Equus

Playwright Peter Shaffer’s Equus, the storied 1973 epic about a heinous crime and a troubled child psychiatrist’s investigation into the deeply disturbed mind of the young perpetrator, seems tailor-made for the Blackbird Theatre’s gritty, challenging raison d’être. It’s a show designed to be difficult in both performing and viewing, famous for stripping one of the main characters nude onstage, but also featuring extensive scenes of immersive psychotherapy techniques and bouts of unsettling sexual and violent behavior. Readers should note that the performance I attended was the final preview, and changes have likely been implemented since; to the credit of this intense production and director Sarah Lucas, the work in progress showed little need for improvement, already well within the vicinity of enthralling.

The main thrust of the story belongs to young Alan Strang (Evan Mann), already convicted by the play’s start of savagely blinding six horses, and sentenced to the psychiatric ward of a hospital in lieu of imprisonment. The ensuing plot developments almost entirely concern his treatment by Dr. Martin Dysart (Lee Stille), who seeks to investigate what motivated Alan’s crime as a means to rehabilitate and heal him. What he learns about the young man’s fanatic devotion to horses, and his conflation of religious doctrine and burgeoning sexuality with respect to the beasts, is as disturbing as it is comprehensible. Mann’s work as Alan shows a believable opening up to treatment, beginning with (and reverting to) a murderous catatonia that falls away with growing trust. The pair works together splendidly, with keen pacing and an underlying camaraderie that helps their trajectories to dangerously merge; Stille’s exploration of his character is a perfect stand-in for the comprehending and connecting audience as he fights the dangers of career fatigue and complacency, feeling belittled in the face of Alan’s vibrant —albeit demented — life and beliefs.

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Menllenium

Go Comedy!’s latest Thursday-night offering, Menllenium, was originally a product of the Second City improvisation conservatory, and its ingrained sketch-comedy feel is well suited for the quirky and fast-moving Thursday grab bag of scripted and improvised shows. This reimagined production, now directed by Tommy LeRoy, doesn’t seek to do anything groundbreaking with subject matter or form; instead, it relies on keen writing and a strong ensemble to unearth a well of comedy in the rise and fall of a circa-2000 boy band. The one-hour Behind The Music–style show hits all the familiar beats, but shines with a hardworking team of writer/improvisers that works with the medium to showcase its own strengths.

Our heroes’ story follows the mold of so many popular artists’ biographies: a humble quartet of high school football teammates is discovered by the music biz, gets rocketed to superstardom, mishandles newfound fame and unchecked egos, and parts ways after seemingly petty differences turn irreconcilable. Written by the ensemble, the scenes are a selective bunch of representative vignettes that establish the characters of Marcus (Tommy Simon), Kevin (Andrew Seiler), JaySon (Micah Caldwell), and Justin Dance (Clint Lohman) and allow them to react to new situations. Happily, although each character has an identifying type (playboy, narcissist, rebel, and gay), most don’t live exclusively within these descriptors, making the scenes feel playful and inventive instead of formulaic. An absolute highlight of these sketches finds the boys discussing contract negotiations with football coach turned manager Sarge (Ryan Parmenter), establishing the game of the scene and then methodically piling on to absurd heights of humor. The ensemble members are sharply attuned to one another, and it shows in the writing: jokes of all stripes and sensibilities are laid down in rapid succession, too numerous and varied to be the product of a single mind.

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The Dance of the Seven Veils

In another original reimagining, The New Theatre Project makes a respectful and inquisitve foray into the world of female sex workers in The Dance of the Seven Veils, written by company member Amanda Lyn Jungquist and directed by Artistic Director Keith Paul Medelis. A blend of first-person narrative, music, and dance, the production presents accounts of prostitutes and strippers culled from real-life sources, giving an emotionally wringing — but ultimately fair and unvarnished — voice to this societally shunned profession.

Jungquist’s sources include the text of Salome, a piece by open-source playwright Charles L. Mee, as well as numerous other online and social networking resources, some of which led to follow-up correspondence or interviews. Accordingly, the piece does betray an extensively researched feel at times; the pressure to be inclusive, to be exhaustive, sometimes manifests in heftily vague or meandering narration. The play functions as a triptych: each of three protagonists is billed as “Woman,” and three stories are told in succession, at times different and the same. One details the ongoing web of lies she maintains to keep her work separate from her regular life, whereas another describes overcoming verbal abuse from a client. Yet each Woman discusses her reasons for taking up sex work, each describes her first encounter, each reveals one or more instances in which she suffered physically or emotionally; moreover, each speaks frankly about the stigma of her profession and how it has changed her. This is probably the most pervasive and certainly the most personal theme of the production: that turning a basic human need into a business transaction, in addition to risking a permanent societal black mark, may irrevocably change a woman’s sense of femininity, her self-perception, her very identity.

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Yankee Tavern

In a conspiracy-hungry age of questioning authority, amateur journalism, and access to disparate opinions the world over, our relationship with the truth — whatever that means — is more tenuous than ever. Humankind is now predisposed to choose what reports to accept and reject; therefore, what beliefs we each dare to espouse, and why, helps define us to ourselves and others. Playwright Steven Dietz’s beguiling Yankee Tavern toys with this theme like a prism, shifting the little world inside a rundown New York City bar as if to see how the changing light alters the ensuing view. Accordingly, the Breathe Art Theatre Project production marking the play’s Michigan and Canadian premieres, running first at Detroit’s Furniture Factory and then at Windsor’s Mackenzie Hall, is enigmatically gripping.

The play’s first act quickly introduces all four of its characters: Adam (Kevin Young), a graduate student who inherited the watering hole of the title from his late father; Janet (Chelsea Sadler), Adam’s practical and understanding fiancé, but no fan of her intended’s birthright; Ray (Dan Jaroslaw), an avid conspiracy theorist and apparent professional barfly with a fondness for the ghosts around him; and Palmer (Joel Mitchell), an unknown loner who buys an extra beer for the empty seat next to him. Dietz works hard to generate a thought-provoking environment in which the characters compare and discuss the various theories about the 9/11 attacks (here only four years out, in the early 2006 of the play). However, it’s the accomplishment of director Michael Carnow and cast that the discourse feels mundane, an ultimately unresolvable curiosity that serves as an efficient means to establish characterizations and relationships. The stakes here are low, and the characters’ affection for each other shows even as they disagree; among these strong performances, Jaroslaw is the early standout, not only entertaining to watch for his considerable eccentric energy, but also a real and quite likable character.

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Reunion: A Musical Epic in Miniature

Reunion: A Musical Epic in Miniature (by Jack Kyrieleison, Ron Holgate, and Michael O’Flaherty) has an unmistakable Ken Burns sensibility. From its stream of archival images to its reliance on firsthand accounts brought to life by understated recitation, the musical seeks to revisit and honor a conflict now one hundred fifty years old, letting the relics and recollections of the time speak for themselves without over-romanticizing. As directed by Travis W. Walter, the production at Meadow Brook Theatre is a multimedia accomplishment, two hours of stimuli and song that trace the progression of the Civil War as experienced by a handful of representative citizens of the Union.

In its historical-museum setting, designer Brian Kessler offers a visual smorgasboard, with myriad photos and exhibits lent additional veracity by targeted, reverently preservational lighting courtesy of Reid G. Johnson. This largely untouched, multi-level backdrop provides not only a fitting atmosphere to revive history, but an easy-flowing canvas on which to create dynamic stage pictures, of which there is no shortage here. Liz Moore’s costume design aims for historical accuracy and, to this untrained eye, appears to hit the mark. Above and behind the performers are a trio of projection screens, adding another perspective in the form of portraits, battlefield photographs, and newspaper headlines. There is something to take in onstage, from top to bottom, at all times, but careful pacing and precision cues by stage manager Terry W. Carpenter keep the flow of information smooth and manageable, never overwhelming.

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