Actor’s
Theatre of Louisville Humana Festival ’06- Part II
The Extravaganza Becomes
Extraordinary!
You’d
think that watching four plays in one day would be too much. But like the
classic Lay’s potato chips ad campaign, I couldn’t “eat” just one. This year’s
30th Anniversary of the Humana Festival at the Actor’s Theatre of
Louisville was exceptional. In fact,
since I last wrote, two of its shows have been optioned for production: The Scene by Theresa Rebecca by The
Second Stage Theatre and Hotel Cassiopeia by
Charles Mee by The Court Theatre of Chicago. As I said, extravagantly
extraordinary. On to Humana 2006, Part II.
"Natural Selection"
"Act Like a Lady"
"Neon Mirage"
Natural
Selection
Written by Eric Cable,
Directed by Marc Masterman
Eric
Cable created this innovative, futuristic, insane comedy from such diverse roots as an ancient Navaho Creation
legend and a visit to Disney World’s Epcot Center Florida
Reminiscent
of Moliere, Cable takes a ridiculous problem and character, and follows it to a
logical (if demented) solution: Cultural World has lost its Native American and
a nerdy administrator, with an isolated son and a blogging-obsessed wife, goes
on the hunt to “bag one and bring it back.” He succeeds, but the Navaho he brings back is a mixed breed
who plays the system and corrupts it. Soon the Tibetans are playing poker with
the indigenous people from the South Pacific and then a hurricane smashes into
Florida. The pseudo-Navaho leads Nerd and family to safety and perhaps the
fifth level of the Native American Creation story. While skewering our politically correct cultural
worldviews, Cable, gently rejects cultural superiority and humorously exposes
our insignificance in the face of the natural world.
Act Like A
Lady
Written by Jordan Harrison,
Directed by Anne Kauffman
My
least favorite of the seven shows, Act
Like A Lady teases us with the simple truth that, as the program notes
state, “ There’s a lot of man in every woman and a lot of woman in every man –
and the theater brings that mixture out in all of us”. Set in 1927, the play
addresses the Little Theatre movement of the 1920s. As the Elks attempt to
stage a French melodrama, farmers appear in crinolines and storekeepers and
their wives swap genders for the sake of the show – which does go on.
From
the program, we learn that the playwright delights in “dismantling
convention…Because his characters can’t trust given circumstances, they must
sharpen their wits and senses…Every new encounter is an experiment in living as
they forge their physical identities afresh. In the same way, they must
reexamine the other areas of their lives they’ve taken for granted.”
Unfortunately,
for this viewer, I read program notes after the production and hence was at sea
watching the performance. Furthermore, I’m of the opinion that if the show
needs more than one sentence in the program notes to explain itself, the
playwright should have put more effort onto the stage. Although written with a
wit and panache that Oscar Wilde might applaud, Act Like a Lady by the talented Jordan Harrison did not spark the
interest of this viewer.
Neon Mirage
by Liz Duffy
Adams, Dan Dietz, Rick Hip-Flores, Julie Jensen, Lisa Kron, Tracey Scott Wilson
and Chay Yew
Directed by
Wendy McClellan
The
producers at Louisville pulled out all the stops for their 30th
anniversary acting apprentices show by commissioning five writers and a
composer/lyricist to create series of sixteen short pieces exploring the
allure, the alienation and amorality of America’s playground – Las Vegas.
Described in the program as “Our shortcut to wealth, to glamour, to happiness
(however fleeting): our American fairy godmother, Las Vegas” does seem to merit
special attention in an era when the country is questioning its goals, its
ideals and its future. The short plays, all well written, all deceptively
simple, and all sardonically truthful would work as an evening of 16 or might
be arranged in other combinations. Great credit to the Humana Festival for
showcasing so much young talent and giving us more than we’d ever expected.
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