The Widow's Blind Date
At the Firehouse Theatre -- November 13 - December 6, 2008




I missed the opening night last week -- something I don't often do; in the 16 years of the company I've not made it to the openings of six or so of our more than 60 productions. Anyway, I'm going this weekend. Any members of the billion-eyed audience within the range of my voice should try to make it, too -- be warned. This is an emotionally fraught play that packs a wallop. Not a light night at the theater.

Don't take my word for it. The review from the Times-Dispatch's Susan Haubenstock got saddled with a lackluster head and subhead, but once you get past that, she has some good observations. She writes:

"Horovitz's play is intense, dramatic and violent, and in director Bill Patton's production, the actors embody the shifting levels of threat, humor and sexuality with emotional and physical precision."

Read the whole thing here.

The playwright will be in town Dec. 5 for a talk-back session following the play.

The Widow’s Blind Date

by Israel Horovitz

The Story

(Photo by Jay Paul. Pictured are Ford Flannagan, Landon Nagel, and Jennifer Massey)

The scene is a wastepaper processing plant in a blue-collar Massachusetts town. Two workmen, Archie and George, are drinking beer and swapping stories, mostly about their apparently extensive sexual conquests. Archie mentions that Margy, a friend from high school and now a widow, has invited him to join her for a dinner. When she arrives to pick Archie up, the mood of the play shifts. Suddenly, the play’s original macho bantering takes on new and dangerous meanings. Margy will subtly set the two men against each other while gradually revealing her contempt for her former classmates, whose lives have remained in a rut, she says, while she went on to bigger and better things living in the big city. But this is only the beginning of Margy’s complaint…

“Mystery, menace, confrontation, violence, resolution - these are the phases of Israel Horovitz’s remarkably naturalistic play The Widow’s Blind Date.”
- NY Post

“...the playwright’s toughest, grittiest play.”
- Variety

Tickets

Individual - $25; Seniors - $22; Student - $10 with valid ID. Tickets may be purchased online at www.firehousetheatre.org, or by calling (804) 355-2001.

Showtimes

8:00 p.m. Thursdays - Saturdays; Sunday matinees 11/16, 11/23 and 11/30 at 4:00 p.m. Doors open a half-hour before showtime.

Special Events

(There were a bunch and I missed most of them).

Friday, November 21 - Talk Back Night - join Virginia Commonwealth University’s Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates and The Conciliation Project, a social justice theatrical group, after the show for a discussion about the production.

Friday, December 5 - Talk Back Night - join playwright Israel Horovitz after the show for a discussion about the production.

The Playwright

One of America’s most celebrated dramatists, Israel Horovitz has written more than 50 produced plays, many of which have been translated and performed in more than 30 languages worldwide. Among his best-known plays are Line (which is now in its 33rd year of continuous performance at off-Broadway’s 13th Street Repertory Theatre), Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, The Primary English Class, The Widow’s Blind Date, The Indian Wants the Bronx for which he won the Obie Award for Best Play, and My Old Lady which ran on Broadway in 2002.

His 1982 film Author! Author!, starring Al Pacino, is a largely autobiographical account of a playwright dealing with the stress of having his play produced on Broadway while trying to raise a large family. Other Horovitz films include the award-winning Sunshine, co-written with Istvan Szabo (European Academy Award - Best Screenplay), 3 Weeks After Paradise (which he directed and in which he starred), James Dean, an award-winning biography of the actor, and The Strawberry Statement (Prix du Jury, Cannes Film festival, 1970), a movie adapted from a journalistic novel by James Simon Kunen that deals with the student political unrest of the 1960s.

He has won numerous awards for his work, including two Obies, the Drama Desk Award, The Sony Radio Academy Award, an Award in Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Governor of Massachusetts’ Leadership Award, and many others.

Horovitz is the former artistic director of the Gloucester Stage Company in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which he founded in 1979. He founded The New York Playwrights Lab in 1975, and still serves as the NYPL’s Artistic Director.

Previously produced plays by Horovitz at Firehouse Theatre Project include: North Shore Fish, Lebensraum, Fast Hands, Compromise, The Secret of Mme Bonnard’s Bath, and Acrobats.

The Cast and Director

Bill Patton (Director)has directed eight shows for the Firehouse Theatre Project: Kingdom of Earth, The Heidi Chronicles, Speed-the-Plow, The Big Slam, Lebensraum, Buried Child, Edmond, Because He Can, and Death of Bessie Smith. The Firehouse was grateful and honored to have him back to perform in last season’s The Late Henry Moss. He also played the lead in Fast Hands. Patton holds an MFA in directing from New York University, an M.Th. in counseling from Duke University, and an M.Div. from Philadelphia Seminary. He served as the Artistic Director of the Force 13 Theater Co. in NYC and the Director-in-Residence at Southampton College in Long Island, New York. In 1976, he directed the acclaimed Off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ Kingdom of Earth at the IRT Theater, and was honored by several visits from Williams, himself. Patton has also served as Executive Director of the Beaufort Marine Institute in South Carolina and has been a commercial fisherman in Alaska. His most recent academic position was as a professor at the College of Charleston, where he taught Acting and Theater History. He currently teaches acting classes at the Firehouse.

Ford Flannagan (George Ferguson) is making his first appearance with the Firehouse. Local credits include Barksdale Theatre’s productions of The Full Monty (Malcolm), Into the Woods (Narrator/Mysterious Man), Scapino (Carlo), and The 1940’s Radio Hour (Neal Tilden); Theatre IV’s productions of Crimes of the Heart (Barnette Lloyd), Of Mice and Men (George), DA (Charlie then), Four Part Harmony (Swen), and Peter Pan (Peter); Swift Creek Mill Playhouse’s productions of Greater Tuna (Arles, etc.) and Little Shop of Horrors (Seymour); and Theatre Virginia’s The Robber Bridegroom (Goat). Ford can also be seen in the Terrence Malick film, The New World and the HBO Mini Series, John Adams.

Jennifer Massey (Margy Burke) previously played all the female roles in Horovitz’s The Secret of Madame Bonnard’s Bath at the Firehouse. Other Firehouse credits include: The Vagina Monologues and Dinner with Friends. Local credits include Barksdale’s Intimate Apparel, The Fifth of July, and Light Up the Sky; and Richmond Ensemble Theatre’s Tally’s Folly. Regional stage
credits include performances with The Alliance Theatre (Atlanta); Flat Rock Playhouse (NC); for the new playwright’s project at Arena Stage (Washington, DC); and with the renowned Women’s Shakespeare Company (LA). In Los Angeles, she also performed with the Deaf, including numerous productions at acclaimed Deaf West Theatre. Television credits include principal roles on One Tree Hill, Surface, Hack, The Practice, 7th Heaven, Charmed, Melrose Place, and Married...with Children among others. Film credits include The Wedding Crashers ("uncorked edition"), End of the Spear, and the recently released Graduation. She appears locally in various commercials and as the host of Richmond’s Comcast Newsmakers program.

Landon Nagel (Archie Crisp) is making his Firehouse debut with this production. Local credits include Barksdale’s Guys and Dolls (Benny SouthStreet); TheatreVCU’s Cabaret (Cliff), When You Comin’ Back Red Ryder (Teddy), Medea (Jason), and A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Pseudolus). Landon has been acting in the Richmond area for over ten years. He has performed with SPARC, Theatre IV, The Barksdale Theatre, Paramount’s Kings Dominion, and Spirit Cruise Lines on the Annabel Lee. Look for him next in Barksdale’s Children of a Lesser God.

Road Weary
Busy-ness, mourning, and synchronous entertainments

Another Roadside Attraction: Diana, Amie and me,
by Amie; road weary travelers on the way to Mississippi
for a sad occasion. This rocky wayside with gnarly vines
was a RaceTrac gas station in--I think--Tennessee.

Billion-eyed audience, I've not made an additional post this week due to general life and and busy-ness and sort of not thinking I have much to say that isn't getting flogged about in the blogosphere already. When blogging starts feeling like an obligation, or makes me tired just thinking about a way to interpret a current moment--and this, just something I do for "fun" in my copious spare time--then maybe I'm not prioritizing my time well. It ain't like I got nothing to prepare for.

My front burner projects are threatening to erupt into a fire. A book manuscript is due in May; there's a short Tesla-Twain play to be done for the Eureka Theatre of the Virginia Science Museum; I'm helping with a documentary for the Firehouse's 15th anniversary and also responsible for putting together a history walking tour as a raffle item for the March 29 gala; but also a June 7 bus/walk tour for the Valentine Richmond History Center. And then there's the day job --necessary for sustenance and utility payments.

So; I shouldn't really be blogging at all, and in fact, I'll have to post less -- once-a-week if I'm lucky. Thing is, I get annoyed by bloggists who just let their posts lapse without a word or explanation. The 'sphere is crowded by abandoned or half-hearted blogs, bobbing around, like ghost ships stranded in the Sargasso Sea. And I don't want to just stop. So. There I am.

Michael Clayton and Enchanted

Both Amie and I went back into thicket of work and our lives. We tried some entertainment and this worked somewhat; although after you experience has been affected by a singular event, funny how intimations of that event appear in places you'd not expect.

We went to the Byrd Theatre twice this past week and saw Michael Clayton, with two of our favorites, George Clooney and Tilda Swinton, and an otherwise fluffy entertainment
Enchanted, featuring the bare shoulders of red-headed Amy Adams--(here, from About.com)

who also sang sappy music. (Similar terrain was handled much better by Kate & Leopold, without the Disney hoo-haw and ironic send-up of itself) And she's in Sunshine Cleaning that my good acquaintance and Firehouse board member Megan Holley wrote.

Michael Clayton has that taught thriller quality that some good John Grisham-based movies possess and with its layers of subterfuge and corporate malfeasance that doesn't seem unbelievable. There was also a textbook example of an inconvenient whistle blower getting "suicided" with all the brisk efficiency of taking out the garbage.

But at one point Clayton is sent out to consult with a high level client of the firm who has just committed a hit-and-run -- uncomfortably close to home right now.

Enchanted is just goofy and though reaching for buoyancy just seems tired -- except for Amy Adams, whose bursting joy for her storybook life was quite good. The casting in the picture was also first rate: people looked as though they'd come out of an animated world. Timothy Spall reminded me of Smee from Peter Pan.

But, again, in a Times Square scene, the princess has to dodge cars that almost get her. Didn't expect that.

The Late Henry Moss...

Finally, at the Firehouse, the excellent production of The Late Henry Moss. Here two pieces of work sons (Justin Dray, Daniel Moore) try to both explain and hide from the death of their drunkard father (Bill Patton). This is a powerful evening of theater and one in which Shepard appears to be well aware of his Greek tragedy predecessors, and the death and transfiguration myths. Henry Moss is taken to the river of death not by Charon, but a nervous taxi driver (in this case, Scott Wichmann), and guided by the psychopomp of Conchalla, our Jen Meharg.

As director Morrie Piersol stated in the talk back Thursday night; the show wasn't chosen in specific for The Acts of Faith Festival, but fit in, anyway.

Back in Richmond...
In time for Oscars, and "A Thing Of Beauty" at the Firehouse

That's the graphic for the current offering on the boards at the Firehouse Theatre Project, designed by a good friend of the company, Jason Smith, who creates all the theater's print collateral.

Amie and me are just returned to Colonial Ave after an arduous and at times harrowing, while also surreal and comic, journey into Mississippi. This was one of the most trying experiences I've ever witnessed any family go through and such circumstances bring out everything in stark relief.

I'll give an impressionistic overview of the Mississippi pilgrimage; but seems to me, adapted into a screenplay, and in capable hands, an adaptation of the week's Deep South drama and trauma could make for Oscar material.

The event fills the criteria of a film: the story must have an identifiable rising action and conclusion and involve a singluar important moment in the lives of the people. The period is bracketed by a death and a funeral and self-contained in a car trip, a hotel, a funeral home, a church and a few residences. Perhaps art is a way to make some sense of the whole thing; except this happened to quite real people in actual time and I was there as not a journalist, but a mourner. And though a part of the family through marriage, and affected by their shared tragedy, I was also something of an outside observer, though my origins are in Richmond. Virginia isn't the "South" despite the accident of Civil War history.

A map in the Bypass restaurant next to the Rose Hills Best Western showed the Southeast that begins at the North Carolina border. The Old Dominion is a Mid-Atlantic state; with Delaware, Maryland and sometimes Pennsylvania. And a journey of 15 hours by car demonstrates that Mississippi is a different part of the world, one that is both familiar and possessing idiosyncratic characters and aspects -- for good and otherwise.

We got home, unpacked and sorted out in time to collapse in front of the television to watch the 80th Cinematic Run for the Gold. I enjoyed the memorable past moments montages but learned that many of these came out of the scenes culled for Oscar's launch onto YouTube. I hope they put the opening animation up, which was enjoyable, and I want to pick out the classic film elements that flashed by. I've seen none of the major winners and hope they arrive at the Byrd soon.

But one place in Richmond you can go to see some great performances is at the Firehouse Theatre Project where Sam Shepard's The Late Henry Moss is on the boards. The Times-Dispatch review calls the show "a thing of beauty" and you can't ask for better than that. Morrie Piersol directs Bill Patton, Jen Meharg, Jeff Clevenger and Scott Wichmann, on sets designed by Maury Hancock. We've not yet seen the show, which opened while we were out of town, but I'm anxious to.

Right now, billion-eyed audience, while we are glad to be home, the pile of work with which both Amie and I must now contend is daunting.

More in the coming days about this and that.