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Firebelly Productions "Butterflies Are Free"
Reviewed November, 15 2003 Running Time: 2 hours 10 minutes Produced by Firebelly Productions
*** Potomac Stages Pick ***
A brisk comedy turns warmly emotional in this fine revival of a play that has been a success in professional, community and school productions for thirty years (it did well as a movie, too, with Goldie Hawn and Edward Albert). Firebelly mounts one of the most substantial looking and satisfying productions to play the year-old black box Theater on the Run just north of Shirlington. The play ran on Broadway for nearly three years which makes one wonder why it was Leonard Gershe’s only Broadway comedy. He also wrote the book for the mildly successful musical Destry Rides Again and he wrote the scripts for the films “Funny Face” and “Silk Stockings”
Storyline: A young man who is blind, sets up housekeeping in a cramped apartment in lower Manhattan in an effort to break away from his over-protective mother. A free-spirited, even younger girl moves in next door and they strike romantic sparks until Mother comes by to check up on her son. His dreams of independence, his mother’s hopes for his future and the girl’s immature view of interpersonal relationships all come to a head in one evening.
Director Kathi Gollwitzer recognizes the dual nature of the piece and guides the transition from the lightest of light comedies to touching emotional exposure with a sure sense of grace. Although the difference in tone of the first and second acts could be a disorienting jolt for audiences and performers alike, Gollwitzer carries enough tongue-in-cheek insouciance from the first act into the second to buffer the shift.
For this production, the leads David Cahill and Jenn Book carry the evening along nicely. Cahill, who was so solid in the nearly humorless role of “George” in Firebelly’s marvelous production of Of Mice and Men in this same space last August, is perfectly charming and lightly self-depreciating as the young man who has been blind for life and, thus, doesn’t think of it as a handicap (“I was eight before I found out everyone else wasn’t blind too”). Jenn Book plays the girl next door as the prototypical hippie of the late 60’s, totally immature but good natured, sexually active but innocent to the point of naiveté, well intentioned but incapable of understanding the nature of commitment.
The character of the mother is the key to the transition from light romantic comedy (a drawing room comedy where the drawing room is also a bedroom) to something deeper. She triggers not one but two transitions in tone. Charlotte Gnessin has the unenviable task of starting out as an unsympathetic character and then having to earn the audience’s affection or at least understanding later in the play. At this she succeeds fairly well and her final scenes are touching.
© 2003 Potomac Stages |
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Firebelly's "Butterflies Are Free"
By Michael Toscano The Washington Post Thursday, November, 13 2003; Page VA06
Butterflies may be free, but they are also short-lived. Most species live only a few weeks. The play "Butterflies Are Free," part of the sophomore season of the Firebelly Productions theater company, has the same problem.
At 34 years old, Leonard Gershe's play is hopelessly dated, a product of a long-gone, ephemeral wrinkle in culture, and it's not just overuse of the word "groovy" that makes it seem archaic. The story of a young blind man seeking independence from a caring but overbearing mother was written before disabled people made their quest for self-determination and equality a part of the national consciousness.
Gershe slogs through the concept that a blind person can be independent, which may have been unfamiliar in 1969 but now seems banal. More problematic, he demands that we find one character to be charming and quirky when her behavior would be considered pathological today.
The comedy-drama takes place in one day in 1969. Don Baker (David Cahill) is in his new Manhattan studio apartment in a rundown building. He's enjoying getting his routines down until interrupted on the telephone by his mother (Charlotte Gnessin), a domineering Scarsdale matron who has controlled his life until recently, and then by noisy next-door neighbor Jill Tanner (Jenn Book), a flighty 19-year-old who suffers from lack of control, parental or otherwise.
Don reminds his mother, who wants to visit, of their deal that she will leave him alone for two months. But Jill won't leave him alone and perkily invades his space. Slowly, it dawns on her that Don is not just a bit shy and awkward but blind. She immediately uses his blindness to initiate sex (yuck), only to be walked in on by Don's mother as the first act ends.
Jill and Mrs. Baker have a confrontation, the older woman disapproving of the younger, who chastises the mother for holding on to her son too tightly. Jill, an actress, then goes to an audition. She meets and promptly beds another guy (yuck, again), promising to live with him just hours after meeting and bedding the emotionally vulnerable Don and letting him believe they will have a relationship.
Jill has a fear of commitment, having already been married and divorced as a teenager. She is an emotionally unstable mess whom the audience is supposed to accept as carefree and admirable. It's impossible not to fear what poor Don is in for if boy gets girl back at the end of the play. Mom suddenly doesn't look quite so bad. Kathi Gollwitzer directs a cast of four, including Chris Carroll who invests Ralph, Jill's second conquest of the day, with unexpected depth and likability during his brief appearance.
As Don, Cahill expertly handles the early scenes, during which the audience knows he is blind before that fact has been established in the story. Cahill finesses the tricky task of not calling attention to Don's blindness while behaving as a blind person would in a controlled, familiar setting. It is believable that it takes time for Jill to realize that he is blind.
Book is appealing as Jill, accenting her sunny, bohemian personality while diminishing her corrupted sense of responsibility and lack of self-esteem.
The mother-son relationship is ill-defined, though, and Gnessin's performance as Mrs. Baker is mushy, lacking the flintiness that makes the woman a formidable force and gives the struggle with her son some bite. Cahill seems to enjoy insulting her too much, his face an unbecoming smirk.
But even if perfectly performed, the play has nothing eye-opening to say to a contemporary audience.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company |
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By Matt Reville The Sun Gazette Thursday, November 13, 2003
Uh-oh. When the pre-curtain theatrical set-the-mood music includes self-important songs by Donovan, Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan, can two hours of pretension be far behind? While the Matt Reville Pretentious Playwrighting Alert System (patent-pending) was activated several times during Firebelly Productions' opening night of "Butterflies Are Free," this retro-Sixties romantic comedy/social drama holds up surprisingly well, with witty banter and less overarching self-absorption than many shows in the same vein. Though not a smash, it's a good evening of theater.
The year is 1969. Neil Armstrong is walking on the moon. Dick Nixon is settling in at the White House. And young Don Baker has struck out on his own, leaving his protective mama behind in Scarsdale and moving to a furnished studio in New York City. Don's blind, but he's adapted well. At least, he keeps saying so over and over, so you're expected to believe it. Into his life walks kooky Jill Tanner, a 19-year-old divorcée (if you count her six-day marriage three years back) who's into rebellion, but in a pragmatic sort of way. How else to explain that she has dabbled both in hippie life and served a stint as a Young Republican? Don and Jill have found bliss, but they have a problem. It's Don's mother, who drops in on her son after he and Jill had spent a little "quality time" together. She's come to bring her son back to the safety of home, away from the wicked city and wayward women like the post-coital tart she finds half-dressed in his kitchen.
Playwright Leonard Gershe keeps most of the first act centered on the courtship of the two younger characters. Mom doesn't even make an appearance until just before intermission. The second act is devoted to harsher realities as the characters alternately turn on one another and wallow in self-pity (you can take the play out of the Sixties, but you can never fully take the Sixties out of the play).
Mercifully lacking is much of the psychobabble that is infused into many plays of the late 1960s. Instead, the dialogue remains relatively free of clichés, but you can always be sure that when young Don starts to strum his guitar, some soliloquy is going to follow.
The dialogue gives every character the chance to be alternately petty and witty. All three protagonists get their fair share of zingers, and as a result, nobody seems stereotyped.
David Cahill was impressive in Firebelly's recent production of "Lend Me a Tenor," and he does a relatively strong job here as Don, even though his character is the least interesting of the lot. Jenn Book is suitably nutty yet wise as Jill, not quite ready for commitment but still falling in love with Don. Charlotte Gnessin has a good turn as the uptight mother, a role which in the wrong hands could be as limp as a cardboard cut-out. She brings it off nicely.
Director Kathi Gollwitzer keeps the action moving in the first act, but things tend to ramble after intermission. The result is a two-hour, 15-minute production that will leave you competing to make your getaway with the audience for next-door Signature Theatre, whose "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" runs about the same length.
Gollwitzer also is credited with the set, which is appropriate for the era("Brady Bunch" colors, like avocado, abound).
The original Broadway production, by the way, brought a Tony Award to Blythe Danner as Jill, a role that went to Goldie Hawn in the film version. Eileen Heckart, who was the mother in the Broadway show, won an Academy Award when she reprised it on celluloid.
Has Firebelly produced a great evening of theater? Not quite. But it is a look back at a 35-year-old show that retains a freshness most of its contemporaries now lack. And the performances are often fetching.
© 2003 The Sun Gazette |
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Firebelly Productions "Of Mice and Men"
Reviewed August, 7 2003 Running Time: 2 hours 30 minutes Produced by Firebelly Productions
*** Potomac Stages Pick of The Week ***
The pleasures of good, strong, emotionally satisfying live theater can be found in big houses and small at high prices and low, performed by the famous and the relatively unknown. A case in point is this impressive productions of John Steinbeck's depression-era saga which for $12 ($10 for students and seniors) provides a full evening of absorbing drama featuring two leading performances of note. It is a project of Firebelly Productions that provides workshops and courses to young adults interested in theater and, here, gives some of them an opportunity to work with more experienced actors and technicians. This Of Mice and Men, though, bears none of the signs of being an academic exercise, it is thoroughly satisfying theater.
Storyline: Lennie, an infantile giant whose strength makes him dangerous, and George, his protective friend, arrive on a farm in California. The two migrant workers fled their previous employment after Lennie got into trouble. They hope to earn enough money to set up their own small farm but the inability of Lennie, in his innocence, to control his impulses lead them back into trouble.
George in this case is David Cahill, who just graduated from American University with a degree in media communications and theater. He must have studied about the "dramatic arc" of a role, for he takes George for a long, well constructed arc from his early scenes, in which he draws simple pleasure as Lennie's protector and de facto parent, though the painful process of reaching the conclusion that Lennie's defects are unmanageable. His Lennie is Phillip James Brannon, who is on summer break from The Theatre School at Chicago's DePaul University. Physically, he isn't big enough to demonstrate the strength which the script says impresses all the other ranch hands, but he imbues the part with a gentle innocence that keeps that from being a distraction. They make a marvelous pair.
The casting of Brannon puts a different twist on the story because, unlike Lennie in the original story, he is black. Director Kathi Gollwitzer's approach to this unconventional casting is refreshingly clean and honest. Rather than the sometimes distracting "color-blind casting" in which the audience is expected not to notice race, she makes racial prejudice against this Lennie part of the story. The hatred of the ranch owner's son, which is crucial to the plot, is all the more reprehensible because of its racial motivation. Of course, Steinbeck had already written in a racial discrimination subplot with one ranch hand relegated to the tack house because of race. Here that disqualifying racial characteristic is that he is Chinese rather than black and, given California's history of discrimination against the people of Asian descent, it makes sense this way.
Gollwitzer has done a fine job making sure that each of the actors on stage is engaged in the reality of the scene. No one seems on pause, awaiting a cue. Instead, they all are engaged in the minutia of real life farmhands recuperating from hard work in their limited time off in the bunkhouse. That bunkhouse is a nicely substantial set designed by Gollwitzer which also bears the marks of the minutia of life, well supplied with canned peaches, worn photographs and a hodge-podge of blankets for the bunks. The atmosphere is enhanced by an incidental music score that relies on the very appropriate period music of Aaron Copland and less recognizable but equally appropriate musical underscores for scene shifts. They give a sense of completeness to this atmospheric production in the intimate black box theater just off Four Mile Run Drive.
© 2003 Potomac Stages |
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Changes to Steinbeck Classic Click
By Michael Toscano The Washington Post Thursday, August 7, 2003; Page VA08
There are a few new things in Firebelly Productions' staging of the John Steinbeck classic "Of Mice and Men," but not too many. After all, if we wanted to see changes, the novel and play wouldn't be called a classic. Firebelly Productions, a new Arlington theater company, does not credit the stage adaptation, so one assumes it's the version done by Steinbeck, and who wants to mess with the master?
Certainly not director Kathi Gollwitzer, who has seen to it that Steinbeck's familiar themes, if not all the characters, are faithfully reproduced in a well acted study of men and one woman desperately clinging to their dreams. Her approach is inner-directed, which is appropriate and even necessary in the confining space of Theatre on the Run, but the result is engrossing.
Lennie and George wander the Depression-era California farmland, catching jobs and hoping they will someday have enough of a stake to purchase a small farm and "live off the fat of the land." Lennie is a gentle giant, with the mind of a child and prone to getting into trouble with his uncontrolled strength. George, his friend and protector, soothes Lennie with stories of how they will soon spend their days, with Lennie tending rabbits at their homestead.
Just when it seems as though they might actually be able to make their dream reality, trouble sashays through the screen door of the farm bunkhouse in the form of the bored and provocative wife of their mean foreman. Like "the best-laid plans of mice and men," everybody's dreams are threatened.
There could have been a substantial shift in Steinbeck's story with Gollwitzer's casting of Phillip James Brannon, a black actor, as Lennie. The tale of a search for home could easily have been subjugated to a study in racial prejudice because Lennie is very much an outsider.
But Gollwitzer maintains the original dialogue and emphasis, except for several uses of the N-word that are aimed at Lennie by the nasty foreman, Curley, but are usually directed at Crooks, a segregated black ranch hand in the novel. For the play, Gollwitzer makes Crooks Chinese, another minority at the bottom of the melting pot in that time and place, and everything evens out nicely.
More significant is the fact that Brannon is of average size and does not tower over the rest of the cast as required. Fortunately, he is such an effective, empathetic actor that it is easy to become caught up in his exploration of childlike innocence and dependence and ignore the physical disparity. Slipping into broad characterization would be easy, but Lennie has several dimensions, and Brannon maintains a subtle and nuanced bearing that allows them to be discerned.
As George, David Cahill displays tough love in a man struggling to keep from dissolving into hopelessness. Why George stays with the troublesome Lennie is often a mystery in less talented hands, but Cahill makes it clear that having Lennie around allows George to keep his own dreams alive.
Paul Danaceau is a heartbreaking Candy, the broken-down farmhand who has to allow the shooting of his beloved but infirm dog and worries that he's heading for the same fate. Michael J. Fulvio is a tightly wound bundle of aggression and resentment as Curley. Curley's wife is supposed to be a somewhat hardened bimbo and troublemaker, but Elizabeth Chomko possesses such striking, fresh-faced beauty that the character transforms into an innocent victim.
Gollwitzer's only misstep comes at the play's climax. Without giving anything away to the few who don't know the tale, let's just say it is often more effective not to actually witness something shocking. But Firebelly remains a promising addition to area theater.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company |
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Cast Fuels Success of Steinbeck Classic
By Matt Reville The Sun Gazette Thursday, August 7, 2003
There's no question that John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" has lost a bit of its dramatic oomph since it was written in the 1930s. Times change, tastes change, audiences change. Add to that the fact that the plot is headed in one direction, and one direction only, throughout the entire show. Further add in the fact that it seems to be a perennial of high school English classes a difficult, somewhat forced setting in which to fall in love with literature.
That said, Firebelly Productions new take on the Steinbeck classic is chock full of solid performances, comfortable direction and a smooth pacing that brings the characters to life and adds a touch of comedy to the pathos.
This young troupe last scored with the yukkety-yuk-laden "Lend Me a Tenor." "Mice" borrows some of the actors from that comedic standout, and also imports some stage veterans several of whom could be seen recently at Signature Theatre's "Follies." The result is a winning mix.
If you never were directed to read the story in high school, here's a brief plot summary. "Of Mice and Men" revolves around dim-witted Lennie and his buddy, authoritarian George, two itinerant workers traveling the West in search of a paycheck and, ultimately, the good life. Unfortunately, their plans are always complicated, as they will be in this two-and-a-half-hour slice of their lives, by Lennie's brute strength and lack of understanding.
Any production of this show is going to live and die with the two main characters. Fortunately, director Kathi Gollwitzer has hit 14-karat gold in David Cahill (George) and particularly Phillip James Brannon (Lennie), both who bring power and sensitivity to their roles.
Cahill was last seen as the buffoonish Tito Merelli in "Lend Me a Tenor." From the very beginning of this latest effort, he brings a naturalism to his role.
But the night clearly belongs to Brannon, who has been seen at Little Theatre of Alexandria and elsewhere. He emphasizes the sensitive nature of his powerful character, making the audience laugh even as they know (or can guess) what is coming.
The secondary cast also is quite good. I'll single out Chris Carroll as Slim and Paul Danaceau as Candy, two of the ranch-hands, and Elizabeth Chomko, who plays the wife of the son of the ranch boss, a tart who leaves mayhem in her floozyish wake.
But really, there was hardly a laggard performance in the bunch, although the character of Curley, the boss's son and a key to the story line, seems most out-of-date and in need of some fresh dialogue. Don't blame actor Michael J. Fulvio; he proved his mettle in a previous Firebelly show, and the fault does not lie with him.
Director Gollwitzer takes a focused but slow approach to the unfolding plot, allowing it to work its way through. The result is that the production moves along just fast enough to keep the audience engaged, although perhaps a tick too slow to build to its big dramatic finale.
Gollwitzer also gets credit for the nicely done set, while all the technical aspects were superb, credit Cahill and Brennan Ballas for sound design, Fulvio for the lights and Jessica Deaton-Crossland for her scenic designs.
Firebelly is a training ground for actors in their late teens and early twenties, augmented by some veterans. But its performances of late have consistently risen above expectation, as this troupe has proven itself adept at both comedy and tragedy.
The big downside is that this production runs a scant two weeks. Catch it this weekend, or you'll be left out in the cold.
© 2003 The Sun Gazette |
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"Lend Me A Tenor": A Spry Romp, Loads of Laughs
By Matt Reville The Sun Gazette May 15, 2003
If Firebelly Productions' current effort, "Lend Me a Tenor," has the feel of a college production about it, there's a reason. Director Kathi Gollwitzer has surrounded herself with a cadre of young performers (many from American University and Bishop O'Connell High School) as she takes on Ken Ludwig's madcap story of an acclaimed tenor who can't seem to make it to his big show, and they mayhem that ensues. One of Firebelly's stated purposes is to nurture young talent, and that surely is laudable. For the audience, there are pluses and minuses in this approach, but the end result is, if a bit overlong, certainly quite pleasing.
The year is 1934. Tenor Tito Merelli has been imported to the United States to help the Cleveland Grand Opera celebrate its 10th anniversary. But Merelli's stomach isn't cooperating, and it looks like he'll be out of commission - perhaps permanently. Into his place steps young Max, the nebbishy stage gofer with a heart of gold and a silky throat. Can Max fool the audience, win over the critics and in the end steal the heart of his beloved Maggie? You'll find out.
As Max, Michael Sazonov is the standout of the night. Possessing classic physical-comedy skills and an aw-shucks personality reminiscent of a younger Matthew Broderick, he holds his own admirably as chaos descends around him in a script that rarely takes a breath.
David Cahill also stands out as the bombastic but lovable Tito, who's had a bit too much to eat and is not getting along with his tempestuous wife (played by Janet Patton).
But here is one of the problems of casting exclusively young people. Neither Cahill nor Michael J. Fulvio, who plays the father of Max's girlfriend Maggie (Kaitlin Kelly), old enough to seem appropriate for the part. Although both performances are fine, it wasn't possible to suspend belief enough to make them seem realistic in the roles.
The reverse, however, does work - the younger women in the show, notably Kelly and Patton - are able to play older roles more effectively. (And in a small but memorable take, credit Luigi Canlas as the scene-stealing stage-struck bellhop.)
Director Gollwitzer keeps the pace moving, but this is a l-o-n-g show (2.5 hours) and the beginning of the second act drags from the manic pace before and after.
The set (Brian Moon) is effectively squeezed into the tight Theatre on the Run space, and the costumes (Deb Deaton) help set the mood. "Tenor" was a good show, with lots of fun. It's also given local audiences a couple of names to watch for - particularly Sazonov, Cahill and Canlas - in future productions. The show is in the midst of a brief two-weekend run, so act this weekend or be left out.
© 2003 The Sun Gazette |
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