A Lie of the Mind – Theater Review by Frank C. Siraguso

Powerful performances propel Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind at KC Actors Theatre

Brian Paulette as Jake

Brian Paulette as Jake; photo: Mike Tsai/KCAT

Sam Shepard’s 1985 A Lie of the Mind explores relationships and the differences between men and women. He speculates about men being loners spending hours in a freezing deer blind and women who can wait for men’s return and the fact that people persist in love at all. At its heart, Shepard says love can endure the most horrendous abuse, until it breaks.

Director Cinnamon Schultz hardly lets us catch our breath from the explosive opening of Jake (Brian Paulette) banging the receiver on the pay phone to the very end three-and-a-half hours later. Once again, Jake has beaten his wife, Beth (Christina Schafer), but this time thinks he has killed her. He is calling his brother, Frankie (Jake Walker), for help. When they meet up, Frankie thinks maybe Beth is not dead because she lived through it the last time. Jake goes off on him, accusing Frankie of conspiring against him with Beth, with their mother, Lorraine (Merle Moores), and sister, Sally (Hillary Clemens), and even of maybe being in love with Beth himself. (more…)

The Book of Mormon, review by Frank C. Siraguso

You’ve heard about it, you’ve read about it, now here’s your chance to see the smash musical, The Book of Mormon live in living color at The Music Hall.

If nothing else, The Book of Mormon reminded me how lucky I am to live in the Garden of Eden, right here in Jackson County, Missouri! Actually, there’s a whole lot more.

Trigger warning: the language is course and some dance scenes are X-rated. The musical tells the story of two 19-year-old Mormon men, Elder Price (the amazing Gabe Gibbs, from the Broadway company) and Elder Cunningham, played opening night by standby Chad Burris, who managed to steal a good deal of the show. Paired for their two-year mission, the slim, trim Price, ambitious and shallow, and Cunningham, fat and prone to lying, learn their assignment is not to France, Japan or any other cool location. They’re headed for Uganda. Price is crushed: he yearns for Orlando, Florida, with its palm trees and Mouse World. Cunningham is clueless. (more…)

Vote, Don’t Drop

Dave and the Fish Church

Election 2016 is proving to be weirder than any in living memory. I am not impartial, fair or balanced about the outcome. I’m for Hillary, not Trump. Some think Hillary has it in the bag but I offer this cautionary tale about an election long ago that reverberates to this day. This is a true story. The subject is still alive and well, living somewhere on the West Coast. The moral of the story is simple: Unless you actually get out and vote (dammit), any bitching and moaning you do is pointless.

St. Anthony

The Temptation of Saint Anthony

It was 1972, and Senator George McGovern was running against Richard Nixon, the incumbent president. I had just turned 21 and this was the first year that I was eligible to vote. (more…)

Evita – Theater Review by Frank C. Siraguso

The Rep’s Evita is a splashy, sassy production the real Evita could appreciate

Evita and Che

Eva (Jenny Ashman) & Che (Mauricio Martinez) KC Rep photo

If you, like me, don’t know anything about Eva Peron (May 7, 1919-July 26, 1952), thought to be born Eva María Ibarguren, who became the wife of president and strongman Juan Peron, don’t worry. You won’t have to. And if the music and narrative songs sometimes sound like vintage 1978, it is. But Rep Artistic Director Eric Rosen’s direction, the great cast, and the live orchestra deliver an energetic Broadway-style musical with terrific vocals, dancing and music. (more…)

Our Town – Theater Review by Frank C. Siraguso

At Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of Our Town, for one brief evening, we were all residents of Grover’s Corners.

Thornton Wilder’s play is about small-town life in New Hampshire in the early 1900s. Nothing terribly exciting happens. The sun comes up, goes down, it’s a nice day. People go about their business. That’s the measured rhythm of life in Grover’s Corners. People in Grover’s Corners don’t exhibit much emotion, unless you pay attention and listen between the lines. (more…)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Theater Review by Frank C. Siraguso

The Kansas City Actors Theatre production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead examines the truth or folly of self-determination and the isolation of existence.

Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is Shakespeare’s Hamlet seen from the viewpoint of two minor characters. Instead of seeing only their few quick scenes in Hamlet, we see the lives of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they do: a continuum that includes the scenes with Hamlet, Claudius, et al.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hamlet are in rotating repertory. They use the same actors, set and costumes, providing excellent continuity for those who see both plays. (more…)

Hamlet – Theater Review by Frank C. Siraguso

Theater review by Frank C. Siraguso

Directed by Mark Robbins with a great cast, the Kansas City Actors Theatre  production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is timeless yet modern, dark with foreboding undercurrents of mayhem and danger.

(Hamlet is playing in rotating repertory with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, based on two characters in Hamlet, directed by Richard Esvang.)

Murder most foul

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is about actions and their unintended consequences. Prince Hamlet (an extremely agitated Jake Walker) is grieving for his late father, King Hamlet, who died unexpectedly. Hamlet then sees the ghost of his father, who tells him he was murdered, poisoned by Claudius (an edgy Scott Cordes). The ghost exhorts Hamlet to avenge the murder. (more…)

Mint manifesto

I like mint. I like chocolate. I don’t especially like the two together.

MintAfter some pondering, I think the reason is that mint has a cool taste and chocolate has a warm taste. They cancel each other out into a muddled sensation where neither flavor stands out.

I guess I’m just a purist for some foods. Although I like Mexican food and barbecue, I would never eat a Mexican pizza or a barbecue pizza. Nor would I eat an Italian taco, with meatballs and spaghetti sauce. Some restaurants think it’s cool to put hakusai – Napa cabbage to gaijins – on salmon or mahi-mahi burgers. Raw hakusai on a sammy is a bad idea. (You could grill it first.)

Barbara, my barber, keeps a tin of chocolates on her workstation, by the mirror on the counter. Clients can get a choco fix while getting clipped. Sometimes she has leftover Halloween candy, sometimes individually wrapped morsels like Reese’s or Hershey’s Kisses or miniatures, but most often it’s M&M’s – plain or peanut. Barb doesn’t care how much we eat. “That keeps me from eating all of them,” she says.

At my appointment last Saturday there were lots of large green M&M’s in the tin. I ate one, the first of several. The cool taste of mint, followed by chocolate, filled my head. Like Proust’s madeleine, it caused a flood of memories. (more…)

Nixon resigns – 40 years ago today

I remember exactly where I was Thursday, August 8, 1974, the night Richard Nixon announced his impending resignation

NixonI and a friend were glued to the radio in his car, parked outside the house where our band was practicing. Band practice or not, Nixon’s speech was not to be missed. Not all the band members felt that way.

Things had not been going well for Nixon that summer. The Watergate scandal was closing in on him but the embattled president clung to power, stonewalling to the bitter end. Finally, on August 8 we learned that he would address the nation that evening, 8 p.m. Central time. Lee, the band’s drummer and my best friend (I was the bass player), and I knew we’d be at practice but planned to listen on the radio if nothing else. (more…)

The Burglary – book report

The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI

The BurglaryOn the night of Monday, March 8, 1971, Muhammad Ali challenged Joe Frazier for the world heavyweight championship in the Fight of the Century at Madison Square Garden in New York City. While the whole world was distracted by the fight, the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania.

They took every file in the office, sight unseen, and carted them off to a secluded farmhouse for review. The Committee’s purpose was to determine whether the FBI was illegally – unconstitutionally – suppressing citizens’ right to dissent. For all the group members knew, they risked everything for what may have been worthless paperwork.

Frazier beat Ali. The eight burglars were never caught. Ever. What they and, subsequently, the nation, learned was shocking. (more…)