Oedipus

There’s little arguing with a good story told well.

Williamston Theatre’s new adaptation of the Sophocles classic Oedipus Rex is a mystery whose solution the audience already knows. The eighty minutes of Oedipus, simplified, concern an immediate problem (a plague in the city-state of Thebes, over which the title character reigns) and the hard-fought road to discovering its cause (the unfortunate intersection of a few foreboding prophecies, which leads to the ruination of all involved). Yet Tony Caselli and Annie Martin’s adaptation still approaches the investigation with desperate severity and an appreciation for the agonies of discovery; faithful to the original text, the meat of the drama lies not in emotional repercussions, but the human flaws that drive us both away from our fates and toward understanding and truth, whatever the cost. The language of the script varies between lofty and humble, but rarely passes on an opportunity to engage in word play that presciently toys with the parallels between knowledge and sight, opening up the myriad thematic possibilities of the tale. However, as directed by Caselli, the production’s greatest accomplishment is in getting the viewer caught up in the intrigue — in an age of spoiler alerts, it’s remarkable to be reminded that in the best of stories, how can trump who, what, and where combined.

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Corktown

With its astronomic stakes, operatic violence, and cinematic flourishes, Corktown is in essence a mob movie played out on the Purple Rose Theatre stage. Yet the world-premiere production of this Michael Brian Ogden script is notable for its complex and engaging performances as well as its innovative application of live-theater magic to the genre. Director Guy Sanville plays on viewers' familiarity with these brutal life-and-death stories while simultaneously reveling in the novelty of bringing an audience so close to something so dangerous and — in most cases — foreign.

The play is set in the Detroit apartment of Joey (Matthew David), an enforcer for the Irish mob. Set designer Bartley H. Bauer provides an ominous letterbox view of a remodeled-over domicile in a shabby building; even the water damage tainting its posh faux-finish paint job has a sinister quality. The tone is borne out in the terrible scope of Danna Segrest's properties, which quickly spell out Joey's exact role in the organization — in polite company, he might be called a "cleaner." In the disarming opening scene, Joey and longtime friend and colleague Laurence (Ogden) casually talk shop, quickly submerging the viewer into a world of unspeakable violence that's accepted as strictly business. The juxtaposition of their humdrum middle-management world view with the carnage in which they are steeped (further contrasted by the relatively pristine white coveralls of Christianne Myers's costume design) is a terrific entry point for a production insistent that gangland-style executions must coexist with basic human connection.

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The War Since Eve

The primary and persistent aim of a reviewer is to be objective at all costs. Yet in truth, I'm a product of my own unique history and preferences as much as the next guy, and sometimes it's difficult to discern whether a connection I feel accurately represents the universal audience experience. With that caveat, be advised that in its world-premiere run at Performance Network Theatre, playwright Kim Carney's The War Since Eve resonated massively with this viewer: I found myself, as an adult woman with a mother, entirely at its mercy.

The play concerns feminist trailblazer Roxie Firestone (Henrietta Hermelin) and her two daughters, steadfast personal assistant Milty (Leah Smith) and rebellious, estranged Tara (Sarab Kamoo). Hours before Roxie is to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Tara reaches out to her family for the first time in decades, triggering prodigal-son levels of unfairness that ignite Milty’s inferiority complex like a rocket. Throughout the pre-ceremony first act and post-party second, the characters make headway into their family history and life choices, all the while affirming that mothers and daughters are patently unable to discuss when sparring is an option. Carney's characters are easily simplified into types: each has an established place in the family, and the varying ideologies are essentially concrete. However, what individual points of view they represent and the content of their disagreements are dwarfed by the universality of the high stakes and underlying ridiculousness that characterize a family argument. The playwright’s heightened take — the kind of scorched-earth battle that mothers and daughters are inexplicably capable of reversing in a moment — may not be initially recognizable from outside the fray, but feels utterly authentic on an emotional level. Yet at the same time, using the benefit of that distance, Carney unfolds these petty and regressive exchanges with abundant hilarity for the viewer.

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Modern Orthodox

The premise of Daniel Goldfarb's Modern Orthodox is as outlandish as a sitcom plot: passing acquaintance makes himself a sudden fixture in our heroes' lives, much to their consternation. Yet beneath the heightened plot there is additional promise for growth, in the concept of people whose take on their shared religion makes them almost contentiously opposed before they start learning from each other. In the current production at Jewish Ensemble Theatre, director Aaron Moore looks beyond situation to character for the basis of his humor, and the result is a collection of comic performances so fine, they excuse whatever minor discord the perspective raises against the script.

The play begins with a disjointed first meeting between Ben Jacobson (Scott Crownover) and Hershel Klein (Aral Gribble). The latter's business is diamonds; the former is ready to pop the question to his girlfriend of six years, Hannah Ziggelstein (Christina L. Flynn). To group both men under the descriptor "Jewish" is to lump Kraft Singles and sushi together as "food" — their relationship with Judaism could not be more different. Although costume designer Cal Schwartz accents his yarmulke with a brazen Yankees logo, orthodox Hershel takes his faith and culture quite seriously, peppering his speech with Hebrew phrases and insisting on the seat that points toward Jerusalem; in contrast, non-practicing Ben disparages his nose and practically sneers at his devout acquaintance. But it's one fleeting moment, in which Ben callously humiliates Hershel, that serves as the catalyst for the plot: the luckless, loveless salesman suffers a catastrophe, blames it on the forced breach of faith, and explodes into Ben and Hannah's luxe shared apartment (courtesy of set designer Sarah Tanner) to insist that Ben right this wrong. After one patronizing lecture about kosher law and a few more callous and over-the-top comic scenes, Ben and Hannah are ready to do whatever it takes to end the indefinite visit.

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A Lesson Before Dying

There are few real surprises in Romulus Linney’s stage adaptation of the Ernest J. Gaines novel A Lesson Before Dying, but they’re not necessary in a story that shocks and dismays simply by playing out exactly as the viewer would expect. At the play’s opening, the young Jefferson (Gabriel Johnson) is already on death row, but fear and institutionalized inequities in the Jim Crow South keep anyone from challenging the verdict; even an explicit did-he-do-it conversation in the second act feels like no more than a mournful intellectual exercise. In this world, it’s accepted as fact that a black man standing close by when a white man is murdered is as good as dead. When his own public defender uses the gangly metaphor of a hog to be slaughtered as a plea for clemency, Jefferson seizes on that one word — hog — and turns it into a self-fulfilling prophecy, shutting down and merely waiting for the day he’ll be dragged to the electric chair.

His guardian, Miss Emma (Barbara Jacobs-Smith), wisely realizes the only thing Jefferson can now control is how he chooses to face his fate, and she recruits the boy’s former teacher, Grant Wiggins (Harold Hogan), to instill a manly sense of dignity in the condemned. Already struggling with his vocation at a rural plantation school and sustaining a cautious relationship with another teacher, the still-married Vivian Baptiste (Angela King), Grant thinks only of leaving the doldrums of his surroundings to accomplish better and more important things elsewhere. Nobody should be surprised that Grant needs to learn a lesson as much as Jefferson does, but the way it plays out in this Detroit Repertory Theatre production, directed by Barbara Busby, peels back futility to reveal the power of pride in the face of oppression.

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