'Humble Boy' has lots to brag about
By Kathleen Allen
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 05.16.2008
'Humble Boy' has lots to brag about www.azstarnet.com ®
There's a full, blossoming, tranquil English garden on the stage of Beowulf Alley Theatre.
It's a most unlikely setting for all the lust, disgust, anger and bitterness that populates Charlotte Jones' idea-packed and funny "Humble Boy."
Beowulf opened the play, its season closer, on Saturday.
And what a play. Jones tackles the cosmos. Beekeeping. Dysfunctional families.
The play is loaded with metaphors. You can see them in the characters' names (Flora, Mercy, Rosie, etc.), the life of a bee (it stings, it dies) and the "jittery, frenzied world of quantum mechanics." It's a bit dizzying.
The story outline, however, is a simple one: Felix Humble has come home for his father's funeral. His father, who loved to study bees, died suddenly while working in the garden. Felix has been away studying the quantum theory of gravity — or at least trying to come up with a quantum theory of gravity.
Home, he has to deal with his mother, Flora, a must-be-in-control woman with a recent nose job and a lover she's had for many years.
Throw into this mix a neighbor, Mercy, who sees it as her duty to soothe over wrinkles in everyone's life; George Pye, the crass man with whom Flora is having an affair; and Rosie, George's sweet, level-headed daughter, with whom Felix once had an affair. Oh, and let's not forget the gardener, who keeps the bees buzzing even as Flora tries to stop them.
Beowulf's production, directed with a sure hand by Howard Allen (no relation to this writer), moved quickly and with clarity — it would be easy to get lost in the play and all the ideas, but Allen sees to it that that doesn't happen.
The design of the beautiful garden onstage is the result of many hands, including Allen, Paul Baker and Jacque Askren. It is central to the plot, and it served that role quite lavishly.
Heading up the cast is a remarkable Cynthia Jeffery as Flora. She held herself with such dignity and heart-breaking rigidity that it was easy to define the character. But Jeffrey's acting gave Flora so much more depth. Sure, you don't like her one bit, but she's funny, she's smart, and finally, we realize, she's human.
Elizabeth Leadon is reminiscent of a young Shelley Duvall — tall and thin and earnest (think of Duvall's character in Robert Altman's "Brewster McCloud"). But she also has acting chops: She brought an intelligence and laid-back intensity to her role of Rosie, Felix's one-time love.
While there were fine performances in this production, there were some that felt out-of-sorts, as though the actors were merely playing the characters, rather than living them.
Royce Sparks had a mammoth role in Felix, who stutters around his mother, wears ill-fitting clothing, is not comfortable in his body and gets so side-tracked by the minutiae of words and quantum theories that he can be hard to follow.
He spelled out Felix's sweetness nicely but missed the mark with owning the character. Consequently, he wasn't able to seduce the audience the way it should have been seduced.
"Humble Boy" is wonderfully funny, and it's got some fine, big ideas in it. Even with a mixed-bag of a production, it's a play that can capture the imagination. And that, quite often, can be enough.
Review
"Humble Boy"
• Presented by: Beowulf Alley Theatre.
• Playwright: Charlotte Jones.
• Director: Howard Allen.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays through June 1.
• Tickets: $19; discounts available with online purchases.
• Reservations: 882-0555 or www. beowulfalley.org.
● Contact reporter Kathleen Allen at kallen@azstarnet.com or 573-4128.
By Kathleen Allen
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 05.16.2008
'Humble Boy' has lots to brag about www.azstarnet.com ®
There's a full, blossoming, tranquil English garden on the stage of Beowulf Alley Theatre.
It's a most unlikely setting for all the lust, disgust, anger and bitterness that populates Charlotte Jones' idea-packed and funny "Humble Boy."
Beowulf opened the play, its season closer, on Saturday.
And what a play. Jones tackles the cosmos. Beekeeping. Dysfunctional families.
The play is loaded with metaphors. You can see them in the characters' names (Flora, Mercy, Rosie, etc.), the life of a bee (it stings, it dies) and the "jittery, frenzied world of quantum mechanics." It's a bit dizzying.
The story outline, however, is a simple one: Felix Humble has come home for his father's funeral. His father, who loved to study bees, died suddenly while working in the garden. Felix has been away studying the quantum theory of gravity — or at least trying to come up with a quantum theory of gravity.
Home, he has to deal with his mother, Flora, a must-be-in-control woman with a recent nose job and a lover she's had for many years.
Throw into this mix a neighbor, Mercy, who sees it as her duty to soothe over wrinkles in everyone's life; George Pye, the crass man with whom Flora is having an affair; and Rosie, George's sweet, level-headed daughter, with whom Felix once had an affair. Oh, and let's not forget the gardener, who keeps the bees buzzing even as Flora tries to stop them.
Beowulf's production, directed with a sure hand by Howard Allen (no relation to this writer), moved quickly and with clarity — it would be easy to get lost in the play and all the ideas, but Allen sees to it that that doesn't happen.
The design of the beautiful garden onstage is the result of many hands, including Allen, Paul Baker and Jacque Askren. It is central to the plot, and it served that role quite lavishly.
Heading up the cast is a remarkable Cynthia Jeffery as Flora. She held herself with such dignity and heart-breaking rigidity that it was easy to define the character. But Jeffrey's acting gave Flora so much more depth. Sure, you don't like her one bit, but she's funny, she's smart, and finally, we realize, she's human.
Elizabeth Leadon is reminiscent of a young Shelley Duvall — tall and thin and earnest (think of Duvall's character in Robert Altman's "Brewster McCloud"). But she also has acting chops: She brought an intelligence and laid-back intensity to her role of Rosie, Felix's one-time love.
While there were fine performances in this production, there were some that felt out-of-sorts, as though the actors were merely playing the characters, rather than living them.
Royce Sparks had a mammoth role in Felix, who stutters around his mother, wears ill-fitting clothing, is not comfortable in his body and gets so side-tracked by the minutiae of words and quantum theories that he can be hard to follow.
He spelled out Felix's sweetness nicely but missed the mark with owning the character. Consequently, he wasn't able to seduce the audience the way it should have been seduced.
"Humble Boy" is wonderfully funny, and it's got some fine, big ideas in it. Even with a mixed-bag of a production, it's a play that can capture the imagination. And that, quite often, can be enough.
Review
"Humble Boy"
• Presented by: Beowulf Alley Theatre.
• Playwright: Charlotte Jones.
• Director: Howard Allen.
• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Sundays through June 1.
• Tickets: $19; discounts available with online purchases.
• Reservations: 882-0555 or www. beowulfalley.org.
● Contact reporter Kathleen Allen at kallen@azstarnet.com or 573-4128.
