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Richard Isaacs is Elyot, and Rachael Hubbard is Amanda in Reston Community Players' Private Lives/Traci J. Brooks Photography
A play to see before you die.
It's one of the classics that you've always wanted to see and see again, it's so funny, and now's your chance for Private Lives in Reston.
The "comedy of manners" demonstrates how small, petty things can quickly morph into big, paltry things. And what's it all about, anyway?
Let the Reston Community Players show you in their 200th production in their 50th anniversary year.
Much to celebrate! Including marriage(s) and more of them, darling.
The stunning Art Deco set* (by Maggie Modig, and Bea and Jerry Morse) for the second and third acts makes it hard to divorce your eyes and pay attention to the quick and fast dialogue of couples on honeymoon in France.
Yes, that's couples, plural, who just happen to share the same veranda at the same hotel, two newlyweds who were previously married to the ex right across the terrace! Can you imagine?
Let the fun begin!
Shades of Shakespeare and watch them weave in and out of their bedchambers until Amanda (Rachael Hubbard) catches on, and (deserving an award for her response) dips up and down in horror, her knees buckling, her mouth flipping open and shut with nary a sound, until she grasps the reality that her ex has landed beside her, married to another woman!
The nerve.
Director Adam Konowe (who triples as lighting designer and fight choreographer) carries off his subjects with aplomb. The acting is superb although delivery by Sybil (Caity Brown) is sometimes hard to understand, since she speaks quickly, dearie, with the affected British accent shared by all which comes over, really, quite unaffected. (Tel Monks is dialect coach.)
The lean-back, concave postures at 200 degrees maintained by Amanda and Elyot (Richard Isaacs) with
cigarettes in hand (where are those elongated cigarette holders, prop mistress?) lend themselves perfectly well to their characters as they lounge in Amanda's Parisian love flat where they have fled to escape their new spouses and where the party eventually lands.
Andy Gable is Victor, the fourth member of this quartet, lovingly holding the group together, and married to Amanda.
Lisa Young is Louise in Reston Community Players' Private Lives/Traci J. Brooks Photography
Lisa Young is the French maid, Louise, and although she only speaks her native tongue when she makes her brief appearances to tidy up and whirl around the apartment, it is not necessary to understand French since your imagined script produces the desired effects.
It is not unexpected that, at times, audience laughter will drown out the dialogue which happens here.
The biggest guffaw from the crowd erupted when Elyot tells Amanda that his affairs are okay because "I'm a man," to which Amanda retorts: "Excuse me a moment while I get a caraway biscuit and change my crinoline."
Elyot decries her "advanced views" that "it doesn't suit men for women to be promiscuous."
Mind you, Sir Noël Coward (1899-1973) wrote this play in 1929, one year after women over age 22 got the right to vote in the United Kingdom. He was ahead of his time by about 100 years since women worldwide are not accorded equal rights or pay even today, but, that's another story.
The play first opened in 1930 in London starring Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, and Laurence Olivier, and it played here in 1983 at the Kennedy Center with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton earning a horrid review in the Washington Post. (The link doesn't work. Just Google it.)
Other key Reston crew members include Suzy Alden, assistant director; Laura Baughman, producer; Mary Ann Hall, stage manager; Scott Birkhead, co-master carpenter; William Chrapcynski, sound designer; Judy Whelihan and Charlotte Marson, costume designers; Chris Dore, hair and makeup; Mary Jo Ford, props designer.
*According to program notes, the set details are from the Peace Hotel in Shanghai where Coward wrote the play.
Who: Reston Community Players
What: Private Lives by Sir Noël Coward
When: 8 p.m., May 12-13, 19-20, and 2 p.m., May 14
Where: Reston Community Center, 2310 Colts Neck Road, Reston, VA 20191
How much: $21, adults; $18, students and seniors
Tickets: Buy online, at the box office, or call 703-476-4500 and press 3 for 24-hour ticket orders.
Duration: 2.5 hours (which seem much shorter) and one intermission.
patricialesli@gmail.com
The cast of Rock of Ages by the Reston Community Players/photo by Traci J. Brooks
Run and get tickets to this fantastic show by the Reston Community Players on stage at the Reston Community Center.
It is so much fun, I loved, loved, loved it and would see Rock of Ages again. It's like a great book which you don't want to end. How many plays can you say that about?
From the get-go, Rock leaps from the runway and soars into the night
sky. If you like 80s music or even if you don't, or can't remember any
(I heard two 70-something gents say they were unfamiliar with the tunes,
but they liked what they saw), this is a show you won't forget. (Or
doze through.)
Were my dad still around (age 102 this month),
he would have wanted to see it every night. (Read on.) Except for
children and prudes, it's appropriate for all ages.
Ben Peter is woman killer and rock star Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages by the Reston Community Players/photo by Traci J. Brooks
Besides great music by Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Steve Perry, Poison and Europe and others, Rock is loaded with lots of simulated sex, raunchy moves (!), strippers' apparel and adult language.
A quintet of super-talented musicians assembled just for the show by Director Joshua Redford play from center stage throughout the performance, but their presence does not dominate, and their figures blend nicely in the background.
The standout in this band crowd is the electric guitarist, Noah Dail, who reminded me of Slash and was chosen by Mr. Redford on a tip, he told me at the after-party.
Alone, Mr. Dail (age 17) is a show unto himself, but ROA has a plot beyond the presentation of Mr. Dail's fantastic guitar-playing abilities.
It's "glam metal" 80s music set to a romance (natch, says the energetic and persuasive narrator, Brett Harwood as Lonny Barnett) between a gal (Claire O'Brien Jeffrey who is Sherrie) on a journey to acting stardom in Hollywood (ho hum), but a few detours crop up along the way, like a new boyfriend (Russell Silber is Drew Boley), a new "career," and a hot rock star sure to grab (ahem) any gal's attention. (Ben Peter is Stacee Jaxx whose role and performance I absolutely adored.)
The antagonists are Brent Stone and Richard Farella, who play the greedy developer and son, Hertz and Franz, seeking to disrupt real estate and the bar business. Both are realistic, and Franz almost brings down the house when he "changes." ("I'm not gay; I'm just German.")
The best vocalists IMO were Joey Olson who is Dennis Dupree, the angelic owner of the bar, and Bruni Herring, the madam of the house, whose stage name here is Justice. (Right.)
Carole Steele, the costume designer, expertly dresses the performers in 80s garb, and hair and makeup designers, Kat Brais and Molly Hicks Larson, deserve equal praise.
Director Redford's smarts show with his choice of professional pole dancers (Tara Leigh Willis and Erin Reese) whose dancing is hard to escape and sometimes detracts from the script with their twists, turns, and upside-down antics to make it look, oh, so easy. (Sure.)
The setting (by Dan Widerski) is mostly in a bar, and stale beer smells seem to waft through the hall, giving you a taste of how the production encapsulates the audience.
The scenery can be a little too cluttered with all the actors, musicians, and action, but its transitions to a bathroom (a riotous scene), dock, house of ill repute, and other places smoothly convey.
Rock has something for everyone: music, heteros, homos, an infusion of religion for those in need, and, of course, dancing (by Chris Dore who also acts and with Farella, is the projection designer).
Thank goodness, there were no audience sing-alongs on opening night.
One mistake we made was passing up the lighters the ushers offer before show time. Take them! You'll be glad you did. A nice touch.
But decline the ear plugs which are not needed since the music will not blast you off your Rocker (but the show just might).
No wonder it's tied with Man of La Mancha for being Broadway's 28th longest running show. (Rock played there from 2009 to 2015.)
The book is by Chris D’Arienzo.
Other cast and crew members are Erich DiCenzo, Kristin Renee Reeves, Evie Korovesis, Kendall Mostafavi, and Philip Smith-Cobbs, Jenny Girardi, and Melrose Pyne.
Matt Jeffrey is music director and also plays the keyboard, Jocelyn Steiner, is the producer,
Colleen Stock, stage manager; Sara Birkhead, technical director; Jan Claar, lighting; Seth Sacher, sound; Mary Jo Ford, properties; Jennifer Lambert, set decoration; and Cathy Rieder, set painting.
Other musicians are David Smigielski, guitarist; Christopher Willett, bass; and on drums, Matt Robotham.
Thank you to the Arts Council of Fairfax County for partial funding.
Enjoy!
Ages: Not recommended for those under age 15.
Who: Reston Community Players
What: Rock of Ages
When: 2 p.m., March 19 and 26, 2017, and 8 p.m., March 24-25, March 31 and April 1.
Where: Reston Community Center, 2310 Colts Neck Road, Reston, VA 20191
How much: $25, adults; $21, students and seniors
Tickets: Buy online, at the box office, or call 703-476-4500 and press 3 for 24-hour ticket orders.
Language: A few F-bombs and more dirty slang drop every now and then.
Attention: Strobe lights and haze are used.
Duration: A little over two hours with one 20 minute intermission.
patricialesli@gmail.com
Will MacLeod is Spike in Reston Community Players' Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike/photo by Traci J. Brooks
Some call it
a dark comedy. I would label it a grey comedy, not as bleak or black, but a
stimulating work which is a terrific beginning to another new year of our
lives, where you just might recognize some of the characters on stage, maybe yourself, in the Reston Community Players' newest production, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.
Suzy Alden, left, is Nina, and Joanne Maylone is Masha in Reston Community Players' Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike/photo by Traci J. Brooks
Familiar themes are included: young v. old, the passage of time and life, material possessions, the longing for something bigger, better, more. This is a comedy?
Why don't you
get up and do something?
The play opens
with middle-aged siblings, Vanya (Andrew JM Regiec) and Sonia (Lee Slivka),
sitting at home in their jammies, musing the coming day, whiling away their
time, like they do every day, bored, listless, and hungry for something more, something to jolt them from complacency which comes that day and
every day in the form of a fight over the silliest of things.
Of
course. Isn't that the way it always is?
On this
particular day (which takes place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the home of the playwright, Christopher Durang), more friction arrives in the person of their moneyed sister, a whirlwind actress, Masha (Joanne Maylone) who
comes for a visit and announces she may sell the house since she's the one who bought it, she's the one who has paid the bills, paid for their now dead parents' care, and she's the one who has paid for it
all!
Never
mind that her reclusive brother and sister live in the house, who cared for their
aging parents, who have nowhere to go.
What's consideration got to do with it?
Or love?
Oh, what a
shame it all is: Masha's been married and divorced five times, boo hoo
hoo, and Sonia's life has been nothing but a waste. Cry me a
river, but carried on Masha's arm is her latest charm, a 20s something lad,
Spike (or Spite) (Will MacLeod) who loves to sport his physical prowess in
exaggerated form throughout the show, always a laugh. He strips and prances
around in his underwear like a unicorn, to the delight of the male and
females on stage (not to mention those in the audience).
Another
late entrant to the party is the pretty and dainty Nina (Suzy Alden) whose
youth, smile,
exuberance
and failure to recognize diatribes heaved at her, contrast sharply with the
aged and emotionally infirm brother and sisters into whose house Spike
enthusiastically welcomes Ninabelle.
Soothsayer
and housemaid, Cassandra (Alexa Yarboro) is my very favorite
character. She adds a balanced element to the drained family, with her charm, words of wisdom, and frequent spinner of the
future. She is like an infusion of a power drink gulped every so often, whose
literary masterpieces flung hither and yon are hilarious.
Direction by
Tel Monks is fabulous. Witness the sparking performances. Among other things, he skillfully draws out Masha's
flamboyance (she has wings) which reminded me of Joan Crawford (probably because I just saw Mommie
Dearest on the telly, a true horror show!).
The single
set (by
Maggie Modig) is all that is needed to carry the play, and far more than expected of a regional theatre. From a large,
heavily decorated parlor, the characters make their ways to an offsite
kitchen, or stairs to bedrooms, or they gaze through binoculars to watch the naked at the pond in the distance.
Lighting by Adam Konowe is expertly crafted from the changing of the day to
the car headlights to spotlights on an individual.
Knowledge of Russian Anton Chekhov's writings is not
required, but increased listening pleasure is a surety for those who have it (or some of it).
In 2013 Vanya and friends won the Tony for Best Play, the Drama Desk
Award for Outstanding Play, and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for
Best Play, among other distinctions.
The setting
says "morning room" which becomes "mourning room" which
becomes the "morning of the rest of your life." You'll come
away with thoughts which linger beyond your short time to mingle with Vanya and Sonia
and Masha and Spike.
Give a girl a tiara and sequins and see what she can be!
The production team includes JoAnn Monks, assistant director; Amy Headlee, stage manager; Bea
and Jerry Morse, producers; Mary Jo Ford, properties design; Jon Roberts, sound
design; Judy Whelihan, costume design, Sandy Dotson, property mistress; Lilya Eberle, running crew chief; Tom Geuting, master carpenter; and Sue Pinkman, hair and makeup.
What: Vanya and
Sonia and Masha and Spike
When: 8 p.m., Jan. 27 and
28; Feb. 3 and 4; and 2 p.m., Jan. 29, 2017
Where: Reston Community
Center, 2310 Colts Neck Road, Reston, VA 20191
How much: $21, adults; $18,
students and seniors
Tickets: Buy online or call 703-476-4500 and press 3 for the
24-hour ticket ordering system.
Language: Adult, with
F-bombs dropping occasionally.
Duration: About 2 1/2 hours with one 15-minute intermission.
patricialesli@gmail.com
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