Author: Coco June

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Theater Theater Feature

Don’t Hydroplane at TheatreWorks

Don’t Hydroplane explores mundanity in the wake of tragedy. (Photo: D’Angelo Connell Photography | DC The Snapper)

The intimate play, Don’t Hydroplane, written by Bryan Curtis, held its world premiere at TheatreWorks @ the Square on July 7th. Like almost any opening night, the production stuttered a few times, but the heartfelt performances from the cast made this show one worth seeing. Curtis’ script quietly highlights how families navigate grief and, less quietly, how grief can be pushed aside by societal customs and matters of practicality.

Martha Jones plays Annagram Woodard, the more reserved of two sisters who have just lost their mother. The other sister, Betty Queen Petty (often referred to as “BQ”), played by Sally Stover, is a woman people in the South might refer to as a “pistol.” She has a lot to say and expects everyone around her to be ready to listen. The play opens with the two sisters meeting at the local funeral home, where the eccentric and loquacious funeral director Karry Matlock, played by Curtis C. Jackson, explains — eventually — that there is an issue with their mother’s burial. There’s no room for her in her originally planned plot.

Most of the play centers around this conflict: Where should Annagram and BQ lay their mother to rest? The actual dilemma lies under the surface: Annagram is a people-pleaser and BQ is a bulldozer. Don’t Hydroplane follows their struggle to unpack decades of entrenched family dynamics and drama while also trying to solve a problem with no clear-cut solution.

Director Cleavon Meabon IV said in a statement, “Don’t Hydroplane is a family piece. It’s a comedy, but it’s comedy alongside drama, and I think we all can relate to how much we all need to laugh as a family.” Much of the comedic relief within the main familial unit of the show comes from Jesse Woodard, played by Cary Vaughn. Jesse is a showboat and has been doted upon to such a degree that he carries in every movement the self assurance of being adored. Alternatively, his sister, Laura Leigh, played by Lena Wallace-Black, seems to be somewhat of a black sheep of the family, not that she appears to mind in the slightest. Vaughn and Wallace-Black artfully balance the tone of a sibling rivalry, yet it’s a rivalry without animosity. Every brother/sister scene carries with it the warmth of familiarity.

Much of the play is composed of simple conversations, with the occasional heightened emotional outburst providing levels of both hilarity and very real depictions of the many facets of grief. These moments lift the play out of what could be an occasionally contrived slice-of-life piece and bring it into the territory of something more poignant.

Jones’ performance as Annagram is quiet and unassuming — much like the character herself — until the final act, where both the character and actor suddenly come alive in a burst of color. Annagram finally makes her stand, insisting, “I do care,” and Jones’ delivery of this pivotal moment was flawlessly executed.

Don’t Hydroplane is a play that almost everyone should be able to relate to. Grief affects us all, and part of becoming an adult is realizing that mundane things like wills and funeral arrangements will insist on being taken care of even in the midst of the incredulity of loss.

Many of the characters portrayed in this show feel like people the average rural resident will recognize. The neighborhood busybody, or your high school English teacher’s wife, or even your obstinate family member who insists they’re “nothin’ if not open-minded.” The normality of the characters is balanced by the interchangeable Creek Chorus, who frequently switch between side characters in another element of comedy that breaks up the tension of the heavy subject matter.

The final note is thankfully one of peace. There is catharsis for anyone who has experienced loss, and the simple joy of seeing death and grieving tackled in an uplifting manner. Meabon said, “I really want people to walk away with a sense of comfort.” This hope comes through in the overall spirit of the performance.

Don’t Hydroplane runs through July 23rd at TheatreWorks.

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Theater Theater Feature

Mary Poppins at Theatre Memphis

Mary Poppins is just as magical on the stage as on the screen. (Photo: Carla McDonald)

For around a month when I was 8 years old, I had a routine. Every day when I got home from school, I would turn on the VHS player and watch the same tape: Mary Poppins. I’ve seen it more times than I can count and would hazard a guess that I am more familiar with it than any other movie. Funnily enough, until recently I had never seen Mary Poppins performed on stage. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that it had been developed into a musical, first on West End and then, two years later, on Broadway. Now that I think about it, I’m surprised it wasn’t turned into a stage play sooner than 2004. Mary Poppins is everything you’d expect from musical theater — it’s a show all ages can enjoy.

Theatre Memphis’ production of Mary Poppins has had “phenomenal sales,” according to director of marketing and communications Randall Hartzog. Audience members are encouraged to recycle their programs as almost every performance is already sold out.

Sitting in the Lohrey Theatre before a Sunday matinee, I notice there are numerous families with small children in attendance. Directly in front of me, a family of three asks if I will take their picture — it’s their little boy’s first time seeing a live show. Behind me are two more children, although one of them moves next to me during the first few minutes, his mother’s lap being a more preferable seat. Listening to his guileless commentary was an unexpected, yet welcomed, added bonus to my theater experience.

To my surprise, and in spite of my childhood obsession with the story, there were many new things to be discovered about Mary Poppins, including scenes that are altogether absent from the 1964 Disney film. I was also glad to take note of themes relevant to our cultural experience in 2023 that went over my head as a child. The mighty character of George Banks, for example, can be seen on the surface as a basic absentee-father-stock-character mired in patriarchal gender roles. However, in taking a closer look, it’s obvious that George Banks is more dynamic than static, and modern audiences might interpret his character as a manifestation of breaking generational trauma.

The musical number “Playing the Game” is another part of the onstage production that departs from the Disney film, during which the toys in Jane and Michael’s nursery come to life in response to being mistreated. It brought to mind that scene in Toy Story when Sid’s toys come out from under his bed, and I would be remiss not to include the reaction I overheard from the boy sitting beside me. As multiple toys crawled out of the wings and even out of the set itself (it was the fireplace that really got me), I heard from my right, “What the …” A few moments later, the same voice whispered, “Mom, I’m scared.” Me too, kid.

On the whole, though, the musical was uplifting, and any time the ensemble came together in choreography, it was a treat to behold. The complicated, fast-paced synchronicity in numbers such as “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “Jolly Holiday” was performed without a hitch. The elaborate and frequent costume changes added to the overall visual spectacle achieved by these full-scale musical numbers.

Russell Lehman’s performance as Bert stood out in particular. Bert acts as a sort of narrative guide throughout the show, orchestrating scene changes and introducing scenes as a central cog in the machinery of the production. Lehman’s energy and enthusiasm shone on stage and seemed to buoy the other cast members.

It’s always encouraging to me, as a person who fell in love with the stage at the tender age of 10, to see enthusiastic theater audiences filled with multiple generations. Fortunately, Memphis is a city with many opportunities to introduce kids and first-time theatergoers to the magic of live performance. Theatre Memphis’ Mary Poppins is a perfect example of one such opportunity, and I am grateful to have been a part of it.

Mary Poppins runs through July 2nd at Theatre Memphis.

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Theater Theater Feature

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 at POTS

Nathan McHenry as Anatole and Katy Cotten as Natasha (Photo: D’angelo Connell Photography)

The week before I saw Playhouse on the Square’s regional debut of Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, I was asked what the play was about. I wasn’t quite sure, having deliberately avoided finding out beforehand, as is sometimes my practice when seeing a show I’m unfamiliar with. This continued until the morning I was to attend, when a coworker read aloud a short synopsis. The words “electropop,” “opera,” and “Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace” gave me the impression it had the potential to be either really cool or a complete disaster. I’ll tell you now: It was utterly insane, and I loved it.

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 is a sung-through musical; there is no spoken dialogue. Everything is performed in song, which can be a lot to take in for the average theatergoer. Coupled with the fact that it’s is an adaptation of Part 8 of War and Peace, you might be forgiven in expecting the effect to be too much. Instead, the show leans into its own weirdness, breaking the fourth wall before the action even begins. Performers enter through the lobby, where they mingle with the audience before the show. Almost immediately the musical makes fun of itself; in the first number, the company scatters additional programs containing a family tree with notes about each character, such as “eccentric” and “slut” (it’s tongue-in-cheek, don’t worry). The actors warn to pay attention because everybody has, like, eight names.

The set design feels like a cast member in its own right. Throughout the show, the ensemble performs in and around the audience, entering from the back of the auditorium and moving toward to stage, or utilizing the half-moon runway that goes from downstage out into the rows. A staircase curves artfully up from stage left to the balcony overhead. Scenic designer Phillip Hughen created something that lends itself to the spectacle called for by the script and also feels incredibly intimate, as if the audience were peering into the secret back room of a speakeasy or brothel.

Another unique aspect is the live music performed by an orchestra half-hidden by velvet curtains nestled upstage. The music is wild, ranging from moving operatic solos to a bouncing bass-heavy rave. At one point, the characters attend an opera-within-the-opera, which can only be described as delightfully bizarre. The note I jotted down reads, “Holy shit. This is hot.”

I’m refraining from going over the broad strokes — such as the plot — if only because I was so enamored with the details. Every actor, from the leads to the individuals of the ensemble, brought such an energy that everywhere you looked there was something interesting going on — which is an accomplishment in a musical this busy. Dave Malloy has written a play scattered with poignant vignettes. One such moment especially stood out, during a song in which an old man repeatedly asks, “Where are my glasses?” only for his daughter to remark that they are on top of his head. She then says quietly, “I disgust myself,” a moment I found incredibly relatable (from both perspectives).

While Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I found it a fully immersive escape from reality and a complete theater success.

Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 runs at Playhouse on the Square through May 21st.

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Theater Theater Feature

The Play That Goes Wrong

Chaos ensues, in the best of ways, in this play within a play. (Photo: Carla McDonald)

The Murder at Haversham Manor was a complete and utter travesty. Viewing this play was akin to viewing a slow-motion train wreck. Actors forgot their lines, were replaced mid-show by stagehands (and at one point, believe it or not, a prop), and by the end of the night, the set had completely fallen apart! However, The Play That Goes Wrong, the show that encompassed The Murder at Haversham Manor, went off without a hitch.

One of my favorite tropes in theater — or any storytelling format, really — is a play within a play. It is always a joy to watch the layers of an actor playing the role of an actor playing a role. Theatre Memphis’ The Play That Goes Wrong adds another element to this gambit: Nearly every component of a play that you can think of “fails” in this show within a show.

The Murder at Haversham Manor, and subsequently, The Play That Goes Wrong, opens with a body being discovered, that of Charles Haversham, “played” by Jonathan Kes’Trelle, played by Hugh Boller-Raup. The Murder at Haversham Manor is a murder mystery, while The Play That Goes Wrong is a comedy that allows the audience to feel as though they’re getting a glimpse behind the curtain. The show even begins with “crew members” attempting to fix a faulty set piece.

For anyone who enjoys minutiae and details, The Play That Goes Wrong is a veritable buffet of theater subtleties. Multiple characters sport two pink circles of makeup on their cheeks, an example of one deliberate “inexpert” element of the show. The set, which over the course of the play becomes increasingly dilapidated, sports a door with a “restroom” sign on one side. Even the program for the show includes a program within a program, a complete work-up of the fictitious The Murder at Haversham Manor.

Most of the characters in The Play That Goes Wrong are captivatingly zany, none more so than Max Bennett (who “plays” Cecil Haversham), played by Bruce Huffman. Max Bennett is a gloriously over-the-top showboat, but when we sat down to discuss the show, I found Huffman to be a complete contrast to his character, quietly engaging, gracious, and kind. We spoke of everything from director Ann Marie Hall’s process to the heart of the arts in Memphis. Though the character Max often steals the spotlight, Huffman is very aware of his fellow cast members. “Some of the characters do break the fourth wall and some of them don’t,” he says, “and I think one of the intentions of having some of them not is to be there and support us in reeling it back in if we need to.”

Working an audience can be a difficult task, especially in a production where the technical timing needs to be precise — actors and stage hands alike have to meet cues for the movement of big set pieces. According to Huffman, director Hall had some advice to share on the subject: “If you are trying to work the audience too much, they can tell, and you will steal your own joke.” Fortunately, the cast seemed to perfectly balance the accuracy necessitated by the script with encouraging and interacting with the audience. Comedy is all about timing, and the fact that the cast and crew had the added pressure of so many “surprise” cues throughout the show makes the success of the production even more impressive.

This is a play in which it is obvious the cast is having a good time, and the energy is infectious. “The most fun I’ve ever had doing a show ever,” Huffman says. One thing I personally enjoyed was how often the background of this play demands the audience’s attention. There are often two scenes happening at once, and everywhere you look, a joke is being carried out. Taking in the comedy of this show was delightful. Of his fellow cast and crew members — but I think it translates to the audience as well — Huffman says, “It felt like everyone was just there to support each other and have fun, and we did just that.”

The Play That Goes Wrong runs through March 26th at Theatre Memphis.

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Opinion The Last Word

A Louisiana Fairy Tale

The author reminisces about her Mardi Gras escapades, from taking in the sounds and sights of the French Quarter to attending the Rex Ball in a vintage red dress. (Photo: Rhett Ortego)

Occasionally in life, if we are fortunate, we may forge the kind of friendship in which both parties are completely comfortable with one another. I personally have found such a friendship in Rhett Ortego, a New Orleans native. Our particular, and perhaps peculiar, bond can be summed up in a tableau: Rhett sitting in my bathroom reading aloud a history of Mardi Gras to me while I am in the shower. (This may be a good time to mention that I am a heterosexual cis gender woman and Rhett is a homosexual cis gender man, and therefore, there is no danger of sexual tension in this anecdote. Much to the dismay of Rhett’s grandmother, who pulled him aside during my visit to his family home and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to be anything more to Coco?” But I’m getting ahead of myself.) This is how I ended up on my first-ever trip to New Orleans during Mardi Gras with my own personal tour guide.

On Sunday, February 19, 2023, Rhett and I are strolling through the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, and I am falling in love with the brightly painted houses and maze-like streets. It is a lovely day, the sun is shining, and everything is bright. I knew Mardi Gras was a big deal, but I was not quite prepared for the festive atmosphere that permeates the city. Beads hang off balconies and porches; lawns are decorated in purple, green, and gold; and businesses all over the city display repurposed Christmas trees — now Mardi Gras trees — in shop windows. People everywhere are wearing the most outrageous and fantastic clothes. I see a man dressed all in white, wearing giant white angel wings riding a bike down Napoleon Avenue, under a canopy of toilet-paper-rolled trees. A man who looks like he could be a Hell’s Angel sports a gold tiara.

Photo: Coco June

As we drive and walk through the city, Rhett nonchalantly peppers our conversation with statements such as, “That house was owned by a silent movie actress, and now it’s a library,” or “The Heebe family lived there.” He tells me the history of many buildings, often including the date they were built or what their original purpose was. As we enter Jackson Square, I notice that I am the fastest walking person in the crowd. I point it out and Rhett simply says, “The Big Easy.” Everyone is unhurried, including the albino horse wearing a unicorn headband pulling a carriage down the streets of the Vieux Carre. We eat lunch on a balcony (which differs from a gallery, I learn, in that it isn’t supported by columns or poles in any way). This particular balcony slants toward the street at such an angle that it feels as though we could spill over onto the sidewalk at any moment.

Photo: Coco June

What strikes me in many places are not the sights of the city, but the sounds. I take several videos just to capture the aural experience. Being from Memphis, I especially appreciate another city that is permeated with music. I hear violins, homemade drums, and saxophones, and they are all layered between the voices of thousands of people having a good time. On Lundi Gras, the Monday directly before Fat Tuesday, we go to one of the many parades. The walk to the route takes us along St. Charles Avenue, past houses whose architecture dates back to the 1800s. The parade offers up a completely different, more cacophonic, variety of sounds. Multiple marching bands, floats, and horses file through a throng of shouting people, and the distinctive sound of a wad of plastic beads being caught flashes periodically through the din.

On Fat Tuesday itself, Rhett and I get to experience our own grown-up platonic version of prom at the Rex Ball. After the event, I finally slow down to match the pace of the locals, mincing along in my four-inch heels and floor-length vintage red dress. When we get back to Rhett’s parents’ house, we rewatch the ball (apparently an Ortego family tradition) with his dad, a hilarious experience made more palatable by the bottle of whiskey he breaks out for the occasion. A fitting end to our Louisiana fairy tale.

Coco June is a Memphian, mother, and the Flyer’s theater columnist.

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Theater Theater Feature

Scottsboro Boys at POTS

Photo: Bill Simmers

In attempting to describe Playhouse on the Square’s production of Scottsboro Boys to a friend, I found the concept of the show somewhat difficult to explain. Scottsboro Boys is the retelling of the case of nine falsely accused Black teenagers, which eventually became one of the sparks that lit the fire of the Civil Rights Movement. The show is a musical, which may come as a surprise given its heavy subject matter. And not just a musical, but a vaudeville-style variety show which features minstrelsy as an intentional part of its social commentary. It’s not so much a story within a story as it is a performance within a performance.

Director Jared Thomas Johnson says, “The construct of the show is fun, makes you laugh, and is entertaining so it hides the ugly truth in plain sight.”

The play begins as the reverie of A Lady, who is eventually revealed to be Rosa Parks. We are quickly introduced to the mistral concept of the performance, as well as the theme “speak the truth.” Parks is one thread running throughout the show, a viewer alongside the members of the audience. Our guides, so to speak, are the two zany, almost slapstick characters of Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo, who play many of the various white characters in the story. Several cast members change characters throughout the play, showcasing dexterity, humor, and vocal talent by the frequent character shifts.

Similarly, the set, made up mostly by the simple repurposing of chairs, changes often. The back of a chair may be reimagined as bars of a cell or the caboose of a train. We first see the nine boys riding a train, which gets stopped by two policemen. Two white girls, who the policemen correctly surmise are sex workers, then accuse the boys of rape in order to avoid being jailed themselves for prostitution.

Mr. Bones and Mr. Tambo (Photo: Bill Simmers)

As Johnson puts it, “When dealing with any subject, humor has a way of healing and feeling like a hug, an embrace. I think the show is designed to let you laugh, smile, and enjoy the talents of our Black artists who have crafted some of the best performances I have seen from Black actors in a very long time. The humor makes the characters real people, people I wanna get to know.”

The actors succeed in balancing the juxtaposition of humor and solemnity, masterfully juggling switches between characters, complicated choreography, and powerhouse vocals — often all at the same time. Music director Tammy Holt praises the cast, saying, “It’s rare and invigorating to have the opportunity to put that many Black male voices together on stage, and these men can sing! We really worked to build community so that the bond would be displayed in their performance, and I think it truly does. This cast is heavily committed and engaged in bringing this story to life, so that’s what you see and hear in every note.”

The ensemble numbers throughout the show were a true delight to take in, layered with adroit harmonies and emotion. My friend, Rhett Ortego, and I were both especially moved by “Southern Days.” After the show, Rhett, who has told me before that he normally doesn’t care for musicals, said, “I almost started crying during the one about home.”

Perhaps the most unusual thing about this play is that by the time the cast lines up for the final bow, the overall feeling is that of being uplifted. One might expect to feel overly saddened by the story, but I found that was not the case. And Johnson and Holt both spoke about how important it was to the cast and crew to present this story through a lens of joy.

“We have made a very earnest effort to make the show uplifting, inspirational, and joyous despite the subject matter,” Johnson says. “So I hope folks see there is joy in Black experience at all times.”

Holt adds, “Simply see it, process it, and examine how you will walk forward from the experience.”

Scottsboro Boys runs at Playhouse on the Square through February 19th.

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Opinion The Last Word

Love What You Do

While many focus on the ideal of “do what you love,” a healthier way to look at it may be simply loving what you do. (Photo: Kelly Sikkema | Unsplash)

A few weeks ago, a close friend spoke to me about a personal crisis. “I don’t even have a career,” they lamented, getting more and more worked up. This person is only 28 years old. I wouldn’t necessarily say I have a “career” either, and I’m 32.

Over the course of my entire life, I have been told, both implicitly and directly, that one of the ultimate goals in life is to “do what you love.” This has been force-fed to me through official sources such as elementary school programs urging, “If you can dream it, you can do it!” I’ve heard it said, in some form or another, from almost every authoritative adult figure in my life. It has been repeated and mantranizied (I’m making up a word, just go with it) by my peers. Facebook posts, off-the-cuff comments, and full conversations have all brought home the same ideal.

However, I’ve always had several problems with the idea that success is derived from doing what you love. First, this marginalizes the idea of being successful to one area of your life: work. Relationships, personal growth, and almost every other aspect of life are left by the wayside if you’re using this metric of what it means to be happy.

Furthermore, for many people, such as my friend I mentioned earlier, finding out what you love to do takes time, sometimes even years. “Do what you love” assumes that you already know what you love, which for many people is knowledge that comes from experience. I distinctly remember being made to choose the course of my high school curriculum while I was still in 8th grade. So, as a 14-year-old, I was expected to already know what vocation I would be pursuing as an adult. The importance of the decision was highly emphasized to us, and we made the choice in the same day — the same hour, actually — that we first heard about it, without time to think or consult with our parents or anyone else, for that matter.

Even for those rare individuals who have always been comfortable with the knowledge of what they’d like to do for work as adults, knowing what you’d like to do and being able to actually do it are two very different things. Probably my biggest grievance with the prevalence of the phrase “do what you love” is that it leaves out the reality of privilege. Not everyone is afforded the opportunity to pursue their passions, and that’s not even scratching the surface. I am nowhere near qualified enough to go into detail on this issue, but I do understand that doing what you love is not simple or even feasible for many people.

I am watching our ideas on work change as I get older, but when I was a kid, the nebulous idea of “work” seemed like the be-all and end-all of what an adult’s life was. In my late twenties, when I worked part-time but was also a stay-at-home mom, I struggled personally for years with the idea of failure. I wasn’t using my college degree, and my job was something I enjoyed, but not anything I was passionate about. Yet, I did get fulfillment from taking care of my baby. It was complicated to navigate. The idea of being “successful” was something that never really held much appeal to me, seeming as it did to equate to money almost exclusively. But during that time, I decided that the phrase “love what you do” was a much better mindset for me than “do what you love.” I found enjoyment in what started out as “just” a job because I made the active decision to change the way I looked at it.

Volunteer work, child-rearing, social relationships, romantic relationships, self-care, and personal growth all fit under the “love what you do” umbrella that I had created for myself, and working a job that wasn’t my dream didn’t feel like something I needed to feel down about. It seems to me that, while telling people to aim for the stars is all well and good, promoting being content with and celebrating non-work-related achievements is a much healthier way to be.

Coco June is a Memphian, mother, and the Flyer’s theater columnist.

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Theater Theater Feature

The Wizard of Oz at Playhouse on the Square

The Wizard of Oz at POTS (Photo: Bill Simmers)

Indulge me, please, in a brief flashback: It is January 1994, and I am sitting in the audience at Playhouse on the Square, watching Peter Pan in complete awe. It is my first theater experience. I am 3 years old. Fifteen years later, I begin studying theater under the same director of that show, Ken Zimmerman.

It is March 2008. My dear friend and I are driving behind our classmate, slowly, because of the unseasonable snow. We cross a bridge and see his truck begin to fishtail in front of us, then straighten out. We are all on our way to rehearsal for our high school’s first big musical production in years. The show is The Wizard of Oz.

Fourteen years later, my son — days away from his 5th birthday — and I sit in the audience at Playhouse. We are here for his first theater experience. The show we are seeing is The Wizard of Oz.

To say seeing this particular show with my child is a full-circle moment seems redundant. It feels like the sort of childhood trivia that will be repeated to him throughout his life. “You went to a live show before you ever even went to the movies!”

Any anxiety I had about a 4-year-old’s ability to sit still through an entire performance was quelled almost immediately. My son noticed the lights and asked, “When is that [the curtain] going to go up?” I had brought him not only so we could share a special memory, but also to get a child’s perspective of the play. He turned around in his seat when the actors were downstage during the twister scene; he was trying to see what they were reacting to. During “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” he excitedly whispered, “I know this song!”

One thing I knew my son in particular would love was the Wicked Witch of the West. In the program, Caroline Simpson, who plays the Witch, as well as Ms. Gulch, jokes that she “is very excited to have the opportunity to terrify the children of Memphis,” which I read with amusement as I sat beside my child, whose favorite characters in any story are villainous women. A picture of 17-year-old me as the Witch is on our refrigerator, a source of wonder for my macabre-loving son. As soon as Simpson flew offstage after the Witch’s intro in the tornado scene, my son turned to me, grinning under his mask and gave me a thumbs up.

The standout element of this production were the costumes. The Wizard of Oz is such a familiar show that it could easily look and feel rote, but Lindsay Schmeling’s designs were a delight to take in. Munchkinland looked as though the inhabitants had collectively raided a Manic Pixie Dream Girl’s closet, to absolutely fabulous effect. Punk rock crows, glow-in-the-dark jitterbugs, umbrella-canopied trees, and a diaphanous rainbow-clad Glinda lent an innovative, even modern take on the familiar Oz attire. Ms. Gulch, who I would usually think of as drab, strutted onto the stage in balloon-style slacks, totally changing the dynamic of the character.

The only note amiss in the show for me was unfortunately Patsy Detroit’s depiction of Dorothy Gale. It is my personal opinion that playing the “straight man” in any show is always the most difficult, and perhaps the vibrant nature of the other characters made the contrast sharper. Although I found Dorothy to fall a bit flat, especially when compared with the vitality of the rest of the cast, it did not hinder the overall success of the show.

The Wizard of Oz is perfect for a first-time theater-goer, and Playhouse on the Square’s production is an experience all ages can enjoy. My son was not the only young child in attendance, and seeing new Memphis audiences being introduced to the arts was a heartwarming thing. Witnessing the magic of live theater through my child’s eyes was enchanting, and something I hope neither of us will ever forget.

The Wizard of Oz runs at Playhouse on the Square through December 22nd.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

What’s In a Name?

Shelby County Courthouse (photo: Shelby County government)

When I got married in June 2011, I took my ex-husband’s last name. Changing my name at the little local Social Security Office took about 15 minutes, if that. It was ridiculously easy. Eleven years later, I set about reversing the process. This time, it was not ridiculously easy. In fact, it was an Odyssey-style journey of the strangest bureaucratic interactions I have ever experienced in my life.

The first stop in my travels was the Shelby County Courthouse. Wait, let’s amend that. The first stop in my travels was finding a parking space near the Shelby County Courthouse. This took some time.

Once that task was accomplished, I entered the courthouse, armed with the knowledge of exactly where to go thanks to a wonderfully helpful person who had assisted me over the phone. She was hands-down the most accommodating government employee I’ve ever talked to, and procuring an official copy of my final decree of divorce from the courthouse turned out to be remarkably easy. I held on to the slim hope that maybe the entire day would follow suit. Alas. It was not to be.

My next stop was the Social Security Office. Upon entering, I was immediately reminded of the scene from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the Vogon (aka the galactic government bureaucrats) waiting room. I went to a screen that read “touch to begin,” an incongruous message as touching the screen began nothing. Once the screen and I came to terms, I hunkered down to wait. Many monitors around the room reminded us that our numbers may be called out of order. I experienced that this was indeed the case.

Eventually, I made my way to my designated window. The man behind the glass partition asked me how he could help me. I told him why I was there, to which he replied, “Oh, divorce? We only do divorce cases on Thursdays.” I knew that this could not possibly be true and that this man was joking.

And yet, he stared at me with such deadpan earnestness that I was completely thrown. He looked at me. I looked at him. We blinked.

“So,” I said uncertainly, “I should come back … tomorrow?”

“Yep.” He paused. “Nah, I’m just messin’ with you.”

I couldn’t decide if I was irritated.

The man looked through my documents and then casually asked, “So, what happened?” I shrugged helplessly, unsure how to sum up an entire marriage and subsequent divorce in small talk. “You don’t have an answer? I’m a stranger,” he continued. “You can tell me anything.”

As I awkwardly attempted to answer his question, his system went down and saved me the trouble. After waiting together in silence for 30 minutes, the system was restored and the issue handled. I left, still unsure if the interaction had been charming or frustrating.

My quest ended that day at the DMV. I went to one outside of Memphis, thinking that the wait wouldn’t be as long. I entered a vestibule that looked like it had been designed to trap the socially anxious. A zigzagging path snaked through about three feet of space, ending not in any clear destination but ambiguously in front of a long desk. A woman gestured for me to ignore the path.

After explaining my purpose, I signed in and once again settled in to wait. The woman called me to the counter, but when someone with the same last name (that I was ironically there to change) went ahead of me, she went ahead and took care of him. I allowed myself a quiet sigh.

Then it was my turn. We took my driver’s license photo six times. At the end of that debacle, I was handed a paper license bearing a hilariously exasperated photo of me. Then, I was told that I would need to come back. I expressed my confusion. I explained that I had all the documents that were needed. The woman said, “But they don’t have the right name on them.” To which I replied, turning it into a question, “My birth certificate has the correct name on it?”

She looked at me. I looked at her. We blinked.

Suffice it to say that I lost that particular showdown and will be returning to the DMV forthwith.

Coco June is a Memphian, mother, and the Flyer’s theater columnist.

Categories
Theater Theater Feature

Arsenic and Old Lace at Theatre Memphis

Theatre Memphis’ Arsenic and Old Lace (Photo: Carla McDonald)

Sitting in the Lohrey Theatre in the middle of what has culturally become known as “spooky season,” you might be inclined to notice, if you are on the lookout for such things, a skull motif in the pattern of the purple wallpaper on the set of Theatre Memphis’ Arsenic and Old Lace. If you are unfamiliar with this 1940s Broadway play, you should know that it exemplifies the term “dark comedy.”

The plot of Joseph Kesselring’s zany play is convoluted at first glance. Dramatic critic Mortimer Brewster is shocked to find out that his sweet old aunts, beloved and known throughout their community for their generosity of spirit, are in fact totally off-the-rails serial killers. Of course, they don’t see their morbid hobby as anything more than another charitable act in their repertoire.

Aunts Abby and Martha Brewster aren’t the only colorful members of Mortimer’s family. One brother believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt, another previously-thought-to-be-missing brother shows up with an altered face to conceal his identity, and a prospective member of the family, Mortimer’s new fiancée, lives next door in the church parish.

The cast, directed by John Maness, brings this bizarre group of characters to life in a well-balanced ensemble. Each character has their own brand of hilarity, carefully wrought through physical comedy, vocal inflection, and timing. Kinon Keplinger especially shines as Mortimer Brewster, the keystone that the rest of the group rests on. Mortimer could be seen as a stock straight man evening out the eccentricity of the other members of the cast, but Keplinger manages to bring off Mortimer’s energy and quirkiness without a hitch, excelling especially at physicality. Mortimer practically jumps around the stage, much to the delight of the audience.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Abby and Martha Brewster, played by Jeanna Juleson and Martha Jones. The hilarity of these characters is achieved with subtlety, and Juleson and Jones allow the humor of the dialogue to come through by adding just the right dose of guilelessness.

Maness explained in a release, “What I’ve tried to do is make this wildly believable, too. By focusing on the subtle acting details to support the dark comedy, we’ll get the result of a lived-in, truthful world despite the zany goings-on of the plot. Every character knows where they’re coming from. … We want the audience to just enjoy the ride about where they are all going!”

There were a few hitches during the performance that could be chalked up to opening-night jitters — a couple of lines tripped over and some pacing that seemed a little off-kilter. However, by the top of the third act, the entire cast was seamlessly in their stride.

According to Maness, “The play is a classic for a reason, and we aren’t shying away from what we’ve been calling that ‘Turner Classic Movies’ feel.” This is a play that non-theater-goers might think of as “basic,” but when performed with the energy and comedic dexterity I saw on opening night, it clearly deserves, instead, to be called a “classic.”

As I observed during intermission, this show is one that all audiences can enjoy. A grandfather glanced at the TV monitor downstairs near the bathrooms, depicting a live stream of the show. He remarked to his granddaughter (who was maybe around 10 years old), “Looks even better on camera, doesn’t it?” She replied, “I think it looks better in real life.” Thus the magic of live theater was demonstrated in a simple tableau.

Arsenic and Old Lace is the perfect show to see in October for both those who enjoy getting into the Halloween feel and those who just want to have a fun night at the theater. The play is just macabre enough to be called “dark” while still maintaining a buoyant tone.

Arsenic and Old Lace runs through October 30th at Theatre Memphis.