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CAST
Don - Nathan Brooks Burgess & Saul Kotzubei
Pauly - Thomas Burr
Sue - Alex Fatovich & Beth-Anne Garrison
Carl - James Handy
Barbara - Corie Vickers & Gina Heiber
Mickey - Aaron Jettleson
Liz - Jenny O'Hara & April Lang
Andy - Jeff Kerr McGivney
CREW
Director - Stuart Rogers
Stage Manager - Fritz Weiss
Producer - Ivan Marks
Technical Director & Scenic Designer - Barbara-Julie Miller
Lighting Designer - Peter Strauss
Sound Designer - Sara Shapley
House Manager - Catherine Campbell
Stage Crew - Douglas Lowry, Brad Stoudt, Jennifer-Rebecca Bailey, Courtney
Lynn Iverson, Beth-Anne Garrison, Teresa DeFonte, Andy, Sarah Parker, David
P. Kronmiller
REVIEWS
LA Times (Critic's Choice)
LA Weekly
NoHo LA
3/22/02
LA Times (Critic's
Choice)
Seeking and Finding Universal Truths
By Daryl H. Miller
In his 1997 play "Sympathetic Magic," Lanford Wilson sets out
to explore the universe. That's a pretty big topic, even for a playwright who's
been working at his craft for four decades, as Wilson has. |
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But by using some of the larger mysteries
of the cosmos to frame the intimate mysteries of personal behavior, he
captures something universal about the human condition, even as he admits
that the individual is unknowable.
The play arrives on the West Coast
in a crisp, vital production by a fledgling troupe known as Theatre
Tribe, which has moved into the small, storefront theater at El Portal
Center in North Hollywood.
The stage there has been painted to resemble
a large star chart (designed by Barbara-Julie Miller), which lends
an element of magical realism to the proceedings. The action unfolds
cinematically, with scenes cross-fading into one another as the story
progresses across the San Francisco Bay area, introducing us to a diverse
group of people whose lives are intertwined. (Most roles are double cast,
with different combinations of actors appearing at each performance.)
We
begin in a university lecture hall, where Andy (Jeff Kerr McGivney),
a young astrophysicist, is giving a lecture. Soon, we're in a churchyard,
where Andy's artist girlfriend, Barbara (Corie Vickers on opening weekend),
is visiting her half-brother, Don (Nathan Burgess), an Episcopal priest
who leads a largely gay congregation, and his former lover, Pauly (Thomas
Burr), the church's music director. Eventually joining the mix are
Barbara and Don's globetrotting anthropologist mother, Liz (Jenny O'Hara);
her assistant, Sue (Alex Fatovich); Andy's astrophysicist colleague,
Mickey (Aaron Jettleson); and Andy and Mickey's department head, Carl
(James Handy).
Science and art cohabit--uneasily, at times--in
the Andy-Barbara relationship, while religion and art seek connection
in the Don- Barbara and Don-Pauly relationships. Liz contributes an anthropological
perspective, filtered through feminism, while the scientists get us thinking
about how the dynamics of the physical world, such as Werner Heisenberg's
subatomic uncertainty principle, might apply to human behavior. Sexuality,
intimacy and belief come under observation along the way.
Wilson--whose
plays include "The Hot l Baltimore," "Talley's
Folly" and "Burn This"--is not a playwright who announces
where his stories are going, and that can make "Sympathetic Magic" difficult
to follow at times. The New York critics pretty much dismissed the script
in its original production. But as staged here by Stuart Rogers--so that
the action seems epic yet almost voyeuristically true to life--it's absolutely
riveting.
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3/27/02
LA
Weekly
By Martín Hernández
Tinged with acerbic humor and pathos, director Stuart Rogers’ production
of Lanford Wilson’s 1997 Obie Award–winning drama shimmers like
the stars in its backdrop. San Francisco avant-garde sculptor Barbara (Corie
Vickers) and her rumpled Stanford astronomer boyfriend, Andy (Jeff Kerr-McGivney),
share a vow not to have kids. Though they enjoy a loving relationship and blossoming
careers, when Barbara finds herself pregnant, Andy reconsiders their
accord, regarding the child as an inexplicable sign from the universe mirroring
the recent unfathomable and earth-shattering cosmic discovery he and his team
have recently made. Their ensuing struggle, much like many events in nature,
unleashes a ferocious and startling consequence that also contains a perverse
logic. As Barbara’s brutally frank and cynical anthropologist mother,
Jenny O’Hara gives a suitably barbed performance that makes clear†why
Barbara wishes to avoid reluctant motherhood. Saul Kotzubel is Barbara’s
brooding, gay half-brother Don, an Episcopal minister, whose selfless service
to his many AIDS-stricken parishioners embodies Wilson’s call for embracing
God — or at least spirituality — in a cruel secular world.
Note: Some roles double cast.
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4/11/02
NoHo LA
By Don Grigware
In Sympathetic Magic, Lanford Wilson is in awe of the universe. Like all great
playwrights he is searching for the answers. In the ’70s his Fifth of
July explored the lives of a Vietnam vet and his gay lover and the difficulties
of adjusting one’s lifestyle to society. Thirty years later the problem
has intensified, as he notes “Society annihilates individuality.”
Stuart Rogers, artistic director of the
Theatre Tribe, directs Sympathetic Magic, or Sympathetic Tragic, as he
refers to it, at the group’s new home at the El Portal in NoHo
- and the production is an exceedingly impressive debut.
Wilson’s canvas is more complex than
in past plays, as he tries to connect science, religion and humanity. “Scientists
dream of finding the Theory of Everything” aptly captures the scenario.
A scientist, a painter, a musician, a priest and an anthropologist -
all try to “find their way” as part of an extended family.
The scientist Andy (Jeff Kerr McGivney) and his partner Mickey (Aaron
Jettleson) have made a discovery in physics which will unsettle all existing
theories, and the breakthrough means more to Andy than his relationship
to Barbara (Corie Vickers) a talented painter/ sculptress, who happens
to be carrying Andy’s child. As in life people often make hasty
decisions that destroy opportunities and cause devastating consequences.
Wilson manipulates the outcome so that Andy and Barbara become contemporary
tragic figures, each responsible for his own destiny.
Jenny O’Hara plays Liz, Barbara’s
mother, whose ugly secret leads to even more tragic circumstances. She
is an actress of great strength and courage who makes the outspoken Liz
quite memorable. Liz’s son Don (Nathan Burgess) is a gay priest,
whose lover Pauly (Thomas Burr), the choir director, is dying of AIDS.
As it turns out, the hospice that Don is planning will provide relief
for more than one family member. Sympathetic Magic would make a stimulating
film. In the end, Wilson admits that the reality of the universe is a
mystery that no theories can explain.
Rogers and his ensemble accomplish a very
fluid mounting of the production in the confines of this small space.
Most roles are double-cast.
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