"Little Dog" Gets His Day at Urbana's Station Theatre

Douglas Carter Beane's "The Little Dog Laughed," a scathing satire of Hollywood and its lack of morals, (What? Hollywood has no morals? It's shocking!) is playing at Urbana's Station Theatre for one more week.

Caveat: I caught half of the show last week. I wasn't feeling well – nothing to do with the show – and left at intermission, so I can only tell you about the first half of the Station's production, although I can discuss the play as a whole, since I've read it, and I've now seen how the first half plays, anyway.

On paper and in performance, it's a funny play, with issues that are as in style today as they were fifty years ago, about a voraciously ambitious agent, her client, an up-and-coming star who "suffers from a slight recurring case of homosexuality," the rent boy he falls in love with, and the rent boy's sort-of-girlfriend, who doesn't seem to mind that the guy she wants makes his living sleeping with men for money, but does mind if he's in love with one of his tricks.

Complicated, yes. Stylish and funny, yes. Sad, yes. All of that. The script is very clever and well-constructed, and it offers an amazing showcase to the actress who plays the agent. Julie White won a Tony for it. Everybody else who's done well with it has also made a huge impression. It's not that the role is anything we haven't seen before ("Entourage," "Laura," even "Ruthless") but that she's talking directly to us a lot of the time and she's so cheerfully evil and manipulative, so convoluted and yet so direct as she goes about achieving her schemes and her desire for her version of a fairytale happy ending. It's just that her fairytales are more warped than other people's.

So when Diane, the agent, says she wants a happy ending, she tells us she means a real "Hey Diddle Diddle" kind of thing, where the little dog laughs and the dish runs away with the spoon. Or, in her mind, where she can keep her client looking heterosexual in public, acquire a smash play for him to star in, maneuver the playwright into butching up his characters for a film version, and sweep the love interest and his girlfriend up in a neat bundle of dishes and spoons.

Don't worry. It doesn't have to make sense. It's just supposed to be ironic and cynical and wickedly funny.

Although Chris Taber chews up and spits out Diane nicely, and Katie Baldwin is terrific as Ellen, the maybe-maybe-not girlfriend, the "Little Dog" directed by Mathew Green for the Station comes off more amusing than hilarious. That may be the crowd (we're not coastal) or the setting (the Station is quite small and intimate, and the unpleasantness of all of the characters, as well as the nudity, is very in-your-face) or just that it's hard to pull off without a proscenium stage and all the bells and whistles of stage magic that a Broadway theater can offer.

Or maybe it's just me, and I find the idea of people who can't be who they really are, who are willing to give up who they really love, just to achieve stardom in a place as silly as Hollywood, too tragic to make me really howl with laughter.

Complicated, yes. Stylish and funny, yes. But sad, too. Very sad.

“The Little Dog Laughed” continues at the Station Theatre in Urbana through next Saturday, with all performances at 8 pm. For more information or to reserve tickets, see the Station's website at left.

End-of-July Quickies

I've been getting a lot of notices lately, and I thought I would share.

• The Peoria Journal-Star has launched a new theater blog called THINK THEATER for area community theaters to keep everybody updated on their comings and goings and general doings, and I'm blogging for Heartland Theatre Company. Holly Rocke is blogging for Eureka College Theatre, too. You'll want to read all about Rally 4 Rolly, Young at Heartland, Heartland's new season, Eureka's new season, and everything else that struck us as fun to blog about.
• Jared Brown has announced auditions for his new play "Three for the Show," which will take the stage at Heartland Theate Company in November. Audition dates are August 4 and 5, 2010, from 7 to 10 pm both nights. August 4th is an open call for all interested actors, with callbacks on the 5th (or open call for those who couldn’t audition on the 4th).Tentative rehearsal period is September 15 to November 2 with numerous “off-days,” and performances are scheduled for November 4-7, 11-14, and 18-21, with all performances at 7:30 pm, except for November 7, 14, and 21 (Sundays), which will begin at 2 pm. FMI, visit HTC's website, linked at left, or click on the THINK THEATER blog link above. The movie poster that accompanies this blog is not Jared's "Three for the Show," but it actually looks a bit like the plot of one of the three plays that makes up this program.
  
• Rehearsals have begun for New Route Theatre's upcoming workshop performance of "Our David" by Ian Mairs.
• Urbana Park District Presents "Once Upon a Mattress" at Foellinger Auditorium on the U of I Quad. Performances are tonight, Wednesday, July 28, at 7:30 pm, Thursday, July 29, at noon, Friday, July 30, at 7:30 pm, and Saturday, July 31, at 7:30 pm. See the link in this paragraph for ticket prices and information.
• The Living Canvas: Demons continues performances through August 14th. Nudity! Dancing! Art! Woo woo!
• Urbana's Station Theatre opens "And the Little Dog Laughed" by Douglas Carter Beane this week. Performances run till August 7th, with all shows at 8 pm.
  

Though This Be MAD MEN, Yet There Is Method In't.

Last night, "Mad Men" launched its fourth season on AMC, and I was waiting with bated breath. I’m not sure if it’s because I lived through the 60s (I think I’m the same age as Bobby Draper, who is currently about 8 on the show) so the furnishings and clothes flip my nostalgia switches, because I love New York City and would love to step onto Madison Avenue, circa 1964, or because the advertising milieu is so interesting. (I did once work in advertising, although only in a managerial capacity. But I was good at copywriting, if I do say so myself.)

Honestly, I don’t think the appeal of “Mad Men” comes from any one of those things. Not even the beauty of Jon Hamm, the actor who plays protagonist Don Draper, could do it by itself. No. I think this is a case of creator Matthew Weiner knowing exactly what to do in terms of keeping the writing at the highest level, and creating characters and situations that are sometimes dire, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, but always quite human. I want to know what happens to them next. Okay, not Betty so much. I have found the character and the actress (January Jones) quite limited from the beginning, and that hasn’t changed as we head into Season 4.

So what’s changed since now that we’ve vaulted to Thanksgiving, 1964? On the home front, Don and Betty’s marriage is totally and completely kaput. Thank goodness. The kids are growing up, with Sally (Kiernan Shipka) more rebellious and Bobby less of a nonentity. Betty is even chillier and less motherly than before, and her new marriage with Henry Francis is even more annoying than her old affair with him. Betty also has a new mother-in-law to contend with, and we saw that Mrs. Francis the Elder does not like Betty one bit. Good for her.

At the office, Sterling Cooper has gotten leaner and meaner as it’s morphed into Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, with a hot little SCDP on the lighter, brighter walls. The team that broke away from Sterling Cooper – like Peggy, Pete, Harry and Joan – is still there, although they’ve all already moved forward, taking on more responsibility and more confidence in their new roles at SCDP. Joan (Christina Hendricks) and Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) are also sporting nifty new hairdos, which doesn’t hurt.

Roger Sterling, my favorite reprobate who always gets the best lines, is in fine form, even if he doesn’t seem to have changed a bit. John Slattery is so good at playing Roger that I’m not sure the general audience realizes he’s acting. He makes it look effortless and he deserves every award there is out there for making a very unattractive character so engaging.

And then there’s Don... As the episode opens, Don has an interview with Advertising Age, but he doesn’t want to answer questions about himself. How can the quintessential Ad Man not want to advertise himself? The enigma that is Don doesn’t want to share any information whatsoever.

Still, I get the feeling that the question “Who is Don Draper?” – the first words of the new season – will continue to recur as we move on into 1965. I’m not sure Don Draper knows who he is, either. Except one majorly screwed up guy.

With no family and no home in the suburbs, Don has a nice, if tiny, apartment in Greenwich Village. He’s not really dating anyone, although he does have an awkward first date with an actress who lives at the Barbizon (famous for onetime resident Grace Kelly, who was apparently the wildest child ever to live there) and a hookup with a hooker, where Don seems to be looking for degradation as much as pleasure.

But even so... There’s a definite feeling of moving forward, finding self-knowledge, even if only a little, in this episode, whose title, by the way, is “Public Relations.” Peggy and Pete pull a PR stunt involving a fight over ham, but it’s a step into the future of advertising, where PR is part of the landscape. Don tells Betty that she and her husband need to move out of his house, and he also tells a potential client that SCDP isn’t interested in their traditional, moldy, prudish account. Onward and upward! And by the end of this episode, he’s giving a much franker, more exciting interview, telling the truth about the coup that formed SCDP and revealing more about himself.

I’m hoping that Don’s realization that it’s important to market himself and to take credit for his successes and his showdown with Betty and Henry over the house mean he has acquired enough forward momentum to clean up his life a bit, too. I hope, at least, he’s moved past chilly blondes (including the Barbizon girl, played as a snippy little twit by Anna Camp, who seems to specialize in characters like that) and hookers with slapping skills (although she was still more appealing than either Betty or Miss Barbizon).

As usual with “Mad Men,” I can’t wait to see what happens next. Will Peggy start a flirtation with her cute new office-mate? Will Pete’s wife, Trudy, show up, now that the actress who plays her (Alison Brie) is on another show? Will Roger stick with his too-young wife? Will Betty get the hell out of Don’s house and take her insufferable husband with her? Will Sally and Bobby come live with Don, and bring their former housekeeper, Carla, with them, since she was pretty much the only mother they ever knew?

More importantly, will Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce get any new accounts so Lucky Strike won’t continue to comprise 71% of their client pool?

How long till next Sunday?

Cary Grant Will Steal Your Heart in "To Catch a Thief"

Cary Grant is in town, in the form of “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” and “To Catch a Thief” at the Normal Theater. “Mr. Blandings” was there last night and will be there tonight, with “To Catch a Thief,” my choice between the two, on Saturday and Sunday.

I’m not sure if all this Cary Grant action is in honor of “Mad Men” and its 4th season premiere on Sunday, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Don Draper, the mysterious ad man in “Mad Men,” is the heir apparent to Cary Grant’s John Robie, international jewel thief and romantic icon. The movie came out in 1955, so the milieu is a little too early for “Mad Men,” which is up to 1964 this year, but the elegant, dangerous, dishy feel is definitely there.

The movie itself, with its bad boy hero and criminal hijinks, spawned some of my favorite TV shows of days past, like “It Takes a Thief” and “Remington Steele.”

Here’s what you need to know about the first ten minutes of “To Catch a Thief”:

John Robie (played by Cary Grant at his most delicious) was a hero in the French Resistance and then a famous jewel thief called The Cat. (Cat = cat burglar, you see?) He’s supposedly retired, but there have been a rash of new burglaries on the Riviera with his name all over them. The French police try to bring him in, but he stages a ruse and escapes. During the escape, much fabulous scenery is displayed, and director Alfred Hitchcock pops up as a passenger on the bus next to the beautiful Monsieur Robie.

Et voila! After that exposition, we’re off and running. Robie gets ten days from the local constabulary to find the real culprit(s) or go straight to jail, he finds his old criminal associates to see if one of them is back in business using his signature moves, and he forges an alliance with a friendly insurance man who can furnish a list of potential victims, including a wealthy widow (the wonderful Jessie Royce Landis) and her dewy daughter (an unbelievably lovely Grace Kelly). The person who has taken his place as The Cat isn’t too pleased he’s hanging around mucking things up, either.

As Robie sums it up, “The police want me in jail, my old friends want me dead, and The Cat wants me out of town.”

I have a fondness for the romance and dash of jewel thievery plots. I have a fondness for the romance and dash of Cary Grant. “To Catch a Thief” takes full advantage of both, with Hitchcock offering plenty of scenery for everybody in terms of the Riviera and its vistas, Cary Grant in a bathing suit and a dinner jacket more than once, and a fabulous array of outfits designed for Grace Kelly by Edith Head. Ms. Kelly could walk down Fifth Avenue dressed like that today and the fashion reporters would still swoon.

“To Catch a Thief” depends almost entirely upon style, seduction and the joy of watching two impossibly beautiful people play cat-and-mouse with each other. I must admit I am not the world’s biggest Grace Kelly fan, and the first time I saw “To Catch a Thief” when I was young, I found her vapid and uninteresting, as well as not nearly good enough for Cary Grant.

Upon rewatching, I like her a lot better than I did then. It’s not just her beauty, but the mischievous humor she projects. She and Mr. Grant are a good match, even if he is clearly too old for her. (He was often too old for his leading ladies, and it doesn’t seem to matter a bit.)

All in all, "To Catch a Thief" is a fun, frothy way to spend 106 minutes. And a great way to get ready for Don Draper & Co. to return on Sunday.

Monster Maché: Build Your Own

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival is offering a unique hands-on opportunity to learn about stagecraft. As part of community support for Rolly Turner, a central Illinois theater enthusiast whose home burned down, injuring him and destroying all of his possessions, the ISF is hosting a puppet-making workshop for “kids (5 and up), artists, educators, theatre-makers, and anyone else who might like to build their own 7-foot-tall paper mache rod puppet!”

Yes, you read that right. They’re not talking about just any puppets, but 7-foot-tall puppets. These huge, ugly faces, hoisted on poles like broomsticks, can make great monsters on stage.

The ISF flyer connects this to their current production of “The Tempest,” “in which the sorcerer Prospero rules an island inhabited by spirits and monsters.” So this workshop will allow participants in the workshop to create their own monsters, suitable for Prospero’s island, and when they’re finished, they can take their very own monsters home to scare their brothers and sisters or put on "The Tempest" (or boogie down to "The Monster Mash") in the back yard.

The monster-building workshop takes place on two Sunday afternoons in a row – July 25 and August 1 – from 3 to 5 pm, with potential puppet masters required to attend both Sunday sessions. They’ll build on the first one and paint on the second. Cost is $20 per person, and they will provide all the materials, working space, and skilled professionals to lead the way. Maximum capacity is 60 participants, so reservations are required. Call 438 2535 for reservations or more information.


And, as I noted up there at the top, anything they collect will go to benefit Rolly Turner, who is the center of the Rally 4 Rolly campaign as he attempts to put his life back together following the fire.

Good cause, good fun, good skills to learn!

"As You Like It" for the Younger Set at ISF

As a rule, I don't review children's theater. Yes, I'm a bit of curmudgeon, but it also doesn't really work to critique young casts (you can't really hold children to the same standards as adults) or to try to figure out what works for an audience under 10 when you are not among them. But I was intrigued by the idea of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival's initiative to bring brief, breezy versions of Shakespeare plays to kids for free. This means that the ISF's usual terrific actors are offering their talents FOR FREE to anyone who wants to make a reservation and toddle on over to the courtyard at Ewing Manor (seen in the picture posted here, which I snapped on my Blackberry before the show began) at 10 am on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

So last Saturday, I ventured over to Ewing Manor to see the children's version of "As You Like It," where I saw a pretty good show, with an audience comprising lots of young ones, from a few months to maybe 11 or 12, the adults who accompanied them, a few umbrellas for shade, and a strange assortment of lawn chairs and blankets to throw down on the hard stones.

The cast, led by Megan Storti as Rosalind, my favorite Shakespearean heroine; Drew Vidal as Orlando, the lovestruck hero; and Rhys Lovell as both evil Duke Frederick and his older brother, Duke Senior, is top-notch and committed to presenting the material, even in less-than-ideal circumstances. And by that, I mean an outdoor courtyard in bright sun, with most of them in layers of costumes, and an audience full of children who aren't really old enough to understand what's being said to them. The show was an hour long, which might be okay in cooler conditions, but seemed to be pushing the envelope at almost 90 degrees. In fact, a lot of the kids skipped out and went to play on the grass or hide out in the shade in one of the tunnels, although they all came back for the closing moments, when bubbles were released. Yes, the bubbles pulled all the children back to the stage, a stronger lure than any songs or hijinks the actors got up to.

In general, I would say this shortened, spritely version of "As You Like It" was a success for the parents in the crowd, and maybe for the older children. I doubt the really young ones got much out of it. Except the bubbles.

But kudos to the cast for trying their hardest and giving it their all. And kudos to the ISF for offering this kind of programming. If it reaches one child among the many, it's probably worth it to keep audiences growing and sow some seeds for future actors and directors. Who knows? Maybe somebody chasing bubbles today will be auditioning to be a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" tomorrow.

ISF's "Merry Wives" Creates Frisky Fun

The one thing that “The Merry Wives of Windsor” needs to be is merry. If the tricks two suburban housewives play on the story’s drunken buffoon (who fancies himself a lothario) don’t bring down the house, there’s just no point in putting on the show.

Director Catherine Weidner has chosen to set her “Merry Wives” in the 1920s, in a town something like Windsor, Illinois, if such a thing existed. The real Windsor is a suburb of London, and it was a prosperous village with lots of hotels and inns and a few religious relics that were attractive to pilgrims in Shakespeare’s day.

“Merry Wives” is set in and around the Garter Inn, where Falstaff, the larger-than-life clown mentioned above, is hiding out after piling up debts he can’t pay. To get his hands on some cash, Falstaff decides to romance both housewives, Mistresses Ford and Page. Master Ford is irrationally jealous, while Master Page is irrationally not jealous. But their wives are cheery, mischievous types, and they concoct a scheme of their own to make Falstaff look even more of a fool.

And then there’s the subplot about lovely Anne Page, the daughter of Master and Mistress Page, who has three suitors, including a silly French doctor her mother likes, a doofus with good connections her father likes, and the more normal boy she herself likes. Mistress Quickly, who works for the doctor, gets involved in all the plots and counterplots, delivering notes and messages hither and yon.

Weidner’s cast looks good and keeps the mood frisky in their pretty 20s attire, including the ladies in summer frocks and hats, Slender, the doofus, in a straw boater and high-water pants, and Master Ford, who affects a Charlie Chaplin bowler hat and thick mustache when he pretends to be someone else.

Fred M. Duer’s set is painted in the same creams, beiges and pinks as the costumes, offering slightly tilted small-town storefronts that fold and unfold to show the inn, the doctor’s office and the Ford household and setting the right light and comical mood.

Among the cast, George Judy stands out as Falstaff, the much put-upon old goat who drives the plot, with a voice and persona as rich and robust as Falstaff himself.

He has good chemistry with Magdalyn Donnelly’s delicious Mistress Quickly as well as Demetria Thomas and Kathy Logelin, plenty cheeky and spirited as Mistresses Ford and Page.

Probably the funniest character is Gerson Dacanay’s bizarre little Dr. Caius, a popinjay and martinet who brings to mind Hercule Poirot if he were blended together with Mickey Rooney. He’s hilarious and over the top in all the right ways.

Drew Vidal as hopeless suitor Slender, Kevin Rich as the proprietor of the Garter Inn, and Max Ganet as a very dim servant named Simple also make a good impression.

This “Merry Wives” is just for fun, but it’s still Shakespeare, which means it’s not appropriate for youngsters. Besides, it's full of sexual references and language jokes that are way over their heads. They'll be bored silly and they'll take it out on everyone within ten rows of you. In other words – if you have children, leave them at home, please. It’s unfortunate when crying babies or fussy toddlers ruin everybody’s evening, especially when the actors and designers are working so hard to bring us all a good show.

Your kids and your fellow theater-goers will appreciate it if, instead of creating a black hole of discord in the audience at a full-length Shakespeare play, you take the younger crowd to Community Players’ “Fantastic Mr. Fox” or the children’s version of “As You Like It” currently playing on Saturdays and Wednesday mornings in the Ewing Manor courtyard. The latter is free and it’s meant for kids.

“The Merry Wives of Windsor”? Is not.

“The Merry Wives of Windsor,” by William Shakespeare
Performed in repertory by the Illinois Shakespeare Festival through August 7

Director: Catherine Weidner
Costume Designer: Rachel Laritz
Scenic Designer: Fred M. Duer
Lighting Designer: Julie Mack
Sound Designer: Jason Knox
Stage Manager: David Solotke
Vocal Coach: Connie DeVeer
Fight Director: Kevin Asselin

Cast: Chris Amos, Kareem Bandealy, Kyle Cameron, Benjamin Cole, Gerson Dacanay, Nick Dargis, Magdalyn Donnelly, Max Ganet, George Judy, Anthony Kayer, Katrina Kurtz, Kathy Logelin, David Marcotte, Ken Mooney, Patrick New, Kevin Rich, Brian Rooney, David Sitler, Nathan Stark, Demetria Thomas, Drew Vidal and Steve Wojtas.