Sustaining zeal for a substantial stretch of time is a genuine theatrical challenge. How can one truly zeal the deal? A wide variety of traditional gimmicks to brighten the dramatic path with distractions are at any playwright's disposal. But for some, the mission is inspired by the Star Trek quest: "To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!"
In today's world, there is a growing problem with using the word "man" to imply that the power, the story, and the glory can only belong to cisgender men. However, genderbending has long been a tradition of LGBT culture (some of us even remember when the term "skag drag" was popular). Examining gender roles through a different lens has opened up a whole new frontier bursting with theatrical gold.
In 1986, during a visit to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Eric Overmyer's delicious play entitled On The Verge, or The Geography of Yearning (in which an ordinary eggbeater has a surprising moment of glory). Wikipedia summarizes the action as follows:
"The basic plot of the play follows the adventures of three Victorian women explorers into what they believe to be Terra Incognita, a new, unexplored land. The three are from very different exploration backgrounds, but all exhibit their own form of independence from the world in general and, specifically, men. The three together discuss many aspects of their pasts in exploring, with Mary and Fanny frequently trying to outdo each other. As the ladies progress on their travels it becomes apparent that they are not on an ordinary journey.
Mary reaches the conclusion at the end of the first act that the three of them are in fact traveling forward through time and that, while doing so, they are beginning to absorb knowledge from the future. Alex dubs this phenomenon osmosing and from that point forward in the play, the ladies actively, and often fruitlessly try to osmose what the things they are encountering are, e.g. In the scene where Alex first encounters Cool Whip she takes several guesses at the item's identity: "(Osmoses) 'Mo hair'. No. 'Jello mold'. No. (Tastes) Noxzema! Yes! Heaven!'"
In 2000, Mel Gibson starred in a romantic comedy entitled What Women Want. While it may have delighted audiences at the time, I suspect many women would have little patience with the film's plot in today's political climate.
Two Bay area theatre companies are currently staging provocative works which ambitiously up-end concepts of gender and gender roles in ways that challenge and vastly entertain their audiences. In each play, the actors' body language is every bit as important as the playwright's text. One work turns the tables on its characters after intermission. The other (a one-act play) plows an uproarious path of adventure from still waters to whitewater rapids en route to the mouth of the Grand Canyon while titillating its audience with its ability to mock traditional concepts of gender-related behavior.
* * * * * * * * *
There are some evenings in the theatre during which, after about 20 or 30 minutes, I start checking my watch to see if a play is going to grab my attention or if it's just going to plod along without making much of an effort to engage the audience. About 30 seconds into the opening night performance of Men On Boats, I fell head over heels in love with Jaclyn Backhaus's intoxicating play, eager to see where her imagination would lead me.Thanks in large part to Tamilla Woodard's exuberant stage direction and Nina Ball's exquisite set design, I was filled with a sense of joy and wonder which, as Election Day drew near, was like having Auntie Mame suddenly grab my hand and remind me that "Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death!" That's because, as Backhaus readily admits: “I write from a place of delight and of joy. What better medium is there to find inclusivity than the medium of theater when you’re working on a live experience that will be shared by a community?"
With costumes designed by Christine Crook, lighting by Robert Hand, and sound design by Kate Marvin, Men on Boats is like the Christmas gift adults don't yet know they want; a grown-up's alternative to Nutcracker. It takes less than a minute to adjust to the fact that a story based on a real-life river expedition that was put together by a bunch of male amateurs filled with the spirit of conquering the Wild West comes to life in the bodies of ten cisgender female actors. With the women behaving like the rugged men who were cast in so many Westerns, the production becomes wildly entertaining, politically provocative, and socially satisfying beyond belief.
In the American Conservatory Theater production currently playing at the Strand Theatre, the characters are initially grouped according to the rowboats they occupy as they head down the Green River. But capsizings and other misfortunes mean that initial allegiances may shift. Some men may even decide to quit the expedition.
 |
| The cast of Men on Boats on Nina Ball's exquisite set (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
John Wesley Powell (Liz Sklar) is the expedition's one-armed leader, full of ego, determination, and the desire to name important landmarks after himself and others on the expedition. His brother, Walter Henry Powell (Annemaria Rajala), who goes by the nickname "Old Shady," is accompanying him on this trip.
John Colton Sumner (Libby King) is a trapper who hates snakes and becomes terrified when confronted with a rattlesnake. Luckily for him, the expedition's cook, Hawkins (Amy Lizardo), is just as adept at beating a snake to death with a coffee pot as he is stretching the food supplies to last longer. Though he may have to deal with mealy apples, losing some bacon in rough water, and losing all of the expedition's flour during a capsizing, Hawkins is a practical man who knows how to make do and isn't afraid to confront someone he suspects of stealing tobacco.
During my research, I came across an interesting little tidbit that is not mentioned in the play. According to Wikipedia, Sumner "had a falling out with Powell over differences in personality, and was troubled through the rest of his life over the disappearance and deaths of three other men in the expedition. His remorse and resentment became so great that, in 1902, he castrated himself."
 |
| Lauren Spencer (O.G. Howland), Amy Lizardo (Hawkins) and Rosie Hallett (Hall) in a scene from Men on Boats (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Another trapper, William Dunn (Sarita Ocón), is the voice of reason who eventually loses patience with the group leader's bullying after Powell refuses to accept Dunn's advice to portage the boats along a dangerous segment of the river. One of the strangest contrasts is between George Young Bradley (Katherine Romans), a fearless teenager whose logic doesn't always mesh with reality, and Frank Goodman (Arwen Anderson), a wealthy 25-year-old Englishman along for the adventure who has no problem leaving the expedition when the fun quotient starts to drop.
 |
| Lauren Spencer (O.G. Howland), Arwen Anderson (Goodman), and Lisa Hori-Garcia (Seneca Howland) in a scene from Men on Boats (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Others in the expedition who must row hard and dodge waterfalls (until the canyon walls start to widen and they find themselves entering the Grand Canyon) include Hall (Rosie Hallett), and two brothers: Oramel G. Howland (Lauren Spencer) and Seneca Howland (Lisa Hori-Garcia).
 |
| Annemaria Rajala (Old Shady) and Katherine Romans (Bradley) in a scene from Men on Boats (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Because the legend of this historical expedition was shaped exclusively by white men, Backhaus's script does a lot of rebellious mythbusting. As A.C.T.'s new artistic director, Pam MacKinnon, explains:
“The characters in Men on Boats go down uncharted raging rapids, knowing only hearsay of their destination and little about what is between here and there, between now and then. So, too, the audience (in part because our playwright purposefully disorients us with a casting rule that makes us rethink history) also doesn’t know where it’s headed. We are shaken, disoriented, awakened, and shifted a bit away from expectations, habit, and even comfort. That’s why I go to the theater.”
 |
| The cast of Men On Boats heads down the Green River (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
“Men On Boats reminds us that the word play is a verb, that play is what we did as children, that play is what we try to do as adults and certainly do when we dream, that play is storytelling, that play demands imagination, that play is supposed to be disorienting. Play makes the familiar unfamiliar. Play is fun.”
 |
| Lisa Hori-Garcia (Seneca Howland), Rosie Hallett (Hall) and Annemaria Rajala (Old Shady) in a scene from Men on Boats (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Tamilla Woodard's ensemble creates plenty of excitement as they negotiate whitewater rapids, try to bypass waterfalls, climb canyon cliffs, and rescue supplies from a capsized boat. While not necessarily an exercise in butch behavior gone berserk, Men on Boats also benefits from the piercing screech of an eagle circling high above that punctuates the drama like Frau Blucher's whinnying horses in Young Frankenstein. If you see one show between now and Christmas, Men On Boats is a sure bet for solid entertainment.
Performances of Men On Boats continue through December 16 at A.C.T.'s Strand Theatre (click here for tickets).
* * * * * * * * *
Over in Berkeley, Shotgun Players is presenting audiences with a larger than usual challenge. Instead of a sex farce, playwright Sheila Callaghan has crafted a fierce gender farce which, after the stage floor is covered in fake salad greens, pulls the floor out from under the audience during intermission. Women Laughing Alone With Salad may employ only four actors but, under Susannah Martin's direction, it is a crazier, more frantic, and more ambitious piece of theatre than Men on Boats. In her Director’s Note, Ms. Martin writes:“In the past two years in the United States we have come to a new awareness of and resistance to the patriarchy we live in. We have all been raised in this system, and thus, people of all genders do their part to maintain it because it’s the only system we’ve ever known. I struggle to know how to talk about it or how to change my behavior. I do not yet know how to function... how to live and work and court and love... outside of it. I’ve always lived inside this system and it is so damn hard (even as a woman, as a feminist, and as a feminist raised by generations of feminists) to see my way outside of the patriarchy. How much space are men allowed to take up? Expected to take up? How little space are women supposed to inhabit? What’s sold to us? How do they sell it? What does that make us aspire to? Want? Expect? How do we shame ourselves (and how are we shamed) when we don’t meet those expectations or aspirations?”
 |
| Regina Morones (Meredith) in a gustatory moment from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
“This is a feminist comedy with a male protagonist. This is a play about the oppressiveness of gender roles and the performance of gender as designed by the media, advertising, and the machine of capitalism. This is a play about male privilege and male complicity in the face of systemic patriarchy and misogyny. This is a play about the ways that systemic patriarchy and misogyny harm men. This play is an awesome roller coaster ride of unrelenting theatrical imagery and behavior. It identifies what’s happening, what’s been happening for millenia, and demands that we talk about it. With uproarious humor, passion, unapologetic anger, and deep compassion for all, Sheila Callaghan implores us to engage in that conversation.”
 |
| Regina Morones, Melanie DuPuy, and Sango Tajima in a scene from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
As the play begins, three women are seen eating salad while alone.
- Sandy (Melanie DuPuy) is a well-dressed woman in her fifties who, eager to try the latest beauty treatment, has been letting tiny fish bite the dead skin off her fingers. Alas, it seems the fish are hungrier than usual.
- Meredith (Regina Morones) is a healthy, curvaceous woman in her thirties who has trouble decoding the mixed messages she receives while attempting to flirt with men.
- Tori (Sango Tajima) is a thin, athletic woman in her twenties who is having trouble communicating with her boyfriend.
 |
| Sango Tajima (Tori) and Caleb Cabrera (Guy) in a scene from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
In addition to their media-driven fetish for fresh salad, these women have someone very special in common. Guy (Caleb Cabrera) is Sandy's son, Tori's boyfriend, and is trying to get up enough nerve to put the moves on Meredith in a bar. When he is not on his cell phone or hungrily wolfing down a burrito, he is constantly complaining about the women in his life.
 |
| Melanie DuPuy as Guy's mother, Sandy, in a scene from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
As the three women act out the kinds of ridiculous fantasies about healthy eating that one one sees in television commercials, Caleb continues to act like a selfish manboy whose whining and teasing easily triggers each woman's insecurities.
 |
| Caleb Cabrera (Guy) and Regina Morones (Meredith) in a scene from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
In the second act, the action moves to the offices of an advertising agency where three male account executives (who mimic the behavior of high school jocks and college "bros") are working on a marketing campaign for an antidepressant (Effervatorl) created specifically for women. The vapid tag line under consideration for this product? "It's You, Only Better."
However, a lot more than the set has changed during intermission. There's been a pretty impressive reversal of gender assignments.
- Sango Tajima (who played Tori in Act I) is now playing Joe, a young man who regresses into behaving like a shy little boy when he's desperate for approval.
- Regina Morones (who played Meredith in Act I) is now the very macho Bruce.
- Melanie DuPuy (who played Guy's mother in Act I) is now portraying her son as a middle-aged white male executive who is absolutely clueless about what women want. He's not very good at his job.
 |
| Melanie DuPuy (Guy) and Caleb Cabrera (Alice) in a scene from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
Aided by costume designer Christine Crook, video designer Erin Gilley, and choreographer Natalie Greene, Susannah Martin puts her four actors through a range of acting styles ranging from intense confrontations to a sizzling attempt at seduction; from boyish vulnerability and overt displays of food fetishism to a wild and hilariously simulated sex scene.
Working on Mikiko Uesugi sets (enhanced by Allen Willner's lighting and Jake Rodriguez's sound design), Melanie DuPuy and Regina Morones undergo dramatic physical transformations as they transition from women to men. Caleb Cabrera's re-emergence as a cold-hearted, female boss offers a wry contrast to his earlier portrayal of Guy as a man who can't figure out how to handle the women in his life.
 |
| Regina Morones and Sango Tajima as two advertising "bros" in a scene from Women Laughing Alone With Salad (Photo by: Ben Krantz Studio) |
During her recent appearances on Bay area stages, Sango Tajima has dazzled audiences with her phenomenal talent for physical comedy. Her transition from the angry Tori to the bashful Joe is a masterful display of craft that is Chaplinesque in its grace, wit, and beauty.
Callaghan's play has plenty of bite, anger, and belly laughs that help make audiences re-think their assumptions about gender roles. Performances of Women Laughing Alone With Salad continue through November 18 at the Shotgun Players (click here for tickets). Here's the trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment