*Almost, Maine* at EWU, May 7-15

John Cariani's nine vignettes about love and friendship in a remote town, way up there in "The County" will be performed at EWU's University Theater in Cheney on
Friday-Saturday, May 7-8, at 7:30 pm
Sunday, May 9, at 2 pm
Thursday, May 13, at 5 pm
and Friday-Saturday, May 14-15, at 7:30 pm

Directed by Sara Goff

[ photo: Chailee Friant and Joel Chiswell as Rhonda and Dave ]

Elyse Sommer's review of a 2006 NYC production is here.

A Rochester, N.Y.. production of four months ago is reviewed here.

Lake City Playhouse in Coeur d'Alene will also produce this play next February and March.

Visit the Blog at Inlander.com.

review of *The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie*

at EWU; seen on closing night, Nov. 21

Director Sara Goff's production was impressive and impressively acted.
Don McLaughlin (credited as a "scenographer') designed a set that was half classroom, half art museum. Actually, imagine the corner of a cloister, a classroom and an artist's studio arrayed across the forestage, with stairs, a ramp and what looked like an art museum (with a neutral playing space, but underneath an ornate archway) across the upstage area. Lots of gilt frames; spotlights to (literally) highlight the pictures (from Giotto to Mussolini) whenever they were mentioned in the script. Elegance, propriety. It was impressive from the moment you walked in.
One of the most striking differences between Spokane in the 2000s and Edinburgh in the 1930s was the assumption (then) that art and literature were not only worthy of study but actually exciting.
(Judging from their intermission behavior, the Eastern undergrads sitting near Bobo were more interested in texting to find out parties' locations and football scores than they were any of the issues raised by the Spark-Allen narrative. Also, it's really hard to still and pay attention for such a long time. Nothing, really, to really occupy your mind.)
Molly Ovens made an impressive Brodie: shriek-voiced for emphasis, arms spread wide to embrace life, head erect and posture correct to convey self-confidence as she imposed values on her girls for the vicarious thrill of it.
(I kept thinking of Gregers Werle, the do-gooder in Ibsen's Wild Duck: convinced that she is shaping lives for the better, Miss Brodie is actually making matters worse.)
Ovens, a senior theater major, has the goods: rebellious, convinced she's the right educator in the right place, alluring but repressed, unpredictable, mentioning — with a little self-satisfied smirk in her voice — the little nerdy things that those who love the art tend to pepper their conversation with (just so others will know how cultured they are).
As the artist-love interest who's a little too interested (especially for a married man) in having affairs and ogling schoolgirls, Joel Chiswell properly combined creepy with principled. And as Sandy the rebel, Lenea Tomoson didn't tip her hand too early, then rose to the challenge impressively for the final face-off with (and put-down of) her teacher.
There was very little, if any of the drop-off you sometimes find in college casts -- this was well acted from the schoolgirls to the faculty.
Miss Brodie is a flawed, fascinating character: an inspiring teacher who makes a lot of bad choices; a woman too self-pitying (because of her lover's wartime death) to risk venturing real love anymore -- so she "takes it out on"/imposes romantic idealism on her young charge. She's a puppet-mistress whose understanding of life is cracked.
Ironically, she defines education to the school's headmistress not as intrusion into students' minds, or an imposition of ideas upon them, but instead as a drawing-out of what already resides in the students' minds ... and then proceeds to act in an exactly contradictory way.
(I've probably misunderstood much of it -- but that's the joy. Goff's production was so good, I wanted to be able to discuss the experience afterwards with someone.)

**

The Scots accents seemed credible to me, though diction sometimes suffered. 

The sense of sexual repression was strong but subtle. 

Interesting to observe how both Jenny and Sandy, the schoolgirls, came to regard themselves as above morality (mimicking their teacher -- a dangerous stance). 
I should have known but didn't until just now that Muriel Spark and Jay Presson Allen both died in 2006 (both in their 80s) and that Allen revised her 1966 script, so there are two versions. From a few details in reviews, I'm inferring that the EWU production used the earlier, original script.

**
EWU has Dec. 1 auditions for Romeo and Juliet, followed by a spring production of John Cariani's Almost, Maine.

[ photo: Maggie Smith, who played Miss Brodie in the movie, as a different teacher at a different British school]

*The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie* at EWU

[Maggie Smith in the 1969 film; from ferdyonfilms.com]

Nov. 13-21; directed by Sara Goff
at the University Theater (on Washington St. on the EWU campus in Cheney)
adapted by Jay Presson Allen in 1966 from the 1961 novel by Muriel Spark

Fridays-Saturdays, Nov. 13-14 and Nov. 20-21, at 7:30 pm; Sunday, Nov. 15, at 2 pm; and Thursday, Nov. 19, at 5 pm
Tickets: $5; free, EWU students
Call 359-2341 or 359-2459

In 1930s Edinburgh, at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, students (ages 10-16) follow with fascination the outspoken, assertive, flawed Miss Brodie. But one of the girls will betray her.
Vanessa Redgrave won an Evening Standard Best Actress Award in London for the role; Zoe Caldwell, a Tony; and Maggie Smith, an Oscar (for her performance in the 1969 film).


[Muriel Spark in the '50s; from London's The Guardian]

From an e-mail exchange with director Sara Goff, an assistant professor in Eastern's Theater and Film Dept.:

Bobo: How did you solve the problem of 20-year-old students appearing too old for middle-school age girls (ages 10-18 in the novel) and too young to resemble a Maggie Smith-in-the-movie kind of woman?
Sara Goff:  The age of the characters is hard to translate to an audience in a college production — not only the age difference between the students and the teachers but also in the girls themselves. They play 10-year-olds in Act I, 14-year-olds in Act II, and 16-year-olds in Act III. But I think if the acting is good the play will work. So I focus on what I can do something about — making the dramatic action believable. 

I also worked closely with our costume designer, Jessica Ray, to deal with some of these issues. As the girls age, their silhouettes become more and more defined — also, hair and makeup helps. But again, I really believe audiences forgive a great deal as long as the acting is good, and I think the performers are meeting this challenge.

Why'd you choose this play? (Because it has a large cast, lots of women, good moral ambiguity, and deals with issues close to the experience of adolescents?)
First, I select plays that move me, plays that excite me. I am seduced by Brodie and my heart bleeds for Sandy. The play is provocative and sexy and ripe with conflict. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie fires my imagination. In addition, it's an actor's play.
Second, I was committed to doing a large-cast female show. I have a cast of 14 women and four men.

What scene or design element is most distinctive?
I was really inspired by beauty and history of Edinburgh, and Brodie is obsessed with art and anything Italian, so I wanted to highlight those things in the design. Don [McLaughlin, EWU's technical director] constructed a towering arch with columns — that’s my favorite design element. It has all kinds of sculptures carved into it — it’s beautiful.

Why not just rent the DVD?
I’m a soldier of the theater. For me, there is no comparison. If I saw a woman being painted in the nude in a movie, I wouldn’t stir; and yet, if I saw the exact same woman being painted two feet in front of me on the stage, I would be on the edge of my seat.

Theater is about community and immediacy. I had seen Frankie and Johnny and String of Pearls at other theaters, and yet I saw them again. I’m really upset that I missed Doubt, even though I saw Cherry Jones play Sister Aloysius. There aren’t any surprises when I watch a film adaptation of a play. But I never know what I’m going to get when I go to the theater, even if I’ve seen the play several times. It’s dangerous, and I love that.