Western Michigan University’s recent foray into the world of Shakespeare adopts a much more musical stance on the bard’s work. As You Like It was performed on the campus one hundred years ago, well before the university had a theater department, and was brought back as a centennial piece. The most impressive part of the production is the adaptation of Shakespeare’s notably lackluster musical numbers to a more modern stage.

What really sets this performance apart was the constant use of music, featuring Shakespeare’s original lyrics set to new musical scores by Sean Buckley. One of the greatest comical moments of the play came from its redeemers, the long list of bards and minstrels, who sing a medley of current and classic songs adapted to fit the scene. It was almost a Monty Python-esque moment as Jaques (Mitch Voss) commanded the Duke’s favorite musicians, who faithfully followed him in exile to the forest of Arden, to play.

The surprising use of music continued with Orlando (Chase LaPla), who did a great job of conveying emotion with and without the use of his voice. His initial love-struck silence upon meeting Rosalind (Jenna D’Angelo) filled the stage wonderfully and got as many laughs as anything else in the play. Even after he found his voice, he continued to surprise the crowd. He performed a love song, which he wrote with some inspiration from the Bard, and sung in the trademark iambic pentameter.

The comedic timing was wonderful as even the fence used on set was repeatedly the butt of jokes.  Rosalind and Celia (Therese Anderbergs) were playful and believable cousins and a joy to watch. Their pinky swearing throughout the play was over the top, and a pleasant touch. Rosalind’s masculine façade, Ganymede, was a powerful and controlling force, and her mocked baritone and awkward adaptations of man-nerisms, including upper arm punches and slightly confused bows, were nice additions.

The clown of the play, Touchstone (Louis Sallan) fit his role well, chasing his woman Audrey (Kenzie Ross) across the stage, and through the audience. Audrey spent every moment flirting with the closest man on hand, including or excluding her clown intended. Her coy seducer was the perfect foil to William’s (Joe Seibert) extreme and unrequited devotion. William constantly flung himself at the feet of his love, Phebe (Janai Travis), pleading with her and yelling out his love to the rafters. Phebe showed nothing but cold disinterest in the pathetic and smitten William, latching herself obsessively to Rosalind’s Ganymede, going so far as goosing and hair-inhaling.

The music and strong characters really make this production worth the trek over to Western’s campus. Personally, I thought nothing could save Shakespeare’s musical numbers, and was thrilled to see all the live music in the show.

As You Like It runs through Feb26 at 8pm in the Gilmore Theatre Complex’s Shaw Theatre. Admission for the general public is $20, $15 for seniors and WMU faculty/staff, and $5 for students.

Even before the first actor takes the stage for Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, the announcement to turn off your cell phones, or ‘new fangled devices’, is delivered in a carefully studied Irish brogue. In reading through the playbill I found that several actors’ biographies praise the patience of close friends for putting up with their accent practice for the last six weeks. The practice has definitely paid off, if only Irish accents could count towards foreign-language requirements.

Repetition is a large part of the comedy of the play, as seen in the oft-repeated line “Ireland mustn’t be such a bad place, so, [if such-and-such wants to come here].” The list ranges from dentists to Frenchmen, from Hollywood directors to sharks. The characters search out any justification for staying in Inishmann, and makes Billy’s desire to escape stand out in sharp contrast. In Cripple, Ireland has just come out of a disastrous civil war ten years earlier, the world is in the midst of recession, and the folks of Inishmann need every excuse they can find to love the land they were born in.

McDonagh uses the actual filming of the Man of Aran as the backdrop for much of the play’s action. Because of how important film is to the play, it was thrilling to see the work done by the stage crew and lighting design, as clips from the 1934 documentary played during scene transitions. A new scrim was even set up allowing a showing of the documentary within a church hall on Inishmann.

The story itself is centered around a crippled boy by the name of Billy Claven (Michael Chodos) and the community on Inishmaan. Relationships, however, are really the building blocks of the play. It is a real joy to watch the interactions between different pairs of actors, such as Billy’s aunts Kate Osbourne (Laura Fox) and Eileen Osbourne (Sierra Moore) who spend most of the play bickering and finishing each other’s sentences. At least until Kate starts talking to stones, preferring their company to the other citizens of Inishmann. The sister-brother pair of Helen McCormick (Rudi Goddard) and her younger brother Bartley (Alden Phillips) is phenomenal, and leads to the greatest on-stage egging I’ve ever seen. Poor candy-and-telescope-crazed Bartley always seems to gather just enough courage to set off his violent sister who spends her days abusing her employer, his wife, her brother, and really everyone else on the island. Phillips’ simpleton portrayal of Bartley lets him be the eternal straight man and the perfect foil to the rest of the devious and gossip-crazed town.

The town’s main source of news and extortion is Johnny ‘pateen’ (Sam Bertken), who controls the stage at every entrance. He delivers news with a flourish and buffalos everyone else to drop whatever it is they are doing and pay attention to him and him alone. He does have a soft spot in his heart for his old Mammy (Marissa Rossman), who he spends the duration of the play trying to kill with alcohol poisoning. Even in front of the Doctor (Jacob Arnett), who Johnny has called to see to his ‘sick’ (read: alcoholic) Mammy as a pretense for weaseling out some good gossip, Johnny is pouring his Mammy shots of whiskey. Even at the showing of Man of Aran, Johnny has snuck in a bottle for his Mammy to nurse during the show, at least keeping her quiet and non-confrontational for part of the show.

There are only two characters left without a paired character to bicker with: the kind-hearted widower ‘Babby’ Bobby Bennett (Calder Burgam) and poor Cripple Billy. Bobby shows his community spirit by chucking rocks at Johnny’s head as well as providing a source of transportation to Inishmoore for the filming. Burgam brings a melancholy depth to the character, a strong sense of confidence, and a great excuse to peg cows with bricks. Billy is a much more complicated character, keeping silent in a town full of chatter. Chodos’ leg-dragging portrayal of Billy inspires great sympathy, and his ability to not drop character or character flaw made my hand cramp up just watching. Being the outcast and butt of the town’s jokes has made Billy restless and anxious to get off the island, something that comes across in the desperate look Chodos lends to the character.

Ultimately, Kalamazoo College must not be such a bad place, so, if they want to put on theater like this.

The Cripple of Inishmaan runs this week at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse begining Thursday at 7:30 P.M (“Pay what you want”), continuing Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM, and concluding with a 2:00 PM Sunday matinee.  Tickets can be purchased at the box office for $15, $10 Seniors, or $5 students.

A review of the Kalamazoo College Senior Performance Series

Suddenly Last Summer

Director Michelle Myers pays a wonderful homage to Tennessee Williams with her powerful production of his one-act Suddenly Last Summer. The play focuses on the human collateral damage left behind in the wake of an untimely death. Mrs. Venable (Megan Rosenberg), the mother of the departed, is attempting to have her niece Catharine Holly (Kelly Campbell) lobotomized for sullying her son’s reputation.  She invites not only Catharine, but a doctor from Lion’s View hospital, Dr. Cukrowicz (The Kosmo’s own Joseph Schafer), a surgeon who specializes in radical prefrontal disfigurement to consider the operation.

Doctor Cukrowicz has a sense of character that builds as the play progresses. Raw nerves and hints of condescension chip his helpful demeanor away. His omnipotent smile starts as good bedside manner but becomes subtly disquieting as he discusses his work with Mrs. Venable. Mrs. Venable fields the first of the play’s two long monologues, talking at length about her son and their relationship, her character stemming more from her relationship with the deceased than from herself. Catharine is eventually brought on stage by her chaperone, Sister Felicity (Marianne Stine). Catharine’s mental instability is shown not only through her angry outbursts and rebellious nature, but also in the way she holds herself and moves across the stage, eyes darting between things unseen to the audience.

The most powerful moments in Suddenly come from the doctor’s interview of Catharine. The interplay between the actors is spectacular and enthralling. Catharine takes full control of the play’s second long monologue, and is driven by subtly shifts in lighting and the gradually building cacophonic noise of jungle birds and hand-made percussion instruments. At times of extreme emotion she walks to the stage’s edge and teeters dangerously, swaying with the sound of her own voice as she talks about Sebastian’s brutal death and posthumous dismemberment.

Francisco Pradilla, by Juan R. Medina

The play does a wonderful job of contrasting two subjective views of reality. The short and sparse arguments between Mrs. Venable and Catharine contrast well against their longer speeches. Both women’s want to reject the other’s stories of Sebastian shows a deep-seated inability to reconcile personal truths with idealization.

Tragedy: A Tragedy

Tragedy takes a serious and absurdly humorous look at our media-centric culture. Helped along by a fantastic job by the stage crew and John Reeves’ love of hanging things from the ceiling, the play miraculously blends some great technical aspects with Will Eno’s precisely bizarre style. I was impressed enough when they Camera Crew of the play (Including Wales Christian, Robert Cooper and Nolan Racich) were able to turn on the televisions over the central circular desk. It was truly astonishing when they started broadcasting live video feeds of the physically separated actors.

Eno’s work, superbly directed by Emilia LaPenta, is absurd even in its start, as a news crew begins the coverage of a global disaster: night. The news anchor, Frank in the Studio (Vincent Kusiak) has the difficult job of calling upon the various reporters out to cover various aspects of this new tragedy. At first the play delivers a lighthearted combination of professional journalism and the absolute absurd. As the night carries on, the thin veneer of professionalism breaks down around the characters. John in the Field (Ben Richards) does an amazing job of bringing an enduring humanity slowly into his role as reporter, desperately clinging to whatever he can in the growing dark, which at a few points is The Witness (Martin Goffeney). The reports on the Governor from Michael, Legal Advisor (Stefano Cagnato) are stunningly delivered and a cunning motif.

In a beautiful directorial move the newscasters begin the play by looking into their respective cameras, yet as the night grows longer and their professionalism begins to slip, they start to face each other. Although the actors are physically separated on the stage and mentally separated by their various locales, their more human moments ignore those gaps as they reach out to find one another in the darkness. At one point Constance at the Home (Madlen Meyer) actually walks away from her eternal vigil on a family’s front lawn to go and comfort an increasingly distraught and sympathetic Frank in the Studio.

As the constant barrage of media finally dies away, each crewmember is able to find their own little piece of humanity, still terrified and alone in the dark. In the end when all the cameras are left unattended and each reporter has given up, The Witness takes up the mantel of storyteller and motivational speaker for the whole team. The Witnesses’ story transforms the play from an abstract commentary on human connection into a demonstration of its importance.

Overall both plays succeed in teasing out subjective truth from a maelstrom of information, be it through the rambling stories of two emotionally disconnected women or the constant barrage of empty media. Together, the two student-directed plays provide a great two hour escape and a powerful look at staged humanity.