AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

A Salem, OR high school debate team provides with a means for students to expose issues considered too controversial for inclusion in the school newspaper, but when the student’s own secrets are revealed, censorship takes on a different meaning.

Such is the theme of playwright Stephen Karam’s snappy Speech and Debate running at TheaterWorks in Hartford. Budding reporter Solomon (Ben Diskant) wants to write about controversial issues like abortion and local Republicans who sponsor legislation to mask their private sexual practices (including the town’s mayor), but his teacher (Eva Kaminsky) squelches his plans, suggesting that he join the new Speech and Debate Club instead.

Club organizer Diwata (a dynamite Jee Young Han) convinces Solomon that the issues can be exposed through techniques used in debate, especially “dramatic interpretation, which not coincidentally will give this aspiring actress a chance to show the talent overlooked when she was passed over for leads in school productions of Once Upon a Mattress and The Crucible. The third reluctant member of the team is Howie (Carl Holder), a gay student who is a recent transfer to the school and who has incriminating evidence against a teacher who responded to his solicitation for sex on the internet.
The projected computer chat, Diwata’s hilarious karaoke podcasts and the physical settings of the school and the three individual teen’s bedrooms are ably created by set, lighting and sound designers Luke Hegel-Cantarella, Matthew Richards and Bart Fasbender.

When a news reporter (also played by Kaminski) begins to prepare a feature on the club, the students realize that their attack on censorship cuts two ways as they realize that their own secrets (Diwata’s abortion, Howie’s internet sex surfing and Solomon’s homosexuality) might be revealed even as they get what they want: Diwata a chance to perform, Solomon a chance to write a story in the daily newspaper and Howie a chance to find a sponsor for a Gay-Straight alliance club at the school. A bond develops among the students as they try to figure out what to do.

Director Henry Wishcamper keeps the pace moving and coaxes strong performances from the five actors, all making their debuts with TheaterWorks. Han, making her professional stage debut, is the standout as the obsessive-compulsive, self absorbed, stardom-driven Diwata.. The fit she throws over the guys’ “eclipsing her desire to perform with their ‘homodrama.” is a hoot, as is the dance she insists they perform where Mary Warren from The Crucible time travels to meet a sexually confused young Abe Lincoln, just so Diwata can do a striptease and use the body stocking left over from her ill-fated audition for The Crucible (John Carrafa provides the amusing choreography).

---- Lauren Yarger

Speech and Debate plays at City Arts on Pearl (233 Pearl Street, Hartford) through July 26. Performances are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 pm.; Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm. with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 pm. Tickets: General admission $37 for weeknights and matinees; $47 for Friday and Saturday evenings; center reserved seats $11 extra; and college student rush tickets are $11 can be purchased by calling (860) 527-7838 or by visiting www.theaterworkshartford.org.

Artistic Director Joanna Settle has given her first production at Shakespeare on the Sound a new twist – literally. It’s designer Andrew Lieberman’s a serpentine wooden stage that winds over the grounds at Rowayton, CT’s Pinkney Park where fairies and lovers weave their way along the lighted planks in an intriguing, but often uneven, new rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Original music by Passing Strange composer Stew (with recorded accompaniment musically supervised by Deborah Lapidus) includes incidental music between scenes, underscoring and stand-alone songs (vocals aren’t the strongest, but the outdoor/dreamlike setting steals attention), with a haunting love theme that sticks with you long after you have left the park. Choreography by David Neumann (a number of the actors crawl spider-like along the plank) and designer Ilona Somogyi’s black and white toned modern costumes that don’t detract from the tradition of the play but rather add to the drama and freshness of the production.

While Settle succeeds in creating a wonderful dreamlike setting (with just one glitch in sound (Jessica Paz, designer), an echo when microphones and monitors met at one part of the stage), she fails to draw out a sense of merriment and passion from the actors who turn into lovers and animals under the spell of the night. The exception is Ty Jones, who plays one of the best Nick Bottom’s I have ever seen. As the weaver-turned ass-turned lover of Fairy Queen Titania (Doan Ly), he infuses his lines (and a blues number) with great gusto and humor as he clicks his hooves and makes Shakespeare sound modern.

Gregory Wooddell gives a nice turn as Demetrius, loved by Helena (Gretchen Hall) but suitor of Hermia (Marjan Neshat) who is in love with Lysander (Albert Jones), and one of the play’s funniest moments involves Wooddell’s chewing gum, but none of the lovers seem to have any chemistry. It isn’t for lack of energy, however, as the actors make numerous entrances by running from a distance and jumping on to the winding stage, leap fences, climb trees and do flips.

It’s a pleasant evening under the stars and some of the best fun is listening to the giggles from little children around the lawn who enjoy the antics on stage.

---- Lauren Yarger

A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays through June 28 at Rowayton’s Putney Park, 177 Rowayton Ave, and July 4-12 at Baldwin Park, Greenwich, 100 Arch St. Performances are Tuesdays – Sundays at 7:30 pm. Admission is free, but a donation of $20 is suggested. For more information, visit www.shakespeareonthesound.org.