And Baby Makes Seven - UMD Theatre

And Baby Makes Seven Makes for a Fun Fantasy

Paul Brissett, Duluth News Tribune

Oct 30, 2014 

And Baby Makes Seven, which opened Thursday at UMD’s Marshall Performing Arts Center’s Dudley Experimental Theater, is Paula Vogel’s ingeniously whimsical look at parenthood.

Written in 1974, the script employs the then-radical — if not outrageous — prism of homosexuality in her examination.  Ruth and Anna are a lesbian couple who have had their gay friend Peter impregnate Anna, with the idea that the four of them will become a family. But the women already have three little boys — fantasies in which Ruth can become either Henri or Orphan and Anna takes the role of Cecil. Conflict arises when Peter suggests that the three have to go, that their presence would not make for a wholesome atmosphere in which to raise the new baby.

The play opens with children’s voices offstage arguing over how babies are made.  “Henri,” with a broad French accent, and “Orphan,” who we soon learn was raised by dogs, stoutly aver that they came from eggplants. But brainiac “Cecil” provides a detailed, clinical description of intercourse, gestation and birth.  Critics in New York and Chicago have panned recent revivals as trite and pointless, but UMD director Kate Ufema and her cast of three have created two hours of comedy, pathos and some mental gymnastics.

Although occasionally overplaying the childishness of Henri, Stephanie Stine (Ruth), shifts smoothly but unmistakably into either the little Frenchman or the feral “Orphan.”  Her enactment of “Orphan’s” death from rabies has her flicking instantly from grotesque to comic and back again, snarling, uttering dying lines from Shakespeare and singing snatches of song.

Koki Sabates gets her own chance to chew the scenery as Anna, in a hormonal blowup at the start of Act II. “I just want to see my knees again,” she wails. And she creates a moving moment as “Cecil,” being informed by Peter that his “brothers” are gone. 

Vogel’s conceit becomes something of a mental challenge when “Henri” tries to assure his safety (continued existence) by threatening Anna that she will disclose to Peter that he (Henri) is actually the expected baby’s father. 

And Phillip Hoelscher covers the range from the scene with Cecil to a comic practice of holding and bathing a baby.  All three actors play the fantasy — and their multiple roles — with credibility.

The tone of each of the short scenes is set by music chosen by sound designer Alex Flinner and punctuated by lighting by designer Wesley Darton.

A Doll's House - UMD Theatre

Doll’s House Well Done, but Some Roles too Deep for Young Actors

Paul Brissett, Duluth News Tribune

October 2, 2014 

It’s said that by the time an actress understands Romeo’s Juliet, she’s too old to play the part.  That is to say, Shakespeare’s tragic heroine is an impossible fiction, worldly beyond her years.  Something similar could be said of Henrik Ibsen’s Nora, the central character in his play A Doll’s House, a production of which opened Thursday in UMD’s Marshall Performing Arts Center.

Katelin Delorenzo gives a perfectly burnished performance in the role, but a 20ish college student simply lacks the gravitas to portray a woman eight years into a demeaning marriage who’s a chronic liar and holder of a dark secret.  Delorenzo’s portrayal of Nora’s bubbly, playful demeanor in Act I is utterly without undertones.  And her Act III confrontation with Torvald, when she tells him “our home’s been nothing but a doll house (and) I’ve been your doll wife,” lacks the intensity of long-held resentment bursting forth.

Granted, a willing suspension of disbelief is the essential requirement of the playgoer.  And student theater rarely has much choice in the age of performers.  But the circumstances of Nora’s life, and how they’ve shaped her personality, are so essential to Ibsen’s story that they simply must be portrayed with more credibility than this production can manage.  

If Delorenzo was born too late for her part, so too was Jayson Speters, who turns in a technically impeccable performance but can’t muster the dismissiveness with which Torvald Helmer sees his wife.  Born late in the 20th century and reared in a world that has never been without feminism, he delivers Torvald’s belittling endearments — squirrel, songbird, etc. — without a hint of sugary patronization.  Similarly, his (today) outrageously paternalistic and sexist statements in Act III are delivered with all the conviction he might bring to reading a fairy tale aloud. How could it be otherwise; he’s likely never heard them uttered seriously in real life.  It is only in the play’s final, heartbreaking scene that Delorenzo and Speters generate a thoroughly affecting dynamic.

The blameless deficiencies of the two lead actors notwithstanding, UMD’s production is excellent theater.  Director Tom Isbell has taken William Archer’s translation, which significantly tightened and brightened Ibsen’s original script, and added moments of laugh-out-loud humor.  He also has demanded a brisk, crisp performance of a play that can sometimes seem stodgy and old-fashioned.  Curtis Phillips’ 19th century Norwegian living room, complete with tiled stove, is lighted by Solveig Bloomquist to capture the effect of pre-electricity illumination.  Patricia Dennis’ costumes are carefully correct, in period terms, down to Thorvald’s ankle-height lace-up shoes.

Isbell’s supporting cast is strong, none of them burdened by their unavoidable youth.  Particularly striking is Erik Meixelsperger as Krogstad, who threatens to disclose Nora’s secret unless she prevails upon Torvald to keep Krogstad in his job at the bank.  Meixelsperger has a perfect villain’s sneer and conveys a palpable desperation when demanding Nora’s aid.