Friday March 30, 2007 SGN.org |
 |
Volume 35 Issue 13 |
 |
|
Thursday, Dec 04, 2008
|
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
| |||||||||
|
Great acting saves Theater Schmeater's tempOdyssesy |
||
 |
||
| Great acting saves Theater Schmeater's tempOdyssesy | ||
|
by Jacob Clark -
SGN A&E Writer Theater Schmeater continues its landmark season with a well-written dark comedy tempOdyssesy, by Dan Dietz. The play details the life of Little Genny, a childhood chicken choker for her family's chicken farm in Georgia. "Through a black hole transported from Atlanta to Seattle," she arrives to adopt a second career as an office temp. The play opens on her assignment as receptionist for a wacky munitions company. Harassed by Last Day Girl and Nepotism Guy, she is befriended by perennial temp, Dead Body Boy. Having lived in Seattle for eight years, she has lost her southern drawl, but not the legacy of her violent childhood. "I was the black hole," she declares as she attempts to understand and transcend her chicken neck-breaking past. A shocking event closes the first act, and it is a credit to playwright Dietz that the event is both surprising and inevitable. The second act transports Little Genny back to her parents and her youth, before dealing with the consequences of the first act. Helen Harvester underplays the role of Little Genny in the first act, pausing before nearly every line, which gives the act a paralyzing slow pace. Harvester's second act is better timed, and she inhabits the character more fully, playing with the urgency demanded by the text. Harvester is surrounded by a brilliant supporting cast. Pamela Mijatov plays Last Day Girl with the same energy used by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, to great comic effect. As Little Genny's mother, Mama, she works well with a southern drawl and plays to perfection with the amazing Brandon Whitehead, as Daddy. Whitehead is a terrific character actor, and having just finished his successful run as D.H.Lawrence and others in Stone Soup's hit 5XTenn, he invests Daddy with a detailed, ignorant and ominous dark side and balances the performance by finding every comic note possible in the role. Adam El-Sharkawi is giving one of the best performances of the year to date as Dead Body Boy, a temp who manipulates his employer by refusing to accept permanent employment. He plays the role with veracity and considerable sensuality, and every scene builds upon the last scene for a thrilling and spontaneous through-line. The actor is blessed with a sexy, inclusive persona, which he exercises generously in the role. Ryan John Spickard exceeds the text, creating three totally distinct, yet emotionally and comically invested characters. Every time the actor appears on stage, the atmosphere brightens to include his natural comic spirit. Director Doug Staley gets kudos for eliciting the fine, relaxed characterizations, but has paced the play with a little too much relaxation. Neil Reicher's set, particularly the use of a scrim to reveal separate scenes and actions, works exceedingly well with a script that bounces scenes back and forth like a tennis match. Ultimately, the production is a success in the areas of writing and acting, and my problem with the pace is obviated by the overall effect of the evening. El-Sharkawi's award worthy acting and the superior acting of the entire cast in the breathtaking second act makes an enjoyable night of theatre. |
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
International Readers read the SGN in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish |
|
 post your own information on Seattle Gay Blog |
|
Alison A Benefit for |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2006