Armando acevedo

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Review: ‘Disgraced’ at GableStage

OCTOBER 4, 2015

BY CONNIE OGLE

We know the rule by heart: Don’t discuss religion or politics in polite company. Probably not in impolite company, either, unless you’re really itching for a fight on Facebook. But in Ayad Akhtar’s provocative Disgraced, the most off-limits of subjects roar to the surface at a small dinner party, imploding the lives of two couples from different ethnic backgrounds.

Disgraced, which closes the 2014-2015 season at GableStage, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2013 — it was Akhtar’s first play; he’s also the author of The Invisible Hand and The Who & the What, as well as the novel American Dervish — and its success is no mystery. This sleek, swiftly paced, topical work moves nimbly from drama to occasional comedy and back again as it examines the difficulties of being Muslim in post 9/11 America and the secret prejudices that persist inside even the most outwardly progressive people.

With a terrific cast and impeccable timing, GableStage’s version, directed by Joseph Adler, is riveting and incisive, inciting laughter and gasps in equal measure. Disgraced, which takes place on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in late 2011 and 2012, runs 90 minutes with no intermission. A brisk pace is vital, and Adler’s production is lively and electric as it steams inevitably toward that final explosive evening of social, emotional and cultural chaos.

As the play opens Amir Kapoor (Miami native Armando Acevedo) and his artist wife Emily (Betsy Graver) are at odds over a family matter. Emily, a WASP who explores Islamic traditions in her work and is sympathetic to Muslim causes, wants Amir to help his nephew Abe (who has just changed his name from Hussein in order to avoid the inevitable hassles). Abe (Angel Dominguez) wants his uncle, a successful mergers and acquisitions attorney, to get involved in the case of an imam Abe says has been unfairly imprisoned on charges of helping terrorists.

But Amir, who has turned away from his Muslim roots, wants nothing to do with the imam or Islam either. He has rejected his religion, even claimed to be Indian instead of Pakistani — which has undeniably aided his successful career. When Emily protests that the Quran is beautiful, he is adamant about its dangers. “It’s not just beauty and wisdom,” he says darkly.

But Amir gives in and does visit the imam, which sets in motion a chain of events that threaten his peace of mind and his job. Finally, one night at a dinner with his African American colleague Jory (Karen Stephens) and her Jewish husband Isaac (Gregg Weiner), an art dealer who is considering Emily’s work for a show, Amir, fueled by frustration and far too much Scotch, explodes.

The cast is impressive, with Weiner getting much-needed laughs as the tension builds and Acevedo pulling off the seemingly impossible trick of making Amir’s struggles universal. His plight is specific to modern Muslim Americans, but Disgraced also captures the death grip our upbringings have on us. There’s something in Amir’s defiance that rings bitterly, painfully true, no matter who you are or where you’re from.

IF YOU GO

What: ‘Disgraced’ by Ayad Akhtar.
Where: GableStage at the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday (no evening show Oct. 4, additional matinees Oct. 24 and Oct. 31). Through Nov. 1.

Cost: $37-$55.
Information: 305-445-1119 or www.gablestage.org.

Hot Button Issues Dissected In GableStage’s Fine Disgraced

OCTOBER 5, 2015

BY BILL HIRSCHMAN

Awash in issues of Arab-American assimilation and Anglo antipathy, Disgraced is the classic contemporary example of the topical, thought-provoking drama that forces you to revalidate, even reexamine your perception of the tumult around us.

When we saw it on Broadway last year we knew immediately that it would wind up at GableStage because it was such a perfect fit for the theater’s bent for intellectually stimulating fare –so clearly borne out by its beautifully executed and bracing production this month. We didn’t realize that producing artistic director Joseph Adler had been trying to get the rights since it bowed off-Broadway in 2012.

While Adler was one of the first to get the rights, he put it at the end of current season. Since then, Disgraced has become one of most-contracted plays by regional theaters. One recently closed in Chicago and another plays as we speak in Durham, North Carolina; a 30-city national tour begins soon and it’s being adapted for an HBO movie.

But GableStage gives it a solid iteration that will have many audience members rethinking some core assumptions.

Ayad Akhtar’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner is the latest in a spate of post 9/11 plays about – and, more importantly, written by Arab-Americans – about a host of interlocked issue. In this case, its Arab-Americans attempts to find their place in a Western society, played against the lingering if politely repressed fury, fear and prejudice of mainstream Americans against Muslims. It asks our nation of immigrants whether anyone can choose or be allowed to or even should want to assimilate, an issue that must resonate with Cubans, Jews, Italians, Irish and any other group that strives to “fit in” or not.

Disgraced puts four latter-day liberal yuppies from different backgrounds in the crucible of a dinner party among spouses and business associates.

During an evening of gourmet salad and sophisticated banter, the initially invisible fault lines between cultures crack wide open, leaving devastation in every direction. It is a scalding rebuke to anyone who thinks that any section of our society has come to an intellectual or emotional homeostasis about social, cultural and geopolitical divisions.

The confrontation occurs in a sun-kissed apartment on the Upper West Side owned by a middle-aged couple out of Vanity Fair: Amir Kapoor (Armando Acevedo), a smoothly handsome mergers and acquisition lawyer American-born and Muslim-raised; and his wife, Emily (Betsy Graver), an equally gorgeous WASP artist whose work is rooted in her interest in Islamic culture. From all appearances, they are a close and loving couple.

Amir is on the cusp of becoming a partner and Emily is about to have a breakthrough due to Isaac (Gregg Weiner), a Jewish museum curator who wants to exhibit her work at the Whitney. Isaac is also married to Jory (Karen Stephens), an African-American lawyer who is also an up-and-comer in Amir’s firm. All four are to meet at the Kapoor condo for a dinner.

But a problem emerges. Amir’s nephew, Abe Jensen (born Hussein Malik in Pakistan) (played by Angel Dominguez) is upset that a local imam has been arrested on what he believes are bogus charges of financing terrorists. Abe contends that it is solely religious persecution. Neither man is especially devout although both were raised in the faith and then let it slide into inconsequentiality. Abe wants Amir to intercede as a lawyer and respected member of the mainstream community. Amir, who has spent his life pointedly repudiating his heritage and religion, balks until Emily pressures him to help.

But his appearance in court for the imam, solely as moral support, gets mentioned in an article in The New York Times. Serious fallout begins to shred Amir’s career and his relationship with colleagues and neighbors.

Which is when these power couples meet for a prototypical civilized dinner. The talk about Amir’s involvement in the case leads to a broader discussion of Islam itself. Isaac is the one who makes the distinction between the admirable religion and how it has been appropriated by terrorists. Amir is at first highly critical of the faith’s failings, but ends up defending its virtues and accomplishments.

Quickly, buried prejudices erupt. What began as an intellectual dorm room debate billows into an antagonistic clash. It culminates in shocking and thoroughly unexpected violence (the exact nature of which we won’t reveal).

One of the most fascinating aspects of the script is how the four major characters begin espousing and pursuing one point of view, but who end up in a much different place – sometimes simply revealing their true feelings and sometimes because of revelations that are a surprise to them as well. For instance, Isaac is a classic urban liberal full of even-handed admiration for Amir; Emily embraces the positive elements of Arabic culture, including the Muslim religion, as an inspiration for her. And of course, Amir believes that he has consciously rejected all the traditional aspects of his culture and feels not just a lack of kinship, but to some degree espouses being repulsed by much of it. None of that will stand when the fragile civility of social interaction begins to erode.

Perhaps the second-most shocking but crucial element of the play is when the two Arab-American characters admit in different parts of the play that America did indeed bring 9/11 upon itself by its arrogant insistence that the Muslim world with its roots in antiquity instead adopt the “enlightened” Western culture. What’s shocking is not the statement, but that Ahktar, who clearly does not agree with it, lays out an unnervingly cogent and nearly persuasive case to support it. In a time when young people on both sides of the world are joining ISIS, these arguments force the audience to at least pause and reassess – not terrorism – but our complicity in the world we live in 2015.

The terrible irony here is that Amir, who was born here of Pakistani immigrants, sees himself as American, no hyphen. Chocolate-skinned and inescapably Semitic, he has worked hard enough to mold himself in the image of a GQ sophisticated Wall Street type. In a way, it echoes the Jews’ outlook in Germany during the Weimar Republic who doubted anything would happen to them because, after all, they were Germans. He thinks his wife is romanticizing the Arabic culture and selectively ignoring the less pleasant aspects of Muslim theology and practice.

It is not a criticism that the play benefits mightily that the shocking statements and the aforementioned linchpin moment were truly stunning – a carefully-chosen word — when we saw the show in New York. So it’s hard to judge the show’s tone upon seeing it for the second time. There is nothing muted about this perfectly valid production, but the New York one seems in retrospect to have had a tougher, sharper edge to it. But that may be from knowing what’s coming.

This was the first major play script for Akhtar, whose career had been primarily as a novelist. Some observers have criticized the evolving plot as quite schematic and mechanical. But as naturalistic as the play is, it’s still theater with such tropes expected to be accepted. Regardless, the concepts and emotions swirling about are compelling. Akhtar has constructed a Rolex-running piece that deftly sets up a situation and then follows it fearlessly to its logical if catastrophic conclusion. His dialogue is convincingly naturalistic with few flights of fancy verbiage, but his characters speak with that facile, mildly witty verbal intercourse expected from such players.

We’re fond of saying that one of Adler’s strengths as a director is his invisibility. He sees no need to direct in a flashy way that draws attention to himself. But on reflection, that’s wrong. Adler certainly trusts the people he hires, many of whom he was worked with for many years. But nearly everything you see and hear on stage has been carefully molded and guided to his vision, certainly refracted through the prism of his aesthetic.

The performances under Adler’s direction are nearly flawless. Acevedo, with his chiseled jaw and piercing eyes, seems like a handsome hard-charging Wall Street type indistinguishable from a thousand others except for a darker skin tone. Acevedo’s Amir exudes a smile that seems cordial. But even in the beginning you may detect the slightest bit of anxiety of someone struggling with something. He exudes a hard-won dignity that he is secretly aware is fragile and vulnerable. He feels himself on the cusp of something.

Graver is a lovely blonde woman with a flighty voice who looks and sounds like she was a cheerleader at some point. But while she can play a lovable dimwit as she did in Actors’ Playhouse’s Fox On The Fairway, usually she convincingly inhabits women who reveal considerable depth such as the heroine in GableStage’s Venus in Fur or Arts Garage’s Lungs. Here, she is perfectly cast as the generous-hearted and highly intelligent artist Emily. When Emily holds forth on the glories of the Arabic culture or the complex virtues of her own paintings, Graver’s passionate delivery makes it totally believable. Graver also makes Emily the most emotionally honest character and the one we immediately bond with.

Stephens (one of the region’s best actresses and a co-host with me on Spotlight on the Arts) gives another fine gem o a performance of an assured intelligent flinty achiever who is comfortable with a success that she, too, has earned.

Just as fascinating is watching Weiner persuasively depict the supposedly enlightened and broad-minded Isaac slowly revealing the pent-up paranoia, resentment and anger that still simmers in even the most bleeding heart liberal since the Twin Towers fell.

Disgraced runs through Nov. 1 at GableStage, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables, inside the Biltmore Hotel. Performances generally at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and some Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sunday. Runs 80 minutes with no intermission. Tickets are $37-$55 and students $15. For tickets and more information, call 305-445-1119 or visit GableStage.org

floridatheateronstage.com

http://www.floridatheateronstage.com/reviews/hot-button-issues-dissected-in-gablestages-fine-disgraced/

Miami Time Brings a Buffet of Sketch Comedy to PAX

FEBRUARY 18, 2013

BY CAMILLE LAMB

Saturday night, local theater collective White Rose Miami brought 15 smashing sketches to the stage at the Performing Arts Exchange (PAX). After a serendipitous meeting at another show inside the dark-walled and dimly lit den, PAX co-owner Roxanne Scalia struck up a deal with White Rose founders Melissa Almaguer and Ivan Lopez to host the troupe's various initiatives every third Saturday of the month. This weekend's show was the third in the group's ongoing series of plays, and it was a rolling riot (with a few serious departures).

More than 40 performers, some first-time actors, some veterans of the stage, and at least one thespian better known as a director (New Theatre's artistic director Ricky J. Martinez) donated their time and art to put on the show in 15 acts. (When White Rose sent out the call for submissions, they received nearly 40 and intended to choose 10, but said they couldn't bring themselves to weed out any more than they did.) The theme of each work had to revolve around either "Miami" or "time" or both, motifs which, evidently, lend themselves to a lot of laughs about the lovely ridiculousness of our "magical" city.

After an intro by Lopez, in which he explained an exchange with his grandfather that inspired him to collect works around these ideas, the screen behind the stage lit up with an animated short about an alligator and an ibis, written by Paul Poppe. The silly "photochopped" film, the second half of which was shown after intermission, managed somehow to make the idea of dwindling wildlife in the Everglades funny and cute. Each animated piece was followed by a sketch about a young couple (Lovanni Gomez and Kristina Abreu) parting ways for college, one of the night's few serious productions.

Next up was a brilliant one-act that put the spotlight on one of Miami's favorite subcultures: drag queens. MIA: North Beach, written by Renier J. Murillo, starred Matthew Donovan and Armando Acevedo as two glittery, gaudy, heterosexual drag queens in the dressing room, swiping off their makeup, stripping off their pantyhose and wigs and trading dresses for jeans and jerseys, all the while bitching about the daily task of convincing their girlfriends that they're not into men.

The next act, Brunch Soon (Marla E. Schwartz), might have doubled as a twisted advertisement for Miami as the brunch capital of the Americas. In it, bored couple John and Lisa (played by James Carrey and Roxanne Lamendola) mime a frustrating car ride which serves as the backdrop for an argument about where to eat. Lisa's struggle to convince John to try the Forge, Versailles, the Rusty Pelican, anywhere but Denny's, with its Hobbit-themed menu and creepy "Shire sausage," seems to signify deeper troubles in the couple's relationship... without making the situation any less hilarious.

MIA: Westchester (by Renier J. Murillo) brought the chonga love as slick ponytailed, dark lipsticked Yaima (Victoria Collado) and Zulma (Melissa Almaguer) shamelessly shook their TJ Maxx-clad booties all over the carnival --- that is, until they realized Yaima's ex-boyfriend (Alex Garcia) was there courting some cornflake girl (Michelle Antelo) from South Carolina! What happened next was like someone made a mixtape of Shit Miami Girls Say and a Neil Simon play.

Missing in Miami (written by Kaley Rose) was a scene that introduced one more all-important element of Miami culture: the tourists. Bill (Luis Navarro) and Susan (Gema Calero) played doltish redneck visitors who have stumbled off the trolley and into one of Miami's less amicable 'hoods. Calero's exaggerated drawl, drivel about face-eating zombies, and deadpan facial expressions, paired with Navarro's red-faced ranting and tell-tale tourist-yellow button-down and straw hat made the duo a hilarious target for an opportunistic teen and another essential Miami character: a shivering, bumbling crackhead (Gabriel Villasmil).

The writing of the next piece was sculpted with clever, modern, hyper-analytical wit that might have been cut out of an episode of the HBO series Girls. Israel Garcia's What Ifs Revealed saw the return of Acevedo, this time as Carlos, the quiet guy praying in a church. Karla (Ilana Isaacson), meanwhile, armed with some deranged accusations about something that didn't happen 15 years ago, slinks irreverently into the pew next to him to chew him out. Wearing a misleadingly demure pastel pink dress, Isaacson spewed a hilariously neurotic monologue filled with thoughts that would have unequivocally been better left unsaid, while Acevedo intercepted each weird revelation with impossible straight-faced cool.

Time, written by Gian Sol and starring Sofia Sassone and Gonzola Garcia Castro, sewed together themes like cunnilingus, modern communications, brain cancer, and Miami's signature impatience with a thread of continuous laughter, while Condo Talk (written by Barbara Levis and featuring Ricky J. Martinez, Wayne Robinson, Francesca Toledo, Daniel Suarez, Janae Catt, Kristin McCorkell, Almaguer, Lopez, and Acevedo) painted an all-too-real portrait of what it's like to sit in on a typical anal-retentive association meeting in one of Miami's high-rises.

Saving the Brisket (by Don Sheer and starring McCorkell) was another wonderfully absurd look into one more facet of Miami life, paying homage two more fixtures of our great city: Jews and hurricanes.

The aforementioned slew of waggish sketch comedy left the audience a bit unprepared for the two semi-serious skits that followed: Dominoes (Paul Poppe) showcased two Cuban brothers (Ozzie Quintana and Ivan Lopez) with opposing views of their cultural heritage, while Leaving Home (by Marj O'Neill-Butler and starring Almaguer and Stephen Kaiser) took a personal look at one of Miami's least celebrated realities: the foreclosure crisis.

The grand finale, a piece called The Gateway written by 16-year-old Don Grimme, took a turn back toward the funny side, giving a breathless comedic history of Miami's quickly changing culture and inhabitants, touching on the reign of the indigenous Tequesta and other American Indians, the arrival of Ponce de Leon, Henry Flagler, the emergence of Art Deco, the growth of tourism, race rivalries, hurricane Andrew, and our magically weird city as it is today. Best of all, the entire rundown was performed by the same four actors (Lopez, Zakiyah Iman Markland, Jair Bula and Erik Rodriguez), who announced their role changes by exchanging one velcroed-on name badge for another.

"We were counting on everyone's creativity," said a visibly tired but satisfied Lopez after wrapping up the show (and dissembling the stage so that a musical act could take it over a few minutes later). "We hadn't even seen most of the performances until they went on yesterday," he went on, explaining that actors and writers had rehearsed their productions independently beforehand. "It's amazing that all these artists volunteered their time and that everything came together as smoothly as it did. I think we really succeeded in showing different parts of the community," Lopez said.

Laughs brighten up dark side

OCTOBER 25, 2007

BY ARLINE GREER

Zombies. Love 'em or leave 'em? Given my druthers, I'd leave 'em. However, judging from the first night audience's reaction to The Hippodrome's production of "Night of the Living Dead," everyone loves a zombie.

Just in time for Halloween, Lauren Caldwell is directing a sendup of the famous '60s movie. Although she follows Lori Allen Ohm's adaptation of the film closely, she's added local references and local characters to the mix on stage. As a result, the play's original mood of horror is diluted, making for laughter at the macabre nonsense on stage. Purists who want their flesh-eating zombies served up straight, may object. The more forgiving among audiences probably will enjoy the comic relief.

For those who are not acquainted with "Night of the Living Dead," it concerns a group of strangers who take refuge in a farmhouse from a horde of zombies bent on finding and eating them. The zombies are everywhere. A national emergency has been declared and news bulletins are sent out on radio and television by local newscaster Paige Beck (played primly by Nell Page in a blonde wig.) Sheriff Sadie Darnell (in the smiling persona of an uniformed Sara Morsey) appears on stage to report on police progress or lack thereof.

In the farmhouse, Ben, a take-charge kind of guy, tries to calm Barbara, whose brother, Johnny, has just been eaten by zombies, and who apparently has lost her mind. (Who wouldn't under the circumstances?) While Ben boards up the upper part of the house, Harry and Tom, part of a group hiding in the basement, come upstairs and demand that Tom and Barbara join them and Harry's wife, Helen, their sick child, Karen, and Tom's girlfriend, Judy, downstairs where they believe it's safe. Ben refuses to budge setting off a power struggle among the men. As they argue, zombies, costumed by Lorelai Esser in torn, putty-colored outfits, hair gone wild and blood dripping from their mouths, march stiffly toward the house. The group in the farmhouse freezes while the zombies circle the lawn to an ominous, herky-jerky beat. Drums pound and music plays for the zombies, who dance furiously, energized by Rachel Anton's bold choreography and Risa Baxter's hot sound.

Back in the farmhouse, Ben, Harry and Tom come up with an escape plan. But - will it work? And what about Karen, the sick child in the basement? Can she be saved? In a romantic, humorous moment, Tom and Judy are left alone for a kiss and a dance.

Barbara, who has become certifiably loony at that point, sits up to sing "Without You" in a vivid, out-of-tune performance. After that, just about everything goes to pot until Sadie Darnell calls on Tim Tebow and the Gators to save the world.

Is it too late for the refugees in the farmhouse? Built on two levels by Carlos Francisco Asse, the farmhouse takes up a large portion of the stage with the grass outside the house lying within a few inches of the audience's toes. (Someone needs to mow that lawn.) Zombies wander in and out of the set and sometimes climb into the audience. ("All the better to eat you, my dear!") The zombies, who are more humorous than they are scary, are played by Libby Arnold, Kate Daub, Dan Kahn, Bobby McAfee, Jorgia McAfee, Kristin Mercer, Alex Mrazek, Loren Omer, Kellie Palladino, and Es Swihart.

In the lead roles, Armando Acevedo as Ben makes a strong, commanding leader. Kate Kertez is enjoyably loony as scared-out-of-her-wits Barbara. Matthew Lindsay plays Harry with a believable mix of bravado and frustration. Helen, his wife, is given a sympathetic performance by Robyn Berg. Ted Stephens and Jessica Ires Morris as Tom and Judy make a funny and romantic couple. Dennis McCourt plays the hapless Johnny. Marjorie Kammerlohr is Karen, the sick child.

The best line in "Night of the Living Dead?" "Like the Gator nation, zombies are everywhere."

The good news? You can leave them behind at The Hippodrome, go home and cover your head.

The other good news? If zombies are your thing, The Hippodrome has them in abundance for your Halloween treat.

www.gainesville.com/article/20071025/NEWS/710240315/0/search?template=printpicart

'8-Track' brings down the brick house

JUNE 9, 2005

You've been asked to describe what happened in the 1970s.
What words come to mind? Vietnam? Watergate? Those would be right.

How about a new golden era in American music? Probably, this would be last on your list, were it to make it at all. Luckily, Rick Seeber made it first when he conceived "8-Track, The Sounds of the 70s." Luckily, too, the Hippodrome has produced this exuberant, foot-stompin' revue to close out its season with a musical bang that will reverberate until next autumn.

Under Lauren Caldwell's expert direction, and with Douglas Maxwell's fluid musical direction, this is a show that takes off from its opening numbers. Four talented performers - two girls and two guys - grab the stage and don't let go until their final "Na Nas" and "Hey Heys" ("Goo-ood Bye").
Rachel Anton, Chad Hudson, Kelly Atkins and Armando Acevedo sing and dance their way through a brilliant assortment of songs from the '70s. Choreographer Judy Skinner has guided all four through two acts of dazzling stage movement. The quartet, costumed by Marilyn A. Wall and Lorelai Esser in wild outfits that parody the era, is equally at home singing duets, trios, quartets and solos in which they shine individually.

Because they are a likeable foursome, they get the audience going almost immediately, clapping, singing and dancing in the aisles.

In the first act (somewhat long in the tradition of most musicals), they take on the look of anti-war activists as Acevedo sings "War," followed by Anton's "Peace Train" and Hudson's funny "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree."

The versatile Atkins and Acevedo sing a beautiful rendition of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," preceded by Anton and Hudson singing "Just the Way You Are." Hudson serenades his pet rock with "Alone Again, Naturally," and Atkins sings "You Light Up My Life" so beautifully she dims all memory of Debbie Boone.

The second act is a scorcher, focusing mainly on disco but with some inspired interpretations of songs reminiscent of the '90s TV comedy, "Ally McBeal," which leaned heavily on songs of the '70s. The act begins with the quartet chanting "Ooga chukka" and singing "Hooked on That Feeling." Shades of Ally's dancing baby! Acevedo's "Ooh Child" brings back another Ally" memory, as does "Until You Come Back to Me" sung by Atkins, Hudson and Anton.
The cast makes the house sizzle with "Car Wash" and "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover." Barry Manilow gets a send-up with Acevedo dressed in a pink feather boa, singing, "I Write the Songs."
And while audience participation is nothing new at The Hippodrome, "8-Track" raises it to a new level as a few hundred people rise from their seats to help with "YMCA" and to sing (unaccompanied) The Eagles' "Desperado."

The show wouldn't be complete without a bow to "Saturday Night Fever." "Stayin' Alive" gets a once-over (and not lightly). So does Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." Not to be forgotten, too, is Anton's performance of Sir Elton John's haunting "Your Song."

The Hippodrome's "8-Track" is a rip-roaring roller coaster of a musical revue. Every moment is designed to show off the glories of that golden era of American music - the 1970s.

Yup! Who knew?

"8-TRACK, THE SOUNDS OF THE 70S"

WHAT: Musical tribute to the 1970s

WHEN: 8:15 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 5 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays through June 26

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20050609/SCENE/50608049

Detail-rich 'Anna in Tropics' celebrates the power of art

APRIL 21, 2005

BY SHERWIN MACKINTOSH

'Because of this book, I see everything through new eyes," exclaims Conchita, a Cuban- American factory worker, of her introduction to the novel "Anna Karenina."

And so the Hippodrome's latest production, "Anna in the Tropics," transports us to a new world, as we discover 1920s Ybor City and the family-owned cigar factory that struggles to maintain its ties with the past while facing the realities of the future.

Director Mary Hausch so cleverly creates a microcosm of this world where one can literally smell the tobacco and see the cigars being made onstage. The production is a triumph and a testament to the Hippodrome as Gainesville's center for professional theater.

Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama centers around a centuries-old tradition brought by the Cuban refugees to the new cigar factories in Florida. Here, lectors were hired by the uneducated employees to read great works of literature to them while they worked.

The new lector in the play chooses to read Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina." This sets off a chain of events that causes the workers to examine their own lives and their limited outlook on the world. The battles between literature and reality and tradition and progress are played out as their own lives begin to reflect the novel itself.
Dealing with infidelity and seduction, the characters lives are forever changed, for better or for worse, because of the transformative powers of literature on the human mind and soul.

"Anna in the Tropics" features an excellent ensemble cast, all strong performers, functioning as one complete unit. Every character is well developed in the writing, which gives each actor a moment to shine. As the unfaithful Palomo, Armando Acevedo stands out for his ability to demonstrate a million emotions without saying a word. As the family matriarch Ofelia, Jessica Peterson is captivating, with a voice that is worn with time yet sustains a wide range of intonations.

Costume Designer Marilyn A. Wall and Scenic Designer Carlos Francisco Asse work together to create a palette of cool tropical breezes with the fiery accents of love and color. With some interesting choices, Lighting Director Robert P. Robins helps us focus on the emotional changes in our characters and concentrate on the epicenter of the action.

Prop Designer Lorelei Esser must have done extensive research to re-create the process of making cigars and how the factory looked in 1929.
Even the Hippodrome Gallery downstairs features the works of Ferdie Pacheco, based on the tradition of lectors in the cigar industry.

This is art at its best, a first-rate production that educates us as well as entertains. It is a production that reminds us of the astonishing power of art to change our lives and take us to new places.

Sherwin Mackintosh spent 17 years as a musical director and producer in New York City. He is currently the director of the new Performing Arts Center at the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20050421/SCENE/204210301/0

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Broadway World Reviews: Nilo Cruz's ALICE N. A Vibrant Portrait of Grief

BY T. DURHAM

OCTOBER 10, 2017

Freshly imagined historical theatre delights the mind, and in a play-reading setting, can be a divine imaginative light slipping into a dark corner of the past. Focusing on famed expressionist painter Alice Neel, Nilo Cruz peels back some of his personal experiences to make a colorful and psychological portrait of Neel as more realistic than fiction in Alice N. Collaborating with director Louis Tyrrell, one of the first to bring Cruz' works to life two decades ago, the first reading of Alice N. promises a new, fascinating period of Cruz' writing for the stage.

Structuring Alice N., rather than the heights of her work and career, is Neel's time in a private sanitorium where she engaged in discussion with Dr. Seymour Ludlum. Instead of her past being a

device she must grasp and re-enage, Cruz allows Neel to deliberately tell her tale over time and withhold it as a tool of her craft. Ludlum pieces her pains together as Carlos Enriquez, her husband, lover, and collaborator, joins sessions to attempt repair on both Neel's depression and their failed love.

Cruz had not heard this narrative come off the page until this week, an experience intimately shared with Theatre Lab's Playwright's Forum and Master Class Series. With four skilled performers, one an actor who has already originated three roles with Cruz, Alice N. took its first steps into the world, a world in need of Cruz rhythmic, poignant dictation. The work, while still being work-shopped and drafted, feels to be the most traditional narrative Cruz has ever told, while never losing an ounce of the magic that won him his many honors.

Helming the reading was Elizabeth Price as Neel, bringing hesitant shades to dramatize the already painful tale. Her silences were as loud as Cruz wrote, masterfully masking the passions Neel put onto canvas underneath a cold glare. Her lover, Armando Acevedo's Carlos Enriquez, dripped every bit of passion and pain she refused to return. Acevedo builds his character before audience's eyes, a scroll unraveling that contains the keys to Cruz' work. Alice N. is a show that rests totally upon the believability of Price's Neel and the devotion of Acevedo, a dynamic delicately handled by Tyrrell, and more so by the couple. Both Price and Acevedo are immovable forces, towering in their pain and the oceans between them full of stinging salt.

The two supporting roles, Dr. Ludlum and Carlos' father Don Enriquez, are split narrative and comedic parts. Cruz is still work-shopping the father's involvement, and the historical parts of Ludlum, but at this initial reading, Paul Carlin and Carlos Orizondo nailed down the support. Carlin and Orizondo held a swagger, a naïve certainty of their worlds that make Neel and Enriquez a more mythical and fantastical pairing in their juxtaposed narrative. While Carlin was respectful and warm as Ludlum, Orizondo's cold bureaucratic notions were all too familiar and delightfully sinister as the Cuban doctor.

Seeing Cruz' work this fresh, raw, and vibrant feels all too akin to meeting a lover as they are half dressed. The delights, the passions are felt unbridled, as you are overwhelmed by the guilty glimpse at everything - but time is not yet ripe. Alice N. is not yet slated for a workshop or production, and this reading was a gaze into the starry mind of an innovative step from Cruz. Tyrrell was a smart choice in leading this exploration into Neel's life, with the cast breathing color into Cruz' portrait, a reading not easily remembered. Having rounded out the Playwright's Forum and Master Class Series' weekend with such a treasure, next weekend's workshop will be much anticipated.

Broadway World Reviews: EAST AND WEST OF THE WAR, Three Songs of Melancholic Wonder

OCTOBER 7, 2017

BY TREVOR DURHAM

Only rarely does a collection become unified in ways that over-exceed the medium. Such collective works are typically lacking the transitory nature to cohesively attach a theme or body to it, which plague jukebox musicals and monologue works. As the second of three works in the Playwright's Forum and Master Class Series of Nilo Cruz' works, Louis Tyrrell brings East and West of the War, a collection of three monologues, to life. Two of the performers have worked the pieces since Cruz' first beginnings, and the third is fresh-faced while playing in two Cruz productions in this same day, but the music and wonder of the pieces come bursting louder than any symphony.

The three pieces, individually titled Melisma, The Journey of the Shadow, and Farhad or the Secret of Being, all highlight aspects of the cruel life and existence in Afghanistan trailing from a young Kabul girl to a soldier's son waiting on a letter in America. Each piece builds the drama, builds the tension, and builds the tragedy Tyrrell showcases in the stripped-down reading. In Theatre Lab's black-box, Cruz' words spike through, punctuating each horrible reality and hopeful longing in such spectacular scope that it becomes hard to withstand.

The first piece, Melisma, stars Armando Acevedo as Lolo, an injured soldier trapped in village ruins. As he prays and hopes to be rescued, he allows memory to overwhelm him, lost love and virtuous remembrance washing over him. Acevedo, new to the piece, is visually broken as his desperation continues, his hands trembling as the pain and confusion destroys his sanity. Watching Acevedo in his throngs, as he remembers his days as an actor before the war and returning to simple stage directions and props in the comforting past, is a tragedy playing out in reverse.

Following the trailing dust of Acevedo's despair is The Journey of the Shadow, by the comedically detailed Andy Barbosa. Playing a young Marcelo Miguel, Barbosa flits in and out of a repertoire of characters that punch each joke and development. The story is introduced as "a story for children, and for those adults who take delight in the remnants of innocence," and allows Marcelo to tell an imaginative tale as he avoids the harsh reality of war. The young Marcelo writes a letter to his father, a soldier lost in Afghanistan, and his shadow leaps into his letter's footing- Marcelo narrates the magical realism of the furtive shadow, as it collapses the postal system, frustrates a cabal of postal workers, and all the many deliveries he disrupts. From character to voice to physicality to new character, Barbosa flits as though he is this shadow, but as the cracks begin, Barbosa's tears flow and his cries become the only truth.

Cruz' final monologue of the series, Farhad or the Secret of Being tells perhaps the most wrenching short, as Andrea Ferro's Farhad is told it is her final day to be a boy. Ferro sings proudly, a crying bird as her wings are clipped, and tells of her final quest for freedom as though she is walking to her gallows. The beauty of her voice sparkles in her eyes, the beauty of Cruz' script falling from her trembling lip, and the audience shuffles in pain as the world settles around them. Ferro is unbelievable, a tortured beauty in chains that she cannot break, singing her acapella dirges and praises to each of the ninety-nine Allahs who will not answer. Portraying this Kabul life, when blending is no longer an option to a girl who wants only to be able to work in a factory, is a shortcoming in that the arias of Ferro are clipped short as Farhad's life will be. If Cruz ever develops a full musical of this pain, it will erupt through the ceiling as the sketching of realism in feminine imprisonment.

The pieces individually are poems, whispering of pains and universalities, but when combined, East and West of the War is an hour spent lost in the worlds unknown. Tyrrell's cast and close-cuffed work is powerful in the way only intimate theatre can accomplish, and certainly a tearful second act to the Playwright's Forum and Master Class Series. As tears are wiped away, his final spectacle of the first reading of Alice N. approaches.