Meet the Rogue

Live theater. Unsolicited commentary.
From Detroit to Lansing.

Carolyn Hayes is the Rogue Critic, est. late 2009.

In 2011, the Rogue attended 155 plays, readings, and festivals (about 3 per week) and penned 115 reviews (about 2.2 per week).

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Theaters and Companies

The Abreact (Detroit)
website | reviews | 2011 SIR

The AKT Theatre Project (Wyandotte)
website | reviews

Blackbird Theatre (Ann Arbor)
website | reviews | 2010 SIR

Detroit Repertory Theatre (Detroit)
website | reviews

The Encore Musical Theatre Co. (Dexter)
website | reviews

Go Comedy! (Ferndale)
website | reviews

Hilberry Theatre (Detroit)
website | reviews | 2010 SIR

Jewish Ensemble Theatre (West Bloomfield)
website | reviews

Magenta Giraffe Theatre Co. (Detroit)
website | reviews | 2010 SIR

Matrix Theatre (Detroit)
website | reviews | 2010 SIR

Meadow Brook Theatre (Rochester)
website | reviews

Performance Network Theatre (Ann Arbor)
website | reviews

Planet Ant Theatre (Hamtramck)
website | reviews

Plowshares Theatre (Detroit)
website | reviews

Purple Rose Theatre Co. (Chelsea)
website | reviews

The Ringwald Theatre (Ferndale)
website | reviews

Tipping Point Theatre (Northville)
website | reviews | 2010 SIR

Threefold Productions (Ypsilanti)
website | reviews

Two Muses Theatre (West Bloomfield Township)
website | reviews

Williamston Theatre (Williamston)
website | reviews

Archive

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2012

2011

2010

2009

Entries in new/original plays (100)

Friday
Jan282011

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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Wednesday
Jan192011

Jersey Show Season 1 (Abridged)

Thus far I've managed to avoid the MTV show-that-must-not-be-named, but only because I once lived for reality TV and am convinced that (in SAT parlance) The Bachelor is to Jersey Shore as candy is to heroin. But like any true American, I'm well aware of the show and its highly compensated stars, and like a good Rogue I've read recaps and watched clips in order to better understand the original comedy Jersey Show Season 1 (Abridged). Written by Lesley Braden-Phillips and Kathleen Lietz, directed by the latter, and currently occupying the opening Thursday-night time slot at Go Comedy!, this one-act spoof delivers on its title in an extremely literal manner.

The production begins with a string of talking-head confessionals introducing the viewer to the eight strangers picked to live in a Seaside Heights house and have their lives taped. For the uninitiated, the concept is exactly like The Real World, except with homogenous stereotypes who self-apply the label Guido. The season goes like this: gym, tan, laundry, shots, beach, club, hookups, Ron-Ron juice, fistfights, infidelity, hair gel. Except for one housemate who can't handle a part-time job at a T-shirt store and leaves the show, these enterprising underachievers have reached their ultimate goal of making spring break last forever. For added familiarity, a pair of veejay types (Jennifer Bloomer and John Nowaczyk) pipe in between the episodes with minor commentary on the action, expertly reproducing that shameful sucked-into-the-marathon feeling that best accompanies the pinnacle of trash TV.

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Friday
Jan142011

3 Guys, 1 Jar

Planet Ant Theatre's improvisational and theatrical worlds collide most visibly in biannual original plays earmarked as prizes for the winning teams of its Summer Colony Fest and Winter Colony Fest tournaments. As directed by Mike McGettigan, the current production of 3 Guys, 1 Jar, written by and starring the men of A.R.M., looks fondly on a world of shrugging listlessness and heroic ineptitude as it hilariously punishes people who try.

In the world of the play, the Guys were all laid off some months ago and are resigned to bowling and drinking the days away. Marv (Marv Anderson) provides the impetus for the plot, as some meager spark within inspires him to do something worthwhile with his time and energy. As it happens, a huge, empty plastic jar right in their lane beckons for donations to help a kid dying of nonspecific cancer, and the men have found their cause. McGettigan seems an especially apt fit for the troupe, as the ensuing madcap campaign to raise $28,000 and cure the boy benefits constantly from his signature: montages, insanely tangential conversations, and unbridled absurdity abound. Undoubtedly, the one-act show has very rough edges, but every misstep is countered by moments of fresh, startling humor.

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Friday
Dec102010

F$$$ the Holidays

Who in the world gives a gallon of semi-gloss as a Christmas gift? From the outset, it's a surreal existence in Sweetlove Productions' so-called "seasonal retail story" F$$$ the Holidays, produced in partnership with the Ringwald and directed by Joe Plambeck. This one-act late-night production, written by Marke Sobolewski and Cara Trautman, is an unlikely tale of rival paint stores and their respective offbeat employees; the small story is a good fit for the short running time and leaves room for comedic character development and hilarious moments.

Trautman plays Kirsten, a frontrunner in the rat race who manages one franchise of a paint conglomerate; Sobolewski's Jeremy is the heir to his father's small-town family paint store. Their conflict plays on themes of corporate versus small business and new- versus old-school marketing, but mostly the two seem to revile each other because one lives to sell paint and the other ought to. Christmas approaches at each location, but the stores themselves don't appear to be jeopardized or locked in any do-or-die competition; the attention in this show is on the personal and interpersonal, not on holiday shoppers or the bottom line.

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Friday
Dec032010

Dance Xanax Dance

What play wouldn't be improved by a dose of David Bowie? He certainly does more good than harm to Dance Xanax Dance, a Planet Ant original comedy written and directed by Lauren Bickers. The production is light on story but heavy on design, all influenced by the Glam One himself, which makes for an outrageous, glittery, dancing extravaganza.

The already eclectic Planet Ant space is made over exquisitely by designer Barton Bund in outrageous abstract style, down to a red-patterned floor that looks like a flash of light viewed through closed eyelids. Hillary Bard's intense low lighting gives the entire set the look of an amazingly terrible music video, a perfect fit for Jill Dion's intense (and technically skilled), geek-serious choreography. Costumes by Vince Kelley are a hot, shimmering, eyelinered mess of the highest order. Setting the scene and providing awkward transitions are assembled fever-dream videos parodying various celebrity-obsessed television programs; sound and video designer Dyan Bailey's cheeky blend of actual TV footage with original scenes establishes the back story of the exceptionally named Olivia Sasha Now (Genevieve Jona), a championed child actor turned pop icon, whose well-documented substance abuse has her once-rising star now hurtling toward rock bottom. Essentially, it's the tale of Lindsay Lohan, if LiLo had the good fortune of releasing the hit song of the play's title (by Dustin Gardner of the local band shoe.) and divine intervention by Ziggy Stardust.

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