Hi-- here's another C-T review. You can find the original at http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200770510094
thanks.
--editor
Provocative play ‘Chesapeake’ wins with outrageous humor
by Tony Kiss, Tkiss@CITIZEN-TIMES.com
published May 11, 2007 12:15 am
ASHEVILE — North Carolina Stage Company finishes its fifth season with the biting political comedy “Chesapeake,” the story of a conservative Southern senator, a wild performance artist, and the lawmaker’s dog, which comes between them.
Except for the pooch, the show recalls the 1993 clash between controversial performance artist Karen Finley and the former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
But wild as Finley is, “Chesapeake” playwright Lee Blessing goes way beyond reality in this witty piece. It’s a one-man show, delivered with exceptional skill by Charlie McIver, directed by his wife Angie Flynn-McIver, both co-founders of N.C. Stage. The language and subject matter can be adult in nature, but it’s performed with outrageous humor — humor that clicked on opening night, with McIver rightly earning a standing ovation and a couple of curtain calls.
He plays the role of Kerr, an artful eccentric who has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for his “show,” which consists of having audience members come on stage, and remove pieces of his clothing, one at a time until he stands naked before them. None of this is actually performed at N.C. Stage, but is part of Kerr’s dialogue.
Kerr’s performance, and the grant, earns him the wrath of fictional U.S. Rep. Therm Pooley, whose condemnation of the piece basically gets him elected to the Senate. Kerr then vows revenge against Pooley, and turns his wrath against the man’s dog, a Chesapeake Bay retriever.
That’s as far as we’ll go with the story line, except to say that Kerr’s plot goes horribly out of control, and leads to a transformation of everyone involved.
With no one to share the dialogue, and little in the way of props or staging (except for a rear projection screen), McIver caries the load alone, reeling off this monologue, mostly in the role of Kerr, but sometimes as Pooley or the dog. It’s a masterful bit of acting, showing again that he is among the top players on the local scene.
14 May 2007
Chesapeake
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
This is the kind of show where reviewers like to bring paper and pencil, so they can remember the best lines to quote at the top of the article. It’s not a habit I have gotten into, alas. And by the time anyone reads this review (if anyone does), it will most likely be too late to see play and hear it for yourself, which is a pity: the lines are very good. The play is even better.
All I knew going in was that it was about art, politics, and dogs. But the story is so intricate and clever, and Charlie Flynn-McIver’s performance so engaging, that even the second time I saw it (yes, cheapskate that I am, I still liked it enough to pay for another ticket), I felt like the play was one step ahead of me, taking me on a terrific ride that kept getting better. In fact, I thought at first that the play was too engaging for its own good, that it would soon run out of steam and run its single trick into the ground. But each time I thought so, the story veered in a totally unexpected and increasingly exciting direction.
The play is so fantastically complex (without ever seeming so) that I don’t have a lot to say, actually. There is just too much; I don’t know where to start. The profound-yet-not-romantic love angle? The metaphysical fantasy angle? The political, the artistic, the comic thriller angle, the history lesson (the good kind) angle? The story of forgiveness? The story of second chances? They story of a guy onstage reading from The Song of Solomon while audience members undress him? I’d go on, but it would make the show sound muddy and disjointed, which it most certainly is not.
Seeing the play twice, once on opening night, and again near the end of the run, let me see certain things progress, which was neat. The show was smoother the second time, and the occasional tongue stoppard of opening night had, as I excepted, been mostly resolved. I did find one light cue very bothersome the first night—so much so that I wasn’t able to pay attention to the end of the play—but that too had been mostly worked out. I actually found myself still distracted by the light cue, but because it was interesting to watch: Since it was happening in the audience and not on stage, I could not focus on the light without losing the performer, so the effect was pretty much lost on me. But I gather most people are not so entranced by moving light as I am, so I imagine it worked better than I give it credit for, overall.
I did find myself wondering what the show would be like with less technical elements, actually. The projections, the sound design, the lights, we all good, don’t get me wrong, but I wondered how essential some of it was. Some of it worked brilliantly. I loved the light cue that opened Act II, illuminating a very disoriented Kerr (that’s our protagonist) in the headlights of a passing truck at night. The projection of bubbling water. The well-timed barks and whines of a dog off stage. For the most part, the design team was content to let the actor tell the story, and the other elements were added in interesting ways that enhanced, rather than detracted from, the performer. But it did find myself wondering just how much of the tech you could lose, and still have as interesting a show.
Going in, I had assumed that the play would be pretty decent, but wouldn’t really compare to the last one-person show I saw at NCStage, 2005’s The Syringa Tree, which I thought was terrific, and deserved much bigger houses than it got. Chesapeake, by contrast, has sold out fairly consistently, and I don’t think it is only because the show is running for only two weeks. Somehow, this time around, word got out, and whatever the reason, I’m delighted that it is getting the attention it deserves. And I bet I’m not the only one who came back a second time.
I agree with Willie. Charlie was fantastic and the play itself was very clever, yet at the same time able to deal with alot of issues. The light cue at the end was distracting and confusing at the end, especially since it was shining in my eyes. I missed the last line of the play because the person I came with didn't understand why the light was shining in her face and didn't see it on the other risers across from us. All in all however, a great show.
I liked the light at the end. Did it blind me and make it impossible for me to pay attention to the last bit of the play? Yes.
I think that was the point.
The most crucial theme in the play was about how art makes people uncomfortable. The challenge was how to make this theme real to an audience who was very comfortable with the traditional challenges of art, particularly as they relate to going to see a play. My theory is that the light at the end of the play's entire purpose was to make the audience uncomfortable. Which it certainly did, so we got to come away, not with the virtuous feeling of being cultured and supporting NCStage, but uncomfortable and dazed, wondering what just happened. It's what the Futurists would have wanted.
I'm just glad we didn't get superglued to our chairs
Post a Comment