Theater
C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud face off in this Off-Broadway hit making its West Coast debut.
Posted by: Laura Dannen on Mar 21, 2012 at 11:30AM
Photo courtesy Erik Stuhaug/Taproot.
The doctor is in And he’s hogging the couch. Matt Shimkus (left) and Nolan Palmer star in Freud’s Last Session.
The original title of the Off-Broadway play, Tea with Lewis and Freud, seemed a little too saccharine for this living room debate over the existence of God. Rather, Freud’s Last Session has been called a crackling “war of words” between C. S. Lewis—then a young Christian professor whose star was on the rise—and devout atheist Sigmund Freud, holed up in his London home as his career, and life, drew to a close. Playwright Mark St. Germain imagines their lively fictional banter with air raid sirens as the soundtrack; World War II marches into England, adding a sense of urgency to their dialogue about life, love, sex, and, inevitably, death.
Freud’s Last Session has been a hit Off-Broadway since it opened in 2010, and it’s making its West Coast debut at Taproot Theatre this weekend. Local actors Nolan Palmer and Matt Shimkus stand in as Freud and Lewis. Bring your ego and superego.
Freud’s Last Session
Mar 21 & 22 (previews), Mar 23–Apr 21, Taproot Theatre, $15–$37
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An Ideal Husband now closes October 29.
Posted by: Laura Dannen on Oct 12, 2011 at 02:00PM
Photo courtesy Erik Stuhaug.
Sir Robert’s younger sister Mabel (Anne Kennedy Brady) and Lord Goring (Aaron Lamb) flirt like fiends in An Ideal Husband.
Looks like Taproot picked a good one. The Greenwood theater has extended its run of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband for an extra week, through October 29, and added a matinee performance on Tuesday, October 18, at 2pm.
Though it’s no Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde’s earlier comedy takes a pithy swipe at the Victorian elite—lords and ladies who love nothing more than to blackmail in the parlor room. At its center is Sir Robert Chiltern (Ryan Childers), a politician and loving husband who seems to have it all, until a party guest threatens to ruin him with a secret from his past. Wilde packed his own secrets that threatened to topple him from the social ladder—namely, his homosexuality—but this show debuted just prior to Earnest, when the playwright was still on the rise.
It seems the century-old farce can charm modern critics as well. The Seattle Times’ Misha Berson writes: “With stylish verve, and a sublime comic turn by Aaron Lamb as a contrarian slacker with reserves of sensitivity, Karen Lund’s staging unpacks a scintillating farce about men and women, marriage and politics, blackmail and ethics.”
Tickets are $20–$35 at taproottheatre.org.
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Theater Review
Is it considered cheating if a goddess bewitches you?
Posted by: Laura Dannen on Feb 14, 2011 at 04:30PM
Not to ruin the ending or anything, but Odysseus (Mark Chamberlin) makes it home to wife Penelope (Pam Nolte). Photo: courtesy Erik Stuhaug.
Odysseus wasn’t a perfect man. He made the difficult decision to leave behind his wife and infant son to battle Trojans—and probably enjoyed the glory of sneaking behind enemy lines in a wooden horse a little too much. Then there was the year he spent in bed with the goddess Circe after the war…and the seven years he was chained to seductress Calypso. Not to mention the seed he probably sowed while in captivity. But still! When a man endures 20 years of hardship, cyclops and sirens to get to his wife, that’s romance. And Taproot Theatre’s production of The Odyssey —a shortened version of Mary Zimmerman’s famously witty adaptation—relies on the strength of its Odysseus (veteran Seattle thespian Mark Chamberlin) to carry the play home.
Working with a sparse set, few props, and 13 actors in some 80+ roles, Taproot turns Homer’s epic adventure into a character drama with a love story at its core. Yes, the same disasters still befall Odysseus, but the Cyclops—Stephen Grenley gamely stomping around with a giant eyeball covering his head—seems inconsequential. The sirens? Just flighty women in strange pillbox hats issuing a modern, placating call: “You’re perfect the way you are.” They’re all just stepping stones toward Ithaca and Odysseus’s wife Penelope (Pam Nolte) and now-grown-son Telemachus (Randy Scholz). As the hero, the stately Chamberlin carries his head high, but also appears vulnerable. To borrow from Ms. Zimmerman, the range he shows as Odysseus runs from seeming “like a god” to “like a drowned cat.” His focus, and the audience’s focus, is singular.
Its in the final scene when Taproot hits its stride, as Odysseus schemes to rid his house of suitors. Cast members stop swapping parts—gone are the eye patches—and the story rapidly reaches its dramatic, bloody conclusion, the stage bathed in a siren-red light. In the end, the odyssey itself is forgotten, and what lingers is a kiss between husband and wife.
The Odyssey is at Taproot Theatre through March 5.
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