Dinner with Friends shakes up the Mad Cow Theater.

Posted on by Thor

Mad Cow Theater (54 W Church St, Orlando, Fl) presents Donald Margulies‘ Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Dinner
with Friends which travels through space and time to paint two pictures of
contemporary marriage. Gabe (Brian Brightman) and Karen (Ame Livingston) are happily married while their
friends Tom (Cameron Francis) and Beth (Becky Eck) are on the verge of divorce. As Tom and Beth fight
for the support of their seemingly happy counterparts, Gabe and Karen
begin to question the stability of their own relationship. A portrait of
interconnected love and loss, Dinner with Friends
beautifully depicts the burdens we build out of our most intimate
relationships.

In the opening scene, Beth is having dinner with Gabe and Karen who are the consummate hosts. They are undeniably foodies who prepared a delicious Italian dinner. One chair remained mysteriously empty. When they moved to the living room, Beth broke into tears confiding that Tom was going to leave her. Unfortunately I couldn’t see the revelation because it was staged in a corner of the set that I couldn’t see.

Tom was leaving Beth because he met a travel agent and
fell in love. 12 years of marriage and children were a thought of the
past. When a flight is canceled he returned home to Beth and they have a
huge fight. He was furious that Beth told their friends about the looming divorce he wanted to tell them the news as a couple. He never actually believed in Beth’s artistic talents and
he let her know this in his rage. This fight almost escalated to blows
but then, in the midst of their fury, they kissed and fell into bed
while ripping off each others clothes.

The next act flashed back to Martha’s Vinyard where Gabe and Karen introduced Tom to Beth. I identified with Beth since she was an artist. I was rather surprised that she refused to show Tom her sketchbook. Why create art if you aren’t willing to share it? When I was first dating Terry, I showed her my sketches, but when she asked for one to keep, I refused. That surprised her, but I am a professional. You don’t give it away when you know what it is worth.

Beth quickly met another man and is ready for another committed relationship. Karen thinks this is a bad idea, feeling that Beth might be better of taking time to be alone. This results in a fight between friends. Beth feels that Karen always wants her to be an emotional mess. The men have a similar fall out since Gabe can’t understand how Tom could throw away 12 years of marriage. Tom confided that he did a test to see how often Beth touched him. Hy realized he never experienced her touch unless he initiated the embrace. Gabe and Karen start experiencing trouble and examine their own marriage. Karen shares a dream and Gabe doesn’t share enough of himself when they talk about it. “I need you to talk to me!” she shouts at him.

Directed by Denise Gillman, the play is an emotional roller coaster. One couple seemed so much happier when they separate but hope remained that the other couple can remain committed.  They cling to each other as if abandoned in a life raft in a raging sea. As I left the theater I had to wait as a woman hugged all her friend in my row. I was the only person in the row that wasn’t one of her friends. “You want a hug as well?” She asked me. “Sure” I replied, laughing as I opened my arms. I probably flushed as we embraced, but darn it, I needed that hug.

Mad Cow Theater 54 W Church St, Orlando, Fl

Zehngebot-Stonerock Theatre  (Mad Cow Black Box)

Dinner With Friends runs June 19 – July 19
Thursdays – Saturdays at 8:00pm
Sundays at 3:00pm

Special Discount Performances on Saturday, July 4 (6:30pm) and Wednesday, July 15 (8:00pm)

The Explorer’s Club sweeps into the Mad Cow with hilarity.

Posted on by Thor

While walking downtown to go to The Explorer’s Club dress rehearsal at the Mad Cow Theatre, I saw a fun run poster that announced, “We bring the hilarity to charity.” This predicted the tone for the entire evening. Perhaps a dozen people sat in the audience for the dress rehearsal. Written by Nell Benjamin the show runs from January 22 through February 22.  The comedic farce debuted in NYC’s off-Broadway in 2013.

It’s a crisis in 1879 London when the members of the prestigious Explorers Club are threatened by the potential membership of…a woman! Eric Pinder as botanist Lucius Fertway is responsible for nominating the woman, who is the accomplished explorer, prim and proper Phyllida Spotte-Hume played by Heather Leonardi . She’s made an in-depth study, “NaKong Tribe of the Lost City of Pahatlabong,”.  “They have hunted nearly all the animals to extinction,” she reports,
“and are forced to subsist on a jerky made of toad. The toad is
poisonous. But most of the poison boils off when the toad is poached in
urine.”she explained. The club members are all quite impressed, but Professor Sloane (Glenn Gover), a religious fanatic, sticks his nose in the air proclaiming her discoveries are fine but she is a woman and there has never been a woman in the Explorer’s Club. When the men retire for cigars and sherry she is told she would have to wait outside.

Glen Glover, Simon Needham and Eric Pinder were all members of the cast at Walt Disney World’s Adventurers Club. This was one of my favorite spots to visit when I used to work for Disney Feature Animation. The club was crowded with objects that were found from around the world. One huge mask on the wall used to make comments about patrons at the bar. Unfortunately, the Club was closed in 2008, along with all the other nightclubs in favor of retail stores
and restaurants. When I saw the set in the Mad Cow by William Elliott, memories flooded back. The gazelles and masks in this club however remained sadly mute.

It turns out that Lucius has nominated the petite Phyllida because he has a crush on her. He went so far as to name an exotic flower after her. That attraction is mutual, but Club President Harry Percy (Simon Needham) decides that he is the brainless hulk of a man that Phyllida deserves. Although Phyllida confides in Lucius, Harry is sure that his swagger will win her over. She has brought back a member of the lost tribe who she has named Luigi (Ryan Gigliotti). He is covered in blue paint and has the annoying habit of slapping people in the face as a form of introduction. When he is brought before the queen of England, all hell breaks loose when he slaps her as well. Hilarity ensues as the intrepid explorers try to return God and country to normalcy. In their eyes, science will always win.

The director David Russell was seated a few rows behind me with his laptop. After the show he encouraged the cast to push the envelope in exploring the quirky lunacy of their parts. He seemed a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more laughter from the audience. Since there were only a few people in the test audience, the sparse laughter was understandable. When there is a full house the story could be quite different. As a disguise, Luigi posed as the club’s bartender. He mixed drinks using liquored of every imaginable color with no regard to a recipe. To serve the drink, he would shout, “Your drink sah!” and slide it quickly off the bar top. Club members had to dive to keep the drinks from crashing to the floor. David encouraged the players to avoid playing it safe. It a drink crashed to the floor it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I was seated in the front row and there were moments when I thought I might be in the splash zone.

“The Explorers Club”

• What: A comedy by Nell Benjamin

• Where: Mad Cow Theatre, 54 W. Church St., Orlando

• When: Opens Friday, Jan. 23; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and two Mondays, Feb. 2 and 9; 2:30 p.m. Sundays; through Feb. 22

• Cost: $24.25-$36.75; $17 on Mondays

• Call: 407-297-8788

• Online: madcowtheatre.com

The History Boys at The Mad Cow Theater

Posted on by Thor

On August 5th, I went to a dress rehearsal of The History Boys, written by Alan Bennett, at The Mad Cow Theater.  This show, directed by Mark Edward Smith was quick witted and fast paced. The school bells rang with incessant frequency causing the boys to cascade and rush like waves hitting a beach.  I grew flustered, trying to catch then all in one place. Philip Nolen, gave a memorable performance as the boys’ unorthodox history teacher. Philip kept the boys and audience laughing while making them think. He would playfully swat a student if he wasn’t keeping up with the playful banter. The boys would protest but they didn’t mind. One admitted he was a bit hurt that he wasn’t swatted. It meant the teacher didn’t like him.

One boy described his date with a girl as if he was recreating a historic battle. Adolescent sexual yearnings were fodder for playful humor. I came to admire the teacher’s closed door tactics until he was found guilty of inappropriately touching a boy.  It suddenly seemed that the all boy’s school was bubbling over with homosexuality. A young teacher, Peter Travis, joins the school staff and he challenges the view of history as entertainment. he prepares the unruly handful of senior
schoolboys, for coveted places at either Oxford or Cambridge by making them challenge historic fact. Everyone at an Ivy league school knows the boring facts. They want to see someone think outside the box. The boys were encouraged to challenge conventions and therefor  they not
only learned historic fact but they understood its motives and meaning. I was a bit put off by this teacher’s view that any student who didn’t get good grades could always go into the arts.

When the older teacher is about to be expelled, he breaks down in class, lamenting the years he wasted teaching the same material again and again. It is the first time the students got to see him as a flawed man rather than a clown. Everyone seems to want to sweep his indiscretion under the rug except for the school administrator played by Tommy Keesling. The very purpose of education seemed overshadowed by the chaos of adolescence. The play write turns a blind eye to the harm done from lost trust. The one boy who didn’t play along in classroom games got accepted into his chosen Ivy league school not because of what he learned from history, but from his family connections.

 The History Boys plays Thursdays – Sundays, Aug 8 – Sept 7, 2014 in The Harriett Theatre.
Curtain time is 7:30pm for all evening performances and 2:30pm for all matinees. Tickets start at $28.25.

 The History Boys

• What: A comedy-drama by Alan Bennett

• Length: 2:40, including intermission

• Where: Mad Cow Theatre, 54 W. Church St., Orlando

• When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, through Sept. 7

• Tickets: $28.25 and higher

• Call: 407-297-8788

• Online: madcowtheatre.com