The Blackbird Theatre's RAW Weekend

Having left its longtime home, the Blackbird Theatre recently found itself in flux, without a space in which to stage the latter half of its season. Although several of the planned shows are bookmarked for next fall, a theater that thrives largely on ingenuity and fearlessness cannot stay dormant. This is why, despite staged readings not being my normal repertoire, I eagerly took the opportunity to drink in the new plays of the RAW Weekend.

The location chosen for the readings is noteworthy because Ann Arbor's \sh\-aut Gallery and Cabaret will also be one of the two homes of the Blackbird's next production, the mainstream-deriding original musical Patty Hearst. The open first story of a converted residence, empty save the art on its walls, holds a transient feeling that reminded me of college — students setting up chairs in dorm lounges or parks, staging plays for the sake of it, free to choose the edgy and out-there material that drives them. In this respect, raw was certainly an apt descriptor of the space, and to some degree the shows presented as well, but any lack of polish was overcome by a thrilling surge of passion, a high for any fan of new or unconventional theater.

Click to read more ...

Calypso

It was in a moment of clarity that I came to appreciate the strongest element of local playwright Kelly Rossi's Calypso: a sly and successful misdirection that let the final plot developments hit me with full force. What made it less exciting was that I was in the car, halfway home from the Abreact, when it came to me. Far be it for me to criticize a play that encourages reflection after the fact, but in this case I wanted to go back and have the revelation in the moment, with time enough in the world of the show to let the realizations sink in.

The production is a whirlwind journey bent on immersing the viewer in its complex and guarded world, but with a running time of less than an hour, said immersion is almost akin to a dunk tank. Add to that the foreign subject matter — present-day witches and their influence and relation to the outside world — and Calypso can be a challenge to follow. Thus, from this capably acted and directed play, I emerged unclear on how much I had understood, and even less sure of how much I was intended to understand.

Click to read more ...

Love Bombing After the Earthquake

Demetri Vacratsis's Love Bombing After the Earthquake is not intentionally timely; there is no sense of Breathe Art Theatre Project capitalizing on recent global devastation. The predominant theme is grief — as much as these characters' environment has seen little rebuilding, the arrest and dysfunction in their emotional states are far more troublesome. The original script, also directed by Vacratsis, methodically digs into the ruins of four survivors to find whatever gasping, pulsing motivation remains to drive their damaged decisions.

The play starts with a bang, which grows into a rumble. In a precursor to a production filled with unsettling sounds, the four actors use the furniture and the concrete floor to simulate an earthquake to surprising effect. Fast forward one year, to parallel stories that begin as if at the edge of a canvas and creep toward an illuminating center. A wife is dead; a child is dead. A man is detained for questioning, but where and by what authority seems uncertain. A woman abandons everything that remained of her life in favor of perpetual reminiscence. One story appears much more dynamic than the other, but both are essential to the feel of this intense production.

Click to read more ...

It Came from Mars

One of my chief rewards after publishing a review is to finally read how other reviewers regarded the same production — although when I'm the odd one out, I get to pondering whether I had it wrong. A quiet house, an off night, I could have reviewed a bad egg. (Critics: they have doubts!) Given my cooler assessment in discord with the thrills over It Came from Mars, I was glad to have another stab at this co-production, now at the Williamston Theatre.

Was I mistaken? Yes, to a great extent. The play's second act, in which the War of the Worlds freakout premise is entirely contained, is practically perfect. Celebrated local playwright Joseph Zettelmaier allows his six characters to carry out hoped-for developments as well as taking the narrative in unexpected directions, all the while weaving together a formidable number of stories. Director Tony Caselli begins the act with tightly packed counterpoint dialogue layered over the infamous 1938 Orson Welles broadcast, masterfully allowing crucial words to be heard while rapidly registering six separate reactions, a clear demonstration to the audience that things are about to move very fast. The second time around, I connected more with the actors' changing energies — focused, distracted, diffuse — and was more easily swept up in the swift-moving flow.

Click to read more ...

Two Point Oh

The success of a technology-themed play like Two Point Oh hinges on a lot of components working just right. The audio and video feeds need to precisely integrate with the action in real time. The blocking requires actors to respond to each other despite not being in the same room. And a primary character must be believable as an anthropomorphic manifestation of computer software. In this world premiere at the Detroit Repertory Theatre, there's not a whine, not a flicker, giving full attention to playwright Jeffrey Jackson's dexterous exploration of the relationship between human innovation and humanity. All this technology might sound like theater à la conference call, but the story that unfolds in this too-familiar reality, as directed by Harry Wetzel, delivers much more.

Not long after the play begins, billionaire software mogul Elliot Leeds (Monrico Ward) is dead. Much to the surprise of his wife and his business partner, Elliot has no intention to remain dead, thanks to a revolutionary computer program he developed in secret. The interactive and artificially intelligent software replicates his face, mannerisms, memories, and personality: meet Elliot, version 2.0. Ward's entire performance is logged via video feed to a giant flat-screen TV upstage, where he manages to be disarmingly human, yet unsettling — sometimes compiling exactly the right thing to say, but also nailing gorgeous glitches like buffering time as he computes and slightly inappropriate canned responses when the system misreads the situation. This stellar interpretation of what could have been just a talking head is instead the axis around which the play's many stories revolve, for as we are continually reminded, Elliot isn't real any more; the real intrigue is in the people affected by his electronic longevity.

Click to read more ...