The Real Thing featuring Synge Maher & David Nelson

Art imitates life.  Life imitates art.  Often times -for the life of a playwright- the lines are so blurred that it’s almost impossible to distinguish realism from hyper-realism or acting from genuine feeling and emotion.  When fact and fiction can no longer be untangled it isn’t always easy to recognize if the words you’re hearing are being spoken from the heart or simply being recreated from a scene plucked from the past.   Somewhere amid all this, one would hope to find The Real Thing.

Written by Tom Stoppard and first performed in 1982 The Real Thing hardly shows signs of being a 30 year old play; in fact Boomerang Theatre Company’s production directed by Cailin Heffernan now playing at The Secret Theater in Long Island City is vibrant, cunning, engaging and smart.  It brims over with the kind of energy that makes live, independent theatre so absolutely vital and important, and throughout the 2 hour show everything comes together to make what amounts to a gift to the audience.

The play centers around two British couples who are bound by marriage but straining against those binds.   Who exactly is married to whom isn’t directly obvious at first as Stoppard creates a slight of hand by giving us a play within a play as the first scene.   It’s enjoyable and weighty with plummy words and an idiosyncratic male lead, but it does teeter dangerously close to having the ability to turn grating should it go on for too long.  No sooner does the needle veer into the red does the scene end and the next scene reveals (slowly at first, which is the charm of it) that what was just witnessed was a play written by Henry (Aidan Redmond), one which is then poked at by his wife Charlotte (Valerie Stanford) and Max (David Nelson) who only moments before played husband and wife.

Max’s wife Annie (Synge Maher) soon arrives to round out the foursome and as the two couples chatter and regroup it becomes clear that Annie and Henry have been having a searing love affair, one which Annie insists they make public so that they can move on and be together.

What ensues over the next hours is a clever weaving of pure human need at it’s basest.  Love rises and falls, and with it – trust.  Marriages unform and reform, strong, then weak as passion is no longer enough to keep nagging thoughts away.  And, as promised, the first scene is played over and over again in various forms as each character finds themselves imitating the art that was either a foreshadowing or an homage to these lives.

The Real Thing featuring Aidan Redmon & Synge Mager

Through it all, Stoppard finds ways to display wonderful moments of thoughtfulness that come across as neither pedantic nor preachy, simply as the kinds of conversations people have when they are at the crossroads – not once but several times over.

Cailin Heffernan’s direction is marvelous; so many of the defining traits of the main characters are unpleasant, and their motives are selfish, however Heffernan summons a duality in each character so that they are always understandable, always relatable – if not in deed then at least in motive.

The entire cast is amazing. Aidan Redmond’s Henry is absolutely fantastic. Here is a man who struggles with his inward demons, often casts them off onto others, and yet still has the ability to take a moment and guide his daughter through the minefields of early adulthood.  Redmond plays Henry with the kind of sneer that makes you want to leave your phone number tucked into his back pocket – even as you walk away muttering about how conceited he is. Synge Maher as Annie and Valerie Stanford as Charlotte play their parts perfectly – each wed to him and wife to him — differently because they themselves are as different as can be.  Yet each the perfect balance to Redmond and just what he needs at a particular moment of his life.

Special mention goes to Zach Calhoon who plays Billy – he plays the young man vying for Annie’s affections with all the acting back-flips that any actor would use when trying to impress his co-star; and while the part is meant to be showy Calhoon pulls it off without overdoing it.  He is a joy to watch.

With just a few shows left, The Real Thing should not be missed.  Playing at The Secret Theater, don’t let this show be a secret too long.

~~~

Boomerang Theatre Company presents
THE REAL THING
by Tom Stoppard; directed by Cailin Heffernan

The Secret Theatre
4402 23rd Street
Long Island City, NY 11101

Click Here for tickets

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The final bow for The 2010 National NewBorn Festival was Sunday, and it was anything but uneventful. After reservations soared, the last two days of the festival were hosted in a different venue, giving the staff including myself extra work to schlep everything from one place to the other. The recipient of The Audience Favorite Award that received a second reading on Sunday was Carol Carpenter’s Good Lonely People. For those of you that don’t know about “NewBorn” it is the flagship program of the Off-Off Broadway theatre company MTWorks, showcasing new plays taking place and/or inspired by other regions of the US. I was honored to perform and be under the direction of The Happiest Medium collaborator Diánna Martin in A Home Across the Ocean, by Louisiana playwright Cody Daigle.

If you missed “Part 1″ or need a refresher click here.  As promised, “Part 2″ is focused the directors of NewBorn: Dev Bondarin director of Slip/Shot, Annie G. Levy director of Good Lonely People, Hondo Weiss-Richmond director of The Faithkiller, and Diánna Martin director of A Home Across The Ocean.

Artistic Director David Stallings, Vice-Chair Ann Marie Yali & Antonio Miniño at the Opening Reception of "NewBorn" | photo credit: Robin Madel

AM- When did you know directing was your calling?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) Once I started directing in college, I knew that it was the part of theater-making to which I was most drawn. If I had to pinpoint a moment when I knew it was “my calling”, it would have to be when I directed a production of Tom Stoppard’s Hapgood for my undergraduate senior thesis. It is a thrilling play and was the first time I remember being proud of my directing work.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) I was in my first directing class in college and we were copying the spacial composition of famous paintings. Once we had recreated the painting using actors, we would spin the composition around and see how the emotional effect of the composition would change based on how it was oriented in space. This was possibly the coolest, most mind blowing thing I had ever seen. Space had meaning. Space told stories. I was hooked.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) I’ve known that I wanted to direct since college, but I had flashes of this awareness even earlier- when I discovered that the areas of the production I was interested in extended past the appropriate territory of whatever role I was playing.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) I actually started off as an actress, and I still act; but over time I began to teach acting and direct as well. Although I took directing classes in college (both here and in London) as well as acting, I learned about directing from my father, acting teacher/director Ernie Martin, and from wonderful directors I worked with as an actor.  I enjoy working with other actors in a myriad of ways, and directing is, to me, another art form that allows me a symbiotic relationship with the work, with the actors, and with the audience.

AM- Describe your play in one sentence:

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) A senseless act forces a group of people from different backgrounds to reexamine their “place” in the world in an attempt to redefine their future.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) On the eve of the 2008 presidential election in rural south eastern New Mexico, a handful of Democrats come together to try to collectively cheer on change.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) The friends, lovers and enemies of three versions of the same super-hero must decide what they believe in and whether or not to fight for it.

(Diánna Martin -  A Home Across the Ocean) The dynamics of family, love, and loss effect everyone as five people weave their way through the medium that is the human condition.

AM-What makes your point of view stand out from the rest?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) I am interested in creating a meaningful theater experience, one that challenges audience members to rethink preconceived notions or assumptions, while also telling a good story. As a director I am empowered to find the truth in the characters’ relationships to serve as a mirror for audience members to see themselves in a new light.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) As a New Yorker, I have always been surrounded by people who think the way I do, politically. So my point of reference seems out of place in the world of the play. I am trying to be aware of that distance in creating a world that is not so “other” for the audience.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) Since I mainly direct new work, serving the play, and its point of view, is usually my priority.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) I just work with actors in a way that gives them as much freedom as possible to follow their impulses. I approach directing with the eyes of an actress and an acting teacher as well as the vision of a director. I focus on getting actors to really deal with each other as they would in real life – for what are characters in a play? They are people in a set of given circumstances trying to live their lives with what is going on around them. So I focus a great deal on organic behavior between actors so that the moments they have together are not forced but come from true impulses that they have in the given situation.

AM-Whose work do you admire-inspires you?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) I am always inspired by good writing: Tom Stoppard, John Guare, David Lindsay-Abaire, Itamar Moses. And a few of the directors I admire include: Kate Whoriskey, Diane Paulus, and Daniel Sullivan.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) Caryl Churchill, Mary Zimmerman, Ariane Mnouchkine are all touchstones for inspiration.  But I am continuously inspired by work I see, either be artists I think I know or an out of left field who are these guys and where did they come from? companies.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) I recently worked with Daniel Aukin and Melissa James Gibson; I really admire them and their work together.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) In regards to theatre there are many, but for one, Mike Nichols. I remember seeing the original Hurlyburly back in the 80’s, and the play had a profound effect on me.  Then there’s Sam Shepard -  over a period of a month got to see him direct  A Lie of the Mind because my mother was in it. Ernie Martin’s directing of Orpheus Descending at the Actors Studio in the 80’s was incredible. I also really love Alex Dinelaris – he directed me in Hello Out There .  Will Frears, who directed Alex’s Still Life is someone to keep an eye on.  Another would be Robert Falls, who blew me away with Talk Radio.

AM-What do you hope the audience will walk away with after this reading?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) A sense of how we are all creators of our own stories and that we all have not only the ability but also the opportunity to make change.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) A better understanding of who we consider the American “other.”

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond – The Faithkiller) It would be great if The Faithkiller audience left with compelling questions about the relationship between religion and media, as well as a sense that they’d spent an enjoyable evening at the NewBorn Festival.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across the Ocean) I want them to feel that these characters share the same human condition with emotions and feelings about their lives and those around them. They deal with love, anger, humor, and sadness, all for different reasons and from different points of view. My hope is that the audience feels they were just given a glimpse into another world – and also one that they are a part of.

AM-What other projects do you have lined up in 2010?

(Dev Bondarin – Slip/Shot) I am currently directing a production called Snapshots with Prospect Theater Company. The piece is comprised of seven new short musicals, each by a different writing team and each written about a turning point in the life of a single character. I am also collaborating with a playwright on a one woman show called Letters to Clio which deals with the personal struggle of a mother coming to terms with the kidnapping of her daughter and her transformation into a member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo who protested the Dirty War in Argentina.

(Annie G. Levy – Good Lonely People) I am directing Cloud Nine at Pace University, where I am an adjunct professor of Directing. I am also directing an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice and a new dramatic exploration about the Myth of Persephone.

(Hondo Weiss-Richmond - The Faithkiller) Next I’m directing a short play for Sticky, at the Bowery Poetry Club, and then I am assistant directing one more show at Playwrights Horizons: A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick, written by Kia Corthron and directed by Chay Yew.

(Diánna Martin – A Home Across The Ocean) Directing-wise, I have some projects in the pipeline going to do some readings of revivals that I adore: Kennedy’s Children, Coyote On a Fence, The Sign In Sidney Brustein’s Window, and Vieux Carré.  I’m also going to be working on my acting and building my acting school, Martin Acting Studios, while trying to support the theatre companies that I’m a member of. I’m just going to take it one day at a time and see what happens.

***

We shall see what next “NewBorn” bring and what shows MTWorks’ plans on including in their Season. We leave you with a clip of one of the directors inspirations, Mary Zimmerman as she discusses Arabian Nights.

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Developed 3 years ago, The National NewBorn Festival is the flagship program of a non-profit theater company very dear to me, Maieutic Theatre Works; or as we like to call it MTWorks – that way we don’t have to get into the whole “Maieutic is pronounced /meɪˈjuːtɪks/”.

New plays that have yet to receive a New York production are read in a festival setting and free to the general public from Thursday, January 21st through Sunday, January 24th. This year we are showcasing new plays by Barrie Kreinik, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Carol Carpenter, Gwydion Suilebhan and Cody Daigle.

The audience also gets to pick and vote for the recipient of the Audience Favorite Award. The winner receives a second reading on Sunday night after the resident reading of A Song for St. Michael’s by one of the NewBorn creators and Artistic Director of MTWorks, David Stallings.

What I appreciate about festivals is the networking opportunities it creates for dramatists, actors, directors and companies.  This week I asked all 6 dramatists some questions about their work and inspirations.

AM-How did you hear about NewBorn?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) I’m an MTWorks company actor and my first performance with the company was in NewBorn 2008, so I’ve already had some experience with the Festival.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) I read about the NewBorn online two years ago, and submitted my play The Oath. MTWorks liked The Oath so much that they produced it in 2009! It was an incredible experience! Slip/Shot is my first new play since The Oath and the fab MTWorks company offered to include it in the NewBorn Festival.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) I read about artistic director David Stallings’ work in an article or blurb online. When I realized we were graduates of the same college, I decided to reach out to him.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) I’m almost too embarrassed to admit this… but I found it on Facebook.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) MTWorks produced my play Providence in 2008, and the experience was fantastic. When I finished the new show, I sent it to them, eager for a chance to work with them again.

AM-Describe your play in one sentence:

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) Three women at an American university face the consequences of crossing boundaries and discover the shape-shifting nature of love.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) It’s about people trying to make sense of a situation that simply makes no sense and, in doing so, create “truths” that may or may not be very truthful.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Election night 2008 transforms a family in a small conservative town.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) The exploits of an atheist superhero in a 1940s New York radio studio, a run-down apartment in present-day Los Angeles, and a not-too-distant theocratic future: what do the stories we tell reveal about the things we believe?

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) A 13-year old foster child and a poet from London help a family and a gay couple face loss and redefine itself.

(David Stallings – A Song For St. Michael’s) A young boy is taught how to grieve within the cold rules of his structured community.

AM-What makes your work stand out from the rest?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) The play’s subject matter twists familiar tropes.  The issue of teacher-student relationships has been addressed in other plays, but what happens when the teacher and student are both female?  It’s about relationships and feelings that defy labels, where everything happens under the surface, where the characters are afraid to address what’s really going on — where they aren’t sure what’s really going on.  There’s a lot of language, a lot of quoting other people, but also a lot of unspoken communication.  I don’t know if this makes it stand out from everything else per se, but these are some characteristics of the piece.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) My plays have been described as “Southern gothic” so I think that makes my work different from the others.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) My work is grounded in the people and places of the American Southwest. There, I explore the tension between oppositional ideologies and cultures: between progress and tradition, urban and rural, professional and working class, religious and secular. My journey as a writer is to find beauty and value in those I judge, to uncover paradox and hypocrisies within myself through the insights of characters I would deplore in real life, and to harmonize conflict through humor and reconciliation.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) My work is very post-modern: multi-racial and multi-generational casts, interwoven narratives and meta-narratives, and a variety of media juxtaposed for a Twitter generation of theatergoers.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) Ah, the dreaded “sell-yourself” moment. I think my work stands out because it’s quiet, simple, but the emotions are big. I’m very interested in the poetry of who we are in private, with the people we’re closest to, and I think that comes through in the work.

(David Stallings – A Song for St. Michael’s) It is the second piece in a trilogy about a town in Texas and the dysfunctional traditions passed down through generations based in stubbornness and ignorance.  Those who have seen the development of Barrier Island will enjoy seeing a different and equally entertaining part of the community.

AM-Whose work do you admire – who inspires you?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) Caryl Churchill, Tom Stoppard, Diana Son, Joanna Murray-Smith, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Wendy Wasserstein… to name a few.  This play in particular was influenced by the works of Virginia Woolf.  And I’m also inspired by Shakespeare — his incredibly rich language and raw emotionality.  His use of language.  I’m fascinated by language.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) I’m a huge fan of early 20th Century Southern literature – Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Carson McCullers come to mind.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Sam Shepard, Horton Foote, Leila Buck.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) I’m inspired by playwrights who look beyond their own lives for inspiration… who use their plays to ask broad, penetrating questions about being human in the modern world.  David Hare, August Wilson, and Sarah Kane come to mind — diverse stylistically, but all of them big.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) Tony Kushner, because of his incredible gift with language. Christopher Shinn, Sarah Ruhl, Melissa James Gibson, Paula Vogel, Terrence McNally.

(David Stallings -  A Home Across The Ocean) Shakespeare’s.  His universality and specificity are a paradox that few have been able to reinvent.

AM-What do you hope the audience will walk away with after this reading?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) I hope they walk away in deep discussion with each other!  I’d love to inspire conversation, dialogue, examination.  They might wonder about the ambiguity of relationships, about our need to name things, to label them.  Hopefully they’ll wonder about what the characters do after the play ends.  Whatever happens, I hope they’re thinking.

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) I hope that the audience will laugh a lot, cry a little, and walk away thinking a little bit about how they tell their own stories and create their own personal “truths.”

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Respect for uneducated, uncultured, underprivileged working class white folks.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) A glimpse, perhaps, of a way to get out of the ideological complexity and deep emotion underlying the religious culture clashes that have paralyzed American life for at least a century… and (I would be remiss in not adding) a very strong desire to buy a ticket to a full production of the play.

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) I hope they walk away feeling as though they watched something that felt deeply true, something funny, something moving, something real.

(David Stallings – A Song for St. Michael’s) My favorite reaction from an audience is a gasp!

AM-What other projects do you have lined up in 2010?

(Barrie Kreinik – A Thousand Shapes) I’m still in the process of lining up specific projects, but I’ve got ongoing work as a voice-over artist, singer, and dialect coach, and I’m working on a couple of new play ideas.  I put on a lot of hats!

(Jacqueline Goldfinger – Slip/Shot) So far, I have a world premiere of my commissioned adaptation of Little Women in San Diego and a production of my dark comedy the terrible girls in Philadelphia. My short play, His Last Fight, will also be published in the anthology “Best Ten-Minute Plays of 2010″ by Smith and Kraus.

(Carol Carpenter – Good Lonely People) Good Lonely People is in the final running for the High Desert Play Development Series at Southwest Repertory Theatre. I am currently conducting research for a new book whose near-impossible goal is to convince working class conservatives that their economic interests are not being served by their party.

(Gwydion Suilebhan – Faithkiller) My play The Constellation will be running in DC this winter, and I’ll be workshopping a new play called Reals this spring… more importantly, though, I’ll be having my first child — which is the greatest project I can imagine!

(Cody Daigle – A Home Across The Ocean) I’m working on two new plays – a play about architecture, real estate and theater (seriously!) called The Lasting and a relationship comedy called Cuddleman.

(David Stallings – A Song for St. Michael’s) Barrier Island with MTWorks opening April 30th and A Daughter of Israel with BOO-Arts in the fall.

* * *

The 2010 National NewBorn Festival takes place at The Asya Geisberg Studio (526 West 26th Street, No 1017. Between 10th and 11th Ave). The admission is free but you do need to reserve your seats as the space is limited. For a complete schedule and reservation information visit www.MTWorks.org.

Next week we will bring you an interview with the directors involved in the festival, including our very own contributor Diánna Martin.  I leave you with a short conversation with one of the many writers that have inspired the dramatists participating in NewBorn, Tony Kushner.

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