Flux Theatre Ensemble

What is Flux Sunday?

We're back!

And very happy to be back. Though we were a smaller, Memorial Day weekend crowd, the thrill of being back to work was strong. We read through three scenes: the end of Mary Fengar Gail's The Usher's Ball, the beginning of Jeremy Basescu's Onion Amnesia, and a rewritten How To Go from me.

Finishing Mary's play was bittersweet. Set in World War I, Anabelle and Wilfred are bound together during a lightning strike that gives them both enhanced perception. To say of what exactly would spoil the play, but suffice to say, the end took full advantage of this power. The Usher's Ball is a play about pacifism in a warlike culture, about love of music and theatre, and as with Mary's play Devil Dog Six (which I just finished), about a singular woman with an uncanny power, desperate for connection and uncertain of place. The play has a melancholy end, though there is a moment of grace in its ritualistic epilogue. Brian Pracht and Ingrid Nordstrom gave moving reads as Wilfred and Annabelle in their final scene.

We then turned to my How to Go, a play last worked on at Flux Sunday in November of 2007 - a week before this blog began! Yup, sometimes producing plays means you have less time to write them. But, I knew I'd have some key players to do it right, and so I did some rewrites and wrote a new scene, and the play seems to be demanding a move up the queue (the queue currently stands at: finishing 2nd draft of Lesser Seductions, plotting Dark Matter, first draft of Stepping, and 2nd draft of Honey Fist and then a mob of plays elbowing for position- Far Distant Classes, Angel Juice, Denny and Lila).
ANYWAY, the reading featured some stand out work from Gregory Waller as Sand, Ingrid Nordstrom as both sisters (Lucy and Sammy), Isaiah Tannenbaum reprising his role as the terrified and precocious Alexander, and of course, Ken Glickfeld returning as the Gonzo patriarch of the clan, Parker.
The reading sparked an interesting conversation about outlandish or brilliant ways to end ones life that made us all eager for something lighter after the break.

And Jeremy Basescu's Onion Amnesia: The Terifying Tale Of A Woman Who Forgot What A Vegetable Is delivered. The plot is ably summarized in the title, so all I will add is that Nora Hummel was hilarious as Laura, the eponymous de-vegetabled heroine, constantly struggling to keep up with a world gone several degrees askew. Also strong was Drew Valins double turn as hapless husband Hal, and as Cindy, Laura's ferociously nice boss.

Yes, it was good to be back. And I'm going to try to be better about posting our progress at Flux Sundays, which fell off early this year. Hold me to it! Read the full story

Did you love Gregory Waller as the pleasure addicted prime minister Zynth in Rue? Fall for his smooth talking Fortune Clay in Angel Eaters? The check out his work in One Year Lease's current production of The Bald Soprano. You will surely see some Fluxers, myself included, in the audience! Read the full story

SUNDAYS ARE FOR ENDINGS

Due to the chaos of casting, this particular Sunday was more disorganized than any in recent memory. But in spite of that, it held a particular power, as both Trying and Honey Fist played out their last scenes.

HOW NOT TO BE SEDUCED BY YOUR OWN CHARACTERS
One of the problems I have as a playwright is being so consistently surprised and seduced by what my characters' say that I let them go on for longer than they should. This was especially clear in the reading of the final scene of Honey Fist, a play of mine we have been working on for many months, off and on again. And because it had been so long since I'd worked on the play, I really let Gretyl (Christina Shipp) and Stu (Greg Waller, pictured here in a very different role as Zynth in Rue) go on longer than they should.
Into this verbal flood I flung Scott Ebersold, a director I'm particularly excited about bringing into the Flux Sunday process. And he did a great job of finding the need coursing through the rivers of language, and giving a shape to the scene.
And a particular highlight was Christina figuring out exactly what Gretyl wants in this strange final scene - all at once the epiphany hit her and she knew more about the character than I did!

ON LOVE AND SPACE ALIENS
Sandwiched between the book ends of endings, three plays about love gave a welcome dose of beginnings. Katherine Burger's Way Deep continued to cast its spell of young love, and Rob Ackerman's new short gave Nancy Franklin a tour de force as a woman in equal thrall to her love for her boyfriend and her fear of alien invasion.
And David Ian Lee's Sleeper gave us a more unusual love scene - two friends, brought together in the Pashtun by the kidnapping of an American, figure out how far is too far in the pursuit of what's right. While the scene seems on the surface to be about two terrorists plotting evil acts; it really is about how far the love between these two friends can go. This very human exploration of how the love of God, country and brotherhood drives fundamentalism was made especially fascinating by Candice Holdorf's gender-bending portrayal of the more fiercely devout of the two.

But the day belonged above all to Trying, and I will post separately about that play. Read the full story

This past Sunday the 2nd, Flux held our first Food:Soul, a potluck play reading series. The food was provided by Flux, and the play was Adam Szymkowicz's Pretty Theft (Adam's pic to the left.) Heather Cohn directed, and the cast featured Tiffany Clementi, Charlotte Graham, Elise Link, Kelly O ' Donnell, Brian Pracht, Zack Robidas, Jane Taylor and Greg Waller, with stage directions read by Felicia Hudson. It ended up being a truly satisfying evening of food, theatre, and community.

The rehearsal process, while short, had that rare energy where everyone believes in the play, trusts each other, and has a good (while focused) time. Part of it was Heather's smart use of time (and passion for the play), and part of it was just the luck that comes from the right group of actors in the room together.

And the process revealed more fully the deceptive structure and full texture of this beautiful play. Pretty Theft follows Allegra (Charlotte Graham), a high school girl with little self-confidence and a dying father, as she develops an unusual relationship with Joe (Brian Pracht), an autistic young man obsessed with ballerinas at the group home she works at. It also follows her road trip adventure with Suzy (Tiffany Clementi), the high school's bad girl, and their encounter with Marco (Greg Waller), a mysterious thief trying to retire.

The play is about how beauty is stolen, and what survives the theft. Adam begins with the characters stealing little things- Joe stealing a pencil from Allegra, the supervisor (Kelly O'Donnell) taking Joe's thefts back, Suzy shoplifting lipstick - and then the theft escalates, literally and metaphorically, with Suzy stealing Allegra's boyfriend Bobby (Zack Robidas), death stealing her father, and Allegra dealing with those losses by stealing Joe's peace of mind with a kiss. These events lead the girls to steal a car to run from the funeral and Allegra's bitter mother (Elise Link), which leads them to Marco, and the most horrific theft of the play.

Marco has spent much of the play seemingly in a another story, a charming tale of a rogue thief settling down with a salty diner waitress (Jane Taylor). His tales of how to steal and never be caught seem to be thematic counterpoint to the main story. But when Allegra and Suzy break up their romance by walking into the diner, Adam's clever structure reveals itself, as Marco charms the girls back to his room, gives them drugged drinks, and takes pictures of their naked bodies. As Marco tells Allegra, "when you look at something beautiful, it takes a little piece of your soul...and when it takes from you, you have to take back."

Beauty manifests itself throughout this play in surprising ways. Joe is obsessed with ballerinas (and believes the clumsy Allegra to be one), and ballerinas frame the story, assuming secondary roles, leading dream sequences, and telling Joe's back story. Marco tells the waitress how if the theft can't be beautiful, you shouldn't do it all, saying "If you do not hear the music, do not proceed." Suzy is convinced Allegra is beautiful, and so steals her man. Joe makes Allegra feel beautiful, so she uses him in spite of her good intentions. The waitress lets Marco take the girls unhindered, knowing they may never be seen again, because their youth made her feel less beautiful. Beauty takes something from all the characters, and so they, like Marco in kind if not degree, take something back.

But the play is not half so dark or cerebral as this outline makes it out to be. Antic humor and wit laces through all the scenes, and the best comedy in the play comes from the darkest moments. After the kidnapping and the rape, when Marco says "Would you like to come with me?" and Suzy lashes back "I'm not going anywhere with you", Marco replies simply, "Not you." And even though he is a terrible man, that 'not you' hurts Suzy so badly that she breaks down, asking Allegra, "What's wrong with me?" This moment, heart breakingly played by Tiffany, got one of the biggest laughs of the show; and to get a laugh in such a troubling place lets you know just how complex, difficult and human Adam's comedy and characters are capable of being.

But the play doesn't end in either darkness or laughter. Rather, Allegra gives two gifts in spite of what's been done to her, showing that she is possessed of a true and lasting beauty (and all the more ironic that only the thief Marco and the autistic Joe could see it). As the girls see the polaroids that terrible man took of their naked, drugged bodies, Allegra tells Suzy how beautiful she looks, and they survive that moment. Then, after a slow stage ritual of burning the pictures, the play ends with Allegra returning to Joe in the group home, apologizing for what she did, and after an entire play of not being able to dance beautifully like the ballerinas; Allegra dances like a ballerina for Joe, and tells him not to look away, saying, "It's not wrong". Pretty things can take something from you, but there are kinds of beauty that give.

And Adam's play gives that kind of beauty.

Highlights include the clarity of Heather's direction; Kelly's grinning supervisor; Elise's terrifying Mom; Charlotte slowly revealing Allergra's fury at the disappointments of the world, and her capacity to overcome them; Zack's deadpan comedy as the hilariously selfish Bobby; Tiffany's bubbling and vulnerable Suzy; Jane's twist of the knife as her Waitress' loneliness became something dangerous; Greg's calmly ecstatic "music!" at the capture of Allegra; and Brian capturing the layers of strength and love within the rhythms of Joe's autistic speech.

Thanks to all the Fluxers who made such glorious food, including Candice's congnac balls, Christina's eggplant parmesan and my own humble twice-baked potatoes. And a very special thanks to all the people who came out to share this inaugural Food:Soul, including representatives from the Old Vic, Stages on the Sound, New York Theatre Workshop, Wild Child Productions, Kaliyuga Arts, Oracle Theatre Inc., Working Man's Clothes, Playful Substance Fractured Atlas, CORE Theatre, and Packawallop Productions. Food:Soul was created to share plays Flux Theatre Ensemble cares about with the wider NYC theatre community, and on Sunday December 2nd, we did. So thanks again to everyone.



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