Keith Waits - Page 6

Bust A Move With the Good NewsAltar Boyz is one of the craziest, funniest things I have seen lately. A tongue-in-cheek satire not of God or organized religion per se, but of a particular type of hyperactive, relentlessly upbeat Christian entertainment that is pure, irresistible showbiz. The title is the name of a fictitious Christian boy-band on the last night of their national 'Raise the Praise' tour: Matthew (Cameron Conners), Mark (Michael Detmer), Luke (Tony Smith), Juan (Remy Sisk), and Abraham (Alfie Jones), who's Jewish and sports a yarmulke adorned with a glitzy star.

I can honestly say that Broadway's musical Two by Two was new to me, as was the TheatreWorks of Southern Indiana company. As I love to be introduced to productions and theater groups that are unfamiliar to me, I got two for the price of one. I know there has to be a joke in there somewhere!

We have of late become more and more aware as a society of the contrast in how we look at our selves and each other based on our differences. That we are waking up to this like the dawning of the new day also illustrates how we had allowed ourselves to become complacent about the dramatic changes of the past. As a White Cis Male, I had assumed that, once earned, the change could not so easily be rolled back, and that society would only become more progressive, more inclusive, more accepting, more compassionate. Current events prove the arrogance of that assumption more and more with each passing day.

In a recent social media exchange, a man related to me how he was not interested in watching Hannah Gadsby's acclaimed Netflix special because he didn't need to feel ashamed. I think he misses the point. The most important thing that art can do is force us to reexamine our biases and preconceptions.

Do creative imagination and madness go hand-in-hand? We too often talk about Van Gogh as if only mental illness could ever account for his genius, and there have been many stories told about how the people that seek refuge in the asylum might be escaping the insanity of a violent and unforgiving world.

When you see as much live theatre as I do, you inevitably have expectations, and one of the challenges becomes how to be fair about preconception. Ideally, a reviewer sits in the dark not knowing what they will encounter, but foreknowledge is usually the norm. You know the company, you know the play, you know the actors; its almost impossible to avoid.

The great playwrights touch on the truths that lie beneath the surface. Before I went to see this new production of Sam Shepard's Fool for Love (1983) I had been thinking about cycles, in particular how a new book I had just started outlined the rise of a reactionary conservative political movement built in part upon a fear of immigrants and divergent ideology. It swept a Republican into the White House after several years of progressive Democrat administration. It may sound familiar, but the book was describing the United States of 1952.

If you are like me you remember where you were when certain global events occurred, both positive and negative. I remember where I was when the Challenger exploded when the Berlin Wall came down...when a lone gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and began to shoot. When the smoke cleared there were 28 lives lost on that cold December day in Newtown, CT. While this horrible event happened nearly six years ago, it is still very much part of our political and social climate today.

Treachery, lies, high tension, deception...but enough about current political events, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival is delivering a modern retelling of Othello. This tragedy delivers some excellent drama that is every bit as heavy as the humid Louisville heat and even more hard-hitting.

What more pleasant way to spend a summer evening than outdoors in the heart of Old Louisville, surrounded by green space, with some of the loveliest turns of phrase ever written in the English language wafting on the breeze? Thanks to Kentucky Shakespeare and its supporters, we can do just that - free of charge - virtually all summer long in Louisville. What a treat, indeed!

A June 13 fire on the roof of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts has closed the facility until at least June 25, forcing at least two local theatre companies to revise plans for upcoming productions and raising questions about the opening of the next entry in the PNC Broadway in Louisville series. The fire broke out around 2:00pm in an area in which construction crews had been executing repairs on the roof and was brought under control by the Louisville Fire Department within about two hours.

Bunbury Theatre has offered an impressive season this year, with John Logan's Red serving as its crowning jewel. I have to say I was unfamiliar with Master Harold and the Boys going into this production, but it is safe to say that Bunbury rides the momentum generated by Red and ends this stellar season on a high note.

Kentucky Shakespeare Festival opens a new summer season with laughs and gusto in The Comedy of Errors. A delightful romp at the C. Douglas Ramey Amphitheater in Central Park, the play serves up boundless humor in a manner comparable to a Bugs Bunny cartoon set in Greece. The rain did not hinder a single beat of the opening night performance and the modest audience was not disappointed. A comedy indeed, this production has everything: mistaken identities, sight gags, pratfalls, puns, and sexual innuendos. This show proves that Shakespeare knew what he was doing as he helped define comedic tropes and that the Festival in Central Park is back for a great season.

In a rough East London flat, Cougar Glass (Remy Sisk) sits nearly naked under a sunlamp, implacable behind sunglasses, drinking beer and smoking a cigarette. As his partner, Captain Tock (Brian Hinds) talks incessantly while setting up for Cougar's '19th' birthday party, the sleek narcissist remains unmoved, waited on by the Captain like a Royal Prince.

Sometimes a character stands out from the source material and starts to establish its own reputation. Actors start to circle the part and gauge if and when they might get a crack at it. For men, in straight non-musical plays, Hamlet, Macbeth, Willy Loman, Stanley Kowalski, are a few that have achieved iconic status. Specifically black characters? The list is shorter: Walter Younger in A Raisin in the Sun would be one. There have been other plays and roles of note, but not until you get to August Wilson do you find a greater repository of suitable candidates.

Sherry Kramer's How Water Behaves is kind of a crazy play. Warm, funny, engaging, illogical, improbable, and slightly surreal - it is maddening in how it pulls these disparate qualities together for a conclusion that explodes expectations of narrative logic while somehow staying true to its own, unique sensibility.

Since her death from cancer on May 4th much has been written about Derby Dinner Playhouse Producer Bekki Jo Schneider and her achievements and contributions to our community and region. She was, after all, an extremely successful business leader in a field - for-profit theatre that's not Broadway - in which the phrase 'extremely successful business' is almost unheard-of. The list of awards, citations, and official recognition she received for her success, locally and nationally, is truly impressive.

A good villain is hard to come by. Bad guys are hardly the type of characters you root for but when they suck you in-watch out! At Commonwealth Theater Center's annual Young Shakespeare Festival, the current installment of Richard III zeros in on the villainous King Richard who manipulates, slaughters and even delights in his bloody pursuits for power over England.

In her staging of The Merry Wives of Windsor, director Jennifer Pennington taps into the unique reservoir of contextual opportunities of a mid-Twentieth Century setting. By placing the action in the 1950's, she puts a refreshing spin on one of the most featherweight of Shakespeare's comedies.

Dialing It UpThis quote from a live cabaret performance by Charles Busch could be referencing his play, Die! Mommie Die!, which is a parody of the kind of grotesque, overwrought melodrama that fueled the careers of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the 1960's. Busch is certainly juicing up an old model, registering the conniving and backstabbing plot twists beneath a veneer of arch camp.