My Play “The Turkey Men” Is a Hit!
Well,
it’s happened! “The Turkey Men” has opened
and the reviews are in. The biggest one
is from the Columbus Dispatch, and it is reprinted below. Other online reviews are similar.
On Facebook playwright Jonathan Hole said:
On
October 17th Sheldon Gleisser posted this:
Saw Evolution Theatre's production
of "The Turkey Men" last night.
"The Turkey Men" is an
original work by local playwright Douglas Whaley. It's about a young woman,
Logan Hendricks (Fia Friend) taken against her will (with her parent's
consent!) to an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. There, a couple of
Christian "de-programmers," Micah and Bethany (Jonathan Putnam and
Lori Cannon) attempt to turn her same-sex attraction to sanctified
heterosexuality.
But the farmhouse is not entirely
uninhabited. Alex and Webster (Ross Shirley and James Harper), two gay men in a
very committed relationship, have been there for quite some time. I mean like,
since the Civil War? They aren't ghosts, at least not exactly, but they do
haunt the place very much, and not in a nice way, at least not for Micah and
Bethany.
As Alex and Webster, Ross Shirley
and James Harper are as easy and comfortable with each other as a pair of old
shoes. They have our sympathies right from the get-go with their wry senses of
humor and obvious ease with one another, both amazed at those new-fangled
electric lights.
As Logan, Fia Friend is at once
sympathetic, as befits someone who spends most of the story tied, chained, and
shock-collared. She grows more endearing as the story goes on, showing both
spunk and vulnerability, the lesbian daughter you wish you had.
It's possible that the most
difficult roles go to Jonathan Putnam and Loretta Beth Cannon
as the Christan de-programmers. They should be just about completely
unsympathetic, but both Putnam and Cannon are able to mine the characters for
their rather frightening humanity. What kind of person does what they're doing?
Abused children grown up, is playwright Whaley's answer.
Director David Allen Vargo
keeps things moving at a brisk pace but gives all of his actors lots of room to
breathe. I had a film teacher who once told me "If you want to act, you
don't necessarily need to direct, but if you want to direct, you HAVE to do
some acting, it doesn't matter if you play the third spear carrier from the
left, get out there and get some parts."
I don't know if this is the first
play Mr. Vargo has directed, but he has proven my film teacher correct, even
while playing much more than the third spear carrier from the left. Vargo's
many onstage roles include those in "Chappati," "Sordid
Lives," and a memorable turn as Charles Dickens at Red Herring Theater.
All that acting has given him a very sure hand as a director. I hope to see
more directing work from him in the future.
Kat Wexler's set design is
beautifully and suitably shabby and Michael Bynes' set construction is
excellent. Caroline Dittamo's lighting design, and Sue Rapier's sound, both of
which include a certain amount of special effects, greatly contributes to the
play's cheerful other-worldliness.
It occurred to me while driving home
that "The Turkey Men" may be about a child caught in a tug of war
between two competing sets of parents, one accepting and the other not. The
first and best set harkens back to some truly bad old days for minority rights.
Despite this, Alex and Webster have managed, in their way, to both survive and
thrive.
The other set of parents is more
troubling, because they were born at an arguably better time. Given the right
set of circumstances--and a little more toleration both internal and
external--Micah and Bethany might have found at least enough happiness to keep
from exporting their misery to others.
"The Turkey Men" lies
somewhere between "Topper" and the work of the late Larry Shue
("The Foreignor," "The Nerd"). It is playing from October
17-26 at the Columbus Peforming Arts Center's Van Fleet Theater. I say saw off
that shock collar and check it out!
Here is what the Columbus Dispatch put online:
Theater
review | ‘The Turkey Men:’ Supernatural drama offers enough intrigue and nifty
effects to become a hit
By Michael Grossberg For The Columbus Dispatch
Two blithe spirits come to endearing life in “The
Turkey Men,” a clever new haunted-house tale informed and inspired by gay
history and American progress.
Evolution Theatre Company is ending its 2019 season
on a felicitous and ingenious note with the well-cast, well-paced world
premiere, which opened Friday at the Columbus Performing Arts Center.
Columbus playwright Douglas Whaley blends
supernatural drama, romance, tragedy and even bits of comedy, music and science
fiction in his entertaining play.
A lot of exposition is required to set up the
scenario, but Whaley and director David Allen Vargo weave it in pretty well
amid engaging characterizations that help make the explanations more plausible.
One can’t easily summarize the somewhat contrived
premise of the plot, nor should later twists be revealed without undermining the
nominal amount of suspense in what’s ultimately a predictable morality play
within a more-satisfying romantic drama.
Suffice to say that the story, set in 2016 in the
dilapidated farmhouse of an abandoned turkey farm, revolves around two
ex-soldiers from the Civil War era, now largely ghosts who face a difficult
decision when three unexpected visitors arrive: a frightened lesbian teenager
and an older man and woman who seemingly have kidnapped her but actually have
taken her at the request of her concerned parents.
The turkey men, still reveling in what must be the
longest sustained gay relationship imaginable, want to help the girl after
witnessing her treatment by the religious fundamentalists, who seem hell-bent
to “pray away the gay.“
Vargo’s strong direction bolstered fine performances by the five-member cast at Wednesday’s preview.
Yet, two performances are pivotal in defining the
emotional core of the story: the admirable relationship between Webster
Randolph Carter III, a Tennessee country boy whipped to near-death as an
adolescent by his father when discovered with another guy; and Alexander Small,
Northerner who met Web when he became a military prisoner during the Civil War.
James Harper brings an old-fashioned masculinity
alloyed with tenderness and a stoic code of reserve to Web, while Ross Shirley
adds courtly charm, good humor and intuition to empathetic Alexander.
Together, Harper and Shirley forge a rich chemistry
and intimacy that beautifully evoke their characters’ storied history.
The actors ground their roles further in a bygone
era by speaking in rich regional accents with faintly anachronistic rhythms
that implicitly unite their shared sensibilities as 19th-century gentlemen of
honor.
Fia Friend is convincingly contemporary as
questioning teenager Logan Hendricks, betrayed by her parents but confident of
her newfound sexuality. As the poor abused Cinderella to the gay couple’s
veritable fairy godfathers, Friend projects the requisite distress and
hesitancy without veering into melodrama.
The two trickiest roles are underwritten, but
veteran central Ohio actors Lori Cannon and Jonathan Putnam deepen what might
in lesser hands come across as one-dimensional villainy.
As devout but misguided Christians Bethany and Micah, Cannon and Putnam gradually expose psyches damaged by a painful history of repression and abuse.
As devout but misguided Christians Bethany and Micah, Cannon and Putnam gradually expose psyches damaged by a painful history of repression and abuse.
Ironically, and part of Whaley’s editorial theme,
the 170-year-old couple turn out to be far more modern and enlightened than the
2016 couple, who might have been more plausible if placed within the 1950s.
Regarding the more ghostly manifestations and revelations of this nifty production, perhaps it’s better to adopt a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Yet, with its supernatural aspects brought out
effectively by Caroline Dittamo’s shifting lighting and Vargo’s sound design on
Kat Wexler’s antique haunted-house set, this deft production seems ripe with
potential to become a Halloween-season hit.
Bobby
Jones created a nifty video about the show which he posted on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SusL5Inl4w&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3hhNxD4G63HJt4epnjh65Arz3lg8snFbn2VbwRRxwXgkPT_CNAAvih9UE
My
husband, David Allen Vargo, who directed the show, and I were interviewed on WOSU
NPR broadcast about the play. That interview
can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mmupfuU2-Ec2BWRlBf0cpNv8wbKAggVT
 |
| [Click to enlarge] |
Happily,
Facebook has spread the word about the show and already there have been
preliminary nibbles about possible productions in Florida and Indiana. Anyone who has connections in their city with
a theater that might be interested can contact me at dglswhaley@aol.com.
This
is all very overwhelming to David and myself We can be counted as among the
happiest people on the earth. Many
thanks to Evolution Theatre (and particularly Mark Phillip Schwamberger, the
Artistic Director), the talented cast and crew, and the wonderful audiences. There are three more performance this coming Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday; information at http://www.evolutiontheatre.org/
 |
| The Cast and Crew |
Comments
Post a Comment