Leigha Horton :: Green room
• • • • •

Well, heck – if this isn’t a nice way to start 2008, I don’t know what is:

Metro Magazine – January 2008 issue
Happy Birthday to Blogs: A Timewaster Turns 10

by Chuck Terhark

“The Best Homegrown Blogs”
Theater – leighahorton.com/greenroom

(click on thumbnails for larger views)

Thanks, blog, ya done me good. You, too, Chuck. And Metro Magazine, too. And everybody who reads this thing. Let’s see where this crazy ride takes us in 2008, eh?

Well, heck – if this isn’t a nice way to end 2007, I don’t know what is:

St. Paul Pioneer Press
The trick was trying to see all the Twin Cities theater magic in 2007
by Dominic Papatola

#4 (out of 10) “Anton in Show Business,” staged by Starting Gate Productions

The script is a sharp-eyed and wickedly funny look at a fictitious regional theater’s production of “The Three Sisters,” and by extension and sly parallel, the weird and wacky backstage of American theater.

If you go only to big theaters in the area to see plays, then you probably wouldn’t recognize anyone in director Leah Cooper’s cast. But if there’s any justice in the world, both the director and the seven performers in this all-female cast should be remembered for future gigs for their solid ensemble work.

Annnnnd…

Lavender Magazine
Year in Review 2007
by John Townsend

Genderbending in Twin Cities theater had a field day in 2007. An all-male cast of Richard III by 10,000 Things and an all-female cast of Anton in Show Business at Starting Gate were exceptional.

Best Productions: #6 – Anton in Show Business, Starting Gate Productions

Best Supporting Actress: Mo Perry, Anton in Show Business, Starting Gate Productions

A thousand thanks to Dominic and John for the recognition; yet another “yay, team!” to my dear Anton in Show Business cast and crew; and a special congrats to the Mo-mobile – girl, you are unstoppable! Choo-choo!

We just received two more excellent reviews for Anton in Show Business – all the more reason to stymie this weekend’s overdose on the tryptophan and Family Time cocktail. Theater! Popcorn! Comedy! Alone-Time! Your friend Leigha! Seriously, does it get better than this?

City Pages

The Mounds stages both a sendup and celebration of life in the theater: No Business Like Show
By Quinton Skinner

Anton Chekhov’s 1901 play Three Sisters addressed, roughly speaking, the problems of Russian gentry facing changing times at the turn of the previous century. One could argue that Jane Martin’s Anton in Show Business, first performed in 2001, deals with another institution in flux—the American theater, looking for identity amid the economic and social realities that could cause it to change or perish.

Well, I’m not going to pursue that argument. Because aside from an opening monologue about the status of the contemporary stage, this is more a show about theater people than a grand statement about the system they inhabit. With great precision Martin dissects, sends up, and finally exalts show people and the drive for transcendence that allows them to endure all manner of irrationalities and indignities.

The action in this all-female-cast production opens with an audition for a production of Chekhov’s play, where the brainy, acerbic Casey (Zoe Benston) meets fresh acting meat just arrived from Texas in the form of Lisabette (Bethany Ford). The audition goes terribly, thanks to a pompous Brit director (Muriel Bonertz); he and Casey trade barbs that set the tone for a piece that is unapologetically insidery to the end.

Casey, we’re told, is a veteran of 200 off-Broadway acting gigs (and as many lovers plucked from the casts of the shows; see, she sleeps around, which is a diametric contrast to Chekhov’s dowdy Olga, whom she will later play, because Martin really likes internal subtexts). Casey seems headed for unemployment before she’s rescued by the glamorous Holly (Emma Gochberg). Holly is a famous TV actress in search of stage cred as a stepping-stone to a movie role; she insists on hiring Casey and Lisabette, because she’s tired of the audition process and wants to get on with things.

The trio decamps for San Antonio, where they begin rehearsals under the squishy leadership of company administrative director Kate (Mo Perry). It seems the company has entered into a partnership with an agitprop outfit called Black Rage. That means working for new director Andwyneth (Tamala Kendrick), who suggests all manner of deconstruction of old Anton’s play and is summarily canned by the all-powerful Holly.

Martin is widely thought to be a pseudonym for former longtime Actors Theatre of Louisville director Jon Jory, a conceit that would be increasingly tedious if Martin’s plays didn’t tend to be quite good. Here she tries to insulate her work from practitioners of the dark art of theater criticism by inserting Joby (Leigha Horton), who regularly rises up from the front row of the audience to point out, for instance, that a romantic story that arises is pretty superfluous, or that the play may be drifting into sentimentality. Martin seems to want to have her cake, eat it, and put the remainder of it in the fridge for tomorrow’s breakfast.

All of which could be cause for lamentation and gnashing of teeth, but Leah Cooper directs the proceedings with ample smarts and sophistication, and the cast delivers engaging work. Benston is world-weary, yet depicts Casey as finding solace in the acuity of her own powers of observation, while Ford rides a Texas drawl and galaxies-wide naiveté to emerge as probably the most sympathetic character. Gochberg could have produced a bit more black-widow venom as her jaded starlet, but at times her icy sweetness hints at something even darker.

Kendrick, Perry, and Bonertz each show the capacity to, as Bill Cosby once said, stop on a dime and give you five cents change. Their sharp, multi-character performances are another commentary on the theater by Martin, who alludes to shows just such as this that can’t afford to pay actors for every written role, or sometimes any role at all. By the end, we get a summoning of the connection and community that theater is all about, sort of, that almost cuts through all the cynicism. But by then we’ve seen enough sheer charm that such an invocation seems almost unnecessary. Anyhow, someone, somewhere, will always be putting on a show.

ANTON IN SHOW BUSINESS
Starting Gate Productions at the Mounds Theatre
through December 2
651.645.3503

 

Single White Fringe Geek (and Mom) //In My Humble Opinion

Anton In Show Business – Starting Gate Productions – 4-1/2 stars

-Matthew Everett

 

“Outside rehearsal, I’m a virgin. It’s just that I’m always in rehearsal.”

I have to be honest. I hate most shows about theater. Most of the time, it’s just all too self-involved and precious. Art about artists leaves me cold.

“I will f**k you with my art, and you will cry out.”

Imagine my surprise then, that I loved Anton In Show Business – a play about a hapless group of theater people desperately trying to mount to production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters.

“They come from the mist, they return to the mist.”

I probably shouldn’t be too surprised, considering the line-up of artists involved. Director Leah Cooper leads a great all-female ensemble of actors (and stage hands) through Jane Martin’s tale of theatrical mishaps. In fact, it was just that combination of people that first made me think, “With these folks involved, a play about putting on a play couldn’t be all bad.” Far from being all bad, it was nearly all good.

“Screw Thespis… Run for your lives.”

The script treads a fine line because it actively engages nearly every single stereotype about the theater and artists. Where it succeeds is when it allows us to engage the people on stage as human beings first, artists second. The play, and production, doesn’t take it for granted that we care. It allows us to get to know the characters, and then we care about what they care about. We root for them to get what they want. The fact that the thing they care about, and want, is theater, is in many ways oddly secondary. What these women want is what we all want – a sense of connection to other people, the assurance that what we are doing with our lives matters somehow, the knowledge that even when we fail, repeatedly, all is not lost. These are some of the things that matter most to Chekhov, in addition to ridiculing hypocrisy. When the script finds modern ways to convey those same longings and skewer the same falsehoods, the story and the characters really soar. The fact that it often does so the same way Chekhov did, with a generous sense of humor about human frailty, is doubly commendable. This makes it comedy that matters just as much, if not more, than drama.

“Pardon me, Jesus.”

The play starts with an overview of the state of theater and the performing arts in general, by our wisecracking stage manager narrator (Tamala Kendrick) – which, though well-performed, didn’t exactly set me at ease. It then segued into an audition sequence with all the unfortunate stock types – the southern-fried ingenue (Bethany Ford), the jaded off-off-off-Broadway regular (Zoe Benston) with recurring breast cancer, the impossibly statuesque and beautiful TV actress bankrolling a vanity project to get some artistic respect (Emma Gochberg), the hopelessly pretentious producer (Mo Perry), the obtuse and abusive director (Muriel Bonertz). It’s almost as if Jane Martin knows that as long as the script keeps both the familiar and the punchlines coming, it buys itself the time to flesh out the characters while our guard is down. It engages the audience in some storytelling shorthand to draw them in and then does its best to subvert all expectations.

And it worked. When the lights came up at intermission, I felt like no time at all had passed. I would happily have sat in the company of these performers for far longer in the first half, and it made me anxious to return to the rest of the story they had to share. That’s not something that happens all that often. Anton In Show Business is just the right combination of sharp script and even sharper performers. This is especially true of the three leads of this production, also the three sisters of the production within the production.

I’ve seen Bethany Ford (Lisabette, the Texas ingenue) in supporting roles in other productions but in this one she snuck up on me (much like her character) and completely won me over. The final moments of the play belong to her – a simple but moving story about how theater connects people, on and offstage alike, in a search for meaning and purpose. It sounds pretentious, but it was quite lovely. After seeing her breathe life into this goofy damaged young woman, I’m looking forward to whatever Ford chooses to do next.

Zoe Benston (Casey, the theater veteran) never ceases to amaze me with her ability to make any character, in any kind of production (good or bad), compelling to watch. It’s as much in the eyes as in the words. There is a full life, full of triumphs and disappointments and unreasonable hope for something better, lurking behind the eyes of this worn-out woman, Casey. Her tired smile, her reluctant sentimentality, her inability to escape the role of mentor and mother to others, all speak volumes. When, toward the end, a director seeks to dismiss their efforts to present Chekhov’s play, the wordless slow-burning anger building in Casey’s eyes had me making a mental note never to get on Benston’s bad side. Not sure how many of those stares a person could take and remain standing.

Holly the TV star could have been a thankless role in the wrong hands. Good thing they gave it to Emma Gochberg. Not only does she look every inch the part, but she never lets the high volume of jokes at Holly’s expense, and the expense of her chosen career trajectory, sail by unanswered. Yes, some people are shallow. But shallow people are people, too. This could have been the weak side of the central character triangle, but instead Gochberg’s unapologetic portrayal threatened to walk off with moment after moment in the production. Holly may burn through directors, jobs and men faster than most people, but just when you think you’ve got her figured out, or can dismiss her, she reminds you why you have to continue paying close attention. Neither the script, nor Gochberg’s work, are as simple as that.

Each in multiple roles, regularly crossing gender lines, Muriel Bonertz, Tamala Kendrick, and Mo Perry proved they can do pretty much anything you throw at them. Bonertz probably gets to have the most fun, playing three different but all powerful men – a British theater director with delusions of coherence, a Polish theater director with a maddening but ultimately effective way of demanding more from his actors, and Joe Bob, the head of the theater’s board of directors, channeling the bewilderment of modern theater audiences and finally putting it into words. Kendrick makes the most of turns as characters as different as the African American director brought in to score the theater some grant money for diversity, and the tobacco executive who funds the arts, and isn’t shy about calling people out for spitting on his money even as they continue to take it and use it. Perry is quite funny as the sly costume designer, and the theater-obsessed but ultimately lovelorn producer, but it is, strangely enough, as a male character that, like Bonertz, she most impresses. Perry’s turn as castmate Ben, the decent married guy who succumbs to Holly’s seductive charms and turns his life inside out for his co-star, is an odd experience for the audience. The way she carries herself and modulates her voice, it’s easy to forget she’s a woman. What might otherwise be billed as “hot girl-on-girl action” between Perry and Gochberg ends up seeming very much like a standard heterosexual affair. One of the many surprises that production keeps coming from beginning to end.

Even the character who should not work at all, works because of the actress into whose hands it has been entrusted. Joby is not just a critic who rises up out of the audience to repeatedly engage the actors onstage in a discussion of the play’s merit, Joby is the playwright’s internal censor. To its credit, the script plays with the idea of an audience plant in remarkably agile ways. But by voicing any and all objections to the content and presentation of the play, within the play itself, it seems like the author is trying to inoculate the text against any and all criticism from the outside. (Say it quickly about yourself before anyone else has a chance.) The main reason I object to this as a tactic is that it keeps the author from writing a better play. (“I can’t solve that problem, so I’ll just make fun of the fact I can’t solve the problem, and then skip to the next bit.”) It also keeps the audience at a constant distance from the characters. There are only so many times you can be jerked in and out of the story of the play before you just stop emotionally investing in it at all. This tactic isn’t what the play is ultimately about, otherwise Joby would have the last word, not Lisabette. All that said, Leigha Horton plays Joby full out from her perch in the front row. Not knowing the script, when Joby is threatened with being pulled up onstage and into the play itself, I found myself wishing, “Yes, please let Leigha Horton actually be part of the play we’re supposed to be watching.” Horton makes the role of gadfly work, but I was hoping they’d let her do more. Well, there’s always the next show.

So, a production which on the surface I should have disliked, I loved. A production that I expected to find tedious, engaged me instead and just flew by. Theater is a very confusing thing sometimes. But that’s also what Anton In Show Business is about. So go be confused and conflicted and highly entertained for yourself.

Very Highly Recommended.

Anton In Show Business from Starting Gate Productions runs for two more weekends, through December 2, 2007 at the Mounds Theater in St. Paul1029 Hudson Road). Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 2pm. Tickets are $18 regular, $16 for seniors, students and Fringe button holders, and $10 for high schoolers. More information on the theater, production, directions and tickets is available at www.startingate.org, www.moundstheatre.org, or by calling 651-645-3503

Three of us in the cast and the director of Anton in Show Business visited the Jazz88 studios this morning for an on-air interview. I swooped in about 120 seconds before we went on the air and then succeeded in using the word “schmoopy.” Man, I love live interviews.

The reviews are in – Anton in Show Business (my latest onstage escapade [performed from a seat in the audience]), opened last weekend and has received the official thumbs-up from the press. I was proud to be working with such an insightful, talented, fearless group of women during the rehearsal process, and am thrilled that the press sees what I see (especially the part about Mo Perry kicking arse as a man – she is seriously smokin’ hot as Ben Shipwright).

Pioneer Press – ‘Anton’ goes behind the scenery

BY DOMINIC P. PAPATOLA, Theater Critic
Article Last Updated: 11/12/2007 06:48:03 PM CST

 

I’ve been waiting for some local theater to stage “Anton in Show Business” since I saw the play’s premiere at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2000. That many years of waiting can often result in a letdown, but I’m delighted to report that Jane Martin’s loving lampoon of the backstage business of theater remains fresh and funny, and that Starting Gate Productions offers a crisp and lively staging that rewards theater insiders and tickles mainstream audiences, as well.

Under Martin’s sometimes-poisonous pen, a cast of seven women conjures a microcosm of the American regional theater movement, telling the tale of a hinterland company in Texas attempting to stage Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” The cast of the play-within-the-play is toplined by a jaded off-Broadway veteran, a breathless newbie and a talentless TV star slumming on the stage.

Along their hapless way, the actresses encounter overeducated artistic directors, skuzzy corporate underwriters, bombastic foreign artists, rich-rube board members and self-important critics.

It’s a wise, sharp-eyed and wickedly funny look at the business of theater, written by someone who’s been there (the pseudonymous Martin is widely believed to be Jon Jory, who ran the Actors Theatre of Louisville for three decades). Previous theater experience and a working knowledge of Chekhov are helpful – but by no means necessary – to enjoy the play, which is generously larded with laughs at the expense of the aesthetic folk it caricatures.

Director Leah Cooper (who, as the former executive director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival, has her own stories about the sausage factory of theater) keeps the play’s centrifugal force spinning with a number of smart little touches (including a visible, attitude-charged group of black-clad stagehands and pre-show soundtrack that includes Broadway showtunes from “You’re the Top” to “Springtime for Hitler”).

Her cast is composed mainly of actresses who have been toiling on the Twin Cities’ small- and very-small-theater circuit; this show could be a calling card for any one of them.

Zoe Benston is not quite deadpan and strikes the right blend of warmth and weariness as Casey, the actress who’s seen it all. Emma Gochberg is a take-no-prisoners, matter-of-fact tigress as Holly, the blonde, babelicious TV star who doesn’t allow her limitations to get in the way of her career. And Bethany Ford puts plenty of starry-eyed wonder into the naive Lisabette. The trio builds a great sense of chemistry and comic timing, providing a strong core both for themselves and for the orbits of the supporting characters.

Foremost among the latter is Mo Perry, who shows discipline and a ton of range playing the quietly libidinous artistic director, an aw-shucks country singer of a leading man and – in a turn that approaches grand theft acting – an en fuego but savvy costume designer.

Kudos, too, go to Tamala Kendrick, Muriel Bonertz and Leigha Horton. Martin writes everyone a spotlight moment or two; Cooper underscores them lightly and the cast members take their turns under the klieg with grace and skill and then slip seamlessly back into the ensemble.

If you love theater so much that it drives you crazy, “Anton in Show Business” will reinforce both your passions and your prejudices. If you just want to have a good, escapist night at the theater, it’s hard to go wrong with this solidly written and well-performed peek behind the curtain.

Theater critic Dominic P. Papatola can be reached at dpapatola@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2165.

What: “Anton in Show Business,” staged by Starting Gate Productions

When: Through Dec. 2

Where: Mounds Theatre, 1029 Hudson Road, St. Paul

Tickets: $18

Call: 651-645-3503

Capsule: A farce? Only if you’ve never worked in the theater.

Star Tribune – ‘Anton in Show Business’ is a deconstruction site
In Starting Gate’s production of the Jane Martin play, a sagging second act doesn’t negate the farce or the satire.

By William Randall Beard, Special to the Star Tribune

Last update: November 12, 2007 – 2:51 PM

In billing its sixth season as “Plays Written by Women Playwrights,” Starting Gate Productions is being a bit disingenuous. It is a poorly kept secret that the “Jane Martin” who wrote the troupe’s currently running “Anton in Show Business,” is really a man. But then, that’s the kind of theatrical sleight of hand that this play specializes in.

While she was executive director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival, director Leah Cooper saw her share of theater crazies. And she represents them well in this fast-paced production, depicting them with both love and a razor-sharp wit.

A theater in Texas is producing Anton Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters.” The cast includes Lisabette, a perky newcomer, as Irina, Casey, a hard-bitten veteran, as Olga, and Holly, a ditzy TV star, as Masha. Rehearsals got horribly awry in this far-fetched backstage farce.

But this show is as much satire as farce. Martin wants to have her cake and eat it too. And she does. She pokes fun at deconstruction and then she deconstructs. She uses an all-female cast and then parodies that decision. Through the interruptions of an audience member, she skewers the most precious and pretentious elements of contemporary theater.

At times, the play feels too much like an inside joke. But there’s enough that’s universal in the behavior of these silly, arrogant and deluded people to engage even the neophyte.

Unfortunately, the play cannot maintain its initial anarchic energy. By the middle of the second act, it bogs down with not enough plot to propel the comedy. And in the final scenes, Martin attempts to set up a tragic parallel to Chekhov that becomes overly sentimental and preachy.

While the cast cannot save the ending, they are excellent indeed. Emma Gochberg delights in the narcissistic myopia of Holly, who knows how to use her power. Bethany Ford makes Lisabette’s naiveté endearing, while still sharply mocking the character’s Texas background. And Zoe Benston gives Casey a dark cynicism, but also the most emotional depth.

Mo Perry pulls off a real tour de force, playing in turn a lesbian producer, a male country singer and a flamboyant gay costumer. Muriel Bonertz also dazzles as three men, an arrogant British director, an arrogant Slavic director and the arrogant president of the theater board.

It is said that the hardest thing to write is a second act. “Anton in Show Business” bears that out. But there is still enough that is funny, incisive and outrageous in the play and especially in this strong production to consider the evening a success.

William Randall Beard is a Minneapolis writer.

Talkin’ Broadway – Starting Gate Productions Anton in Show Business
-Ed Huyck

Prolific and enigmatic playwright Jane Martin has tackled many a personal, social and political issue during her (his? their?) long career, but there is an extra level of sharp venom in Anton in Show Business, a deconstruction of the modern American theater world. Starting Gate Productions delivers a strong reading of the play – one that not only finds the laughs on the surface of the play, but gets into the heart of the characters and what the theater means, to the actors and the audience.

The theater jokes come fast and furious, such as the stage manager’s early description of New York City, where she describes the Actor’s Equity Office as the place that “makes sure no more than 80 percent of its members are out of work at any one time.” The characters aren’t spared either. Set against a doomed production of The Three Sisters at Theater Express, a San-Antonio-based company, the play introduces three generic “types” for the leads: a fame-driven Hollywood actress looking to get into movies; a bitter New York City performer who has appeared in 200 shows without getting paid; and a naïve young Texan getting her first break in show business. They interact with a bevy of familiar types, from over-educated artistic director to handsome leading man to an insane group of directors. There’s also a theater critic in the audience who interrupts the proceedings from time to time, to the consternation of the actors on stage.

If it remained a show-biz parody, Anton in Show Business would be a fairly entertaining piece that eventually wears out its welcome. Yet the script has more depth, and the actors mine that for all it’s worth, crafting a number of characters that live well beyond their clichés.

The all-woman cast includes a number of standout performances, including Zoe Benston as the bitter New York actor Casey, Emma Gochberg as Hollywood refugee Holly, and Bethany Ford as Texan Lisabette. The three truly become “sisters” through the play, ending with a beautiful reading of the final scene from Chekhov’s play. In multiple roles, Muriel Bonertz, Tamala Kendrick and Mo Perry do good work, while Leigha Horton gives critic Joby lots of nervous energy, but also generates sympathy for her own position in the world.

Leah Cooper does a solid job directing, though the show does have a few rough edges (awkward scene changes, a few dropped lines) that should have been smoothed over before the show opened. Still, Anton in Show Business is a fine production that gets to the heart of the why of theater in a way other insider plays have not been able to do.

Anton in Show Business runs through December 2 at the Mounds Theatre, 1029 Hudson Road, St. Paul. For tickets and more information, call 651-645-3503 or visit www.startinggate.org.

Photo: John Autey

I got a call from my friend Craig last week that went something like this:

C: You’re in an ad for The Guthrie?! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!

Me: What are you talking about? – I’m not in an ad for the Guthrie.

C: Yes you are – it’s plainly you. You’re telling me you didn’t know about this?

Me: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!

C: You haven’t seen this week’s Vita.MN?

Me: No, I haven’t.

C: Open it up–first page–an ad for The Guthrie Learning Center. You’re blurry and you’re looking at some guy holding a beer.

Me: What? Do you have a copy there? Can you send me a picture?

C: Yeah, here:

(click on images for larger views)

So yeah, I’m in an ad for the Guthrie.

I remember when it was taken, too – I attended a small brainstorming session for Minnesota Public Radio’s In the Loop several months back (that happened to be in a Guthrie lounge space) and remember a photographer there, but thought the photographer was an MPR staffer, not a Guthrie dude. The guy holding the beer is Jeff Horwich, host of In the Loop.

So the first question is this: even though the Guthrie’s Marketing & PR department has no idea who I am, and I’m not a model, and I was on the premises for a completely different reason, could I still theoretically put this on my acting resume as a print-credit for the prestigious Guthrie Theater?

Further questions are these: Do you think the Guthrie would actually want to know that it’s Jeff and me in the photo, just for their files? Is it weird that Jeff and I are both professional performers and that we didn’t get credited or compensated for this photo, or even get asked to sign a release? On a broader scale, is being on the premises of an organization automatic consent for that organization to use your image for advertising?

Frankly, I’m flattered. Intrigued by all of the big-brother-esque social issues this raises, but flattered nonetheless.

The official Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl opening night was last Friday – and I believe it was a success. I must admit that the notes we received the day prior left me feeling rather lost, so I went through the performance taking into account as much as I could, but also surrendering to my own personal instincts and just giving the audience what I felt was right. It paid off – the director and I spoke at the after-party; he hugged me and said it was my best performance yet. I hit the marks he had set forth for me, but I also found the comedy and played it. Phew.

Now if I can only keep it up – we had two more performances on Saturday, two more on Sunday, and now only 55 performances more to go! Aiyee!

Turns out our two dailies, the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, were also in the house that evening…the Pioneer Press’ article is overwhelmingly positive, and the Star Tribune’s article is underwhelmingly positive (the title makes it seem like a negative review, but on the whole it isn’t…plus he calls me out in the last sentence – woo-hoo!).

Here are the articles in their entirety:

Pioneer Press:

Posted on Sun, Jan. 21, 2007

A TIMELESS TALE, DELIVERED WITH TEXAS TWANG

BY DOMINIC P. PAPATOLA
Theater Critic

The story of the girl who’s “different” and struggles to find her way in the world is an old one. And in that respect, the Children’s Theatre Company’s world-premiere production is a wholly conventional one. But “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” delivers this timeless tale with a twang and a strut.

The title tells you most of what you need to know. Marsupial Girl — she’s never given a proper name — is born with a furry pouch that can capture and hold all the sounds in the world. Such a strange accoutrement makes her a freak in her small town. When naive individualism and a bow to conformity don’t work, she lashes out at her world, her friends and her family. It all comes out OK in the end, but not before some Texas-sized tussles.

Local audiences have seen playwright Lisa D’Amour spin these bent, fish-out-of-water yarns before. But they’ve probably never seen her do so with such blithe ease, such a warm and unencumbered heart, or such a disarmingly kooky sensibility.

The pleasing result of her pen this time is, I suspect, a combination of the fact that she’s writing for a young audience, that she had the estimable, mainstreaming dramaturgical services of the Children’s Theatre staff and that, in musical collaborator Sxip Shirey, she chose an aesthetic partner equally as willing to engage in some highly idiosyncratic and imaginative play.

Shirey and D’Amour create a funky, twangy, swamp-rocky musical where beat-box melds with country music and where interjections like “Holy puppy on a peach tree!” come out of characters’ mouths sounding real and right. Director Whit MacLaughlin coaxes it all to the stage with cheerfully preposterous glee.

Anna Reichert brings a just-right, disingenuous appeal to the title role — she wears her emotions on her round, expressive face and sketches Marsupial Girl’s joys and travails with subtle honesty.

But it’s Luverne Seifert — playing a singing, hoo-hawing narrator named Dr. Pouch who lights the fuse on the story and keeps it sizzling. Windier and more unpredictable than a Texas twister, Seifert’s antic creation — delightedly working a sound-generating thingamajig here, leading the audience in a dippy call-and-response there — guides us through this weird world. He makes it all seem … well, if not exactly normal, then at least like a whirlwind worth riding.

Is the script drum-tight? Not really — one more rewrite probably would have gotten it to a long one-act instead of a two-act endeavor with an intermission. Are all of the characters scrupulously realized? No — in fact, once you get past Marsupial Girl and Dr. Pouch, D’Amour tends to fall back on conventional archetype.

There’s the loving, weary mother (warmly realized by Autumn Ness), the busybody ladies of the town (Leigha Horton and Marvette Knight, noses perpetually out of joint), the mean girls (led by Jessie Shelton as a rhymes-with-witch-in-training named Libby) and the avuncular old man who’s the voice of reason (the rock-solid Gerald Drake, of course).

But is “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” an ever-resonant old lesson wrapped in a bright, unique and toe-tapping package? You bet your ten-gallon hat it is.

Theater critic Dominic P. Papatola can be reached at dpapatola@pioneerpress.com or at 651-228-2165. IF YOU GO

What: “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl”

When: Through Feb. 25

Where: The Children’s Theatre Company (mainstage), 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis

Tickets: $34-$13

Call: 612-874-0400

Capsule: Familiar fable told with Texas spice

Star Tribune:

Last update: January 20, 2007 – 10:51 PM

Inventive ‘Marsupial’ lacks coherence

The narrative, though strange, is familiar, but the staging becomes jumbled.

By Rohan Preston, Star Tribune

Add to the Elephant Man, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Phantom of the Opera, a girl with a pouch. Director Whit MacLaughlin’s staging of “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” has some highly inventive touches, from set designer Donald Eastman’s Southwestern, carnival-touched milieu to Richard St. Clair’s costumes and poofy wigs. And the singing, dancing and swaying cast at the Children’s Theatre sells this imaginative play by Lisa D’Amour hard and well.

But because this stylistic mishmash does not cohere into something greater than its interesting parts, it’s hard to buy it.

D’Amour is a complex, engaging writer known for her experimental works. “Marsupial Girl,” which opened Friday in Minneapolis, is her foray into the world of children’s theater. Its plot, about differences large and small, resonates.

As the marsupial baby grows and her body pocket becomes furry, she uses it like both backpack and at-will voice box. She discovers early that she can catch and store sounds in her pouch, an ability that becomes important when her community recoils from her, closing down her world.

The ostracized Marsupial Girl eventually begins to behave like the scary freak and monster that they insist that she is, capturing the voices and silencing the critical, misunderstanding community.

As strange as “Marsupial Girl” may seem — and there’s more than a touch of the gothic in MacLaughlin’s staging — its outsider narrative is familiar. It is in the telling of “Marsupial Girl” where the jumbled elements make the production list. The staging, infused with Sxip Shirey’s twangy hip-hop compositions, seems to be of too many minds.

It uses Adam Matta’s clever beat-box percussion overlaid with guitar and mouth harp that suggests something hip and urban. It also deploys straight musical compositions that make you think of Broadway. Then there is the nod to spelling bees, with characters holding up letters.

That would be disconcerting enough without a mother (played with deep affection and knowing by Autumn Ness) who did not name her child. Perhaps she was so traumatized to have such a baby, she could not come up with a name. That lack of naming creates a dramaturgical distance from the main character, a feature that’s similar to one that we saw also in “Anon(nymous),” which premiered at the Children’s Theatre last year.

Thankfully, Anna Reichert, who plays Marsupial Girl, gives her the life that makes us care about her.

In fact, the cast invests this story with much energy and enthusiasm. The roster includes Luverne Seifert, whose Dr. Pouch is a gung-ho guardian angel-type figure who narrates; the ever-resourceful Gerald Drake as a doctor and community member; and Kelsie Jepsen as a schoolteacher.

Nadia Hulett, Jessie Shelton and Teresa Marie Doran are credible as Marsupial Girl’s youthful cohorts, while Leigha Horton makes an auspicious Children’s Theatre debut in a variety of roles.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390 • rpreston@startribune.com

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