I spent April 1-3, 2005, at the 29th annual HUMANA FESTIVAL OF NEW AMERICAN PLAYS, presented by Actors Theatre of Louisville. The festival began on February 27, 2005, and continues through April 9 (plays are presented on a revolving schedule). Six full-length plays, an "anthology" by a half-dozen playwrights, and four 10-minute plays -- it's both a marathon and a labor of love. It's especially exciting to attend the "Special Visitors" weekend, near the end of the festival, bringing together theater critics, directors, producers and others from the entertainment industry.

Actors Theatre has three theater spaces, so two plays are often presented simultaneously. Sets are quickly changed during the weekend because most guest are scheduled to see anywhere from two to four productions daily. Between shows, audiences mill around in the theater's spacious lobby or grab a drink or a bite to eat in the casual bar/restaurant on the theater's lower level. Mostly they talk about the shows.

 

Actors Theatre Artistic Director Marc Masterson disavows any overt theme for the festival. But he acknowledged that the plays in 2005 have been more outwardly oriented, following several festivals -- perhaps influenced by the tragedy of 9/11 -- in which scripts were more introspective. Masterson's literary staff reads approximately 700 plays annually; they narrow the field to 150 and, with Masterson's involvement, read and discuss each work to choose the annual set of shows. Several plays also arrive via commissions that Actors pays to playwrights -- this year's production of Moot the Messenger by Kia Corthron was such a work, as was Carlyle Brown's Pure Confidence, based on a true story about a jockey. But many plays are by writers whose first shot at national awareness happens at the festival.

Each Humana show receives a top-notch production with an excellent cast, so you seldom wonder what a play would be like if it were well staged. That means each script can be judged on its own merits. Below you can read my commentary on each of the productions I saw.

 

Photo By Harlan Taylor

(l-r) Sean Dougherty, Elizabeth Meadows Rouse, Chelsey Rives

Hazard County by Allison Moore

This play has been advanced by the National New Play Network, with three more or less simultaneous premieres -- the first in Louisville, the second in Dallas and the third in Atlanta (in fact, where it will be presented at Actors Express and directed by Jasson Minadakis, former artistic director at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival).

The play blends a naturalistic, contemporary story about a young mother struggling to get by in rural Kentucky with a series of surrealistic monologs by people who are, at some level, obsessed with the TV series, The Dukes of Hazzard. While these latter are amusing and do represent a progression from oddball (a teen who wants his own General Lee, the car that the Duke cousins drove; a woman from Canada who maintains a fan Web site) to serious (a college professor who delves into the societal implications of the characters in the series). These vignettes offer some ironic commentary on the common stereotypes applied to people who live simpler, rural lives, but it wasn't clear to me how they really extended the more standard drama they occasionally interrupted.

 

In that story, single mom Ruth (Chelsey Rives) has lost her job. For lack of a place to stay, she's and her twins, Quinn and Quintin (Jesse Hooker and Mary Bacon, who also portray the various characters in the monologues) have moved in with her outspoken cousin Camille (Elizabeth Meadows Rouse). They meet Blake (Sean Dougherty) in a bar: First he tells them he's working as a researcher for a congressional committee; they he reveals his real job is with as a reality TV producer; finally we learn that he aspires to such a job, but he's really volunteering in hopes of catching on.

Through Blake's naíve eyes we see the narrow but support life in a rural community, and he draws Ruth's story forward: Her husband was shot and killed by a black teenager from Chicago who had moved to Hazard County. The social gears between the teen and Ruth's husband clashed and led to the shooting, although there appears to have been blame on both sides. Husband was flying a Confederate flag on his pickup; the kid sparred with him at a gas station. Following the shooting, the notoriety of the case has led to an iconizing of the victim -- "the last Confederate martyr" -- in addition to charges of racism. All of this gets simplified in Blake's mind to a possible reality TV series, which of course destroys any possible relationship between him and Ruth.

Moore's play is constantly engaging, and the monologs are going to be used by auditioning acto

rs for years to come, it seems to me. But ultimately I didn't believe the story: It had too much of a moral and not enough of a heart. Grade: B-

 

A Nervous Smile by John Belluso

Photo By Harlan Taylor

(l-r) Maureen Mueller

John Belluso has indicated that he intends to write plays about for people with disabilities in the manner that August Wilson has used his writing to tell the stories of African Americans. In A Nervous Smile, he looks at the plight of families coping with children with cerebral palsy. While the story swirls around a girl named Becky, we never really meet her -- other than hearing a synthesized voice that establishes her as a thinking person, despite her objectification by her parents as a burden they must care for, despite whatever love they might feel.

Brian (Sean Haberle) and Eileen (Maureen Mueller) are wealthy -- based on her inheritance -- and can afford care for Becky (an Eastern European woman named Blanka, played as a vodka-drinking caricature by Dale Soules). But they're unhappy: Brian is in love with Nic (Mhari Sandoval), another parent he's met through a support group they attend together; Eileen is a bitter, pill-popping drunk who knows her husband is unfaithful. Nic, a divorced attorney whose son is more profoundly handicapped than Becky, also is conflicted by her desire to be a good parent and her attraction to Brian.

The play hinges on a decision by Brian and Eileen to abandon Becky at a Manhattan hospital, then escape to new lives -- Eileen plans to move to London, Brian and Nic to Argentina (he's an adjunct professor of literature and a scheming romantic).

 

The morally void decision they've made only troubles them modestly, until it happens: Brian escapes and the women are left with to pay the price of their transgression. Interestingly, the character of Eileen moves from a one-dimensional bitch in the opening scenes to a complex, tragic woman who seems to truly regret her decision and the likely loss of her daughter.

Unfortunately, the play is flawed by one simple issue of plot: If Brian and Eileen are so financially well off (they're dividing up $20 million), why didn't they simply pay to institutionalize the child? Families with far less resource have done so. Of course, that leads to another set of moral questions, but it makes more sense than a couple with money and legal advice undertaking such a patently illegal act.

Belluso's play shows some genuine sympathy for the children victimized by such a situation, and it certainly raises issues of caregiver burnout (although again one must ask why people so affluent would really be afflicted by such feelings). But the story really doesn't work. Grade: C+

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(l-r) Kathleen Butler, Geraldine Librandi

The Shaker Chair by Adam Bock

Shakers were the epitome of simplicity, and that's the first thing that struck audiences coming to see this play: A hardwood floor, a wide blank rear wall and two chairs ­ one a ladder-backed Shaker chair, the other a comfortable reading chair. All are starkly lit, with the actors casting harsh shadows. Marion (Kathleen Butler) is admiring her newly acquired Shaker chair, as much for the culture that created it as the aesthetic that governed its form.

"The Shakers were so interesting," she says. "They believed in hard work. Not sitting around. There wasn't a lot of sitting around for them. Not for the Shakers. So a Shaker chair. It's not a great chair to sit on. This isn't a comfortable chair. But I love it. The big sin for the Shakers, they believed the big sin was, is procrastination. Interesting because they believed you should do thins now. The Shakers. Get to it. It's very satisfying to sit in. You keep thinking Oop

I should get up and do something! I really I really should."

This play is about women who get up and do things, and some who struggle with the results of taking action -- or suffer the pains of inaction. In addition to Marion, there's her sister Dolly (Geraldine Librandi), who is bemoaning her unfaithful husband; and her friend Jean (Sarah Peterson), and environmental activist who keeps fomenting acts that draw attention to groundwater contamination. The Shaker Chair is all the more interesting because its characters are women in their 60s, not the typical focus of entertainment options -- theatrical or cinematic -- in this day and age. But this play is relevant to everyone who's interested in identifying her or his place in the world and the role we are each meant to play. Marion keeps learning from her sister's inability to act and her friend's tendency to overact: In a wonderful concluding monolog, she decides the parameters and potential of her own capabilities. It's an affirming, positive message, made all the more enjoyable by the three mature but vibrant actresses. It's all the more interesting because playwright Bock is a younger man (he says the play recalls his mother and his aunt), but his insights are universal. And he uses a staccato writing style that's a bit reminiscent of Mamet, yet with more connective tissue. Grade: B+

 

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(l-r) Tamilla Woodard, Emily Hyberger, Anna Bullard

Moot the Messenger by Kia Corthron

Kia Corthron is an interesting playwright. Well, actually she's a political activist who also happens to be a playwright, and that's why Actors Theatre commissioned her to write a play for the 29th Humana Festival on some kind of contemporary political theme. (Corthron's Slide Glide the Slippery Slope, a fantasy about the repercussions of genetic engineering, premiered in the 27th festival; a year ago Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati gave Corthron her first Cincinnati production, staging her play about girl gangs, Breath, Boom.) She created a good one, as timely as today's headlines.

Moot the Messenger is the story of Briar (Tamilla Woodard), an aspiring, idealistic African-American journalist who lands at a cable network because she's made a positive impression with her ardor for finding news stories. Her Maryland-based family is involved in contemporary issues: Her grandmother (Brenda Thomas), now living in Florida, was denied the right to vote in the 2000 presidential election; her brother, Tax (Erik LaRay Harvey) is a soldier in Iraq who loses his legs in an mangled security incident. Even more central, however, is Louise (Chelsey Rives), a white teenager who Briar has babysat, who signs up for the National Guard and finds herself in Iraq amid the confusion and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

Briar has arrived in Iraq as an embedded reporter. She befriends Hamid, an Al Jazeera reporter (played by a Palestinian actor, Sami Metwasi), and idealistically offers him an opportunity to provide her cable channel with a regular feed of news from his perspective. Then the prison scandal erupts, and Briar learns that Louise and another girl from back home were there. Shortly she discovers that Louise has died in action and Mary Pat (Anna Bullard) is charged with involvement in the prisoner abuse. When Briar tries to report candidly about these issues, her managers decide they are too harsh for American audiences.

 

Corthron liberally salts the play with facts, figures, data and news that's not been reported. She's a tireless researcher, and she plugs much of what she's learned into lengthy, impassioned speeches by characters like Briar (who comes across as a hyperactive motor mouth), her grandmother and Vaughn (also played by Brenda Thomas), an older African-American woman working at the cable news channel who's been victimized by stereotypical attitudes about black women in the media. Sometimes these diatribes get tedious (I suspect the two-and-a-half hour play would be improved by carefully editing some of this material out, reducing the length to about two hours), but they're full of intriguing information, such as a broader explanation of the facts surrounding the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch or the often-seen image of the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein.

Even more affecting, however, are scenes that plumb the humanity of her characters. Tax's anger at his disabled plight is furious, real and frightening. Briar's interview with Mary Pat, under house arrest and concerned that her life will never come together again (she pleads with Briar to put in a good word for her at their hometown Wal-Mart), was painful and affecting. Bullard, an acting intern at Actors Theatre, totally nailed Mary Pat's blue-collar perspective and captured the role's vulnerability and desperation -- it gave me a new perspective on the involvement of soldiers in the bad behavior at Abu Ghraib.

 

Moot the Messenger (Corthron told me the play's title is an amalgamation of the phrase "shoot the messenger" and the concept of the word "mute," which didn't quite capture what she meant -- she feels that "moot," suggesting argument and debate, in addition to something that's open to question, comes closer to her intention) is an intriguing piece: It probably has a limited shelf-life because it's full of contemporary references, facts and issues that concern people today. But it's also about how we get to the truth. And that's an important path. The play raises more questions than answers, but they are the questions we need to be asking. Grade: A-

Photo By Harlan Taylor

(l-r) Gavin Lawrence, Kelly Taffe

Pure Confidence by Carlyle Brown

The strongest audience response I saw was to Carlyle Brown's Pure Confidence. The title is the name of a 19th-century race horse, but it's also an apt phrase to describe the play's central character, Simon Cato, a man who strategized to escape slavery by buying his own freedom, based on his success on the race track. Cato is synthesized from historical accounts of African-American jockeys who were assets to their masters, and who were able to channel their success before and after the Civil War into a new lives.

 

Cato (Gavin Lawrence) is a smart talker who knows his own worth; he's a valuable asset to his owner (who actually has him assigned as a piece of property to his children). He's rented out to Col. Wiley Johnson (William McNulty), a horse owner who sees Cato's value in winning races. They become friends, despite the racial divide in 1860 when the play begins, and despite Cato's disrespectful comments to another horse owner, which results in a challenge to a duel that gets converted to a horserace. Before the race happens, Cato arranges to have his services sold to the man he's insulted -- so he ends up playing both ends against the middle.

There's a parallel narrative line about the Colonel's wife, Mattie (Jane Welch), and her serving woman, Caroline (Kelly Taffe), who becomes Cato's wife. These two strong, likeable women portray another dimension of the slave-owner relationship and show how it evolves time; the play concludes with scenes in 1877, more than a decade after the Civil War, when the Johnsons find Cato and Caroline working as hired help in Saratoga, N.Y., near the famous racetrack there.

 

The dynamic between the characters is fascinating to watch: While it might be tinged with our contemporary attitudes, it's truly a glimpse into an era when the relationships between blacks and whites had a different protocol. Cato's desire to move beyond it, which Lawrence captures vividly, plays out in realistic conversations and a delightfully imagined match race (with him astride a barrel) between his mount -- dubbed "Freedom" -- and another, "Bondage Man." With Caroline caught up in the drama (she gasps, squeals and moans as he narrates the contest), the audience is drawn along, too.

Pure Confidence demonstrates a maturation -- far from perfect, but in a positive direction -- in the relations between black and white. The play was the most traditional of the 29th Humana Festival, but in many ways the most satisfying.

G

rade: A

 

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(l-r) Taylor Miller, Cassandra Bissell

Memory House by Kathleen Tolan

It's New Year's Eve and a deadline is upon Katia (Cassandra Bissell): her college admission essay needs to be postmarked by midnight, but she's blocked over an essay about her past, her "memory house" which she's asked to conjure up, exploring her roots. We learn that Katia was adopted from Eastern Europe by Maggie (Taylor Miller), whose marriage has since ended. Katia is pulled between her adoptive parents and uncertain of who she is -- or who she's supposed to be.

 

This play was a fine acting exercise for the two performers, and it's presented in real time, about 90 minutes without an intermission. Their love and anger ebb and flow, as we discern the complexity of a mother and a daughter with this overlay. Playwright Tolan has offered enough details to make them interesting -- Maggie is a former dancer, but she's a new place in her own life, more eager for security, while Katia broods about what her life might have been.

 

Director Sandy Shinner moves the actresses convincingly through the piece, which uses an especially nice dramatic device: As Katia agonizes over her essay, Maggie is baking a pie, something she has never done (we learn she's been none too domestic). Over the course of the show, she makes the dough, prepares the blueberries, assembles the pie and bakes it: It comes out of the oven just as the story concludes, a lovely metaphor (with some pretty good aromas, too, by the way) for the assemblage of the right ingredients between these two sensitive women.

Watching Memory House you feel like you have a window into a real relationship, and it's worth watching. (Another production of the play has opened recently in New York City, starring Dianne Wiest in the role of the mother.)

Grade: B+

 

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(l-r) Cast - Uncle Sam's

Uncle Sam's Satiric Spectacular: On Democracy and Other Fictions, Featuring Patriotism Acts and Blue Songs from a Red State by Greg Allen, Sheila Callaghan, Bridget Carpenter, Eric Coble, Richard Dresser, Michael Friedman and Hilly Hicks

Each year, Actors Theatre commissions a collection of writers to create an "anthology" piece that can be used to showcase the acting interns who are beginning their professional careers in Louisville. One year it worked from a "back story" about a brother and sister: each playwright extended the story into a short scene; another year, it resulted in a series of playlets about the seven deadly sins. I've always looked forward to these because they're clever exercises, enacted by energetic young performers. But this year's piece, Uncle Sam's Spectacular, didn't cut the mustard for me.

 

Too many of the 19 pieces fell flat, either because the writing didn't quite work or the actors didn't capture the vaudevillian style of the piece. There was a Rap parody, "Quick Change," by two women calling themselves "Feminem"; a reticent minstrel show by the company's African-American and Asian-American actors; and two contortionists who end up in a gay embrace.

I did enjoy a funny foursome that sang three close-harmony versions of a tune, "My Geneva Babe," sounding for all the world like a traditional barbershop quarter, although their subject matter was outspokenly critical of the current state of the world. In another, "The Lady Sings the Blues," intern Emily Hyberger showed a fine sense of comic physicality as she wrestled with a trapeze and stripped down from a costume in the style of the Statue of Liberty to a girl in a tiny, red, white and blue bikini.

But most of this material -- which went on for nearly two hours without an intermission -- was more sophomoric than wicked. The performance I saw began at 10:30 p.m. on a Friday, and lasted too far into Saturday morning. Actors Theatre would do well to pare down the material (and perhaps the intern company) if they really want this to be a showcase that audiences remember. Grade: D+

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(l-r) Megan Goodchild, Deanna McGovern

Ten-Minute Plays

The Humana Festival for many years has offered a program of short works, typically plays of an approximate 10-minute length. These give the literary staff at Actors Theatre a chance to work with a broader array of writers, and the concision of the dramatic form is one that can be a pleasure to watch--akin to reading short stories. These brief works are also fun to watch during the Visitors Weekend (the bill is typically given only two performances) because they utilize actors who are in the full-length shows, showing their diversity as performers. Four works comprised this year's program

Johannes, Pyotr & Marge by Jeffrey Essmann focused on "three pillars of Romanticism," all sharing a May 7 birthday: Johannes Brahms (William McNulty), Pyotr Tchaikovsky (Andy Prosky) and Marge (Sarah Peterson). They go on (and on, even in 10 minutes this felt long) about music and grasping the moment -- and in Marge's case, about Velveeta cheese. It was clever, but a bit too obtuse for my taste. Grade: C

Long Dream in Summer by Saíd Sayrafiezadeh was a more serious piece. A soldier (Joseph Curnutte) on his way to the Mexican American War in 1846 has a 10-minute audition with Alexander Cartwright (Larry John Meyers), owner of the New York Knickerbockers baseball team. His mother (Geraldine Librandi) keeps interceding on behalf of the shy boy. The piece is an argument against the brutality of war. Grade: B

Goody Fucking Two Shoes by Jennifer Maisel was the best of the program, a modern-day parody of Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Two high school girls (Deanna McGovern and Megan Goodchild) compete for the leading role, emoting and overacting -- very much in the vein that the girls use in Miller's tale of manipulation and accusation in historic Salem, Mass. It was a clever riff on the original, especially enjoyable to anyone who remembers Miller's classic play. Grade: A-

Dream of Jeannie-by-the-Door by David Valdes Greenwood is set in a casino where a recently married couple (Mary Bacon and Jesse Hooker) are madly trying to hit a slot machine jackpot; they're joined by Wilma (Jane Welch), a senior citizen who's after her own jackpot. Their purposes are not aligned, and they cross swords over lucky moves and desired outcomes. The piece felt a bit labored, but good acting made it worth watching, despite a rather flat ending. Grade: B