written by the former founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company (Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield) will make them cringe one minute and chuckle the next. These sophisticates might have preferred more respect when reciting the Bard’s poetic lines. Although the audience’s appreciation for slapstick humor along with a very flexible funny bone will encourage the all male cast to even greater literary deviations. The talented energy displayed by this tireless trio might even wish away those Wisconsin football blues. 

Enjoy the bawdy Shakespearean adventure whether one knows these timeless words or not. Comprehension is optional. Come prepared to have any “toils and troubles” blown away in this whirlwind of comedy and misappropriated adaptions to English literature. Leave the Stackner Cabaret slyly smiling while the actors send the audience a unique farewell: “May the Bard be with you.” 

The Rep’s Stackner Cabaret presents The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) through March 11. For information or tickets: 414.224.9490 or click the link to the left.      by Peggy Sue Dunigan