Kaufman and Hart lovingly described theatre as "always on the brink of death, but always reviving." Alas, neither man lived long enough to see the New Amsterdam restored to its former glory. In 1995, Disney Theatrical Productions signed a 49-year lease on the property. Two years later, the theatre reopened for business and has since played host to Disney's screen-to-stage adaptations of The Lion King, Mary Poppins, and Aladdin.
While many people believe that the lifeblood of the theatre are classics which deserve to be revived, reinterpreted, and reconsidered as they (and the audience) continue to age, the truth is that without new blood coursing through its veins, the theatre would be in deep distress. New works are constantly being developed by playwrights and producers (with many of these now being nurtured through workshop productions and out-of-town tryouts in regional theatres).
Some shows tour extensively before receiving their Broadway premiere; others never get the opportunity to play the Great White Way. However, thanks to many nonprofit theatres, today's playwrights have more venues than ever before in which to discover what does and does not work before a live audience, what needs to be trimmed, and, on occasion, what lies at the core of why their play is not landing with theatregoers.
In 1808, Sir Walter Scott wrote "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!" Two Bay area theatres are currently presenting new works to their audiences.
- One is written by a beloved playwright (Del Shores) whose fame is largely built on a 1996 dramedy that premiered at a small theatre in Los Angeles (where it won 14 Drama-Logue Awards). The 2000 film adaptation of Sordid Lives eventually led to a 2008 television series. Among his other plays are Southern Baptist Sissies and The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife.
- The other drama, written by Mary Kathryn Nagle, is framed by a double-track storytelling gimmick (Sovereignty had its world premiere in January 2018 at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.). Although both plays still need a lot of work to whip them into shape, the critical weakness they share is best summed up in this brief scene from the film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's award-winning 1979 play, Amadeus.
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Written and directed by Del Shores, This Side of Crazy is currently receiving its world premiere from the New Conservatory Theatre Center. With costumes by Wes Crain, lighting by Patrick Toebe, sound designed by Kalon Thibodeaux, and an attractive multi-level set by Kate Boyd, the drama revolves around a hugely dysfunctional family of four women (one of whom has kept her husband's comatose body hooked up to intravenous lines for years in one of her home's bedrooms). The active participants are:- Ditty Blaylock (Christine Macomber), a famous songwriter often hailed as a queen of the Christian music publishing industry who, as she nears the end of her life, frequently considers taking fate into her own hands with her favorite handgun. Having reached an age that Vera Charles famously categorized as "somewhere between 40 and death," Ditty has one last big dream she wants to turn into a reality: to bring her three daughters (once known as the singing Blaylock Sisters) together so they can perform together in a televised tribute to their mother. Among the many obstacles to making that happen is the fact that Ditty is a narcissistic old bitch with a viper's tongue who has inflicted plenty of emotional wounds on each of her three daughters. Though she thinks of herself as a Christian angel blessed by Jesus she has a long history of homophobic and racist remarks. Needless to say, she justifies such execrable behavior by insisting that "I am not a racist. I'm from the South!"
- Rachel Blaylock Hanks (Cheryl Smith) is the daughter who lives with Ditty and takes care of her mother's needs. Though Rachel's husband is now comatose, she still likes to climb on top of his hospital bed, stimulate his penis until it becomes erect, and then ride it to a very loud climax. Though her mother severely disapproves of this act of "Christian kindness," Rachel likes to boast that it seems to bring a tiny smile to her husband's face.
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| Christine Macomber (Ditty) and Amy Meyers (Bethany) in a scene from This Side of Crazy (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
- Bethany Blaylock (Amy Meyers) is Ditty's daughter who has forsaken Christ to become both an atheist and a lesbian. She has no problem shopping for meat in dollar stores or accompanying her sisters on the piano as they sing some of their mother's greatest hits.
- Abigail Blaylock (Alison Whismore) is Ditty's biggest regret. After Rachel ran off with Abigail's fiancé and married him, Abigail became dangerously deranged, shot her husband, and had to be committed to a mental institution. She has never forgiven Rachel for her selfishness and how it destroyed her hopes and dreams. But with fame and money, Ditty has managed to spring Abigail (along with her medications) from the looney bin for a brief, albeit self-serving vacation.
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| Cheryl Smith (Rachel) and Alison Whismore (Abigail) in a scene from This Side of Crazy (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
Christine Macomber has a field day keeping the spotlight on Ditty as she insults, manipulates, and guilt trips each of her daughters in a role that resembles a cross between Gypsy Rose Lee's bulldozing stage mother and the evil queen in Snow White. As the playwright explains:
“The inspiration actually came in a YouTube rabbit hole. Because of my upbringing as a pastor’s son, I would gravitate to Sandi Patty, Dottie Rambo, Shirley Caesar, and all of those Gospel singers. I became obsessed with Dottie Rambo, an iconic Gospel singer and writer who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for having written the most Gospel songs ever."
"Then a crazy thing happened. She contacted me, told me that she was a fan of Sordid Lives, and came to see the play in Nashville when we were on tour. I got to meet her, but then she passed away tragically a few months later when her bus crashed. I became more obsessed with her. The more I watched her, the more I realized that, like many performers, as she gave God the glory she was also pretty narcissistic -- praising herself while praising Jesus! I thought I could heighten that a little bit and Ditty Blaylock started brewing in me because of the inspiration of Dottie Rambo."
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| Amy Meyers (Bethany), Cheryl Smith (Rachel), Alison Whismore (Abigail), and Christine Macomber (Ditty) in a scene from This Side of Crazy (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
While Shores has crafted some impressive monologues for his women -- and numerous zingers (some old, some new, some borrowed, some blue) fly from Ditty's self-centered, conniving lips -- they're not enough to keep This Side of Crazy from constantly threatening to implode under its own weight. For one thing, the playwright's celebrated gift at creating hilariously conflicted gay male characters (such as Earl "Brother Boy" Ingram in Sordid Lives) doesn't seem to work as well for an all-female cast.
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| Cheryl Smith (Rachel), Amy Meyers (Bethany), Christine Macomber (Ditty), and Alison Whismore (Abigail) in a scene from This Side of Crazy (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
The play's major flaw is best summed up by William Faulkner, who famously claimed that "In writing, you must kill all your darlings." In its present form, at least 20 minutes could easily be shaved off the script for This Side of Crazy (Shores would be well advised to start with the play's epilogue). But this task becomes much harder to accomplish when a playwright is directing his own play.
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| Christine Macomber (Ditty), Cheryl Smith (Rachel), Amy Meyers (Bethany) and Alison Whismore (Abigail) in a scene from This Side of Crazy (Photo by: Lois Tema) |
Performances of This Side of Crazy continue through October 20 at the New Conservatory Theatre Center (click here for tickets).
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Up in Mill Valley, the Marin Theatre Company is presenting the West Coast premiere of Sovereignty, a political drama by Mary Kathryn Nagle in which actors portray both contemporary characters and some of their ancestors from nearly 200 years ago."Every city has its own language, its own nuances, its own history, and our language is politics. Power and politics are the red meat of Washington, D.C. We eat, sleep and drink politics here from early morning coffee to late night conversations," states Molly Smith, the artistic director of Arena Stage who commissioned Sovereignty as part of the company's Five Cycles of Power Plays. "D.C. audiences are hungry for these stories, and there is no other place in the country where these plays could have such an impact. There is no better time to launch this massive commissioning cycle, the largest in Arena’s history. The more we understand our American stories of politics and power, the more informed we become as a democracy."
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| Ella Dershowitz (Sara Bird Northrup) and Robert I. Mesa (John Ridge) in a scene from Sovereignty (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
An attorney, playwright, and member of the Cherokee Nation with a keen sense of the injustices suffered by Native American tribes at the hands of the United States Government, Nagle's program notes stress that:
- According to a study by IllumiNative (a Native research consortium) into the invisibility of American Indians in contemporary culture, 87% of K-12 textbooks do not include any mention of American Indians after 1900.
- Most theatre companies in the United States have never produced a play by a Native playwright.
- Most American theatregoers are more likely to see a Native character performed in redface in a play by a Native playwright.
- Most Americans live on land that once belonged to a Tribal nation, yet have never listened to a story written by a citizen of the government Americans once sought to erase.
- In 2018, Neil Gorsuch became the first Supreme Court Justice in the history of the United States to hire a Native law clerk (Oklahoma’s Tobi Merritt Edwards Young is a member of the Chickasaw Nation).
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| Elizabeth Frances stars as Sarah Ridge Polson in Sovereignty (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
As Nagle elaborates:
“I grew up listening to my grandmother tell me the stories of John Ridge and Major Ridge, and how, in 1832, they fought to save our entire Nation, not with a gun in a battlefield, but with a petition in a court of law. Her face would glow with pride as she pointed to their portraits hanging on her wall, and explain to me that there was a time when the Executive and Legislative branches of the United States Government both sought to exterminate us. When they did, it was the Judicial Branch, specifically, the Supreme Court, that affirmed our inherent right to exist. In 1832, the Supreme Court decided Worcester v. Georgia -- a case that John Ridge worked on directly -- and declared the Cherokee Nation to be the one and only sovereign with criminal jurisdiction over Cherokee lands. At a time when the state of Georgia was asserting jurisdiction over Cherokee lands in order to remove us from our homes, this decision came as an answer to our prayers.”
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| Robert I. Mesa (John Ridge) in a scene from Sovereignty (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
“In 1978, the Supreme Court decided Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, a decision predicated on a fictional narrative that Tribal Nations historically did not exercise the criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians that my grandfathers, in 1832, fought hard to protect. Following Oliphant, tales of non-Indian violence against Native women on Tribal lands skyrocketed, as non-Indian offenders realized Tribal governments were now without the authority to prosecute them for their criminal behavior. Today, Native women face rates of domestic violence and sexual assault higher than any other population in the United States. It took 140 years to fully come into effect, but Andrew Jackson’s campaign to eliminate Tribal jurisdiction has reaped devastating life-and-death consequences for Native women. As a child, I learned to revere the Supreme Court. Imagine my shock when I got to law school and read Oliphant. I have never understood Oliphant. I have only understood that we must overturn it.”
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| Andrew Roa (Major Ridge) and Craig Marker (President Andrew Jackson) in a scene from Sovereignty (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
The protagonist in Nagle's play is Sarah Ridge Polson (Elizabeth Frances), an accomplished attorney of Cherokee lineage who has returned to Oklahoma determined to work on behalf of her people toward overturning Oliphant and helping to protect the Violence Against Women Act. Her reappearance on the local scene brings Sarah into contact with relatives Wotie (Kholan Studi), Flora Ridge (Ella Dershowitz), and Roger Ridge Polson (Andrew Roa) as well as Mitch (Adam Magill), an old friend from law school whom she once dated, and his friend, Ben O'Connor (Craig Marker), a white detective who quickly asks Sarah out on a date.
Keenly aware of the two centuries of bitterness between the Ridge and Ross families (which were both present on December 29, 1835 at the signing of the historic Treaty of New Echota), Sarah has chosen to keep her identity as a member of the Cherokee Nation secret in order to get hired by a law firm run by Jim Ross (Jake Waid). While working hard and building a professional relationship with Ross, her friendship with Ben grows more intimate, but starts to darken. As Ben grows more insecure and suspicious of her professional life, he attempts to exert more and more control over Sarah's personal life. After Sarah (who has been asked to accompany Jim to Washington to meet with the President) learns that she is pregnant, she returns home from her trip to the nation's capitol to find Ben drunk, belligerent, and shockingly violent.
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| Craig Marker (Ben) and Elizabeth Frances (Sarah) in a scene from Sovereignty (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
When she informs Jim that her husband-to-be raped her and she wants to file suit against him, Sarah finds herself caught in a perilous loophole created by the Supreme Court's decision in Oliphant. Although Ben has hired his friend, Mitch, to defend him (and insists on taking his case to the Supreme Court if necessary), Mitch eventually withdraws from the case. Well aware of the historical impact her actions could have on her child if she were to drop the charges against Ben, Sarah persists and eventually ends up addressing the Supreme Court. During her appearance, she reminds the Justices that the reason the Cherokee Nation has criminal jurisdiction over her case is because, from a chronological standpoint, their jurisdiction is pre-Constitutional.
This all plays out in a yo-yo-ing storytelling style which bounces back and forth between the early 1800s and contemporary society. With so much exposition necessary to familiarize the audience with the theft of Tribal lands that led to the forced trek along the Trail of Tears, Nagle's attempt to bring the parallel injustices inflicted on members of the Cherokee Nation to life falls victim to the sheer mechanics of trying to guide the audience through two personal and political crises in the history of the Ridge family (Robert I. Mesa delivers a most impressive portrayal of John Ridge).
Working on a simple set designed by Annie Smart (with costumes by E. B. Brooks, lighting by Danny Osburn, sound by Sara Huddleston, and projections by Mike Post), Marin Theatre Company's artistic director, Jasson Minadakis, has directed Sovereignty with a clear goal of making the personal political and the political intensely personal. But what might have seemed to track clearly on paper becomes somewhat clumsy and strained under the sheer weight of so many changes in character and costume (not to mention two centuries' worth of suppressed American history).
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| Elizabeth Frances (Sarah Ridge Polson) and Jake Waid (Jim Ross) in a scene from Sovereignty (Photo by: Kevin Berne) |
Even with Andrew Roa doubling as Major Ridge and Roger Ridge Polson, Ella Dershowitz doubling as Sarah Bird Northrup and Flora Ridge, Adam Magill doubling as Samuel Worcester and Mitch, and Craig Marker doubling as President Andrew Jackson and Ben O'Connor, the weakness of the play's narrative structure becomes increasingly evident as all that doubling is contrasted to the intense brilliance of Scott Coopwood's brief cameo appearances as a series of nasty, privileged white men.
With so much historical accuracy at stake, Nagle's style of parallel storytelling fails Sovereignty in a surprisingly innocent moment as various characters onstage comment about the pungent smell in the room after Sarah's 21st-century infant has pooped in its diaper. The baby is then promptly handed off to a 19th-century character.
While much of Sovereignty is an ambitious and admirable attempt at examining public issues through a lens of social justice, large parts of Nagle's political drama become a lawyerly slog through meticulously organized historical details. Performances of Sovereignty continue through October 20 at the Marin Theatre Company (click here for tickets).
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