Pulitzer winners getting a good run locally
08:03 AM CDT on Thursday, July 20, 2006
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
If the trend holds, 2006 will be a vintage year for the Festival of
Independent Theatres.
Week one of the eighth annual fest included first-rate scripts as well
as challenging material and consistently excellent performances. Week
two, which begins tonight, introduces short plays by four more groups to
the eight-show lineup.
Highlights include a minifestival of sorts with the debut of a second
play by America's most recent Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, John
Patrick Shanley.
Theater Fusion opened a searing version of Mr. Shanley's The Dreamer
Examines His Pillow on the festival's first night. Tonight, Act I
Productions jumps in with the even farther-out Sailor's Song, which mixes
reality, fantasy and even dance elements.
Theater Fusion co-founder Todd Haberkorn says he chose Dreamer because
he connected to it in a visceral, personal way.
"It mirrored a darker time in my life," Mr. Haberkorn says. "The
relationship in the play is very similar to the relationship I had with my
son's mother. It was something that would kind of help me get through all
that."
Mr. Haberkorn intended to direct the piece, but actor Ian Leson had to
drop out for family reasons, so Robert Neblett stepped in to stage the
piece and Mr. Haberkorn assumed the role he identified with so
strongly.
Act I's Maureen McDonald also felt an immediate connection with
Sailor's Song.
"There's just something about this I inherently love," she says. "It's
about a man who feels trapped in his life, but he can't get untrapped.
He winds up in indecision, can't make a choice. It's incredibly
romantic in places, with these beautiful dance numbers peppered throughout the
show. It really appealed to me with my musical theater background way,
way back."
Both companies have been in e-mail contact with Mr. Shanley.
"We were having questions about some textual issues," Mr. Neblett says.
"Some of the things he was lucid about, others he just answered in that
mysterious way that playwrights have, saying basically, 'Just let your
imagination guide you.' "
Mr. Haberkorn does insist, though, that Mr. Shanley – who won an
Oscar for his Moonstruck screenplay as well as Pulitzer and Tony Awards for
Doubt – says The Dreamer Examines His Pillow is his favorite among
all his plays.
Every festival performance combines two short plays, but the Shanleys
are paired only once. You can see both Wednesday at 8 p.m., preceded by
a 7 p.m. talk about the playwright.
A Williams explosion
While only one of his plays is part of FIT, Tennessee Williams is
enjoying something of a renaissance in Dallas, beginning with WingSpan
Theatre Company's production of Something Unspoken at the festival. What's
especially encouraging is that four of the five Williams plays to be
seen on area stages between now and October are rarely produced.
"I've started a trend," says WingSpan producer Susan Sargeant, who also
will finish it in the fall when she stars in a WingSpan version of the
seldom seen The Gnadiges Fraulein under director Rene Moreno.
"I've had Something Unspoken in my pile of scripts for a long time,"
Ms. Sargeant says. "So I figured, let's do Williams for my whole season,
especially lesser-known Williams."
Ms. Sargeant hired director-performer Gail Cronauer to stage Something
Unspoken – and Ms. Cronauer has Williams on her fall schedule, too.
She'll open Quad C Theatre's season with Orpheus Descending.
"Orpheus is a great choice for a college theater because it has a huge
cast with wonderful roles for young men and women and wonderful
character roles, too," Ms. Cronauer says. "I also chose it because I'm only
interested in doing things I want to see myself."
Add these three productions to Theatre Three's upcoming Vieux Carre and
the Dallas Theater Center's upcoming Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and area
theatergoers can apply for master's degrees in Tennessee Williams studies
before November.
E-mail ltaitte@dallasnews.com
What's new at FIT
Tonight at 8: Archibald MacLeish's Air Raid by Core Performance
Manufactory and John Patrick Shanley's Sailor's Song by Act I Productions.
Friday at 8: Charles Mee's Summer Evening in Des Moines by Second
Thought Theatre and John Sayles' New Hope for the Dead by Theatre Quorum.
Through Aug. 5 at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther Drive
at Northcliff. Tickets are $12 to $16; $49 for an all-festival pass.
214-528-5576. www.bathhouse cultural.com.
