Lemon Sky, Live Theatre Workshop

Its blasphemous for me to say, but I can only watch so many NBA playoff games, no matter how many overtimes and last second winning shots there are. (Who put in that stupid rule anyway that you can call a timeout and advance the ball to halfcourt, thereby making those last second winning shots more likely - good for one team but bad for the other - but that's a story for another blog and time). So last night, with everything shaking out as it did, I decided to head down to Live Theatre Workshop and see Lemon Sky. I had read a couple of reviews for this show and heard some good things about if from friends and through the grapevine. Turns out most of all that good stuff is true - but I'll get to that later. This was a last minute option/decision by me to go so any usual pre-show activities were non existent. What I did was guzzle down a Guinness (it was hot. i was thirsty.), jump in the car (i know, i know), turn up some old Bruce Springsteen as loud as it gets, and make the short drive there.

So I was ready! Knowing hey, its Landford Wilson, which means there are going to be some people on stage - not one of those two character deals - people, lots of people probably with big ideas and big emotions and all that. And, not that other plays don't, but I knew this one was going to take some acting, some specific "gotta go there" type of stuff - otherwise the play won't work - it is all in the actor's hands - that's Landford's way. And, I didn't know the details of this play, but I knew at some point in time in the play things would turn devastating, with a capital D.

Landford gave the keynote address at the last State Theatre Conference to be held here in Tucson, back in '95 or '96 I think. Long time ago by some standards. I can't for the life of me remember the specifics but it was one of those "The Artist Will Be Asked" type of speeches. (One or two or three people who read this might know that reference. It refers to something Vahktangov wrote just after the Russian revolution, when ideas and hopes were still high and intentions seemed good). I remember Horton Foote, whom I was kind of escorting that morning, was anxious and excited to get in and get a good seat and hear Lanford's speech.

You get a dollar break on your ticket if you pay cash at LTW. And since I had arrived in the final minutes before curtain, I went right in. Now I'm no spring chicken (a sleek 47 with a 17 yr old daughter -which counts as a multiplier all you parents know), but I was the "youth" of this group of spectators. Seeing how I was by myself on this visit to the theatre, I had no choice but to flirt with the usher, a beautiful young lady a good 20 years my senior. Why she even escorted me part way to my seat when I asked. She's just lucky I'm not 77 or so right now. Anyway, have I ever said its cold in LTW? They tell you on the phone message to bring a sweater. ?

Hmm. How to preface what I might write about this play, this production? There is so much.

The play is as most people know, autobiographical and deals on one level and on one subject matter with the idea of having a family, the kind of family you hope and dream and wish for, but that never seems to materialize as a reality. In fact, instead, your worst nightmares almost happen to and about your family. There is the absolute joy and happiness of what you almost or seemingly have, and then there is the absolute pain and yes, devastation when it all falls apart or the truth comes out. At the core, you are, or try to be, or think you are, that person who loves and accepts everyone, no matter the conditions or the events because its your family and you believe in and want a family. So you stand by them and do your best. But for various reasons, it crumbles and you are powerless in a sense to change it. When you are young, as Landford's central character in this play is, its only worse. And when the very person (people) who should be taking care of and nurturing you and the ones you love is instead causing harm and insult and injury and perhaps death it demands an eventual recount or reconciliation or retelling of some kind - thus, the play. I am no exception as a person to these basic ideas. I have suffered the hopes and dreams and losses and failures of my own family. Most of us have to varying degrees in this society. So there is a powerful Affective Memory at work here for the spectators of this play.

Landford wrote the play in a way that the characters have multiple consciousnesses going on. There is the past time, those events and details happening in the moment to those characters, and there is the reflection back after the passage of time, where characters can and do comment on their own actions and/or those of others (Brecht would be so very, very happy), and the desire to reconcile or make sense of those past events right now, here and today in the presence of the spectators. And, there is the voice of the playwright as well, speaking through the central character, commenting on his own writing skills, as well as commenting on certain theatrical conventions - Pirandellian we call it. There is a certain brilliance at work here in this piece by Mr. Wilson. That's the basic nature of the script at hand to be dealt with.

So going into the play, speaking in terms of if you are one of the artists about to put on this play, you know that you do not need to, or cannot force feed the spectators the content of this play, or make everything so frickin obvious. They, the spectators are going to get it. It's their/our family even as its not - Lanford is that good here. We, the spectators need only to like the people, meaning actors with some charm and ability to convince, and to see this reality of the the family, this memory reality that is, created on stage. And you know, if you are one of the artists putting this play on, you know that in creating this memory reality, you will have to handle those consciousness changes with a deft and subtle hand, seemingly improvisationally and off the cuff, even though you will have rehearsed it a hundred times or so.

That's enough preface. I'll fill in the rest as I go.

I'm here to tell you that I thought the artist who put on this play for LTW did so with those things I mentioned well in mind and did so pretty darn well - with a few small exceptions and one major shortcoming in tow. The clunker right off the bat though was the set. It was just that, a set. It looked and functioned like one of those theatre-looking-realistic-kitchen-looking sets with toasters and can openers and all that. For one scene the lower half of the stage was turned partly into a beach setting. Otherwise, it was a theatre-looking-realistic-kitchen-looking set that was going no where. And it put the actors in odd and unusual positions and made the movement of the entire play awkward, awkward, awkward. It didn't kill the beast. But it wounded it and slowed it down. The speed and deftness with which the characters and the play, changes realities, time and place and logic, was not reflected or equalled or embodied by this set, this group of props and accessories. And why is it that at LTW with that uneven three quarters seating for the audience, is the staging and set design always set up as if the place is a hard and fast proscenium?

There is a ploy that some directors and designer use - they show the actors sketches or models or literal mock ups ahead of time of the set, and ask them how would you imagine yourself, your character moving and behaving here? And from that they work to get a functionality that makes a living, breathing presence, and helps to give life to the characters and relationships actively. The Kitchen, with its views out the windows of the mountains, as gathering place for the family is wonderful. How it goes from warm, cozy happy place to cold, nerve wracking place is a question though for the artists. How do you do that? How does it give life and movement or not for the characters, the actors, and to the play itself. Props for example should become symbolic or useful or meaningful when handled or utilized by the actors, or they should change time and place like the play as written script does. Or this kitchen has to give the actors, the characters something to do, something that is revealing of situation and circumstance. It should provide the spectators with a bit of a challenge to their perception perhaps. Pages of course could be written about sets. In this case I just didn't think it had the fluidity and nuance that the play demands and did not provide a space in which the actors could work freely and imaginatively. You gotta have a little razzle and dazzle and glitz too. It's suburban California afterall in its coming heyday. The coffee pot has to have some shine to it metaphorically speaking. Later on it boils over or explodes so to speak but in the beginning we should see and hear those rhythms of a life beautiful and potentially seducing, at least on the outside. Surfs up!

Despite the set, the physical manifest foundation on which this play lived, there were some things about this production which made it engaging and moving and meaningful for the spectators. First was the fact that the actors and director took what some might call a straight forward approach. There was no trickery, no playing just for the laughs, no showing off, no cliche caricatures. Apparently they spent the rehearsal time working out an understanding of the plays events and trying to make those come alive on stage. It was earnest and excellent effort even in the sections that didn't quite spring to life. In saying that I do not imply a simple minded "yeah they tried really hard" kind of thing. I mean they let the play live and die on the thoughts, sensations, feelings and physical actions of each individual actor in each moment. In this case, certain of those moments and scenes were wonderful, absolutely wonderful. In sections where the actors did not have the means or ability to bring the scene to life it was obvious - but it wasn't for lack of an understanding or the basic sense of letting it manage itself free of trickery. Trust me, all this is easier said than done and I am not about placating anyone or anything here. This was no small feat what they done.

Second thing to mention is Christopher Johnson. The young man is an actor. With this particular role he came close to actualizing some his true talent. His growth and development as an actor has been mentioned by others in various forums and reviews and for good reason. The skill and charisma has always been readily evident but the ability to have the awareness and the sense to create that actual living through of the circumstances and events of the play has always been lacking - until now. At least in the roles I've seen him in. He has broken ground though. There was a definite new quality in his work this time, part of the quality we have all been hoping and waiting for to happen. He is still dependent on his intellectual analytical ability and his instinctual ability to simply deliver a line while imaginatively placing himself in the circumstances of the character, all of which takes him a long ways. If he learns however to let himself analyze and create on stage in a more visceral, more sensoral way, and let the words and thoughts rise simply from that, and if he keeps and pursues the proper work ethic, we no longer will be watching someone talented and pretty darn good. We will be seeing a rare phenomenon on stage. Christopher is that talented. It would take a leap, but he could do it. In this role, as the character and theatrical voice of Landford himself, he is charming, likable and loving with the other characters, all as needed and required by the play.

Let me put these two good points together for a sec and mention out of that, the one major shortcoming in the production - the last scene. As the play progresses in this production, it doesn't for various reasons which lay mostly within the given abilities of the actors, begin to have an accumulative momentum of experience from scene to scene, moment to moment to truly whisk away the actors and thus the spectators in a way it could and should. And when it gets to the last scene, the devastating one, where it all should explode, it just doesn't. The actors don't at that point in time have the physical (at times some were gasping for breath while trying to speak as loud and as quick as was necessary) and emotional capabilities (there was lots of heads down suffering as in I don't have the real thing going so I am pretending to be suffering) as a group to make it happen. So instead we get isolated lines and activities that look and sound authentic mixed with lines and activities that are contrived and indicated. The final result is still somewhat moving and meaningful to the spectators because we have had just enough fully realized moments to fill in for ourselves what that last scene really should have looked and sounded like. Had it actually been there, it would have been great. (Remember that awkward set I mentioned? That too played a culprit here in the final scene.).

And speaking of momentum, the first act ended on a very nice, moving note, and with what I thought was an appreciative audience that was "into it." Three seconds into the silence though some guy appeared on stage and began to make announcements for next seasons tickets. Three seconds. Now I realize theatres want to sell tickets. But this was the most inane attempt I have ever witnessed at a most inopportune and unsympathetic time. It was bad. Whatever feelings or thoughts that might have carried over to the second act, the mood and all, was shattered by this tackiness.

There were two other notable factors which I felt were absent and thus contributed to the production not finding its full momentum and force. The first one was the lack of that unabashed way in which teenagers can be rude, mean, or smartelecky. (I did mention my seventeen year old earlier for good reason). There were moments when scenes needed that pop, the spark, and that tension and it should/could have come in the form of that kind of teenager angst and reaction. Its just the way that teenagers are with parents or "parental figures" sometimes. Fast, off the cuff, sometimes seemingly out of place thought and comments, full of emotion, rebellion or who knows what kind of intention or desire. This production had a watered down version that kept too much in check. The second thing was a lack of overt sexuality - primarily from the one foster daughter character who is called a whore and who admits to a great need and desire for sex. I remember my youth and at 47 (I did mention my age earlier for good reason too) I haven't forgotten what a fast girl looks and sounds like (Did I mention that usher lady who walked me part way to my seat? JK usher lady, JK). As played by this actress in this production, the character was more a candidate for the Sisterhood of Nuns. That is no commentary on the actress herself. I half believe it was a concious choice on the part of the director or the theatre company itself to have the characters sexuality effectively non-existant on stage. Its just a guess though. Yes, the character is trying to go celibate for a while, fighting her desires, but that desire and affectation has to be present, oozing on some level. It should be there, for all to see, juxtaposed to the other foster daughter who really is a bonafide nun candidate, and in opposition to the seemingly non-sexuality of the Landford Wilson character. Three youth in various stages and interests in sex. Not to mention the adult characters who have their own peculiar past and present sexual activities and interests, suppressions and desires. Its such a huge part of the play. Why gloss it over? I do not believe a group of spectators, certainly not the group I was part of, would be collectively offended or surprised to see this present on stage. We were nodding and acknowlegding, sometimes proudly some of Wilson's references in this topic.

Never the less, despite these drawbacks, there were one, two, three or more little golden and memorable moments created by each of the actors individually or together throughout the production, real gems. Its those that I took away with me as a spectator last night, appreciative of work overall and glad I had been there.