Main Street - UMD Theatre

 

UMD Offers Brilliant Adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street

 

Lawrance Bernabo

Duluth News Tribune

October 1, 2022 

On Friday night, a new staging of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street adapted and directed by Tom Isbell had its World Premiere on UMD’s mainstage.  This is a brilliant adaptation of the novel, creatively staged, and providing every cast member multiple moments to shine on stage.  Opening night was woefully under-attended.  This review is out to change that.

Lewis, who lived in Duluth in the early 1940s, was the first American author to win the Nobel Prize for literature.  In his 1920 novel Main Street, Carol Milford Kennicott collides with the small-town mentality of the folks of Gopher Prairie (a.k.a. Lewis’s hometown of Sauk Centre).

As soon as Thressa Schultz appears on stage in her gorgeous green dress, you know this is her story.  In the novel, Carol starts off as a bit of a ditz, but Isbell fast-forwards through that part and Schulz gives us a Carol, who is a shade smarter and more aware than almost anyone she meets, which is what makes her story tragic.

Schultz is also the show’s choreographer, which manifests mainly in Carol’s interpretive dances at the start and end of the play.  But I also found a large segment of Schultz’s portrayal of Carol is choreographed.  Over the course of the play, Schultz’s hands trace her character’s downward spiral as she goes from hands on waist, to hands on hips, to hands on her thighs.

Whether this was conscious or not, it really worked.  Carol spends a lot of time suffering in silence or speaking but hiding her true thoughts, leaving her to communicate non-verbally what is being unspoken to the audience.  You cannot take your eyes off of her.

Like Jane Austen, a lot of the good stuff in the novel is in the descriptions and not the dialogue.  Isbell’s solution is to create a Reporter, played by Olivia Nelson, who is not merely a substitute for the Stage Manager in Our Town.

While the style might be similar, especially with the scenic design by Curtis Phillips being a butcher block square stage and dark green chairs in perpetual motion, the substance of the two plays are diametric opposites.  Main Street is the harsh black-and-white counterpart to the red, white and blue Our Town.

Additionally, Nelson is always around the stage when she is not on it, providing constant editorial comment through a series of looks and headshots, even engaging members of the audience to ensure they are aware of the absurdity of the action.

Isbell’s script and staging creates more of a theatrical montage than a series of scenes, until the several significant scenes making up the play’s climax.

There is humor sprinkled throughout the show, often in the droll interplay between the Reporter and the characters.  But even more than the blackout where the “wolves” go after the “sheep” at Carol’s housewarming party, the comic highlight is the meeting of the women of Gopher Prairie to study English Literature.

These women would find the CliffsNotes versions of Shakespeare too lengthy to crack open, and the four distinct ways the characters played by Emily Bolles, Kaitlyn Callahan, Zsofi Eastvold, and Cindy Hansen get laughs are truly hysterical.

The dramatic highpoint is the forceful and compelling speech Jack Lieder gives as Dr. Will Kennicott to try and save his marriage.  It not only justifies his life’s work but eviscerates the would-be young artist who has captured his wife’s attention.  Lieder totally convinced me his character deserved better than he was getting from Carol.

Most of the cast play multiple roles.  In a nice little casting twist, Eastvold plays both the false and true kindred spirits Carol encounters.

Trevor Hendrix brings a necessary earnestness to Erik Valborg, Tanner Longshore invests Miles Bjornstam with a sense of simple honesty, Deklan Boren finds new ways to make most of his characters instantly unlikeable, and Ben Hanzsek-Brill comes up with a captivating cadence when he talks as Guy Pollock.

I have seen several original theatrical productions in Duluth.  This one deserves to be performed on other stages in both college and community theaters.

Pippin - UMD Theatre

 

UMD’s Musical Pippin Lacks Magic

Duluth New Tribune
Sheryl Jensen 

April 15, 2022


UMD Theatre Department’s opening night of the musical Pippin did not meet the level of performance excellence of many of their past musicals. While it did have some bright spots, on the whole, it was a lackluster evening of theater.

Telling the medieval tale of King Charlemagne and his eldest son Pepin (Pippin), the musical is typically done with its original 1970’s vibe that the music from composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz (of “Wicked” fame) helps to dictate.

Beginning with the show’s opening number, “Magic to Do,” the tone for an evening of theatrical razzle-dazzle should be set. From the start, sadly, there was very little sparkling spectacle happening on the UMD stage.

Choreographer and director Bob Fosse’s groundbreaking “concept” musicals, beginning with Pippin in 1973, and followed by Cabaret and Chicago, established an entirely new way of looking at musical storytelling and dance.

These shows with their darker and even sinister tones broke from the feel-good, happy, traditional musicals of stage and screen of the '40s and '50s.

According to guest director Dennis F. Johnson’s program note, UMD’s show overlays a classic 1940 and '50s Hollywood MGM movie musical style. This odd choice ended up creating a mishmash of costuming and staging, and more importantly, clouded a clear vision of the intent of the show.

While it isn’t, of course, necessary to duplicate Fosse’s iconic style down to the last hip gyration and use of jazz hands, it is still important that the show have a cohesive style which acknowledges his changing the face of musical theater forever. On that essential point, UMD’s show misses the mark.

Even though it is not musical “comedy” in the traditional sense, the show does have some genuinely funny moments. The UMD cast failed to bring out the humor enough in line readings, expressions and body language to land many of the “jokes.”

The UMD cast best succeeded with a few of the show’s quiet ballads such as Pippin (Nick Wright) and Catherine (Emily Bolles) singing ”Love Song” and Bolles’s lovely rendition of “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man.” A wonderful vocal moment came at the very end of the show with Theo (Zsofi Eastvold) doing a short reprise of “Corner of the Sky.”

The biggest sparks of energy and fun came from Laura Carlson in her role as the “leading player.” While she, at times, lacked some of the more menacing side that the role requires, the stage came to life when she helped to tell the story and kept the pacing moving. She also had some powerful vocal moments that showcased some of Schwartz’s music.

To be sure, the UMD cast looked like they were having fun, and the audience, which included mostly students, was vocal in their responses to their fellow students onstage.

Like every other college theater program, UMD is trying to come back after a two-year COVID gap of missing out on some of their students’ essential training and live performance. Thankfully, students are again attending in-person classes and performing onstage doing what they are being trained to do.

I look forward to next season, when I anticipate more of UMD’s musical magic will be uniformly showcased again.

The School for Lies - UMD Theatre

 

Lots of Hot Comedy in The School for Lies

Duluth New Tribune
Lawrance Bernabo

February 4, 2022 

 The School For Lies, David Ives’s “translaptation” of Moliere’s classic comedy The Misanthrope, opened at the University of Minnesota Duluth on Thursday night.  This is a show that slowly simmers for the first one-third, starts boiling and then refuses to stop.

Alceste the misanthrope is now named Frank because that is what the character clearly is as he rudely criticizes everyone’s flaws.  The young widow Celimene is equally critical of others and pursued by a trio of inept suitors.  Once Frank’s wingman Philinte tells Celimene’s gal pal Eliante a strategic lie, the romantic ball starts rolling and wackiness ensues.

Director Lauren Roth has put together a production where every single member of the cast has multiple moments to shine.

As Frank, Ian Wallin wields his caustic opinions like a baseball bat, while Kelly Solberg’s Celimene favors using a rapier in her attacks, when she is not rapping or going vapid Valley Girl.  She is up on points by the end of the night.

Even funnier is how their victims steal the moments back from their tormentors.  This show gets into gear when Celimene skewers Mikela Anderson’s Arsinoé who then loses it.  Completely.  On several levels.  Likewise, when Frank offers his insulting “apology” to Oronte, Nick Wright’s inarticulate rage was just epic.

In this comedy of manners, the most comic manners, both quantitatively and qualitatively, goes to Jake Lieder’s Acaste, who also displays a nice array of sudden shifts in delivery to humorous effect.

Ives is working in iambic pentameter and while there are certainly several payoffs to the rhyming couplets, the best humor comes when the characters break up the meter.  Especially when the cast starts playing things broadly, while keeping the characters grounded, which perfectly defines Maddie Schafer’s performance as Eliante.  Schafer used her voice, face, and body to punctuate her passionate dialogue.

Add to that moments of hysterical physical comedy that should stop Moliere from spinning in his grave over the whole translaptation thing.  Such as when Bryce Melton as Clitander makes his case for why he would be better, in a certain area of marital relations, than his competitors.  Others might be haunted more by where Frank’s encouragement of Jack Senske’s Philinte to woo Eliante takes the two of them.

Emily Crawford’s exquisite scenic design has a trio of chandeliers casting shadow on a black and white checkerboard floor and a settee covered in cursive and printed script, while the back wall offers a quartet of pop art portraits in the style of Andy Warhol.

Jeannie Hurley’s costumes are a luscious mix of gorgeous gowns for the women and excessive elegance for the men, topped off by wigs created by Ora Jewell-Busche.

Ives ends his version with a compilation of Moliere’s greatest hits: the royal ex machina from Tartuffe, the return of a long-lost character from The Miser, and the revelation of twins from the one where twins are revealed.

However, I do have a serious concern that the serving tray used by Hunter Ramsden’s Dubois cannot possibly survive the entire run of this show.