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Looking ahead
The Trinity Rep plans for next season, and more

Trinity Repertory 2003-2004

’Tis the season for New England arts organizations to be announcing their line-ups for 2003-2004, and this week Trinity Repertory Company came out with its 40th-anniversary schedule: three classics, two recent Pulitzer winners, and two brand new works. The upstairs Chace Theater will open in September with David Auburn’s Proof, which in 2001 grabbed not only the Pulitzer for Drama but also the Tony. It’s Catherine’s 25th birthday, but she’s at home looking after her father, " a brilliant mathematician sinking into madness. " One of her father’s students, Hal, shows up and asks to read his notebooks, which include " an astounding mathematical proof. "

Downstairs in the Dowling Theater, meanwhile, Josie Hogan and James Tyrone will be spending a lot of nights under the harvest moon as Trinity presents Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten starting in September. Company member Janice Duclos will reprise the role of Josie, which she played on Washington’s Arena Stage. That will be followed in the Dowling by a new musical revue, Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, a follow-up to the Stories: 20 Songs, 20 Lives cabaret that company member Rachael Warren presented last year. This full-length evening will serve up songs by Stephen Sondheim, Joni Mitchell, Gershwin, John Prine and more. Amanda Dehnert will direct the proceedings; it’ll open in December.

Upstairs in the Chace, Trinity will have the 27th annual presentation of its fabulously successful (there’s no other way to describe a holiday offering that opens in mid November and has more performances than The Nutcracker) A Christmas Carol. It’ll be followed in January by one of the best — and most enjoyable — Shakespeare plays that hardly ever gets staged, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Legend has it that the Bard wrote this work at the behest of Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to see " Falstaff in love " ; what we see instead is Prince Hal’s fat knight trying to crawl into bed with Mistress Ford and/or Mistress Page (but they’re both many jumps ahead of him) while Anne Page tries to elude two unwelcome suitors to get the man she wants. Company member Fred Sullivan Jr. will play Falstaff.

Back downstairs in the Dowling Theatre, February will see Suzan Lori-Parks’s Topdog/Underdog, which won the 2002 Pulitzer for Drama and was nominated for the 2002 Tony; it’s the story of two brothers, Lincoln and Booth (as in Abraham and John Wilkes), who get together over that classic sidewalk scam, three-card monte. The Chace will close out its season with West Side Story — it’s hard to go wrong with Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerome Robbins, " I Want To Be in America, " " I Feel Pretty, " " Tonight, " and " There’s a Place for Us. " That’ll open in April. The Dowling season will close with a new play. Past occupants of this annual world-premiere slot have included Paula Vogel’s The Mineola Twins, John Belluso’s Henry Flamethrowa, Kathleen Tolan’s A Girl’s Life, Anthony Clarvoe’s Ambition Facing West, Robert Alexander’s A Preface to an Alien Garden, Bridget Carpenter’s Fall, and, in 2002, Tony Kushner’s Homebody/ Kabul. (This year it’ll be Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home.)

Season subscriptions, which include three- and four-play packages and a number of special offers, are available now; drop by the Trinity box office, 201 Washington Street in Providence or call (401) 351-4242. Next month you can also order tickets by visiting www.trinityrep.com.

Plum is Bliss

Admired local diva Paula Plum has been keeping a high profile lately at her alma mater, Boston University’s School of Theatre Arts. On April 12, she was honored with the 2003 College of Fine Arts Alumni Award in Theater Arts, former recipients of which include playwright Craig Lucas, Hollywood stars Alfre Woodard and Geena Davis, and Seinfeld compatriot Jason Alexander. " I was utterly, totally shocked, " she admits, acknowledging that though she has apparently been considered for the award across the years, it has usually gone " to one of the glitterati. "

Of course, Plum and her actor husband, Richard Snee, must feel a bit like glitterati, albeit of a different era, several weeks into rehearsal for Hay Fever. The pair will be appearing as guest artists in the BU School of Theatre Arts production of Noël Coward’s deliciously histrionic 1925 comedy that opens this Wednesday at the Boston University Theatre (directed by Elliot Norton Award winner, Huntington Theatre Company artistic associate, and BU associate professor Scott Edmiston, it’ll run through May 4). The young Coward wrote the play after a series of trying guest stints at the country home of the playwright Hartley Manners (Peg o’ My Heart) and his actress wife, Laurette Taylor, the original star of The Glass Menagerie. It revolves around a glamorously eccentric Bliss clan, who flounce and squabble and generally ignore their weekend guests. The Bliss household is headed by flamboyant actress Judith and waspish novelist David, who will be portrayed by Plum and Snee. The other actors, including those playing bohemian Bliss offspring Simon and Sorel, are all students, and Plum is impressed. " It’s really fun, " she says, " because the kids are so lovely. I had been so disillusioned with younger generations in the past 20 years. I keep thinking, ‘Oh, there’s no work ethic.’ But these kids are so hard-working, so well-trained, so focused, so professional, polite, it’s almost too good to be true. BU continues to really train its graduates. These kids are ready for the professional world. "

Unlike the Blisses, who are barely ready for a civilized tea, much less a rigorous life of auditions, rehearsals, and day jobs. " With Noël Coward, " Plum admits, " there’s always the question, the first couple of days: why are we doing this play? What is the significance in our lives? There always needs to be a reason. And for me, it’s celebrating the frivolity of being an actor — because, certainly, this is nothing like what it’s like to be an actor. But it’s celebrating actors and sending them up. You know how actors are always ‘on.’ The Blisses are always ‘on,’ to the detriment and humiliation of their guests. It’s a celebration of how silly we in the theater world can be. "

And will Plum and the Ivy League–pedigreed Snee next take their act to his old school? " No, " replies the actress with a throaty laugh. " Columbia University has no need of comedians. "

This production of Hay Fever runs April 30 through May 4 at the Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue. Tickets are $10 to $15, $8 to $10 for BU alumni and Huntington Theatre Company subscribers, $5 for seniors and students; call (617) 266-0800.

Calling all Isabellas

This Sunday, April 27, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum initiates its " Isabellas Free Forever " policy, whereby any person named Isabella, upon presentation of a valid ID, will be admitted to the premises without charge. To celebrate, the ISGM will host a special welcome event beginning at 10 a.m. at which a photograph of all the assembled Isabellas will be taken for the museum’s centennial archives. Isabellas wishing to RSVP should call (617) 278-5184 or e-mail press@isgm.org.

Romeo and Juliet Ball

Boston Ballet’s annual spring fundraising gala is set for this Saturday, April 26, and this year it’s a " Romeo and Juliet Ball, " a preview of the company’s final production this season. (See the Arts section for a history of Prokofiev’s ballet.) The masked affair will be held in a re-creation of a 16th-century Italian marketplace at the Boston Park Plaza; " lavish dining " is promised, along with a special performance by Boston Ballet dancers and then " decadent desserts and dancing " in the Plaza Ballroom; auction items will include a trip for four to the Cannes Film Festival, a fashion trip to Milan, and a walk-on role in next season’s Nutcracker. All this doesn’t come cheap — $500 per person — but it is a benefit, and who knows what Romeo or Juliet you might get to kiss " by the book. " (Just keep an eye out for Tybalt.) For information and tickets, call (617) 456-6223.

‘State of Security’

Dark times make for dark art. And two Boston-based artists, one a photographer, one a songwriter/singer, are trying to speak to the stress of these days with their Web-based collaboration " State of Security (SOS) " (at www.phototropos.com/stateofsecurity). Photographer Liz Linder teamed up with Jim Infantino of Jim’s Big Ego, Boston’s quirk-rocking folksters, to produce a Web animation using Linder’s photographs and Infantino’s previously unreleased song " Cautionary Tale. "

Linder and Infantino found themselves similarly outraged by the government’s arbitrary system of security alerts. " Red means stop/Green means go/Yellow means look both ways/before you cross the road, " runs the first chorus. But by the end of the song, the lyrics are pointing directly at the security-alert color code: " Red means stop/Yellow means . . . go . . . /Orange means oh my God/I don’t fucking know. "

" It’s more personal expression than political statement, " says Infantino. Linder echoes the sentiment: " We were pretty consciously not trying to take a political stance, more so to express a politic of experience. I wanted to put out how I felt. "

The " phototrope, " as Linder and Infantino call their work, opens with a string of full-screen yellow signs. " WARNING: You may not be safe at this moment " reads one, encapsulating recent non-specific threats. Wailing sirens and the voice of the president on the subject of security give way to images of people duct-taping themselves in plastic bags to the soundtrack of Infantino’s quietly catchy tune. As the lyrics run across the bottom of the screen, headlines from the Department of Homeland Security’s Web site run across the top, like a news-report " crawl. " " Never talk to strangers/Tie up both your laces, " goes the song; " Americans must continue to be defiant and alert, " reads the scrolling headline. A clean-cut businessman sits at his desk, has a sip of coffee, calmly pulls a plastic bag over his head, and seals it with tape around his neck.

" The whole idea, " says Linder, " is how ridiculous it is to be sealing yourself in plastic. In protecting yourself you kill yourself. That’s the irony. " One woman wraps her entire body in a cocoon of plastic; another man immobilizes himself in black trash bags before ripping them off.

" We were trying to make art about our own sense of fear in this kind of constant state of alert we’re living in now, " says Infantino. He calls " Cautionary Tale " a " kid’s song, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do to be safe. " But though it starts with shoelaces and looking both ways before you cross the street, the song moves to much more grown-up safety measures. " It’s absurd to say tie your laces, look both ways, wrap yourself in plastic. We brought in absurdist elements, not to make light of anything but to create a sense of humor about it. "

"  ‘State of Security’ walks the line between being really funny and so dark, " adds Linder. " It’s not so much a joke, more a dark answer to a difficult question. "

 

Issue Date: April 25 - May 1, 2003

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