play

Important ‘Mountaintop’ in the hills of Bloomington

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By Wendy Carson

On April 3, 1968, the night before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death by assassination, he gave one of his most famous speeches. Known as, “I have been to the Mountaintop”, it encourages people to wonder what would happen to them if they didn’t act in service to others, rather than what would happen to them if they did. 

He speaks of traveling through history and witnessing numerous times of oppressed peoples overcoming their struggles. He reminds us of what we have already been through and how we can continue to overcome poverty and injustice by working together to support one another. 

However, he also speaks about his near-death experience from a knife attack years earlier and how a mere sneeze could have killed him. He references the constant barrage of death threats that he endures each and every day. He acknowledges that he will not always be there to continue the fight for justice and equality. Yet, he assures us that he knows that what he has begun will continue on after he is gone.

This speech, its message, and King’s life are the inspirations for Katori Hall’s play, “The Mountaintop,” presented by Cardinal Stage in Bloomington. 

King (Michael Aaron Pogue) retires to his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis to try and get some rest while working on his next speech. He sends a friend to get him some cigarettes to help with this mission. After calling down to the front desk for room service, his coffee is delivered by Camae (AshLee “PsyWrn Simone” Baskin), a beautiful maid on her first night of her new job. She also brings with her the next day’s paper. With the storm raging outside and his reluctance to be alone, the two engage in a spirited discussion of King’s life, the Civil Rights struggle, and the future. 

Hall pulls no punches in portraying King as an honorable but flawed man. Pogue proudly shows us King’s many great achievements while also regretfully acknowledging his indiscretions and moral failings. He also shows us flashes of future inevitability in his panicked reactions to the claps of thunder which, sounding to him like gunshots, rattle King so.

Baskin shows Camae as a mater-of-fact woman who has no time or desire to mince words and always clearly speaks her mind. She manages to keep the character’s expletive-laden rants light yet never denies the meaning and power behind them. She also skillfully keeps Camae sympathetic once we learn the truth of who it is she is actually working for. 

Director Ansley Valentine brings us a story that reminds us not just of the loss of a great leader for change but also that the struggle is not a sprint, but a relay race, and we are all responsible for our part in it. So, take up the baton, and see this show. 

Performances run through March 20 at the Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St., Bloomington. Get information and tickets (“pay what you will” pricing) at cardinalstage.org.

Summit’s ‘Crew’ a bold workplace drama

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By John Lyle Belden

You see the signs, and not just the unusual ones on the bulletin board. Management holds a lot of private meetings; rules start tightening up; workers leave and are not replaced; rumors circulate. The writing is on the wall, perhaps literally when notices go up: people are going to lose their jobs, and perhaps the entire workplace will soon close. 

What had been unthinkable in times of booming industry and union strength has become too common now. I went through a similar situation, perhaps you have, too. And in a recent era, this was the fate of Detroit auto workers in Dominique Morrisseau’s “Skeleton Crew,” the drama presented by Summit Performance at the Phoenix Theatre.

Faye (Dwandra Nickole Lampkin) is within months of 30 years at the plant. She is also: a proud UAW rep; a feisty cancer survivor who can’t – won’t – give up smoking; stubborn protector of her crew, especially Shanita (Akili Ni Mali) and Dez (Kerrington Shorter); practically a mother to the foreman, Reggie (Daniel A. Martin); wise and philosophical, always with something to say; eager to take your money in cards, but not always successful; and a multi-skilled worker who never seems to leave the factory. The fact that she is gay is honestly her least significant trait. 

Shanita is the best on the production line, proud of following her father and helping build something others will be proud to own. She doesn’t even let pregnancy slow her down. As for Dez, he’s got big plans, nice shoes and a gun in his bag. He talks smooth and means well, but the fire within him isn’t always under control. He and Reggie don’t get along, as they seem to assume the worst of each other. Then again, Reggie is right that Dez has been gambling on the premises. 

And as word swirls around that the plant is doomed, someone is quietly stealing from the plant – taking their severance one metal part at a time.

Needless to say, there is a lot of drama and tension as the uncertainty builds. But Morisseau has sprinkled in a healthy dose of workplace humor, and a bit of feeling among the members of this workplace family. It doesn’t take much digging nowadays for these skilled actors to bring the emotions – from concern to frustration – to the surface. Lampkin is a rock. Mali radiates confidence. Shorter gives substance to the angry-young-(black)man archetype. And Martin, known to many for his comic skills, again shows his true range.

Director Melissa Mowry strikes the right balance in the look and feel of the play. The stage (designed by Mejah Balams) is a plant break room, a temporary respite from the noise and stress just outside the back-wall door. Opaque windows show images of industry, and at transitional points in the story, silhouettes of cast members moving rhythmically – men as machines – choreographed by Mowry with the actors. It’s a brilliant visual element that sticks with you.

Powerful drama with strong performances, “Skeleton Crew” has two weekends remaining, through March 13 at the Phoenix, 705 N. Illinois St. For tickets, visit phoenixtheatre.org or go to summitperformanceindy.com.

CCP: Explore ‘Curious Incident’ with unique mind

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By Wendy Carson and John Lyle Belden

Christopher John Francis Boone is 15, a mathematical genius who finds all social and physical interactions terrifying. This is because Christopher is autistic. He lives alone with his father in Swindon, UK, having lost his mother two years earlier.

His love of animals brings him out one night to visit the neighbor’s poodle, Wellington, only to find it killed. Since he’s found kneeling with the dog, he is initially accused of its death. When the responding policeman tries to calm him down, his touch causes Christopher to lash out and be arrested. The misunderstanding is cleared up, but Christopher is left with a warning on his permanent record.

Discovering the murder of a dog is too irrelevant to be investigated, he decides, against his father’s strong wishes, to do it himself. This results in him having to talk to his neighbors, who to him are strangers, but he is determined to overcome his fears and solve this mystery, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.” This 2015 Tony-winning play by Simon Stephens, based on the acclaimed novel by Mark Haddon, is on stage at the Cat Theater through March 6, presented by Carmel Community Players. 

While he does eventually find the killer’s identity, the path to that information has Christopher discover a huge family secret and embark on a journey that tests his resolve and the very limits of his abilities.

The staging, like the novel, is from Christopher’s point of view. Director Larry Adams and his crew (assistant Karissa Monson, lighting and video design by Eric Matters, set by David Muse, and sound design by Lori Raffel) excellently deliver the technical aspects of his world with all its abrupt stimuli, cacophonous sounds, and tangled language. 

Being on stage the whole time, the role of Christopher is demanding to start with – add to this a British accent, various physical tics and almost constant movement and it turns into a Herculean challenge. In his first leading role, Noah Ebeyer is spectacular in embodying the part. He never seems to act; we only see the troubled genius trying to make sense of his world, get the answers he feels he deserves, and get to school in time to take his Maths A-Levels exams. Adams agrees with the talk of the performance being award-worthy, marveling at how Ebeyer took naturally to the role. And while the boy he plays may be put off by us strangers, he makes us feel something special for him.

Christopher’s teacher Siobahn (Lori Colcord) provides support and reads to us much of his inner dialogue from a notebook he had kept. Earl Campbell is sharp as his father Ed, struggling to do what’s best for Christopher and learning the hard way the consequences of keeping facts from one whose mind relies on them for his whole life’s structure. Nikki Lynch plays Christopher’s loving but overstressed mother Judy.

The rest of the cast – Tanya Haas, Kelly Keller, Cathie Morgan, Gus Pearcy, Ryan Shelton, Barb Weaver – morphs from one character to another (people as well as inanimate objects) while also voicing Christopher’s self-doubts and thoughts. No actual dogs were killed in the making of this show – including Bob Adams in a touching canine cameo.

Also, you will cheer for a mathematical solution! (Stay through the curtain call.)

The Cat is at 254 Veterans Way in downtown Carmel. Find information and tickets at CarmelPlayers.org.

Touching treatment of Steinbeck classic in Westfield

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By Wendy Carson

There was a comedian who once said he doesn’t like “Star Wars” because growing up he saw the movie “Spaceballs” first and was disappointed by the lack of comedy. Growing up with numerous Looney Tunes cartoon shorts parodying various high-minded subjects, I feel the same way about “Of Mice and Men.” I liked the comedic versions I grew up watching. However, I have learned that with local theater offerings, a great production can change your opinion of a show — and that is the case here.

Main Street Productions in Westfield has on stage a remarkable version of the John Steinbeck novel. George Milton (Brian Coon) and Lennie Small (Joe Wagner) are two drifters in search of a small stake they can use to purchase a small house and farm in order to “live off the fat of the land.” This brings them to the barley farm that proves to be their salvation and undoing.

Once they arrive in the farm bunkhouse, they meet our somewhat usual assortment of characters: the gruff, no-nonsense Boss (A. Mikel Allan) and his hot-headed son Curley (Jake Hobbs), who recently married and seems to always be searching for his flirty wife (Audrey Duprey). For the actual working members of the crew, we have Slim (Robert Webster Jr.), the mule driver and de facto supervisor; Candy (Chris Otterman) a crippled, aging farmhand with a dog (Meeko) about as broken as he is; Crooks (Austin Hookfin), the black stable-hand who gets his name from his injured back (NOTE: As the script was written in 1937 and takes place during the Great Depression, certain racist terms are used, in context); as well as the other farm hands Carlson (Logan Browning) and Whit (Nathaniel Taff).

Coon does a great job of balancing George’s ambitious dream of the future with his concerns for Lennie’s actions erasing all hope of it. While Wagner seemed to take a little bit to fully get into character, once he settled in, his Lennie emulates all of the sweet naivete and simplicity of purpose that the character struggles with in his desire to just hold and enjoy the feel of something soft in his hands.

Otterman’s performance is perhaps my favorite. He manages to keep Candy upbeat while embracing the character’s desolate vision of his pathetically painful demise on the farm. He takes on the hopefulness of joining George and Lennie on their farm, trusting them to “take him out back and shoot him” when he is no longer viable. He even manages to upstage Meeko, whose debut turn as Candy’s Dog makes him a rising star to watch for in future roles.

Chris Otterman aptly brings out Curley’s obsessively neurotic desires to keep his wife happy, yet under control, at any cost. As Curley’s wife, Duprey delicately treads the line between the lonely woman who just wants companionship and the “tart” out to make trouble among the menfolk for her own pleasure. Webster does an admirable job of subtly showing Slim as a man just wanting to keep peace throughout the workforce without encouraging any of them to fall for the “honey trap.”

Hookfin gives us a window to the struggles people in his skin had in that era, even in the otherwise egalitarian world of the farm worker or ranch hand.

James H. Williams directs, and Ian Marshall-Fisher provides an excellent bunkhouse/barn design for the stage. Coon also created the lighting design.

While the show is a heady mixture of the stark realities of life, it does manage to portray the human struggle for hope and happiness throughout. Whether you liked the novel or not, you should certainly give the play a viewing. It will help open dialogues regarding its message and why it remains a classic of literature that should continue to be taught in our schools.

One weekend of “Of Mice and Men” remains, though Sunday, Feb. 20, at the relatively new Basile Westfield Playhouse, 220 N. Union St., Westfield. Info and tickets at www.westfieldplayhouse.org.

Catalyst tells troubling tales with ‘Pillowman’

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By John Lyle Belden

I’ll admit some bias up front: Wendy and I are good friends with Casey Ross, and longtime supporters of her plays and work as founder of Catalyst Repertory. Wendy is also a big fan of Martin McDonagh’s very dark comedy, “The Pillowman.”

Still, I hope you believe us when we say that Catalyst’s Ross-directed production of “Pillowman” at the IndyFringe Theatre is perfectly cast and brilliantly executed (pardon the apt turn of phrase).

For those unfamiliar with the play, the setup misleads you. In a fictional dictatorship, the State Police arrest and detain a writer of stories for children. At first, it appears that this is a political persecution, a free expression issue. But though the officers do routinely violate citizens’ civil rights, it turns out they have a good reason for interrogating Katurian Katurian (Taylor Cox) and his mentally handicapped brother Michal (Dane Rogers) – brutal child murders that resemble the plots of Katurian’s stories.

Dave Pelsue is lead detective Tupolski, with Matthew Walls as Detective Ariel, who plays “bad cop” (complete with custom-built torture device). Given the heinous nature of the crimes, they feel quite justified in their tactics. Katurian, well aware of this, tries in vain to assert his innocence. When he finally spends time with Michal, he finds the situation even more bleak than he had feared.

During the course of the narrative, we also see recitations of the macabre tales, acted by Rachel Snyder and David Rosenfield as the cruel Mother and Father, Eleanor Turner as the young Boy, and Lane Snyder as the little Girl. McDonagh’s stories within the story have the bizarre air of popular fiction by writers like Roald Dahl, but the playwright has said his inspiration goes further back, to the dark, original versions of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the traditional stories of his Irish childhood. Such fables were meant to teach children lessons, but Katurian seems to enjoy the maimings and torture of his writings a bit much – perhaps owing to his own dysfunctional childhood, revealed in his lone “autobiographical” story, “The Writer and the Writer’s Brother.”

Ross also incorporates shadow puppetry in the telling of his stories, and a lifesize plush version of the title character. The Pillowman is Katurian’s attempt to make sense of the senseless things that happen to children, including himself and Michal, while incorporating a fatalistic outlook. 

Performances are exceptional. Pelsue has the tough-SOB archetype down, and gives us a perfect calm-but-simmering veteran cop. Walls plays a man who has a human layer under the professional inquisitor, but makes you earn getting a glimpse of it. Cox doesn’t look like the kind of person who can survive such an interrogation, but he finds some fight within him. 

As for Rogers’s Michal, he keeps it “simple” without being an insensitive caricature. Comparisons with Lennie of “Of Mice and Men” are unavoidable – and purely by coincidence, there is a production of Steinbeck’s story now on stage in Westfield. But while the classic big man felt absolutely no malice, Michal’s damaged past allows for dark vengeance, and pain is just part of a child’s story.

“There are no heroes,” Ross told me. All four men enter the story broken, and not all will leave alive. As for the stories, 400 manuscripts sitting in document boxes, it is their fate that is the main question. Will they survive? Should they? 

Performances continue Feb. 18-20 at the IndyFringe Basile Theatre, 719 E. St. Clair, Indianapolis, and streaming Feb. 25-27 on Broadway on Demand. For info and tickets, visit catalystrepertory.org or indyfringe.org.

Phoenix: ‘Love’ in an unusual place

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By John Lyle Belden

True story: In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, an area bigger than many countries, there is a vast sea of human-generated garbage. Now, what if a solitary seabird called Nigel, who lived on a remote island off New Zealand (also true), instead occupied a tiny patch of land in those plastic-infested waters?

This sets the stage for “Love Bird,” a play by K.T. Peterson at the Phoenix Theatre. Note that I write “solitary” above rather than “lonely,” as in this fantasy, Nigel (portrayed by Scot Greenwell) constructed a couple of companions from the washed-up flotsam.

Elegant Saundra he adores, and wishes would return his affection. Nigel creates an extravagant nest, and even composes a song for her on his homemade instrument. But also, there’s easygoing Jessica, who likes to hang around in a nearby tree (a shrubbery, she corrects in his head). She’s the kind of friend who is easy to talk to.

“What a world we create for ourselves,” Nigel remarks, with no sense of irony.

He has a ring-pop secreted in a shell-covered box for his true love. The nearby pod of whales converse mainly with each other, so Nigel instead argues with some oncoming storm clouds. Suddenly, another flesh-and-blood seabird appears.

Norman (Bill Simmons) has different plumage, a gregarious personality, and likes to draw in the sand – mostly portraits of eggs. He comes bearing a gift of clothespins. He also seems to have been observing Nigel from afar, which is bothersome. 

Concerns are put aside, however, as Nigel sets up a wonderful dinner party for Norman, a double-date with Saundra and Jessica. Eventually, the storm butts in, and changes everything.

The portrayals of these birds (Nigel is a gannet, Norman is unspecified but resembles a brown boobie) are fascinating and highly entertaining. With the help of creative makeup, clownish clothing by Beck Jones, and movement to mimic creatures not used to walking everywhere, what we get is anthropomorphic but not human. Rather than seeing bird costumes revealing the personality within, we observe pure personalities with the hint of an avian exterior.

I wanted to love this play more than I did. There was much affection for Nigel among the audience, partly because Greenwell is just so darn adorable. In fact, it is the stellar talents of both him and Simmons – who provides contrast, tension, and eventually revelation – that elevate this performance above issues I had with the text. The human-relatable metaphors get muddled, as the characters make references both to being birds (“when I was a fledgling”) and being stuck in an office job with a “Karen.” And is it really that necessary for a bird to have a boat?

One obvious point in the play is the ubiquitousness of the garbage, from which Nigel makes his world,* and that Norman is tempted to eat. (This brings on one hilarious literal “gag.”) The fact that it goes without comment should perhaps be distressing to us, as our junk becomes “normal” to the creatures who live there. But in its colorful arrangement by set designer Kyle Ragsdale, and the way Nigel/Greenwell relishes its pieces, it comes across more quaint than invasive.

Directed by Jolene Mentink Moffatt, with the quirky weirdness you often get in plays like this (which has long been a hallmark of the Phoenix), this romantic comedy like no other might not be for everyone. But it is worth a look for its visuals and performances. At the core, it’s just a couple of bird-brains looking for companionship, and we can all relate to that.

One weekend of performances remain, through Feb. 20 on the mainstage at 705 N. Illinois St., downtown Indianapolis. Get info and tickets at PhoenixTheatre.org.

(*The trash was not a factor in the life of the real Nigel, as he lived on a relatively clean island with concrete gannets placed by researchers to attract the birds. Poor Nigel was the only taker, making him Internet-famous. The lone but not lonely bird passed away in February 2018, next to his concrete “mate.” Other live gannets have since taken his place on Mana Island, two miles north of New Zealand. [Source: Washington Post])  

‘Good’ show at BCP

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By John Lyle Belden

Hard times can make hard people, but also “Good People,” in the hit 2011 Broadway play by David Lindsay-Abaire, now on stage at Buck Creek Players.

Margie (Molly Bellner) is a lifelong resident of Southie, a Boston working-class neighborhood — the kind of hardscrabble place one grows up planning to escape. For years, she struggled since dropping out of high school to take care of her baby, now a mentally disabled adult. Care for the unseen Joyce has made her late for work one too many times, and she is searching for a job again. Her friend Jean (Francie Mitchaner) and landlady Dotti (Susan Hill) suggest Margie look up her past boyfriend Mike (Jeremy Tuterow), a successful doctor, to see if he can help. Her visit to his office quickly becomes awkward, yet results in her getting an invitation to his birthday party at his nice home.

Later at the Bingo Hall (with Brian Noffke as the voice of the Priest calling the numbers), Margie meets Jean, Dotti, and her former Dollar Store supervisor, Stevie (Josh Rooks). She tells them about the party, and her hopes of hitting up someone there for a job. Jean notes that if she tells Mike that Joyce wasn’t born prematurely, making him the father, Margie could leverage that to get his help. But then Mike calls, saying the party has been cancelled – Margie doesn’t believe him, and goes anyway.

This play is best described as a rather dark comedy, wringing a good amount of humor from sad and uncomfortable situations. The struggles aren’t just with employment, as the Act II “party” with Mike and his wife Kate (Alicia Sims), a beautiful African-American woman, becomes reminiscent of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Bellner gives a brilliant performance, as a person for whom (“pardon my French,” she’d say) “busting your balls” is her love language. Her environment has brought her up so that being passive-aggressive, pushy and manipulative became necessary for survival. But it still comes across that Margie means well, that deep down she strives to be good, or at least “Good People” by Southie standards.

Mitchaner and Hill show in their characters that Margie isn’t unique, Jean and Dotti have only grown older and more cynical. But at least Dotti has her side-hustle, selling handmade (with Joyce’s help) wooden rabbits. Rooks sweetly plays the boy who never got out of Southie, but is making the best of it. Tuterow gives us the boy who did, but resents its shadow, while nursing a darkness that innocent Kate already suspects.

It’s interesting that to these folks, a Bingo jackpot is their “lottery dream.” Note the audience gets a chance to play, too, as Father Noffke calls a game during Intermission, complete with a prize.

With direction and excellent set design by Jim LaMonte, “Good People” has one more weekend, through Sunday, Feb. 13, at Buck Creek Playhouse, 11150 Southeastern Ave. (Acton Road Exit off I-74), Indianapolis. For info and tickets, visit buckcreekplayers.com.

IRT: Book ignites a fire of awareness

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By John Lyle Belden

On Friday, Jan. 28, one of the leading news stories and topics of Internet buzz was the banning of a Pulitzer-winning novel at a school – an example of how such actions not only deprive our youth of literature but also enable the denial of history. That evening, in a bizarre coincidence, we attended the Opening Night of “Fahrenheit 451” at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

Based on the novel of the same name (referencing the temperature at which paper burns) by Ray Bradbury, adapted by Tobias Andersen (who worked closely with the author), the play is set in a future in which housefires are automatically quenched and Firemen are called upon instead to incinerate books.

Guy Montag (played by Amir Abdullah) loves his job. The printed matter is trivial to him — something society has deemed too distracting and distressing to keep around — he just likes seeing the flames dance. But after a hard day at work, he comes across a neighbor girl, the peculiar Clarisse (Janyce Caraballo) who engages in weirdly sophisticated conversations as she takes her evening walk. Before he can sort out his disquiet, he arrives at home to find his wife Mildred (Jennifer Johansen) overdosed on pills again. After a quick home visit from the paramedics, who routinely undo suicides as part of their rounds, she awakens oblivious to what she had done, eager to spend her day with the television wall. It provides programming so customized, it calls her by name.

Later, Montag and fellow Firemen take down a house surprisingly loaded with printed works, whose owner shockingly takes matters into her own hands. This affects our hero, as curiosity compels him to hide a small novel away in his coat, leading to changes in his life and his thinking, an encounter with an English professor in hiding (Henry Woronicz), and a reckoning with Fire Chief Beatty (Tim Decker).

All but Abdullah play additional roles (Firemen, paramedics, etc.) as needed.

Though Bradbury stayed vague about the year in which this is set, it may not be too far from our future, with so much of the technology already in place: flat-screen TVs; ear buds; ATMs; “Metaverse” connectivity; and a version of the “Hounds,” dog-like robots that hunt books and their readers, now being manufactured by Boston Dynamics.

Also, the play is riddled with literary references, often familiar to even the characters who obediently shun (and destroy) books. This shows the irony of how drenched in past literature our popular culture is, even while we deny the source. It also shows how we take our linguistic touchstones for granted, and how quickly our indifference can lead us to tyranny. For 2022, we can also note how mental distress and illness becomes endemic.

While praising the content, I’ll also note its superb delivery. Abdullah engages us in his hero’s journey, while Decker’s Beatty is a wild study in contrasts, both a steady mentor and Faustian victim finally realizing his cost. Woronicz keeps his reluctant paternal figure neurotic without going over the top, while Caraballo, while charming, isn’t given much to work with – at least she doesn’t stay dead, like in the original novel (a change Bradbury approved, and which shows a bit of manipulation via the “fake news” of her demise). IRT regular Johansen again masters different characters, with divergent moods and motivations. Kudos to director Benjamin Hanna.

Scenic designer William Boles and projection designer Rasean Davonte Johnson have created an artistic masterpiece of a stage, with lines and elements that bridge the “future” tech as envisioned by Bradbury in the 1950s to our 21st century life — classic sci-fi with none of the cheese — a world technological and cold from the perspective of either era.

Performances of “Fahrenheit 451” continue through Feb. 20 at the IRT, 140 W. Washington St., in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, find tickets and information – including the option of streaming a recording of the play — at irtlive.com.

A postscript: Indy is blessed with literary resources including the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at IUPUI, which helps continue the author’s work in fighting censorship and encouraging literacy and the study of speculative fiction; and the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, which is active in promoting the Hoosier author’s works and involved in the American Library Association Banned Books Week. Please feel free to look into any and all of these.

Belfry sets a place for you

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By John Lyle Belden

What’s the most important room in the house?

You might answer the kitchen, as that’s where the food is; or the living room, as that’s where the TV is; or, of course, the bathroom for obvious reasons. But the play “The Dining Room,” a comedy by A. R. Gurney, makes a case for this often-overlooked (if you even have it) space that was a stoic witness to change for middle-class America through the 20th century.

In the Belfry Theatre production, occupying the Switch Theatre in Fishers through Jan. 30, seven actors show us 18 scenes through 40 years (1939-79) with one nice but not quite antique table and set of chairs. Though it finally goes on the market in the era of Disco, this house is mostly home to members of a single family. They wouldn’t consider themselves wealthy but are well-off enough to have at least a cook and maid, at least in the early decades.

The fourth wall (French doors, we are told) becomes our window into their lives, as even in the stuffy past, there are youngsters looking towards the new while elders cling to the best of what has been. As the scenes bounce back and forth through the years, parents become grandparents, children become parents, and there’s always something we really shouldn’t talk about at the table.

The ensemble of Mia Gordon, Jennifer J. Kaufmann, Tim Long, Jeff Maess, Tom Riddle, Addie Taylor, and Debbie Underwood splendidly take on what must be a fun acting exercise, inhabiting the various ages and characters – only one is an actual youth, so “child” roles take on extra charm as the older hands truly commit. Under the direction of Diane W. Wilson, the scenes flow easily into each other, sometimes having a person or two from one era sharing the space with oncoming folks from another, making the room, in a way, timeless.

Though real tensions and drama sometimes pop up, this play is mainly a gentle comedy, the kind of feel-good family portrait that we can use about now. Even if we aren’t mid-century WASPs, we can feel a sting of familiarity in dealing with relatives in changing times. And it’s good to find something to laugh about, or at least knowingly smile, in it all.

Find the venue at Ji-Eun Lee Music Academy, 10029 E. 126th St., Suite D (note there is street construction in the area). Find info and tickets at www.thebelfrytheatre.com.

ALT: ‘Admission’ of difficult truths

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By John Lyle Belden

You can tell the play is going to be problematic when you have five white actors talking about race. And if this bugs your liberal sensibilities, buckle in for the ride that is “Admissions,” the drama by Joshua Harmon presented by American Lives Theatre.

Sherri (Bridget Haight) is the head of Admissions at a posh New England prep school. Her mission, over the years since she took the job, has been to increase the diversity of the student body, which was overwhelmingly white even by New Hampshire standards. And she is SO close to her goal of 20 percent People of Color! Her near-retirement assistant, Roberta (Suzanne Fleenor) isn’t making it easy, though, as the photos in the new recruiting catalog are nearly all populated by White people.

But what of the basketball picture, Roberta pleads, frustrated at the countless hours already put in on the book. Next to Sherri’s son Charlie, there’s his half-Black best friend. But Perry doesn’t present as Black in photographs, Sherri replies.

Roberta pleads for clarity on her literally black and white mission, growing tense as Sherri – ever woke – continues to give instructions in euphemisms. Finally, our license-to-be-blunt-because-she’s-old says “more dark-skinned people, got it” and goes on her way.

But this play is about more than an obscure publication being sent to scholarship families in the Bronx. We find later from Perry’s mom, Ginnie (Valerie Nowosielski), that the young man has been accepted to Yale University. Charlie (Matthew Conwell), who also applied to Yale – his dream school, and as his parents insist only an Ivy League school will give him success – did not gain acceptance.

When Charlie finally gathers his wits enough to come home that evening, he is still very, very, very, very, very not good with this. Having already entered his senior year passed over for editor of the school paper for a less-capable girl, this situation has brought him to a breaking point. So, he vents in a paint-peeling rant to his mother and father, Bill (Larry Sommers), the prep school’s headmaster. After the boy storms off to his room, Bill – the kind of middle-aged man who believes he’s scrubbed every bit of racism and privilege from his soul – utters, “that’s it; we’ve raised a Republican.”

But the bitter joke is on Bill and Sherri when Charlie finally sorts through all the contradictions of his life and takes action on his own. Suddenly, a few photos in a magazine are the least of their problems.

Director Chris Saunders and the cast pull no (metaphorical) punches, as Harmon’s drama reveals that “admission” has more than one definition – and both are difficult. This hard look at liberal hypocrisy could raise concerns that conservatives may view it with, “See, I told you so!” However, I don’t see a lot of folks on that side of the spectrum wanting to attend – and what of when their critiques have a valid point? We can’t work our way out of complex situations with the same simple thinking that got us into them.

The strong performances make this worth the challenge to view; and as you wonder if the characters learned anything by the end of the play, consider: did you?

Remaining dates are Jan. 20-30 at the IndyFringe building, 719 E. St. Clair in downtown Indianapolis. Get info at americanlivestheatre.org and tickets at indyfringe.org.