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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > April > 06
Monday, April 6, 2009
Review: ‘Common Ground’
“Common Ground” is not a subtle play. Characters say what’s on their mind, act on their impulses, and put down wild dogs when they need to illustrate their own, potentially irreversible, failure as moral human beings. But in the space between unnaturally open dialogue and descriptions that don’t fly quite high enough to justify their artifice, Pro Arts Collective finds moments of full-force emotion and sentiment that are unmistakably powerful.
Writer Antoinette Winstead tells an old story of two brothers, but in this case the prodigal has stayed home with a knee injury while the paragon followed the Air Force to Vietnam. The particular moment in history doesn’t much affect the story, though. The bitter, almost-was rodeo star competing with his successful hero of a brother for the love of a made-to-order family could slot into most settings. The ‘60s schmaltz of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” just adds an extra punch.
Luke has, to the tune of the old standard, returned from his tour unannounced and ready to move his family away from the home where his brother and mother have provided for them in his absence. Brother James, through a mix of sincere emotion and a need to compete, is unwilling to give up his role as patriarch. As that becomes clearer and Luke must find a space for himself, the Christmas-card portrait dissolves.
Unfortunately, the characters aren’t much more nuanced than those of the parable. Descriptions and judgments fly thick in the play’sclimax, but there’s not much opportunity for us to see characters live up to those roles. Instead, we see more of the happy family—tickle fights and cookies that don’t advance the plot—and then abrupt switches into adultery and shouting.
The benefit of the no-pretense, low-subtext style is that each emotion is heightened. When Aaron Alexander’s Luke is angry, he is furiously so. When Robbie Ann Darby as the wife is conflicted between love and duty, she is poignantly so. When LeVan Owens as James sulks or dawdles his makeshift daughter on his leg, it’s wrenchingly bitter.
I was once told that if you simply take each of Shakespeare’s line at face value, the emotion and transitions come through as sudden and intense as a shotgun blast. But Shakespeare’s language is heightened by poetry. Winstead’s is straddling the fence between natural and plain. We’re given a collection of actors who can wring anger or tenderness from those lines, but the effect comes largely from the basic plot and their strength of emotion.
One perfect marriage is between Feliz McDonald and the part of Rosa Young. As a boozy, effervescent b-girl, she struts, shrieks, and snaps with impunity and lack of perception of the larger situation—a regular fool—and draws loud laughs with each step across the stage. As a scorned woman drawn into the dysfunctional family, she knows more than she lets on, until it’s time for a pointed reveal.
All that emotion makes for a powerful climax, though it’s muted by moralizing and a need to suddenly show a tender side to relationships with no introduction. Regardless, the blow-ups and confessions can’t compete with smaller, quieter moments. Taking a break from explaining his thoughts, Luke simply does. As the rest of the family gathers at the table, Aaron Alexander stood in the back of the stage and idly fingered a branch of the Christmas tree, looking in from the outside of a 2-year tour abroad.
Blunt honesty is powerful, but those hidden moments are the real Christmas gifts.
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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Review: Round Rock Symphony Orchestra, take 2
Saturday night, the Round Rock Symphony Orchestra, in its only second show, gave a much more polished performance than its debut in October.
The first of two performances, Saturday’s concert attracted more than 100 folks. And interestingly, it was in North Austin, at Westover Hills Church of Christ. Sunday, the RRSO played Round Rock.
Music director Silas Nathaniel Huff took an interesting approach for a new, suburban orchestra, presenting a program of two new works bookended by romantic symphonic staples.
Bringing panache to Saturday’s concert was guest soloist, violinist Jessica Mathaes, concertmistress of the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Mathaes played the premiere of Manly Romero’s “Remember Father.” Mathaes wrested a great deal of nuance form Romero’s intricate, repeating layers that built interesting into a tense height before exhaling with a mournful sigh.
Allen Schulz’s “This Day, This Dusk,” employed predictable contrasts between violent, melodies that were then balanced against lighter passages. In the end, the piece felt weary, not exhilarating.
Surrounding the Romero and Schulz were Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet’ Overture and Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ suite — both about as markedly un-modern as the two center pieces. Huff has got the orchestra sounding a bit tighter and smoother than its shaky debut even if all the awkward edges are not totally worked out. And confidence and cohesion still needs to grow.
And yet, an orchestra attempts to grow for Round Rock, and that’s just fine.
