Ashleigh Ann Gardner – Analog Artist Digital World

CFC Arts presents The Lion in Winter written by James Goldman. The play depicted the personal and political conflicts of King Henry II (David Lowe) his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, (Robin Olson) their children and their guests during Christmas 1183. Eleanor was imprisoned since 1173 but now she was home for the holidays. The gamesmanship between Eleanor and the king was such a delight to watch. Though they were always at odds there was a long standing deep rooted affection between them.

The story concerns the gamesmanship between Henry, his wife Eleanor, their three surviving sons Richard (Chris Fahmie), Geoffrey (Landon St. Gordon), and John (Jake Teixeira), and their Christmas Court guest, the King of France, Philip II (Cole Nesmith). Alais (Ashleigh-Ann Gardner) was Philip’s half-sister, who was at court since she was betrothed to Richard at age eight, but had since become Henry’s mistress. The king had many mistresses and many bastard sons.

King Henry needed an heir and Eleanor favored Richard who seemed the most likely candidate since he was a much a war hawk as his father. He was easily the strongest and toughest of the three sons. Despite this, Henry favored his youngest, rather spoiled son John. All three sons were just pawns in Henry and Elanor’s ceaseless scheming against one another.

Eleanor tended to dominate every scene she was in. She had a fiery temperament, and great authority and presence. Intellectually she seemed to run circles around the domineering Henry. Since all three sons seemed unworthy of being king, the fair Alais rose in the kings eyes as the possible mother of future heirs. Facing the possibility of being queen, she had to make demands and do battle with the tempestuous king. She didn’t seem as much up to the task as Eleanor.

The bottom line is that this play was an absolute delight. Alliances and enemies pivoted on a dime. Battles were as much over family love and acceptance as power and kingdoms.

The final performances are:

Sunday, February 2 – 3:00

Monday, February 3 – 7:30pm (Discount Night)

Tickets are:

$25 Premium Seating (Includes seating in the first 3 rows of the theatre and a complimentary concession item)

$18 Standard Reserved Seatin

$15 Discount Night (All Seats)

Space, written and directed by Cory Volence and produced by Hubris Theater Company and the Dark Side of Saturn is a hard hitting psycho drama set in the confines of a colony ship on a 15 year mission to establish biological life on a distant planet. In the pre-show, crew members described their feelings about the mission in a promotional video. Their accounts are idealized visions of a future of possibilities.

The show opens with Chief engineer Hightower (Trini Kirtsey) in a spacesuit unable to get back into the spacecraft. The heated debate about the risks of letting him back in, sets the stage for seeing Commander Copeland (Chaz Krivan) as a power hungry despot. The commander is married to Science officer Chesky (Ashleigh Ann Gardner). She is pregnant and the commander is pleased that his family name will live on.

Living together on a tiny tin can of a ship has the crew on edge and at each others throats. The commander treats his wife like he does the crew with authoritarian disrespect. When Chesky visits Medical officer Novak (Brenna Arden), the doctor shows concern and the women kiss, free of any male domineering. The doctor herself is troubled with dreams of suicide.

A video diary station allows crew members to express their true feelings although they often have to erase their entries from the ships official record. The videos are projected on the large screen at the back of the stage allowing the audience to see jumbo tron sized close ups of the crew members faces. Dark circles show the increasing stress of living in confined close quarters with crew members who all hate each other. The crew members were all trained to perform one specialized roll on the mission. There was no cross training. That makes every member of the crew indispensable. That makes if difficult, when crew members truly want to kill each other.

I loved the show. The dark vacuum of space is nothing compared to the darkness found in the heart of a human soul. A special shout out to Chaz Kriran and Ashleigh Ann Gardner, who gave particularly noteworthy performances.