A Bright Room Called Day

The depth of playwright Tony Kushner’s kitchen-sink epic A Bright Room Called Day is matched only by its breadth. With a cast of ten, a frequently used historical narrative, a contemporary tie-in, and a penchant for venturing into the mysterious, director Joe Bailey has his work cut out for him. This Who Wants Cake? production is accordingly impressive in scope, and although the final product wants for a single unifying thread, its component parts are sufficiently intriguing and moving to prompt serious reflection and analysis.

The largest story revolves around Agnes Eggling (Jamie Warrow), a film actress living in early-1930s Berlin. From her apartment, the gathering place of choice for her friends, Agnes works with the Communist party — specifically, a duo of representatives (Michael Lopetrone and Matthew Turner Shelton) whose contentious bickering makes them a comic odd couple — against rapidly growing support of Hitler’s National Socialist party. In contrast to the ingénue Pulinka (Christa Coulter), whose opportunism is charmingly innocuous as she floats to those in power for the sake of her career, the initially fervent Agnes has confidence that the political climate will improve, rejects that things could get any worse, and must ultimately contend with her own wavering fortitude as opposition becomes tantamount to death. Warrow constantly and clearly processes Agnes’s evolving personal and political convictions, both alone and in the context of her friends’ actions — from her emigrant lover (Jon Ager), who recognizes the threat to undesirables based on prior experience, to a friend who gives herself over fully to activism (Melissa Beckwith). Costumer Vince Kelley is largely responsible for evoking the period; the lines and tones are exquisite, with not a hint of costume-y artificiality.

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Burying the Bones

The saying goes that the truth will set you free, but nowhere is it written that the endeavor will be painless. Playwright M.E.H. Lewis uses the lens of South African apartheid to examine the dually harmful and healing capacities of truth in the wake of atrocity in Burying the Bones. In the Michigan premiere at Detroit Repertory Theatre, director Leah Smith fearlessly probes the staggering cost of revelation; the evocative and thorny result is a demonstration that in spite of the human tendency to seek liberation in redemption and forgiveness, our most noble attempts to correct past wrongs remain agonizingly imperfect and incomplete.

Two years after the democratic election of Nelson Mandela marks the beginning of the end of apartheid, the effects of institutionalized injustices and insurgent struggles still sting throughout the populace. It is 1996, and Mae Mxenges (Monica J. Palmer) is troubled nightly by the apparition of her missing husband, schoolteacher James (Lynch R. Travis). The visage claims to be his haunting spirit and implores her to retrieve and bury his remains; she, in turn, dismisses the presence as merely a bad dream bent on tricking her into believing that her husband is dead. The intimate confrontations between the two are often hindered by the actors’ faint hesitance regarding verbal and physical contact: the push-pull of Travis’s insistence on spousal familiarity against Palmer’s warring feelings of disbelief and longing strains to reach a comfortable groove of give and take between the performers. Nevertheless, Mae is convinced to inquire about James’s disappearance, and her subsequent journey toward the truth is fascinating and devastating enough to reward the viewer’s intellectual and emotional investment.

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The Tim Machine

In the early days of Go Comedy! Improv Theater, original sketch comedy shows were generally Christmas novelties. Now in its fourth year, the company has been returning to the form with increasing frequency and consistency: sketch shows regularly fill the scripted-Thursday time slot and further venture into Friday’s mainstage performance schedule. The latest in the line is The Tim Machine, written by the ensemble cast and director Nancy Edwards, with additional writing by Genevieve Jona. Stretching backward and forward in time, no less than 40 years in each direction, this production achieves roaring multi-era success by laying out all kinds of storytelling and time-traveling rules and adhering to one above all the rest: Do what’s funny.

The viewer first lands in 1972, at almost the same moment as protagonist and time traveler Tim (Tim Kay). Having intended to venture from 2052 to the 2012 Occupy Detroit movement, he overshoots and finds himself in the middle of a central-casting version of a hippie revolution. The 70s agitators are angling for an end to war; civil rights for women, minorities, and homosexuals; and taking power back from the corporate Man…oh, that sounds familiar. It’s not lost on Edwards and company (nor on the audience) that the more things change, the more they stay the same, but that’s not all that this production has in store.

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Nunset Boulevard

They’re nuns, they’re entertainers, they’re back for more. Meadow Brook Theatre’s Nunset Boulevard, directed by creator/writer Dan Goggin, is a recent entry in the decades-long Nunsense canon, and for better and worse, it shows. The musical readily takes shortcuts to tap into its already invested fan base, leaving the sense that potential content and character arcs have been pretty well picked over at this point. Yet whatever staleness leaks into the composition doesn’t weigh down this assembly of series veterans, who bring enthusiasm and delightful, sharp silliness to the highly concentrated entertainment of the revue.

On the heels of their growing acclaim from prior shows, here the sisters arrive in Hollywood, expecting to hit their career stride at the iconic Hollywood Bowl. Because the characters were built on being hapless comic foils for whom things go inevitably sour, they are chagrined, but not deterred, by the unexpected suffix “-A-Rama” in the venue name. Barry Axtell’s set design perks up the underwhelming bowling-alley-annex surroundings with loftier architectural elements that both recall the place’s namesake and comfortably house the band, led by music director Michael Rice. Mike Duncan’s barreling sound design glibly reminds viewers that in the world of the play, the sisters aren’t even the main attraction at this lowly establishment; lights by Reid G. Johnson similarly hang on to the conceit, but judiciously get caught up in the pageantry. Costumer Rich Hamson transcends the expected fare by layering on increasingly bizarre and unexpected show pieces that add to the humor of splashy ditties.

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Tearful Release

That’s great, it starts with a jewel heist, virgins, rings, and therapists: the Planet Ant is not afraid to kick the 2012-armageddon jokes into high gear with its original late-night comedy Tearful Release. Written by and featuring the winning troupe of 2011 Summer Colony Fest, and directed by Shawn Handlon, the show rides high on deftly funny ideas and batty characters that help smooth over its less-than-polished edges.

Despite some brief introductions and hints at exposition, the one-act production begins with a strong sketch comedy feel. Mike Hofer brings melodramatic absurdity to a bereft artiste who pays cringe-worthy homage to the woman who raised him. As an unhinged, undeterred marriage counselor, Katie Saari finds a serial killer’s resourcefulness in her quest to fix relationships. Rebecca Concepcion’s cult leader retains her mysterious, imposing force even when the real world gets in the way. Standout punchlines and sterling references are liberally deployed, deviating from the main thread whenever necessary to showcase the smart comic writing. Although a few everyday scenes and characters sneak in, the production revels in the outlandish, the heightened, the bizarre — this is a world in which marriages end because of poor performance on a reality TV show.

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