Good People

It’s probably safe to say that very few people truly self-identify as “bad.” Hence, playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s coyly titled Good People has the potential to apply to a wide swath of individuals and qualities, and indeed it does. In the play’s Michigan premiere at Performance Network Theatre, director David Wolber doggedly cultivates a quicksand world of keenly felt economic hardship that reflects a growing percentage of Americans, forcing his characters to make daily decisions that cruelly pit kindness against basic self-preservation. Incredibly, though, the show proves as viciously humorous as it is viciously relevant, and this production achieves its purpose by setting each of those disparate bars high and pulling out all the stops.

The play’s initial scene immediately plunges the viewer into a world in which dire straits is not an abstraction. Margaret (Suzi Regan) is once again late to her job at the dollar store, because insufficient money cannot buy reliable childcare and hourly job schedules are by their nature inflexible, in a vicious cycle that allows for no safety nets and absolutely no margin for error. But although she’s bracing herself for another dressing down by her much younger manager (Logan Ricket), in fact Margaret has run out of chances and is being summarily fired. To add insult to injury, the meeting takes place in the alley behind the store, the first of several opportunities for sound designer Carla Milarch to forcefully insert insistent reminders of close proximity and nonexistent borders. Lack of privacy or breathing room is the norm for this South Boston community, where the accents are thick and the ties thicker, and under Wolber’s adamant direction, the severity of the circumstance is not something to be debated. What’s interesting is how bitingly funny it also is — yes, in the funny-because-it’s-true sense; yes, we laugh so as not to cry; but beyond that is caustic, braying comedy that slays, much of it Regan’s. Her use of familiarity as a weapon to make unpleasant interactions as uncomfortable as possible is a vicious and effective tool, one that proves both a blessing and a curse.

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Measure for Measure

Muddled Shakespeare dramedy strains to measure up, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

Detroit's Elizabeth Theater Company, reaffirming its dedication to Shakespeare, now returns to the Bard for the second time with "Measure for Measure." In most respects, the production revisits the precedents set by the company's initial 2011 production of "The Tempest," including many of the same actors and creative staff and ringleader Jerry Belanger, director/performer/designer of many hats. Here, however, the rockier source material proves less forgiving in the execution.

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The Weir

Raise a glass, bend an ear, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

To close its all-Irish season, The Abreact could not have made a more Irish-for-Irish's sake selection than "The Weir." Beer, whiskey, yarn spinning, and supernatural folklore are the foundation of playwright Conor McPherson's nimbly simple script. However, as abundantly demonstrated here, one ordinary night at the pub – rendered intensely authentic by directors Adam Barnowski, Andrea Smith, and Eric W. Maher – can make for an extraordinarily affecting theater experience.

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Making Porn

Let’s dispense with the nitty-gritty. As would be expected, a show entitled Making Porn is replete with full frontal male nudity, explicit sexual content, almost clinically filthy language, and an age limit: 18 and over. Longtime devotees of Ferndale’s gonzo Ringwald Theatre should be neither surprised nor fazed at this news. Nor should any raise an eyebrow at how much more this brazen production has to offer. Director Joe Bailey boasts a long history of touring with this Ronnie Larsen comedy, and it shows in his ability to render the potentially exploitative material almost beside the point, instead coaxing out a smart and savvy web of stories as keenly contemplative as they are starkly hilarious.

The place is San Francisco, the year around 1982, the mood pulsing with panting desire, courtesy of sound designer Ari Zirulnik. Larsen begins by laying out types familiar to most depictions of performance-based industries. There’s young mega-fan naif Ricky (Bailey Boudreau), who hopes to break into male-on-male pornography via established star Ray (Dan Morrison), long past creative hunger and now merely cashing in on old successes. Meanwhile, empty-worded, ruthless producer Arthur (Bailey) would sell his own soul for profit — or, better, someone else’s, like his sainted partner/assistant, Jamie (Richard Payton). Finally, there’s down-on-his-luck Jack (Brenton Herwat), a straight actor who finally finds success in this surprising demographic, while his gullible, daffy wife, Linda (Lisa Melinn), chirps with guilt-compounding approval. Although the timeline hops and skips, the first act covers about a year’s time, during which Ricky, Ray, and Jack angle, negotiate, and reluctantly agree to take part in scenes for Arthur’s films, a few of which are enacted and/or staged with riotous detachment and git-‘er-done brusqueness.

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Phoenix

Coursing hope fuels exultant Matrix rise, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

On paper, playwright Scott Organ's "Phoenix" is a sleek little nugget of a play. The plot encompasses just two characters; their story takes scarcely more than an hour to tell, or a few sentences to sum up. The script is a sharp character study, a self-contained relationship exercise – on paper. However, the Michigan premiere production that closes Matrix Theatre Company's season leaps splendidly off the page: Director Stephanie Nichols adds to this intriguing text compelling performances and abstract theatrical design, then compresses this fertile ore into a show with diamond shine.

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