Around Des Moines

The Thoreau Center (35th Street and Kingman Boulevard) was a good choice for “Walk in Closet,” a display of artwork by Angela Warren and by Rebecca Gehm. The young artists’ bodies of work reflect experimentation in subject matter and in mediums. The layout of the center, formerly a house, allowed the different styles to be kept mostly separate, thereby focusing concentration on each piece during a reception held on May 2, 2008.

The title of the show is intriguing. It could mean a walk-in closet where special items are kept, easily accessible but not on public display. It could refer to the act of walking into or staying within a closet in terms of things a person wants to keep secret. It could also suggest a large space to hide all the detritus that allows a house, or section of a city, to be picture perfect.

In her artist statement, Warren said she wants to “show the time passing in layers, so that there is a sense of travel through every arrival and departure.” She achieves that goal superbly in her oils. “Opt for a Visit?” is a triptych, its scene a row of portable toilets in a muddy field. From the way lined up waiting their turn rest their hands on hips and lean in towards each other it is clear this is the end of a long day. Ghostly figures and a body seemingly trampled into the mud suggest all the people who have been there before. The mud holds the history of each footstep that helped transform the land. The texture of the oil adds a dimension that makes the scene seem more real than a smoother medium could.

Warren’s two-dimensional lithograph, “Overhang,” seems bland in comparison. Yet, there is feeling of suspense as a sole figure stands beneath an arch that could be a cave’s dome or a ledge on a cliff. Is the person safe, protected by the overhang, or in danger of being crushed by falling rocks?

Gehm’s artist statement reveals that she majored in drawing and many of her pieces seem to have been class assignments to showcase different styles of lines and shading. In her series on “The Woman and the Hand,” she uses charcol and gesso as a sculptor might use a rough red clay. The object is more the suggestion of a shape than a delicate recreation of a moment and proportions are not exact. In contrast, “Eye Tube,” in colored pencil and charcol, included many precise circles and proportionate lines. Nevertheless, the drawing still left interpretation to the viewer. The sketch reminded me of olives with pimentos placed as though they were grapes on a stalk, but also of the Martian eyes in War of the Worlds. There was a single figure, suggestive of a female, rising from a pool of water, which turned my thoughts to alien eyes watching humans rise from the oceans. Gehm describes the drawing as “a reaction to the realities of the Internet generation.”

M.R. Field writes reviews for AroundDesMoines.com.

The Des Moines Playhouse ends its 2007-2008 children’s season with the upbeat and fun Holes. Most of the story takes place at Camp Green Lake and campy is one of the descriptions for the play. Another theme is the adventure of discovering the story behind a local legend. For those people old enough to remember The Wonderful World of Disney, imagine one of those stories written with an extra touch of intentional humor.

The second show of Sunday, May 4, 2008, started out tentatively. The pace was fast, in keeping with the rest of the production, but without advanced knowledge of that context and without consistently strong performances by all the cast, the opening left the audience uncertain of the play. That quickly changed when Todd Buchacker, as Mr. Sir, strutted out on stage. A few of the adult audience members laughed loudly and the actors responded to the acknowledgment.

For shows at the Kate Goldman Children’s Theatre, adults and youth are given different program books. The children’s books are geared towards helping them learn about theatrical performances by connecting with the actors. The adults’ books include information on all parts of the production. In Kathy Pingel’s director’s notes in the adult book there is a slight spoiler but I recommend reading it before the play anyway. As I left the theatre I felt as though the story was not fully explained through the action and the words of the play. A day later, as I write this review, I realize the components were all there. Think of the way Ellery Queen solved mysteries, with knowledge of words and memory of what people said. Much of what is said in the play is ordinary, yet a few of those words hold special significance in understanding the final course of events. Adults also receive an insert on how Carol J. Taylor, the retired education director at the playhouse, was challenged to create yellow-spotted lizard puppets. Read that item before the play, too.

Louis Sachar’s story looks at how family curses can offer opportunities for redemption. Stanley Yelnats picks up a pair of sneakers that fall at his feet. He is whisked off to court and sentenced to Camp Green Lake. The warden at the camp requires the boys in her charge to dig a hole a day. When Stanley first arrives, he is a stranger to be taunted. Common work and interactions build comradery and loyalty.

Karen Schaeffer (Warden), Mark Maddy (Mr. Pendanski), and Paula Krull (Kate Barlow) are the adult actors who deserve mention for their performances. They looked as though they were having fun but they also made their characters believable.

High school sophomore Abi LeBlanc, as Stanley, proves that an actor does not have to be a male to play a boy. The other boys were played by Caleb Fisher (Zero), Matt Pierick (X-Ray), Aaron Primrose (Armpit), Davon Lee (Zig-Zag), and Grant Goss (Magnet). They all worked well as an ensemble.

Angela Lampe’s costume design also merits praise.

M.R. Field writes reviews for AroundDesMoines.com.

Sin sold out the Fourth Street Theatre when the Iowa Scriptwriters Alliance presented seven 15-minute plays from April 24-27, 2008. At the April 27th matinee performance about 75 people were in the audience. The room was crowded and talk around the place was that at least the Saturday night show also was well-attended.

The seven plays were selected by competition, as were the directors. Then the directors chose their casts. As with short stories, the best short plays make exquisite use of each word. Not all of the seven sins achieved that level of intensity. In addition, while the performances were to highlight the scriptwriters, some of the plays were memorable primarily due to the acting.

Most of the plays were very traditional in their casting and dialogue but contemporary in their humorous references. That also made most of them very forgettable.

The show started off with the fast-paced Nursemaid by Erich Goldstein. Slim Tim Shafton, the Fitness King, was on a gluttony strike to protest the mayor’s nursemaid-style governance, such as banning trans fats in restaurants. The characters were given multiple dimensions, complex reasons, and life histories merely through the power of dialogue.

Ethelyn Boddy’s The Ugly Identical Twin took on envy with a story that moved through time. It offered Lyra E. Halsten, as the protagonist and the antagonist, opportunities for a variety of emotions. However, the frequent pauses needed to indicate a different time and place disrupted the flow of the play. I’ve seen one-person shows that handle the transitions much better.

The use of sexual attraction in advertising and sexual harassment were common themes in Lust for Men by Lindsay Tornquist. The presence of Warren Westlund, who acted in three of the seven plays, saved this one with his over-the-top performance. There were several good jokes in the play but there was nothing that seemed original.

In Wealthy Mr. Dezille, Sean Gannon’s play on avarice, the power of the soliloquy was demonstrated. The premise of the play was that Mr. Dezille only cared about making money and that cost him his business empire and his sanity. James Meade gave a quality performance as Dezille but there were too many details in the play inconsistent with reality for any actor to save it. I could believe that Dezille was in a mental institution, I just could not accept why he was there or how the nurse behaved.

David D. DeBord’s choice of a local government’s community council to represent sloth in The Municipal Tree was a delight. This is the type of play that doesn’t strike an audience member right away but builds upon a theme to create a memorable impression. I also have to give credit to Patrick Gouran, the director, because this play also demanded good timing to convey the humor properly. While I enjoyed the play because of all the years I’ve spent dealing with non-profit and governmental organizations, the play did not have enough universal themes to make it a mass media hit.

Closing Time, in which the sexiest and most beautiful movie star walks into a bar to escape the media attention while on location, needed to be a longer play. William S.E. Coleman’s story progressed smoothly enough from the first encounter to the futon in the break room. However, this was the type of story that needed pauses to build up the tension and to make the characters more than one-dimensional.

Chuck Hughes’ The Passengers poked fun at wrath and at the scriptwriters’ sinful production. Essentially the playwright was saying anger can be countered with laughter.

M.R. Field reviews local arts for AroundDesMoines.com. 

The Pajama Game is a musical comedy based on the book, 7-1/2 Cents, by Dubuque native Richard Bissell. It was performed at the Des Moines Playhouse in 1967 and returns in its current production after winning the 2006 Tony Award for best Broadway revival. This is not a show with a complex plot or challenging characters. Instead, it is the type of show to attend if you want to hum some of the score while waiting in the bathroom during intermission.

A few people sitting behind me at the Saturday, April 12, 2008, performance snickered several times during the first act. While I did not appreciate the distraction, I agreed with their reaction. There are numerous similarities between a 1950’s factory as presented in the musical and modern day work places. However, there are also many significant changes, not least being the power of unions. An updated version of the play would be more likely to hold the attention of audience members younger than 40. One song in particular, “Steam Heat,” offers a good example of changes time has brought. While I have lived in numerous places warmed with steam heat and know what it is like to have radiators, years of central air heating reduced my emotional reaction to the song.

The premise of The Pajama Game is simple. There is a new male superintendent at the Sleep Tite pajama factory in Cedar Rapids. He has an encounter with the female head of the union’s grievance committee. Sparks fly, conflict erupts, all turns out perfectly. Boy gets girl and gets the union a 7-1/2 cents raise that lets the workers live like royalty, or so they dream.

Alison Shafer’s choreography was the first thing that I admired about this production of the musical. It offered an energetic coordination of moving bodies and objects in “Racing With the Clock” and a playful pas de deux in “Her Is.” After I stopped trying to think of the show in terms of a story and started looking at it only as a series of musical entertainment, I began to enjoy the singing, too. Susan M. Grozier (Gladys), Craig Peterson (Sid Sorokin), and Jim Benda (Hines) had choice roles and all deserved them. Andrea Markowsi (Babe Williams) gave a decent performance but she seemed to be trying too hard to get the chorus correct in “There Once Was a Man (I Love You More).” Yet she got the shouting in “I’m Not At All in Love” just right. She also had the misfortune of a small microphone problem at the start of another song. Lenny Houts (Prez) deserves mention for his acting and for the puppy dog steps in “Her Is.”

The entire cast earned the plentiful applause. The scenic design and most of the costumes complemented the story well. The lighting could have been much better. The musical was directed by John W. Viars. Viars is executive director of the Playhouse and was a member of the 1967 cast of The Pajama Game.

M.R. Field reviews arts for AroundDesMonies.com. 

Sarah, Plain and Tall, now playing at the Des Moines Playhouse, comes close to being the theatrical equivalent of a chick flick. The children don’t need to know that, though. The play, based on the Newbery Award-winning book by Patricia MacLachlan and adapted to the stage by Joseph Robinette, has a female protagonist, a female narrator, and female characters driving the plot. This is a family story, however, and there are husbands for the women and a young boy among the cast.

It is one of the longer plays that I’ve seen in the Kate Goldman Children’s Theatre, coming in at 90 minutes, plus a 15-minute intermission. The play is a tender story about loss and the discovery that life can still be wonderful if the survivors find peace within themselves. This is a universal theme that has been written about millions of times. In this particular story, the children who suffered the primary loss are still young. Consequently, some of the older youth in the audience seemed to be more restless and less interested than the younger attendees. The Playhouse recommends a minimum age of 5 years and for this play I would suggest a maximum age of 12, unless your child really likes theatre. That does not mean mothers should not see the play themselves. In fact, they should drag the men in their lives along with them to make sure the guys learn it is okay to do the dishes.

The story, set approximately in 1912, is strong and Todd Buchacker has done a fine job directing. I found myself drawn into the play and surprised at how quickly the time passed. Megan Myhre and Brandon Lee performed well against each other as Sarah Wheaton and Jacob Witting. There was no doubt that change in their relationship must come when a look was all it took to challenge the power of existing authority. Maddie Ripperger also performed quite well in the important role of the young Anna Witting. There were several lines at the March 29th show that were twisted momentarily and the youngest cast member mumbled a bit at one point. Those were minor distractions. Amy Flavell and Lexi Frank, as Rose and Violet Nordstrom, managed facial expressions that were so similar I had to double check the credits to make sure they really aren’t sisters.

Kevin Shelby’s scenic design disappointed me; I’ve come to expect much better from him. The layout of the scenery was very well done. My objection was with the furniture in the fisherman’s house and with the backdrop. I think Shelby was trying to echo the title line of plain and tall but the story needed a richer Kansas landscape.

Sound effects were good but the music that opened the first and second acts was inappropriate. I kept looking for woodland folks to start dancing in a glade instead of picturing the wind sweeping down from the Rockies or rushing in from the Atlantic.

M.R. Field writes reviews for AroundDesMoines.com. 

(Des Moines, IA, March 9, 2008) From a dog that brought to mind the delicateness of a china doll to a pirate that could challenge a debutante in fussiness the Iowa Dance Theatre’s performance of Peter Pan captured the audience’s imagination from the start. Peter Pan’s flying entrance was greeted with delight in the first act and with suggestions of a melodrama’s hero prior to the fight in the second act. The bawdy moves of the Lady Buccaneers, the tenderness of Wendy’s post-victory dance with Peter, and the rough and tumble style of the various boys offered something for all ages.

The music was composed by Carmen DeLeone, music director for the Cincinnati ballet. Dances were choreographed by Jill Kragie and Albert Adams. ZFX, Inc. provided the flying effects.

Jessica Polson was a steady Peter Pan. Anne Salem was a good Wendy. Emily Lyons was an enjoyable Tinkerbell. Moriah Henning’s Nana was my favorite; I do not know of any dog that turns itself around as gracefully as Henning. Mark Gruber’s dandy Captain Hook will probably stay in my mind for some time, too. Lyons performed only in the Sunday matinee. Henning danced in both the Saturday and Sunday afternoon shows.

Enthusiasm was plentiful on stage but it was obviously an amateur production. That is a critique of the time dancers had to practice and, for many of the younger performers in particular, the lack of focus on dance. Movement was not always coordinated well with the music and there were several missteps. In addition, the size of the Hoyt Sherman Place stage created difficulties during the celebration that took place onboard the pirate ship. With a large portion of the cast on stage, there just was not enough room for the dancers to move properly.

There were also plenty of things that went well. Characters flew when they were supposed to be in the air. The sharp endings of certain dances were properly snappy. Hand gestures were dramatic, especially the way Tea Feather’s Crock symbolized the demise of Captain Hook.

DeLeone’s composition distracted from the dancing at certain points. There were several places where time seemed to be passing outside of Never Never Land as indicated by ticks and tocks. However, within individual dances the score often came across as including too many figurative bells and whistles. There were also disconcerting thoughts of the soaring vistas of the Swiss Alps, i.e., The Sound of Music’s overture, evoked during Wendy’s and Peter’s pas de deux.

Iowa Dance Theatre was formed in 1982. Its publicity describes the organization as a “blend of local dancers, teachers, choreographers, volunteers and art enthusiasts who combine their talents…” It put on three performances of Peter Pan using a total cast of 85 people. The youngest dancer was 8 years old.

M.R. Field writes reviews for AroundDesMoines.com. 

On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer while seeking to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house. She was 23 years old. She left behind journals, e-mails, and other communications written throughout her life, including while in the Middle East. The play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, takes its words directly from those writings.

The play has been performed on Broadway, in London, and in smaller productions throughout the United States. It was developed by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner and has won several awards. The Middle East Peace Education Committee of the American Friends Service Committee sponsored two performances in Des Moines on January 26, 2008. Julie Rada performed the one-woman show and Brian Freeland directed.

The issues that led Rachel to Jerusalem and then to Rafah cannot be separated from the play. Protests took place in Seattle and forced the play to close in New York. Sometimes discussion of those issues are invited, such as during the talk-backs held with the audiences in Des Moines. Rachel’s father, Craig; Rada; Freeland; and, Samar, a local woman who works to raise awareness of Palestinian rights, participated in the discussion after the first performance.

Freeland said he and Rada came to the play through the theatrical side, although they had been moving towards the political arena. He added they were interested in Rachel’s story because if “a play can be this incendiary and cause this much dialogue,” something must be going right in it. Rada said that she is “inspired towards more action” because she has gotten to know Rachel and the issues by doing the play. She also finds it rewarding to hear from people about how the play changed them. Freeland and Rada, both from Denver, Colorado, have formed Countdown to Zero with the goal of performing ten political plays. My Name is Rachel Corrie is the first one.

The play does a good job of capturing the spirit, fears, and hopes of Rachel, from childhood through college. It explains why she wanted to go to the Middle East as part of the International Solidarity Movement. It also gives context to the personal discoveries she made while there. It is a story of self awareness as much as it is a story of human dignity in a world of daily turmoil. The role of Rachel gives an actress the opportunity to be coy, stubborn, frightened, whimsical, angry, and much more.

The stage was covered with sand and a simple riser. Balancing between different choices and competing demands was often conveyed by a balance-beam type walk or by straddling a line drawn in the sand. Rada created a very convincing and poetic owl, aided by soft lighting, during one scene from Rachel’s college years. At other times, Rada stumbled over words and disrupted the intensity of the emotion being conveyed. She quickly recovered, though, and the audience was pulled right back into the play. The play itself is too long and could benefit from at least ten minutes being cut. There are some scenes that are entertaining, and offer some comedic relief, but which seem forced into the story.

Excess proceeds from the Des Moines performances will be donated to the Rachel Corrie Foundation. The foundation seeks to educate people on the Middle East conflict. On its web site there is an interesting observation that Rachel valued people and places.

Although Rachel grew up in Olympia, Washington, her mother’s family is from Denison and her father’s family from Des Moines. Her grandmother is a member of Grace United Methodist Church where the play was performed.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

The year is 1922. The Great War is over but the British Empire still stands. Women are expected to be pillars of their communities and dutiful supporters of their husbands, unless they are rich enough to profess indifference. Under the rainy skies of England, women and men follow their routines and accept their fates. Yet, as rain will soak the ground causing a seed to germinate, so can an idea grow in incessantly damp winter weather. The mere suggestion of wisteria and sunshine can send a visionary willing to take a chance rushing to arrange a trip to the south. Hurry away from feminine duties and household chores. Leave the husbands behind and discover the enchantment of ocean air flowing across an Italian villa in April.

Elisabeth A. Ballstadt cast her charm over the audience with the very first peek-a-boo wave and smile on opening night of Enchanted April at the Des Moines Playhouse. I describe it as a peek-and-boo wave because it appears then disappears quickly. It is the suggestion of timidity, an apology for a tiny interruption.

In the play, it is a small advertisement, a small detail omitted, and a small change in plans that make a difference. All would be for naught, however, were it not for the large, outgoing personality of Ballstadt’s character, Lotty Wilton.

This is a story about women. In addition to Ballstadt, the women in speaking roles include Megan Myhre (Rose Arnott), Megan Walz (Caroline Bramble), Debi Garner (Mrs. Graves), and Becky Scholtec (Costanza). Myhre is new to the Playhouse and to Des Moines but she has acted in commercials and in independent films. She pours emotion into her facial expressions as easily as the English drink tea. Similarly, Jeff Rohrick (Frederick Arnott) uses body language quite nicely to give credibility to the words and the story. Royce Dunbar as Antony Wilding is well focused. Michael Davenport (Mellersh Wilton) rounds out the main cast.

This is a play in which the characters evolve and the audience witnesses the transformations clearly. That clarity is due to the pen of Matthew Barber, who adapted Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel for the stage. Kathy Pingel’s direction keeps the play moving, sometimes too quickly. There was one scene in particular, when the conversations of the Wiltons and the Arnotts were interchanged, that I thought should have allowed more time for the emotions of the characters to settle into the audience.

It was interesting to listen to the audience as it was obvious some people knew what to expect and others did not. A few people laughed before the first hundred words had been spoken, causing a subtle disturbance to flow through the rest of the audience. Had they missed a cue? Bit by bit, more members of the audience joined in the laughter and by the end the group was acting as one. As the curtain rose after intermission, the audience enthusiastically gave approval to Jeff Stander’s scenic design of San Salvatore, the heavenly villa.

M.R. Field writes reviews for AroundDesMoines.com. She encourages organizations and performers to send news about their upcoming events to events@AroundDesMoines.com.  

Take a quick look at the paintings of the three artists whose work comprises the Land, Water, & City Scapes show at Hentschel Art Gallery and two similarities are quick to see. They all use oils and they all have been taught about Impressionism. Take your time to look at the paintings and you will see three different styles and themes.

None of these artists paint in the Impressionist style even though they all accept the hazy distortion of scene that the style creates. Those scenes range from a fisherman mending his net to the volcanic cliffs of O’ahu to forests in winter.

Joseph Lombardo emphasizes form and color. This is disconcerting as the shapes are natural but the colors are out of place. Up close, his “Oak Savannah” seems to be a depressing post-fire landscape. From a distance, the brownish-yellow ground shines as though full of light-generating life. His “Roark Bluff” resembles a Tiffany lamp. Lombardo’s use of broad brush strokes and thickly-applied paint help to create the impression of stained glass. The message he seems to be conveying is that nature is his cathedral. His smaller paintings, which in the show are spring or summer scenes, are more traditional in color and have correspondingly smaller brush strokes. However, the use of paint to create layers is still a favored technique.

Rodgers Naylor’s paintings also have layers but he achieves that look by placement of objects. His “Red Green” is an example of how he uses distinct visual levels. Overgrown grass leads to a truck, then to another truck, then to the tall structures of agriculture and industry, all capped by the sky. There is a theme of personal spiritual awakening in his work. In “Road Trip” the color of a long, flat stretch of highway is wrong. From a distance, though, it is clear that the colors of the road echo those of the sky. This is the effect of a long road trip, when the sky and the highway seem to merge and the mind wanders into new terrority. A touch of humor can be seen in Naylor’s “American Foursquare.” Not only is the farmhouse in the foursquare style, there are four farm buildings and four distinct horizontal layers. In contrast, the painting is a non-square rectangle.

Philip R. Jackson’s works stand out due to their small size, fineness of brush strokes, and use of linen and panels instead of canvas. His style is best described as pen and ink, only with color and oils. His paintings have that two-dimensional look where the use of lines and shading, rather than color or physical layering of paint, defines the scene. Some of the paintings seem only to replicate a setting. In other pieces, diversity of shades within limited colors create a focal intensity. The use of wide white borders in the framing seemed to add sterility to the scenes, as though they were slices of Earth placed an a microscope slide.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Vioces: Iowa. 

Prince Brat and the Whipping Boy entertains both youngsters and the adults who accompany them. The play is based on the Newbery Award-winning book by the same name and adapted for stage by the author, Sid Fleischman. It is in performances now through January 20th at the Des Moines Playhouse.

Fleischman not only entertains with his play, he also teaches about theatre. As the play begins, the cast fans out along the aisles and the stage front to shake hands with audience members and to thank them for coming. After the actors gather on stage, the balladeer (Brenton M. Brown) introduces them and the roles they play. Then it is on with the show. There is a fifteen minute intermission halfway through the hour-long play and that is almost the only time the action even slows down.

Prince Brat, aka Prince Horace, is played by Alex Spenceri, a fifth grader. This is his first role at the Playhouse but he has acted in other plays in Ankeny and in Altoona. The prince’s whipping boy, Jemmy, is portrayed by Kellen Schneider, a seventh grader. In addition to other acting roles at the Playhouse, Schneider has helped build set pieces as a volunteer. Spenceri and Schneider are on stage for the vast majority of the play. They deserve praise for that alone but their performances were also good. Spenceri was quite believable in the role of the spoiled royal who becomes a youngster trailing after a wiser albeit only slightly older sibling-equivalent, and then a self-confident boy heading into adulthood. Schneider does not have quite the equivalent believability as a long-suffering stand-in for the prince’s punishment but, given his age, that is understandable and the way it should be. His performance, as is the intent of the role, is more reminiscent of an older brother or friend.

In the audience, a young boy in the early years of elementary school hid his face when Petunia the Performing Bear (Joe Struss) was dancing at court or menacing the villains. After the play, though, he ended up facing the bear so he could get an autograph of all the performers. The broad smile he had on his face, a happiness that was widely reflected in other children’s smiles, told how much he enjoyed the show.

The top praise for this show has to go to Fleischman. It is a well-written play that serves as an excellent learning tool. Credit also has to be given to John Engerman who wrote the music that made the balladeer’s performance possible.

Some of the actors I enjoyed in other roles at the Playhouse are in Prince Brat and the Whipping Boy. There is no single performance that stands out as either exceptionally good or noticeably lacking in some quality. There is simply a pleasing consistency with a few ignorable hiccoughs.

In closing, I’ll give a quick nod to Director Ron Ziegler and to the ever-insightful Scenic Designer Kevin Shelby. There’s no room to thank everybody else individually.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.