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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Raven's Seed

Outdoor productions are already a relative rarity in Michigan, but what sets Raven’s Seed apart is its added mobile element. Matrix Theatre’s unique take on playwright Stephen Most’s script travels outside, inside, and at a handful of locales within a generous block of the company’s permanent home; the bold choice brings stark focus to director Shaun Nethercott’s didactic calamity of worlds colliding.

A communion of archetypal animals populates the establishing outdoor scenes. They speak in ominous tones about the nuclear facility looming upriver, in whose proximity tough Bear (Krista Schafer) contracted an illness that mystifies impertinent healer Coyote (Maurizio Rosas-Dominguez), and whose effect on the water is being felt by the likes of graceful Sturgeon (Matios Simonian). The others warn burgeoning leader Raven (Rodolfo Villareal) away from investigating the human intrusion, including generous pauses to reference origin myths: when darkly off-kilter Loon (Schafer, in a dual role) razed the early world, and when plucky Raven — or, technically, his ancestor — stole the sun from its captors at the expense of his plumage. Masked by oversized puppet heads, skillfully woven and crafted of natural materials, the actors use generous, committed movement to embody the animals’ physical selves and offset their unchanging faces. Nethercott lends these earthen scenes a reverent pace, filling them with old-world grandeur.

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Returning productions — Holiday season 2011

Novemer and December in the theater world signals the return of favorite Christmas productions for all ages. As the Rogue has her hands overfull with new plays, holiday and otherwise, here’s a round-up of shows that played to audience and critical acclaim in previous years and return in 2011 to delight audiences anew.

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Southwest Story

To begin its landmark twentieth anniversary season, Matrix Theatre Company revives one of its first original productions: 1995’s Southwest Story. This contemporary take on the Romeo and Juliet story pays homage to its most famous predecessors, both Shakespeare’s text and the New York youth of West Side Story; however, the text is not just a translation of an old play to a contemporary setting, but a true adaptation in its own right. As directed by Mona Lucius, this production (staged at the Boll Family Theatre within the downtown Detroit YMCA) threads present-day issues through the timeless relatability of illicit young love, in an enlightening and easily relatable tale.

Here, we lay our scene in fair Southwest Detroit, at a busy intersection that puts the Nuñez family’s corner market and liquor store in opposition with Reverend Turner’s neighborhood church. In close keeping with the beats of the Shakespeare text, the opening scenes introduce the viewer to young Cristina Nuñez (Maria Romo) and Andrae Turner (Damon Whitman), then introduces them to each other when Andrae and his friends crash Cristina’s quinceañera (the Latino predecessor to the sweet sixteen party). The young lovers are beset by obstacles — manifest in Cristina’s cousin, Tomas (Justino Solis), who carries the parents’ feud with him into the younger generation — but also find allies — in particular, wise but insouciant Nicky (Monique Coleman) and Sister Rice (Rubelhia Aleman), a groovy old hippie with a catalog of quirks. The fifteen-year-old script (which was collaboratively penned by Wes Nethercott and a large group of students) has now seen some obvious updates, introducing Facebook and cell phones in thoughtful ways that thoroughly complement the storytelling.

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April Foolery

In celebrating its twentieth anniversary, Matrix Theatre hearkens back to two original one-act comedies for its charming April Foolery. Despite the prankster suggestion of its title, this production, directed by Nancy Kammer, solidly delivers on its promise of comedy without artifice, but with all the energy and fun of just clowning around.

The play’s first act, Para Siempre, was adapted from Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite by Maria Serratos. Set here in a southwest Detroit residence, parents Norma (Christina Hernandez) and Raul (Rudy Villareal) celebrate their daughter’s wedding day by trying to coax her out of the bathroom where she’s barricaded herself. Even with the changed setting and mingling of Spanish and English dialogue, Simon’s histrionic sensibility and sharp exchanges shine through, in a humorous and well-paced half hour. Kammer’s skill at polishing moments pays off as Hernandez and Villarreal humorously bicker and snipe, playing off each other with the comfortable give and take of a long-married couple. The pair is joined by Kristin Schultes and Eric Niece as the daughter and her intended, who sweep in for an efficient one-two punchline.

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