End Days

Boiled down to two words, End Days (by Deborah Zoe Laufer) is beset by oddity and wonder. A collaboration of Williamston Theatre and the Michigan State University Department of Theatre, as well as a co-production with West Bloomfield’s Jewish Ensemble Theatre, this goofy parable of a far-flung collection of misfits approaching the end of the world is wonderfully odd. Yet at the same time, director Tony Caselli ensures that the production’s true appeal is in the thorough character work and engrossing relationships that make it oddly wonderful.

The world of the Steins is an unusual one, where the presence of a high-school Elvis (Eric Eilersen) is no more unexpected than that of the household Jesus (Andrew Head). Despondent dad Arthur (John Manfredi) has been sleepwalking through life in the two years since 9/11, whereas alarmist mom Sylvia (Emily Sutton-Smith) is distracted with newfound evangelical zeal, fixated on saving souls from the impending Rapture. This leaves sixteen-year-old daughter Rachel (Lydia Hiller) confused, massively undersupervised, and acting out in a furious search for meaning. Her rebellion takes physical form in costumer Lane Frangomeli’s outstanding statement wear; behaviorally, beyond mere teenaged sourness, her forbidden pursuits of (gasp!) science and casual drug use combine into a fanciful, iconic spirit guide of sorts: hallucinatory Stephen Hawking (Head again, in acutely bifurcated roles). This addition, too, is accepted with little resistance; that anything is possible is a given in the world of this play, even — or, rather, especially — that it could end at any moment.

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Next to Normal

Meadow Brook rocks and shocks in polemical Michigan premiere, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

With a rollicking sound (music by Tom Kitt) and a plot centered on the foe and friend that is one woman's mental illness (book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey), "Next to Normal" is by no means a conventional musical. For the Michigan premiere at Meadow Brook Theatre, directed by Travis W. Walter, the viewer is rewarded for obliging the production's audacious and startling choices, which not only do emotional justice to an astonishing, illuminating, Pulitzer Prize–winning text, but also proves to be musically splendid.

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The Divas Project

Divas of song and spirit, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

Plowshares Theatre Company begins 2013 by making good on its mission of "Celebrating the Black Woman" for the 2013 season. Arranged by artistic director Gary Anderson, "The Divas Project" is a world-premiere musical revue in homage to a half-century of American legends of popular music. Readers should note I attended and reviewed the production's sole preview performance before its official opening, but the prowess of the show's professional musicians and its atmosphere of lighthearted fun were already well in evidence.

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The Meaning of Almost Everything

To guess at the meaning of everything…it’s an endeavor that may be as futile as nailing down the essence of The Meaning of Almost Everything. Pondering the imponderable may be a familiar old exercise in any medium, but it feels shiny new in playwright Jeff Daniels’s latest comedy, now in its world premiere at the Purple Rose Theatre Company. In this delightfully enigmatic production, director Guy Sanville draws on a tightrope-taut balance between cavorting and profundity to turn passive navel gazing into a gamboling truth-seeking extravaganza.

The world of the play springs into being out of sheer nothingness, introducing the arbitrarily named A and B (Matthew Gwynn and Michael Brian Ogden), a pair stuck at the precipice of some unknown adventure. Their immediate, relentless banter about the possibility and prudence of “beginning” feels like snapping awake halfway down a fall into a theoretical crevasse — the play makes no pretense of exposition, but rather fills in the vast emptiness with rampant curiosity, a sharply honed relationship dynamic, and intriguing variables. The duo’s personalities and thought processes begin at neutral and generously overlap, but critical differences peek in and grow into a clear (and richly exploited) alpha-beta dynamic. Ever the rubber-faced foil, Gwynn excels at wholly reacting to every new innovation, presenting as a baby to be guided, someone for the viewer to pity and adore in equal measure. Conversely, Ogden emerges as a dark mentor of sorts, strikingly confident and engrossed in bowling over his easily swayed other half.

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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Bustling 'Joseph' a saturated spectrum, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

With decades of roaring success under its belt and name recognition aplenty, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (lyrics by Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Weber) is an instant draw. In the current production at The Encore Musical Theatre Company, director Barbara F. Cullen knows better than to mess with success, honoring the pizzazz of the show's broad, splashy rainbow of production numbers but in smaller-than-usual packaging.

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