Buttars 101

[Theater] What do you get when you combine local YouTube star Deena Marie "Beaner LaRue" Manzanares with the satirical institution that is Salt Lake Acting Company's Saturday's Voyeur? How about a five-minute video introduction to Utah's own foot-in-mouth poster boy Chris Buttars? If you've ever wanted a compendium of Buttars' greatest jaw-dropping hits, here's a good start. And if that's not enough, you can learn a little about Gayle Ruzicka from Deena Marie as well.





Saturday's Voyeur 2008 has it's official opening night tonight and runs through Aug. 17. (Scott Renshaw)

Sweet Caroline

[Theater Review] It’s scary when a venue is small enough that the cast of a musical could be bigger than the audience. But up close is good for Wasatch Theatre Company’s production of Caroline, or Change.

In the Tony Kushner musical (few words are not sung), Caroline (Erica Richardson), a black single mother of four, cooks and cleans for—and butts heads with—a Jewish family in 1960s Louisiana. She also argues with her friends and kids about how to get ahead in a hostile world.

Requiring a mostly black cast singing pop and gospel, it’s an enormous challenge for a small Utah company. But with solid direction from Jim Martin, this is a winning group. Richardson, especially, is compelling and completely believable as a 37-year-old woman stuck in a job she hates and a family situation she can’t escape, denying dreams that have pretty much dried up like a raisin in the sun. This is no longsuffering, sympathetic Mammy; she’s angry and she’s bitter, and she lets the world know it. Without a missed step, Richardson draws us with a voice that seems energized by pain and deepened by hard experience.

I can’t think of any other actor in Utah who could have pulled off this performance, and I can’t think of any other play that would have given her the chance. Which means this is also a chance for us to see this blazing new talent in action before she (we hope) moves on to the bigger audiences she deserves.

Rose Wagner Studio Theatre, 138 W. 300 South, 801-355-ARTS, through May 17 (Christy Karras)

Gull Trouble

[Theater Review] I had high hopes for Pinnacle Acting Company’s production of Chekhov's The Seagull. It is a great script, and I have been impressed by PAC’s work in the past (though I was unable to express my opinion to the public at the time, due to a confluence of human error and technical trouble).

The previous PAC production I saw (Someone Who'll Watch Over Me) did an excellent job of turning the constraints inherent in a fledgling company--mostly low budget and limited space--into advantages, as the bare stage and intimate environment served to highlight the tremendous talent of the three actors on stage. It was a remarkable piece of work, and it has bothered me ever since that I was unable to say so.

With their current production, however, they have neglected their strengths. It suffers from over-reach. By making do with cheesy sets and some sub-par performers, PAC does a disservice to the work.

Not that it was all bad, mind you. Some key players--notably Alexandra Harbold as Arkandina and Jared Larkin as her tortured artist son, Treplyev--were strong throughout. Others, like Morgan Long as Nina and Rob Luckau as Trigorin, did well in key scenes, but were otherwise unfocussed.

Yet I still look forward to another small piece from PAC’s core group. If the company can get on its feet with a few productions of more limited scale, I have no doubt that it’ll be up to bigger challenges soon enough. (Rob Tennant)

Nazi by Nature

[Theater] According to publicists for Park City's Egyptian Theatre Company, the current production of Cabaret has apparently served a valuable Knucklehead Identification function.

Reportedly, a woman in Park City was disturbed by promotional materials displayed at the Main Street theater for the well-known musical--because they feature the swastika. Those unfamiliar with Cabaret should be aware that the play is set in Weimar-era Germany, just as the Nazi Party is coming to power while many of the characters attempt to pretend that it has no impact on their freewheeling lives; the play is hardly Springtime for Hitler. Park City police were brought into the dispute when the theater refused to remove the "offending" materials, but took no action.

I'm not quite sure how to top the basic facts. What other examples of gross artistic-point-missing would compare? And over and above that, what has contributed to the mass infantilization of Americans that we insist anything that might possibly ruffle feathers must be hidden from view? You do not have a Constitutionally-protected right not to be offended. (Scott Renshaw)

Upon Further Review ...

[Media] A critic is a critic, right? If you know how to blather about one thing, you know how to blather about everything. After all, it's not as though some people at this very publication don't walk more than one beat.

But here's the thing: If you're going to send a TV critic to review a local play, there's a potential price you pay in someone not knowing whereof he speaks. The retirement in December of long-time Deseret Morning News theater critic Ivan Lincoln left an opening which -- in keeping with daily newsroom practices around the country -- has thus far been filled by committee. That meant the job of reviewing Pygmalion Productions' staging of Lisa Loomer's Living Out went to D-News TV writer Scott D. Pierce. And whatever thoughts one might have about such insights as "'Living Out' will make you laugh. It might make you cry. And it will make you think", you'd hope a writer would at least know enough about his subject matter not to toss off this howler:

"([Actress Daisy] Blake struggles to maintain an accent, which is either British or upper-crust American.)"

Note: Daisy Blake is British. Welcome to covering local theater, Mr. Pierce. (Scott Renshaw)

Someone Who'll Watch Over Me

[Theater Review] I'm a "less-is-more" kind of guy. Whereas much contemporary live theater seems to be taking Hollywood’s lead with big special effects, gauche gimmicks and stunt casting, Pinnacle Acting Company has chosen to go the other way with their production of Frank McGuinness’s Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. The show is a testament to the simple power of talented actors working with a good script in an intimate space. It's everything that live theater can and should be.

An Irishman, and Englishman and an American are being held hostage in Beirut. No, it’s not a bad joke; it’s three men chained by the ankle to cinder blocks in the middle of a room. We see them traverse the full spectrum of human emotional terrain from boredom to visceral grief to dark and absurd humor as they all go a little bit mad. I swear, you will never laugh so hard at a play about fundamentalist terrorism.

The fewer-than-50 seats in the theater are arranged on either side of the not-quite stage in facing rows. In this unusual configuration, no patron is ever more than a few feet from an actor; high drama plays out quite literally at your feet. More than once, I had to lean back because I was afraid I had invaded an actor’s personal space. I almost kicked somebody.

All of this came together to create one of the best theater-going experiences I’ve had in a long time. With not quite a whole year behind them, Pinnacle Acting Company has a bright future—assuming they continue to stick to the basics.

Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me concludes its run Jan. 17-19 at Sugar Space, located at 616 E. Winchester (2190 South). (Rob Tennant)

Review: Blithe Spirit

[Theater] Playwright Noel Coward created Blithe Spirit in six days, and presumably rested on the seventh. Pinnacle Acting Company recreated the play just shy of three hours, and audience members presumably drank heavily on the fourth hour. Or at least I did.

Considering it is a non-profit performing arts organization, Pinnacle Acting Company performed a decidedly professional rendition of Coward’s 1941 play. The stage was set with authentic period scenery, and the players were adorned in classic vintage style. Coward’s story began with the protagonist Charles Condomine (Justin Bruse) inviting the proclaimed medium Madame Arcati (Vickie Pugmire) over for dinner and a séance. Lights dim and chants are called, accidentally awaking the spirit of Charles’ deceased first wife (Melanie Nelson); while currently-alive second wife (Melanie Rees) sits by his side. Charles’ sisterwives begin to haunt and torment him for his attention and undying oath of love.

Witty and cleverly written, the dialogue was sharp and humorous. Two hours into the play, I was agreeably entertained yet stiff in my seat. I began to wonder how—but more importantly, if, or when—the romantic-comedy saga would end. And I found myself daydreaming of extra-dry martinis and cucumber sandwiches of which the players partook during the play.

However, the actors did fine work in the community theater setting. Sporting a cast full of expertise, the play was executed with a professionalism that you would find in any other theater setting. Only a year old, Pinnacle Acting Company is founded and supported by talented actors. I will be keeping an eye out for future, shorter, yet still pleasantly performed productions. (Kris Heitkamp)

Partly Local: Dance Theatre Coalition's "Proving Ground"

[Multimedia] I'm always happy to hear about and support productions in the vein of the Proving Ground that provide an appropriate space for amateurs to stage and develop their work, or perhaps professionals trying their hand at something new. It’s also nice to see an arts community as fecund as Salt Lake's fostering emerging and innovative talent by spreading funding, space, support and energy around to those that might be in need. That, in short, is the No. 1 reason I make an extra effort to attend such productions.

Proving Ground’s producers, Dance Theatre Coalition, decided to forgo traditional ticketing in favor of online reservation and a suggested donation of $15. Obviously this technique is aimed at getting more butts in seats. Still, it’s a risky venture in the sense that people might actually pay for what they feel they got—and Utah audiences are notoriously fickle (read: cheap).

I was under the impression that as a locally-grown production—funded for the most part by local monies and attended by local audiences—Proving Ground would consist of local emerging artists and talent. And there were some. Joey Guesthouse—a used-appliance salesman who attends school part time at Salt Lake Community College when not otherwise busy—and his VHS Quintet opened the show by twisting and tweaking various knobs, sampling and mixing sounds culled from the five VCR’s he’s ingeniously wired to a multi-tracker, delay pedal, delay unit, battle mixer and drum machine. A brilliant kaleidoscopic dance for the camera was choreographed and edited by Erin Kaser. And there was Lindsay Ellis-Ermidis’ Remote Beyond Control dance piece, half-heartedly constructed around the growing banality of America, fueled by a blind devotion to all things media. There was even a one-act scene directed by Alexandra Harbold that culminated with a passionate delivery of Ptolemy’s self-written eulogy.

The problem lay with the fact that this multi-disciplinary evening—which included dance, film, theater, music and mixed variations on all those mediums—included several artists that not only had little or nothing to do with Utah, but also didn’t deliver anything particularly unique. Sure, Dana Michel’s solo performances were filled with interesting and provocative movement that consisted mostly of hyperbolic, pedestrian themes made grotesque. But such movement always works better when juxtaposed with something beautiful and serene.

Still, the best example of the evening falling flat came with the closer: “Stairway to St. Paul’s” by the Dutch-born Jeroen Offerman. This short film, created in 2002, shows Offerman himself singing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. He taught himself how to sing the entire song backwards, filmed himself doing so on a street somewhere, reversed the film, added Zepplin’s score and, voilá! What I thought was a local artistic Proving Ground turned into YouTube’s greatest hits.

And really that may be the theme for the evening. Proving Ground is supposed to be a space to develop new ideas, and a sphere for emerging artists. But the result was a stewing pot of ideas, many of which needed to simmer a little longer. (Jacob Stringer)

5 Spot: R. Scott Phillips

[CW Extra] R. Scott Phillips is director of the Utah Shakespearean Festival, which just kicked off in Cedar City featuring the Bard’s own plays Twelfth Night, Coriolanus and King Lear, as well as George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker and the world premiere of Lend Me a Tenor: the Musical, based on the play by Ken Ludwig, book and lyrics by Peter Sham and music by Brad Carroll. We caught up with Phillips during preview week and wrote about it in City Weekly’s June 28 5 Spot. Here’s the rest of the what he had to say.

Describe your role as festival director?
I’m the chief cook and bottle washer. We don’t really have an artistic director/managing director, so I do everything from helping with the artistic side to trying to keep the business side going. I also plant the flowers. Whatever it takes. When Fred Adams semi-retired and moved into fund-raising for the center, our board decided they wanted to do an organizational audit. Now they’ve made a recommendation about what we ought to do. They’re going to be announcing a job search here shortly. I’ve been doing this particular job and working with the festival for almost 30 years, so I know where all the skeletons are.

What’s best and worst about your job?
The best: Seeing the creative process and seeing what these directors and scenic artists and designers bring every year. Because you know, you do Hamlet and then you do Hamlet. It’s always exciting to see a different perspective and what they can bring to it to make it work for a contemporary audience. That most challenging part is trying to raise $6 million just to balance the budget. People ask, “When are you going to start the new center, the new theater?” We have raised some money for it. But we have to raise $6.1 million just to break even. And that’s not easy in a little town like Cedar City. We have an endowment, but it is a small endowment, only about $1 million right now. So we have got a lot of work to do in that area.

Are you yourself a frustrated artist?
I started out as an actor, and then I was going to be a director. I was going to go to New York and do it all. I fell into this because I had certain organizational skills. You get to a point where you’re out there trying to strike a deal with the local realtor on this piece of property in an exchange for a charitable remainder trust and you think, “What day in theater history did we talk about this?” It just evolved like so many different jobs.

Do you think it is a dream deferred for you?
I’ve never regretted the decision I’ve made in spending my time here because I believe so much in doing the classics. They’re huge stories with huge consequences. The fear is you can fall flat on your face but, man, when it works, the payoffs are just enormous. I watch it when I see audience members and even kids react in a certain way. So I’ve never regretted the choice.

Why a world premiere of Lend Me a Tenor: The Musical? Isn’t it safer (er, more profitable) to run with the tried and true?
First of all, we thought about shows like Joseph [& the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat] and Les Mis. I can’t say anything too bad about them because we have done Joseph in 1998, and we made a bundle of money. People ask, “Why are you doing musicals? You’re a Shakespeare festival.” Part of the greatest contribution the American theater has made to the theater world is the musical comedy. It is the one thing that is truly American. The last few years, the London stage has taken that over with Andrew Lloyd Webber and all that, but it really began here and is our legacy. It makes sense that we should be doing it even though we are doing Shakespeare. It is our stamp as an American theater company. It just happens to be a brilliant idea, and if it goes anywhere else as a world premiere, if we do well, for the next period of time, we get a piece of the royalties. There could be a payoff for it. Musically, I think it is absolutely spectacular. Ken Ludwig—it’s based on his play Lend Me a Tenor—is very excited about it. He’s heard the music and lyrics and wants to get some of his producer friends involved in it.

How would you characterize the annual miracle that involves opening six plays in six days?
It’s hellacious. As far as I know, no other theater company in America does this, because it’s hell. But we recognized years ago, in order to capture that destination traveler, we needed to make sure we had the whole enchilada. You’re not going to travel 250 or 300 miles to see one play and then go back two weeks later to see the other play. So we said we have to do it all at once. But that means we’ve been in tech for about the past two and a half weeks. Our scenic teams worked all night last night and they’ve been on that schedule for a week and a half. The theater has been in operation 24 hours a day. The actors leave at midnight, the painters come in until 8, then the electricians take over till noon, then the actors come back into it. So it’s been crazy. There’s lots of fast food.

Do you have a personal favorite production this year?
I like to say, well, which one of your children is your favorite? But you know, I have to say that I am inclined toward Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. It’s such a personal favorite of mine because I think Wilder captures a piece of Americana. He does it with farce and with humor in this particular play but there’s great warmth underneath it all. It speaks to a time when things were a little easier, a little more naïve. And that’s not a bad thing necessarily.

What’s the best antidote in Cedar City to ward off depression following a King Lear performance?
Probably at the morning seminar the next morning. I always say a good cup of cappuccino and the opportunity to go back to your motel and talk about it. The nightlife in Cedar City is not the most stimulating as you can well imagine.

Where is Brian Vaughn this season?
Mr. Vaughn is in Milwaukee, Wis. Believe it or not, the poor man wants to have a life. He and his wife got married just about a year ago and he was in a production that went about three weeks into our rehearsal schedule. He didn’t want to miss that particular production, so it didn’t work. I am already in negotiations trying to get him back here for next season. He will be here July 9-11 seeing shows and I’m hoping at that time to say, “Brian, if we offer you this role and this role, will you come?”

Who do you imagine will take Vaughn’s place as festival heartthrob?
You mean, besides me? There's a young boy [Tony Carter], I mean he’s really young, who plays Barnaby Tucker [in The Matchmaker] is a cute sparky kid. I think there are lots of young girls that are going to have their heads turned. Most of the mothers are gonna say, “Oh my God, I’ve got children older than that.” He’s a cute kid and a darn good actor.

Aren’t there some changes with the Green Show?
We lost about half a million dollars last year. Thank God, we had money in the reserves so we were able to cover it, but we had to make pretty serious budget cuts this year. So we don’t have live musicians in our Green Show for the first time in 46 years. The music is recorded. It’s fine, they’ve blended it beautifully, and there are speakers but it is noticeable. I feel very badly about that because the last thing an arts company wants to do is not hire artists. I’m really hopeful that next year, we can bring that back. Time will tell.

What’s up with an Orange County PBS station as a media sponsor?
It’s all about networking in this industry. The fellow that was the general manager of the PBS station in Las Vegas was transferred to Orange County, and he loved the festival. He wanted to find out what they could do. We struck out a deal and they’re going to start bringing busloads up here from Orange County. There’s 36 million people down there; let’s just keep doing it!

Why Shakespeare? Why should people take time away from weeding their gardens to hear words written by an English dude dead for centuries?
Oh, man. Because the stories and the themes and the message that Shakespeare talks about, jealousy, love, honor, compassion, those haven’t changed, not in 465 years. Kids are still screwed up now as they were back then. They’re all still looking for that piece of “Where do I fit in in this cosmic thing called the world?” It still can be relevant, even though we have the “thus” and “thous.” Forget all that crap and just try and follow the major message of the play. That’s why it’s still important. (Jerre Wroble)