Relationship skits are fresh, thoughtful in Beowulf show | www.tucsoncitizen.com ®

Relationship skits are fresh, thoughtful in Beowulf show www.tucsoncitizen.com ®:

"From out of nowhere, Beowulf Alley Theatre Company has come up with a huge hit. 'Fifth Planet and Other Plays' by David Auburn is sketch theater at its most charming. Funny as well as thoughtful, fresh as your favorite organic veggies." Grade: A

Published: 01.24.2008
Relationship skits are fresh, thoughtful in Beowulf show
CHUCK GRAHAM
Tucson Citizen


From out of nowhere, Beowulf Alley Theatre Company has come up with a huge hit. "Fifth Planet and Other Plays" by David Auburn is sketch theater at its most charming. Funny as well as thoughtful, fresh as your favorite organic veggies.

After having endured seasons of local theater where the newest play on the menu would be a Neil Simon comedy (and everybody had one), Auburn's poignant humor is irresistible.
We're not talking quick quips and snappy retorts, or silly pratfalls and rude noises. We're talking sweet and thoughtful sketches that leave you smiling, appreciating life a little more. Plan on time for a drink or cup of coffee afterward. You'll surely want to talk about this show.
Auburn was just getting started as a playwright when he wrote "Proof," the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play of 2001 that he subsequently rewrote into a successful film in 2005. Talk about a fast start.

Most of these sketches were written before "Proof" turned Auburn into an overnight success. This is writing filled with the joy of living rather than the ego of clever brain-flexing.
All the skits are about relationships, basically. Single people wondering if they will ever meet The One. Married couples wishing they could put the magic back into their marriage. Divorced people, of course. Other lonely people peering into the bare light of an open refrigerator.
Desperate as these characters sound, each of them displays the most amazing courage under fire. Nobody loses hope. Jokes become weapons, firebrands of light to hold back the darkness.
Irony is also an active ingredient. At the curtain call on opening night it was almost impossible not to rush the stage and give each actor a big hug.

Structurally, the longest pieces are the first one, "Fifth Planet," and the last one "We Had A Very Good Time." In between are five more of various lengths and elaboration.
A few props and a couple of costume touches set each scene and determine the situation. Summers directs with a light hand, eschewing any impulse to exaggerate the dialogue.
"Fifth Planet" is a sketch with 44 scenes. Many last just a few seconds. Like remembering a yearslong relationship, the highlights flash by in no time.

Stephen Cruz plays Mike, a guy fooling around with a small telescope after work. Johanna Hudson is Veronica, a professional astronomer who thinks Mike is just a dumb janitor at the observatory where both are employees. As they get to reluctantly know each other, the caste system of academic protocol keeps them apart.

Once both lose their jobs, they become more like equals. Sort of.
To keep all these stories fluffed up, Summers has assembled a cast of 14 remarkable players. This gives her the chance to keep introducing new faces. All of them, in roles big or small, maintain the quality of a balanced ensemble. The matching of so many talents brings additional joy to the evening.
The actors are: Danielle Shirar, Jeremy Womac, Victoria McGee, Steve McKee, Roger Owen, Chris Farishon, Samantha Cormier, Josh Galyen, Edgar Burton, Alan Crombie, Elise Lopez, Joel Charles, Hudson and Cruz. Cast as stand-ins are Jonathan Northover and Taylor Genovese.

Grade: A

Seven shorts by David Auburn combine into a festive three hours at Beowulf Alley

Tucson Weekly : Arts : Confronted With Issues

PUBLISHED ON JANUARY 24, 2008:
Confronted With Issues
Seven shorts by David Auburn combine into a festive three hours at Beowulf Alley
By JAMES REEL

As did John Patrick Shanley in 2005 (see the review of Doubt elsewhere in this issue), David Auburn won the double-whammy of a Tony and a Pulitzer in a single year--2001, for his mad-mathematician play Proof.

Before Auburn so impressed the establishment with that conventionally structured full-length work, he made his name with a clutch of cockeyed and engaging little one-act comedies which may be found in Beowulf Alley's new production, Fifth Planet and Other Plays.
In these seven short works, Auburn tends to reveal, bit by bit, not what happens next, but what, exactly, happened before. It's an important difference that allows for greater shading of character (we must rely on the characters to interpret and color their stories rather than just act them out) than would otherwise be possible in a piece lasting as little as five minutes.

A particularly suave example of this opens the evening and lends the production its title. Fifth Planet falls into 44 short scenes, the first of which are blackouts lasting just a few seconds and involving little or no dialogue. At first, it looks like it's going to be something quirky and quasi-inscrutable in the manner of David Ives, but eventually, Auburn falls into a more conventional, if compact, storytelling mode, with the two characters ultimately engaging in normal, full-fledged conversations. Mike, we come to understand, is a janitor at an observatory who sets up his own little telescope on a nearby hill, hoping to find something new in the heavens while his wife watches the same old movie on TV ad infinitum. He develops a passing acquaintance with an arrogant astronomer named Veronica.

The primary events take place offstage and are only grudgingly recounted to us through the two characters' conversations. Of course, it's what happens between Mike and Veronica that's of central importance, and the play, named after Jupiter--which Mike keeps his eye on--might better be titled Binary System, for two stars that orbit each other without colliding. Stephen Cruz, as Mike, makes a fine impression even without opening his mouth (he'll be replaced in some performances by Taylor Genovese). Johanna Hudson isn't quite as successful as Veronica; her performance is a bit too childlike, as if she were a little girl pretending to be a smug astronomer.

Miss You is a very compact telephone play about love and unfaithfulness; Samantha Cormier and Alan Crombie do a good job of delineating two characters each, switching in the time it takes a phone to ring. Damage Control is Auburn's most conventional item here, with a hapless consultant (Steve McKee) trying to prepare his political-executive boss (Roger Owen) for a speech regarding a scandal the politician has gotten himself into. This is the jokiest and most skitlike piece on display and gets the best audience response, even though--through no fault of the actors--the characters are the least nuanced of the evening.

Three Monologues is the most difficult playlet to parse; it's a slice of a woman's lonely life, narrated sensitively by Chris Farishon. Next, Auburn treats his characters a bit viciously in Are You Ready? Here, a man (the deft Jonathan Northover on opening night, Josh Galyen thereafter) tells us one awful thing about himself after another, never quite realizing how lousy his entire life is. There's a final twist of the knife involving two people who are strangers to him and each other (played by Victoria McGee and the amusingly bitchy Edgar Burton).

What Do You Believe About the Future? involves 10 actors, each given only a number, talking about ... well, look at the title. It's amusing, but doesn't really develop into anything. In contrast, We Had a Very Good Time is quite well fleshed out. It concerns a young married couple (the very appealing Danielle Shirar and Jeremy Womac) on their last day of vacation in an unnamed foreign country. She wants to follow the guidebook to the bitter end; he's had enough and would just like to chill out at a movie. They part company for the afternoon; she hooks up with a very odd tour guide (also played by Womac), and he has an awkward encounter on the street with a native woman (Shirar again). Despite the silly details, anyone who has done any independent foreign travel will recognize the truths in this piece, truths about how we fall into certain patterns of communication, and how our ongoing relationships can be altered by even brief encounters with strangers.

This all adds up to nearly three hours in the theater, including intermission, but the variety of Auburn's subjects, his deft dialogue, the engaging cast and the right-to-the-point direction of Nell Summers make the time pass quickly. It's a fine, funny way to be confronted with issues of trust, self-reliance, betrayal and the caprices of fate.

Fifth Planet and Other Playspresented by Beowulf Alley Theatre Company7:30 p.m., Thursdays-Saturdays; 1:30 p.m., Sundays; through Feb. 1011 S. Sixth Ave.$16-$19, with internet discounts882-0555; http://www.beowulfalley.org/

One-acts capture 'snippets of lives' | www.azstarnet.com ®

One-acts capture 'snippets of lives' www.azstarnet.com ®:
Published: 01.11.2008

One-acts capture 'snippets of lives'
By Jane See White

SPECIAL TO THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Actually, it was an accident that Nell Summers found her newest directing project — Beowulf Alley Theatre Company's presentation of "Fifth Planet and Other Plays," by David Auburn.

"It just fell into my hands," she says now.
Summers had gone to collect a donation for another theater company she works with — a box of costumes, jewelry and a bunch of plays. Looking through the materials, she picked up the Auburn plays.
"I don't usually have time to read the plays, but this was the first one I picked up — seven plays in one book," Summers says. After just a few pages, she was hooked.

"It is seven self-contained, one-act plays, none having anything to do with the others. Snippets of lives. They're all so different that anyone will be able to find something in it," she says.
Auburn won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for "Proof."

"Fifth Planet" tracks two observatory workers over the course of a year in a series of brief encounters — 44 short scenes.

"There's so much Auburn doesn't write down — it's a really tight story, that first play. It unfolds — it has so much to do with the actors' communicating what's going on in their minds to the audience," says Summers.

"When you read it, you can hear the actors saying these lines — but there is just one hidden intent behind each line, so it's challenging. We have had to search for each of those."
For the seven plays, Summers has assembled a "huge" cast of 15 actors.

In "Are You Ready?" three people drawn to the same restaurant are changed instantly. In "Damage Control" a politician and his aide address a crisis. "Miss You" involves four people, three relationships and telephone technology.

In "What Do You Believe?" 10 people sitting in chairs that reflect their personalities share their thoughts.
"One is obsessed with the idea that in the future all sorts of transportation are going to hover," says Summers. "Another believes that in 2020 people will kill themselves because they won't be able to get into a really good New Year's Eve party. They're very different."

"Three Monologues" is about a woman's solitude, and "We Had a Very Good Time" tracks a couple on a trip to a frightening foreign country.

"I like all the plays," Summers says. "You can't say who's your favorite, like a mother with kids. They're all interesting and unique in their own ways."

PREVIEW
"Fifth Planet and Other Plays"
• Presented by: Beowulf Alley Theatre Company.
• Playwright: David Auburn.
• Director: Nell Summers.
• Where: Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, 11 S. Sixth Ave.
• When: Previews at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and next Friday; opening is 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19.
• Tickets: Previews, $10; regular performances, $16-$19, with discounts available at www.beowulfalley.org online or 882-0555.
• Running time: About 2 hours, plus one intermission.
• Cast members: Stephen Cruz, Johanna Hudson, Jeremy Womac, Roger Owen, Danielle Shirar and Steve McKee.
● Jane See White is a Tucson-based freelance writer.
All content copyright © 1999-2008 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star

"Previews, $10; regular performances, $16-$19, with discounts available at www.beowulfalley.org online or 882-0555."

Our 2007 Mac Awards

Accent
Our 2007 Mac Awards
By Kathleen Allen
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 01.04.2008

Our 2007 Mac Awards www.azstarnet.com ®:

"Terry Erbe was the tender George in Beowulf Alley Theatre's production 'Of Mice and Men'; Stephen Elton was the simple-minded Lenny. Erbe was able to eloquently balance his character's anger at Lenny and his faithful love for him. Elton gave the mildly retarded Lenny an honest innocence."

Beowulf's "The Woman in Black" was a spooky ghost story enhanced by incredible sound effects and fine acting.