CLICK ON PLAY FOR INFO ABOUT THAT PLAY
| Cockroach EXIT Theatre SATURDAY OCT 3rd 8:30pm |
by Martin Schwartz/Margery Fairchild PERFORMANCE ART, MATURE CONTENT, COARSE LANGUAGE, NUDITY, NOT FOR CHILDREN |
Shards of broken glass on a deserted block in the warehouse district. Inscrutable, acrobatic beings that cover a lonely man's body in red brushstrokes. A soft-spoken disciplinarian who seems to show up everywhere. In COCKROACH, the weird poetics of Martin Schwartz's texts react with the volatile physicality of Margery Fairchild's choreography and mise-en-scene to create a vision of contemporary urban life that is as exhilaratingly theatrical as it is unsettling. A virtuosic performance from Nathan Tucker as a man mistreated by fate beats at the center of this chilling hybrid-theatre exploration of the missing pieces of everyday life.
Martin Schwartz (Writer) Martin came to the theatre as a means of uniting two of his great loves: literature and physical reality. Martin joined Margery Fairchild to become the other half of Dark Porch Theatre this year, and jumped right in as assistant director, dramaturg, script editor, and other roles for the The In Betweens. Locally, he has contributed dramaturgy to several American Conservatory Theater mainstage productions, including Hedda Gabler, After the War, Blackbird, and The Rainmaker, and served as a.d./dramaturg for No Nude Men's The Monk. His theatre program Turn of the Century, a free, critical dialogue with texts of a hundred years ago, was recently broadcast live on Pirate Cat Radio's "Fade Out Theatre."
Margery Fairchild (Director/Choreographer) Margery Fairchild (writer/director/choreographer) As the artistic director of Dark Porch Theatre, Ms. Fairchild has staged such original works as The Whipping Hand (Portland, Oregon, '02), Les Petites Rats (Portland, '03), Hen!! (NohSpace, '05), and Under the Bed...A Fairytale Set In Purgatory (The Garage, '07). She has made regular appearances with No Nude Men, performing the roles of Phyllis Nergal in Love, Ego's and Alternative Rock, Susan in The Exiled, Panope in Phaedra, Kathrine in Love's Labour's Lost, Chantal in Troijka, Angelina in Six Short Episodes In The Life of Sacagawea, and Antonia in The Monk. She has also performed with Elastic Future, Last Planet Theatre (as Louise in The Old Women), and with the Thrillpeddlers in London's Grand Guignol. Ms. Fairchild is also a choreographer and dancer for the experimental performance band Borts Minorts, a member of the buffooning burlesque troop Fou Fou Ha! and a consulting director for SF Boylesque. Her play, with Martin Schwartz, The In Betweens, was a a sold-out phenomenon at Exit Stage Left this past May.
Actor Nathan Tucker is a Dark Porch veteran, having appeared as in The In-Betweens and in Under the Bed: A Fairytale Set in Purgatory. Nathan's other acting credits include No Nude Men Production's The Monk and Learning From Hilde's Mistakes, Thunderbird Theatre Company's Serve By Expiration I & II, Aaah! Rosebud, Release the Kraken and he has also made appearances on Pirate Cat Radio 87.9fm's Fade Out Theater. In his spare time Mr. Tucker enjoys ice cream and pie.
REVIEWS:
THE IN BETWEENS
SFWEEKLY (starred): The In-Betweens. Dark Porch Theatre was formed as a dance-and-movementbased company in Portland, Oregon, and then moved to the Bay Area to focus on acting. This explains the dramatic dual nature of this ambitious original script and production, set in 1885. The first act is a solidly performed Agatha Christieesque whodunit. Steel tycoon and occult aficionado Silas Danforth (Stuart Bousel) invites guests (each bringing a secret agenda) to his mansion for a spiritual and completely fake séance led by the hilarious and bumbling Professor M (Christopher P. Kelly). Act two turns the production's setting and style completely on its head, transporting the characters to an in-between world that feels like a cross between Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Sartre's No Exit. The fabulous costumes (designed by Cara Samski) morph from Industrial Age finery to all-white linen and lace as the characters are reborn into their truest forms (one becomes Pan, another Narcissus). The second act is a musical with skilled singing and dancing and a haunting score composed and performed live by the talented Ryan Beebee with four other musicians. Writer and director Margery Fairchild spices the plot with references to theosophy, murder, women's rights, and even an actual Pandora's box. It's ambitious, perhaps too much so, but a lovely hybrid of dream, dance, and theater.
SFBG (starred): *The In Betweens EXIT Stage Left With certain distant echoes of 2007's insouciant underworld hilarity Under the Bed, Dark Porch Theatre's latest original play is an intricately wrought, blithely spirited mesh of well-executed dramedy, occult history, music, dance and whimsy. Spoiler alert: Also contains wood nymphs. That's in act two, wherein the society formerly assembled in the parlor of arrogant 19th-century steel magnate Silas Danforth (a slow to burn but ultimately winning Stuart Bousel), for a secretly agenda-driven séance under direction of spirit vessel and general tool Professor M (a wonderfully camp Christopher P. Kelly), find themselves mysteriously transferred and transformed, prancing about some sylvan In Between world where true natures make themselves known, not least in catchy song and dance numbers. In fact, all agendas among the fractious set of upstarts, Christian socialists, black widows, and servants-including butler Lawrence (a wonderfully razor sharp Nathan Tucker)-make themselves known and/or useless in this purgatorial heaven. Artistic director Margery Fairchild, capably assisted by dramaturge and codirector Martin Schwartz, crafts an appealingly fanciful tale grounded in the socio-political strains and fashions of the time, but with the good sense not to take itself too seriously. Then again, her eclectic songs (cowritten with Ryan Beebe, leading an ensemble of musicians stage right), aptly florid choreography, and charming cast can come together, amid a choice shoestring scenic design, for some seriously glorious moments.