review of *Eleemosynary*

at Interplayers through May 1

Interplayers’ production of Lee Blessing’s Eleemosynary doesn’t entirely succeed: as the grandmother, Tamara Schupman works too hard at appearing eccentric; Blessing’s script spells out its conclusions too much; the onslaught of crises can seem wearying; and there’s no visual interest at all. But Eleemosynary also presents a nonlinear, poetic experience that’s filled with insights and with characters who, like the rest of us, are a strange assortment of good traits and bad.

[Young Kwak photo: Nancy Gasper as Artie]

You couldn’t film this dreamlike story of a grandmother, her daughter and her grandchild (who’s a spelling bee champion, hence the fancy word of the title). For a story with a lot of chronological leaps that appeals to the audience’s imagination — first she’s alone in a strange apartment, then she’s making a home movie from years ago, now she’s waking up from a coma — you need a theater’s neutral space and close-ups.

In Eleemosynary, there are deaths and resentments and rejections, but also foibles and aspirations and quiet acceptance. Filled with sensitivities and nuances, it presents a mixed mood that can pall when extended for two hours.
But director Maria A. Caprile gets mileage out of simple expedients: three women strolling around a dreamlike space, avoiding eye contact, spewing their resentments, sitting at odd angles, their backs to one another and staying like that.
The costumes and setting are so minimal that they call attention to themselves, so it’s all down to the script and the acting: There’s nothing else here to occupy your attention.
At least Caprile’s direction adds interest in the second act’s spelling bee sequence: a recessed area becomes the stage for big event, with Echo showing off her prowess while a lighting trick denotes her main rival in the spelling bee.

Blessing’s chief insight about this family’s matriarch, Dorothea, is that she self-consciously adopted eccentricity as a way to fend off conventional and patriarchal expectations: If her husband wanted a meek housewife, what he’d get instead was a psychic tuned in to astral projections. Schupman has an inspirational moment when encouraging her girls to fly — face uplifted, arms wide, the enchantress invoking the spirits of possibility — but mostly she overplays the mannerisms. Dorothea’s eccentric displays have become, for her, a habit. Treating them in a more matter-of-fact way would lend them more credibility.

As Dorothea’s daughter and Echo’s mother, Artie — short for Artemis, because Mom expected her daughter to be like a goddess, so no pressure there — Nancy Gasper delivers a sterling performance. Tragic events assault Artie, and Gasper persuasively portrays their effects. Squatting, her face buried in her knees and rocking slowly back and forth, she muffles her voice, then raises her head to reveal glaring, tear-streaked eyes. Artie has run away from her mother, repeatedly, and she’s no good at expressing affection. She doesn’t even know how to touch her child. And yet when Artie curls up, depressed, she whispers that while her daughter only sees poor parenting during the day, “what she doesn’t know is how good I am, at night, as a mom.” In trying to break away from an overbearing mother and draw closer to a daughter whom she doesn’t really know, Gasper will break your heart. Her life, she says, has been “a long apology.”

Rainee Palmer — an EWU student making her Interplayers debut — plays Echo as childlike and headstrong. From the outset, she displays a spelling champion’s delight in words — “clamjamfry,” “bijouterie,” “logodaedaly” — that’s intended to suggest the Wesbrook women’s tendency to show off what they know. Problem is, each of them has an EQ lower than her IQ. They hide what they feel (and most of what they feel is about themselves, anyway).
The qualified achievement of this Interplayers production — particularly in Caprile’s direction and Gasper’s acting — is to show us the value of struggling toward generosity. In the end, Echo, Artie and Dorothea don’t want to be brainiacs anymore; they’re just trying to become charitable human beings.

Eleemosynary depicts three generations of Wesbrook women through May 1 on Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays-Saturdays at 8 pm, and Saturdays-Sundays at 2 pm at Interplayers, 174 S. Howard St. Tickets: $15-$21; $12-$19, seniors; $10, student rush. Visit interplayers.com or call 455-PLAY.

*Eleemosynary* at Interplayers: photos

at Interplayers though May 1
written by Lee Blessing
premiered in 1987
directed by Maria A. Caprile

with three generations of Wesbrook women:
Tamara Schupman as Dorothea
Nancy Gasper as Artie
and Rainee Palmer as Echo

Audition for *Eleemosynary* and *Psychopathia Sexualis*

at Interplayers, 174 S. Howard St.
on Monday-Tuesday, Feb. 15-16, at 7 pm
Prepare a one-minute monologue; a second, contrasting monologue may also be required of you. In addition, possible cold readings.
"Performers will be paid for rehearsals and performances. Cast must be available for all performances; please do not audition for a show with which you may have a calendar conflict."

Eleemosynary by Lee Blessing, directed by Maria Caprile
(begins rehearsals on March 29; runs April 15-May 1)
Caprile seeks three actresses: teens to 20s; 30s-40s; 50s and older

Psychopathia Sexualis by John Patrick Shanley, directed by Reed McColm
(rehearsals begin on April 26; runs from May 13-29)
McColm seeks 3m, 2w (all 20s-40s, though one of the two men is 40s-60s)



[ photo: Richard von Krafft-Ebing with his wife Maria Luise; from Wikipedia Commons; Krafft-Ebing wrote the, ahem, seminal work on sexual perversions (1886) that is quoted in Shanley's play's title; such a contented-looking, ahem, Victorian-era couple ]

review of *The Graduate*

at Interplayers through May 9

With cigarette smoldering and hand on hip, she saunters into a younger man’s bedroom — her high heels, her legs, her hips and all the rest of her — moving like a cat, making appraisals. Conquering a college kid would be less boring than the rest of her alcohol-soaked life. As Mrs. Robinson, Karen Kalensky is sultry and languorous, and it isn’t a pose: Benjamin’s her trophy, and the trophy’s bagged.
He’s a recent college grad who knows that he doesn’t want what his parents want but isn’t quite sure what that means. As Benjamin, the blank affect of Carter J. Davis reveals nothing, though his eyes are sneering. When his parents’ friends enter a room, he dutifully stands at attention (out of habit, out of boredom). When Mrs. Robinson saunters into a room, however, his stiffness has other connotations.
In Terry Johnson’s stage adaptation of *The Graduate* (at Interplayers through May 9), Kalensky and Davis create tension and comic release: First she’s seducing him, then it’s the other way around, and finally director Maria Caprile tees up a sequence of crash cuts, with the two lovers flailing among the sheets in theatrical snapshots much sexier than any kind of explicitness would be.
In the early going, when Johnson's script hews closest to the film, the matron-and-college-boy tryst evokes nervous laughter. By the second act, however, when Johnson begins trying to devise new scenes and explain everyone's motives, the script becomes excessively talky. And even an enjoyable first act overstays its welcome.
Caprile creates '60s fun with backlit silhouettes behind sliding doors, but Johnson has betrayed her by demanding too many scene changes. It feels like being at a furniture movers' convention, and it bloats the show into two and a half hours.

There’s a hint in the strip-club scene that Mrs. Robinson’s daughter —Benjamin’s newfound girlfriend — can rise above tawdriness and inspire him to regain a sense of purpose. But when Elaine (Emily Cleveland) tries to cheer him up, Benjamin mutters that his “love of life was unrequited." He’s jaded and doesn’t know why; Cleveland conveys how she’s disappointed in herself too. Perhaps the two of them will actually rouse themselves into a sense of purpose. Even more encouragingly, Cleveland and Kalensky get around to some truth-telling in a mother-daughter drinking scene. But then Johnson spends his second act trying to explain what the movie, properly, left unspoken.
The supporting cast, nevertheless, is strong. As Benjamin's mother, Tamara Schupman flips from chirpy to confused in an instant. As Mrs. Robinson's back-slapping but betrayed husband, John Oswald ranges from creepy (delivering the famous "plastics" line) to affecting (confronting Benjamin about the adultery). And Kalensky and Davis are masterful together.
But there was more of a “What do we do next?” mood in the final seconds of the 1967 movie than there is in Johnson’s entire last scene, with the newlyweds straining to be festive in a cheap motel room. If only they’d conform to their parents’ wishes, it’d all be much easier. But sometimes aimlessness needs to be played out more than talked out.
In taking a beloved movie out of the visual realm and theatricalizing it, Johnson only makes *The Graduate* more verbose.

Terry Johnson’s stage adaptation of *The Graduate,* directed by Maria Caprile, continues through May 9 at Interplayers, 174 S. Howard St., on Wednesdays-Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays at 8 pm, and Saturdays at 2 pm and 8 pm. Tickets: $10-$21. Visit www.interplayers.com or call 455-PLAY.

[ photo by Austin Odell -- left to right, Angie Dierdorff, Emily Cleveland, David McCallum, Dave Rideout, Dan Anderson and Carter J. Davis in *The Graduate,* Spokane Interplayers Ensemble, April-May 2009 ]

*The Graduate* at Interplayers, through May 9

Stage adaptation by Terry Johnson
Directed by Maria Caprile

With Interplayers' Consulting Artistic Director, Karen Kalensky, in the Anne Bancroft role of Mrs. Robinson; Carter J. Davis (*Humble Boy* at Actors Rep) in the Dustin Hoffman role of Benjamin Braddock; Interplayers veteran John Oswald (*Moonlight and Magnolias* at Actors Rep) as Mr. Robinson; and Emily Cleveland in Katherine Ross's role as Elaine Robinson.
Also with Tony Caprile and Tamara Schupman as Mr. and Mrs. Braddock, and, in smaller roles, Dan Anderson, Angela Dierdorff, David Rideout, David McCallum

Tickets: $10-$21
Call: 455-PLAY

[ photo by Austin Odell: Karen Kalensky as Mrs. Robinson and Carter J. Davis as Benjamin in *The Graduate,* Interplayers, April-May 2009

Maria Caprile on *Terabithia*

The Spokane Children's Theater production of *Bridge to Terabithia* runs through March 22 at SCC's Lair Student Auditorium. Visit www.spokanechildrenstheatre.org.

Q&A with SCT's Maria Caprile (since director Reed McColm is apparently not returning my e-mails -- bad boy, Reed, bad!)


Bobo: Does name recognition from the movie help or hurt you at the box office?
Maria Caprile: Name recognition is the No. 1 factor on show attendance for Spokane Children's Theatre whether or not there is a movie attached! In fact, the book *Bridge to Terabithia* is required reading for many classes in Spokane Public Schools. This play was written by the author of the book, Katherine Paterson and is much more true to the book. It's even set in the early 1970s, which lends much to the feelings of ostracization and difference between the characters due to the changing times.

The movie offered special effects; your show augments the action with songs. But don't kids respond more to visuals than to melodies?
A lot of people don't realize what different mediums film and stage are. I thought it was perfectly appropriate to show the fantasy creatures of *Terabithia* in the film, even though that doesn't happen in the book at all. The book (and play) is really much more about feelings of "otherness" and how friendship can be a saving grace for children of a certain age. Visuals are much better at portraying magic but music is much more conducive to portraying emotion.

What's likely the most crowd-pleasing song? (and its dramatic context, theme, singers and some sample lyrics, just to give a taste) Same question for the musical number that has proven to be the most complicated to stage, and why.
There is a charming faux-folk song, "Differences" sung by the lovely Sarah Miller as Miss Edmonds, the pretty teacher everyone has a crush on. She accompanies herself on guitar with the assistance of Bryton Martin (who plays the main character, Jesse). The audience will be humming this one on the way home!

"If every song had just one note and that one note was C,
If every book had just one word and that one word was 'Me'
There'd be no difference and what are differences for?
Without a difference the world would be a bore!"

This song is taught to the entire class on the day that Leslie, the outsider from the big city, makes her appearance. And, naturally, both Jesse and Leslie think that Miss Edmonds chose the song specifically for them since they both see themselves as being "different" as so many kids do at this age!

If you had to pick just one, which of the following themes does *Terabithia* portray most effectively, and why? — growing up, being independent, dealing with bullies, using your imagination, making friends, dealing with adversity, reveling in reading, fending off despair
While there is a bit of everything in this show, "growing up" hits the nail on the head.

[ photo: Katherine Paterson; her Website is here. ]

*Sunshine Boys* auditions, Jan. 12-13

Lake City Playhouse will hold auditions for *The Sunshine Boys* by Neil Simon on Monday-Tuesday, Jan. 12-13, at 6:30 pm at the Harding Family Center, 411 N. 15th St,, Coeur d'Alene.
Director Maria Caprile is looking for 2M 60+, 2W 20+ and 2M 20-40.
Production opens Feb. 20.

"Lewis and Clark" (Al and Willie) were top-billed vaudevillians for over forty years. Now they aren't even speaking. But when CBS requests them for a "History of Comedy" retrospective, the result is grudging reunion.

Lake City Playhouse, 1320 E. Garden Ave., CdA
(208) 667-1323