Sherlock and Me

Misha Berson writing in The Seattle Times has a great article about the latest incarnations of the Immortal Sherlock Holmes, including my upcoming play Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol.

You can read it here:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/television/2013275881_sherlock31.html

I agree with Misha: the new BBC series Sherlock is one to watch. Unlike the not-so-bad-when-you-think-how-bad-it-could-be Robert Downey Jr. film last year, the writers of the show pull off something wonderful: a completely faithful and relevant Holmes. That they can do this while transposing the characters to contemporary London is even more wonderful. (Though I'll confess: as much as I love the way London looks now, I get the occasional nostalgic yearning for a few hansom cabs and a pea-soup fog that the new show can't supply.)

But that's not to say that I'm not in constant ecstatic surprise at just how good Terry Edward Moore is going to be in the Taproot show. I sat in on a rehearsal on Saturday and it was an intense pleasure to see how the cast, led by Moore, has already mined more ore out of the script than I consciously knew was there. Lucky me, to have such wonderful actors and such a great company as Taproot willing to take a chance on a world premiere--a dodgy proposition in this economic climate, even for a Christmas show!

Happy Halloween, all. I'm spending mine providing a bowl of candy to trick-or-treaters and rereading a couple of my favorite stories from Conan Doyle's original--often imitated, never bettered.

(by the way, for more information on the Taproot show, go here: http://taproottheatre.org/holmes/).

McDonagh's Gift of Gab...And Gore

“It’s incidents like this does put tourists off Ireland.”

That’s Donny (drolly played by the habitually wonderful Sean G. Griffin) speaking to his friend Davey in his rundown cottage in rustic Inishmore, Ireland in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, currently playing at ACT till November 14. The incidents he’s referring to involve a catalog of horrors that begin with the death of a cat, and don’t end until said rustic cottage is strewn with blood and corpses—a conclusion that won't surprise anyone familiar with the writing of Martin McDonagh.

McDonagh’s reputation as a playwright was made through a series of plays set in rural Ireland, which he depicts as having a cultural life similar to how most Americans think of the Ozarks: the sticks, the backwoods, hillbilly country. Whether or not there’s any relation between McDonagh’s rural Ireland and reality is a subject of some debate, but there’s no question that his gleeful mix of lyrical dialogue with graphic violence has made him a name to be reckoned with.

His meteoric career as a playwright seems to have stalled slightly as of late. His most recent play A Behanding in Spokane, playing now on Broadway, is apparently an adequate vehicle for Christopher Walken, but critics have found it a thin excuse for some predictable violence. Like Tarantino (to whom he’s often compared), McDonagh seems trapped by his early success as a shockmeister.

While I have usually found McDonagh a morally bankrupt artist, he’s talented enough to do what any good playwright should be able to do: get your interest in the story, and hold it right to the end. We often talk of Grand Guignol as if any hack can pull off on-stage blood and guts, but the dramatic sense of how far you can go with your mayhem is a subtle craft. In certain works (Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus naturally comes to mind), scenes of torture, rape, murder and worse are used to illuminate actual truths of the human condition.

But that’s not this play.

Lieutenant is revenge tragedy as farce, where the death of psychopathic freelance terrorist Padraic’s pet cat leads to a tornado of death and mutilation. Shots are fired, humans (and cats) are killed, and what starts as a slovenly home devolves into an abattoir. But really, the structure of the play is no more sophisticated than an extended joke.

In McDonagh’s defense, this was an early play that was only dusted off and produced after the success of the superior Beauty Queen of Lenane and A Skull in Connemara, among others. As to its somewhat hyped “political commentary,” that’s pretty slim, mostly reduced to some caricatured names of IRS splinter groups that recall the “People’s Judean Front” scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

For me the sole line in the play that carries some actual philosophical weight is when Mairead (Elise Hunt), sister of Davey and romantically inclined towards Padraic, says near the end of the play “I thought shooting fellas would be fun, but it’s not. It’s dull.”

Over drinks after the show with actor Jeffrey Frace (who plays Padraic), he mentioned to me that during a few months in Ireland back in 1989 the young people he spoke to on both sides of the religious divide echoed this thought: they were simply bored of the violence and wanted it to stop. I recall similar conversations with my Irish friends around the same time—the violence wasn’t just horrific, it was dull. The younger generation frankly had little interest or passion for its causes.

And this points to one pleasant aspect of this play: it’s already something of a museum piece. The most significant thing about The Lieutenant of Inishmore as a play is that we’re far enough away from the horrific violence of “the Troubles” that it’s possible to conceive laughing at it. And, perhaps, that there is indeed a way of dealing with terrorists: you don't declare an unending "War on Terror." You stop killing them, and you sit down and talk with them.

Audience Reactions to Arcana: A Favorites List

Arcana actor Brandon Ryan accosted me on Friday night after the performance. (He likes to accost people.) "You've been coming to this show too many times!", he said, before feigning a kidney punch and vanishing backstage. (He also likes to do this.)

It's probably true. I saw the show at least once a weekend during the run, and a couple of additional times too. I saw it both Friday and Saturday this week, trying to discreetly show up just before the curtain so I didn't look like one of those sad playwrights who shows up for ego stroking before his own show or to loudly clap and laugh during it. (Okay, I enjoyed a certain amount of ego stroking.)

While it was fascinating to watch the show develop, I got just as much of a kick out of watching the audience. One of the reasons I think people enjoyed this show so much was that the effect of eight individual pieces was particularly varied. They got a chance to laugh, to think some, and to hopefully feel something--and isn't that the definition of a Good Night Out?

Because the evening was such a smorgasbord, it led to some interesting reactions from the audience. Here's a short list of my favorites, either witnessed by me or related by others:

1) The man sitting in the front row during "The Picnic" with eyes fixed determinedly several inches above Katherine, who was sitting just a few feet away splendidly naked.

2) The man sitting in the front row during "The Picnic" who fell asleep several feet away from Katherine while she was sitting there naked. (To which I say--"Dude--maybe you found all 10 minutes of the play dull, but are you really that blase' about having a beautiful woman sitting naked eight feet away from you?") Weirdly enough, he was awake and laughing by the next piece.

3) The two women who sat next to me and started loudly sighing with dissatisfaction during the comedy of "Petting Sounds," and then gave exasperated shakes of their heads at the top of "Affairs with the Moon." They seemed personally affronted by the idea of the Moon talking, and left during intermission.

4) The man who told Anthony, one of the actors in the show, "Man, I loved that. It held my attention every minute. And that's amazing, because I have ADD."

5) The prim older couple who sat disapproving through the first twenty minutes of the show then exploded with guffaws when Brandon revealed just who that was on the tape he was listening to in "Petting Sounds," and were still giggling through till intermission.

6) The delighted smile of the pretty young woman who received a wave and a wink from the Moon.

7) The collective intake of breath the night that Katherine staggered back to sit in her chair in "Balance" and almost missed it, catching it at the last moment with a desperate grab of her fingers. (And then delivered the rest of the monologue the best I'd ever seen it done.)

8) The expectant attention every night as the lights started coming down on Anthony's Priest at the end of "Wild River," and the laughs that would explode when he contemplated the "hotness" quotient of his new boss and gave a small secretive smile.

Thanks to all--actors, artists, and audiences--for an amazing run.

One Last Chance for Some Arcana Love!

So this weekend we close Arcana. It's been quite the ride, and one that wouldn't have been possible without some wonderful artists collaborating with a greater degree of generosity than I think I've ever seen on a single project.

(FIVE Directors. FIVE people sitting in the dark, watching the work, finding props and costumes for each other, giving each other advice on everything from exits and entrances to sound cues. And even now we're all still talking to each other. How is this possible?)

The individual plays of Arcana have all been performed before at various venues; several of them, including "The Picnic," "Affairs with the Moon," and "Stardust" have been published as well. I feel sure that there will be further productions of these scripts. But I wonder if I'll ever see them all brought together like this again. That makes it a very bittersweet event, because while each work does stand on its own, it'd be a feat to recapture the particular resonance that they have when produced in this way.



Ah well. The last rose of summer, the treasured LP now scratched and unplayable. So many pleasures in life are fleeting, and that's of course the beauty of theatre--like a wonderful meal you can only eat it once. If you've been meaning to, but couldn't, but still could, come see this show.



And get your tickets NOW. Seattle Weekly just made us a weekly pick and we'll probably be selling out our final two performances. (They're on sale at Brown Paper Ticket here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/123293)

The Belles! The Belles!

Last night I headed off to see "Wedding Belles," the new play at Taproot. It's a simple--maybe too simple--tale of life in small-town Texas in 1942, where the four middle-aged members of a garden club adopt a young waif on her wedding day when they discover she's planning on getting married at the courthouse. In a frenzy of maternal goodwill they commandeer her life and plan everything from the cake to the ceremony, momentarily managing to ignore their own feuds and discontent.

I won't go into a review here, mostly because I swore off reviews many years ago. But I did enjoy myself--there's nothing like a committed veteran cast having a great time with a comedy to let you relax in your seat and forget about your troubles for a bit.

What really struck me though was a short conversation I had afterwards with Scott Nolte, Taproot's Artistic Director. Scott's an old friend, and to me a near-perfect template of what an AD should be. After every show, even the ones he doesn't direct, there he is at the front door, smiling, chatting and getting updates on everyone's life and opinions. "Now, is Susan still in high school?" I'll hear him say. "Marvelous! And how's your mother doing?" Scott seeks, and more often than not finds, a personal connection with every one of his individual subscribers.

I complimented Scott on his choice of the show, and he thanked me, then continued, "What really made this script work for me is that it's about how these four women are able to rise above their own somewhat petty concerns and help a stranger. That's been the focus of so many of the plays we've chosen this season, the gift that we can give of rising above ourselves and extending a hand. We're in tough times, economically and socially, and now's the time that we need to reaffirm our charity and our sense of community."

And here I thought I was watching a slight comedy about Texas hospitality....

It put me into a cheerfully reflective state of mind. And it again made me glad that this is the theater that will be premiering Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol on November 26!

(Photo by Erik Stuhaug: Karen Nelsen, Charissa Adams and Kim Morris in Wedding Belles.)

Back to Cool

One odd thing about having a "body of work" as a playwright is that you constantly have to make an assessment of which of your creations is calling to you. You're a parent of a dozen kids, and you're always listening to which of them is screaming the loudest--and which really mean it, instead of just making noise for attention.

As we count down to 2012 and the 50th Anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair, I've been hearing more from Eugene Wright, the protagonist of my 2003 play How to be Cool. Eugene is far too polite to scream or yell--he stands there smiling, waiting for me to notice him so that we can begin a conversation.

I met with Eugene's co-creator, actor Evan Whitfield, last night for happy hour and drinks at Il Bistro. (Which has, let me just say, one of the best Happy Hour menus in the city. Their calamari? Their goat cheese bruschetta? I purr.)

We're plotting a short film to introduce Eugene to the people at The Next Fifty, the group that's organizing the 50th Anniversary of the World's Fair. For those of you who haven't seen Cool, it's in an affectionate look at life back in 1962, a time when there was optimism about the future and the ability of our society to improve ourselves into it. Eugene acts as a guide to modern audiences to that time, when for a few months anyway Seattle was very possibly the coolest place in the entire world.

Although I've been feeling run down with all of the projects I've been involved in for the last couple of months, talking with Evan about Eugene was a joyous trip back to a delicious wellspring. I don't so much write dialogue for Eugene as listen closely, and out of the air it comes, always in Evan's tones of scarcely-contained enthusiasm.

We'll be shooting the film in the next month or so, and if I can overcome my technical illiteracy, we'll post it here. Maybe we could wait longer to do it--we've got over a year to pull this together, right? But neither of us wants to. Working with Evan on this show and this character is one of those few theatrical experiences that always gives me more energy coming out of it than I did going in.

Aww...I blush. Seattle Times review

Here's the review from The Times, written by Tom Keogh:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/thearts/2012919273_arcana17.html

"The result is a vibrant, sometimes bracingly satirical, often deeply moving production of grace and imagination. With Longenbaugh's narrative and tonal variety, the malleability of an exciting ensemble of actors and the unique approaches to eight short pieces by five directors, the two-hour program feels constantly fresh."

Wow. It's been a very good week for reviews. Modesty precludes me cutting these all out, laying them on my bed, and rolling around in them--but only just.

Now let's hope that audiences agree with the critics!