1960s

Waves of laughter at Cryptid’s ‘Beach Party’

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By John Lyle Belden

Let’s take a beachin’ trip back to 1962, as weirdly envisioned in 1987, then done for film in 2000 with actors you may know but the same dude doing the script, for further irreverent treatment by Indy’s Cryptid Entertainment today in “Psycho Beach Party,” directed by Kevin Holladay.

Did you know that Oscar-winning actress Sally Field famously played both beach-chick Gidget and, in a different film, the multiple-personality sufferer Sybil? Not sure why I brought that up…

Anyway, the Off-Broadway hit by Charles Busch sends up the ‘60s Beach films with inspiration from Hitchcock-style horror. Note to the triggered, especially as it is Mental Health Awareness Month, but this also hearkens back to not-that-long-ago when being a total whacko was fair game for comedy. This doesn’t so much mock Dissociative Identity Disorder (which is real, but rare, and caused by deep trauma) so much as the way such conditions were exaggerated for dramatic and comic effect.

In our mythical Malibu, The Great Kanaka (Thomas Sebald) rules the waves, accompanied by college dropout – Psych, of course – Starcat (Suraj Choudhary). Chicklet (Ellie Graves) a girl with small boobs and big dreams, provided she can stay free of her overbearing mother (Andrea Haskett), wants to learn to surf, even if it is a man’s world. Bikini hottie Marvel Ann (Hannah Embree) has her eyes on one of those men, and Chicklet’s bestie Berdine (Ezri Braid-Grizell) has her mind occupied by the great (non-surfing) philosophers. Other surfer dudes are Provoloney (Case Jacobus), Yo-yo (Katie Endres), and Nicky (Kelly Haas).

An incognito movie star, Bettina Barnes (Jessica Hawkins), shows up hoping to get away from the world of schlock films. Meanwhile, Kanaka accidentally discovers that sometimes Chicklet really isn’t herself – and alter ego Ann Bowman (!) kinda turns him on.

Also, there have been bizarre shaving attacks.

Considering that Busch played Chicklet in the original New York production, don’t be surprised that things here get a bit gender-fluid and queer. It just adds to the fun.

The cast all ride the waves of absurdity for all they’re worth. Graves shows entertaining range and talent, so that she could also move on to more dramatic roles (y’know, like Sally Field did). Sebald looks like Indy’s version of Jason Mamoa with all the same fun energy and cool charisma. Choudhary (who was cool with me saying he looks like if Jesus were drawn correctly) charms as well. Embree is cutely committed to her high-class persona. Hawkins has no problem hanging with these characters, taking to being rightly feted like a queen with her court.

What is the secret of Chicklet’s troubled past? Will Provoloney and Yo-Yo admit their feelings? Can I get an invite to the Luau? (The answer to the last one is no, but they did give me a beach ball.)

See the Cryptids without the time restraints of a Fringe show, Thursday through Sunday (two shows on Saturday), May 16-19, at Fonseca Theatre, 2805 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis. Find Cryptid Entertainment on Facebook for info and tickets or try this link.

Take a ride with Civic’s ‘Miss Daisy’

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By John Lyle Belden

Sometimes, it’s nice to have the entertainment equivalent of comfort food.

Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre presents “Driving Miss Daisy,” the Pulitzer-winning play by Alfred Uhry, directed by Civic executive artistic director Michael J. Lasley. It’s a familiar story, thanks to both it being a heartwarming hit that’s easy to stage with three actors, and its adaptation into an Oscar-winning movie.

It also has the familiar feeling from being based on Uhry’s own relatives and including events that occurred in Atlanta in the 1950s and 1960s. The plot’s not complicated: Seventy-two year old Daisy (Ellen Kingston) has crashed her new automobile, and her son Boolie (David Wood) insists she no longer be allowed to drive. She stubbornly refuses to hire a driver, so he does – Hoke (Antoine Demmings), a middle-aged man of varied driving experience. What follows is the growing friendship between the old Jewish woman set in her ways and her Black driver with unflagging good nature and saintlike patience.

What makes this worth your ticket are the performances. Wood keeps Boolie genuine in his love for his mother and respect for Hoke, and his voice maintains a nice Georgia lilt that enhances his moments on the stage.  Kingston embodies Daisy with persistent toughness that never goes bitter, like a beloved grandma.

As for Demmings, his Hoke presents the big smile and easy manner that keeps him in good stead with White folks of that place and time, yet it’s genuine pleasure, not a stereotypical “Uncle” put-on. Still, he is his own capable man, and quick to gently say so if he feels it necessary.

The story flows easily, thanks in part to the scenic and lighting designs of Ryan Koharchik. Jay Hemphill is assistant director, and Nicole Cooper is stage manager.

The ride is not always smooth, but the journey is sentimental, with an interesting view. Come along at the Studio Theater at the Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Carmel, through March 30. Get info and tickets at civictheatre.org or thecenterpresents.org.

CCP: Follow the journey of ‘Violet’

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By John Lyle Belden 

Carmel Community Players brings us its production of the heartwarming and bittersweet musical, “Violet,” which is becoming familiar through its Off-Broadway and Broadway runs as well as fairly recent local productions.

As creators Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley (based on a story by Doris Betts) intended, we are advised that the disfiguring scar on the title character’s face is not visible on the actor, Sarah Marone-Sowers, so that we may choose to see it with our minds’ eye, or opt to see the beauty within. For Violet, it is a curse she carries into adulthood from a years-ago accident with her father and a wayward axe head. At last, in 1964, she has saved enough to take a Greyhound bus from the hills of North Carolina all the way through Tennessee and Arkansas to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a television preacher works miracles. She reached her hand to the black-and-white screen, but the Lord’s healing somehow did not reach her. Now she believes she will get her new face, direct from the source.

On her travels, she meets a friendly, well-meaning grandmother (Christine Sanserino) and two soldiers, Flick (Onis Dean), a black Sergeant, and Monty (Dominic Piedmonte) a white Corporal. As they ride, she also remembers the past, in flashbacks with Young Violet (Kenzi Stewart) and Dad (Darrin Gowan). Her budding friendship with the G.I.’s is tested in an overnight stay in Memphis, Tenn., leading to an awkward parting in Fort Smith, Ark. (the soldiers to the nearby military post). Next stop: Tulsa and an eye-opening encounter with a very busy Preacher (Scott A. Fleshood).

The cast also includes Jay Becker, Damaris Burgin, Chloe Vann, and Lawrence Wunderlich in various roles, the men (and Fleshood) taking turns as bus driver. Burgin is notable as keeper of a Memphis boarding house and the televangelist’s choir leader. Vann also sings well in the choir and at a Music Hall. Wunderlich is the Preacher’s assistant. Becker plays a rude fry cook.

Marone-Sowers shines as a woman desperately applying blind faith to deep wounds (physical and mental), as does Dean, portraying one who also knew the lifelong pain of others’ judgement, yet found his strength. The high level of talent in Gowan and high school freshman Stewart elevates their characters as more than dramatic device. These strong spirits boldy show their story, following Violet to their necessary encounter on a cathedral stage. Kathleen Horrigan directs.

Especially for anyone who can’t see their own beauty, take a good look at “Violet,” Thursday through Sunday, March 7-9, at the Switch Theatre, located in Ji-Eun Lee Music Academy, 10029 E. 126th St., Suite D, Fishers. Get tickets and info at carmelplayers.org.

‘Crew’ remembers forgotten Civil Rights heroes

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By John Lyle Belden

“Cadillac Crews are not fictional. They really happened. But we don’t know the many names of the women who, on them, helped to integrate the American south.” – Playwright Tori Sampson in an interview on www.newpaltz.edu.

Black women in the 1960s faced a battle on two fronts. They endured the struggle for racial equality alongside Black men, who at times placed them in a strictly background role, mostly unheard and largely unknown.

In the play, “Cadillac Crew,” by Tori Sampson, presented by Mud Creek Players, this becomes a hard lesson for Rachel Christopher (Shakisha Mahogany), leader in a Virginia civil rights activists’ office. She has arranged for movement pioneer Rosa Parks to speak at an upcoming conference. However, her day starts with friction from office assistant Abby (Shanae Denise), who feels she should have more duties, considering her pre-law degree. Rachel notes that even with her Masters, all she has done is administrative work, but that should soon change. Dee (Gabrielle Patterson) arrives already under stress, dealing with her daughter starting class at a mostly-White school under a new Integration plan. Finally, there is Sarah (Rachel Kelso), whose Whiteness raises quiet suspicion with Abby and Dee, despite her eagerness to help and Rachel’s willingness to vouch for her.

Two pieces of bad news arrive – the male leadership’s decision to demote Parks’ appearance from a keynote address to perhaps a luncheon, and a report out of Florida of a burned-out Cadillac with the bodies of two women voting rights workers. No names are given, but Abby knew them.

Striving to rise above not only the pervasive Jim Crow racism but also what we now call “erasure,” Rachel volunteers her office as the next Cadillac Crew. Such teams are similar to the Freedom Riders of volunteer college students who traveled into the Deep South to organize and register voters (sometimes with tragic results), but in this case more low-key, driving the back roads to speak to churches and women’s groups to encourage the causes of integration, voting rights and other freedoms.

Seeing the lack of writing on the wall, Rachel is determined not to be forgotten, insisting that she and the others keep diaries of their ramblings through the South. Her lofty speeches seem to be well received, and things are going well, provided the crew can make it over the dusty road to Jackson, Mississippi…

Directed by Dani Lopez-Roque, this play is a powerful reminder of the many mostly-unknown people who worked for the cause of freedom, and how the pressures of that struggle led to a lot of tension and disagreement within the ranks. This isn’t four girls on a road trip; it is four women constantly questioning if any of this is worth it. All four actors are as dedicated as the women they portray, embracing the complexity that even within a settled goal like equality, there are many-sided arguments of how to get there.

The play ends with a final scene in 2024, which seems a little odd, but helps put the preceding events in perspective as a young podcaster strives to un-erase what has been hidden.

The Mud Creek Barn helps set the scene before the play with signage as you enter regarding the strictures of Jim Crow. The program is in the style of newspaper from 1963. And be sure you line up at the “right” window when getting your ticket or popcorn.

Performances of “Cadillac Crew” are Feb. 16-18 and 23-24 at 9740 E. 86th St., Indianapolis. For tickets and info, go to mudcreekplayers.org.

ALT: Damaged souls in Inge’s dark drama

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By John Lyle Belden

The title, “Natural Affection,” despite being part of a spoken line, is ironic.

A lesser-known yet highly regarded drama by William Inge (its brief 1962-63 Broadway run suffered from poor publicity), it is a story of people struggling with life and relationships in upper middle-class Chicago apartments. The overall atmosphere is Tennessee Williams, without the humidity.

In the current American Lives Theatre production, single mother Sue (Carrie Anne Schlatter, or Christine Zavakos on select dates) is expecting a Christmas visit from her troubled teen son Donnie (Zach Hoover), allowed temporary release from the “work farm” to which he had been sentenced for an assault years earlier. Sue’s life had been hard, but she has found success as a buyer for a downtown department store, which irks her live-in boyfriend Bernie (Alex Oberheide), a struggling Cadillac salesman.

Next door are friends, of a sort, Vince (Ronn Johnstone), a mostly-functioning alcoholic with both high income and debts, and his wife Claire (Diana O’Halloran), who married for money and is now unsure what she wants – aside from Bernie, again.

Other roles are filled by Wendy Brown, Tim Leonard, Garrett Rowe (including a scene as Donnie’s fellow parolee), and Haley Glickman (most notably in the play’s climax).

This dark drama with, at best, a grim humor provides hearty material for the actors. The undercurrent of dysfunction soon becomes apparent between Sue and Bernie. Schlatter ably expresses the woman constantly pushing against her own insecurities, never quite sure she’s made it. Despite her workplace success, she still feels the need for a marriage to make her truly happy; which with her going on 40 in the 1960s, brings feelings of desperation. Oberheide, for his part, wears his neediness like the tailored suit he wears to work the car lot, coming across like the smarmy guy who’s about to talk you into all the options. It burns him that his girlfriend makes far more than he does, which he gives as the reason for not marrying her. On top of this, Bernie has an abusive temper, but more bipolar than controlling, bringing Sue along on the ride.

As noted above, the “natural” way you’d assume a Midwest family holiday to go is absent here, especially with the neighbors, as Vince tries to salve insecurities about both his financial worth and his sexuality with a wild swinger lifestyle. Johnstone is excellent at playing someone so perpetually pickled you could almost smell it on him without delving into comic drunk stereotype. We hear moments of lucidity between the slurred lines, a kaleidoscope of shifting emotions, and when he’s truly had one too many, it’s more pathetic than funny. O’Halloran portrays the debutante who never matured beyond high school, in desperate need of affections she can only see as transactional; Claire wants better for herself, without a clue about where to start.

Hoover’s Donnie is a Freudian scholar’s dream, the hurt boy in the body of a dangerous man, never sure how to connect with a mother he has only seen infrequently through his tragic life. His scars are both visible and deep, as we discover a character like a revolver with a single chamber loaded. Tension builds from one trigger moment to the next, to the last.

Directed by ALT artistic director Chris Sanders (one of his passion projects), assisted by Tim Leonard with Marta Hamilton as stage manager, this gripping study of human affections, however you define them, runs through Jan. 21 at the IndyFringe Theatre, 719 E. St. Clair, Indianapolis. Get tickets at indyfringe.org and info at americanlivestheatre.org.

Not an easy road for family in IRT drama

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By John Lyle Belden

It’s a story many can relate to: A family takes a road-trip to another state to visit a grandparent, in part to give the teenage son a chance, away from neighborhood distractions, to think about where his life is going. Little sister tattles when one brother pokes another. Younger brother has his favorite song played over and over and over. So, it’s a family comedy, right?

“The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963” (based on the book by Christopher Paul Curtis, adapted by Cheryl L. West) adds a more serious context: an African-American family’s journey into the Jim Crow South.

At the Indiana Repertory Theatre through March 1 (effectively throughout Black History Month), parents Daniel and Wilona (Bryant Bentley and Tiffany Gilliam) travel with misbehaving teen Byron (Brian Wilson), five-year-old daughter Joey (Dalia Yoder), and nine-year-old Kenny (Xavier Adams) — through whose eyes we see the story — from their home in Flint, Michigan, to Birmingham, Alabama, and the home of Grandma Sands (Milicent Wright). 

Though the family is fictional, the world they live in was all too real, and not that long ago. The Watsons carry the Green Book, a reference of places safe for black travelers to stop. They dare not go to just any gas station or motel — like a white family — and the idea of just driving until you are tired is foolhardy and dangerous, as the Watsons discover. Even the police, who should be there to protect them, are potential predators. At Grandma’s house they are safe, but they know venturing out at all carries risk. Still, nothing has prepared them for when one of the most tragic incidents of the Civil Rights Era rocks the family to its core.

Bentley plays a dad who is likeable and practical, and a little stubborn; for him, family is everything. Gilliam’s Wilona clings to her better memories of the Alabama she grew up in, her one blind spot for a mom otherwise prudent and cautious. The three youths excellently act “their age,” the boys showing some growth as the events affect them. Yoder’s Joey stays perpetually innocent, always charmingly standing up for whichever sibling is in trouble at the moment. Wright, a familiar face on IRT stages, is a welcome presence, effortlessly commanding. The cast also includes Grayson Molin in two starkly contrasting roles — as Buphead, Byron’s white best friend; and later as an unfriendly native Alabamian. 

Directed by Mikael Burke, with excellent visual effects by Reuben Lucas, the play is a study of contrasts, especially between the familial humor of the road trip and the moments of horror. Current events add the irony that Flint, a struggling, literally toxic place now, was in the ‘60s a thriving city and comforting home base for the Watsons. But they return there changed, and Kenny nearly broken. Find out how, why — and experience the terror of the “Wool-Pooh.”

“The Watsons Go to Birmingham” in one movie-length act on the IRT Upperstage, 140 W. Washington (near Circle Centre) in downtown Indianapolis. Call 317-635-5252 or visit irtlive.com.