‘Equus’ at The Players’ Ring

Having grown up with horses, I learned early on not to trust those unpredictable beasts. While they are impressive and majestic creatures, they embody an earthy power that is both enchanting and terrifying. In fact, horses have always scared the shit out of me. And this is the mindset I took with me to see “Equus,” the new play at The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth.
Peter Schaffer’s story is set in a children’s mental health ward in England. The lead psychiatrist, Martin Dysart (Chris Walters), has been given a new case. It seems a teenage boy named Alan Strang (Dylan Schwartz-Wallach) stabbed out the eyes of several horses under his care. The boy is at first reluctant to share the reasons behind his disturbing act, but the truth eventually comes out.

Produced by Todd Hunter and directed by Joi Smith, the set for “Equus” is simple but effective. The use of unfinished wood creates a rustic, countrified setting. Scattered around the stage are hand tools, a few pieces of antique furniture and the doctor’s desk, which is simply a painted black box.

Pontine performs ‘The Story of a Bad Boy’

In its day, “The Story of a Bad Boy” sparked a great deal of controversy, yet it has also been hailed as the work of a pioneering genius. Portsmouth’s Thomas Bailey Aldrich deviated from tradition when he published a semi-fictional account of his childhood in 1870. The content was unusual and risky, perking the curiosity of thousands of shocked readers.

Beginning on Friday, April 25, Pontine Theatre in Portsmouth will host an original adaptation of the revolutionary story. The events narrated in the book will be recreated by Greg Gathers and Margeurite Mathews, who have revised the content to fit the confines of a stage.

Gathers said adapting Aldrich’s book to the stage was easier than you might expect. The book is divided into stories about Aldrich’s childhood, narrated by the author as an adult. In the two-person performance, Gathers tackles the role of Aldrich, while Mathews portrays several other characters. At various points in the play, the pair uses 30-inch puppets, cutout illustrations, shadow puppets and projector video to recreate other characters and settings.

ham and beans, music and humor at Garrison Players

Many New Englanders take pride in their roots, and the Garrison Players Arts Center will attempt to manifest that pride with an evening of traditional pleasures. The Rollinsford venue hosts a “Down Home Yankee Ham and Bean Supper” on Saturday, April 12, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Not only will the evening feature home-cooked food, but it will also include the comedic stylings of author and humorist Rebecca Rule and bluegrass music from Mark Wiley and his band of friends.

“The dinner is a country feel. It is home cooking. It is simple, plain, good food,” said Mary Ruth Lynn, director of programming for the Garrison Players. She said Rule’s humor and Wiley’s music have a similar feel.

Plans for the evening were partially modeled after the old fashioned design of the Garrison Players’ building at 650 Portland Ave., which was originally constructed as a Grange hall. “It seems like a good fit,” said Lynn.

‘Last Night’ at The Players’ Ring

Orson Welles was famous for saying a lot of things, but my personal favorite quote is, “No one likes to leave a theater feeling empty."

In newcomer Carolyn Gallo’s play, “Last Night,” audience members feel so many things that, when they leave, they feel as though they just stepped off a rollercoaster—lightheaded and slightly nauseated. And just because they may have seen one or two of those dips coming doesn’t mean their stomachs don’t get thrown right into their throats. The feeling is jolting, horrifying, hopeful, agonizing and delicious. This rookie knocked it out of the park on her first try.

‘Shutting Up Peggy Lee’ at West End Studio Theatre

“It’s exactly what I want to say right now,” Susan Poulin said one day after unveiling her most recent solo show, “Shutting Up Peggy Lee.” Poulin’s latest act is noticeably different from the majority of her original productions. For the last 16 years, she has been portraying a number of humorous and wacky characters, including her most well-known creation, Ida. While still containing its fair share of humor, “Shutting Up Peggy Lee” is a far more introspective journey through Poulin’s own struggle to find the meaning of life. The play premiered at Portsmouth’s West End Studio Theatre last weekend.

Initially, Poulin’s onstage journey is spurred by Peggy Lee’s annoyingly depressing song, “Is That All There Is?” The song was a huge hit when recorded in 1969 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Despite its popularity, the song sporadically plagues Poulin’s existence. 

The people Generic Theatre usually have their ear to ground when it comes to the cutting edge, the new, the hip and hot, or the really unusual. This year’s production, currently onstage at the Players’ Ring, fits all three categories.

Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” follows the playwright’s usual pattern of keeping the audience on the edge of the seat, wondering what’s really happening—Captain Subtext is generally the star of any Albee play, open sexuality has a strong supporting role. In 1963, his play “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. However, the board’s advisory committee was so horrified by the content of the play that they overruled the decision, and no drama prize was awarded that year.

Albee dares to speak of things the rest of us do not. He will always be celebrated for this, and he will always need to keep a bodyguard close by because of it.

Marguerite Mathews has been a touring artist in New England for 30 years. “For the last 15 of those 30, there has been a marked decline for touring opportunities,” she said. Mathews, who co-directs Pontine Theatre in Portsmouth, says many performing artists have noticed the decline. “There have been ups and downs, but, generally speaking, we’re settling into the fact that it’s a bygone era,” she said.

Savage Productions, composed of wife and husband team Scarlett Ridgway Savage and Christopher Savage, just debuted a tense little thriller. It’s a script that’s been percolating for a couple of years, and it does a lot of things well. Scarlett Ridgway Savage has written this type of material before in “Dear Daddy, Love Cassie,” and this is another interesting iteration.

“Chase a Killer” is a fascinating look at criminal intention and the effects that sexual crimes have upon men who witness or perpetrate them. The writing is tight, tense and funny at turns, and powerful, harsh and disturbing at others. At its best, the timing is great. The charismatic actors have a good working feel for one another in the interplay of characters.

a chat with teenage stage actor Camden Brown

“I don’t know when it first happened,” ponders Camden Brown, the Seacoast’s widely acclaimed teenage stage artist. “I really liked to use my imagination when I was younger—I still do. I had an imaginary friend, Mr. Turtle, and I talked to him constantly.” (He admits, with a mixture of pride and embarrassment, that there are home videos to prove it.)

The 18-year-old Oyster River High School senior is most well-known for his roles as Jesus in “Godspell,” Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” Robby in “Warmth of the Cold,” and Thenadier in “Les Miserables,” to name but a few of his works. His training began at a UNH theater camp during the summer between third and fourth grades. A production of “Peter Pan” was part of the program, which Brown remembers vividly.

‘Republic of Dreams’ makes guest stop at UNH

At first glance, 21st century America might seem worlds removed from World War II era Poland. What relevance, then, does the life and work of obscure Polish-Jewish artist and writer Bruno Schultz bear to modern society in the United States? According to Stacy Klein, director of “Republic of Dreams,” the world in which Schultz wrote, painted and ultimately died at the hands of a Nazi is alarmingly similar to current times. Klein describes the world Shultz grew up in as one filled with over-consumption, religious fundamentalism and nationalistic hatred. 

“In his vision we see the undercurrent of horror and indifference that would soon erupt into the Holocaust, and, even more disturbingly, the possibility that the world today bears the same seeds of destruction,” Klein wrote in a director’s confession on the Double Edge Theatre Web site.

“Fame” is indeed about student life at the New York High School of Performing Arts. But the musical production now playing at the Bell Center for the Arts in Dover bears little resemblance to the movie or the TV series (in fact, one of the teachers in the play, Miss Sherman, points out, “ever since that movie came out, everyone refers to us as ‘that “Fame” school’”). But it gets your blood pumping just as well. After watching the show, you might go home and put on some torn stockings and crank up some Cyndi Lauper in your MP3 player. 

New England has been home to many famous and creative people, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Emily Dickinson. But some lesser-known artists have been overshadowed by these greats. They may have been well known in their own time, but over the years, their art has been buried under newer interests by subsequent generations.  

Thankfully, there are people like M. Marguerite Mathews and Gregory Gathers, of Pontine Theatre on Islington Street in Portsmouth, who have brought the works of one such forgotten artist back to life.

Co-artistic directors Mathews and Gathers have taken a collection of poems by Ogden Nash and created a play titled “Home Is Heaven: 32 Poems by Ogden Nash.” The production chronicles the poet’s summers spent with his wife and two daughters on the Seacoast in the middle part of the 20th century.

In his book “Democracy in America,” political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville suggested a disturbing trend in American democracy: the growing shortage of “great leaders.” While his analysis has proven to have some validity, de Tocqueville failed to recognize the potential comedic fodder made available through untimely political calamities. Fortunately, this potential was not lost on the Capitol Steps, a nonpartisan political satire group. Since 1981, the group has performed routines wrought with wit, sarcasm, spoonerisms and exaggerations. Some 26-plus years later, the Capitol Steps are as strong as ever, owing much of their success to seemingly ubiquitous political gaffes.

Originally, all cast members were staffers in the U.S. Congress, but as the act grew, so did the commitment. They all knew it was only a matter of time before someone noticed their absence in Congress, but they managed to pull it off for some 15 years.

“This may have been an indication of what (little) we did (when working with Congress),” noted founding member Elaina Newport. 

at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre

Each decade brings with it a certain style, and it all seems to begin with music. The free-flowing locks of the 1960s complemented the decade’s flowery hippie rock. The super-stylized frozen-in-place-with-Aqua Net cuts of the ’70s fit well with the then brand new electric synthesizer sound. The huge, puffy hairdos of the ’80s went hand in hand with the poppy sound of the music. And the raggedy, rough cut that became popular in the early ’90s accompanied the arrival of grunge.
Point being, music isn’t just music. It’s fashion, it’s attitude, it’s hair—it’s a whole way of living.

In the newest endeavor of the Garrison Players Arts Center in Rollinsford, Priscilla Barton has produced a musical review titled “We the People,” and it just so happens to appeal to the interesting times we live in—by reminding us of the equally interesting times of the past. John Adams, played with dignity and chivalry by Don Briand, narrates this 200-year journey. 
Starting with “Hail to the Chief,” the play progresses into “Is Anybody There?” followed by the joyful banjo plucking of Mark Wiley on “On Top of Old Smokey.” Enraptured with short monologues of the good times, the bad times and the proud times, the audience at a recent performance was finally moved to stand when Sharon Parker strode firmly to center stage to belt out “The Star Spangled Banner.” More songs about the brave men and women who have fought for the freedom we take for granted followed. Some met with laughter and some met with tears, but all were remarkably relevant to the nation’s current situation overseas.

There’s a special place in my heart for each and every theater on the Seacoast, but I have to say, it’s always pleasing to head down to 959 Islington St. in Portsmouth and check out the New Hampshire Theatre Project at West End Studio Theatre. You know that whatever you get will either be gut-wrenchingly fearless, completely original, a fresh take on an old tale or all three.

With that in mind, let’s talk about ‘The Primary Primary!’ by Robert John Ford.
Mavis McCormick (Kate Kirkwood) owns a diner where several of the locals gather to discuss their lots in life. As New Hampshire residents, they have front row seats when presidential candidates start crawling out of the woodwork to beg for votes, offering promises rarely kept.

David Mauriello was one of the first playwrights to start hitting Portsmouth with original works way back in 1992, when F. Gary Newton founded The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth. A reference from a mutual friend put the two in touch, and Mauriello’s been producing roughly a play per year ever since, paving the way for other original playwrights and eventually earning himself a place on The Players’ Ring Board.

But, Mauriello’s plays differed from most other playwrights in a specific way—he was among the first to write plays that consistently had gay men in leading roles. And, oddly enough, the fact that these characters were gay was not the focus of the plays. They just happened to be gay people, going around, living their lives.

“Look, Daddy, teacher says, every time a bell rings ...” Chances are, nine out of every 10 people can finish this famous line from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Those who cannot should be forced to sit in front of TBS on Christmas Eve, where they will inevitably be exposed to the classic 1946 film. Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” is to America what Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is to the Brits. Both stories portray a mythical Christmas spirit, where kindness and generosity ultimately prevail, instead of consumerism and ugly sweaters.

This year, Seacoast residents can see “It’s a Wonderful Life” performed live and without commercials. Pontine Theater will present the holiday classic on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 14, 15 and 16. Staged at the West End Studio Theater on Islington Street in Portsmouth, the performance will feature Pontine’s co-directors M. Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers, who play all the characters through the use of puppets and masks.    

Each and every December, you can almost set your watch by the literal onslaught of theaters doing versions of Mr. Charles Dickens’ classic but wildly overdone tale, “A Christmas Carol.”

Which is why it’s such a relief when an alternative comes along. Such is the case with the Seacoast Repertory Theatre’s holiday choice, “A Christmas Story.” The Rep’s cast and crew bring to life the timeless 1983 film, which was originally based on a book of short stories by Jean Shepherd called “In God We Trust (All Others Pay Cash).”

Locally based theater artist Todd Hunter has spent the past decade focusing his art on the live stage. But, for his hit stage show “Summer Blink,” he decided to take the leap that more and more Seacoasters are taking: to transform the whole project into a film.

I recently had a chance to ask Hunter about the process, and I first asked him why, out of his huge body of work, he chose “Summer Blink” to be his latest film.

Live models draped in lingerie and jewelry. Men and women clad in leather Harley Davidson outfits. Volunteers of all ages showcasing fancy shoes and opulent dresses. These are a few of the features guests can expect to see at FashionUP!, the Downtown Business Association’s second annual fashion show, which takes place on the top floor of the Portsmouth Gas Light Co. on Wednesday, Nov. 28.

When people talk about the golden age of Hollywood, they’re usually referring to a period in the 1930s and 1940s, when stars like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant became household names. MGM, Paramount and a handful of other studios produced hundreds of films and exercised an oligarchic clout over the film industry. Movies produced during this period symbolized the American dream and helped create what Tom Brokaw called “the greatest generation.”

This period was also when Mickey Rooney’s career took off. Often performing alongside Judy Garland, his shows in the ’30s and ’40s helped engrave Rooney’s name in the annals of Hollywood history. On Saturday, Nov. 17, at 8 p.m., Rooney and his wife, Jan, will perform the musical “Let’s Put on a Show” at the Rochester Opera House.

I don’t watch the news. It’s always terrible things happening to men, women and children in all parts of the world. I can’t do anything about it. Watching it only makes me feel useless. So, I use this excuse to change the channel. A lot of people do.
The real reason is that, if we look at it, it might become real. And, if it’s real, it could happen to someone—anyone—we know.
Because we won’t watch, sometimes things that should have us screaming in outrage, demanding that a horrible situation be stopped at all costs, are instead merely blips on our radar. Director Genevieve Aichele told us as much in her pre-show speech at New Hampshire Theatre Project in Portsmouth

Carolyn Connolly is a deadly combination—beautiful, talented and smart.

“I went to college when I was 16, the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. It was a four-year engineering program, and I graduated in 1997 with a BEEE (Bachelors of Engineering in Electrical Engineering),” Connolly wrote in a recent interview with The Wire.

“Want to know what led me to acting? ‘Stargate SG-1,’ the TV show. And ‘Battlestar Gallactica,’ ‘Law & Order,’ ‘ER’ and a couple of other sci-fi series on TV,” she continued.