“Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” Review (Pacifica Spindrift Players)
Theater Review:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Pacifica Spindrift Players
Opening Night 1/6/12
One of the many rewards of going to small theater productions (Pacifica’s Spindrift theater seats 98) is chatting with the cast and crew in the lobby after the show. There Elisa Valentine (Maggie in the current run of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) told me that is one role every actress wants to play: she can be by turns shrewd, seductive, a sweetheart, a vamp, and of course, catty to the hilt. All in the first act, where Valentine’s Maggie owns the stage. She shares it with a sullen, almost absent husband (Collin Wenzell as Brick), a washed-up sportscaster with too much on his mind that he tries to drown with alcohol.
He doesn’t say much; just lies on the sofa seeming asleep, or gets up to pour himself another drink while Maggie in what amounts to an extended soliloquy alternately berates, cajoles, flatters, and attempts to seduce him. Nothing doing, for this scene. Brick’s not having any of it. “How long does this have to go on? . . Go on, take a lover. You know you want to.” Outside their bedroom window, others in the household of this decaying southern mansion are listening in. We in the audience are too. The secrets unfold themselves slowly.
Partly it’s the masterful script, but more the details of the production that create this world. The very clever set design by Henry Sellenthin gives us on one stage a bedroom, parlor, a hallway outside a door, a balcony, and a star-filled night sky (by lighting designer Carson Duper) just outside the French doors. There’s more air and frame than wall and scrim; bars on the railing, the transom, the brass bedstead all give the subtlest hint of how these lives are contained in cages. The characters don’t see them, but we do.
And oh, those characters! Williams gave them words to say, but fine acting by the entire cast breathes life into them. In the second act Wenzell’s lethargic Brick catches fire, slowly, as his overbearing, sonofabitch father (John Musgrave as Big Daddy) confronts him over his constant drunkenness. This son’s a disgrace, the other one’s a disappointment, and he has no trouble expressing himself about it. Brick takes it all in, another reason to fail.
Big Daddy’s slowly dying although he doesn’t know it. He’s heartbroken. He won’t let anyone see it, but we can hear it by the unconscious catch in his voice when he says Brick’s name. The second act builds slowly, gracefully under Gary Pugh-Newman’s patient direction. One by one the layers that father and son had both so carefully protected themselves with are peeled away and we see depths in each of them that they cannot see for themselves. The second act belongs to them. At odd moments each reveals to the other–if not to himself–aspects kept concealed their entire lives together. In a slow ballet they move toward each other, then pull away.
The play was written in 1955. Brick’s implied homosexuality–Big Daddy says his son’s too-close friendship with another young man was “not exactly normal”–and the importance of keeping it a secret, was a big deal then. But in this play, nothing is quite what it seems. Yes, Brick and Skipper were very, very close, but “It was pure and true, and that’s not normal.” A deep, deep friendship, gone to ruin over fear of what others might have said. Brick has crippled himself with alcohol over this, and will not hear his father’s kind words, or recognize his father’s love. But we do.
Supporting actors enter and depart, preparing the way for the fine ensemble work of the third act, when every one of them gets to take center stage for a time, and makes good use of it. Characters who previously had been more walk-ons burst into life, each with his own heartache, fear, intrigue, betrayal. Big Mama (Joan Pugh-Newman) finally learns the truth about her husband–he’s dying, this man who has held her in such contempt for forty years, and she won’t hear a word of any of it. By the final curtain, we’ve seen them all, and recognized ourselves in them.
This remarkable production by Pacifica Spindrift Players is replete with subtleties of lighting, set design, acting, and direction of this remarkable production that do not lend them selves to simple description. You really must go see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to see all of what I mean.
Through January 29. 2012
www.pacificaspindriftplayers.org
650-359-8002
The Wordwright’s Year in review: Highlights from 2011
• 1/7: “Candle, Rose” (one act play) accepted for Fringe of Marin Spring Program, Steve North to direct
• 1/26-2/1: Writer’s retreat, Lady Lake FL
• 2/17: Featured reader, Pacifica Poetry forum
• 3/8: “Antarctic Discovery” website started: http://antarctic-discovery.com
• 3/27: “Poetry Sunday”, Sausalito Presbyterian Church, with Julie Carlson
• 4/15: “Candle, Rose” world premiere at Fringe of Marin, Domincan University, San Rafael CA
• 6/12-6/19: San Mateo County Fair Literary Fine Arts Stage, co-chair steering committee
• 6/12: “Sailor on Ice: Tom Crean” introduced at San Mateo County Fair
• 6/18-23: Writer’s retreat, Lady Lake Fl
• 6/26: “Sailor on Ice: Tom Crean with Scott in the Antarctic 1911-1913″ a true story of Antarctic adventure and discovery, published, official launch @ Florey’s Books, Pacifica CA
• 8/10-22: Writer’s retreat, Hancock Point ME. Book tour Maine.
• 10/21-21: Writer’s retreat and Florida book tour, Lady Lake FL
• 11/4-11: Jury member. Fringe of Marin Fall 2011
• 11/19: “Sailor on Ice” book talk, Inkspell Books HMB
• 11/22: Completed first draft of “Frozen Heart: A Victorian Romance of Letters,” a winner in 2011’s NaNoWriMo competition. 50,605 words in 22 days.
• 12/15: “Sailor on Ice: Leaders and Followers” lecture, California Maritime Academy
• 12/28/11: “Chance Encounter” (one-act play) accepted for production Fringe of Marin, Spring 2012
Further adventures of the author on tour
Picture it: A lecture hall, sloping floor and all, probably eighty souls in the room, with your author at the front of it. Invited there (California Maritime Academy) by the course professor, Dr. Tim Lynch, to discourse on “Sailors on Ice.”
It is a big topic. Not just about Tom Crean, though he is the subject of my book. But the idea is much larger than one man and his adventures. It reaches into the more abstract realms of leadership and followership–how we are all interdependent in our entrprises, whether they be on ice or the sea or anywhere you can name in life itself: classroom, family, work, teamwork on the athletic field.
Can the leader–teacher, quarterback, captain of the ship, president of the nation, explorer–depend on those under is direction to fulfill their roles? And equally as important, can the follower trust his leader to make wise decisions, to stand firm when it is necessary and to flex when it is not?
It is in the talking out of Crean’s story that these ideas come to light. And, judging from some of the conversations had with the future ship-captains and mates after it was all done, there was some illumination done.
NaNoWriMo: Some results
NaNoWriMo’s total collective wordcount for 2011 is 3,073,176,540. I contributed 50,605 of those, or about .016%. About one six-thousandth of a percent, if I have my math right.
According to their website, right now (6:24 a.m. December 1, 2011) there are currently 27494 users online. Started in 1999 with 21 participants and six winners. Stats not in for this year, but in 2010 there were 200,500 participants and 37,500 winners
On the NaNoWriMo website, this page: “Life After NaNoWriMo” with these (and other threads):
–National Novel Finishing Month?
–So You’ve Written a Novel, Now What?
–Didn’t win, but definately glad I participated!
and
–When one WriMo just isn’t enough…
Fiction and Truth: Francis Crozier and Sophy Cracroft
One must be careful in writing historical fiction, to be clear about what exists in the historical record, and what is imagined. Careful to state in introduction or foreword the boundaries of history and the frontier of the human spirit about to be uncovered and explored.
Michael Smith’s admirable biography “Captain Francis Crozier: Last Man Standing” provides the reader practically all there is to know about this man, including his doomed affection for Sophy Cracroft, his friendships with other polar explorers. Snippets of his personal letters give us insights into the state of his thinking, his feelings.
It is these letters that provide the springboard for imagination. Fictional correspondence reveals what might have been, what might have most desired. How each of the characters in my book “Frozen Heart: A Victorian Romance of Letters” (working title for the 2011 NaNoWriMo Winner) MIGHT have felt about one another.
And since they were in 1845 not so different from us in 2011, their fears and passions run as wildly as do ours, in sometimes contradictory directions. To depths they might not have wanted us to know, that they presumed to be confidential in the letters I had them write.
Such letters, the ones in fair copy that we read over their shoulders before the ink is dry, never existed. And yet through them we see these souls–Crozier, Sophy, John Franklin, Lady Jane, Fitzjames–in a light that would never have shone on them, if not for the magic of fiction.
About NaNoWriMo: One way to begin
It’s probably too late to get involved in it now (two days left) unless you are a very fast writer and more organized than most of us.
Should you be so inclined (and I heartily endorse the idea for 2012) it helps to have (1) a fairly good idea what your novel is–where it begins and ends, who the main characters are, and what it is that happens to them during the course of the work. And a passion for discovering everything that might lie in between.
I knew who Francis and Sophy were, when they lived and how they related (or did not) to each other. All the rest is discovery, and fiction.
And what a treat it was, to read that book for the very first time, as I was writing it.
NaNoWriMo 2011
For those already not familiar with this obsession, the NaNoWriMo idea (see for yourself at http://nanowrimo.org/) is to write a novel in November. Yes, write 50,000 words including “The End” between 12:01 a.m. November 1 and midnight November 30. Given the severe time crunch created by these specious deadlines, not much attention can be paid to editing. And none to rewriting, unless you’re really fast getting the book out the gate.
Ideally, the result is one extended burst of creative energy resulting in: A Book! In my case, it is an enlargement of the Francis and Sophy Victorian Romance that inspired the one-act play of the same name. A story that spreads across two continents, with rivalries, intrigues, and affaires de coeur.
For me, a wonderfully enlightening process. It only took 22 days of obsession to reach it.
Fringe of Marin Fall 2011: Program Two
Here’s to the Fringe! Fourteen (at least) new one-act plays, twice a year, every year. It brings a lot of talent–writing, directing, acting–concentrated onto one small stage in a small house. If you love theatre and miss this great opportunity, it’s your loss.
Program Two this year, overall was a bit uneven, but harbored within its two-and-one-half hours the best single offering for the Fall 2011 Fringe.
It started off with a well-written, well-acted look into the living room of Maureen Coyne and Alan Badger as an ordinary couple, talking to each other about family conflicts in a way you will find totally familiar, as they wait for the arrival of a taxi for the airport in “Waiting to Go.” Steve North returns with another of his insightful, inciting monologues, this time with at tale of two dogs, a couple of people, the tragedy of everyday life, and an off-the-cuff, straight-from-the-heart tribute to all our veterans on the 11/11/11 day of this performance. Program manager, playwright, director, and actress Suzanne Birrell came up with a seriously funny “Saturday in the Park with Vic” involving an innocuous photographer and two loopy birdwatchers who overhear his half of a cell-phone conversation. Rick Roitinger and Claudia Rosa are two lonely people who take adjacent benches in a city park week after week, and never quite connect in “Love Birds,” sympathetically directed by Carol Eggers.
After intermission, we watch the slow dissolution, the song and dance of two unhappily married couples trying to find “The Perfect Step.” Rick Roitinger and Claudia Rosa return to the stage to the very compelling medical tragedy, the conflict between the miracle of modern medicine and the love of a mother for her child that knows no bounds in Kenneth J. Nugent’s”The Finger,” superbly directed by Tim Giugni. The evening ends on a lighter note, the pilgrimage of a seeker to the mountain home of a mystical guru whose wisdom is conveyed in goofy jokes that belie its true depth. “Everything is beautiful, because we’re doomed! If you’re living, you should be smiling.”
Fringe of Marin Fall 2011: Program One
When Fringe of Marin opened November 4 with a well-rounded Program One of seven one-act offerings from local and international playwrights, it was hard for me to believe it was opening night. Every performance shone with a high polish, to the point where, as a jury member, I could not settle on which was “best.” They all were.
The program opener “Who is Who” was a fast-paced whodunnit with rapid-fire repartee by the ensemble cast leading to a hilarious twist ending. “Louisville” paired the very talented actors Conrad Cady and Rick Roitinger in a hit-man-for-hire noir piece. “Why We Travel” brought back the magic of Michael Belitsos to energize a thought-provoking monologue with some incredible illusions. The fourth play brought back Rick Roitinger again as TV “Psychic” whose powers become greater than he can control.
“Stay with Me” lets us look in on the drama of a suicide hotline call, powerfully acted by Lonnie Haley and Tyler Costin, deftly directed by Tracy Ward. “It Don’t Have to Hurt,” a simply told monologue that explores the contexts of domestic abuse without melodrama. The evening’s closer, “Can One Make Love Wrapped Up in the French Flacg,” a witty sex farce written with a continental flair and a performed with flash of skin.
Something for everyone—belly laughs, drama, tragedy unfolding before your eyes, surprises at every turn, well-written, directed and performed. Go see the Fringe, you can’t go wrong. And this was only Program One! For schedule of performances remaining (the Fall 2011 Fringe ends November 19) call 415-673-3131 or visit www.fringeofmarin.com.
P.S. Rick Roitinger gets an honorable mention for “best trouper.” In a tense moment of “Louisville” he stabs a knife into the table prop. The knife was a real knife, and he cut his hand pretty badly. As became apparent to both of us a little later in the scene, when he placed his bloody hand on the table. He quickly hid the carnage, and kept it out of view for the balance of the play, and never missed a beat. Near the finale, when the characters were to shake hands, he seamlessly found a gesture of cameraderie that did not involve the use of that hand. When he took the stage as “The Psychic” it had been bandaged. No word was ever said about it, and only the sharp-eyed were aware of the mishap. And the props manager, who found the blood-drops. What a trouper!
Pacifica Poetry Festival: Coming November 20, 2011
The upcoming presentation of this wonderful annual event features poets:
• Anna Booth
• Tom Ekkens and the Green Tea Band
• David Hirzel (http://davidhirzel.wordpress.com/)
• Toni Mirosevich (http://tonimirosevich.com/index.php)
• Special Guests Clara Hsu and Bill Mercer (http://www.clarahsu.com/lunation.html)
Sunday November 20 at 1:00 p.m.
–Sharp Park Library @ 104 Hilton Way, Pacifica, CA (650) 355-5196
