CTX Live Review of Godot.

 

Review: Waiting for Godot by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs

Director Veronica Prior took on the job of directing this classic piece of twentieth century theatre despite some misgivings.  She writes in the program,  "I studied this play in college, as many of us did.  I have seen several different productions over the years, and wondered what was wrong with me, that I just didn't 'get it.'  I am a simple person, not a philosopher.  To be honest, I know very little of the 'isms' that others see in this play.  I see a story.  A good story, and one that has something for each of us to hear." 

 

This production proves her wrong.  Ronnie Prior does "get it."  This is a notable staging, an exploration in airy, droll and quizzical comic mode.  Actors and director do not flinch from Beckett's dark message, but they glide through it, moment by moment, with a tolerance for ambiguity and for one another.

 

This text from the 1950s, written first in French and later converted by the author into English, has provoked endless debte and discussion.  Martin Esslin used it to push the thesis of his book The Theatre of the Absurd.  Vivien Mercier wrote a famous review in the Irish Times calling it "a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice."  And if you want a summary and a long taste of the "-isms" eagerly applied to the play, spend some time with the entry in Wikipedia. 

 

 

ank Benge, Ashlyn Nichols, Craig Kanne (ALT photo)

But your time will be better spent at the former Union Pacific railway depot, now in a Round Rock city park just east of I-35.    The Sam Bass cast keeps the play intensely alive, from the first moment with ticking clocks, when charming Ashlyn Nichols pirouettes onto the wasted urban landscape, gracefully flutters about the stage and assumes her central position and central role as The Tree.  That's a gigantic wink to the audience, a reassuring sign that we will not be looking fixedly down sewers or into graves for this two hours.  Nichols serves throughout as a bright, silent chorus to Gogo and Didi's flusteration.

 

They're a terrific pair, Frank Benge as the worried, put-out, snappish Vladimir ("Didi") and Craig Kanne as the courteous, blank-faced, bobblehead Estragon ("Gogo").  In his massive apprehension Benge works to master the uncertainity of the eternal, ever frustrated expectation of the arrival of Godot.  Kanne's Gogo lives from moment to moment and from word to word, ever capable of surprise and enchanted by mystery.  They're the two sides of the coin of human understanding.  Benge is splendid in search for meaning; Kanne is appealing in his childish  beguilement.

 

 

Ben Weaver, William Diamond, Ashlyn Nichols (ALT photo)

Their efforts to fill time, or at least to make it pass, are symbolized by all those non-working clocks on the walls.  In each act a curious pair of interlopers interrupts them and provides considerable diversion.  William Diamond gives us Pozzo the master as a painted fantastick, querelous and dismissive of the stunned, submissive creature Lucky, who wears a rope about his neck.  Ben Weaver, who demonstrated marvelous verbal dexterity as Einstein last year in the company's Picasso at the Lapin Agile, here shows a fine mastery of pratfall, presence and physical comedy.

 

 

Those visitors depart in Act I, with Pozzo railing at Lucky; in Act II they return, in extremis, with Pozzo struck blind.  All of these frustrated journeys, turning round and round, are filled with incident, never really elaborated or explained.  The interims of all four characters are, in effect, our lives, the short interval for humankind summed up by Beckett in one of the most chilling lines in literature: "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."

Well, It Finally Happened

 https://ctxlivetheatre.com/news/20240328-sam-bass-theatre-association-shutters-its/

The

(via SBTA)

 Sam Bass Theatre Association (SBTA) wishes to inform our community and patrons that we must vacate our beloved performance space at 600 N Lee Street.

While we are saddened by this development, we understand the necessity behind it. Our facilities, with their age and the required repairs, are simply becoming too expensive to maintain. Safety has always been a priority to us, so we feel this closure is the best solution for all parties involved.

In light of this transition, SBTA will be launching a relocation fund drive. If you wish to contribute and support our efforts to secure a new home, please visit our website https://www.sambasstheatre.org in the near future, as we will be posting more information about this crucial fundraising event.

We may be losing our building, but we are far from gone...Mark your calendars!

On Saturday, May 18, 2024, we will be presenting our first annual 10-minute play festival. We had literally hundreds of submissions and are currently narrowing them down so that we can present you with the finest of the finest. Stay tuned for more details, including the location, which we will share on social media, our website, and via email as soon as it is available.

For further inquiries or to learn more about SBTA's future and upcoming productions, please contact sambasstheatre@gmail.com. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to welcoming you to our future performances in our new venue one day soon.Thank you!

SBTA Board of Directors

I'm sure I will have more to say later.

https://ctxlivetheatre.com/reviews/review-death-and-the-maiden-by-sam-bass-communi/

 https://ctxlivetheatre.com/reviews/review-death-and-the-maiden-by-sam-bass-communi/

Saving this because, after 8 years, it's likely to disappear.

Review: Death and the Maiden by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Jeremy Moran

Cathie Sheridan (photo: Henry Huey)

Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden is not a literal ghost story, and yet there are ghosts hidden behind every corner of the action. These are the ghosts that linger in the lives of survivors of horrific human rights abuses the world over. They will forever hover over the life of Paulina Escobar (Cathie Sheridan), who was kidnapped, blindfolded, raped, and tortured by a sadistic, psychopathic doctor under a totalitarian government in an unnamed country (based on Chile). She can never again listen to the Schubert piece of the title because that was the music the doctor played as he violated her body.  She lives in a constant state of fear and horror.

 

Now she finds herself in the horrifying situation of seeing her abuser’s face for the very first time and in her own home, no less.Her husband Gerardo (Robert Stevens) has  invited him to stay the night as a thank you for helping him out during a road accident. Paulina does not know what he looks like, as she was blindfolded throughout her captivity, but she;s terrified when she knows without a doubt that this is the guy. She knows his smell. She knows the feel of his skin. She knows his fondness for using weird phrases like “teensy­weensy.” She knows that his name is Dr. Roberto Miranda (Frank Benge). This is absolutely the man who raped her fourteen times to Schubert’s Death and the Maiden.

 

Rather than cowering in fear, she turns the tables on him. She ties him to a chair and symbolically stuffs her underwear down his throat. She then forces him to listen to her recital of every disgusting act of abuse that he inflicted on her. She refuses to let that torture destroy her. She cannot make the ghosts disappear, but she can defeat them.

  

Frank Benge (photo by Henry Huey)

What follows is a brutal examination of a culture that seeks to disempower, discredit, and demean women. The setting may be based on Chile but that country is never explicitly named, and these events can happen everywhere. Her husband Gerardo, the only person to whom Paulina can go to about this, refuses to believe her and worries that this situation will affect his professional standing as a new member of the presidential commission. She can’t go to the authorities. She knows that nothing would happen, particularly because Roberto is a powerful man. Nobody will believe her story or offer support. In this patriarchal society that protects those who use their power to abuse, Paulina must take matters into her own hands.

 

Cathie Sheridan summons rage from a deep pit as she portrays Paulina’s determination to not be broken by her trauma. Never for a second does she allow Paulina to become an over-­the-­top madwoman. All of her extreme actions proceed logically out of her burning hatred of her abuser. She establishes this the moment that she turns a gun on Roberto and fires a shot into the wall. The weapon in her hand actually goes off and it’s completely startling. The audience wonders if she has another shot in there as she continues waving it around, and we become fearful of what she is going to do next. In quieter moments Sheridan seethes as if slowly breathing out a deep, sad stream of rage that never ends. When she cries, her tears are not those of a weak being crumbling in the face of fear but those of an empowered person using every single thing she has in order to obtain justice. This is one of the most realistic and affecting portrayals of post-­traumatic stress syndrome that I have ever seen, particularly in the final moments where Sheridan's silent scream is in her eyes. She doesn't actually utter a word.

 

 

Robert Stevens, Cathie Sheridan (photo by Henry Huey)

 

Robert Stevens plays Gerardo as a cowardly worm of a man so terrified of jeopardizing his life and career that he never dares takes a stand on anything. He attempts to discredit his wife yet cowers and crumbles when she demands retribution. He begins to side with Roberto when things become too threatening. Stevens’ performance was uneven and there were times when he seemed to be struggling with lines and seeking appropriate emotional reactions. He does, however, provide the only moment of levity in this heaviest of shows when he  half­heartedly uses a comically large steak knife to threaten Roberto into submission, simply because Paulina demanded him to do so. His attempts to be menacing when he is not a menacing person actually garner a few laughs, hollow though they may be.

 

As Roberto, Frank Benge has the least number of lines, which may seem strange, considering how much text there is in this three-­character play. Benge spends much of the show with his limbs tied up to a chair and his mouth gagged, and yet he uses the rest of his body to project true menacing. In one scene between Paulina and Gerardo, Benge can be seen in the background subtly attempting to work his leg free, and effort that adds an element of suspense and menace. Yet he also shows Roberto as a charming manipulator who conceals his evil side so skillfully that, you do think that yes, he must be innocent. This is a realistic portrayal. Actual abusers are never Snidely Whiplash figures of pure evil. Benge's booming voice makes his monologue toward the end particularly terrifying.

 

Frank Benge, Cathie Sheridan (photo by Henry Huey)

 

 

Director Veronica Prior keeps the action at a slow burn, building gradually to the big emotional beats rather than attacking them at full force. She uses light and minimal sound effects to create a relatively subdued mood. Ashley Sandel’s lighting is very effective, illuminatinge Jim and Debra Mischel’s detailed set with warm, restrained reds and oranges. Blackouts are often used to highlight drama, and some scenes are illuminated by candlelight in a very beautiful way. All of this makes the already small space that much smaller, creating a very intimate, harrowing experience.

 

 I found it a very interesting choice to bring the lights up in full as assistant director/stage manager Lennon Loveday carried out scene changes. At first I thought it kind of weirdto highlight Loveday as she cleared tables and moved chairs, but over time it became a creepy motif. Loveday became a silent spectral presence existing outside the story yet physically changing the entire space for the characters. Am I reading too much into this? Maybe. Yet, the looming presence of Loveday has stayed with me as a haunting, sad image of that which is there when you wish it was not. 

Life in the Senior Apartments

 It's actually not bad. The rent went up $35 a month after the first year, but that could have been a lot worse. It's still a pretty nice 2 bedroom apartment at a reasonable price.

The population is quite diverse. There are people who are sociable and people who aren't, and that's ok. Lots of dogs, most of them friendly. I've seen one other English Bulldog, whose name is Dudley. He's an elderly gentleman who approaches life with a "get off my lawn" attitude, but he's actually pretty nice. There's Gabriel, who is a large teenage German Shepherd with a booming bark and who regards Rocco as a bowling ball, There are innumerable Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes, all of whom seem to be 10 years older than dirt, much like their owners. I've met a Shih Tzu or two, a Boston Terrier, and one HellifIKnow (according to its owner).

There are a several people I chat with at the swimming pool, or just walking around, or at the Poopy Park. The Mail Room seems to be a good chat spot. There's one lady who comes over every once in a while, but I don't go visiting. My neighbour across the hall very nicely looks after my delivered packages, and I do the same for her.

So, after a year, I feel confident that I can live here.

The apartments are not really designed for seniors, with deep garden tubs that are not the easiest things to get in and out of. The bedrooms have carpet, but the bathrooms and living areas have that fake wood flooring that is easy to maintain. There's a kitchen island, which I didn't think I would like until I discovered that it is the perfect height for a cutting table. It's made of a sort of composite marble that absorbs heat well. I have to remember to set the tea pot on a cutting board, or it cools off quickly. The place is easy to keep clean, which is a huge plus! I have a washer and dryer, thanks to a friend, connected to the theater, who pays for the rental of the set. I do the costume laundry for the theatre school, so it all works out.

I realized early on that the lobby at the office was designed to appeal to the well-heeled offspring of said seniors who are shopping for a place for their parents who no longer want to deal with looking after a house and yard. It's all angles and a seating pit that even I have to make and effort to get up from. And (I'm told) I'm pretty spry.

I like the swimming pool, which has no deep end, but is just under 4 ft deep all over. It even has a chair that can be lowered into the water, if you can't make it down the steps by yourself. There's an exercise room, too, but that's not my jam. There are raised garden beds, and paved walk of about a quarter mile. There's a CVS pharmacy within walking distance, but that's the only shop. More are supposedly being built, but that hasn't happened yet. The CVS has a few groceries, so emergency milk and bread are available. I get my groceries delivered from H-E-B, which is the favourite supermarket of most Texans. "If they ain't got it at H-E-B, ya don't need it! They even have Marmite, though it's not on the list of things you can order on line.

All in all, it's a nice place to live. My apartment faces northwest, with a view of a parking lot, but the patio is well situated for plants, as are the living room windows. I've managed to train a couple of Pothos up the window wall with Command Hooks (tm), which are hooks that attach to the walls without damaging them. I have more on the patio, along with some spider plants and a few other odds and ends that seem quite happy there. One problem is that the patio floods whenever there's a heavy rain, as the flower bed right outside it overflows into it, and I can wind up with an inch or so of standing water. It doesn't last long though, and has not seeped into the apartment at all.

I hope the rent doesn't rise to the point I can't afford it. This year, the Cost of Living increase in my Social Security is enough to cover it. The apartment is nice, and new, and clean, with new appliances and no problems with any of them. I can supply as much character as I need...

Of course, I've had to learn to keep the door locked, as I looked up one morning and there was a rather confused man in my apartment. I guess he just came in the wrong door, thinking it was his. I yelled at him with my finger on the emergency call button on my phone until he left, muttering something about "Bitch..." I have a large, glittering artificial flower wreath on my front door (Addy picked it out), so he must have been really off his meds...

Anyway, when I have only myself to support, I can manage, as long as I can hold onto my job at Austin Educational Theatre and pick up a few costuming gigs and alterations here and there. As long as I can stay spry...

Let's hear it for SPRY! Dearly Beloved, I will be 75 in June!

First Freeze

 I love my apartment! I'm on the ground floor of a three-storey building, which conserves heat and coolness in a most remarkable manner, compared with the drafty house in Round Rock. During the hottest summer on record, my electric bill stayed below $90/month. I don't know how it will do in the cold, but let me tell you that I rarely had a bill lower than $300 at the house, and often over $400 during the summer. Of course, that one time it got really, REALLY cold, the electric grid shut down, so we had neither heat nor a high bill until after the got it back up. THEN the bill was through the roof. That poor struggling electric company needed to pay for the repairs somehow! God forbid they should take the cut in profits caused by their own greed!

My computer says it's 31 F outside, and my phone says 29. Last night, I moved all the patio plants back against the wall and covered them, and everything seems OK, but the best news of all is that I am walking around on my insulated floor in bare feet and the floor doesn't even feel cold. I set the thermostat for 69, and was very comfortable sleeping. I will go for lower settings and more blankets if cold weather persists. The weather people have been warning that it is going to be a cold winter.

On a side note, a bulldog is a very adequate substitute for a hot water bottle.

Three Old Music Films #1--The T.A.M.I. Show

 I was looking through some DVDs the other day, and ran across The T.A.M.I. Show. The film was shot and released within 2 weeks in 1964. I watched it last night and realized that I like it even more now than I did when I saw it in the movie theater back then.

It starts with Jan and Dean skateboarding around L.A. "Sidewalk surfing," I think it was called at the time, with the cute little teeny tiny boards they had then. The MUSIC, however, starts with Chuck Berry and ends a couple of hours later with The Rolling Stones. In between, it's mostly British Invasion and Motown. There was one band, The Barbarians, I had never heard of. They sound like a garage band, and I could have done without. Also not wild about Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. Definite creep factor watching this dollar store Elvis impersonator singing a song offering candy and money to small children so he can have some privacy with their older sister.

But the rest of it! Holy cow! That was some awesome 60s rock, put together in a respectful format. Seeing it after all this time, I could see some things I didn't know about back then. I now hear roots of Janis Joplin in the vocals of James Brown. And Lesley Gore, all done up like a Baptist Church Lady in a bouclé suit and enough hairspray to burn down the building, sang six songs. Including my favourite, "You Don't Own Me."

The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles--these were the bands we danced to at sock hops. In future years, we would see them on TV (thank you, Ed Sullivan), but this was nose to nose in a movie theater.

The first artist I saw live was James Brown, a couple of years after. I think it's safe to say that TheT.A.M.I. Show was (heh) instrumental both in that decision and in the direction my taste in music took from that point on.

Before I read the booklet that came with the DVD, I had thought there were three music films that were significant to me, and lo, there they were! The other two are The Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock.

The Stones took one look at James Brown's performance and realized that he would be a tough act to follow. Apparently, James Brown refused to rehearse, so they didn't get to see him till the actual concert. Having to follow such a consummate showman gave Jagger the impetus for his rather awkward dance, which eventually evolved into his classic stage show. By the end of their set, you can see exhaustion all over his face.

Anyway, it was fun to watch, and I'm going to find the other two and have a look from the perspective of age...

(That sounds like a good title for another blog, doesn't it? From the Perspective of Age. Or does that sound a bit too pretentious?)

Reading Burnout

 I saw a meme earlier (damned if I can find it now, of course), that mentioned something to the effect of "emotional support books," that would follow their owner to their grave without ever being read.

A couple of years ago, I would not have understood this at all, but now it makes perfect sense. Dearly Beloved, I fear I have lost the will to read!

Anyone who has known me for a long time will know that I have always been a voracious reader. Back in the day, I wrote my name on a card at the library, and the title of every book I ever read was on that card, along with the date it was due back. And my name was on another card that resided in a pocket in the book. One year, I filled up five cards, and there was scarcely a book in the school library that didn't have my name in it by the time I graduated. As well, I was getting books from the public library, and from the church and swapping them around with friends. 

I'm That Mom, who read the ENTIRE Lord of the Rings trilogy to her kids, a chapter a night for something like 2 years...I may be the only person you know who, upon finishing a book, might just turn it over and read it again, right away.

And yet...these days I just don't seem to be able to sustain interest in reading much of anything. I have several books around that I have started and set down. I think about them, and tell myself I really must finish them, but it hasn't happened. Throughout the lockdown, when I thought I would read a lot, I never did.

I hope this is a temporary condition, and that a lifetime of reading hasn't led to a permanent burnout.