A SHAYNA MAIDEL Soars at IWU

Barbara Lebow's A Shayna Maidel is a perfect example of how to explore an issue, something really weighty and important, through theatre. As she builds her drama around a family split by the Holocaust, Lebow keeps the focus on her characters, on how these specific people have been divided and damaged and changed forever. That effort makes the issues -- family, faith, loss -- achingly real and heartbreakingly human.

A Shayna Maidel centers on sisters Rose and Lusia, one brought up in America and one left behind in war-torn Poland, reunited for the first time since Rose was four. What should be a miracle, what is a miracle, doesn't come easily, as Rose and Lusia struggle to find common ground, to remember and to forget, and to figure out what family means there's nothing familiar there.

This is not an easy show for college-age actors, since it requires a great deal of maturity, especially from the actors playing Lusia, so fragile and so fierce, and her father Mordecai, who bears his own scars. Nancy B. Loitz, who directs A Shayna Maidel for Illinois Wesleyan University's School of Theatre Arts, draws excellent performances from Amy Stockhaus, who finds the emotional truth in Lusia, and Ian Scarlato, the rare 20-something who can credibly play a 70-year-old. I don't know how Scarlato manages it, honestly. But Mordecai's prickly pride, terrible regrets and inability to bend are clearly etched in Scarlato's performance.

Annie Simpson is very pretty, a "shayna maidel," indeed, as Rose, while Sarah Menke is a joy as Hana, the friend Lusia left behind, Allyce Torres is a warm presence as Mama, and Ben Mulgrew does beautifully with both sides -- the sweet youth of memory and the drawn, pale face of reality -- of Duvid, another broken piece of Lusia's heart.

Scenic Designer Curtis C. Trout mounts the action on three levels of golden wood in the cozy domesticity of Rose's New York apartment. It's a beautiful set with a clever little radio that lights up (and cues some nostalgic mood music, too.)

Zachery Wagner's costumes do a nice job of evoking the 40s, with pretty frocks and robes for Rose, a solemn suit for Mordecai, and a dreary sweater and skirt for poor Lusia. Who's who and where their heads are becomes clear just from the wardrobe.

This is not a short play -- it ran about 2:40 on the night I saw it -- and it takes a while to find its rhythm, with a costume change or two that trips up the pace in the early going. Act II goes much more smoothly, however, as emotion flows more freely and secrets are unlocked, building to a moving conclusion.

A SHAYNA MAIDEL
By Barbara Lebow

McPherson Theatre
Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts

Director: Nancy B. Loitz
Scenic Designer: Curtis C. Trout
Costume Designer: Zachery Wagner
Lighting Designer: Stephen Sakowski
Sound Designer: Toby Jaguar Algya

Cast: Annie Simpson, Ian Scarlato, Amy Stockhaus, Sarah Menke, Allyce Torres and Ben Mulgrew

Remaining Performances: October 5 and 6 at 8 pm and October 7 at 2 pm.

Running Time: 2:40, including one 10-minute intermission

For ticket information, contact the box office at 309-556-3232 or visit www.iwu.edu/theatre.

IWU's A SHAYNA MAIDEL Opens Tuesday at McPherson Theatre

Illinois Wesleyan's School of Theatre Arts opens its fall season Tuesday night with Barbara Lebow's A Shayna Maidel, a play about two Polish Jewish sisters separated by the Holocaust. Rose, the younger sister, escaped from war-torn Poland with her father, but her mother and sister, Lusia, were left behind when Lusia fell ill. By the time she was well enough to travel, the Nazis had overrun the area, sending Lusia and her mother into a concentration camp. Lusia survived, but her mother did not. When the play begins in 1946, Rose has become a very Americanized, very stylish New Yorker, and the unexpected reunion with her long-lost sister leaves her conflicted and unsure. There's confusion, guilt, a huge cultural gap, and unwanted feelings. Is it going backwards to remember how it used to be? And how can you form a family with someone you don't even know?

Lebow's play bowed off-Broadway in 1987, with Melissa Gilbert as Rose, followed by a 1992 TV movie called "Miss Rose White" where Kyra Sedgwick took the role. Both versions received good notices, as audiences were taken with the emotional depth and universal themes in the script.

Professor Nancy B. Loitz directs A Shayna Maidel for IWU, with Curtis C. Trout as scenic designer, Zachary Wagner as costume designer, Stephen Sakowski as lighting designer, and Toby Algya as sound designer. Wesleyan's cast includes Annie Simpson as Rose Weiss, who changes her name to Rose White to sound more American, Ian Scarlato as Rose's father Mordecai, and Amy Stockhaus as Lusia, the sister newly arrived from Poland. Sarah Menke, Allyce Torres and Ben Mulgrew round out the cast.

Loitz's production of A Shayna Maidel opens in McPherson Theatre on Tuesday, October 2nd, with an 8 o'clock performance. Performances on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are also scheduled for 8 pm, with Sunday's matinee beginning at 2 pm. For ticket information, call 309-556-3232 or click here for the box office webpage.

Lots of Theatre Coming Up in 2012-13 at IWU School of Theatre Arts

So far this Spring, we've talked about what ISU and Community Players are doing in 2012-13, as well as a few Chicago theater companies. Now we turn our attention to Illinois Wesleyan University and their 2012-2013 School of Theatre Arts season.

IWU's School of Theatre Arts always manages to surprise me. After going for provocative, darker musicals like Stephen Sondheim's "Passion" and Michael John LaChiusa's "Hello Again," IWU is taking a more cheerful, straight-down-the-middle-of-the-plate approach to its big musical, plus offering a Shakespeare comedy and two well-regarded "sister" plays that seem just right for the college theater setting. And then there's the last choice, a three-playwright collaboration reflecting on the New Orleans hurricane and devastation. It's fairly new (2008) and completely new to me. As I said, IWU continues to surprise!

They will open their season in McPherson Theatre with "A Shayna Maidel," Barbara Lebow's 1985 play about two Polish Jewish sisters torn apart by the Holocaust. Rose White and her father have been safe in New York since she was a toddler, but her sister was left behind. Rose (original name: Reyzel Weiss) has been acclimated and assimilated, but it's all new to her sister Lusia, just now able to come to America after surviving the concentration camps. "A Shayna Maidel" means "a pretty girl" in Yiddish. As it happens, one of my grandmother's sisters was named Shayna but called Sophie in the U.S; until we found her birth records on the family tree, the only "Shayna" I knew was in the title of this play. The 1992 TV movie version of the play was titled "Miss Rose White," looking to the American side of the character rather than the Yiddish one. Professor Nancy Loitz will direct "A Shayna Maidel" for IWU.

The fall musical will be the bright and breezy "9 to 5," directed by Assistant Professor Scott Susong in McPherson Theatre. The original "9 to 5" was a Dolly Parton/Lily Tomlin/Jane Fonda chick flick, with Dolly writing the hit title song. Parton wrote a bunch more songs to turn it into "9 to 5: The Musical." Allison Janney took on the Lily Tomlin role, while Megan Hilty (now a smash on "Smash") created the role of Doralee, who is very much like Ms. Parton, for the stage, with American Idol's Diana Degarmo taking Doralee on the national tour. "9 to 5" is about three women toiling at a large company in the early 80s, trying very hard to keep their wits about them even when treated terribly by a creepy sexist boss. When their problems with the boss escalate, they undertake a crazy scheme to keep him tied up and hanging from the ceiling of his own home, and then they run the company (beautifully) in his absence. Patricia Resnick co-wrote the screenplay and wrote the book for "9 to 5: The Musical," which was nominated for 4 Tony Awards and 15 Drama Desk Awards in 2009. And here's the "9 to 5" story in under ten minutes, if you'd like to see what Janney and Hilty looked like in the roles.

Also in McPherson, Assistant Professor Thomas Quinn will direct Shakespeare's "As You Like It," the romantic comedy with the lovely Rosalind on the lam in the forest of Arden, dressed as a boy and supposedly teaching Orlando, the boy she has a bit of a crush on, how to woo like a man. There are accompanying rustics, Rosalind's jester Touchstone, a gloomy philosopher named Jacques who gives the famous "Seven Ages of Man" speech, and a couple of Dukes, one who usurped the other's position. "As You Like It" will also be part of this summer's Illinois Shakespeare Festival, if you would like to see both and compare/contrast.

The annual Faculty Choreographed Dance Concert rounds out the McPherson schedule, this one directed by Associate Professor Jean McFarland Kerr, who recently did such fine work on "Promenade."

Over in the E. Melba Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre, you'll see Shelagh Stevenson's "The Memory of Water," directed by undergrad Kristyn Kuzinar. "The Memory of Water" looks at three sisters gathering for their mother's funeral. The title's "memory" comes into play both because their mother suffered from Alzheimer's and because they each remember the events of their childhood differently, as siblings often do. Memory is a hazy, unreliable issue for each of them. There is another play I often confuse with this one, demonstrating my own unreliable memory. But, no, this is not Lee Blessing's "A Body of Water," which is also about people who struggle with what they do and do not remember.

The other play they've scheduled for the Lab Theatre is "The Breach," a 2008 play by Catherine Filloux, Tarell McCraney and Joe Sutton. The three playwrights wrote three different intertwined stories to tell what happened to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's not just about devastation on the human level, but about heroism, politics and water. There is a lot of water in "The Breach." This play will be directed by Raven Stubbs, also an undergrad in IWU's Theater program.

That leaves one or two titles still to be announced for the Kirkpatrick Lab Theatre. I'll report back as soon as I hear. In the meantime, you can read up on these shows and get ready for what you'll see in the fall.