Michael Dale - Page 52

Passion, as it applies to the need to create and communicate through artistic endeavors, is a word that can be overused. Certainly countless numbers derive immense pleasure from their participation in the arts, and may even feel an uncontrollable need for it. But to continue on despite the risk of losing your freedom, or even being killed for it... that is a display of passion.

From ABIE'S IRISH ROSE to LA CAGE AUX FOLLES and beyond, the conflicts that occur when future in-laws meet for the first time have been a traditional source of comedy for both stage and screen.

When J.T. Rogers' fascinating play about the power and beauty of human interaction and diplomacy, OSLO, premiered Off-Broadway this past July at Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater, it was a week before the national convention where Donald Trump was to be voted in as the Republican party's presidential candidate. While a good deal of the country was surprised to see the celebrity businessman who had never held a political office get so far in the election process, New York playgoers, a predominantly left-leaning bunch, were most likely optimistic, though cautiously so, that his candidacy would collapse during the general election.

"I'm old enough to be your ancestor," the 61-year-old gentleman scoffs to his 28-year-old overnight guest who, after meeting on a dating site called Gaydar, suggests that something of permanence could come between them.

A great difference between the Broadway theatre of today and that of the 1950s, the decade when William Inge emerged as an important American playwright, is that the public couldn't see the kind of edgy, incisive drama on their television sets that live theatre was offering.

The recently completed Off-Broadway run of Penelope Skinner's fictional dramatic comedy LINDA embraced the efforts of a 55-year-old feminist of the cosmetics industry who fought to have her company's products promoted in a way that recognized the beauty of all women rather than exploit their fears of not achieving society's beauty standards.

Noel Coward was 39 years old when he played the lead role of Garry Essendine, a famous actor fearing for the future of his career as he enters middle age, in the premiere production of his rollickingly good comedy, PRESENT LAUGHTER. In order for that scenario to be believable today, you'd have to cast a woman in the role.

"Bursting with joy" isn't exactly a phrase commonly used to describe the exceptional directorial work of Pam MacKinnon. The woman who guided the premiere of Bruce Norris' tensely comic CLYBOURNE PARK and gobsmacked audiences with a freshly destructive vision of Edward Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? is better known for drawing out dramatic shades than working with whimsy.

All the context you'll need to deal with at the Lyceum's latest offering, Britain's Mischief Theatre import, THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG, is right there in the title. Forgoing pesky details like plot and character development, the two-act evening of visual gags - some worthy of a Mack Sennet silent - pieced together by bits of verbal silliness is one of those endeavors that charges onto the stage as a force of choreographed chaos, bombarding the audience with so many jabs to the funny bone that even if only a third of them strike properly you're in for a sufficient number of laughs.

The town council of Gander, Newfoundland has unanimously voted against an application to clear land adjacent to the community's historic airport for the construction of a Trump Hotel and Casino.

It's no secret to theatregoer's that the frenetically paced, multi-character solo plays by Obie-winner John Leguizamo have provided far more insight into Latin-American history and culture than can be found in most American school textbooks.

After her breakout Off-Broadway production of INTIMATE APPAREL and a Pulitzer Prize for her brutal depiction of rape as a weapon of war in RUINED, Lynn Nottage has been well established as one of America's most important 21st Century playwrights.

The authors who wrote the books for even the most successful Broadway musical comedies of the 1920s and 30s often get a bum rap for the flimsiness of their plots and the nonsensical nature of their gags.

The helicopter is real this time, as is the Asian heritage of the leading man, as Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil's MISS SAIGON lands at the Broadway Theatre once more. Laurence Connor does a solid job of mounting producer Cameron Mackintosh's newest version, with three of its West End stars crossing the Atlantic to make their Broadway debuts.

As patrons enter the Mitzi Newhouse for Sarah Ruhl's newest clever and quirky comedy, HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE, they're greeted by set designer David Zinn's rendering of a smart and simply furnished living room, above which hangs the carcass of a slaughtered and skinned goat.

Who is she? Where did she come from? These are questions likely to pass through the minds of Off-Broadway's regular attendees while witnessing Jo Lampert's stellar performance as the title character of David Byrne's new musical, JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE.

By the time Arthur Miller's THE PRICE hit town in 1968, the playwright had already established himself during the 1940s and 50s as one of America's greatest dramatists with classics such as ALL MY SONS, DEATH OF A SALESMAN, THE CRUCIBLE and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.

At the beginning of The Debate Society's premiere production of THE LIGHT YEARS (written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, developed and directed by Oliver Butler) we're told that Arcturus, the star that guided Christopher Columbus to what he thought was India, is precisely forty light years away from Earth.

'Look for the helpers,' Fred Rogers would say. 'When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.''

One of the great things about live theatre is its lack of permanence. In film, the words, directorial choices, performances and other artistic contributions all exist as an unchangeably whole work of art. But with theatre, each production of a play, no matter how many times it has been done before, begins with only the author's text, leaving a new collection of creative souls to decide what to do with it.