Luke Bradt: It’s gonna be fun! Let the show surprise you. I think what I like most about Popcorn Falls is that there is a real heart to it.

Yes, I play a bunch of zany characters, but what might surprise the audience is how there are some moments in the show that are completely straightforward and grounded. My goal is to get you to fall in love with these characters so you cheer their successes and mourn their failings.

Dan Olmstead: In a world that can seem so dark these days, Popcorn Falls is a charming piece of mostly light entertainment, but almost consistently surprising—a comedic tour-de-force for my partner-in-crime Luke Bradt. He plays by far the lion’s share of characters with a Chaplin-like grace, humor, and pathos. The play often swings back and forth between moments that are almost farcical, and others that are grounded, true and deeply felt—but without a doubt, Popcorn Falls is a comedy in every sense.

Henrik: How did you manage to learn over 20 different roles?

Luke: Practice. Muscle memory. Practice. Practice. Muscle memory. Practice. Practice. Muscle memory. Practice.
Perhaps surprisingly, the actual switching between characters vocally and physically isn’t the challenge. That’s the fun part! I could do that all day! I just get to let my imagination run wild.
​
The hard part?—all the minutiae that go along with it. Remembering if I put the cigarette holder in the front right pocket the last time I did the character, or if three scenes ago I moved the second cell phone to the front left shirt pocket during the scene change. Did I remember to preset the walkie-talkie in the jacket pocket for the last scene after I stashed it in the onstage bin during a change during the first scene?

It’s stressful stuff, and you have to trust your work, trust your prep, and trust that you have the chops to adapt if something goes wrong. And things will go wrong!

Dan: I’m not sure I’ve ever truly learned a role. If I’m being any good, at least to my mind and according to my own process—such as it is—I’ll be learning about my character throughout the entire process. If I didn’t approach both acting and directing from that angle, I’m afraid I’d bore not only myself, but very likely others, to tears.

Henrik: Which are your three favorite lines from this play?

Luke: I’ll try not to pick any lines that give anything away! Here we go:

“Hello.” . . . Simple line. But it’s delightful in context. It comes at a certain moment, and it marks the end of a particularly challenging sequence of character and prop shifts.

“Let dead dogs lie, Mr. Trundle. Let dead dogs lie!” . . . I have favorite characters. One of them is Floyd, the one-armed lumberyard owner, and I have a particularly fun time with him. While reading the script, I kept imagining the voice of the obscure character Monkey John from the Western series Lonesome Dove, played by Matthew Cowles. So Floyd is my best impersonation of that character, and I love doing it.

“One week. If there’s no play in exactly seven days, and let’s see . . . it’s 7:59 . . . I’ll even throw in a minute! You have until eight PM one week from tonight to put on your play, or I will see to it that you rot in jail.” . . . This is not an interesting line, but it was hard to memorize, and I am happy when it comes out easily.

Dan: Hmm. “One day we dreamers are going to realize that there are a lot more of us than there are of you.”

“I hit traffic, got stuck behind a parked car.”

“I’m so tired, I just want to sleep.” Actually that last one is probably reflective of the way I’m feeling right now, at the end of week 3.

Henrik: Tell us something about you as a person that only some of your best friends know about you.

Luke: I was stuck on this question, so I asked my fiancée, Nicole, and she says that I’m a terrible liar, so I’ll go with that. [He laughs] I can’t get away with anything!

I’m also a huge nerd. I have a whole room devoted to my hobbies. I regularly meet up with some friends to play Dungeons and Dragons. I’ve played it since fifth grade, and it’s always been an outlet for an excess of imagination.

Dan: My director, Ellie Mooney, is also my boss at home. She’s done an extraordinary job with Popcorn Falls, imbuing it with humor and poignancy. She and I met in 2010 during rehearsals for Amadeus at the Walnut Street Theatre. I played Salieri and she played Mozart’s wife Constanza. So Salieri finally wins! [he laughs] I had the extraordinary opportunity to direct her a few years back in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, here at the Independence Studio. She and the rest of the cast were beyond wonderful; and now with Popcorn Falls, she finally got her chance to get revenge and direct me!

I’m only kidding: of course, she and I have a unique relationship where we collaborate artistically on almost all our projects.

Henrik: Tell us something about you as an actor that only some of your closest colleagues know about you.

Luke: I’m petrified of missing an entrance. When I did Brigadoon in high school, I completely blew an entrance. It has haunted me ever since. I usually wait in the wings long before I’m supposed to enter, because I don’t want to space out and fail to hear my cue to get into place—sometimes, as far as two scenes in advance, if I won’t get in the way of anyone else trying to do their job.

Luckily in this show, I enter—and then I don’t exit. So I’m only nervous about that once!

Dan: Wow, there could be so many things. I am a devoted pet lover and I am fairly obsessed with my current puppy, Bisou. She is a magical little Cavapoo [a cross between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Poodle] who, ironically perhaps, teaches me every day, in some small way, how to be a better human being.

Ellie has kidnapped her to Florida for the moment, so I am missing them both very much; and even though I am loving the theatrical romp that is Popcorn Falls, I’m very much looking forward to the death by a thousand licks that I’ll receive when we are reunited—to be clear, I’ll be receiving those from Bisou, not Ellie

​On a scholarship as a German exchange student at Bethel College, Kansas, I was given the lead role in The Sign of Jonah by Günter Rutenborn–putting God on trial in Berlin in 1945. Everything went well during rehearsals, but on opening night, faced by a packed auditorium, something I had never experienced before, I forgot all my lines for the first five minutes and went into a James Joycean stream-of-consciousness mode.

The drama teacher developed gray hair and made me stay up most of the night and rehearse non-stop till the curtain went up again the next evening. Unfortunately, by then, I was so exhausted and nervous that I lost all my lines again. While I learned to improvise in front of a whole hall of theatergoers, none of whom knew the script and quite a few of whom told me afterwards how much they enjoyed my performance—alas, I was never invited to perform in any play anywhere since.

​To this day, I don’t know why!
​
Instead, I write plays in both English and German and became a theater reviewer and interviewer. In short, I have the greatest respect for actors, not only for their acting skills, but for their capacity to learn whole scripts by heart—as witnessed by muscle memory masters Luke Bradt and Dan Olmstead, acting over 20 different roles non-stop at the Walnut.

This interview was originally published by Phindie on March 9, 2020. 

To see the entire booklet, 33 pages, click the PDF file above. Below, a few excerpts. 

In the Fall of 1951 Bethel College welcomed the first participant in what has become a truly unique exchange program between Bethel College and the Bergische Universität-Gesamthochschule Wuppertal (BUGH). In the intervening fifty years 151 students have participated in this exchange program and thereby gained a better understanding of themselves and another culture, while becoming fluent in their new language. As a part of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Bethel/Wuppertal exchange program, this booklet containing words of welcome, brief history, personal essays, and photographs has been compiled. The historical segment, written by Erna Fast, a Bethel alumae, who was instrumental in establishing the exchange program, originally appeared in a booklet published for a 1994 Fall Fest Bethel/Wuppertal Exchange gathering. She has graciously offered it for inclusion in this booklet as well.

We are delighted to welcome alumni and friends of the Bethel College/Wuppertal Exchange program for the celebration of the 50 year anniversary of the program. It is only a small measure of the profound personal significance of the exchange program that so many have returned from near and far to join in observing this milestone. As I have visited with Wuppertal alumni on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean in the last six years, I have been impressed again and again with how these persons treasure the deep friendships, the changes in world views, the challenges to thinking and believing that arose from the experience of living and studying in Wuppertal or North Newton.

​This program has left its mark on hundreds of students. But it has left its mark on our college as well. International study-exchange programs were rare in 1951. That Bethel College and the then “Pädagogische Hochschule” created this program speaks to the firm conviction that serious encounter and exchange among persons of different cultures and nationalities is essential to real education. That conviction has continued and grown at Bethel College in a variety of formats and programs, but the Wuppertal program was and is the prototype. We celebrate this remarkable program, its inspiration, its history and the mark it has left on the scores of people who have through it immersed themselves in growth and learning.

Dr. Douglas Penner
​President of Bethel College

​Since my arrival at Bethel College in 1985, I have been associated with the Bethel/Wuppertal Exchange program. In reflecting on the 50thanniversary of this program, I am reminded how much such an exchange program can be compared to a person. Like an individual, the program has experienced and survived occasional hardships, developed a network of friends, taken its place in educating students and broadening their world view, matured and taken on its own personality. Within the educational framework of Bethel College, the Bethel/Wuppertal Exchange program has given participants the opportunity for total immersion in a foreign culture and for developing proficiency in a foreign language, invaluable experiences in a liberal arts education, especially for language majors. Such a long-standing and affordable exchange program, the envy of many other language departments, deserves both the recognition that comes with its 50th anniversary and the continued support of Bethel College and the Bergische Universität-Gesamthochschule Wuppertal.

​Over the years I have appreciated the opportunity to interact with the students from Germany, to meet older participants in Wuppertal and to see the students from both institutions develop during their year in Wuppertal or in North Newton. I cherish the friendships that I have made through this program. In more recent years a group of the German participants founded the Förderverein, an offically registered organization dedicated to supporting Bethel College in a variety of ways and currently chaired by Christiane Renger. Thank you to each of you who are members of the Förderverein for looking after the Bethel students studying in Wuppertal and making their experience in Germany even more beneficial. I would like to personally thank Professor Uwe Multhaup, my colleague in Wuppertal for his support and guidance of the program in Wuppertal, especially since he has handed over responsibility of the program to his colleague, Professor Bettina Hofmann. On behalf of the Language Department I welcome all participants of the program to this celebration and thank you for your personal contribution in giving this program life, direction, and character.

Dr. Merle Schlabaugh
Professor of German & Editor of this booklet to celebrate 50 years of the Wuppertal-Bethel exchange program. 

Henrik: Before the play started, we saw a rich, upper-class environment through a gauze curtain, as if we were about to enter an aristocratic Alice in Wonderland world, peopled by fantastic Victorian characters—all set in an awe-inspiring design by Dr. Roman Tatarowicz, “chair of the obstetrics department at St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne” and one of the most sought-after stage designers for miles. He was quoted as saying that he found his stage work “humbling because some of the people I work with are crazy talented.”

What was it like working with this “crazy talented” scenic designer?
​
Bernard: We found him through our production manager, Siobhán Ruane, who was aware of his work. Having Siobhán on our staff has been a tremendous asset for us. She introduced me to Roman, and I saw his portfolio. I thought the work was amazing, and we immediately got him under contract for a show in the studio, and it just grew from there. ​

He’s worked on two shows that I directed, The Humans and then this show. He’s a wonderful collaborator. He not only studies the script thoroughly to inform himself as to the design, but he will also talk to me in great detail about my vision for the piece, leading to great collaborations. 

The only thing that I had to talk to Roman about was the final act set for A Woman of No Importance. He was doing it in the same design as the grand mansion, and I said, “No, it’s a different world altogether. She lives in a cottage. It has to portray purity. There has to be a great change. All the flowers have to be white, absolutely white.” And I said, “I want a crucifix on the wall, because she has devoted so much time to religion and her church.” So with that collaboration, he came up with that wonderful set for us. 

Henrik: When you shared your interpretation of the last act with Roman, how did he respond? 

Henrik: Could you describe your overall approach working with the creative team, starting with lighting designer Shon Causer, and how all their arts and skills contributed to this production of a difficult play with some of Wilde’s most famous quotes? 

Bernard: Shon and I have collaborated on a number of plays that I directed at the Fulton Opera House and then moved to the Walnut, and he also worked on The Humans with me. He’s a sensitive and aware human being and artist. He understands light and the importance of it. ​

And also, the piece that’s played by Hester on the violin is American music from that period. I think it’s Stephen Foster. I said to Colucci, “Find me a piece of music that would’ve been played in America that she would have learned to play. And I’d like it to be specifically American, and not a piece of Beethoven or Bach or something.” So that’s what he did. ​

Henrik: One of those “crazy talented” people at the Walnut, Mary Folino, your costume designer, once said, “Costumes give the audience information about the characters before they even speak. And they help define their personalities, just as anyone’s clothes do.” 

In this production, the men are dressed in dark outfits that represent their social and professional status. The women are wearing exquisitely elegant Victorian outfits with various colors and shades, with two exceptions: the American visitor dressed in white, and Mrs. Arbuthnot dressed in all black, almost like an angel risen from the dead (played by Alicia Roper, demonstrating a wide range of feelings). 

Could you describe Folino’s work at the Walnut and her costume design for this production in particular?

Bernard: The first costume you see the young American in is pale off-white, slightly yellow, and the last dress she wears in Oscar Wilde’s Act 4 is white, white muslin. It’s also informed by Parisian fashions at the time, because of Wilde’s reference to “American women always get their clothes in Paris.” So when Mary researched the period and the costumes, she also researched what costumes, what dresses were being designed in the early 1890s in Paris. 

The black dress, worn by Mrs. Arbuthnot, was only for Act 2 and 3, and it’s called for. Oscar actually refers to the “woman in black,” and so Lord Illingworth immediately says, “Yes, what a charming woman in black.” 

The costume is also spelled out for Hester, the young American girl. It has to be a woman in white muslin. Oscar Wilde has put it in the script, in the dialogue. You would be absolutely foolish, and wrong, if you didn’t follow Oscar’s direction. ​

[Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut Street] January 14-March 1, 2020; walnutstreettheatre.org

​This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 20, 2020. 

For the other two parts of this three-part interview, click these links:

Part 1, Risks can lead to financial loss: Interview with Bernard Havard on A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Walnut Street Theatre, and
Part 2, As if Oscar Wilde himself had arrived on the Walnut stage: Interview with Bernard Havard on casting and working with his actors. 

Henrik Eger: Most people seem to know you only as one of the most successful theater directors for miles. Could you give a few examples of how your childhood and adolescent experiences led you to the theater world? 

Bernard Havard: Born in Chiswick, England, I was a child actor at St. George’s, a Catholic boys’ boarding school in Weybridge, Surrey [founded in 1869]. As I had a very high soprano, I got to play all the female roles. 

In adolescence, I was involved in a television program in Calgary, Alberta, as an actor. It was called More or Less, and it was also sold to ABC in Australia. I played a juvenile delinquent in a black leather jacket and a ducktail hairstyle. 

Henrik: Audiences often wonder whether you are English or Canadian.

Bernard: I’m a proud American. I was born in England and immigrated to Calgary, Alberta, Canada with my family when I was eleven years old. In 1977, I was head-hunted into the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, GA. 

Henrik: Did those experiences encourage you later in life to create programming for young people in Philadelphia? 

Bernard: No, that came much later. I got involved in touring for young children in Toronto with Young People’s Theatre. Later on, I was recruited by the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, Alberta, putting together tours for young audiences in Northern Alberta. We would fly our company into Northern Alberta, because those communities were so remote that this was the best way to reach them. This program was subsidized by the Alberta government. 

This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 18, 2020. 

For the other two parts of this three-part interview, click these links:

Part 1, Risks can lead to financial loss: Interview with Bernard Havard on A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE at the Walnut Street Theatre, and
Part 3, What’s going on behind the scenes?: Interview with Bernard Havard on working with his creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre. 

Thirty seven years ago, Bernard Havard was named president and producing artistic director to bring back to life America’s oldest continuously running theater, the Walnut Street Theatre. Together with his creative and administrative staff, Havard developed one of the most popular theaters on the East Coast. However, even the most successful theaters, especially those which take a risk with a play that might be difficult, can take a financial loss.
​
Few producers and directors would be willing to talk about these aspects of running a cultural institution. Havard admitted that for his production of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, “I’m not selling the number of tickets I hoped to sell.” In this interview, he described the risks he took and the efforts he and his team made to lead to one full house after another since Valentine’s Day.

Henrik Eger: Recently, you took the risk of putting on the rarely performed A Woman of No Importance. What gave you the courage to produce and direct this wit-filled Oscar Wilde drama, which takes place in upper class Victorian England butdoes not come with the razzle-dazzle of My Fair Lady and other productions familiar to American audiences?

Bernard Havard: I enjoy Oscar Wilde’s work. I have great admiration for his writing, and I have great admiration for his courage. He was a man of great courage. Also, the play speaks to me about democratic values versus the British class system, which for me was always full of hypocrisy. But it has been a risk, and it continues to be a risk, because I’m not selling the number of tickets I hoped to sell.

Take the title: The Importance of Being Earnest is an extraordinarily well-known title, the most popular of his plays, but A Woman of No Importance is not as popular. It’s a more difficult play. He wrote the play in four acts, and the first three acts all take place at the large manor house, and they’re all full of Wildean wit and humor. But then, after Lord Illingworth attempts to kiss and seduce the young American lady, the Puritan, it becomes rather melodramatic, and it’s a tough change for the audience. It just is.

Henrik: What did you, your experienced actors, and your creative team do to present this satirical setup in such a way that American audiences would relate to it, especially as we are dealing with the barriers of linguistic class divisions in Victorian England?

Bernard: First of all, I made a number of substantive cuts to the text. I also allowed the actors to get involved in the cuts. During the rehearsal process, we probably reduced the play’s running time by about half an hour, and a lot of the references that we cut were references that were too obscure, or too English, or too unrelatable to an American experience. I didn’t see any point in keeping references that made no sense to a contemporary American audience.

However, I did supply one word to the text: when Karen Peakes as Mrs. Allonby mentions the place they’re talking about—Philadelphia. That was my one addition, and I thought it worked, because Wilde had been to Philadelphia. He knew about its Centennial International Exhibition. That’s what the young girl is actually reading about, so when the actress says, “that city with the funny name,” it was Philadelphia. It was a great laugh that American audiences could relate to.

Henrik: Strong British accents can present a problem for American audiences.

Bernard: All of the actors, I think more or less, gave me an English accent that was as close to being understood as you could get. I didn’t want any regional accents; I didn’t want any Yorkshire accents; I didn’t want any Cockneys. I was trying to get a clear English accent that was acceptable in terms of pronunciation. We worked very hard at pronunciation to make sure everybody was consistent.

But it is an adjustment for an American to come in and hear a bunch of foreigners on that stage, people with foreign accents, anyway. And you have to adjust and listen.

The sound is heightened. There are a number of microphones on that stage. There are four small foot mics, and then there are mics in the vases and around the set to pick up the dialogue. Everything is amplified.

I just don’t like putting radio mics on actors for a classic piece like that. One of my bugbears is making sure the audience can’t see the microphone. If you see a microphone on an actor who’s performing in a classic piece, it takes me right out of it. Like, what the hell is that little thing on the forehead of that actor doing there? So I’m a bit old fashioned, I suppose, when it comes to hiring actors that can project.

Henrik: Earlier, you said that, unlike your other productions, A Woman of No Importance did not sell so well. What did you do to rectify this situation?

Bernard: We made a really large social media push for Valentine’s Day. We got my son, Brandon [O’Rourke who played Gerald Arbuthnot], involved and asked him to push it on his extensively subscribed social media platforms. Actually, he offered to do that. Contained in these social media posts was an ability to go to his bio to find the link to purchase tickets.
We attempted to get the rest of the cast involved by making production shots available to them. We offered special “two fer’s” and a $27 ticket for Valentine’s Day. All in all, we used Instagram, Facebook, and I believe some Twitter. We are also experimenting with texting.

Henrik: Impressive cooperation. What impact did this Valentine’s campaign have on ticket sales?

Bernard: It increased our attendance. We were probably selling close to 500 seats a performance, and this jacked it up to over 750 seats, so that’s something like a 50% increase. We now have a President’s Day special. Everyone is invited.

Henrik: Oscar Wilde’s wit and spirit will be hovering over the stage in every sold out performance, no doubt. And the unexpected ending of this play, which came as a shock in 1893, is delighting thousands of theatergoers.

[Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut Street] January 14-March 1, 2020; walnutstreettheatre.org

This interview was originally published by Phindie on February 17, 2020. 

For the other two parts of this three-part interview, click these links:

Part 2, As if Oscar Wilde himself had arrived on the Walnut stage: Interview with Bernard Havard on casting and working with his actors, and
Part 3, What’s going on behind the scenes?: Interview with Bernard Havard on working with his creative team at the Walnut Street Theatre. 

Eleanor – An American Love Story runs January 29-February 23, 2020, at the Media Theatre. A little-known musical, Eleanor (music by Thomas Tierney, lyrics by John Forster,  book by Jonathon Bolt) has been a favorite at regional theaters since the first production was staged in 1987 in Seattle, WA. The musical is based on the early lives of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, from their passionate courtship, through their complicated marriage with a domineering mother-in-law, to Eleanor’s emerging role as a catalyst for social change in America.

In Media, Eleanor is played by Maxwell Porterfield, Franklin is played by Patrick Ludt,  and Sara Roosevelt (FDR’s mother) is played by actress Susan Wefel (see below for historical biographies). Henrik Eger spoke to the actors about their roles and the real-life characters behind them.
​
[Media Theatre, 104 E. State Street, Media, PA] January 29-February 23, 2020; mediatheatre.org

[Media Theatre, 104 E. State Street, Media, PA] January 29-February 23, 2020; mediatheatre.org​

YEAR IN REVIEW: In 2019, there were over 1,000 articles on Phindie, Philadelphia’s popular theater arts portal, which were read at least 20 times each . . . the ones below were read many more times than that!
 
MOST POPULAR ARTICLES OF 2019
 
1. JOHNNY DEPP ​(Val Dunn & Jenna Kuerzi): A Valentine date with Late-stage Capitalism by Henrik Eger
12. A Welcome to the International Artists at the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe Festival by Henrik Eger
 
REVIEWS: These were the 10 most popular of the nearly 200 reviews we published in 2019.
 
1. JOHNNY DEPP (Val Dunn & Jenna Kuerzi): A Valentine date with late-stage capitalism by Henrik Eger
 
FEATURES: Long-form pieces on Philly arts and culture
 
5. A Welcome to the International Artists at the 2019 Philadelphia Fringe Festival by Henrik Eger
6. Presenting stronger new dramas by overcoming premieritis by Henrik Eger
 
INTERVIEWS: Speaking to the creators, the movers, and the shakers
 
6. “Passionate iconoclast and maverick”: Interview with Robert Smythe, Ahab in Hedgerow’s MOBY-DICK by Henrik Eger
 
FROM THE ARCHIVES: The most-read articles from years gone by.
 
4. Dinner for One: The greatest cult film you’ve never heard of by Henrik Eger
8. Remembering Joel Markowitz, founding editor of DC Metro Theater Arts by Henrik Eger
9. “I Can’t Kiss Myself Alone”: The Wit and  Retro style of Berlin’s Max Raabe and his Palast Orchester. Interview by Henrik Eger
 
Read the complete article, compiled by Christopher Munden, Phindie editor-in-chief, December 28, 2019.

Born in Charleston, West Virginia on May 25, 1950, Ann Crumb grew up in Pennsylvania. Trained as a speech and language pathologist, she started out as an actor with Pinter’s The Birthday Party, moving on to Shakespeare, Shepard, and Ionesco. After years of training with her vocal coach, Curtis Institute faculty member Bill Schuman, “one of the world’s leading teachers of singing,” she made it to Broadway as a member of the original cast of Les Misérables in 1987. 

Her other Broadway credits include Chess, and Anna Karenina, which led to a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1993. Crumb then starred opposite John Cullum in a US tour of Man of La Mancha in 1995. She also toured as the star in Evita. 

Aware of Crumb’s enormous musical and dramatic talents, Cameron Mackintosh, “widely considered to be the most successful theatrical producer of all-time” (Best of Theatre), and Andrew Lloyd Webber, the world’s most popular composer of musicals, personally chose Crumb to play the starring role of Rose Vibert in Webber’s Aspects of Love (musical excerpts with Ann Crumb and Michael Ball), which she originated in both London and on Broadway, opposite Michael Ball—solidifying her status as an American diva. 

Her recordings include A Broadway Diva Swings, a concert version of Nine with Jonathan Pryce and Elaine Paige, and Unto the Hills, in collaboration with her father. Her forthcoming jazz CD is entitled Goodbye Mr. Jones.

This article was originally published by Phindie on December 28, 2019. 

This Quintessence Theatre Group production at the Sedgwick Theater begins with a darkened stage, hauntingly beautiful music that conjures up Ireland, and then, for one second, we see a figure, frozen in time. Lights out. Another second, another man. In a fast sequence of stills, split-seconds of light followed by darkness (lighting design by John Burkland), we witness a Cain-and-Abel-like scene, except it’s a young son who kills his father with a loy (“small spade with a long handle, usually used for the digging of potatoes”).

Having just witnessed a murder most foul, we see young Christy Mahon—(Brandon Walters, discovered at an audition in NYC, who can change moods and stories within seconds)—dirty, disheveled, and anxious, staggering into Michael Flaherty’s tavern.

Asked what he means in some of his many poetic scenes, Synge stated in a letter: “I follow Goethe’s rule, to tell no one what one means in one’s writings” (quoted in “Resisting the Irish Other: The Berliner Ensemble’s Production of The Playboy of the Western World” by David Barnett, New Theatre Quarterly, 33:2 (2017), pp. 156-68).
 
 In its new season, Quintessence went all out with a detailed program covering four plays by Synge which they are performing this season, starting with The Playboy of the Western World, followed by The Synge Triptych, with Riders to the Sea, In the Shadow of the Glen, and The Tinker’s Wedding.
 
In his plays, over 100 years ago, Synge used language poetically and integrated Irish terms that many of us might not know.

In another example of Synge’s poetic language, Christy tells his gruesome story in a most lyrical way: “‘God have mercy on your soul,’ says he, lifting a scythe. ‘Or on your own,’ says I, raising the loy.”

The stories of the young outlaw keep the father and his daughter Pegeen awestruck. The more interested his hosts become, the more the fellow on the run senses an opportunity to start a new life, perhaps working at the pub, drinking beer all day long, and marrying Pegeen. Soon, he loses all sense of remorse.

Within no time, word gets around that a “queer fellow” has arrived, and villagers fill up the tavern. All of them obsessed with the mysterious stranger, wanting to know all his secrets. Seeing the young man alone, the Widow Quinn—(Megan McDermott, convincing as the beguiling seductress one moment, demanding and forceful the next)—sneaks into the pub, uninvited, to make her claim on him, but fails to convince Christy to live with her in spite of her bold advances.

Frequently, she shifts her movements through a myriad of gestures, executed with the precision of fully trained facial muscles. A poor country woman who lives out all her hopes, her fears—it is as if all the peasant women around the world had been her ancestors. Just watching her is worth the price of an annual subscription to the Quintessence Theatre. 

With an even larger audience, Christy Mahon climbs up onto the bar like Elvis Presley with young groupies showering him with applause, gifts, and endless admiration—as if he were the Second Coming.
 
The rapture climaxes with the young hero, standing high up on the bar, exhausted from telling all his tall tales and interacting with his enthusiastic new disciples, with the young women throwing kisses at him, trying to touch him. But only one villager, a young man, also in love with Christy, has the nerve to do just that:
 
Honor Blake—(Daniel Miller, one of the hunkiest actors for miles)—takes the hero by his waist, lifts him up, face to face, and then slowly, very slowly, slides Christy’s body down his own body. Stunned, the audience screamed, gasped, and laughed.

Shawn Keogh—(Christopher Morriss, who looks like an Italian TV star playing the role of the straight-laced second cousin of Pegeen)—is in love with the innkeeper’s daughter, whom he wants to marry, once he gets dispensation from the local priest to marry his blood relative. However, Pegeen is not terribly interested in him because at the slightest provocation he goes running to the local priest, never standing up for himself or others—except when he realizes that the queer stranger, according to rumors, wants to marry Flaherty’s daughter.
 
Frightened and yet willing to persuade his shabbily-dressed rival to leave for good, Shawn shows backbone when he tries to bribe Christy, first by offering to give him a ticket on a ferry to America. Anxious to make the deal, he then takes off his expensive tweed jacket—(costume designer Summer Lee Jack).
 
Sitting on the floor of the pub, he then takes off his fine leather shoes, and then he slowly pulls off his trousers, sitting half-naked on the stage—to the delight of the make-believe murderer, who accepts all the gifts with a sneer. Now well-dressed, Christy is only more determined to marry Pegeen.

Suddenly, Christy’s father, angry Old Mahon, with a frightening gash covering his entire skull, still blood-red—(makeup special effects artist Mandah K. Law)—arrives in the village, searching for his son who almost killed him. They clash again, first with a verbal round, leading to a deadly violent physical fight—(powerfully choreographed by J. Alex Cordaro)—bringing back the opening freeze-scenes.
 
Seeing his angry father brings up old power and control issues. Losing his temper again, Christy brutally attacks his father one more time, killing him. Christy realizes that with his renewed attempt to kill his father with the loy, the tide has turned against him.
 
Outraged, the same people who had previously praised Christy for all his mysterious and titillating stories about murder, now turn against him and try to hang him with a thick, long rope. Even Pegeen, who was ready to marry him, now sees him as a liar and a manipulator. She declares, “There's a great gap between a gallous [wicked] story and a dirty deed.” 

Seconds before Christy can take his last breath, Old Mahon returns. The terrible gash on his head as frightening as before, he staggers in, his face covered in blood. After a final power struggle between father and son, won by the audacious short fellow, both leave the village for good to wander the world. Feeling alone and deserted, Pegeen regrets the chain of events: "I've lost the only playboy of the western world."

Synge’s poetry flows from the lips of the most experienced actors as if they had lived in Ireland all their lives (dialect coach Sonja Field), while some younger actors sound as if they had only recently kissed the Blarney Stone.
 
Burns’ work as a director brims with originality that seems to know no bounds, even though he meticulously follows the text, down to the minutest details. For example, Synge wanted Christy—the “queer fellow” with the capacity to tell tall tales and tower over everyone else—to be short and come with small feet, thus underscoring the struggle of a young man who wanted to be bigger than he really was.
 
Consequently, Burns searched for the young hero among the best actors in Philadelphia and New York, and eventually, at an audition in the Big Apple, he found the talented short protagonist:

Brandon Walters as Christy Mahon came with the lively spirit of an Irish character who can tell tall tales so convincingly and changing his mood so quickly that the young folks in the village followed him like a pied piper, hanging on every word that came out of his mouth, observing every movement of his body with lust and desire. In short, he looked like a handsome, dirty blond, seductive Puck.
 
In productions directed by Burns, we get to see great actors of all ages and backgrounds. In this case, they seem to come straight out of a medieval village, in spite of their jeans. Burns is not afraid of showing human love and eroticism, often in vignettes that one cannot forget. 

No matter when and where a story takes place, director Burns integrates one or more people of color into his shows, as in this production. His casting makes us aware of the wide range of human experiences where “black” is more than a skin color, where “black” is not an outsider, but very much part of the rainbow of life—even though purists may insist on productions that strictly follow a playwright’s gender and ethnicity-prescribed roles. 

Quintessence Theatre Group—Philadelphia’s 18th Actors’ Equity theater and one of the few repertory theaters in the Greater Philadelphia area—frequently dares to present new perspectives through their productions, whether directed by Burns, the founding artistic director, or by guest directors like Rebecca Wright.
 
The final moments of the Quintessence production hit me hard when something unexpected happened on the stage that I will remember for a long time to come. Blindingly-bright lights hit a gigantic American flag that covered the entire back of the theater, with the stage in darkness. Flashlights, like searchlights, allowed me to see only a lonely figure coming forward. 

A few seconds later, a second man arrived on the darkened stage: his much-taller father, Old Mahon, carrying their only suitcase—walking slowly into an unsafe and unpredictable new world for refugees.
 
Then all the Irish characters came up on the stage. The Quintessence ensemble took a bow. My joy mixed with tears, because I suddenly became aware again of the oppression that the Irish had endured for a long time under brutal British rule, and the harsh treatment of desperate refugees arriving at the U.S. borders in our own time.
 
I drove home, thinking about Ireland and frightened immigrants, and all the things we had experienced that night at the Sedgwick Theater. 

This review was originally published by Phindie on October 17, 2019. 

Most theater productions will never become available again, no matter how great the quality, because of copyright and technical reasons. However, theater critics around the world are leaving behind a written, often detailed record, as witnessed by the articles on The Theatre Times. Frequently illustrated, these theater reviews—ranging from sketchy to thorough—bring back descriptions of works on live stages for everyone, now and in the future.

Coming from Europe, my perceptions of life were shaped by a wide range of European and American playwrights. Now living in the U.S., I noticed the occasional denigration of American culture by Americans, who seem to favor European works the way the ruling class in Czarist Russia and Poland spoke French or Germaninstead of Russian or Polish as if their mother tongues were inferior to the foreign culture-associated languages they adopted.
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It’s against this background that I would like to honor the work of one of our most thorough theater critics in Philadelphia, J. Cooper Robb, who unfortunately passed away recently, with this Open Letter to my late colleague about a subject that I wanted to discuss with him, except that I discovered this controversial topic of perceived “inferiority” only now while reading every single one of his many theater articles online—alas, too late for his personal response.

Dear Cooper,

I always liked reading your articles. They differ from the majority of regular theater reviews. You often went further and presented holistic views of the theater world—something I valued, let alone your immense knowledge of the theater and the people who make it all happen.
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I appreciate this wonderful write-up about your life in the Philadelphia Inquirer. As soon as I learned that you had left us for good, I searched the Internet and read every article of yours I could find, including all your regular submissions to TheaterMania: what a treasure, ranging from 2001 to 2011. I certainly miss your previews and especially your theater essays.

Cooper, I regret that I did not have the opportunity 16 years ago to read an article of yours in which you got pretty tough on “certain critics”:

“Demeaning the American theater is something of a parlor game among certain critics, who point to the theatrically rich cultures of Ireland, Germany, and England as proof of the United States’s inferiority in this area.” (TheaterMania, Jan. 14, 2003)

Frankly, I never met anyone who made such a claim, even though I wouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps some other theater critics might respond in detail to your concern that certain Americans might value European theater at the expense of American theater.

However, I am aware that quite a few Americans who travel to Europe at times seem to take on a touristy perspective, which tends to favor Europe’s old culture over America’s modern civilization—a situation that quickly can lead to a “Touristic Bias: Why Americans Overrate Europe, and Europeans Underrate America.”

Similarly, Operavore of WQXR, New York Public Radio, asked, “Can America Keep Pace With European Opera?” Another search reveals that much has been written about “What differentiates Europeans from Americans: the cultural gap across the Atlantic.”​

Just one telling example: The much-talked-about Christopher Shinn, a U.S. playwright, and director who made major breakthroughs at London’s Royal Court Theatre, succinctly described some of the main differences between responses to new plays by actors and directors in New York and London in the Guardian:

“New York actors and directors are much more directly critical of a new play in rehearsals than London actors and directors are. In London, I cannot remember a single moment when an actor openly criticized–even implicitly–my text. Any note a director gave me was given privately, quietly and tentatively.”
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Cooper, I have come to the conclusion that you were more cosmopolitan than you might have realized. You presented drama from all over America, Africa, Asia, andEurope in thoughtful and caring ways.

MAKING IT BIG:

“The Philadelphia Theatre Company is producing the first family production in their history with their staging of storyteller David Gonzalez’s The Frog Bride. For this contemporary adaptation of an old Russian fairy tale, Gonzalez employs a jazz-funk score and video projections to bring a modern slant on the classic coming-of-age story about a prince who goes in search of a wife and instead returns with a frog.” (Nov. 30, 2006)

SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL:

Cirque du Soleil’s Alegria returns to Philly at Temple University’s Liacouras Center. Visually dazzling (Dominique Lemieux’s costumes are a sight to behold), the show’s new “arena” staging includes two especially wondrous acts: the breathtaking aerial ballet “Russian Bars” and the fast-paced “Power Track,” in which a group of athletic tumblers perform daring routines on a trapeze [. . .]. (September 30, 2009)

A DIFFERENT DREAM:

Hedgerow Theatre continues their summer tradition of presenting a farce from Brit playwright Ray Cooney with the theater’s production of Cooney’s Chase Me, Comrade! Inspired by the defection of Russian ballet star Rudolph Nureyev, the story follows a Russian dancer who seeks refuge with a British government official. Featuring Cooney’s usual frenzied pacing, the play is a madcap romp of mistaken identity and barely controlled chaos. (July 31, 2010)

SOUTH CENTRAL:
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Lantern Theater opens their season with Anton Chekhov’s classic tragicomedy Uncle Vanya. The story focuses on the long held resentments and secret longings among the members of a Russian family who are reunited at their once glorious pastoral family estate. In conjunction with their production, Lantern hosts a mini Chekhov Festival with special pre-show performances of the playwright’s short farces, as well as discussions with Chekhov scholars and even a Russian themed dinner party. (October 31, 2010)

Do American theater critics carry a bias in favor of European drama over U.S. drama? Some may, most others probably do not. You reported about theater by European playwrights or European-based plays with the same balance as you reported about American theater—and I want to thank you. I’m sure many of your readers felt good about your work as they could trust your assessments and buy tickets to shows you had recommended with confidence.

Cooper, I salute you for all you’ve done for the theater world in general and the many Philadelphia stages in particular and wish you Bon Voyage on your journey into timelessness.
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I shall miss your writing.