Post Script

Professional actors Lenne Klingaman and Mark Christine got married in the north woods of Wisconsin a year ago and for their honeymoon they are traveling across the United States with the first national tour of Waitress. Not that they planned it that way.

New York City has Shakespeare in the Park — a free event presented by The Public Theater in the city’s glorious Central Park. As an additional gift to audiences, often the plays feature big name stars, who earn tons of acting cred for speaking the famous speeches of Hamlet or Juliet “trippingly on the tongue.”

Here at home, Milwaukee has Optimist Theatre, a non-profit organization that presents drama workshops in schools and free performances of one Shakespeare show each summer, outdoors at the Peck Pavilion—part of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts campus, downtown. This year’s production is “King Lear” which, like its big city cousin, features some of Milwaukee’s most notable actors.

But that’s where the comparisons end.

Amidst heat advisory warnings, sudden thunderstorms, and swarming bugs, two more shows opened at American Players Theatre this weekend; Ionesco's Exit the King and Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. Written hundreds of years apart, they both focus on human folly and its consequences.

“An American in Paris,” the Tony Award-winning musical that showcases the music of George and Ira Gershwin, begins with a lone piano center stage. Behind it, Paris’s Arc de Triomphe rises ominously in the background, a shadowy figure in a sea of black. It’s a solemn opening for a show that, by contrast, is filled with buoyant music and exquisite, celebratory ballet. But this moment memorializes a time when “the City of Light went dark,” during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. The fact that the almost three-hour musical practically bursts with bright colors, modern art, jazz, and modern dance tells the story of determined post-war Parisians and ex-pats who enthusiastically — almost defiantly —brought the iconic French capital back to life.

Petruchio and Kate are at it again. In one of the most contentious romances ever written, a penniless and eccentric man agrees to marry a notoriously difficult woman and make her obey him. But the Madison Shakespeare Company’s production of Taming of the Shrew, at the Edgewood College Amphitheater, strays very far away from Shakespeare’s original script. It also offers an experience that’s markedly different from other classical theaters.

Audiences of Shakespeare’s plays are frequently surprised to discover how relevant the stories feel and how timeless the conflicts are, even though they were penned more than 400 years ago. That feeling of recognition and relevance was echoed in another (much more recent) period piece, at the opening night of American Players Theatre’s production of “Born Yesterday,” which runs in rotating repertory through September 22.

Ever since American Players Theatre opened its production of Athol Fugard's Blood Knot last weekend, there has been a flurry of heated responses regarding casting, delivered primarily via social media. Reviewers and editors have written stories. Theatre professionals from around the country have weighed in. The play’s author, director, APT artistic staff, and an actor from the production have issued statements, and a lot of conversations about parallel issues have been sparked, regarding race, authenticity, privilege and representation.

In Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” onstage at American Players Theatre through October 7, a whole cast of unhappy city dwellers is forced to flee the royal court and seek refuge in the Forest of Arden. Duke Senior (an affable David Daniel) has been overthrown by his brother, Duke Frederick (a stern Brian Mani) and so the former ruler is cast out into the woods, along with a group of his followers. The deposed duke’s daughter Rosalind (a strong and determined Melisa Pereyra) is also sent packing after Frederick fears her beauty outshines that of his own daughter, Celia (a luminous Andrea San Miguel). But the cousins refuse to be separated so they head off to Arden arm in arm, with the clown Touchstone in tow for entertainment. (And as the fool, Marcus Truschinski is endlessly entertaining.) Finally the young, scrappy Orlando (a noble Chris Klopatek) must take refuge in the trees, after being misused and threatened by his older brother Oliver (Nate Burger), who has inherited his father’s fortune and refuses to give his sibling a share.

The sky is very low for the two brothers who share a ramshackle home, cobbled together from bits of plywood and corrugated metal in the non-white section of Korsten, South Africa. The ceiling of their shack is low. The power line that runs above it sags, almost to the roofline. Everything in these men’s environment is pushing them down, mirroring the stifling effects of Apartheid in the 1960s. This is the painfully protracted world of Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot, which opened on June 16th in the Touchstone at American Players Theatre. Directed by Ron OJ Parson, the production is a taut and troubling story of oppressors and the oppressed, an examination of race as a skin color, a mindset, a bond between brothers, and a curse.

“Welcome to PeoplePower, the world’s largest temporary employment agency.”

This is one of the first lines of Temps! The Musical!, the final production of Mercury Players Theatre’s season, and it is chilling. Hearing the mechanical tone of the corporate speak, enunciated by women whose smiles are a little too forced, the audience immediately knows this corporation is up to no good.

It was easy to demonize temp agencies 1997, when Temps! was originally penned. The tough economy meant businesses were afraid to expand and there was an abundance of college grads who would take any job at all to try to make their rent. And actually, it’s easy to demonize them today in our gig economy where companies can get away with hiring a highly skilled workforce during crunch times, without having to provide benefits, health insurance, or any notice when their services are no longer needed.