Ernie

To this reviewer, there’s no sport as evocative as baseball, extending beyond diamond and scoreboard into a dense, broadly appealing slice of American culture. It’s a sport uniquely synonymous with summer, whose nightly sights and sounds are known by heart, and its languid, measured pace translates better than any other contest to the medium of radio. Yet this only begins to explain why broadcaster Ernie Harwell was beloved as the voice of the Detroit Tigers, welcomed into legions of Michigan homes and cars and backyards for nearly half a century, and why his death from cancer in May 2010 struck fans with enduring sorrow. Now at the City Theatre — mere steps away from the continuing ritual at Comerica Park — journalist, author, and playwright Mitch Albom gives fans and viewers a glimpse into the sincere, modest, irreplaceable Ernie he knew for over 20 years. As directed by Tony Caselli, the world-premiere production of Ernie is as contentedly simple as its title: a portrait of an unfailingly good man, who loved life and baseball, and who will not soon be forgotten.

The play’s framework is found in the bowels of the stadium on September 16, 2009, where the 91-year-old retiree waits through a rain delay to be acknowledged at “Ernie Harwell Night.” Kirk Domer’s behind-the-scenes setting is full of interactive elements that enhance both setting and story, and Daniel C. Walker’s brilliant lighting design balances softness with a dazzling reminder of the game outside. From the outset, Ernie (Will David Young) is affably irritated that anyone would make such a fuss over him, and is just about ready to call it off and drive home when he’s approached by a mysterious Boy (Timothy "TJ" Corbett). There’s something intriguing about the Boy, dressed as he is in anachronistic clothing (fine work throughout by designer Melanie Schuessler) and deliberately evasive when Ernie questions his presence, but the youth’s stated intention is to guide the legend and Hall of Fame honoree through one final broadcast: that of his own life.

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Consider the Oyster

The Purple Rose Theatre Company rounds out its all-new, all-Michigan season with a champion comedy, David MacGregor’s Consider the Oyster. Like a fruity health drink whose sweetness masks the vegetables within, this abundantly wacky caper cleverly disguises its fascinating, elegantly ingrained themes. In this world-premiere production, director Guy Sanville lends plausible ordinariness to the playwright’s enjoyably unbelievable premise in a show that amuses and intrigues in equal measure.

MacGregor immediately asserts the infinite possibility of this world in a most overt and cheeky manner, with a Detroit Lions Superbowl win. (I mean . . . right?) Roommates Gene (Michael Brian Ogden) and Eliot (Matthew David) are celebrating at home in an appropriately manly fashion, when Gene doubles down on his exuberance and spontaneously proposes to girlfriend Marisa (Stacie Hadgikosti). Then, just as quickly, he reverts to horsing around, which inevitably ends in a trip to the hospital. The injury heals beautifully, but its inconceivable side effects threaten his livelihood, his impending marriage, and his very identity. And that’s where this reviewer gets vague, because to reveal more would be a detriment to a story so inventive and sublimely constructed as this. The cleanly simple plot blends elements of farce into a character-driven comedy that also touches on questions of love and selfhood with thoughtfulness and charm.

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Endangered

Planet Ant Theatre’s late-night series, a haven for the new and experimental, also reserves a place of honor for one director of BoxFest Detroit. Andrea Scobie, the audience-chosen winner of the 2010 festival, now contributes to the edgy and trailblazing series with the world premiere of Sean Paraventi’s Endangered. A culturally charged, topical piece of whimsy, this one-act play is eager to condemn the sensationalist quality vacuum of reality TV, but does so in a way that gives equal — and unexpected — consideration to the rarely defended television landscape as we know it.

The show’s forty-five minutes concern the events of an unusual holdup by an equally unusual gunman. Joe (Josh Campos) is so distraught at the recent programming decisions of the fictitious basic-cable American Education Channel, he storms the station headquarters and takes hostages Arnie (Dan Jaroslaw), vice president of programming, Leigh (Kristen Wagner), star of the mega-popular reality show about her twenty-kid family, and Brad (Eric Niece), Arnie’s assistant. Confined to the office reception area for the duration of the play, the characters participate in a talky, academic screed against the lowest-common-denominator schlock that masquerades as educational TV. The greatest accomplishment of Paraventi’s script is in assigning to the gun-wielding maniac the opinions most likely shared by the viewer: however disturbed, Joe is eminently relatable, because these arguments against the trashiness of reality TV have long been tent poles in popular discourse about what’s destroying America. Heck, even the people putting this tripe on the air don’t seem to like what they’re doing. Yet by holding these representatives of reality TV hostage (and, by extension, the medium itself), the playwright forces the viewer to respond to them as defensive victims, which shows incredible potential to take the conversation in a new direction.

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The Everyman Project

Death, being universal, unknowable, and utterly final, has been a target of artistic inquisition for ages. One such exploration is Everyman, the medieval morality play by Anonymous and the source of The New Theatre Project’s latest original contemporary production, The Everyman Project. The product represents months of development on the part of the ensemble and production team, as together they scrutinized the conclusiveness death brings and found it reflected in their own experiences.

The production is predicated on identifying moments at which we realized that our lives have immediately and irrevocably changed. In this collaborative adaptation, playwright Jason Sebacher and director Ben Stange framed this question as the base point for developing the original script, which establishes a loose quadrilateral of relationships among its performers (using their own names) and introduces them all to their most essential commonality: death itself. After a ritualistic, guttural group scene introducing distinctive onomatopoeic sounds and mantras, the narrative begins with the aftermath of an auto collision that spins out into scenes of Elise Randall’s gorgeous lamentation with her hospitalized, dying mother (portrayed by Analea Maria Lessenberry). Randall realizes her moment in a lonely monologue, then she suddenly and literally crosses paths with death.

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Salvage

Between his lauded All Childish Things and the current world premiere of Salvage at Planet Ant Theatre, it is established now and forever that Joseph Zettelmaier writes great nerd. The playwright’s ability to spin a captivating story through the lens of nostalgia junkies, and the collectibles market in particular, transcends the legitimate subculture of devotees and emotionally connects with a broad spectrum of viewers. Here, director Inga Wilson’s take on Salvage weighs the promise of prosperity against the substantial risks of exploring literal and figurative debris in order to acquire it.

At the curiosity shop Hidden Treasures in Detroit, where “low customer traffic” is an understatement, proprietor Jason Loreo (Rob Pantano) welcomes skittish walk-in Anna Jones (Alysia Kolascz). She bumbles through feigned interest in buying something before revealing a rare piece of sports memorabilia in her handbag — she’d like to sell it, but is unsure of its worth. It’s a transaction between an expert and a novice, one that seems tailor-made for fleecing; the scene itself almost anticipates the moment when Jason intentionally undervalues the item and pockets the difference. But he doesn’t. Instead, he decides to help Anna sell the card, an honest deal that marks a win for both of them for their own reasons. Over the course of their work toward the sale, tangential remarks begin to stir up more meaningful conversations; it doesn’t give too much away to say there are sparks.

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