Once again, thanks to Guest Reviewer, Tom Klunzinger.

WELCOME TO THE WHITE ROOM
by T.E. Klunzinger

I don’t quite know what to say. “Welcome to the White Room,” an Ixion production which opened Saturday night at the Robin Theatre, is short. And extremely white. Although it has a black man in it. 

Mostly it features three people – Ms. White (Jacquelyne Marks), Mr. Jennings (Paul Schmidt) and Mr. Paine (Nick Lemmer) – who apparently know each other, who are in a very white room and sort of play games with each other. They eat a deck of playing cards. And there’s dancing, although that’s hardly a plot point.

Eventually, Patrick (Daniel Bonner) shows up and seems to hold the answer to the many questions that have been asked. Maybe. And it helps if you know gaming strategies.

Director Leo Poroshin keeps his actors moving briskly along on an apparently-circular track to somewhere. I think. I would have thought about this more but I spent the rest of the evening waiting for Godot.

“Welcome to the White Room” by Trish Harnetiauex is at 8 pm on Saturdays, 2 pm on Sundays at the Robin Theatre, 1105 South Washington though October 28.
http://www.ixiontheatre.com

JITNEY at Riverwalk

"It was easy for the world to ignore August Wilson. He was the guy in the corner of a bar or cafe, with an open notebook and an open ear.” This is a quote from a review by Mike Hughes of a PBS documentary about the life of August Wilson, the 20th Century’s comprehensive chronicler of African-American life. 

Director Vanessa Sanders brings to Riverwalk “Jitney,” the third of his ten decade-by-decade "Pittsburgh Cycle” plays she has staged for us. The ensemble cast of eight men and one woman capture the authentic-sounding interplay between the drivers of a low cost car service, or “jitney,” facing the threat of urban renewal in 1977.

All of the characters deliver distinct personalities, most impressively Bruce Wade as the founder/manager of this under-the-radar business, Guy Thomas as the trouble-making comic relief, and Chance Boyd as a lovable drunk. Lekeathon Wilson, Guy Stockard, Marcus Turner, Ralph Sims and Ken Nelson are all believable, along with Janell Hall as a long-suffering girlfriend.

The cast is ably backed-up by producer Bernie Lucas, Stage manager Claudia Allen, property mistress Evon Anderson, costumer Marina White-villanueva, sound designer Ann Glenn Carlson, light designer Nick Eaton, music designer OraLee Cunningham, with set design and construction of a realistic bare-bones office by Bob Nees and Marlon Torres.

Jitney continues Thursday through Sunday through October 28. Bargain Thursdays are only $8/$10 admission.
http://www.riverwalktheatre.com

Mark Zussman (sitting in for Jane) 

Thanks, once more, for Guest Reviewer Tom covering for me during my Calendar Girls busy-ness.

THE MILLER PLAYS
by T.E. Klunzinger

Arthur Miller’s double bill of one-act plays, “A Memory of Two Mondays” and “A View from the Bridge,” now playing at MSU’s Pasant Theatre through October 21, was not successful when it premiered in New York in 1955 and it’s easy to see why: both plays are not very much fun and are unrelentingly grim.

“Mondays” comes first and presents many people toiling away at dead-end jobs in a 1930’s New York warehouse. Nobody has much to look forward to except young Bert, who’s only working until he can save enough to go off to college, which he does. Which is about all that really happens. It’s presented as a memory play which adds an element of distance so you’re not fully feeling the pain.

“Bridge” is also a memory play, but because it focuses on a relatively few characters, it feels more immediate and intimate. It also has a much stronger and more tragic story so it works vastly better as a play. Yet even despite the eloquent narration and heightened reality of the action, it’s still very much of the kitchen-sink realism school of playwriting that was in vogue in the decade following World War II and apparently still is today, with multiple New York and London revivals that have tended to attract multiple awards.

Director Rob Roznowski masters the action of both plays, instilling workaday choreography to the warehouse routine, then setting up the more-confrontational family tragedy. His work is complemented by the double-duty faux-Brooklyn Bridge set by Lex van Blommestein/Brandon Barker featuring some very versatile crates, as well as the lighting design by guest artist Dana White, up from Purple Rose.

Brandon Drap and Cameron Michael Chase are winning as the two main characters in “Mondays,” while the dozen-odd other actors master a wide range of working-class accents. In general, though, “age has its own authority,” so it becomes problematic when you have relative youngsters playing characters who are supposed to be 50 years older. But there it is.

Kevin Craig is belligerently effective as the tragic protagonist Eddie in “Bridge” – as written, he’s creepily obsessed with his young niece Catherine and not very likable, but the actor makes us sort of care for him, or at least understand him. Anna Ryzenga and Alek Doerr beautifully portray the young lovers, while Claire Wilcher and Raied Jawhari give solid support as family members thrown together in their search for the American dream.

While the overarching theme of both plays would seem to be that of immigrants, illegal or otherwise, trying to make it in mid-20th-Century New York, what may resonate most with today’s audiences is Eddie’s almost-demented obsession with Catherine and the shocking lengths to which he will go to keep her at hand.

The Miller Plays continue this afternoon and then Tuesday through Sunday at MSU’s Pasant Theatre, playing on a mildly complex schedule – check website for exact times. (And remember, Wharton Center Parking is now $10.)

http://www.theatre.msu.edu