Previews & Abridged Reviews

“SUMMERTIME” The Theatre@Boston Court announces the June 5 Southern California premiere of Charles L. Mee’s “Summertime,” a play that director Michael Michetti calls “a surrealist romance; a sprawling, wonderful comedy full of surprises, with bigger-than-life characters, quirky dialogue and lots of big, passionate, eloquent monologues – almost arias.” “Summertime” previews begin May 27 in the state-of-the-art theatre at Boston Court.

“Summertime” is a comedy that collages existing text and pieces of pop culture in a riotous, poignant and giddy exploration of the nature of love. Mee is the white-hot author of “Big Love,” “Berlin Circle” and “Wintertime.” “Summertime” received its world premiere in San Francisco’s “Magic Theatre,” where it won the San Francisco Bay Area Critics Circle Award for Best Play. He is also the author of “A Nearly Normal Life,” a memoir of his struggle with polio.

Mee said of his own work, “I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns, careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns. That feels good to me. It feels like the world.”

The “Summertime” cast features Jim Anzide, Zoe Cotton, Marcia deRousse, Patrick Gallo, Travis Michael Holder, Elizabeth Huffman, Bjorn Johnson, Thomas Patrick Kelly, Sandy Martin, Larry Reinhardt-Meyer, Jeanne Sakata, Tessa Thompson and Eileen T’Kaye.

The play is produced by Michael Seel, managing director, and Eileen T’Kaye, producing director for The Theatre@Boston Court. C. Raul Espinoza is associate producer, sets are designed by Tom Buderwitz, costumes designed by Scott Lane, lighting design by Steven Young, sound design by John Zalewski, choreography by Kitty McNamee, and casting by Michael Donovan, CSA.

Michael Michetti, co-artistic director for The Theatre@Boston Court and director of plays and musicals, new works and classics, recently directed Boston Court’s critically acclaimed inaugural production, “Romeo and Juliet, Antebellum New Orleans, 1836.” Michetti and his productions have received numerous theatre honors, including two Ovation Awards for his production (as director and co-producer, with Eileen T’Kaye) of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” set in British colonized India. His diverse credits include David Mamet's “A Life in the Theatre” starring Hal Holbrook at the Pasadena Playhouse, acclaimed productions of Brecht's rarely staged “Edward II” and Aphra Behn's restoration comedy “The Rover,” both for Circle X at the Actor's Gang Theatre, and the Ovation Award nominated production of “Titanic” for Civic Light Opera of South Bay Cities.

The Theatre@Boston Court season includes the August 14 world premiere adaptation of “Rashomon” by Chay Yew, and the October 23 world premiere of “Light” by Jean-Claude van Itallie.

“Summertime” runs for six weeks of performances, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 3 p.m. through July 11. Tickets are available for $30 ($25 senior and student) and three-play season subscriptions are available for $74.25 ($59.25 senior/student, Thurs., Fri. and Sun. only). Tickets can be purchased online at www.bostoncourt.com or by calling (626) 683-6883. The Theatre@Boston Court is the non-profit company that programs the new Boston Court performing arts complex at 70 North Mentor Ave. (at Boston Court). Z. Clark Branson is executive director and owner.

6/4/04

TICKETHOLDERS

by Travis Michael Holder

It’s a Chuck Mee World as

Summertime Comes to L.A.

“It’s a Chuck Mee world” is the rallying cry during rehearsals for the Southern California premiere of Charles L. Mee’s surrealist romance Summertime, which opens this weekend at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena. This phrase, coined by the production’s director and inspiration Michael Michetti, co-artistic director of the Boston Court, is meant to explain any of the rampant improbabilities inherent in Mee’s passionate and idiosyncratic piece, working on which is something akin to playing Chekhov on acid. I know. I’m in the cast.

Mee is the white-hot author of Big Love, Songs of Joy and Destitution, Wintertime and The Berlin Circle, which won every award imaginable a few seasons back at The Evidence Room. The sprawling work of Mee is melodious, imaginative and often shocking, collaging existing text (one character, a pizza delivery man, appears in several Mee plays reciting the exact same monologue, an oddly comedic piece based on the confessions of John Wayne Gacy) and offering random hints to pop culture as he explores the nature of love in all its sweetness and all its abhorrence.

Summertime introduces a bizarre series of eclectic characters asking the question: Is love possible these days? They gather at the Martha’s Vineyard summer estate of Maria and Frank (played by Elizabeth Huffman and this humble correspondent) to fuel passions and discard others, never content with doing anything even remotely related to what society considers normal behavior. My character shares his life not only with Maria but with his male lover Edmund (Larry Reinhardt-Meyer), while Maria shares her paramour Francois (Bjorn Johnson) with our daughter Tessa (Tessa Thompson) and family friend Mimi (the Boston Court’s producing director Eileen T’Kaye). Then there’s James (Thomas Patrick Kelly), an innocent victim who wanders into the mix and immediately falls head-over-heels with Tessa; our randy house guest Natalie (Jeanne Sakata), who has a thing for Mimi; our neighbors, a lesbian couple together for 47 years (Marcia deRousse and Zoe Cotton); and their manchild son Gunter (Jim Anzide), who is seduced by Natalie but goes on to propose a three-way marriage with my wife and daughter after they perform a passionate aria from Verdi. Still with me? Add in Bob (Patrick Gallo), who comes to deliver pizza but stays to talk about murdering his sister and her family, and Barbara (Sandy Martin), our man-hating cook who has more one-liner about penises than Sophie Tucker (her rant is based on Scum Manifesto by Valerie Solanis, the psycho-dyke who shot Andy Warhol). Mee admits he went out of his way to include “material from history, philosophy, insanity, inattention, judicial theory, and the National Enquirer.”

The playwright attributes the decline of theatre in America to the “triumph of naturalism and the well-made play, which is boring people crazy out of their minds.” He believes the great hope for the theatre is in the return to the “immense energies” of the Greek classics and Shakespeare, “theatre that includes not just text and interpersonal relationships, but also spectacles, music, dance, physical performance, color, noise, fabulous events happening.”

As Michetti believes, “Chuck Mee writes big, sprawling, messy, wonderful plays. The characters and the dialogue are passionate, articulate, bigger-than-life and at the same time absolutely rooted in human truth. The playing of this rich material is an actor’s dream, but it’s also tricky territory. Mee’s plays must be approached bravely and with extraordinary commitment—emotionally, physically and otherwise. Actors must make a meal of their roles. Dialogue must not be reduced to naturalism or little kitchen-sink-realism truths, but allowed to resonate with big, fervent, expressive truths. At the same time, it must be fully invested and entirely honest. Summertime is peculiar enough anyway. We don’t need to simply act peculiarly to match it. On the contrary, our job is to honor the quirks of the play and the characters but to root it in absolutely familiar human emotion and honesty.”

Mee began working as a playwright in the 60s soon after graduating from Harvard, but gave up his career to work as an historian before returning to the stage with a vengeance in the 80s. He explains from his home in New York, “So much of our theatre and movies make us stupid and ill-prepared to live our lives because they seduce us into believing that human destiny is worked out only in the intimacy of one-on-one relationships. I am a big believer in Aristotle’s remark that human beings are social animals. People don't exist apart from a society. To understand what a human being is, you have to see a human being in the world. I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges, filled with things that take sudden turns. They careen into each other, smash up, veer off in sickening turns. That feels good to me. It feels like my life. And then I like to put this chaotic stuff into a classical form.

“The release of somebody’s heart is ravishing because it’s so unexpected. Life is full of surprises, full of bombing raids and viruses and earthquakes and sudden emotional switches that nobody could have predicted. Snipers shooting people off rooftops. That’s what I like to see in theatre, life transformed in a millisecond. Things invade each other all the time, so if you collage material and let farce live side-by-side with horror, plays can turn on a dime the way real life does.

“I've come to believe that art is most pleasurable not when it closes us down, narrows our perceptions and sympathies, draws boundaries of appropriateness or goodness, but when it opens us up. I could add lots of justifications for the way I juxtapose high and low, tragic and farcical, intellectual and physical, how they pop against one another, how they make one another more vivid when seen in such surprising contrast. But the truth is, I just love a wonderful time in the theater, and, for me, a wonderful time includes something challenging to think about, something to feel deeply and sometimes shatteringly, and some plain hilarity and joy and stupidity and release.”

As our fearless director Michael Michetti told us fortunate actors at the beginning of our journey to discover the complexities of Chuck Mee’s densely intricate work, “Be brave, commit to the language, the physicality, the passion, the jagged journey, and find the place where that reality meets your heart. I think that’s where Chuck’s plays live.” I can only hope our cast has met the ideals of both Michetti and Mee, in my mind two of the greatest modern geniuses of the American stage.

For tickets to Charles Mee’s Summertime, now playing through July 11 at the brand new state-of-the-art Theatre @ Boston Court, call (626) 683-6883.

Opening This Week

Summertime

Coming Untwisted

By Laura Weinert

The titles of Charles Mee’s more recent plays seem to indicate an unexpected preoccupation. There’s Big Love. There’s True Love. There’s First Love. Now there’s Summertime. The playwright who once offered famously “fucked-up” versions of Greek tragedies such as Orestes seems to have a new theme on his mind.

“I don’t understand it,” Mee says. “I keep trying to write nasty stuff. I keep meaning to get back to that. But I am 65 now. I think is you live long enough, you mellow. Or you get happy. I got to a point in my life where I just felt happy. I am a happily married person, myself. It only took me 64 years. I was married just last year.”

But it was Mee’s version of Orestes – “a very nasty, twisted, horrible tragedy,” says Mee – that led to a commission to write Summertime. In 1995, San Francisco director Kenn Watt (Fifth Floor Productions) directed Mee’s Orestes to much acclaim. Watt then asked Mee to write something for him to direct at the Magic Theater in San Francisco.

Recalls Mee, “I said, ‘Sure.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, boy! The Magic. San Francisco. I don’t have any friends there. I can write the most nasty, twisted, awful, dark, nightmarish play in the world, and I won’t be embarrassed.’ So that’s what I set out to do, and out came this kind of frothy romantic comedy.”

It’s not all froth, however. Summertime, which will see its L.A. premieres this week at the Theatre @ Boston Court, invites us into a world where a handful of couple come together in a cacophony of unrequited affections. Everyone seems to be in love with the wrong person at the wrong time. It is a world of fickle, damaged, or searching people. The play has a serious question at its core and for a time, struggles hard to find an answer: Can two people find true love in the kind of world we live in these days?

Boston Court’s co-artistic director Michael Michetti is directing the play. “I’ve seen many productions of Mee’s that I’ve loved and read many others and just always had been attracted to his work,” says Michetti. “I had an experience when I last saw Les Walters’ production of Big Love at (Brooklyn Academy of Music). I just found myself alternately laughing my ass off and getting moved to tears. Theatre than can do that is very exciting to me.”

Michetti says he was attracted to the challenges presented by Mee’s work, which requires a tone that balances more naturalistic moments with moments that are meant to be wild and unexpected. He realizes that Mee’s work requires a special kind of actor. “There is a danger in going one of two ways – either being afraid of the size of the emotion and passion in the text and trying to play against that by neutralizing that and making it too naturalistic, or to say, ‘Oh, wow, he writes such wacky plays,’ and then to over-decorate it with applied wackiness. It requires a truth and commitment, a bravery about playing the size and scale of emotion, but rooted in human truth, while not naturalism.”

Mee suggest all his play have diverse casts, and Michetti followed the suggestion, assembling a multiracial cast – including Marcia deRouse, a little person, as well as Jim Anzide, Zoe Cotton, Patrick Gallo, Travis Michael Holder, Elizabeth Huffman, Bjorn Johnson, Thomas Patrick Kelly, Sandy martin, Larry Reinhardt-Meyer, Jeanne Sakata, Tessa Thompson, and Eileen T’Kaye.

“The play is so much about the various facets and articulations of love,” says Michetti, “and I wanted to make sure that we were showing a diverse palette of lovers in the play, so all the cast members are so distinctive in terms of qualities, physical types. We wanted to cast people who were passionate people, who we could believe in love relationships and yet who are not just traditional pretty boys and girls – though many are in their own ways. The majority of the cast is over 40, and it’s a generation of people – well, you know people assume that once you pass 40, that people start losing their sex drives and genitalia. And it’s just not true, so these are all people who are still in the game, working it out, and sexy in their own way, but not necessarily because they look like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.”

Visual elements are an important aspect of the play. Mee’s script begins with set suggestions that read like imagist or surrealist poetry. “A hundred slender white birch tree trunks. A scattering of casual, summerhouse furniture all covered in white muslin. Grass grows on a desk, and there are stars in the sky.” Explains Mee, “I think since Ibsen, in the West, people think theatre is made of literary texts, which are placed onstage, but really in all the rest of the world, everywhere, people think theatre is a three-dimensional event, in which there is signing and dancing and some text, and that’s really the way I think of it.”

Michetti says Tom Buderwitz’s scenic design took some of Mee’s suggestions and ignored others – something the playwright welcomes. Real, slender trees decorate the stage, thought their canopy of greenery has been replaced by green beach umbrellas. White muslin surrounds the stage, gathered and pooled on the ground like a kind of art installation. Scott lane has designed colorful costumes that will pop the subject from the more neutral background.

“We kept talking about compositionally making it look more like paintings,” said Michetti. “We’ve been primarily using images of Magritte paintings as a starting place, not that we literally quote them, but as a sort of reference point.” The piece will also feature lighting by Steven Young, sound by audio guru John Zalewski, and choreography by Kitty McNamee.

“Summertime,” presented by and at the Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. Thu. -Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. June 5 – July 11. $25-30. (626) 683-6883.

and various Southland Newspapers

Love in 'Summertime'

By Natalie Ragus

Correspondent

Friday, May 28, 2004 - "You can't hold back just because there's no such thing as life insurance. Sometimes we don't find anyone, sometimes we hurt someone, sometimes it doesn't last. Sometimes a love has the life span of a butterfly. So does life itself. But we make the best of it because time is running out. This is the only shot you've got.''

Hilda from the play "Summertime"

Musicians from troubadours to the Rolling Stones have sung about it, King Edward VIII of England gave up the throne because of it, and Romeo died for it.

One of the most powerful and provocative emotions a human being can ever experience, love has always been a universal emotion and classical theme on stage.

"'Summertime' is really an exploration about the nature of love,'' said Michael Michetti, director of "Summertime", opening June 5 at the Theatre at Boston Court.

The play, which won the San Francisco Bay Area critic's award, conducts a unique analysis through the story of Tessa and James.

The resistant-to-romance Tessa, a translator, meets James when he seeks her expertise in translating the captions on a series of photographs depicting scenes of, you guessed it, love.

Joined subsequently by Tessa's mother, Maria (Elizabeth Huff man) and other members of the community stories both run parallel to and intertwine with Tessa and James. "Summertime" explores several different types of love, including the love between men and women, homosexual couples, and a mother and her child.

"It has some real life truth, some real love truth,'' said Huffman.

Each story presents and dissects common themes in love relationships, such as a scenario in which one lover cares for the other more than the other cares for her. This is the case of Maria and Francois.

"With me,'' Maria tells Francois in the show, "you always know where you stand.''

He replies to her "You would suffocate me!''

Chuck's Mee, the plays writer, focuses a lot less on plots and much more on character development, said Michetti.

Mee's work, which is quickly becoming more and more popular, are known for their theatrics and off-beat nature, and their reflection of his personal life. Mee seems to know some thing of love himself through his own unlikely romance.

The play write also wrote "Summertime's" counterpart, "Wintertime,'' which has been more widely produced, in addition to "Big Love'' and "Berlin Circle.''

Because the show is more character based, instead of wondering what's going to happen next, the focus is kept on the production's message, and the changes and struggles each character goes through on the road to resolving his or her conflicts.

However, these resolutions are far from Hollywood-romance tidy, much like real life. Mee, crippled by a battle with Polio, acknowledged that he doesn't like plays that are "too neat.''

The character of Hilda illustrates this well.

"Hilda has lived a hard life and had a hard time getting where she is... but she's going to live (even if life's not perfect) and that's what I like about her,'' said actress Marcia deRousse, who portrays the character.

This lack of smooth edges required the members of the production to stretch themselves.

"It's a play that required us all to be creatively free,'' said Michetti.

Another attraction the play held for Michetti was its quirkiness and theatrics.

"I do have a tendency toward plays that are more theatrical than naturalistic, and this play definitely fulfills that," he Michetti.

Michetti has a vast amount of experience to call upon in bringing "Summertime” to life.

Previously, he won two Ovation awards for his work at The Pasadena Playhouse directing and co-producing "A Mid-summer Night's Dream,'' a twist on Shakespeare's original play, set in colonized India. He also directed The Boston Court production of "Romeo and Juliet.''

No production could come together, however, without a strong cast to carry it.

According to Michetti, the most important quality he searched for in selecting actors for the play was the ability of the actor to convey the "larger than life'' emotions of the characters, while keeping the authenticity of the character's emotions by not over-acting.

Several of the thirteen cast members are also concurrently appearing in other area shows.

"Doing background work was important because you have to understand the scenes and the characters,'' said Bjorn John son, who plays Francois. An acting teacher, he even went to a voice coach to perfect the French accent of his character.

The cast's chemistry was also adds to its comparative strength.

"However, it is their differences, rather than their similarities, that make this a strong cast,'' said Michetti. "One cast member said they meld together like different instruments in an orchestra.''

INFO: 70 North Mentor Avenue, Pasadena

8 p.m. Thursdays - Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays; June 5 - July 11

$15

(626) 683-6883

THEATER 'Summertime' in Pasadena Pop culture inspires laughs at The Theatre at Boston Court. Charles L. Mee ("Big Love," "Wintertime"), whose wildly varied inspirations for gleeful and edgy contemporary texts range from Greek classics and Noel Coward to 14th century Chinese mythology, turns to modern-day pop culture for his comedy collage "Summertime," directed by Michael Michetti. The Theatre at Boston Court 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena Opens Saturday. Runs Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m.; ends July 11. $30 (626) 683-6883 Same Day Delivery! Enormous Showroom

PASADENA WEEKLY

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Letting love ripen

“Summertime” of love blooms at Boston Court

By Leigh Kennicott

Charles L Mee is today’s hot post-post modernist playwright. He effectively blends romanticism with starting character and soaring ruminations on life, love and – in this Southern California premiere – the complexities of pizza delivery.

There is plenty of laughter in Mee’s play. “Summertime,” the Theatre@Boston Court’s second production; but there is also a lot to think about.

The premise is simple but its execution is not: James (Thomas Patrick Kelly) has an Italian manuscript that needs translation. He arrives at the home of Tessa (played by Tessa Thompson), a translator who, we are told, is half Italian. We are cast adrift almost immediately as James explains the manuscript, originally cast in English, was published in Italian and now must be translated back to English. When Tessa remarks, “This may take a while,” we know we are in for something that may be either stultifying or haphazard and strange.

Director and co-artistic director Michael Michetti successfully navigates these dangerous waters, having conceptualized the production utilizing a spare set by Tom Buderwitz, lush music and sound effects designed by John Zelewski, and effective lighting by Steve Young. He makes room for the large cast to sit out on a summer veranda, philosophizing, blaming each other for their problems; configuring and reconfiguring their love affairs.

As their time together unfolds, James and Tessa do their own dance of love that is mostly eclipsed by the eccentricities of the other pairs. Ultimately, though, their simplicity wins the day.

The characters seem oddly familiar: Francois (the marvelous Bjorn Johnson) is a smooth French lover who is bedding Tessa’s mother, Maria (the equally marvelous Elizabeth Huffman). Tessa’s father (Travis Michael Holder), meanwhile, is having an affair with attentive Edmund (Larry Reinhardt-Meyer). Mimi (Eileen T’Kaye), Maria’s long lost best friends, comes along with her lover, Natalie (Jeanne Sakata), in tow and “la ronde” begins.

Various neighbors and helpers pop in and out with great frivolity. Gunter (Jim Anzide) and Hilda (Marcia deRousse) arrive to complicate matters. The cook (Sandy Martin) has no use for men at all; and the Pizza man (the hilarious Patrick Gallo) must be treated gingerly since his dilemma seems to be how to forgive himself for killing his sister and her two children. In the midst of the jokes and laughter, we begin to realize Mee’s very real concerns about emotional connection, meaningful relationships and the nature of love and lust.

It suddenly connects: Although the rhetoric has changed, we last met all these people in Russia at the dawn of the 20^th century as penned by Anton Chekhov. Mee’s characters are present-day manifestations of the trapped inhabitants of “Uncle Vanya” and “The Cherry Orchard.” We can look at quirky characters in “Summertime” and recognize that we are experiencing a time of great transition from tried an true social norms to a yet-undiscovered distant shore.

The Chekhovian connection is further reinforced by Buderwitz’s bare trees set before lush draperies and Michetti’s redolent blocking. The closet out of which all props and some actors magically and comically appear is a marvel and the choreography by Kitty McNamee is spectacular.

Although Mee’s dramaturgy is messy and a little excessive, it is well worth the experience.

“Summertime” runs through July 11, Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. at the Theatre @ Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor in Pasadena. Phone (626) 683-6883 or online at www.bostoncoourt.com.

TOLOUCAN TIMES

This time I have an amazing new performance venue to tell you about, as well as a zany, charming, uniquely original and entertaining play. In its inaugural season, this was my first visit to Pasadena’s gorgeous new Boston Court Theatre, and it is easily the most beautiful and complete 99-seat theatre I have seen in the greater L.A. area! The realized dream of an impressive line up of L.A. theatre notables, no detail has been left unconsidered in building and creating this fine theatre space. You must check it out! If you do it soon, you will also catch their award worthy current production …

SUMMERTIME – A surrealist, quirky, saucy, and razor-sharp view of relationships, written ingeniously by Charles L. Mee, this raucous play is a non-stop delight! A whacky yet meaningful exploration of the emotional dynamics of romance, viewed from all sides, the action and surprises just keep exploding before us. Rich colorful, off the wall characters, one after another, tell their tales and expose their hearts, on the powerful and complicated subject of love. This gifted large cast is comprised of many of L.A.’s best and most recognizable theatrical actors. Under the fast moving, wildly impressive direction of local powerhouse, Michael Michetti, they all shine individually, and as an ensemble. Covering matters including love at first sight, wanton sex, irresponsible dalliances, infidelities, homosexual romance, and marriage ... no side of amour is left out, as the actors and audience become one throughout the madness!

Kaleidoscopic Kudos go to the behind the scenes masters: Tom Buderwitz, for a fabulous sweeping and eye appealing set design, Scott T. Lane, for a fun-filled imaginative costume design, John Zalewski, for mind-shattering sound, Stephen Young, for creative lighting, and Kitty McNamee for cleverly kitschy choreography.

As the story begins, young James knocks on the door of Tessa, a pretty young translator, hoping to hire her services to translate a series of captioned photos in his possession. From the moment their eyes meet, the magic between them begins ... is it love at first sight? Thomas Patrick Kelly plays James with a tender innocence and endearing naiveté, and the adorable Tessa Thompson is charmingly infectious and skilled in the female lead of Tessa.

As the mania plays out in her home, a riotous parade of her family and friends turn up, airing their varying and dysfunctional views on life and love. The always-excellent Travis Michael Holder plays Tessa’s Father, who’s in love with Edmund, well played by Larry Reinhardt. Elizabeth Huffman is sensuously sassy, as her hot-blooded Italian Mother, whose passion is for Francois, who has also bedded a kooky sculptress named Mimi, played by a quirky Eileen T’Kaye. Jealousies flare and sparks fly as all interact in the same room! Nearly stealing the show, Bjørn Johnson is nothing short of brilliant in the dashing role of Francois! A silver-tongued Frenchman who loves all women, but is faithful to none, his performance is pure joy! As all of the men eventually drop their trousers, he also wins my “cutest legs” vote.

The rest of the commendably crazy cast includes Jeanne Sakata, as the sex crazed Natalie, Sandy Martin, screamingly funny as a man hating chef, Patrick Gallo, as the pizza man with a violent past, Jim Anzide as the creepy and childlike Gunter, Zoe Cotton as his overbearing mother, and as her lover of 47 years, Marcia de Rousse is hilarious! Jeez, on paper this sounds like total insanity ... which in fact it is!

A circus of the heart, and the many ways it beats … I loved every outrageous moment! Do try to catch this one. Running through July 11 (Thursday through Sunday) at The Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor in Pasadena. For seats/times/laughs – call (626) 683-6883.

Summertime Reviewed By Jennie Webb

"Summertime" Theater: Theatre @ Boston Court Location: 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena Phone: (626) 683-6883. Starts: June 05, 2004 Ends: July 11, 2004 Evenings: Thu.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Price: $25-30 Presented by: Theatre @ Boston Court

Playwright Charles L. Mee has been into love for a while now. Not that this is a bad thing. In his bevy of plays ruminating on relationships through the ages and the nature of love--First Love, True Love, Big Love--as well as his more recent Wintertime, this prolific and lauded playwright isn't afraid to explore love's ins and outs, and ups and downs.

With varying degrees of success, his works shimmer with a messy, unexpected coupling of intense philosophical ruminations and ridiculous acts of physical abandon. Directed by Michael Michetti, Summertime is set in the lovely, weathered, and in this case most surreal world of Martha's Vineyard, at the summer home of the lovely, fresh as a daisy Tessa (Tessa Thompson, beautifully cast) and her most worldly extended family.

Not that plot, per se, is of major concern in Chuck Mee land, but the picture-perfect Tessa seems to be enjoying a relaxed summer morning when she is interrupted by an immediately smitten James (the puppy-like Thomas Patrick Kelly), looking to hire her as an Italian translator. He is soon pushed to the side by the arrival of the seductive older Francois (Bjorn Johnson, eating his fabulous role up). Francois is the lover of Tessa's Italian mother (Elizabeth Huffman, doing Sophia Loren proud), but his dalliances have left trails of broken hearts, including the amazingly adaptive artist Mimi (a sensual Eileen T'Kaye), which causes a few tears until the arrival of Tessa's father (Travis Michael Holder, solid and endearing) and his lover (played with gleeful scientific detachment by Larry Reinhardt-Meyer).

Farce, you say? Way too neat and clean and easy. We haven't yet figured in Mimi's thrillseeking abandoned lover (the amazing Jeanne Sakata), the household's balls-out maid (Sandy Martin, in a tour de force), cozy lesbian neighbors (Marcia deRousse and Zoe Cotton), and an infantile stranger (a delightful Jim Anzide). Oh, and the introspectively violent pizza delivery guy (Patrick Gallo).

Michetti and his capable cast clearly have a lot of fun here, and the entire design team works wonders: Tom Buderwitz's gorgeous setting is magical, as is Steven Young's lighting, and sound designer John Zalewski does fantastic work, helping with the tone of this often difficult material.

Difficult, because the breezy Summertime seems to have a hard time maintaining its larger-than-life size and scope. But I think playwright Mee knew that; he subsequently worked out the kinks when he revisited the play in his more satisfying Wintertime. In the heat of summer, Mee's cinematic characters and out-of-this world situations--aren't relationships always that way?--hit home in isolated rants and spotlights of grand theatricality (thank you, choreographer Kitty McNamee), but there are many moments of realistic rhetoric in which the landscape of love--and all its pretentiousness--is neither here nor there.

ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE
(Vol. 9-No. 23-Week of June 7th, 2004)

 SUMMERTIME, Charles L. Mee's play of 'the nature of love', makes it's Los Angeles premier at Pasadena's Theatre @ Boston Court.
     Within a surrealistic setting that resembles a sparely wooded area, James (Thomas Patrick Kelly) seeks an interpreter, Tessa (Tessa Thompson) to translate a story about love and the many people within one's life it involves. From that point, a strange and jagged journey begins with these friends, lovers (current, 'ex', and others) and the points they bring upon themselves. These can range from smooth players, to folks with a bit of bitterness toward the opposite, to the slightly bizarre, and all points in between. It also asks seems to ask if love is for real or just a state of mind.
     Michael Michetti, who had previously directed TBC's Romeo and Juliet, Antebellum New Orleans, 1836 last fall (See review, Vol. 8, No. 37) is back to direct this comedy/drama that is non-linear and has more twists and turns that a standard murder mystery. Playwright Mee created this form of playwriting, noting himself that his play is far from being too neat and predictable. At times, things do go wild where love can be confused with something that is more like frantic confusion and pandemonium. But that's what makes this production unique. It's not about hugs and kisses, it's about the question if said 'love' really exists!
     The ensemble cast in SUMMERTIME consists of (in alphabetical order), Jim Anzide, Zoe Cotton, Marcia deRousse, Patrick Gallo, Travis Michael Holder, Elizabeth Huffman, Bjorn Johnson, Sandy Martin, Larry Reinhardt-Meyer, Jeanne Sakata, and Eileen T'Kaye.
Special note is Tom Buderwitz's scenic design, adding to some of the unrealness of the subject matter within a real world.
     SUMMERTIME is more about a question of love, rather than a specific season of the year. No matter though. It's the season of livin' it easy in an uneasy state of being.

SUMMERTIME is presented and performs at the Theatre @Boston Court, 70 North Mentor Avenue (at Boston Court), Pasadena, until July 11th. Showtimes are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights @ 8:00 PM, and Sunday matinee @ 3:00 PM. Reservations and information, call (626) 683-6883.
     Visit the web site at http://www.bostoncourt.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summertime Boston Court Theatre Through July 11 626/683-6883

By Les Spindle

It's "Summertime" and the living initially seems easy in the local premiere of Charles L. Mee's bittersweet surrealistic comedy. Tom Buderwitz's gorgeous set and Steven Young's magnificent lighting create a breathtakingly ethereal atmosphere.

But it doesn't take long to realize that all is not well in paradise, as this ebullient midsummer night's dream has its nightmarish side. Mee has attempted a rhapsodic musing on love with all of its good, bad, and ugly aspects--the euphoric joys, the heartbreaks, the excitement, and the difficult times.

There are moments of sheer genius in the text, with beautifully poetic passages and compelling tonal shifts between the highs and lows of the relationships…the characters' lives all intersect in a house in Martha's Vineyard, where we learn of their tangled emotional and sexual inter-relationships and their challenges in forging bonds.

It's hard to pick favorites in the impeccable 13-member cast. As a cynical cook, Sandy Martin delivers a riveting and uproariously funny monologue on chauvinistic male viewpoints about sex. Thomas Patrick Kelly and Tessa Thompson sparkle in the focal roles as two young people struggling to turn their instant attraction into something more lasting. Bjorn Johnson, meanwhile, is sublimely funny as an amorous Frenchman.

The company running the luxurious Boston Court Theatre, which opened last fall, deserves kudos for establishing first-class production standards. …-L.S.

CENTER STAGE

Throw out the old spring flings and get ready for Summertime, a surrealistic romance by Charles L. Mee. Now playing , Summertime questions the possibility and nature of modern love in a clever and imaginative production.

The action takes place in a dreamlike woodland setting where James and Tessa meet for the first time. They immediately fall for each other, but James is tongue-tied by the power of their brief encounter. Before he can recover, Tessa’s family and friends invade the scene with their own soap operatic love histories – for instance, Francois left Mimi for Maria who is married to Frank who loves Edmund. It is these love triangles that make Tessa tearfully cry out that it is ridiculous for anyone to expect her to know how to love, and it is this fear of love that James must face and successfully alleviate.

Familial problems aside, the cast is dynamic together. Of special note is Bjorn Johnson as Francois who enters through closets and is always armed with a rapier wit and French savoirfaire even when informing women that the world would seem better if they just made love. Elizabeth Huffman is also delightful as Tessa’s mother Maria, portrayed as a humorously dramatic Italian with an unrequited love for her old flame. Patrick Gallo also makes a notable appearance as a psychotic pizzaman while the rest of the cast step into their parts with enthusiasm. In fact, the only problem is that the cast is large and therefore, it seems that some characters don’t get the attention that they deserve.

However, the production crew led by Michael Michetti is deserving in recognition for the beautiful and impressionistic landscape they paint. The scenery by Tom Buderwitz evokes A Midsummer Night’s Dream quality with slender tree trunks and umbrellas while in the background, a constant melding of the color spectrum adds a fanciful tone through the lighting by Steven Young. The sound design by John Zalewski adds another rich layer by augmenting the fantasy elements of the setting whether through dance or opera.

It is this great attention to detail however that make this an artistic, comedic and emotional production. It allows to pay attention even moreso to the foundations of love between men, women, women and men, parents and children, siblings families and strangers. Sure, it’s only a play but the world and issues still seem real enough that when and if Tessa and James come together, there is a hope for success not only for them, but their family, friends and even ourselves.

Summertime is now performing at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena through July 11

This is Sarah Dzida with Center Stage.

L’armoire, C’est Moi Charles L. Mee’s chaotic catechism by Steven Mikulan

“Grass grows on a desk, and there are stars in the sky. A woman’s white summer dress hanging from a tree branch.” Depending on your taste threshold for whimsy, the forgoing will read either like subtitles for a French film or a late entry from Timothy Leary’s diary. Audience members at the Theatre@Boston Court, however, will recognize these lines as describing the set for a freewheeling investigation into the nature of romantic love, an evening of aphoristic conversation that is by turns poetic, operatic and silly. In other words, a play by Charles L. Mee.

Summertime, which premiered in 2000 at San Francisco’s Magic Theater, is another of the playwright-historian’s attempts to make sense of the senseless but often lifelong relationships that develop between men and women — and, here, between members of the same sex as well.

Nearly two years ago the Pacific Resident Theater scored a huge success with Mee’s Big Love, a boisterous retelling of Aeschylus’ The Suppliants set in modern Italy. In Summertime Mee eschews the Greeks, content to set the action in what looks like late-1950s Martha’s Vineyard. Scenic designer Tom Buderwitz plants some slender trees around a raked stage of distressed plank boards, with a row of umbrellas hovering high from the heavens. (He skips that grassy desk, however.) Costumer Scott L. Lane places the women in somewhat puffy pastels and the men in a look that might be called casual Good Friday…while Steven Young’s crepuscular lighting plot accentuates the titular season’s mood of lazy regret. By the time the “More” theme from Mondo Cane comes on, you half expect to be handed a whiskey sour.

Summertime is both easy and difficult to describe. Easy because there’s no plot, difficult because its slippery dialogues grapple with very real emotional issues over the course of two hours. James (Thomas Patrick Kelly) is trying to find a translator to caption photos for an Italian book that may or may not be about love. The more he discusses the project with a prospective interpreter, Tessa (Tessa Thompson), the deeper James falls for the young woman. Before he can articulate his feelings, though, a suave Frenchman, Francois (Bjørn Johnson), emerges from an armoire that until now had been quietly minding its own business upstage. (NB: This wardrobe will see a lot of action before the night is through.) He is the first intrusion upon James’ fumbling attempts to woo, but, even resplendent in St. Tropez white, the Frenchman’s will not be the most flamboyant. Soon after Francois’ arrival come Tessa’s Italian mother (Elizabeth Huffman), her former lesbian pal Mimi (Eileen T’Kaye), two gay men (Travis Michael Holder and Larry Reinhardt-Meyer) and an assortment of secondary characters, including an intimidating pizza deliveryman (Patrick Gallo) haunted by memories of a triple murder he committed.

Mee, who has endured polio since adolescence, is not known for writing scenarios in which people sit still and whisper their inner thoughts. Instead, his characters shout, dance, bounce, jump and roll their way to enlightenment, or at least to euphoria — in one memorable scene from bobrauschenbergamerica, a couple slip and slide through a giant martini that’s been poured onto the floor.

Summertime director Michael Michetti is attuned to the athletic rhythms of Mee’s vision and unleashes his cast accordingly, though he never allows the action to become a blurry free-for-all. His production likewise embodies the look and sound (thanks to John Zalewski’s flawless sound design) of what’s become the familiar Meescape — vaguely anachronistic, intuitively surreal — and gets strong support from a smart ensemble.

Last year Thompson, whose Tessa in some ways anchors Summertime, was a strong Juliet in Boston Court’s Romeo and Juliet: Antebellum New Orleans, 1836, and is likable enough in this far less substantial role. This production, however, gravitates to Johnson, whose Francois shows an impressive range of feelings and characterizations as he ricochets from clown to bed-weary traveler, delivering his philosophy (“You are born, you have one great love, you die”) like an existential Maurice Chevalier. Huffman also shines through as Tessa’s melodramatic mother, no more so than in one extended scene where she garrulously sings the praises of Tuscany.

Mee’s plays, with their soliloquy-like conversations, can be an actor’s dream as attention gets thrown from one character to the next. A man-hating tirade in Act 1 delivered by the earthy cook Barbara (Sandy Martin) is a veritable standup comedy routine — there’s no way this character will get lost in the shuffle…

SUMMERTIME | By CHARLES L. MEE | At Theater@Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena | Through July 11 | (626) 683-6883.

SUMMERTIME

The Theatre@Boston Court

Seldom will you see a production that is as captivating as the one being presented by the gifted cast and crew at The Theatre@BostonCourt.   Imagine a painter with many tubes of paint squeezing dabs of color onto a palette, and then mixing randomly to create new colors.  The wonderfully inventive playwright Chuck Mee literally squeezes his colorful characters onto the stage, allowing them to spread along the boards and blend into each other until the resulting canvass is no longer any of the original colors but a rich new mixture of characters that spring to life making their own world.  Set in Martha’s Vineyard, the surrealistic story cavorts playfully across from one personality to another, with director Michael Michetti drawing out little quirks and idiosyncrasies that give the characters a real sense of dimension.

While most stories are about love (and this one is), Chuck Mee’s take on the four-letter word is way different than what one usually expects.  There’s a boy meets girl – boy gets girl element - - - sort of, and while it’s thoroughly romantic, the characters seem to find love in spite of themselves. 

The airy, surrealistic gossamer-like background is perfect for the breezy comical antics of the characters.

We are not sure if Mee likes love or hates it, but his characters all have strong opinions about it and are not afraid to expound their ideas, sometimes eloquently, other times farcically but always with a believability that convinces you that what the one person said is true. 

Then you hear another one, and that story sounds true also!  We listen to their ideas, knowing they are comic spoofs but squirm a bit as an uncomfortable truth gets tossed at you here and there.

Any play where an armoire plays a leading role already has a special twist, and in this armoire, every time someone opens the doors, different things are displayed, from teakettles to dozens of wine glasses, to beautifully wrapped gifts.  The thing seems to have a mind of its own!  Early on the armoire doors fly open and out comes Francois, one of the most delightful characters ever on the stage.   As the name implies, this French type individual is heavy on romance, flamboyancy and opinions all of which are wonderfully brought to life by BjØrn Johnson, and with a name like Johnson, there’s some doubt that the man is French – but he’s great in the role! 

As any good Frenchman would, Francois immediately focuses on the lovely Tessa who happens to be in the middle of being clumsily wooed by James – a young man who has fallen head over heels in love with her.  .  This does not bother Francois, for he immediately whisks her away and the two perform a wonderful dance – not quite tango – not quite apache but visually exciting. Tessa Thompson and Thomas Patrick Kelly do a great job as the couple in progress, she inquisitive and curious, careful in every step and he too inept and inexperienced to do more than just babble as he ineptly attempts to gain her favor  

When other characters enter the scene, it becomes more like a playground for author Mee to explore the quirks of Tessa’s parents, the lovely Maria and the sort of complacent Frank. Elizabeth Huffman is bubbly and delightfully wanton as Frank’s wife who has been having an affair with Francois, but is smart enough to know where her bread is buttered. 

By contrast, you first think that Frank is not too bright, but Travis Michael Holder, who has never met a character he couldn’t conquer, gives Frank a comical – almost bumbling personae until he does a total 180 o with a surprise outburst that had the crowd cheering. 

Other characters expound their idea of love, from the foul-mouth cook who pounds a phallic shaped wad of dough as she vilifies men, to the pizza deliveryman who casually admits having murdered his sister and her family.  It may not make sense, but this is Chuck Mee, and his world is not always hinged at both ends.

After a terrific operatic aria duet between mother and daughter (on tape), a lesbian couple wanders in, searching for their “baby”, who turns out to be a 43 year old man into lipstick and threesomes.  He had earlier offered to marry both the mother and daughter at the same time, but his mommy drags him back home.  (thank goodness)

If you throw in Mimi the artist and her lover Natalie and Edmund, who is Frank’s secret lover, you have a whole lot of lovin’ going on.  No wonder poor Tessa is so confused that she wants no part of love.  But like most good stories, things sort of even up in the end, and the only one left with nobody to love is the armoire.  Although, there was a bed not too far away - - -

The full ensemble of cast members is comprised of Tessa Thompson, Thomas Patrick Kelly, BjØrn Johnson, Eileen T’Kaye, Elizabeth Huffman, Travis Michael Holder, Larry Reinhardt Meyer, Jeanne Sakata, Sandy Martin, Patrick Gallo, Jim Anzide, Zoe Cotton and Marcia deRousse.

The production continues through July 11 at Theatre@Boston Court

Reservations at (626) 683-6883.

Comments? Write to us at: Letters@ReviewPlays.com

The Theatre@Boston Court is the non-profit company that programs the new Boston Court performing arts complex at 70 North Mentor Ave, (at Boston Court), Pasadena, CA

CURTAIN UP

A CurtainUp Review Summertime By Jana J. Monji

There are moments of Charles L. Mee's Summertime that are light and breezy. But this Southern California premiere production under the direction of Michael Michetti doesn't quite avoid getting burned by the intellectual heat of wild tangents shooting here and there, scattered like a large mass of unrelated people who just happen to be sitting on the beach on the same day at the same time.

… For reasons too convoluted for a quick summary, James (Thomas Patrick Kelly) asks Tessa (Tessa Thompson) to translate some English into Italian. Suffice it to say that he falls in love with her but she brings some baggage to the relationship -- notably, Francois (Bjorn Johnson), a Frenchman who, in one of the production's more magical moments, dances a little with her and gives her a slip dress.

There are numerous other relationship tangles to help Mee explore the variations of love and its vagaries…

A pizza deliveryman (Patrick Gallo) lends a threatening note, like the looming shadow of danger from a slasher movie…

Director Michetti allows his actors to plunge wholeheartedly into these angry black moods so that they appear even more out of whack with the sweet, romantic moments…

As in Big Love, there's a lot of body flailing, though not quite as gymnastic as productions I've seen of Big Love (Humana Fest and the Venice Beach Pacific Resident Theatre company) or for as long. At the end of the first act, the actors form a sort of Greek chorus between flinging their bodies to the ground…

Tom Buderwitz's whimsical set has tall, leafless slender tree trunks. These stretch upwards to be filled out at the ceiling with patterned, green umbrellas substituting for foliage. Halfway back on stage left is a wondrous armoire that opens to allow the entrance and exit of people as well as the presentation of new stage props such as present boxes filled with lingerie-like dresses.

If you saw Mee's Big Love, The dress lithesome Tessa (Tessa Thompson) slips into won't be a surprise to anyone who saw. Big Love with its abundance Victoria Secret style lingerie on display. Here, only Tessa disrobes to display lacy underthings…

SUMMERTIME Playwright: Charles L. Mee Director: Michael Michetti Cast: Tessa Thompson (Tessa), Thomas Patrick Kelly (James), Bjorn Johnson (Francois), Eileen T'Kaye (Mimi), Elizabeth Huffman (Maria), Travis Michael Holder (Frank), Larry Reinhardt-Meyer (Edmund), Jeanne Sakata (Natalie), Sandy Martin (Barbara), Patrick Gallo (Bob), Jim Anzide (Gunter), Zoe Cotton (Bertha), Marcia deRousse (Hilda). Set Design: Tom Buderwitz Costume Design: Scott L. Lane Sound Design: John Zalewski Running time: 2 hours and 20 minutes, with one 15minute intermission Running dates: June 5-July 11, 2004.

Summertime, The Boston Court Theatre, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. (626) 683-6883. www.bostoncourt.com. Reviewed by Jana J.

Summertime (Theater at Boston Court, Los Angeles; 99 seats; $30 top) A Theater at Boston Court presentation of a play in two acts by Charles L. Mee. Directed by Michael Michetti. Tessa - Tessa Thompson James - Thomas Patrick Kelly Francois - Bjorn Johnson Mimi - Eileen T'Kaye Maria - Elizabeth Huffman Frank - Travis Michael Holder Edmund - Larry Reinhardt-Meyer Natalie - Jeanne Sakata Barbara - Sandy Martin Bob - Patrick Gallo Gunter - Jim Anzide Bertha - Zoe Cotton Hilda - Marcia deRousse

By JOEL HIRSCHHORN

Charles Mee, author of "Wintertime," "Big Love" and "First Love," has said, "I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable. My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges." "Summertime," a Southern California premiere, is a prime example of Mee's playwriting method, a wild essay on the marvels and messiness of love. An over-the-top tale like this needs a director with instinctive feeling for screwball comedy, and Michael Michetti knows exactly when to pump up the action to operatic heights and when to pull back and let his eccentric characters express their innermost emotions.

Michetti starts on a relatively calm note when introducing youthful James (Thomas Patrick Kelly) to Tessa (Tessa Thompson). James' appealingly clumsy efforts to connect with Tessa are interrupted by fearlessly romantic Francois (Bjorn Johnson), who whisks Tessa off into a spectacular dance -choreographed with rapturous abandon by Kitty McNamee. The gauche James soon learns that Francois is the lover of Tessa's mother, Maria (Elizabeth Huffman); her dad, Frank (Travis Michael Holder), while still married to Maria, is involved with Edmund (Larry Reinhardt-Meyer), a humorously uptight individual who wants Frank to make a clear commitment to boyfriend or wife.

As these characters blunder, betray each other, bond and break apart, the show hits one comic high after another. Sometimes the jokes are dry, as when lesbian Natalie (Jeanne Sakata) declares her frenzied, fiery passion for former lover Mimi (Eileen T'Kaye) and Mimi comments, "It was a casual thing."

But when Michetti and company decide to be physical, they let it all hang out. Maria's tirade against faithless Francois propels him into pushing her away, placing his foot on her breasts and doing a mock imitation of murdering her, an exhibition that makes us laugh and also understand how frustrating possessive love can become.

Aided by Scott L. Lane's gloriously grotesque costumes and Tom Buderwitz's set of trees topped by green umbrellas, the first act moves like lightning, and despite the script's multiple characters, it's easy to identify and respond to their conflicts.

(There are)…a gallery of exceptional portrayals. Johnson externalizes every aspect of Francois, from self-dramatization and sexual hunger to perpetual immaturity. Holder's Frank performs with contrasting warmth and gentleness, holding spectators spellbound with a long and difficult speech about love's ephemeral nature. As explosively passionate Maria, Huffman is a hilarious amalgam of every robust diva seen on opera stages, and Sakata supplies a hell-raising turn as the sexually voracious Natalie. In a small role, Jim Anzide dominates his scenes as Gunter, an unrestrained manchild with physical lust for both Maria and daughter Tessa.

…Playwright Mee has the sense to end his scrambled saga with conventional closure and delicacy -- as the two lovers who open the production, James and Tessa, claim the stage alone, dance quietly and prove, by their acceptance of each other, that true love and romance can triumph.

Sets, Tom Buderwitz; costumes, Scott L. Lane; lighting, Steven Young; sound, John Zalewski; choreography, Kitty McNamee; stage manager, Katie Ailinger. Opened and reviewed June 5, 2004; closes July 11. Running time: 2 HOURS, 15 MIN.