Drama Queen

Building a better Mousetrap

2009-07-03T12:07:47Z

The Mousetrap
Silver Spring Stage
Through July 26

by Gina Guglielmo

Silver Spring Stage is currently mounting a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, a work which holds the world record for longest-running show: it opened in London in 1952 and has clocked over 23,000 performances since beginning in the West End. Its perennial appeal derives from its ingenious plotting and surprise ending, but one must wonder: Is its staying power dwindling as the Twenty-First Century moves into its second decade?

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Two actors, Mysie Monte and David Raven played the roles of Mrs. Boyle and Major Metcalf for a staggering eleven years with typical British dependability. Another curiosity about this play is that famed director, Richard Attenborough played Trotter for two years on the London Stage, and his wife Sheila Sim appeared as Mrs. Ralston. Finally, a very pleasant tradition has evolved when the cast undergoes its yearly change: A Mouse Party is held where the outgoing leading lady and the incoming star cut a huge but cute rodent-shaped cake.

The Mousetrap is set in an isolated guest house called Monkswell Manor about an hour from London. The Ralstons are a young couple who are welcoming their first customers on a "dark and stormy" night. Snow is falling furiously as one guest after another arrives. Meanwhile, the wireless has announced the grisly murder of a Mrs. Lyon in the country's capital, and the alleged murderer is described as wearing a black coat, a dark felt hat and a white scarf. Each character who appears on the stage thereafter, including Giles Ralston, is wearing some variation of this costume.

While not as numerous as the passengers aboard Porter's Ship of Fools, the assembled guests at Monkswell Manor comprise a good cross-section of humanity. The Ralstons (Laurel Green and Doug Krehbiel) are young and optimistic about their new enterprise. Christopher Wren (Taylor Kulp) is a hyperactive, edgy young man who has chosen the name of the famous architect to mask his real identity. Mrs. Boyle (Laurie Freed) is a crank, pure and simple. A retired magistrate, she moves from hotel to hotel and complains about everything from the food to the central heating or lack thereof. Major Metcalf (Gordon Adams) and Miss Casewell (Elizabeth Replogle) are doughty British types: the retired military man and the maiden lady who lives abroad. Mr. Paravicini (Keith Brown) is a suspicious foreigner whose car has turned over in a snowdrift. He travels with no luggage and is forever muttering menacingly. Finally, the local constabulary is represented by Sgt. Trotter(David Dieudonne) who arrives on skis and informs the alarmed guests that the phone line has been cut and, most likely, the London murderer is either on his way or present in that drawing room.

This last possibility, a killer in their midst, is a venerable device used in sleuth fiction, and Trotter's rationating ways make him a lesser clone of Christie's famous Miss Marple and Hercule Poiret. My lips are sealed about the rest of the story, but I can say that part of the plot is based on a sensational crime that occurred in England in 1945, and that the spotlight of suspicion as to whodunit falls on everyone including Mollie Ralston and her husband.

Director, Pauline Griller-Mitchell, pointed out a most-amazing fact about the cast: four of the actors are themselves directors. Furthermore, Gordon Adams (Metcalf) played the role of the young Christopher Wren fifty years ago. Ms. Griller-Mitchell was justifiably proud of the set (built on the premises) which featured a hand-painted parquet floor. The various doorways, the staircase to the bedrooms on the second floor, the French windows all worked well to handle the many comings and goings at Monksmore Manor, which originally was capacious medieval monastery.

The strongest performances belong to Laurel Green as Mollie, Laurie Freed as the cantankerous Mrs. Boyle and David Dieudonne, god's gift to the role of Sgt. Trotter.
Perhaps it was the character of the audience the night of the preview, but their reactions blurred the lines between a suspense thriller and a hilarious farce. To be sure the script contains many witty and ironic lines, but every time Christopher Wren appeared and spoke, loud laughter arose, and it is doubtful that Christie intended him to be a buffoon. Likewise Paravicini caused loud squeals which were quite disconcerting.

Granted, Paravicini's Italian accent is supposed to sound phony, he is highly rouged and his lines all resemble, "Curses, foiled again," but he spends too much time in campyland. Ditto for Christopher Wren. The latter is a very hard role to pull off in order to strike the balance between possible psychopathic behavior and genuine vulnerability. What came across was distressing to watch especially the fey mannerisms which seem to take liberties with the author's intent and add weight to an already psychologically- burdened character.

With such skilled and experienced veteran actors and directors, these problems should be minimized as the performances continue. The answer to my question about the possible irrelevance of the play is a resounding "No." The Mousetrap still has lots of spring and snap; it keeps the audience amused and guessing until the last moments. Everyone should see this play: it is not only a national but international treasure.

The play will run until July 26. Fri, Sat @ 8, Sun matinees @ 2 on 7/12 & 7/26.
Silver Spring Stage is located in the Woodmore Shopping Center, 10145 Colesville Rd.
301-593-6036. ssstage.org.

Et in Arcadia ego

2009-06-15T20:32:27Z

Arcadia
Folger Theatre
through June 21
www.folger.edu

by Gina Guglielmo

Tom Stoppard used the irony in the above Latin epigram as a major motif of his play, Arcadia. The phrase, which is not attributable to any ancient author, means "Even in Arcadia, I exist" the "I" being "death" who dwells even in the most idyllic lives.

The same phrase was used by Nietzsche; Evelyn Waugh used the motto for the heading of Book I of Brideshead Revisited; it was misquoted by William Faulkner, and was appropriated by Goethe in a memoir. W.H. Auden appropriated the saying for poem title; Walter Pater alludes to it in his essay on the philosopher, Winklemann; it even appeared recently as a line in a song by the band, Killing Joke. Painters too found the idea arresting. Poussin created two canvases depicting the idea, but Guercino's picture is worth a whole library of words.

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The play starts out in the early 19th C., the Romantic Period in England, at Sidley Park where a precocious child, Thomasina Coverly, Lady Thomasina actually, is approaching the discovery of a mathematical breakthrough while being tutored by an Oxfordian named Septimus Hodge. Septimus was at school with that bad George Gordon, Lord Byron, whom he brings to Sidley for a visit.

Also sashaying around the drawing room are Lady Croom, the mistress of Sidley; a writer of most bathetic rhymes named Ezra Chater; Captain Brice, Lady Croom's sea-captain brother; and a demented architect Richard Nokes who is systematically converting all Sidley Park's classical and orderly gardens, designed by Capability Brown, into a Romantic wilderness. For his troubles he is excoriated by that harpy, Lady Groom, and rechristened Culpability Nokes. A fascinating character is the licentious Mrs. Chatter who has affairs with all the above men, but with Stoppardian deft humor, never appears in the play!

These goings on would seem enough for a night's entertainment. But remember who is writing this Arcadia. The setting of Sidley Hall remains the same, but the audience is catapulted into the present where a novelist/garden book writer Hannah Jarvis is researching the pre-Nokian gardens. The descendants of the Coverlys are in residence: Chloe, Valentine and the mostly mute Gus. His counterpart in the other world is Tomasina's brother, Augustus. Hannah's peaceful diggings are interrupted when a scholarly critic, one Bernard Nightingale, comes to the stately house to do a bit of unearthing on his own.

He believes that Byron killed Chater in a duel, and tries to unearth the evidence to stage a coup in the literary world. Valentine is a computer savant working on his own math breakthrough (using grouse and the old hunting logs of Sidley), and is connected to the past because he has found Tomasina's workbooks. These modern folk are constantly one-upping each other with discoveries in one book or another, and eventually solve the mysteries shrouding Byron and the mysterious Hermit who lived a solitary life on the estate for twenty years and left rooms and rooms full of paper.

The intellectual and scientific dialogue bandied about by these characters both in the past and present is daunting and could be off-putting were it not for the skillful handling of plot, personalities and technical jargon in the recent production of Arcadia, directed by Aaron Posner at The Folger Theater. When one realizes that Stoppard takes us from the old world of Newtonian Predictability to the new realization of an increasingly chaotic universe, it's amazing that the play truly comes off as a deeply human, humorous and poignant experience. Posner's approach was everything: the cast was perfect in its fidelity to the text; these were living, breathing, flawed, loveable human beings who despite their brilliance beyond most normal people's taught us this message: "It's the wanting to know that makes us matter." In the program notes, Posner counsels us to ever be open to "wonder" as he leads us through this magical mystery tour.

Holly Twyford was marvelously wry as Hannah. The expressive face and body language were wonders to behold. Erin Weaver was a beguiling Tomasina and managed to portray both genius and girlish vulnerability. Her romantic waltz with Septimus at the conclusion, while contemporary characters strode in and out of the scene, introduced a note of sadness knowing as we did his and her fate. Suzanne O'Donnell as Lady Croom, was a protean force of nature, a comic whirlwind of a seductress whose life was idyllic and painless since her most serious thoughts were about the Ha-Ha in the park.

Equally strong and devastatingly attractive in their roles were the gentlemen of the ensemble. The comedic turns and bombast of Eric Hissom's Nightingale were perfectly matched to Stoppard's twisting and turning ideas. Cody Nickell made such an appealing Septimus that one fell in love with him along with Tomasina, not just for his beauty, but for his clever mind, his ability to laugh out loud at himself and his society, and his underlying vulnerability to the phantom that lurks in this earthly Paradise. Peter Spray deserved a medal for memorizing and clarifying all that mathematical jargon. It is not hyperbole to state that the entire cast of Arcadia lived their parts to the hilt. FinallyI would be remiss not to conclude with my own Helen Hayes nomination for best costumes this season: there is just one adjective for Kate-Turner Walker's designs: delicious!

Summer Drama-go-round

2009-06-10T19:44:39Z

Now that the monsoon has abated and "somer Is icumin in," Takomans and Silver Springers can seriously take up the work of enjoying the variety of June-September entertainments which DC offers. The drama carousel is a splendid and colorful one and, while some of its horses are already out of the gate, Drama Queen would like to invite you to hop onto the merry-go-round and, as the Wurlitzer band organ begins to play, take your pick of what look to be sure winners.

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These shows are already running, so join the chase before they close:

Crazy Face: Hurry to wallow in this phantasmagoria if you are a Clive Barker fan; the run at the Source ends June 14.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Synetic Theatre's "silent treatment" of this woodland romp through June 14.

A Sleeping Country: In this comedy, a New York woman with chronic insomnia travels to Venice to find a likewise-afflicted relative, the "Sleepless Countess." Join the pacing at the Round House, Bethesda; the final show is June 21.

Arcadia: Playing at the Folger Theatre (also until 6/21) quaintly erudite Stoppard work, with Lord Byron and Shelley hovering in the wings, is a departure from his usual antic mode.

See What You Wanna See: Although Signature Theater's production of the aforementioned play will have ended by the time this paper hits the streets, DQ will take a cue from the title to make her personal suggestions to Voice readers.

Radio Golf: This is the final work in August Wilson's ten-play cycle about the African American experience and examines the plight of families living in Projects after the Big Developers take over. It is also the last play he wrote before his death in 2005. Ponder the title's meaning at Studio Theatre's production running through June 28.

The Glass Menagerie: What would a hot, swampy summer be without Tennessee Williams? Try it with a/c at The Olney Theater until July 5.

Shear Madness: This uproarious comedy has been playing at The Kennedy Center forever. Perhaps we should join the fun before the curtain's final thud.

Coming soon

King Lear: Although DQ finds this royal pretty distatesful (a bit too whiny and self-absorbed), the play is a perennial favorite. Not for kids, the production includes those three stalwarts: graphic violence, sexuality and nudity. Howl along at The Shakespeare Theatre from June 16 - July 19.

The Mouse Trap: Speaking of oldies and goodies, Agatha Christie's mystery, the longest running play in the history of the world, will play at Silver Spring Stage from June 26 - July 26.

Other critters

Any Merry-go-round worth its gold ring does not limit itself to horses. The grand carousel at Glen Echo Park offers rides on tigers, ostriches and even a sprinting hare. Likewise the Metro area's choices are so varied and numerous, one could revel and feast twice a week and never empty the cornucopia. Check out these apples!

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown at the Adventure Theatre at Glen Echo Park, June 26-August 8. Good Grief!

The Taming of the Shrew: In case the question, "Whatever happened to Carter Barron?" crossed your mind, the good news is that the annual free-for-all (featuring TOTS aka Petrucchio and the Woman who Hates Him) has been moved to the Sidney Harman Theater and will run from August 27 to September 12.

Wolf Trap Farm Park: From late June to early August, Wolf Trap's Children's Theatre-in-the-Woods presents adventures in music, puppetry and story telling. Show times are 10 and 11:a.m. Tuesdays through Saturday.

Thus concludes the short and very subjective list of summer possibilities. While the above are unabashedly personal choices, remember those true words of Mel Brooks in "History of the World, Part I": "It's good to be the King."

Half-Looped, Dahlings

2009-06-05T12:48:39Z

Looped
Arena Stage at the Lincoln Theatre

by Gina Guglielmo

Valerie Harper is undoubtedly a fine actress as her appearances as Rhoda Morgestern on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" in the 70's and in her spin-off hit, "Rhoda," attest. In this era of actors channeling the famous viz. Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Etta James, even Richard M. Nixon, it is no biggie that Tallulah Bankhead should join the list: I mean, the woman was notorious for her brash candor and train wreck lifestyle.

Harper's resemblance to the fog-horn voiced star of screen and stage was, with the help of makeup and a perfect wig, uncanny. The walk, the voice, the obscenity of her idiom are all faithfully replicated in this comedy by Matthew Lombardo which recreates an episode late in Tallulah's life during a rerecording (or looping) of a single sentence from the film "Die, Die, My Darling in a LA recording studio. So unfocused was the actress, it took eight hours for her to drawl, "And so Patricia, as I was saying . . ."

Why the prolonged agony? Well the majority of theater goers come to the play to witness Bankhead's epic boozing, drug addiction and erratic/ erotic behavior. Indeed the pun is legitimate: she smokes, swills Scotch and even snorts cocaine throughout the play, goes off on all sorts of wild tangents: hence a looped lady doing a looping.

She is beyond outrageous: Madonna is a postulant in a convent compared to this southern belle turned foul-mouthed virago. May I state for the record that Drama Queen's last name is not Victoria, which gives some idea of her venomous but rather creative diatribes. The audience howled appreciatively at each shockeroo.

Born in Huntsville, Alabama into a prestigious political family (her father was Speaker of the House; her grandfather was a Senator),Tallulah's life started out tragically. Her mother died three months after delivering her second daughter, and according to Tallulah, her father blamed her brutally. At first a homely, pudgy child, she blossomed into a beauty but discovered drugs and promiscuous sex in her teens. Despite this baggage, she broke into Broadway and then Hollywood making dozens of movies. The best of the lot was her portrayal of a famous actress in "Lifeboat". She also spent eight very successful years on the London Stage and even hosted her own radio show.

As Looped begins, a film editor named Danny Miller (Jay Goede) bursts into the sound studio looking for the missing actress. Eventually she stumbles in while giving the verbal finger to the entire L.A. area. Her patter is shocking not because we never hear this language but because La Bankhead's vocabulary was as salacious well before George Carlin, South Park and Jon Stewart made potty talk rather ho-hum. She used her prurient put-downs to insult, attack, and demean this Danny whom she had barely met, coming across as a miserable human being who never found or learned to like herself. Somehow, Harper evokes pity for her too.

Some of the anecdotes that fill out her non-stop barrage are shocking but likely true: Gary Cooper, good ole' Coop of High Noon, gave her the clap which nearly killed her and rendered her barren. Douglas Fairbanks was a sexual lightweight and so was his wife, Joan Crawford. Oh, she spares no one: Tennessee Williams, Jessica Tandy, her equally bizarre sister, Eugenia, and everyone from Harpo Marx to her hotel doorman who wants to "have it on" with her.

Cutting to the chase, Valerie Harper is a good actress; she did a fabulous imitation of Tallulah, the harridan, as she torments Danny into a tearful revelation about his homosexuality. It was at this point that the play finally fell off the cliff. First of all, drunk as she is throughout, according to the Post review, Tallulah did not abuse alcohol; she was a world-class drug addict and chain smoker, so I feel the playwright distorted the facts to make his character more infamous. Neither was she a great actress. She was, how well we know this type today: a Celebrity. Like Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd., her tragedy is not based on the reality of a flawed genius. When Harper does Blanche Dubois for Danny to prove she could really act, she made a rotten Blanche. It's unclear if the director Rob Ruggiero called for that, or was it that Harper could not muster her gifts to show Tallulah being great in this role? She is after all a comic actress and there is not a single funny bone in Blanche Dubois' body.

The whole idea of Danny jumping out of the closet after knowing Bankhead for half a day is preposterous. Why would this tormented man who had married and fathered a child and kept his deep, dark secret for his whole life confide in this sad broken-down shell of a woman, who morphs suddenly into a motivational speaker urging him to be free and express himself.

So "Looped" gets a B. The actors followed the script, but the play missed the "Lifeboat."

Looped runs through June 28 at the Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St., NW, Washington. Tickets are $25 to $74. Call 202-488-3300 or go to arenastage.org.

Lumina Studio went BIG with "Little Dorrit"

2009-06-01T17:00:08Z

photo by Linda Parker

by Sandy Moore

There was nothing "little" about Lumina Studio's production of Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit," staged at Silver Spring's Round House Theatre on May 16-20. The book was BIG (850 pages, which playwright David Minton pared down to a 67-page script), the cast was BIG (88 actors in total, split between two casts), as was the staging (59 scene changes).

The music was BIG too, with the actors singing original melodies created for the show by local composer Mark Haag. And the costumes, including dresses with hoop skirts made from heavy drapery were--BIG.

]]> One such dress, worn by young actress Aziza Afzal, weighed over 20 pounds. Wendy Eck, Lumina's costume designer, assembled or sewed 110 character costumes in all.

Lumina's talented and tireless Director David Minton is someone who likes a challenge. In 2007 he and his wife Jillian Raye (Lumina's founder) brought Dickens' "Nicholas Nickleby" to Round House, and that success inspired them to adapt "Little Dorrit" for the stage. Unfortunately, Jillian died in November of '08 after a prolonged battle with breast cancer, and was not able to see their vision take shape. However, the show was dedicated to Jillian's memory, and her influence was evident in the beautiful stagecraft that made the BIG play (3+ hours per performance) such a feast for the senses.

"Little Dorrit" is one of Dickens' most autobiographical novels, based on his family's hard life in the Marshalsea Prison, where his father was sent for a debt of 40 pounds. Twelve-year-old Charles Dickens was sent to work in a factory to try and relieve the family crisis - something he was never to forget or forgive. "Little Dorrit" is a biting social commentary which looks at the themes of imprisonment and freedom of all kinds: some characters are spiritually imprisoned, others emotionally imprisoned, and the debtors of Dickens' day - literally imprisoned. The play resonates with audiences today because the subject matter is timeless: Dickens' Mr. Merdle runs a Ponzi scheme that resembles Madoff's, both causing the financial ruin of so many.

Minton himself says about the production: "It was a massiveundertaking which is why this is only our second Dickens in the last five years. Adapting a novel so nuanced in it portrayals of a vast range of characters and so sprawling in its various locales challenges ouractors to exercise new acting "muscles" and our production team toinvent ingenious staging solutions. It is always a privilege to workwith material this good, and the process and final performances createa unique work of theatre art that everyone involved with the show hasfelt."

Lumina's backstage wizards (Julie Reiner, Jeff Struewing, Jim Porter, Suzanne Hubbard, Kris Thompson, Sheila Landahl, Ron Murphy, Eve Vawter, Linda Parker, Celeste Wiser, Elizabeth Gelfeld and Joan Susie) reached new levels of artistry in this show. One particularly memorable bit of staging occurred when Lumina's youngest actors joined Minton onstage as bureaucrats from the "Circumlocution Office." The actors gave stylized and humorous performances, playing a kind of musical chairs game to keep "the public" from penetrating the inner sanctum of their government office. Minton's staging was reminiscent of Monty Python, and gave the audience much to howl about.

"Little Dorrit" achieved a long-cherished goal of Jillian Raye, to produce classical works with an intergenerational cast in Takoma Park/Silver Spring. While the majority of roles were played by 8 to 15 years olds, the adult actors, Brian Monsell, John O'Connor, Ritchie Porter, Stewart Hickman, Caroline Alderson, Gretchen Schermerhorn, Andy Penn, Cassie Gabriel, and Minton himself (who played the aging William Dorrit) brought a wealth of acting experience to the play, and inspired Lumina's young actors to reach new heights as they interpreted Dicken's memorable characters.

About the only thing "little" about Little Dorrit were the two pre-school girls who took turns playing the role of Amy Dorrit when she was a tot.

Jessa Nather and Talia Silber were both charming and polished, threatening to steal the show had they made more than brief appearances.

All six performances of "Little Dorrit" were sold out by curtain time, and the audience included many young theatre-goers who were new to Dickens, or to live theatre period ! 8-year old Reina Coulibaly said,"I liked the way the actors could concentrate without getting distracted by the people they knew in the audience." (her sister, Binta, was one of the actors). She also had this thought about Dickens: "I think the author cared about big changes (to the British social class system) like when Little Dorrit became rich after coming out of the jail." More experienced theatre-goers, like State Senator Jamie Raskin said, "The play was a powerful indictment of class inequality and the cruelty of poverty."

At the final performance, Lumina bid goodbye to its long standing Stage Manager Nora McNally, a senior at Blair High School, who has contributed greatly to Lumina's productions in recent years - both on stage and backstage.

To see additional photos of Lumina's Little Dorrit production, visit www.LindaParkerPhoto.com

Lumina Studio Theatre has a few openings for the fall production of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, California. To register call 301-565-ACT1 or visit www.LuminaStudio.org.

A good "Bad Friend"

2009-03-01T15:05:55Z

by Gina Guglielmo

Jules Feiffer! What a blast from the DQ's past! Feiffer was so New York, so late 20th Century, and his sophisticated cartoons were everywhere: The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times. In 1986 Feiffer won the Pulitzer Prize for his political cartoons, and he was the ubiquitous and witty guest on talk shows in the early days of black and white TV.

But an author? Who knew? After a quick dip into Wikipedia, Feiffer's equally stellar career as a writer was made clear. He wrote the stage play for Little Murders as well as the screenplays for Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge and Robert Altman's Popeye. His book, The Great Comic Book Heroes was alluded to in the recent Kill Bill, and he was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2004. Not surprisingly, his whimsical humor lent itself to many children's books including The Man in the Ceiling.

Silver Spring Stage is currently offering Feiffer's little-known play,

A Bad Friend, a bittersweet comedy which takes place in the paranoia-rich atmosphere of the McCarthy era and makes it worth a serious look post 9/11. The plot of A Bad Friend is pretty straightforward: a family swept up by its fervor for Communism as embodied in Stalinist Russia is torn by internal conflicts; it is threatened and nearly destroyed by external ones.

The cast is small: the parents, Naomi and Shelly; teenage-daughter Rose; Hollywood screenwriter, Uncle Morty: a snooping reporter, Fallon; and an enigmatic stranger Rose befriends named Emil. Rose is the focus of the swirling energies provided by her ultra "progressive" parents who read The Daily Worker religiously and blindly and defend their good friend, Joseph Stalin, for his noble actions. Despite this grim scenario, there is a great deal of humorous dialogue in the play. Fieffer's definition of a liberal is a gem although surely a self-deprecating one: a liberal is a person whose feet are planted solidly in mid air. However, the life of this close-knit family, for all their ardent faith in a new world, ends only in sadness and disillusion.

The production (handled by Seth and Brenda Ghitelman), is creative and fast-paced due to the fact that there are no clear cut scenes or acts but a series of vignettes, twenty or more. Watching them actually resembles reading a book of cartoons. One scene segues into the next accompanied by snatches of apropos music ranging from The Depression songs of Guthrie to those of Fred Astaire. The role of Rose is played by Lauren Uberman who captures all the nuances of the teenage spectrum: outrage, innocence, deep commitment and vulnerability. She also does a drop-dead perfect Brooklyn accent, not an easy accomplishment for those not born and bred in Coney Island or Flatbush. The entire cast was polished and gave strong performances notably Sally Cusenza as the perennial Jewish Mamma and Craig Miller as Emil, the mystery man who Rose befriends on the esplanade of Brooklyn Heights.

Lauren Liberman (Rose), Gordon Adams (Shelly) and Sally Cusenza (Naomi).

A drawback to resurrecting this play might be its wealth of allusions to the witch-hunt mentality of the forties and fifties. The program notes provide information on once prominent names like John Garfield, Clifford Odets, and Emma Goldman. Most of the audience was likely familiar with The Rosenbergs and Zero Mostel, but I fear this play would go totally sopra la testa of anyone under 50. Even DQ had never heard the wild accusation that High Noon was a metaphor for an isolated and beleaguered comrade forsaken by a whole town of craven, unenlightened cowards.

And just who are the bad guys in this play? That is the question. Well, Joseph Stalin is certainly up for a prize. Late in the play, Shelley puts together some information which implies that Uncle Joe was behind the pogroms. Naomi rages against such disloyal ideas. However, locating the villain or villains of the piece goes beyond the obvious Soviet leader. Uncle Morty (in a strong performance by Brian Turley) is Rose's idol, but he quickly throws off old loyalties to his sister and her family, and to his own Commie roots when his writing career is at stake. The reporter who stalks Rose throughout the play would appear to be a bad friend but may possibly be a good one since he desires to enlighten Rose about her misled family.

Emil is likewise a very ambiguous character since he genuinely likes Rose for her unspoiled self, but then gives her Dreiser's An American Tragedy to read. Dreiser was a Party member and his novel pointed out the rotten underbelly of our capitalistic nation. It eventually comes out that Rose's dear friend Emil is an undercover Soviet spy, the notorious Colonel Abel.

Maybe the Bad Friend term is a metaphor for all the clouds of suspicion and betrayal that hung over Americans during that era. Silver Spring Stage should be applauded for reviving this play which underlines the values of civil rights and individual freedom for contemporary audiences. As the Director succinctly puts it in his opening notes: "When we betray those values, we are a bad friend to the world."

A Bad Friend continues at the Silver Spring Stage at 10145 Colesville Road, Woodmont Center in Silver Spring on March 6, 7 and March 13, 14 and 15 (m). 301-593-6036.

Religulous: Not that Mahervelous

2009-02-12T21:39:47Z

by Gina Guglielmo

This is a warning for people belonging to any of the following groups:

•   Worshippers at roadside trucker's chapels
•   Fundamentalists who believe every word of The Bible
•   Jews for Jesus who now own religious articles store
•   Muslims - especially those who stole the Temple Mount
•   Scientologists with names like Cruise and Travolta
•   Cannabis worshippers
•   Mormons from Joseph Smith down to Salt Lake City security guards
•   Born-again gays who think they can "get over it

You probably will not find Bill Maher's documentary Religulous amusing.

I agree with The Washington Post's capsule review of the film which states that Maher's satire is flawed because he lacks sufficient knowledge about his topic to denigrate it effectively. Neither does he grasp the high purpose of satire. Chaucer, for the most part a gentle satirist, pokes fun at the foibles of his fellow man; Maher sneers at them. He also lacks the "righteous indignation" displayed by Jonathan Swift, a "harsh satirist," who rages against hypocrites and tyrants; Maher is just plain mean-spirited and patronizing.

His unrelenting pomposity is worsened by a careless and jokey treatment of facts. For example while comparing the synchronous religions that sprang up around the Mediterranean in the First Century, he implies, using day-glo graphics, that lots of gods were also born on Dec. 25th, walked on water and rose from the dead. His interviewees are often set up to look like fools such as the curmudgeon priest he accosts in front of St. Peter's Basilica; the giddy woman who cannot wait to ride a white horse back to earth after "the rapture; or the rabbi who comically keeps shouting "Let me finish" meaning not a joke but his defense of agreeing with Ahmadinijad about The Holocaust.. Trying to squeeze out as many laughs as possible, Maher travels to Bibleland, a religious theme park where he can score a double whammy mocking both the simple faith of the performers and the customers.

Basically he makes a critical error between the concepts, Childish and Childlike, and in this he is consistent. Childish denotes immature, willfully naïve, petulant behavior ; child-like is something else. A very intelligent person can be child-like in his world view demonstrating a simplicity of belief and life style. Obviously, in his thirteen years as a Catholic before his father withdrew the family en masse, he sadly was not touched by the beauty and simplicity of the gospel stories. Cut off from this tradition, he also could not later use his obvious intelligence to examine the teachings of his father's Christianity or his mother's Judaism as he grew into maturity. In his criticism he harped continuously on the talking snake in the Garden of Eden and the Virgin Birth but did not seem to have a clue about the metaphorical nature of mythology by which Christians, Jews, Muslims and other believers can reconcile religious texts with modern scientific thinking.

Nonetheless, the film does have merits. Maher interviews a few people who are not dwelling on the fringes. The inclusion of scenes with his mother and sister, which were ironically filmed before stain-glass windows, were attempts to shine more light on Maher's religious development. Some of his jokes even displayed an ecumenical bent:   "Being a Christian and a Jew had advantages. When I went to Confession, I brought my lawyer: 'Bless me Father for I have sinned; you know Harry Cohen?'"   One cameo appearance by a theologian actually offered a rebuttal to his anti-religious harangues with a clear explanation of Teilhard de Jardin's reconciliation of The Bible with Evolutionary theories. But then the curtain dropped again.

Yet Maher did proclaim two messages: one at the beginning, one at the end. While dunning the simple faith of the worshippers at the Trucker Chapel in an early part of the film, he said he was peddling defiant doubt on every street corner. This is a far cry from Tennyson's, "There is more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds."   At the conclusion, after many clips of suicide bombings and other atrocities, Maher infers that the evils of the world might stem from imbecilic religious worship. However, instead of putting the blame on demagogues who have distorted the messages of most major creeds and in fact used religion to seize power even in exalted places like the U.S. Presidency, Maher blames the ignorant sheep. If we want to avoid Armageddon, according to the Gospel of Bill, we have to "Grow up!"

Actually, it is amazing this incendiary movie found producers. Maher may have had crusading intentions as well in taking on this epic theme, but as far as leading us into a better place, he really missed the Ark.

Launching Drama Queen Blog

2009-02-04T22:42:36Z

Now, that's what I call BOLD print!

Okay, now that I finally found the Takoma Park Voice, I am atypically speechless. It's a matter of so many blogs, so little time. My HOME blog is ginarosa.com with archives of photos, travel articles, movie reviews from 10 years ago, and my favorite "absurdities" a catch-all title for well, the funny events I fall upon in my life.

A bit of bio for DQ aka Gina Guglielmo. I was born eons ago in New York City where I wallowed in all the wonderful offerings of that city: food, opera, museums, wonderfully bizarre people. College was St. Joseph's College for Women. Cute, eh? Naturally I was an English Major. Marriage occured in 1962 and an MA and Motherhood in Spring of 1963. Motherhood followed quite a bit until the magic number of five was achieved. Husband Anthony Mario and I moved around a bit before settling in Brookeville Maryland. We lived in New Britain and Middletown CT for six year. Next was LA. Quite a dramatic difference there. After that two-year party, we did a short term in Mobile, Alabama, enough to see the high points and visit New Orleans, and then on to Maryland and DC. After 30 years of suburbia, some suitable reward was due me, so six years ago we bought a Co-op in Glover Park. What a great neighborhood....view of The National Cathedral and all that culture and food opportunity.

However, la famiglia is very big now.....all kids have mated and some have reproduced: two from son #1, 2 from son #2 and 3 simultaneously from daughter #2. We needed a big dining room and table that had three leaves and a spacious back yard to play Nana and Pappa to this crowd, which brought us to Takoma Park, DC. We love our lovely bungalow and plan to spend many happy years in this "electric" company.

Tune in: now that my feet are wet, you'll be hearing from me again.