Patty Hearst: The New Musical

Writer, composer, and director Barton Bund has me convinced: the story of Patty Hearst is best told as a musical. The genre adds passion and energy to a grisly, infamous tale, without a whisper of camp. A song is the perfect vehicle for allowing characters to expound on their fiercely lionized radical convictions — of which there is no shortage in the Symbionese Liberation Army. Musicals are also given a pass for shallow or incomplete plot points, which Bund capitalizes upon by gently sidestepping the most dangerous and controversial aspects of Hearst's initial confinement. Nevertheless, the Blackbird Theatre's production of Patty Hearst: The New Musical is miles away from safe, challenging the viewer to look with fresh eyes at this story of a kidnapped heiress reborn as an urban guerilla.

The titular Patty (Jamie Weeder) is central to the proceedings, but is neither antihero nor protagonist. More often than not, the perspective is utterly neutral: Bund is careful not to take sides, sticking close to his source material of video and audio tapes and a handful of contradictory testimonies. This is not to say that the production is clinical or dry in tone; rather, the actors infuse their characters with urgency and purpose but leave their true motives to interpretation, leaving the bulk of the analysis to the viewer. Patty's first-act evolution — when she speaks or sings, or, even more telling, when she doesn't — is both bold and effective, and also allows the SLA characters ample space to develop as individuals. With no one to actively root for, the prevailing sense is that of careful observation as the events unfold, in a vain attempt to better understand them. (The viewer may benefit from reviewing the facts of the Hearst case, which are faithfully adhered to; knowing the story in advance allows one to focus on the performances.)

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Code Foxy: Man Down

Code Foxy: Man Down had life before the Ringwald: this 45-minute late-night show premiered at the Planet Ant Theatre two years ago. Now picked up by Sweetlove Productions and featuring the same performers (the members of the improv troupe Tiger Ride, who also penned the original script), the current iteration feels more like a reunion than a full revival.

In the vein of Charlie's Angels, the five women of Tiger Ride make up the Foxy Tiger Detective Agency. Chassy Tiger (Cara Trautman) is the reformed car expert, Dr. Raven Tiger (Kathryn Trepkowski) is the degree-laden bird whisperer, Summer-Winter Tiger (Anne Faba) is the CIA-trained ditz extraordinaire, and Pam Tiger (Suzan Jacokes) is the retired cop granddaughter of the agency's benefactor, Baron Rex (voiced by David Herbst). Rex's violent end summons the return of his other granddaughter, musician playgirl Sugar Tiger (Lauren Bickers), who announces he was murdered, enlists the group to solve the case, and immediately rekindles her rivalry with sister Pam. True to the source material, the characters appear to be costumed more with overstatement than with actual fabric.

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Home: Voices From Families of the Midwest

Although I can't say from experience, it seems like this final installment in the Williamston Theatre's Voices From the Midwest trilogy must be the broadest and the most diverse. From the concept by Artistic Director Tony Caselli, the previous shows explored the voices of women and then of men, but the notion of family — with its infinite variations in makeup and experience — is a challenge all its own. In Home: Voices From Families of the Midwest, writers Annie Martin and Suzi Regan (who also directs) draw from interviews and survey responses from a few dozen collaborators to present a mixed bag of styles and tones, swirling together the universal and the unique.

The show eases in with a handful of nuclear families taking part in classic activities: fighting over use of the bathroom, taking the dreaded family photo, tiptoeing around a painfully awkward sex talk. Many of the early scenes are notable for their complete dearth of cynicism; even the newly single mother on a cathartic drive to escape her former life sings with abundant positivity. Regan gives each of these disparate scenarios an energy fitting to its presentation, making scenes with a sketch-comedy sensibility feel at home next to the mournful stillness of a folk-inspired song. The overall composition of the two-hour production is exceptional, enveloping viewers in the sweetness and nostalgia they'll need to weather tougher times. As the focus radiates out into less-ubiquitous family units and highly specific characters and interactions, the emotions deepen, and the connection with the material intensifies. Elements of comedy and drama complement each other well, and the success of this script is in making both feel equally vital to the work.

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Die! Mommie! Die!

The promotional material for Who Wants Cake?'s Die! Mommie! Die! gives a big, unsubtle wink to the viewer. "IN 3D!," it cackles, because in contrast to TV and movie entertainments, live theater is inherently three-dimensional, no glasses required. As adorable as the joke is, it's especially fitting for this campy parody, deliciously overacted and overproduced in order to reproduce the sensation of a B-movie genre that director Joe Plambeck likes to call psycho-biddy. Essentially, take Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and turn it up to eleven.

There's murder and mystery to spare in this action-driven comedy by Charles Busch. Former singing sensation Angela Arden (Joe Bailey) had a career that publicly tanked in the wake of her twin sister's tragic death. A dozen or so years later, the 1967 Angela is trapped in her loveless marriage with diminishing-returns producer Sol Sussman (Alan Madlane) and saddled with a hateful daughter (Melissa Beckwith) and criminally dim son (Vince Kelley). Then Angela hits upon a way out, namely murder, one that takes a truly unorthodox — and wickedly funny — form. The devilish act is followed by: threats of murder, more murder, suspicions of murder, flinging around murder accusations, extracting confessions of murder, solving murders. The cast is rounded out by two Who Wants Cake? newcomers, both from Go Comedy! just around the corner: Suzan M. Jacokes is the hard-swilling, Bible-thumping maid not so secretly in love with Sol, and Bryan Lark is the tennis pro who uses his sole talent of insatiable sexual prowess for leverage with nearly the entire family.

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The Lonesome West

With no prior exposure to the work of playwright Martin McDonagh, I can't say I was prepared for what The Lonesome West had in store, but my lack of background didn't hinder my appreciation of the Planet Ant's production. One part of a trilogy with a unique point of view, the play nevertheless stood fiercely on its own. Indeed, the bleak portrait of beyond-reproach values and beyond-saving relationships in hellish Leenane, Ireland, landed like a series of emotional punches — a savage, unrelenting, exquisite beating.

The play is lousy with death, even opening immediately after a funeral: the father of Coleman (Stephen Blackwell) and Valene (Kevin Young) has died by accidental shotgun blast to the head. Other deaths, primarily murders and suicides, are discussed; it's unclear whether anyone in town has ever managed to die of natural causes. The focus of the show is the contentious relationship between the brothers, who somehow live together in their father's house, despite their greatest source of enmity — an impressive distinction, given this world — being each other. Young gives Valene a manic, Rainman-like drive to consume and protect, displaying and coveting his potato chips and menagerie of religious figurines just as much as his flashy big purchases. Coleman, conversely, has signed over his share of the inheritance for some reason, and cannot even afford to eat or drink; Blackwell gives the character pranksterish delight in numerous little revenges.

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