About Us - Reviews 2003
2003 Season: Monticel' Haymarket Pictures of Patty Hearst
Monticel' by Russell Lees
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Steven Barkhimer and Vincent Siders in Monticel' by Russell Lees.
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Boston Herald
Taut drama encircles story of Jefferson
By Terry Byrne
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Playwright Russell Lees has done something extraordinary with his play `Monticel'. With a stroke of his pen, he's pulled together compelling characters, a potent political situation and the complicated motives of legendary historical figures. It all adds up to a world premiere that swirls in increasingly dramatic circles until the audience is left gasping at its conclusion.
At the Boston Playwrights' Theatre, Lees gets superb technical support from Richard Chambers' airy, open set, Haddon Kime's gentle sound design and Gail Astrid Buckley's gorgeous period costumes. But most crucial to Monticel's' impact is Wesley Savick's taut direction of a cast that delivers performances to die for.
Lees is best known for Nixon's Nixon, which imagines the meeting between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger on the night Nixon resigned from the presidency. For Monticel', he's turned the clock back to 1800, when bitter party squabbles threatened to overturn the presidential election results. Lees doesn't hesitate to make the contemporary connections - representatives from both parties offer political sound bites that sound frighteningly familiar.
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Steven Barkhimer, Sharifa Johnson Atkins, and Birgit Huppuch in Monticel' by Russell Lees.
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At this pivotal moment, opposition party member Francis Williams (Charles Weinstein, in a terrifyingly spot-on performance) arrives to negotiate Jefferson's withdrawal from the election; journalist James Callendar (Steve Barkhimer) shows up seeking a reward for all the work he's done exposing Federalist scandals and helping Jefferson win the election; and a freed slave, Sally Hemings' brother James (Vincent E. Siders), returns, frustrated by the limitations of freedom.
Betrayal becomes the underlying theme of the play, with each character in turn either misusing another or feeling they've been misused. At the heart of the struggle is James, a man who deeply resents Jefferson's patronizing attitude, yet finds himself tied to the man who gave him his education and his freedom. Siders is magnificent in the role, combining humor with restlessness, anger with desperation. When James tries to convince Sally to run away, she tells him Mr. Jefferson has promised to free her son when he's grown. "Once you're grown, it's no good getting free,'' he says, and suddenly the true price of slavery becomes clear.
The particular beauty of Monticel' comes from Lees' subtle writing. Although his attempts at Pinteresque dialogue don't always work, his effort to get under the skins of both these characters and the audience does. You don't have to know anything about the time period to be inextricably drawn into the drama, but when you watch Callendar react and listen to James' description of a whipping, you'll find your own heart racing.
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Vincent Siders and Sharifa Johnson Atkins in Monticel' by Russell Lees.
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STAGE REVIEW
Revisiting a complicated Monticello
By Gina Perille, Boston Globe, 12/11/2003
It may seem that playwright Russell Lees has a presidential preoccupation. Last year, Boston audiences saw his comedy Nixon's Nixon at the Huntington Theatre. This month, his excellent play about Thomas Jefferson and the machinations at Monticello is onstage at Boston Playwrights' Theatre, proving that Lees is perfectly able to turn preoccupation and historical text into searing dramatic texture.
Monticel' is set in the days after the 1800 presidential election. Jefferson and fellow Republican Aaron Burr have received the same number of electoral votes, and the conflict might send the relatively new country into serious civil conflict. This historical struggle serves as a prickly backdrop to a much more intimate examination of Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave at his Monticello estate. Sally's brother James figures prominently in the play, as do Jefferson's daughter Patsy, the smut-seeking newspaperman James Callender, and Federalist Party member Francis Williams, who visits Monticello in an effort to persuade Jefferson to cede victory to Burr.
Under the deft direction of Wesley Savick, the six-member ensemble brings an urgent freshness to this 200-year-old story. Vincent Siders is powerful and perplexing as James Hemings, giving a surprising tenderness to the character's deceitful energy as he schemes to take Sally away to Philadelphia (where a slim hope of emancipation is available). Birgit Huppuch is eerily oblivious as Jefferson's daughter, obsessed with removing Sally from the estate.
Lees mixes up the play's flow with a handful of direct addresses to the audience and the occasional anachronistic curveball. The monologues prove to be an intense (though not always necessary) means of sketching in details about various characters. While ambiguity can be risky, it has already proven to be one of the tenets of life at Monticello.
Richard Chambers's monochromatic set is as alluring as it is effective,
but it falters when delivering the needed functional (and colorful) punch
during the play's denouement. Otherwise, Chambers cleverly captures the
essence of the often-remodeled Monticello, while Gail Astrid Buckley's
warm-toned costumes radiate under the precise lights of Diana Kesselschmidt.
Combined with music by Haddon Kime, the onstage world of Monticel' is complete and entirely intelligent.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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Nigel Gore and Charles Weinstein in Monticel' by Russell Lees.
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Boton Phoenix - Issue Date: December 12 - 18, 2003
Jefferson’s closet
Monticel’ is inconsistent but compelling
BY IRIS FANGER
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Monticel’
By Russell Lees. Directed by Wesley Savick. Set by Richard Chambers. Costumes
by Gail Astrid Buckley. Lighting by Diana Kesselschmidt. Original music
and sound by Haddon Kime. Choreography by Judith Chaffee. With Steven
Barkhimer, Charles Weinstein, Vincent E. Siders, Sharifa Johnson Atkins,
Birgit Huppuch, and Nigel Gore. At Boston Playwrights’ Theatre through
December 21.
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Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the third
president of the United States, was considered one of the most liberal
and democratic men of his times, but as a gentleman of Virginia he kept
slaves to run his beloved home, Monticello. Playwright Russell Lees, who
took on a more recent president in his popular play Nixon’s Nixon,
has seized upon this contradiction in Jefferson’s character as the
pivotal point of his fascinating but flawed new drama Monticel’.
The play takes place at Monticello in 1800, soon after the Federalist party has lost that year’s election. Republican candidates Jefferson and Aaron Burr are locked in a tie for the presidency. The decision has been thrown to the House of Representatives, which seems to be at an impasse. But the political affairs are less important to Lees than are Jefferson the man and his relationships with his house slave Sally Hemings and her brother James, whom he freed five years earlier. For history buffs, the story of Sally Hemings will be familiar; recent DNA tests have suggested that at least one of her children was fathered by the president.
Monticel’ begins when James Hemings returns to Virginia after the life of a freed slave in Philadelphia proves less than a sojourn in the Promised Land. A prodigal on the run, plagued by conflicting feelings about his one-time master, he’s bent on making trouble for Jefferson and for the sister who seems content with her place in the mansion on the hill. James finds an ally in Patsy Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson’s grown daughter, who is jealous of Sally’s position.
The tie between Jefferson and Sally Hemings is never discussed by the other characters; however, several of the most effective scenes are those between master and slave, or committed lovers, depending on your viewpoint. Lees suggests the former relation, with Jefferson speaking in a poetic and voyeuristic monologue of Sally in her shift dripping water down her arms at her toilette. "These are the things I possess, these are mine," he says. It’s as sexy a scene as we’ve had on our stages in a long time, proving that neither explicit pawing nor nudity is needed to convey heat.
Despite inconsistencies in Lees’s telling of the tale, particularly in mixing fact and speculation, the play has been given an impressive production. Wesley Savick directs it with an understanding that a playwright’s conjecture might be just a dream: he spreads the action out an imaginative set by Richard Chambers that evokes both time and history. Making brilliant use of every level of the small theater, Savick blocks the monologues and expository speeches of the actors on an elevated platform behind a huge, framed architectural drawing of Monticello. Chambers has painted the stage as an American flag colored in grays, whites, and blacks and has placed three enormous columns — one of them broken — at the side of the stage.
Vincent E. Siders gives a powerful portrayal of James Hemings that almost overwhelms the other actors. He towers over Nigel Gore’s Jefferson, even though the president was 6’2" in real life and credited with a presence of his own. Gore plays Jefferson too close to his period vest and ruffled shirt; if he’s threatened by Hemings and the volatile events that unfold, he never lets on. The performance is no match for the explosions from Siders. Birgit Huppuch as Patsy Randolph is silly, troubled, and ultimately villainous, in contrast with Sharifa Johnson Atkins’s dignified Sally. Steven Barkhimer as the slimy journalist James E. Callender, who disclosed the affair during Jefferson’s lifetime, and Charles Weinstein as Francis Williams, a Federalist congressman, complete the competent cast.
Lees has a compelling subject for his exploration of Jefferson the man versus Jefferson the legend, but he needs one more draft to clarify the politics. Don’t let that stop you from seeing the play now, though. I guarantee that the ending will teach you more than any textbook about the conditions of slavery and why it continues to echo in our collective psyche.
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Wesley Savick and Jacqui Parker in Zayd Dohrn's Haymarket.
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Haymarket by Zayd Dohrn
"How often do you see a new play just bursting with thoughtful ideas,
a play which holds your attention and earns your admiration for its elegant
language?…Add Zayd Dohrn to your list of fiercely intelligent playwrights."
Beverly Creasey, Theater Mirror
"This new play by Zayd Dohrn is eloquent and moves at a steady,
intelligent pace…Wesley Savick and Jacqui Parker play the Parsons
with spirited compassion. Savick ably captures the human frailty that
runs underneath even the most courageous of martyrs… Birgit Huppuch
creates her tightly wound characters skillfully; in one of his roles,
Barlow Adamson delivers a warm portrayal of a young police officer deafened
by the dynamite blast. It’s a stunning cast…."
Gina Perille, Boston Globe
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Birgit Huppuch and Barlow Adamson in Zayd Dohrn's Haymarket.
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"…the production at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre …boasts
uniformly strong acting and a deceptively simple scenic design that does
much not only to suggest the different dramatic loca-tions but the interplay
of institutions with the fringe beyond…. Haymarket…serves to
advertise a burgeoning playwright of solid dramatic instincts."
Adam R. Perlman, ArtsEditor
"Under the sure hand of director Adam Zahler, who has staged a crisp
production, a first-rate cast of local actors bring the characters to
life…They’re led by Wesley Savick in a layered portrayal of
the doomed Parsons as a revolutionary who hides his passions beneath an
intellectual exterior… Jacqui Parker is measured as his wife, Lucy,
an important historical figure in her own right. The other actors —
Barlow Adamson, Ken Baltin, Peter Edward Haydu, and Birgit Huppuch —
double in their roles, with Haydu making an amazing transformation from
the police captain, Bonfield, to Judge Gary…."
Iris Fanger, Boston Phoenix
"A better ensemble cast drawn from local talent would be hard to
imagine and there hasn’t been a better example of efficient con-temporary
stagecraft this fall. (Haymarket) is another triumph…."
Will Stackman, Theater Mirror
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Pictures of Patty Hearst by Bill Lattanzi
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Kimberly Parker Green and Baron Vaughn in Bill Lattanzi's Pictures of Patty Hearst.
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Guerrilla heiress:
Pictures revisits Patty Hearst
BY LIZA WEISSTUCH (Boston Phoenix)
Pictures of Patty Hearst
By Bill Lattanzi. Directed by Sidney Friedman. Set by Marc Olivere. Lighting by Ethan Kaplan. Costumes by Mark A. Pearson. Sound by Benjamin Young. With Kimberly Green, Brendan Scoggin, Ben Lewis, Jessica Hain, Christina Grance, and Baron Vaughn. Presented by Playwrights’ Theatre at Boston University at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre through October 19.
Crimes and scandals involving celebrities often have the same elements that make a dramatic work compelling: unexpected turns of events, ambiguous motivations, sympathetic protagonists, an openness to interpretation, and a capacity to maintain a firm grip on your attention even when the plot drags. Little wonder, then, that the media present these incidents as epic sagas on which the public can hang like an audience on the edge of its seats. Such was the case with the drama of Patricia Campbell Hearst, the kidnapped heiress turned terrorist fugitive turned bodyguard’s wife turned B-movie actress, of whom Bill Lattanzi once again makes a spectacle in Pictures of Patty Hearst. The play, which has been entered in this year’s Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and is currently in its world premiere at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, is structurally sound and buttressed by effective performances, but its bricks and mortar are a little weathered.
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Kimberly Parker Green, Jessica Hain, and Brendan Scoggin in Bill Lattanzi's Pictures of Patty Hearst.
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Given a case already defined by heightened drama and speculation, you have to wonder what a theatrical dramatization can dish out that hasn’t already been served up by media pundits, social commentators, and soapbox fanatics. The answer here is, not much. The play is not so much a meditation on the elusiveness of the truth as it is a rehashing of the question "What really happened in 1974?" But instead of cramming his convictions into our consciousness, Lattanzi tosses together everything that’s been preserved in the fridge and arranges it in a gorgeous display. It’s a smorgasbord of theories and possibilities for us to eyeball, pick and choose from, and then assemble into our own supposition and digest at our leisure...
In two hours, Lattanzi’s play incorporates all this information and plenty more background and commentary, but it doesn’t offer any fresh insight. Green plays Patty’s shift from cowering horror to brash militancy with an undercurrent of girlish curiosity that can be read either as a self-defense mechanism or as the thrill of living recklessly. In numerous rapid-fire scenes that move at a fluid pace under Sidney Friedman’s direction, Lattanzi integrates texts of taped statements, speeches, and actual events culled from the public record. He works them into sharply written episodes involving Patty and her strict Catholic parents and Patty and her SLA comrades. The five actors, mostly BU undergrads, switch among the various roles with ease. Lattanzi also supplies conspiracy theories and commentary spewed by brassy talk-show hosts, gossips, intellectuals, and a tart, cynical female reporter set on drudging up evidence that a promiscuous Patty, taken by the SLA’s sexual candor, maneuvered the entire abduction. On Marc Olivere’s set, which consists of jail bars festooned with photos of the actual Patty, the result is a 48 Hours–esque presentation of the saga. What’s next, Images of O.J.?
Issue Date: October 17 - 23, 2003
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Ensemble almost captures 'Hearst'
By Gina Perille, Boston Globe, 10/17/2003
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Kimberly Parker Green, Ben Lewis, Baron Vaughn, Christina Grance, and Brendan Scoggin in Bill Lattanzi's Pictures of Patty Hearst.
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With a brave mix of historical facts and creative fiction, local playwright Bill Lattanzi has turned the bizarre Patty Hearst story into a raw and engaging play. Pictures of Patty Hearst uses flashbacks and overlapping montages to fill in the events leading up to the newspaper heiress's 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army, a band of urban activists turned terrorists. Hearst's time in captivity, her torture, her membership in the rebel "army," and her eventual arrest by the FBI are also detailed.
A six-person ensemble plays multiple roles, ranging from members of Hearst's family to the band of would-be revolutionaries who are her physical and psychological captors. Brendan Scoggin, who looks like a thuggish John Cusack, is impressive in his various identities. So is Christina Grance, who glides between a naive yet violent kidnapper and a hard-edged, wimple-wearing nun.
Kimberly Green is somewhat passionless in the title role. That's unfortunate, since much is made of Hearst's magnetism and special spark, of which Green demonstrates very little. Whether by design or by default, Lattanzi's play is more effective in sketching portrayals of the SLA captors than it is in dramatizing Hearst herself. Or perhaps it's just one more testament to what a convoluted life she has lived.
Lattanzi wrote Pictures of Patty Hearst with several sections of overlapping dialogue, in which actors deliver snippets from news reports or embody voices from Hearst's past. This crafted chaos fuels the sense of how elusive the truth of the case is, but the execution by this group of actors falters at times. It is surprisingly difficult to hear and understand some of the spoken lines, even given the shallow stage at Boston Playwrights' Theatre. Complicating this situation is a lack of clarity around which role an actor is playing during these rapid-fire overlaps. When there isn't a visual cue -- a hat, a jacket, or eyeglasses -- it is sometimes difficult to know which character is speaking. The ensemble is a capable bunch, but the actors should take the time to make clearer delineations.
The production has the unusual addition of a live drummer (tucked backstage) who vividly punctuates the action and accompanies scene transitions. It's a bold juxtaposition to the numbing of Hearst's identity, and enhances the play's caustic feel.
In the same way that the story is pieced together fragment by fragment, Ethan Kaplan's lighting design uses shards of light effectively, painting the stage section by section. Newsprint-themed costumes by Mark Pearson add to the sense that events are taking place in a media-soaked world, as does Marc Olivere's set, which manages to evoke prison bars and magazine photo spreads. Under the skilled hand of director Sidney Friedman, all these design elements work together. Friedman also keeps the action working at an appropriately aggressive pace. Characters do not linger or lag. They work urgently, always reflecting the life-and-death situation at hand.
This production of Pictures of Patty Hearst is entered in the 2004 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival playwriting competition, and features the acting and design work of several Boston University students.
To 2004 season reviews - The Glider, Matter Familias, Jasper Lake >