A & E

Stage Door: Ready, Set, Fringe!

The 2008 Cincinnati Fringe Festival (the fifth annual) is up and running, and that offers your best theatrical choices for the weekend. You can read more about the vast array of Fringe offerings on CityBeat's Fringe blog site, but let me give you a quick heads-up about what I've seen so far that I'd urge others to check out.

On May 28, the first day of performances, I watched The Hotel Plays, a world premiere of three short works by respected playwright Israel Horovitz. They're humorous, a vein that Horovitz seldom follows, and well performed with co-direction by Ed Cohen and Dan Doerger. Four actors convey three situations of relationships that don't quite work, set in and around a hotel (it's kind of a latter-day version of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite.) I liked it, and reviewer Tom McElfresh gave it a critic's pick.

A View of the Future

The Cincinnati Fringe Festival offers a lot of angles on where theater is headed. The fifth annual Fringe kicked off last night and will run through June 7. I was out and caught two shows — IF Theatre Collective's The Hotel Plays by Israel Horowitz, which are pretty funny, and Letters at Large, an amusing concept (reading and commenting on oddball letters sent to companies and the goofy responses received) that goes on too long. I wasn't reviewing these, just doing my best to manage the inventory of 35 productions by seeing a few shows every evening. CityBeat reviews of shows opening can be found on our newly opened Fringe Blog. I suggest you bookmark that site to stay on top of commentaries written by a team of CityBeat writers; their thoughts will be posted within a day or so of the shows' openings.

As for a view of the feature, you can routinely catch that at UC's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), where lots of young performers are training. So it's no surprise that they're well represented at the Fringe. But it is quite amazing to realize that more than a quarter of the Fringe productions were created by, written by or feature performances by alums and current students from CCM drama, musical theater and other CCM areas.

Yo, the '80s Ruled, Dude

Sylvester Stallone, perhaps more than any figure of the 1980s, has had a profound impact on a generation of moviegoers.

An acutely self-conscious noble savage, Stallone was the cinematic poster child of an era marked by excess. His ego — not to mention his carefully crafted physical appearance — kept getting bigger and bigger. Meanwhile, his movies kept getting dumber and dumber, which was all the more glorious to his rabid core audience: multiplex-weaned teenage boys who couldn’t get enough of moody testosterone fests like the Rocky and Rambo movies.

Why invoke Sly’s name at this late date in his diminished cultural standing? Well, curiously, both of this week’s opening films have a link to 1980s Stallone — one overtly, the other tangentially.

Yes, like Stallone’s recent resuscitations of Rocky and Rambo, Harrison Ford is back as Indiana Jones after a nearly two-decade slumber. Based on several early reviews — including Rodger Pille’s — it looks like Indy should have stayed in hibernation.

(Do I look as cut as Sly?: Bill Milner (left) and Will Poulter in Son of Rambow)

Yet crafty British comedy Son of Rambow is an entirely different endeavor — a love letter to the ’80s that uses nostalgia as a jumping off point as opposed to a desperate grab for past glories. (Read my review here.)

— Jason Gargano

Stage Door: Around the Stage in One Weekend

As the weather warms up, some theaters decide it's time to make us laugh. Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati has been succeeding immensely with this task for several weeks with its very funny production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical. This weekend offers the final performances of the show's original run, and everything is pretty well sold out. But fear not: After a brief hiatus during the Fringe Festival, ETC will resurrect the show with more performances announced for June 11-22 (and ETC is ready to add more if audience interest continues to be high). Tickets: 513-421-3555.

In the meantime, if your Memorial Day weekend needs a dose of humor, I urge you to call the Cincinnati Playhouse for a ticket to Around the World in 80 Days, presented on its intimate Shelterhouse Stage. The show is based on Jules Verne's classic novel about a trip around the world in 1872, but you've never seen the story told quite like this: five actors play several dozen characters. They assemble imaginative "scenery" using chairs, tables, blankets and other simple props — then bring Phileas Fogg's adventure to life with clever characterizations, quick costume changes and two onstage musicians who provide an endless array of sound effects. It's an amazing voyage, one that will remind you how theater can stimulate your imagination and entertain you at the same time. Tickets: 513-421-3888.

— Rick Pender

Don't Believe Everything You Read

If you read the Enquirer's coverage of the May 19 Acclaim Awards, headlined "Playhouse, Ensemble get audience appreciation," you'd think that theatergoers had something to do with the recognitions handed out at the Jarson-Kaplan Theater. And the newspaper's so-called "all-volunteer" awards did pay attention to some excellent theater. But audience was not part of that equation.

The Enquirer attemptd to legitimize Jackie Demaline's "Jackie Awards" by converting them to the Acclaims three years ago. But unlike the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards, which CityBeat has supported for 12 years and which uses theater critics and audience voting, the Acclaims are decided by an arcane, star-chamber process that has never clearly been explained and appears to be dominated by Demaline's critical preferences.

One audience member I was listening to observed with surprise, "Wow, Cincinnati Shakespeare is hardly even recognized." Demaline has been negative about almost every production that Cincinnati Shakespeare Company (CSC) has presented this season — especially those directed by Brian Isaac Phillips — despite positive reviews in CityBeat and elsewhere. The same goes for Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC), where D. Lynn Meyers can't catch a break from Demaline.

Some Things Old, Some Things New at CCM

If you're a theater fan but you haven't paid attention to productions at UC's College-Conservatory of Music, you're missing out on a major opportunity: varied material, excellent venues and technical support and young talent on their way to noteworthy professional careers. CCM just announced its mainstage and studio series for 2008-09, and there's a lot of intriguing stuff in the two lineups.

For the mainstage (which actually means productions in the large Corbett Auditorium or the 400-seat Patricia Corbett Theater), you’ll have a chance to see Frank Wedekind’s Spring Awakening (Oct. 29-Nov. 2), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (Nov. 20-23), Two Gentlemen of Verona (Feb. 26-March 8, 2009) and Crimes of the Heart (April 22-26, 2009). 

A few quick clarifications: Wedekind’s play about the angst of teens on the brink of adulthood was written in 1891 — it’s the source material for the current Broadway musical hit — but the CCM production is the play, not the musical. On the other hand, Two Gentlemen is a 1971 Tony Award-winning musical based on Shakespeare’s 1593 play; CCM’s production will be directed and choreographed by 1995 grad Andrew Palermo, who starred in a production of the same work when he was a student. The classic musical How to Succeed was a Tony winner a decade before Two Gentlemen, and Crimes of the Heart is a drama that picked up the Pulitzer Prize in 1971.

CCM’s mainstage season also includes two operas: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Feb. 12-15, 2009) and Verdi’s Falstaff (May 14-17, 2009).

Starting Out Too Late

Andrew Wagner's Starting Out in the Evening was my favorite film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Yes, 2007. Sixteen months after its Sundance premiere, Wagner’s elegant drama about an acclaimed but out-of-print novelist (Frank Langella) and an ambitious graduate student (Lauren Ambrose) who wants to revive his career finally opens at The Esquire Theatre today.

(Lauren Ambrose and Frank Langella in Starting Out in the Evening)

Starting Out in the Evening was actually one of my favorite films of all 2007 — it’s literate, emotionally rich and often incisive about the influence of life on art and vice versa. Much of the credit goes to Langella and Ambrose, whose scenes together radiate just the right balance of tenderness and awkwardness. Langella’s restrained portrayal as the long-dormant (both emotionally and creatively) writer was overlooked by the Academy, which strikes me as unfortunate given that it was probably the best 2007 performance by anyone not named Daniel Day Lewis. (Read Steven Rosen’s full-length review here.)

Speaking of unfortunate, The Esquire’s booking tendencies strike me as curious if not completely inept. Starting Out in the Evening played nearly every art-house theater in the country — including The Neon in Dayton — months ago and has been available on DVD since April 22.

Sure, Starting Out in the Evening might not have been the box-office smash that Juno was or have the marketing clout of a big distributor, but the people who run the Esquire and Mariemont theatres should have an obligation to book creatively vital films in a timely manner.

The local film community deserved to get this much sooner.

Stage Door: Lots of Laughter

Laughter is available in spades on local stages right now: The Great American Trailer Park Musical continues at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, although getting a ticket is tough right now. (It's closing down momentarily as of May 25, but keep in mind that the show's run has been extended for a stretch in June, from the 11th to the 25th.) Tickets: 513-421-3555.

In the meantime, I have a worthy alternative for you that also ranks high on the humor meter: It's Around the World in 80 Days at the Cincinnati Playhouse. My review is here, but I was at opening night and people were doubled over in their seats with laughter. It's a cast of five who play a multitude of characters — with quick costume changes, wigs, accents and amazing physical invention. Jules Verne's classic novel has been filmed and staged in many ways, but this must be the zaniest interpretation around. Directed by the Playhouse's assistant artistic director, Michael Evans Haney, it's a perfect choice for springtime entertainment. Tickets: 513-421-3888.

— Rick Pender

Listen to This

"I am done going to the Aronoff." That's what reader Joe Gorman wrote to me in April. "If you don't sit close to the stage, you will not hear a thing. We saw The Color Purple last Wednesday and the show suffered from lack of quality sound system. It looked good, but the story was lost. You observe people watching a show and see the palpable strain in their bodies, leaning forward to hear! The blue hairs were in big company that night, as we all lost a bunch of the show due to the crappy sound system."

I wrote back to Joe, who knows something about sound, since he’s a musician and has a daughter pursuing a professional career in theater. He also has a son who’s worn hearing aids for a long time. “He hates going to plays,” Joe wrote me, “because it is so hard to hear.”

He talked about several shows he’d seen that didn’t measure up, and a few more that did. Then he challenged me, “Do a column on sound and I bet you will get a huge response.”

Slim Pickings

Last week Broadway Across America/Cincinnati announced its six-show Broadway Series season for the Aronoff Center. The touring productions presented for 2007-08, the series' 20th anniversary, have been great, including the much-anticipated upcoming production of Jersey Boys. For 2008-09, there's not much to cheer for, in my opinion.

I'm most excited about a non-musical, Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon (Feb. 24-March 8, 2009), which won a Tony in 2007. The tour features veteran actor Stacy Keach as Richard Nixon (Frank Langella won a Tony for his performance on Broadway), but the show will certainly lose much of its impact in the Aronoff's big hall. It would have had a lot more firepower on a stage where the audience is in closer proximity to the actors — like the Cincinnati Playhouse. Ed Stern tried to land it for his season there, but the rights weren't available because of this tour.

The rest of the season seems like a lot of slim pickings and re-treads, starting with a stage version of The Wizard of Oz (Nov. 11-23) that uses the songs from the 1939 MGM film. Without a doubt, it's a grab at the popularity generated by the blockbuster Wicked, but this "lavish new production" is an untried property, not one that's been vetted on Broadway. Up next is a revival of Grease (Jan. 20-Feb. 1, 2009).