Peter Rabbit and Me

Olympia Family Theater Does Beatrix Potter

Carolyn Willems Van Dijk as Peter Rabbit and Rich Young as Mr. McGregor. Photo by Alexis Sarah.

Peter Rabbit and Me at Olympia Family Theater, written by Aurand Harris, is a delightfully joyful play for young children. It’s also as energetic a show as you’re likely to see anytime soon, with a lot running and jumping (hopping, to be more precise).

In a wonderfully inventive and educational twist on the popular children’s book The Tale of Peter Rabbit, we see unfolding not only the tale of how the irascible Peter Rabbit sneaks in to Mr. McGregor’s garden to eat vegetables until he’s sick, we see acted out in a joyful way the story of how Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated her stories.

Two tales of Peter Rabbit—his first dangerous venture into the garden in the first act and his daring return in the second act—alternate with scenes of the young Beatrix at home with her brother, Bertum, and their governess, Miss Hammond. As the two scene alternate, actors double up to play two or more characters each.

Carolyn Willems Van Dijk plays Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit.
Rich Young plays Beatrix’s father Potter and Mr. McGregor.
Stephanie Kroschel plays Miss Hammond and Mother Rabbit (mother to Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter).
Jared Greene is a ton of characters, including Bertum, Cotton-tail, the baker’s boy, and Mr. Mouse (he has to change ears and tails frequently).
Hannah Eklund plays an unnamed girl, a bird, and Flopsy.
And finally, Katrina Groen plays the other girl, bird, and Mopsy.

Naturally, Beatrix or Peter are in every scene. There’s hardly a moment when one or the other is not the center of attention, meaning Van Dijk has to do a lot of quick costume changes and believably and entertainingly portray two very different characters—a lovely and loving girl who adores her many pets and is determined to become a great writer and artist. Her big eyes, huge smile and terrific repertoire of expressions make both Beatrix and Peter characters kids love. Regulars at OFT will remember Van Dijk from her so-fun performance as Cinder Edna in the play of the same name by Ted Ryle, in which she worked with director Kate Ayers, who also directs this play.

Young is ideally cast as Mr. McGregor. He is a retired school teacher who has recently returned to theater after a long absence. He creates the put-upon farmer as a character who is absolutely as we imagine him, meaning the hapless and constantly frustrated target of Peter’s shenanigans and the “bad guy” who is really nice. Good job, Rich Young.

The rest of the cast is equally good in their many roles.

The set design by Jeannie Beirne is effective and decorative, and the lighting by Jill Carter is up to her usual excellent standards.

This one runs three weeks only, so don’t let your chance to bring the kids slip by.

Peter Rabbit and Me, Fridays at 7 p.m., Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m.  through April 3, pay what you can March 25, special 11 a.m. performance March 26, 612 4th Ave E, Olympia, 360-570-1638.

The Redaction Project

Photo:

Anne de Marcken Installation at Salon Refu

Published in the Weekly Volcano, March 17, 2016

Anne de Marcken in front of wall of index cards as part of her installation at Salon Refu. Photo by Marilyn Freeman.

It used to be called the avant garde, and then it was called the cutting edge. What’s beyond that I do not know, but whatever it is, you’ll find it at Salon Refu in Olympia — the place where art happens that you’ll never see anywhere else, where you can see art of no commercial appeal that challenges and excites the intellect and the emotions. What better proof can there be than The Redaction Project, the installation by Anne de Marcken that currently fills the gallery.

Described as a “time-based artist,” de Marcken creates short stories, poetry, screenplays, short and feature-length films and videos, and interactive web environments. Her writing has been featured on NPR's “Selected Shorts” and in publications such as Best New American Voices, Glimmer Train and many others.

The Redaction Project is an environment of paper and words and heavy black marks where words once lived; it fills the walls and hangs from swinging pendulums in the gallery space. It is based on an 8,037-word short story titled “After Life,” which the artist wrote but never published. She “redacted” her story just as corporations and government offices redact sensitive documents they are forced to release. In the process of redacting parts of her story by obliterating groups of words and whole paragraphs, and eventually the entire story, she created new stories, poems, sheets of music like scores for a player piano, and beautiful abstract patterns. She copied every page of her story at every step along the way and hung them all in the middle of the gallery where viewers can thumb through them, read parts, including tons of research notes and the entire unredacted story for those who make the effort to find it.

Anne de Marcken with Sarah Tavis creating letterpress work for The Redaction Project at Community Print

As I saw it — and you may see it differently; the possible interpretations are multitudinous — the installation is hung in a chronological order and in an order that gets progressively abstract as you move from the front to the back of the gallery.

One wall is filled with approximately a thousand index cards, each card listing a unique word, how many times it is used in the story, where it can be found, how many times it has been redacted, and how many times it remains after redaction. The word “obliterate,” for instance, was used only once and redacted zero times with, therefore, a remainder of one. (After all, why redact “obliterate”? Wouldn’t that be rather redundant?)

On another wall are beautiful abstract prints of redaction marks — no words in these, but simple colored bars that divide the space.

The project takes some explanation to fully understand. Fortunately there will be a video of the artist talking about it that you can watch at your leisure.

This installation is an amazing visual presentation of one artist’s obsession with an idea and the myriad of places pursuing that idea has taken her. Depending upon the amount of time and effort viewers are willing to devote to it, the thoughts, images, and patterns that can be discerned are endless. I spent far too little time looking at it and have every intention of going back for more.

The Redaction Project, Thursday-Sunday 2-6 p.m., and by appointment. Through March 31, Salon Refu, 114 N. Capitol Way, Olympia, riddie.glenn@gmail.com.

Hedda Gabler at Harlequin

Published in the Weekly Volcano, March 17, 2016

Helen Harvester as Hedda Gabler. Photo courtesy Harlequin Productions

Henrik Ibsen’s classic play Hedda Gabler as adapted and directed by Aaron Lamb for Harlequin Productions is just as relevant and contemporary today as it was when it premiered at the end of the 19^th century; although it is probably not as shocking as it was then — not because the play has in any way been toned down, but because today’s audiences have become jaded.

Ibsen was famous for being the first modern realist as well as for being an early feminist. Lamb’s adaptation of Hedda Gabler is every bit as realistic and feminist as anything being written today.

There is a possibly apocryphal quote attributed to Chekov: “If a gun is on the mantle in the first act, it must go off in the third.” Well there’s a gun featured on the program cover and posters for Hedda Gabler, and it definitely goes off; but you couldn’t get me to tell me when or who shoots whom if you waterboarded me.

Helen Harvester as Hedda Gabler and Chris Shea as Ejlert Lovborg. Photo courtesy Harlequin Productions

The play revolves around the title character, who smoothly and effortlessly demands audience attention whenever she is on stage. Hedda, as played by Helen Harvester, epitomizes the most glamorous, spoiled, and bored of modern women. Lambert described her in program notes as “feisty, droll, intelligent, fatally ignorant of the world, snobby, mean-spirited, small-minded, cold, bored, vicious, eager, terrified. She is addictive, alluring, beautiful. She is the most interesting person in the room. Always. Like her or not, you will — you must — see her.”

Depicting such a character is a tall order for any actor, and Harvester is fully up to the challenge. Her physicality and languid movements capture the character as I can only imagine Ibsen dreamed an actor could. (This sleek physicality seems to be a Harvester trademark. She was, after all, the actor who became the werewolf in Harlequin’s Mating Dance of the Werewolf.) Her appearance contributes tremendously — the shock of short blonde hair, her haughty expressions, and the dresses and lingerie that are like liquid silk poured over her body (kudos to costume designer Lucy Gentry-Meltzer). These costumes are tailor made to fit with the ultra-modern set by Jeannie Beirne.

Helen Harvester as Hedda Gabler and John Serembe as Mr. Back, set designed by Jeannie Beirne. Photo courtesy Harlequin Productions

The set is the upscale apartment of Hedda and her husband, Jörgen Tesman (Josh Krupke). It is all bright white and clean, hard lines with brilliant lighting by Amy Chisman. And it makes use of a revolve, not just as a way of changing scenes, but in an active and breathtakingly integral part of the story.

I experienced some difficulty hearing and understanding some of the dialogue in the opening act, but by the second act I was thoroughly engrossed in the story and in the characters. The seven-person cast is excellent. Krupke is great as the husband too wrapped up in his own pursuits to notice his glamorous wife. Emily Fortuna as Hedda’s overwrought friend, Thea, and Chris Shea as Hedda’s former lover, Ejlert, are both excellent, and John Serembe as the arrogant and slimy Mr. Brack sets your teeth on edge.

Hedda Gable is a dark, disturbing, often witty play that is well acted and beautifully staged.

Hedda Gabler, Thursday through Saturday, 8p.m., Sunday 2 p.m. through March 26, Harlequin Productions’ State Theater, 202 E. 4^th Ave., Olympia, ticket prices vary, call for details, 360-786-0151; http://www.harlequinproductions.org/

Systems of Place

An intriguing two-artist installation at SPSCC

Published in the Weekly Volcano, March 10, 2016

"Subject No. 4," linocut by Florin Hanegan, photo courtesy South Puget Sound Community College

The more time I spent in the gallery at South Puget Sound Community College looking at art by Chad Erpelding and Florin Hanegan, the more fascinating the work became. And despite being totally different in subject matter, style, and media, I began to see striking similarities between Hanegan’s life-size linocuts of people and of trees and Erpelding’s layered maps from his Sister Cities project. Both are detail-oriented and obsessive; both create densely-packed images.

Hanegan’s portraits are powerful graphic images in stark black and white. Each man, woman or child fills a sheet of paper approximately seven feet tall. Each faces forward and looks directly at the viewer. They are dark images like full-figured mugshots. They appear to be working-class people and college-age students. None are glamorous, and none are wearing makeup or fashionable clothes. 

They are, in other words, you and me with nothing to hide. 

The shading is mostly done with stippled marks as in gritty and harshly lighted photographs. Most of them have dot patterns in the background, tiny black dots with even smaller white dots in the center, densely packed in a regular grid pattern that completely fills the background. One of the linocuts is a portrait of a young man whose shirt is filled with white dots on a black field as a reverse or negative mirror image of the background pattern.

 

I suspect many viewers will see similarities to some of Andy Warhol’s grittier portraits of people and objects. I’m thinking more of some of his film and photo projects with expressionless faces staring directing and unflinchingly into the viewers’ eyes and his electric chair series for the starkness of the imagery. They may also remind people of  portraits by Chuck Close. Interestingly, they are numbered, not named, so that they are simultaneously specific and generic: everywoman/everyman.

Also by Hanegan are linocuts of trees with densely tangled limbs and the same kind of dark and gritty look as the portraits.

Chad Erpelding, Sister Cities series, Olympia and Kato, mixed media and epoxy. Photo courtesy South Puget Sound Community College

Erpelding’s Sister City installation on the back wall of the gallery consists of 54 small pictures of maps layered within 10 levels of epoxy resin, each five-by-seven inches and arranged in a square, with six in one direction and nine in the other, dominating a large section of the back wall. Each square is a map of a section of two sister cities — for example, Olympia and Kato, Japan; and Seattle and Kobe — with overlapping streets, bridges, houses and bodies of water. The images are taken from Google maps that are meticulously cut with an exacto knife and layered within the resin so the viewer can see layer after layer after layer as if each is mounted on a separate sheet of clear glass.

According to statements made by the artist, he has no interest in the aesthetic appeal of his work but is interested only in the careful research and presentation of facts, and yet this installation is aesthetically attractive as a single piece as seen from a distance across the gallery space and as 54 information-filled images of specific places, each with its own history and unique appearance.

Whether seen as conceptual works or a formalist compositions, these pieces by Hanegan and Erpelding are fascinating to consider.

Often in my reviews I have encouraged readers to take time to carefully study the shows. Seldom has that advice been so critical, because these pieces are all about the details —and about the concepts.

South Puget Sound Community College, Kenneth J Minnaert Center for the Arts Gallery, Monday-Friday, noon-4 p.m. through March 25, 2011 Mottman Rd. SW. Olympia, 360.596.5527.]

Death on the Supermarket Shelf

Melanie Hampton as Lynn Reiner; Jamie Pederson as Ed Reiner; Cora Pearlstein as Michelle Reiner (as a child). Photo by Michelle Smith Lewis.

A New Play Based on the 1982 Tylenol Murders

Review from The Weekly Volcano published March 10, 2016 with addendum not included in the Volcano

The new play Death on the Supermarket Shelf written by Alan Bryce and directed Tina Polzin premiered March 3 at Centerstage Theatre in Federal Way. This is Bryce’s first play since last year’s smash hit musical For All That. Death on the Supermarket Shelf is most definitely not a musical, and yet there is music in it — a lot of music actually, as much as many full-blown musical comedies (and it’s most definitely not a comedy either).

In 1982 seven people died from taking poisoned Tylenol. What followed was what Bryce termed a nationwide panic that altered consumer confidence forever. “It was the case that stopped a nation in its tracks and changed American consumerism forever,” Bryce said. “But it’s more than that. As I researched the play, I discovered a story of evil, corporate villainy, human stupidity and human dignity that took my breath away.”

Cooper Harris-Turner as Scott Bartz, Melanie Hampton as Lynn Reiner, and Sara Henly-Hicks, as Michelle as an adult. Photo by Michelle Smith Lewis.

Bryce’s play covers 34 years from the time of the first murder to the aftermath and investigation of the crime, which remains unsolved today. It focuses on the first victim, Lynn Reiner (Melanie Hampton) and her husband, Ed (Jamie Pederson) and their 8-year-old daughter Michelle, who witnessed her mother’s death. (Cora Pearlstein plays Michelle; understudy Molly Winter played Michelle on March 6 and 10). 

Events leading up to and including Lynn’s death, the investigations of suspects and the efforts of Johnson and Johnson, makers of Tylenol, to convince authorities the murders were committed by a lone-wolf madman are all presented in a series of highly stylized yet realistic episodic scenes with singers functioning in the role of a Greek chorus. The music is all from blues legend Robert Johnson. This innovative use of music to highlight aspects of the story and ease through transitions between scenes intensifies the drama. The singers throughout most of the play are Cooper Harris-Turner, who plays Scott Bartz, the reporter who wrote three books about the murders, and Sara Henly-Hicks, who plays Michelle as an adult. They are marvelous singers. Hick’s voice is sultry and husky; Harris-Turner has great range from tender to growling and shouting. Hampton, who shows up as either the ghost of Lynn Reiner or as a representative of grown-up Michelle’s memory of her (I could not tell which and don’t think that is an issue) also sings hauntingly.

The set by Julia Welch and lighting by Paul Arnold are deceptively simple and highly effective. Welch’s set is a simple open box or cage, perhaps best described as the open frame of a room with no walls.

Twelve cast members and one understudy play multiple roles. It would be impossible to point one or more actors as outstanding. They all are. The play is intense, dramatic, and practically guaranteed to keep audience members on the edge of their seats even though the outcome of the real event is well known.

My one criticism is that in a few brief moments giving out information becomes more important that the dramatic sweep of the action. Probably not worth quibbling over except in a scene that lasts no more than a couple of minutes right before the wonderfully inventive and emotional final scene.

It’s not often that local audiences have the opportunity to see a world premiere of a play written and produced right here. This one should go on to be performed in other theaters across the land, and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. 

Death on the Supermarket Shelf plays Fridays through Sundays through March 26, with an additional performance March 10 at the Knutzen Family Theatre. www.centerstagetheatre.com.

More on Death on the Supermarket Shelf

In addition to the review for the Weekly Volcano, I was commissioned to write an article for O’Dwyer’s blog . For this I interviewed the writer, Alan Bryce and Michelle Rosen, the daughter of Lynn Reiner, the first victim of the Tylenol murders. My story was not actually published on O’Dwyer’s blog but information from it was used.

I exchanged emails with Michelle and met her in the lobby at opening night. She was upbeat and friendly, but expressed doubts about the play, saying she had argued with the playwright and that he had made some but not all of the changes she suggested. My impression was that Rosen and Bryce viewed his play from very different points of view, he from the point of view of a dramatist and she from the point of view of a person who had lived the story and wanted her ideas about it told.

After seeing the play she wrote this in an email: “The play was definitely interesting. Different parts had me anxious one minute and sad the next. How nice it is to see a creation that is not about exploiting the victims over and over. Death on the Supermarket Shelf portrays Johnson & Johnson with a much more sinister role than the ‘gold standard of crisis management’.”

Also prior to the opening I sent Bryce a series of questions:

1. What attracted you to this story?

It was a major national event. To compare it to 9/11 may seem an overstatement...but in a very real way it scared people just as much, if not more. The Twin Towers were a symbol of America's strength and for most Americans, personally remote. But the killing by Tylenol struck right at the heart of the average person's life - their local supermarket or drugstore or medicine cabinet. Death could lurk in the most innocent corner.

2. What do you hope audience members will get from it?

It's a morality play. At its core is a moral conundrum, although I'm not sure that the character who confronts it sees it as such. I want the audience to leave pondering the role of morality in public life.

3. Can you tell me in two or three sentences what researching it was like?

I didn't have the time to do first hand research. Scott Bartz's book, The Tylenol Mafia, was vital. And then I searched online for articles, photographs or other information about the various people involved. Late in the process, I had conversations with Scott and with Michelle Rosen, whose Mom was a victim of the Tylenol killer. Michelle offered invaluable input which was incorporated into the script.

I would like to ask what in your research surprised you, but only if you can answer that without giving away anything in the plot. (It is a play, after all, even if it is a true story,)

Let's use my phone call with Michelle yesterday.

Michelle had told me that the families of the six other victims had distanced themselves from the case. They didn't want to be involved in her quest to find those accountable who WERE accountable. They just wanted to be left alone. However, Michelle told me that word of the play had gotten out there...and for the first time other families were contacting her, asking about the script, if she intended to go and even one person who I believe told her that he was thinking of attending himself.