When the Performing Arts Center opened 10 years ago, Charlotte Rep had already abandoned summer programming, and the company’s New Plays in America Festival was just gaining a foothold. Fast forward to 2003, and we’re deluged by an unprecedented abundance of summertime theater fare, local and touring.
New plays are no longer Charlotte Rep’s exclusive domain. Off-Tryon, BareBones and PlayWorks are the most prominent among a rash of fringe theater groups championing the development and production of new stage works.
At Southend Performing Arts Center (or SPAC), where BareBones Theatre Group is unveiling Parade Day, the gestation process seems to be rushed. Neither Terry Roueche’s script nor the BBTG production directed by James Yost is sufficiently baked. More staged readings and playwright refinements would have helped to keep the script on track. More rehearsal — and perhaps a couple of better actors — would have enhanced the impact.
The concept is certainly promising. As the citizens of Roswell, New Mexico, get set to commemorate the 1947 landing of alien aircraft outside of town, we encounter the last living witness to the landing, Buddy. While most of the townsfolk are eager to put on a show for tourists and the media, Buddy, who claims to have held the little ET in his arms when he expired, refuses to be turned into a carnival freak. Instead, he sulks at the Flying Saucer Cafe where he is proprietor.
But somehow, Roueche manages to develop his sensational subject without any sensationalism. Nobody from the National Enquirer or the mainstream press shows up at the Flying Saucer, though Roswell’s enterprising mayor repeatedly tells us that the media are slavering for a statement. Have exploitation and cynicism disappeared from the face of American journalism?
Yost and BareBones shun theatricality almost as devoutly as Roueche avoids chaotic complications. You’ll hear a cavalcade of Johnny Cash hits all evening long, but never a peep that reminds you of the crowds, the excitement, and the marching bands that are integral parts of any truly tawdry American parade. Starting the damn parade would seem to be a logical way of cranking up the tension and pressuring Buddy to participate.
If there aren’t any tenacious reporters — or snoopy Feds — around, we at least get the comedy of Hank West as the boosterish mayor, complete with sci-fi antennae sprouting from his straw hat. But gradually we’re diverted away from Buddy’s demons and led to the budding romance between Edward, a pharmaceutical salesman trying to find himself, and Buddy’s countergirl Katie, who’s aching to see the world. Worse, we get two additional minor characters designed to accelerate Edward’s transition to manhood.
The chief reason for Roueche’s ill-judged detour is that he knows the territory. We all do.
Edward doesn’t start off too sympathetically when he arrives, insisting that Buddy’s cafe offer food with the proprietor’s patter, and Eric Johnson’s bellowing detracts further from his appeal. That’s somewhat of an extra burden on Annette Saunders as Katie, who must be instantaneously attracted to the boor.
Merritt Wheeler figures to be more likable this week as our cult hero, assuming that he’ll strengthen his grip on Buddy’s lines and quicken his cue pick-up. Jill Brumer doesn’t dazzle in her debut, but she shows promise in all three of her comical cameos. She’s somewhat upstaged by the more confident Nate Gaw, who excels as a pushy tourist and a stammering mechanic.
After running so smoothly in a reading stage production at Charlotte Rep’s New Play Festival in February 2002, Open Season had me holding my breath as it bowed at McGlohon Theatre for Steve Umberger’s new SummerStage enterprise. The addition of scenery and full production values hasn’t always been propitious for New Play grads.Notwithstanding the lukewarm review from the Observer, the news is good for the Carolina premiere of Michael McKeever’s new comedy. Frank Ludwig’s scenic design has a frilly formality as we meet Mallory Dupre onstage, heatedly declaiming Medea until an unfortunate breach of audience etiquette. We transition swiftly and impressively to Mallory’s upper East Side town home as the prestigious Broadway diva reads the PR fallout on page 6 of the next day’s New York Post.
Rebecca Koon enters with groggy majesty through the double doors of Mallory’s boudoir, and we’re off. Pierced to the heart by the unflattering Medea photo, Mallory is ready to announce her retirement — for the fourth time. Her father, legendary stage icon Edmund Dupre, climbs in unexpectedly over her foyer, drunk and broke with a mimosa in his hand. Then the negligent father proposes to move in with his high-strung daughter, the greatest catastrophe yet.
With Graham Smith as Edmund responsible for all these catastrophes — and even greater ones afterwards — and with Koon on the receiving end, each new blow of fate is cause for fresh laughter and rejoicing. By the end of their acrimonious reunion, Edmund is staggering off to an ER and Mallory, after checking herself carefully in a full-length mirror, is anxiously following. Worried more about the PR than her dad? You decide.
Papa’s return is just one more episode in Mallory’s endless saga, but eventually it marks a turning point for her son Christian, beautifully underplayed by Scott Helm. The moments when the three theatrical generations reach out to each other, amid their egocentric rollercoaster rides, are preciously brief. Umberger brings out their poignance superbly in his direction.
There are extra twinkles of delight in the minor roles. Andra Whitton has improved on her Alice, the nurse who adulates Edmund and tolerates Mallory’s tirades. Then there’s James Flieder, the recent Davidson grad, as young hunk Tony O’Neill. So young that Mallory herself is shocked to learn that she’s slept with him.
Lots of fun, delivered with lots of class.
Neither the BBTG Parade nor the SummerStage Season is as edgy — or bizarre — as the current Off-Tryon presentation of Melissa James Gibson’s award-winning [sic]. Aaron Moore gives his most twisted and controlled performance yet as Theo, a horny composer on the marital rebound who takes writing for amusement parks ultra-seriously. With equal quirkiness doled out to Nicia Carla, CL‘s reigning Actress of the Year, and the ever-galumphing Peter Smeal, this daft exploration of how we’ve been mutated by modernity is 107 minutes of delicious mischief.Cutting to the chase, I’d say the Obie Award judges got it right. If they can clean up their soundtrack for the offstage action, so will Off-Tryon.
This article appears in Jul 16-22, 2003.
