GF theatre season gives music, variety

By Christopher P. Jacobs
Staff Writer

Four different live theatre performances, three of them musicals, will be going on in Grand Forks the evening of Thurs. April 14, and three of those continue through the weekend. The Windwood Productions professional touring company of “The Music Man” plays at the Chester Fritz Auditorium Thursday only at 7:30 p.m.

Red River High School’s production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” opens Thursday and runs through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. If its SPA-trained students are even half as good as Central High School’s professional-caliber production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” last month, it will be well-worth traveling to see.

The Greater Grand Forks Commuity Theatre’s production of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” a decidedly off-beat musical melodrama adaptation of the unfinished Charles Dickens novel, opened last week and continues at 7:30 p.m. this Thursday through Saturday at the Fire Hall Theatre in downtown Grand Forks. And the UND Theatre Department’s 100th anniversary season ends with Sam Shepard’s drama “Curse of the Starving Class,” which opened this Tuesday and runs 7:30 nightly through Saturday at the Burtness Theatre on campus.

Rupert Holmes’ 1985 musical stage version of “Drood” turned Dickens’ dark mystery into a play-within-a-play being performed by an English theatrical company with its own character quirks among the performers, who interact with the audience, inspired by British music hall tradition (including a female playing the young male lead). It also used the novel’s unresolved ending as an opportunity to expand the audience-participation element so that each night before the final act, the audience would vote on who was the killer (and if Edwin Drood was, in fact, even killed), who was the mysterious detective, and which couple would wind up together at the end. Of course Holmes had to write numerous endings to account for the wide variety of potential combinations.

Naturally the show’s unpredictability and frequent need for improvisation is a challenge that good actors revel in, and the Fire Hall’s cast makes the most of it throughout, even from before the show starts as they mingle with the audience in the lobby and auditorium. The lively production is under the direction of Chris Berg, with music direction and costume/makeup design by Daniel Walstad (who also plays the actor playing the villainous John Jasper). Berg and Walstad’s meta-theatre vision goes even beyond Holmes’ script, giving a circus-like atmosphere of motley street performers loosely organized into a theatrical company, performed in heavily stylized and colorful costumes with multi-colored mime-style makeup. Casting availability also resulted in more than just one male role being played by a female.

The extreme stylization of makeup and costumes takes a bit of getting used to, but soon becomes just another element of the production. The veteran cast of local performers is full of impressive singing voices who do justice to Holmes’ songs and are equally able throw themselves passionately into the over-the-top melodrama. The Fire Hall’s Executive Director Ben Klipfel plays the troupe’s master of ceremonies who must take on a role in the play-within-a-play when one of the company is “indisposed.” And besides Walstad, the strong cast includes Natasha (Yearwood) Thomas, Caitlin Lien, Erin Barta, Joe Bussey, Michelle McCauley, Nicole Quam, Julianna Lima, Amy Driscol, Sasha Yearwood, Christina Nelson and Kristina Syverson.

Sam Shepard’s plays tend to be brooding, thoughtful, sometimes rambling, frequently poetic and intended for mature audiences. “Curse of the Starving Class” is no exception, blending heavy drama with dark comedy and some vivid metaphoric imagery both verbal and visual. And besides some strong language and adult subject material, it’s also got a live lamb and a brief scene of full male nudity.

The show is set in a severely dysfunctional family’s rundown farmhouse in southern California over about three days. Andrew Markiewicz and Kathryn Vocke are Wesley and Emma Tate, sullen teens with opposite attitudes about their home situation but both wanting it to change drastically from what it is. Despite the bickering and storming off, their characters are what seem to tie both their family and the play itself together. Abby Schoenborn (or Emily Wirkus on alternate nights) is their exhausted and disillusioned mother Ella, who is ready to sell the farm and take the kids far away, to Europe, if possible. David Barta is their drunken, irresponsible father Weston, who is in debt “up to his elbows” to the wrong people, and is trying to sell the farm himself so he might run off to Mexico to hide out.

All do admirable jobs of conveying the desperation each character feels and his or her ultimate determination to do something about it, even if it might be too late by the time they decide to act. Håvard Korsmo is an appropriately suspiscious-looking “lawyer” helping Ella sell the property, and Tyler Rood is enjoyably smarmy as the nightclub owner simultaneously trying to con Weston out of it. Later in the play Matthew Hegdahl has a memorable part as a law officer and Tomas Grande and Casey Smith have fun playing a couple of criminal “enforcers” near the end. The lamb, of course, steals the show whenever it’s on stage!

Brad Reissig’s simple set is a few platforms, a kitchen table, refrigerator and functioning stove in front of a sky cyclorama, with lighting changes to highlight certain shifts of focus. “Curse of the Starving Class” is not simply about one poor family. It works in a number of perceptive observations on American lifestyles, some of which fit uncomfortably well in today’s economy over three decades after it was written. It’s a show that might not always be easy to watch, but is one worth seeing.

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IF YOU GO:
All performances in Grand Forks
“The Music Man” April 14: 7:30 p.m. Chester Fritz Auditorium
“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” April 14-16: 7:30 p.m., April 17: 2 p.m. Red River High School
“The mystery of Edwin Drood” April 14-16: 7:30 p.m. Fire Hall Theatre
“Curse of the Starving Class” April 12-16: 7:30 p.m. Burtness Theatre, UND campus