The Rake Magazine

Tag: Guthrie

  • A Gary of Our Own

    Local Gary Louris must likely get mobbed after shows in Spain, where he spends a good deal of time. I mean, the city of Bilbao gets a full Jayhawks show on September 6 – a Saturday headlining slot, closing out the Azkena Rock Festival.

    Here in the twin towns, Gary Louris walks among us largely unnoticed, grabbing groceries, watching baseball indoors – generally fulfilling the role of husband and father. Here, we get a Monday solo acoustic performance at a 700-seat theater. And even with the help of opener Haley Bonar, he may not fill the place.

    On his intermittently but recently updated blog, Louris sends out a special request: "Please tell your friends about my upcoming shows… we need to expand the audience with your help."

    I’m conflicted. As a devoted Lourisite, it’s tear-worthy that he should have to pimp his own local show after establishing a worldwide reputation. But selfishly, I’m giddy. I know from repeated exposure that Gary Louris never disappoints his disciples, or casual fans for that matter. In a solo setting, which does indeed promise unnamed guest stars, we the faithful can relish every melody and lyric in its purest form.

    Let those who aren’t in on the secret go about their Monday evenings, eagerly awaiting the fall TV season. But if you’re lucky enough to be privy, for god’s sake, get your tickets now. Don’t make the man blog down your door.

    Gary Louris, with special guest Haley Bonar; Monday, Aug. 25, 7:30pm; Guthrie Theater, McGuire Proscenium Stage *tickets still available*

  • Don't Go West! There's Gold Right Here with "Little House"

    photo courtesy Associated Press

    Feeling like a half-pint, seeing Guthrie’s Little House on the Prairie with my Pa, nostalgia was sure to abound. "Don’t be such a Nellie," he’d chastise me as a young girl whenever I took on the role of brazen tattle-teller. Tonight, though, a comparison to Nellie would be no disparagement. Sara Jean Ford is bursting from her petticoat’s seams with snotty delight at every turn. A master of the very-thinly-veiled backhanded compliment, Nellie wins the audience with her perky, self-serving ways.

    In a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants-kind of way, Little House is a female force. The musical’s creative crew is comprised entirely of women. And among the cast, the Ingalls ladies prove a close bunch, if often due to necessity of keeping warm on the bitter plain. That’s not to say Little House doesn’t offer up something for those men in the audience. Scenes showcasing pioneers’ hardships will resonate with any man balancing the lure of adventure with responsibilities of family and home life. Charles "Pa" Ingalls is a proud man seeking not fortune, but sustenance. Steve Blanchard, as Charles, raises his fist and curses the sky more than once. But he is the foundation upon which the family can rest it’s weary, frontier blues; with a pluck of his fiddle, the group is enlivened and ready to face yet another disaster. The true backbone of the family, what Pa says, goes.

    Laura, though, has itchy feet and can’t figure out just where they should take her. At one point she sums up her distaste for "urban" life, as opposed to the wide-open yonder, by lamenting, "Town feels like sore on the prairie." (Similar to sentiments expressed by many concerning the new Twins’ stadium?) Depicting this "sore" of a town, set designers used minimal, suggestive pieces, rather than full-blown, cumbersome ones. This evoked a simple feel that rang true to the Little House book series, and therefore the times themselves. The use of sound often made-up for what couldn’t be shown on stage: wind storms, snow storms, ravaging crop fires, and any number of climatic maladies.

    "She can do a cartwheel," Dad leans over and points out during one of Laura’s giddy, grateful-for-just-being-alive outbursts. The frequent reminders of my childhood deficit of coordination never cease. Kara Lindsay plays Laura as the sassy, but earnest, and always likeable character we grew to love in both the novels and television series. We get to watch Laura transform from a tomboyish young girl to a tomboyish young woman in the course of the two acts. Her dialogue and delivery are at times hokey, but all in keeping with the spirit of the lore. This is hardly an issue being that actual spoken lines are few, what with a total of thirty songs performed throughout the play. Several of these songs feature Lindsay soloing; a polished, mature voice of obvious experience.

    Melissa Gilbert, television’s Laura, plays Ma in the humble way we always remember her character. Gilbert’s mainstream stardom never once overshadows scenes in which she isn’t meant to be the star. However, when the script calls for her to step into the focus, it appears comfortably easy. Her singing voice doesn’t come through quite as easily as it does for some of the others, but is certainly pleasant. Gilbert seems truly appreciative of the audience, her cast mates, the whole thing. It must feel a true "coming full circle"; playing TV’s half-pint for nine years, then watching a new half-pint cartwheel across the stage while looking on as matriarch.

    The other Ingalls girls are represented by local Maeve Moynihan (Carrie) and Jenn Gambatese (Mary). With Carrie, we don’t see much, if any, of a character arc. We note the passage of time as she goes from pig-tailed and pigeon-toed to, not. Mary plays a more prominent role as Laura’s big sister who is unexpectedly struck blind by Scarlet fever. Mary is always so good, as we are reminded in Laura’s song, "Good," performed once in each act. We don’t dislike her for a second, though. Her goodness is different than Nellie’s in that it is sincere. She’d rather tell a white lie than get a sister in trouble needlessly. She worries it’s selfish to pray for good crops so the family will earn enough money to send her to college. To this, Laura smartly replies that there would be no harm in praying for good weather over at the neighbors’, as it’ll surely provide the Ingalls’ land with good weather, too. We see Laura’s keen interest in richly describing her surroundings flourish, at first to help her blind sister picture the landscape, and further as her love for reading and writing blooms.

    This literary inclination, though, is not inherent in Laura. She takes on a teaching job, which she apparently does quite poorly. A quick pep talk from Ma refocuses our stubborn Laura, and her pupils are now angelic geniuses. As a former teacher, I found this a bit silly, or maybe I was coveting her skill set. Nonetheless, some time lapsing is necessary. If we had to witness just how many times Clarence had to be alternately praised/ ignored/ coddled/ tough-loved — we’d lose interest in the reality of it all. Little House isn’t meant to depict the actual, historical reality of pioneering families, but succeeds at encapsulating it, making it accessible, relatable, even laughable. When they square-dance, it actually seems enjoyable, unlike when you did it in gym class. Little House makes you want to saddle up to the hearth with your kin, even in this summer heat.

  • Caviar on Credit

    Through August 3, A Guthrie Experience for Actors in Training is presenting Caviar on Credit at the Dowling Studio. For the past 12 years, the Guthrie has taken pride in offering continuing education programs to young actors from institutions throughout the country and hosting a stage upon which they exhibit all they’ve learned. In return, the theater hopes to entice the players back to the Twin Cities once they pursue a full-time career: Of the 145 actors who have taken part in the program, over 50 have signed on in some capacity with the Guthrie following their training.

    This season’s show, directed by Marcela Lorca (The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde), casts 14 players in the comedic mystery of swindler Walter Jackson Junior. A case of masked identity and repeat suckers, the actors take turns playing the protagonists, lending a Bourne Identity feel to it all. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the show, which was written by the cast itself, is the physicality: Each member has equal billing in dance numbers, most of which are cleverly choreographed, not campy, borrowing moves from eras long (and not so long) ago. With a heavy film noir influence, Caviar on Credit has fun playing with time period (jaunty fedoras, but also cell phones). Keep an eye on Laura Esposito who plays (among other characters) the spiritually-wandering Feta Karakas. A master of Cheri Oteri-like cuteness and facial contortion, Esposito doesn’t disappoint, even when focus is meant to be elsewhere on stage.

  • All Hopped Up on Russian Rye

    I could tell jokes about Tsarist Russians all day long, so I’ll just leave it to the folks at the Guthrie’s Wurtele Thrust Stage, where a new adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s 19th century comedy The Government Inspector runs through August 24. Local playwright Jeffrey Hatcher (The Falls and the screenplays for Stage Beauty and Casanova) lends his trademark humor to the madcap proceedings where, unfortunately, the parts do not add up to a whole.

    The heads of a small Russian village are horrified to learn that a government inspector is coming to make a thorough visit to the town. Even worse, he may be in disguise. Mayor Anton Antonovich (Peter Michael Goetz) knows his town isn’t an exemplary place – the hospital was built the same size as its model, the school principal is frightened of his teachers and geese are being raised in the courtroom jury box – so he proclaims that the government inspector must be found and dealt with. A case of mistaken identity leads them to Ivan Alexandreyevich Hlestakov (Broadway vet Hunter Foster), a down-on-his-luck-and-finances card player on his way to visit his father. He unexpectedly finds himself the object of everyone’s affections, getting bribes thrown at him from the men of the town and much, much more from the women.

    The sardonic examinations of greed and corruption are balanced with as many sex jokes and innuendos as you would imagine in a Russian play. No doubt taking many liberties with the source material, Hatcher and director Joe Dowling have crafted several moments of uproarious hilarity. It really is a pity that the comedy isn’t consistent; when the jokes fall, they fall hard and the play creeps to a crawling pace. The cast is a worthy ensemble, but they cannot help when audiences are thrown yet another joke about what Russian alcohol is made of or a talk about seduction shortly before the most repulsive woman walks in. As a result, the play is only truly captivating when certain performers are on stage. When they’re gone, you’re in for the long haul.

    In the central role, Foster gives an admirable performance. Another unfortunate mistake is making Foster’s character one of the least interesting in the play. Ivan is a typical, likable doofus in way over his head, but when Foster gets the chance to reach beyond that, he is truly hilarious. Whether it be showcasing his physical abilities when drunk or composing an impromptu poem/love song to his supposed sweetheart Marya (think "aria" or… "operaria"), he shows a wide array of comic talents that are suppressed more often than not. In having Ivan attempting to make himself seem like a gentleman, we get a character that is too typically bumbling, especially when the audience knows the performer is capable of so much more.

    As the mayor’s wife, veteran performer Sally Wingert easily walks away with the show. Decked out in a set of increasingly ridiculous dresses, Wingert completely inhabits the role of lusty, jaded and ignored woman and runs. She manages to take every line, no matter how cliché, and turn it into comedic gold; while butchering French for comic effect is hardly a new joke, Wingert’s crass and brash destruction of the language has audiences splitting their sides. Kris L. Nelson and Lee Mark Nelson do a twisted, lispy riff on Tweedledee and Tweedledum to great effect. And in a brief but memorable role, Jim Lichtscheidl is hilarious as a laidback, honest and gossipy postman.

    The other members of the cast are more or less successful in their shtick: Raye Birk, Wayne A. Evenson and Stephen Yoakam are funnier in their neurotic town head roles; Maggie Chestovich less so as the mayor’s daughter, playing her as the stereotypical whiny teenager without any real innovation. But they play off each other well. Sparks fly in some cases; Foster’s secret trysts with Wingert and Chestovich are among the high points of the play, even if the circumstances surrounding their meetings are no more than afterthoughts.

    Set in what may be the brightest and most colorful version of Russia ever, Dowling directs the production with the intent to make everything fast and snappy. From the plywood cutout set by John Arnone, to the cartoonish costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, everyone involved seems determined to make audiences forget ever thinking that Russians are dark and depressing. With transitions offset by a raucous ensemble of villagers and a turntable on the stage (why not?), everything flows quickly. Until, of course, the jokes fall flat and the pace drops dead.

    The Government Inspector is far from tedious in the end. It is always entertaining and frequently laugh-inducing. Just not as consistently riotous as it should be. A likable cast with more than a few comic gems is enough to pull the production out of any rut and make even the lamest of jokes admirable. And in a show where making a good, lasting impression is the most important thing, the folks at the Guthrie have certainly accomplished their mission.

  • The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde

    The Guthrie Theatre presents Irish playwright Thomas Kilroy’s The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde, an exploration into the life of the wife of renowned writer Oscar Wilde, who had a highly controversial relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas during the marriage. Starring Sarah Agnew (of the acclaimed one-woman show The Syringa Tree) as the titular character, with Matthew Greer as Oscar Wilde, the play is a mix of fact, fiction, and speculation that brings to life the private world they shared. Puppets and live musicians will also be seen in the play’s transcendental world.

    The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde runs through July 11 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage. Marcela Lorca directs. Tickets are between $29 and $59, and can be purchased by calling (612) 377-2224 or by visiting www.guthrietheater.org.

  • Gem of the Ocean

    Although it was one of the last plays he wrote, Gem of the Ocean falls first chronologically in August Wilson’s 10 plays about the black experience in 20th century America. It’s not his best — Fences and The Piano Lesson both won Pulitzers — but Penumbra Theatre puts on a solid interpretation at the Guthrie.

    Wilson typically keeps the action contained in one location: the setting for Gem of the Ocean is the parlor of a 285-year-old "soul cleanser," Aunt Ester (Marvette Knight), in 1904 Pittsburgh. Aunt Ester imparts the wisdom of a woman who has experienced almost 250 years of slavery and survived the Civil War. At the play’s climax, Ester’s parlor is transformed — through blue lighting, stark shadows, and befitting sound — into a slave ship, the Gem of the Ocean. She leads a young man, Citizen Barlow (Cedric Mays), through a mystical experience to the City of Bones, where he confronts slavery, the man who died for his own crime, and, ultimately, freedom. The scene reflects the play’s theme as articulated by Ester: "What use do we make of our freedom?"

    Unfortunately, the journey to the City of Bones has nearly as much gimmick as it does depth. Mays is convincing as he is shackled supernaturally to the slave deck of the Gem of the Ocean and as he faces the consequences of his past crime. But the device of this magical voyage accomplishes little that could not have been achieved in "reality."

    Wilson is a master at using more realistic, and more convincing, devices as the central conflict of a narrative. In The Piano Lesson, it’s a piano, co-owned by a brother and sister, carved with the faces of two ancestors. The sister never wants to depart with the piano, and her brother, eager to buy land, wants to sell it — a conflict of preservation of history versus moving on. In the first scene of Fences, a character tries to conceal a watermelon, a device that Wilson uses to reverse the racist connotation of the watermelon-loving minstrel. The Gem of the Ocean does not approach this level of subtle but powerful symbolism.

    Director Lou Bellamy, founder and artistic director of Penumbra Theatre, is well positioned to bring Gem of the Ocean to the
    stage. He won an Obie Award in 2007 for directing Wilson’s Two Trains
    Running     in New York City, and he directed Penumbra’s production of The Piano Lesson earlier this year. His comprehensive understanding of Wilson’s work is apparent on the stage. The characters are eccentric without going over the top, and the conversations they have in Aunt Ester’s parlor are truly engaging.

    Black Mary (Austene Van), who lives with Aunt Ester, is a jilted woman who nevertheless remains compassionate. Eli (Abdul Salaam el Razzac), who also lives with Ester, is agitated with Citizen in the first scene, but he eventually employs him to build a wall. Eli remains calm and relaxed throughout the rest of the show, saying, "This is a peaceful home," when people stop by to visit. He has frequent, long conversations with Solly Two Kings (James Craven), a man who once helped with the Underground Railroad and now sells dog poop as fuel, about the black community’s difficult adaptation from slavery to free society.

    Black Mary’s brother, Caeser (T. Mychael Rambo), is an Uncle Tom character who one can’t help but be angry with (and even sympathize with him a bit) for his deplorable decisions as an enforcer of the law. The only remaining character, Rutherford Selig (Terry Hempleman), is a white salesperson who fills only a minor role in the plot.

    Knight plays a lively almost-300-year-old, but because Ester is such a
    mystical figure, and because Wilson reveals in King Hedley II that she
    lives to be 366 — hence she has almost a century of life remaining in Gem of the Ocean — her youthful portrayal of an elderly woman is not distracting.

    Citizen’s transformation from a nervous young man in the first act to a
    confident man who confronts his demons could have been more delicate, but this lies more in how the play is written than how the character was acted.

    The play, about personal redemption, justice and the law, and the meaning of freedom, is not a must-see, but it is a strong production.


    Performances will run through May 18 on the McGuire Proscenium Stage at the Guthrie. There will be post-play discussions following the May 3 & May 14 matinees.

  • A Midsummer Night's Wine

    So it seems the kids from Fame (who, by the way, are now eligible for AARP) have gotten together with Cyndi Lauper and a couple writers from the early days of Saturday Night Live to adapt Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Guthrie.

    That, and I suppose Joe Dowling had a hand in it, too.

    This is a wild, colorful, aggressively sexual production. And by that, I don’t mean sexy. "Sexy," to me, is nuanced and flirtatious, suggestive, tempting, a little bit hidden. Sexual is in your face. It’s full frontal, bumping and grinding. It’s Ground Zero. It’s Rich Goldsmith‘s headlines. It’s Namir Smallwood‘s Puck in a glittering coral codpiece.

    This is not to say I didn’t like the play. There were wonderful dance numbers, great (skimpy) costumes, and a fabulous sparkly egg in which Titania and Bottom the ass get it on. I enjoyed the Guthrie’s production for what it was: grand spectacle.

    But I did miss the air of sweetness and optimism that typically wafts through Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is a play I associate with whimsy and tentative romance and the suspension of disbelief. It is, in my experience (which involves seeing it perhaps five other times on stages including the former Guthrie’s and studying it in Stratford-upon-Avon) a story about the mischievous yet goodnatured spirit world that helps guide the loves and lives of mortals. It contains a play within a play — which was executed beautifully in the Guthrie’s current production as wry slapstick — and a layering of comical missed chances, magic, and a sense that everyone will be rightfully paired in the end.

    Contrast that with Dowling’s modern vision: An alien landscape in which sci-fi fairies drop from the sky and prod underwear-clad couples to lurch from love to lust and back to love again.

    If you go for this sort of thing, I urge you to see it and stop by Cue on your way up for a glass of Flor de Pingus 2005. This Spanish red from the Ribera del Duero region is fruity and floral on the nose. But it tastes completely different than it smells: earthy, plummy, and HOT. I mean, this wine scorches on the way down your throat; it’s dry on the tongue, and the finish is pure whisky.

    Flor de Pingus is like a well-built Spanish guy in tight leather. . . .You know, someone old enough to know what he’s doing but young enough to do it well. At 14.8% alcohol and a little more than $100 a bottle, it costs about the same as two tickets to the show.

    But this wine is really sexy, not just sexual. It has shades and nuances, and an impish, spiritual gleam. Which is, if you ask me, well worth the price of admission.

  • Cue's Second Act

    Remember Cue at the Guthrie?

    The press release from the Guthrie Theater touting a January
    three-course prix fixe menu for $29.95 took me by surprise. This isn’t just a
    prix-theater early bird special – it’s available any time, and includes a free
    self-guided iPod tour of the theater and complimentary glass of wine or cup of coffee after dinner.

    Back when Cue opened in the summer of 2006, a table at the
    new Guthrie Theater’s sleek dining room was the hottest ticket in town. Cue had
    snagged a local celebrity chef, Lenny Russo, and all the buzz that came with
    the opening of a major new landmark, designed by superstar architect Jean
    Nouvel.

    Russo’s opening menu, assembled with the help of a network
    of Midwestern producers made the concept of Midwestern haute cuisine seem like
    more than an oxymoron: Rick Nelson’s review in the Star Tribune praised the
    wild boar pate with pickled vegetables; sliced elk with wild rice and
    blueberries; and a salad of grilled quail with summer squash and poached
    tomatoes, among other dishes.

    Russo left about a year ago, to return to his own Midwestern
    haute cuisine restaurant, Heartland, and I hadn’t been back since. The buzz and the crowds
    have evidently died down – when we visited at 8:30 on a Saturday night, the
    dining room was about three-quarters empty. The theaters were empty last night,
    which may explain the sparse crowd, but Cue had ambitions to be a top
    destination restaurant.

    The new Cue menu is still very stylish, but not nearly as
    inventive or adventurous as it was in Russo’s day. The elk, quail and wild boar
    are gone, though the menu does offer a cassoulet made with pheasant confit. (I
    was puzzled enough by this description to ask the chef: duck confit is duck
    cooked in its own abundant fat. How do you confit a bird as lean as pheasant?
    Turns out, you cook the pheasant in duck fat. Which makes sense, but must make
    the pheasant taste like duck.) A lot of the usual suspects show up, including
    artic char, ahi tuna, mussels, filet of beef with wild mushroom sauce;
    free-range chicken breast with whipped potatoes.

    The prix fixe menu varies a bit from day to day, but the
    basic format seems to include a choice of soup or salad; a choice of fish,
    chicken or pork chop, and a choice of desserts from a list. In strictly
    economic terms, the $29.95 special is a good deal: the pork chop costs $29.00 a
    la carte, and if you add the cost of soup or salad (8-$9) and dessert ($8),
    plus the price of the audio tour (5), and the complimentary glass of Pinot Noir
    or Chardonnay (or coffee) that accompanies the audio tour, the savings are
    substantial. But this still isn’t bargain dining: with tax, tip, and
    three glasses of wine between the two of us, our tab still came to $115.

    We had a pleasant dining experience in striking
    surroundings, with friendly and attentive service and food that was
    well-prepared but not exactly exciting. My winter squash soup was a low-calorie
    puree with diced cubes of roasted potato and just a hint of sweetness (pear, as
    I recall), and my grilled pork chop was thick and juicy, nicely complemented by
    whipped sweet potatoes, roasted golden beets and a chutney of walnuts and
    raisins. Carol’s menu started with a rather bland fennel salad, followed by
    grilled coho salmon served over Israeli couscous and baby zucchini with a hint
    of a citrus sauce. I thought the salmon was a bit dry; Carol didn’t. Neither of
    us was very impressed by our desserts – a cranberry upside down cake with a
    citrus sorbet, and an almond, apple, and crystallized ginger cake with almond cream and cream cheese ice cream.

    Bottom line: an enjoyable evening, and the self-guided iPod audio tour, narrated by director Joe
    Dowling and several Guthrie actors, was a fun little bonus at the end. But I am
    glad I didn’t pay full a la carte prices. When it opened, Cue was vying for a spot on the short list of top
    Twin Cities destination restaurants. Now it seems more like a convenient but
    pricy place to dine before the show.