"Hey, Fred!" Nights Out 08/04-08/10/14

This title disclaimer will run until I’m sick of it.

This is a look at things coming through town (mostly music, but look for more theater and visual art as fall gets underway) I’m excited about this week. Title is inspired by A making a joke to a great friend of ours: “Rick’s going to start a blog letting you know what’s coming to town called ‘Hey, Fred! Guess what?’” Appearance here does not constitute an endorsement by the real Fred. Big inspirations are Steve Smith’s Agenda posts in Night After Night and amigo Andrew Patton’s weekly column for Mark Subel’s JazzColumbus.

This is not intended to be comprehensive. For that, Joel Treadway’s Cringe does a great job and has for 20+ years. If someone knows an equally good guide to theater and visual art, let me know and I’ll link that too.

I don’t intend for this to cover every local band I like every time they play. If I wrote up every time two of my friends played a show together, the things I want to highlight would get lost and it would be more hassle and stress than it’s worth to me. I want to note something that strikes my interest as special: a record release, a rare reunion, something new I worry will get lost in the shuffle, but obviously that’s going to be capricious and not follow a strict guideline.

Theatre

Cymbeline by William Shakespeare, presented by Available Light Theatre; Madlab, 227 N. Third St.  Between this and Red Herring's Thicker than Water (see below), August is surprisingly stacked with compelling theater options. Available Light doesn't often deal with classical theatre, and Cymbeline is an overstuffed, trying-to-do-everything-at-once play that's never really gotten a fair shake. So this promises to be an interesting take on a rarely performed Shakespeare (possibly the only Shakespeare I've never seen done), directed by longtime collaborator/fight director Brian Evans with a cast of seven headed up by Acacia Duncan. I didn't get to see this opening weekend but I have my ticket for this week and if you love theater, you should too.  8pm Thurs-Sat, through August 9. Tickets available at http://avltheatre.com/shows/cymbeline/

Thicker than Water by John Dranshack, Michael Garrett Herring, and Nick Lingnofski, presented by Red Herring Theater; Riffe Center, Studio Two Theater.  Speaking of things you should see if you care about theater, don't miss this. Red Herring was the first theater company I ever subscribed to, right out of high school, and since their resurrection a couple years ago they've been on a hot streak, including last year's mind-blowing take on Assassins. This month they're doing an original work, a two-hander (Herring and Lingnofski) playing a father and a son who served in different wars dealing with how each shapes the other. This is developed using the great Mike Leigh's process, with both performers and the director, John Dranshack, collaborating on the script.  8pm Thurs-Sat, through August 16. $20 tickets available by calling 614-723-9116 or Pay-What-You-Want at the door.

Music

August 5, 2014

The Iguanas; Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza, 5601 N. High St.  Alec Wightman’s Zeppelin Productions has often been the principal supplier of a certain stripe of singer-songwriter in town, and over the last 20 years he’s brought artists I can almost guarantee Columbus wouldn’t have seen headlining if we were lucky enough to get them at all – from Guy Clark to Joe Ely to Suzy Bogguss to Matraca Berg to Dan Penn to Tom Russell many times over. We certainly wouldn’t have had this kind of artist as often and in so intimate an environment. With his partnership with Natalie’s, he’s been branching out into some more rock band focused strains of Americana, like Chuck Prophet and the Mission Express (one of my shows of the year last year), Sarah Borges with Girls Guns and Glory, and now legendary New Orleans  roots-rock outfit The Iguanas. The Iguanas are often compared to a big easy Los Lobos and that’s pretty spot on; a fusion of Texas Latin rhythms like conjunto and norteño with dashes of mambo filtered through the stop and start swing made famous by Allen Toussaint and Wardell Querzegue’s productions and arrangements, and a heavy overlay of Earl Palmer stomp and LA-based chicano rock. In the 25 years they’ve been doing this there have been some ups and downs and some personnel changes, but they keep making great records – that run on Yep Roc a few years ago might be their finest hour so far – and writing great songs, including a co-write with Dave Alvin, “Plastic Silver Nine Volt Heart,” that might be the finest song anyone’s ever written about the power of the radio in somebody’s life.  Starts at 8:00pm, $25 tickets available here.

August 6, 2014

Obnox; Ace of Cups, 2619 N. High St.  Former Columbusite Lamont “Bim” Thomas has never been in a bad band I’ve heard, but over the last handful of years his current Cleveland project, Obnox, has grown into his best band yet and his most defined statement. Garage rock grime, hip-hop bounce, and jaggedly catchy chord progressions that almost remind me of Joy Division, pieced together like a Rauschenberg combine so the juxtapositions and context give each piece heavier weight and give the greater whole more dramatic impact. As good a sweaty rock show as you’re likely to see. Doors at 9:00pm, $5 cover.

Alimañas; Café Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St.  Columbus often reaps some of the rewards of festivals in other towns, and my pick for the sleeper show of the week is Houston’s Alimañas stopping at Bobo on their way to NYC’s annual Latino Punk Fest. An anarchopunk throwback with shadings of hardcore, I love the tracks I’ve heard so far. In the tiny confines of Bourbon Street, this should be a barn burner. Locals Day Creeper, who also trade in shadings of classic punk but with a rootsier edge, open.  Doors at 10:00pm, $5 cover.

August 7, 2014

Population; Cafe Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St.  Chicago's Population on HoZac Records are mining a vein of heavy rhythms and slashing guitars threaded with a smoke-throttled rasp. Very much in the vein of early 4AD, done with intensity and vigor and great songs that will get stuck in your head for days, music about life and about grappling with the world, not just a regurgitation of your record collection. Jeff Kleinman's damaged synthscape project Gamma World and newer local band Melted Men open.  Doors at 10:00pm, $5 cover.

August 8, 2014

Night of the Noosenecks with The Gallows, Hot Wet Trash, and The Suicide Ghouls; Bernie's Distillery, 1896 N. High St.  I mentioned in the column a couple weeks ago that Joey Moore died too soon and, in one of the greatest Columbus traditions, many of his friends are setting up tribute shows through fall and they're all special. This one is special in part because it's at Bernie's, where both his earlier band, Joey Blackheart and the Gallows, and his most recent band, The Girls!, did many of their first and most unhinged shows. For this night, there's a reunion of his earlier band The Gallows, and Big Nick (from both bands)'s punk cover outfit, Hot Wet Trash, augmented by the horror punk stylings of The Suicide Ghouls.  Doors at 9:00pm. Donations at the door, all proceeds go to Joey's parents.

Blizzard Babies with Raw Pony and Pretty Pretty; Café Bourbon Street, 2216 Summit St.  Ukulele infused surf garage punk band from Chicago, the Blizzard Babies seem born for a Friday night show, and this is a top to bottom you-can’t-go-wrong bill, with two of Columbus’s finest raw rock bands propping up the triangle. Raw Pony had my favorite set of this year’s Comfest, the only band I saw I just couldn’t wait to see again; Pretty Pretty I haven’t seen in a while but from all accounts they’re on a hot streak. Come out and see the two locals warm up for the following week’s mammoth Ace of Cups party, Helter Swelter, and get some furious dancing in before summer slips out of your grasp.  Doors at 10:00pm, $5 cover.

August 9, 2014

Festival Latino; Bicentennial Park.  One of my favorite local festivals, the food’s second to none and there’s always some music that knocks me for a loop in genres I might know the classics of but don’t do a good job keeping up with. And looking at the schedule (and poking around YouTube), this year is no exception. On Saturday:

• 2:00pm – Herman Olivera.  One of the most legendary salsa soneros working today who’s done time in Eddie Palmieri’s band and Manny Quendo’s, Olivera balances Hector Lavoe’s sinewy, shadowy smoothness with the improvisational fire of Andy Bey. Riding a new record that got a rave review from the New York Times this week, this is a show not to be missed.
• 6:30pm – Joe Veras.  One of the reigning kings of bachata. I know less about Veras, but the songs I’ve heard knock me out and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this is one of those shows that will have the crowd going crazy.

Hot Rod Hula Hop; Sequoia Bowl, 5501 Sandalwood Blvd.  The premier tiki-themed event in Columbus every year, thrown by the Fraternal Order of the Maoi, is always a swinging combination car show/vintage sale/rock show hang, and this year has possibly the best lineup they've ever had. Featuring Dayton’s premier surf band The D-Rays at 6:00, Indy’s psychobilly ragers The Cryptokats at 8:00, and NYC’s instrumental surf destroyers The Coffin Daggers at 10:00, with burlesque troupe The Ooh-La-Las between all bands, this is a marathon not a sprint. But the icing on this cake is maybe the best party band working in rock and roll for the last 20+ years, the Supersuckers, at midnight. The Supersuckers are one of the most consistent live bands I’ve ever seen, never putting on a bad show, always doing their straightforward rock redolent of ZZ Top and Thin Lizzy but played fast and hard enough you remember they used to tour in the same circles as the New Bomb Turks – with occasional forays into country – with endless charm, humor, and the real joy of understanding how lucky you are to do exactly what you love year in and year out. I haven’t seen the new lineup with a replacement for Ron “Rontrose” Heathman yet, but I can’t imagine frontman Eddie Spaghetti and other guitarist Dan “Thunder” Bolton would let anyone in who can’t deliver.  Doors at noon, $35 tickets here.

Black Mountain Creeper with Sin Nombre and Swarm; Ace of Cups, 2619 N. High St.  One of my favorite local bands during their tenure, Black Mountain Creeper threw southern rock shadings into a swamp of stoner sludge. Fronted by electrifying frontman Fes Minck (Lordburger, Behemoth, Fes and the Black Panthers) with Chris Wood on drums (now known predominantly as the most adventurous metal booker in town), Doug Tinsley on bass, and a couple varying guitarists (I believe the lineup here is the version with David Jones), this reunion should be heavy enough to rattle your fillings with enough sinister groove for a Saturday night. The openers also deserve a little attention – Sin Nombre is my favorite band of Arturo De Leon’s, which given his history is saying something: in the vein of mid ‘80s metal conjuring early Anthrax and Metallica, but also with a heavy debt to the hooks of Judas Priest, killer grooves and great songs. Swarm are a newer band trying to find something new in the gap between Killers-era Iron Maiden and ‘90s rock like Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. It doesn’t all work, but when they hit it’s a sight to see.  Doors at 9:00pm, $5 cover.

August 10, 2014

Festival Latino; Bicentennial Park.  See Saturday, August 9.

•  4:30pm, Jose Alberto (“El Canario”) – A salsa superstar with a 30 year track record, it would be a crime to miss something like this at a free show.
•  6:30pm, Los Hermanos Rosario – A 14-piece merengue band founded by the Rosario brothers (hence the name) are a world-renowned touring band for a reason. Phenomenal, swinging, soulful music.

Buckles and Boots Farewell Hootenanny; Lost Weekend Records, 2960 N. High St.  One of my favorite record stores - easily my go-to for anything local - hosts periodic all day hootenannies in its cramped confines. They're always a great time and an interesting cross-section of music that sounds good stripped down enough for that little room. This iteration builds to the headliners, Buckles and Boots, a terrific classic country husband and wife duo (also half of my favorite traditional country band in town, The Songbirds), playing a last Columbus show before leaving town, at 8:00pm. Other highlights include an early set by The Reverbalines (the duo of David Banbury and Eva Owen, formerly of terrific band Nom Tchotchkes) at 1:00pm, Total Foxx (David Holm and Melanie Bleavins-Holm of Bigfoot with a rotating cast of other players) at 2:30pm, and Jessica Wabbit from The Girls! at 5:30pm.  Starts at 1:00pm, no cover.

New Basics Brass Band; Goodale Park.  Joel Treadway (namechecked as a patron saint for this column) helps (with Alexandra Kelley-Fox and a couple other people) arrange the bands for a yearly summer series in Goodale Park's gazebo and it's one of my favorite summertime traditions, even if things like brunch plans and out of town guests and unpredictable weather and hangovers mean I only make it down a couple times in the season. But this week's appearance by Columbus's carriers of the New Orleans tradition, New Basics Brass Band, should be the perfect synthesis of elements - a summer afternoon, a beautiful park and cascading horns. 12:30pm-2:00pm

Daddy (Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack); Natalie’s Coal-Fired Pizza, 5601 N. High St.  On a slightly smaller scale than the earlier-discussed Alec Wightman, Bob Teague has been presenting some terrific singer-songwriters usually of a more blues-based persuasion, including bringing Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack here solo more than once, but the band of them together should be pretty special. Tommy Womack’s one of the most energetic and vitriolic acoustic singer-songwriters I’ve ever seen, and on an uphill swing since his declaration of throwing in the towel, There I Said It, and Kimbrough doesn’t often put out records under his own name but his writing, guitar and harmonies have enlivened everyone from Amy Rigby to Josh Rouse to Hayes Carll to Mindy Smith to a long association with Rodney Crowell. Decades of experience between them and both consummate entertainers - if you’ve got any interest in the genre, you can’t go wrong here.  Starts at 8:00pm, $10 tickets available here.

The Humminbird with Mike Shiflet, Pete Fosco, and Meltin’ John; Double Happiness, 482 S. Front St.  Muyassar Kurdi’s gentle psychedelia with a serrated avant-garde edge blows in from Chicago for a Sunday night show that should be an optimal opportunity for clearing your head out for the next week. She plays with a large pool of players in Chicago and this year so far has toured with Matt Schneider on pedal steel and Michael Kendrick on drums; no word on who she’s bringing along on this run. One of the leading lights of Columbus abstract music, Mike Shiflet, opens, along with Cincinnati prepared guitar maestro Pete Fosco and newer Columbus electronics project Meltin’ John.  Starts at 10pm, $7 cover.

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"Hey, Fred!" Nights Out 07/28-08/02/14

This title disclaimer will run until I’m sick of it.

This is a look at things coming through town (mostly music, but look for more theater and visual art as fall gets underway) I’m excited about this week. Title is inspired by A making a joke to a great friend of ours: “Rick’s going to start a blog letting you know what’s coming to town called ‘Hey, Fred! Guess what?’” Appearance here does not constitute an endorsement by the real Fred. Big inspirations are Steve Smith’s Agenda posts in Night After Night and amigo Andrew Patton’s weekly column for Mark Subel’s JazzColumbus.

This is not intended to be comprehensive. For that, Joel Treadway’s Cringe does a great job and has for 20+ years. If someone knows an equally good guide to theater and visual art, let me know and I’ll link that too.

I don’t intend for this to cover every local band I like every time they play. If I wrote up every time two of my friends played a show together, the things I want to highlight would get lost and it would be more hassle and stress than it’s worth to me. I want to note something that strikes my interest as special: a record release, a rare reunion, something new I worry will get lost in the shuffle, but obviously that’s going to be capricious and not follow a strict guideline.

Music

July 28, 2014

Oneida; Double Happiness, 482 S. Front St. This will be a little long. Bear with me.

• Oneida is literally the only band I've ever seen who were so heavy I had to leave the room. In all these years, I've seen Slayer six times and Morbid Angel twice, I've seen Sunn O))) and Boris multiple times, but at Terrastock in 2008, in a little room in Louisville, Kentucky, something happened that made my molecules vibrate against each other. I broke out in a sweat; my knees got weak. It was a John the Baptist on the road moment and I just couldn't be in the room any more, it cut me so deeply I had to watch the rest from the hallway, I had to approach from a distance. The other time I saw them my heart felt like it might burst but I was able to stick out the whole set. If you do have a reaction similar to what's described, this show is at a perfect venue, Double Happiness, with its two big patios to catch your breath.
• For over 15 years, Oneida has pursued whatever struck their fancy at any given moment, working through krautrock and kosmische and afrobeat and Reichian minimalism and ecstatic improvisation and blue collar choogle, and created one great record after another - Each One Teach One, Rated O, Preteen Weaponry, Happy New Year, The Wedding. A rare totally sui generis rock band. The highest level of that kind of music and the kind of empathy you're lucky to ever see on a stage, I can't recommend anything any higher. I don't know when or if they've played Columbus before, maybe the late '90s before I was hip to them, but this is going to be a special, special show.
• This is also a special show because it doubles as the wedding reception for Fred Pfening (the eponymous Fred of this column's title) and Stephanie Dean. You can't find two greater friends of culture in general, specifically Columbus culture, or two greater friends of Anne and I. Drinking and dancing to their union will be sweet.  
• A couple notes on the rest of the bill: The Cheater Slicks are riding shotgun on this show and word is they're bringing something special; be there early enough if you know what's good in Columbus for the last 20 years. Hyrrokkin from Yellow Springs open, a much-buzzed avant-rock trio: Ed Ricart who's played with a who's who of interesting improvisers (and whose label, New Atlantis, put out that phenomenal new Brandon Seabrook record this year) on guitar and bass, teamed with Brett Nagafuchi and Paul Larkowski from the avant-punk band Kuan. I haven't caught them on their earlier trips to town but I have their first LP, Pristine Origin, and my only regret is I didn't hear it in time for it to make my 2013 Best Of list. James Englebeck of the Violet Times label who is back in town after stints in Portland and Brooklyn DJs before/between/after bands.
• Doors at 8:00pm, $8 tickets available here.

Laura Cantrell; Tree Bar, 887 Chambers Rd.  Obviously there's no chance I'm missing Oneida on this night, but man this was an impossibly hard choice. Two NYC acts in nigh-constant rotation in the Sanford part of this household, neither has been here in at least 10 years, and they're playing the SAME MONDAY NIGHT. A great problem for Columbus to have. Cantrell's one of my favorite contemporary country singers: a great writer, a clear stream of light for her voice, and one of the finest gifts as an interpreter of other writers' songs I've ever seen in my life. She's supporting what might be her best record yet, No Way There From Here, which sees her exploring some new, fascinating textures but wrapping them around that same rock solid songcraft.  Doors at 9:00pm, $7 cover.

July 30, 2014

The Bygones, Orson Buggy, and Surf's Up Hose Down; Dick's Den, 2417 N. High St.  Brett Burleson concludes his month-long residency at Dick's Den with a sampling of his rock and roll work: Surf's Up Hose Down, who had my favorite set of this year's Comfest; The Bygones, Bill Wagner's swaggering tribute to all things Stonesy, featuring Burleson and Billy Heingartner on drums; and Orson Buggy, his slightly more angular rock project, also with Billy Heingartner and Matt Duckworth.  Starts at 10:00pm, $4 cover.

July 31, 2014

Aretha Franklin; Celeste Center at the Ohio State Fair.  Since I was a kid, the fair has always had a couple slots for these legendary American voices playing to a real cross-section of their audience - it's where I saw George  Jones, Johnny Cash with June Carter, the O'Jays, Willie Nelson. And American voices don't get much bigger or more potent than the great Aretha Franklin.  Starts at 7:30pm, tickets available at Ticketmaster.

August 1, 2014.

Connections; Kafe Kerouac, 2250 N. High St.  Over the last few years, the creative core of 84 Nash (probably the band I saw most often in the early '00s), Andy Hempel and Kevin Elliott, have formed a new unit, Connections.  Along with other bandmates Philip Kim, David Capaldi from El Jesus de Magico, and Kevin's brother Adam Elliott from Times New Viking, Connections has evolved into a ferocious, stripped-down unit with some of the best, catchiest songs anyone's writing in town. They're as prolific as they are strong, and they're celebrating the release of their third album at Kafe Kerouac on Friday. Pittsburgh's The Gotobeds and locals Day Creeper (splitting the difference between The Jam's dancefloor cynicism and the long Ohio roots stomp tradition) open.  Starts at 8:00pm, $5 cover.

Theatre

Cymbeline by William Shakespeare, presented by Available Light Theatre; Madlab, 227 N. Third St.  Between this and Red Herring's Thicker than Water (more about that next week when it opens), August is surprisingly stacked with compelling theater options. Available Light doesn't often deal with classical theatre. It's an overstuffed trying-to-do-everything at once play that's never really gotten a fair shake. So this take on a rarely performed Shakespeare (possibly the only Shakespeare I've never seen done), directed by longtime collaborator/fight director Brian Evans with a cast of seven headed up by Acacia Duncan, I guarantee will be something worth seeing.  8pm Thurs-Sat July 31-August 9 with one 2pm matinee on Sunday Aug 3. Tickets available at http://avltheatre.com/shows/cymbeline/

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Swordfights in a Hall of Mirrors; Cock by Mike Bartlett

"Submission is the only window
we can take
the dead moth asleep between us,
you who fingers its arched back, a spinal keyboard,
and sound out the words, 'He's dead' before
we reach for the needle
that will sew the coffin shut."
-Amy King, "The Strange Power of Lying to Yourself"

"One last sarcastic curveball, that who threw
at whom, and who got stranded on third base?
I won't stay if you don't want me to,

but you didn't show up after, and I knew
a whole night might let wolves loose in our space.
Lie down beside me if it's good for you."
-Marilyn Hacker, "Coming Downtown"

Before I get into the details, Available Light's production of Mike Bartlett's acid sex farce, Cock, beautifully directed by Ian Short, is a must see for anyone who wants to see the best acting being done in town and has a stomach for something brittle, bitter and unrelenting.  I try to save some spoilers from this but at one point I just say "fuck it" because I can't figure out how best to articulate what I'm saying without them, so be warned.  Because of that, tickets link is being placed here twice: http://avltheatre.com/tickets/

Spare.  A white rectangle on a black stage with a stage manager/referee clad in tuxedo behind a board, the minute characters walk out the audience is on edge.  David Glover, as John, and Drew Eberly, as M, are having an argument about almost nothing that spirals into a discussion of if they should break up.  The rapid fire language in these scenes - punctuated by the manager ringing the bell like a boxing match - is dazzling to watch.  An almost perfect fusion of the rhythms of contemporary speech shot up with a speedball of Harold Pinter and a dash of Odets, spiked with the apocalyptic certitude of Sarah Kane, in a version of a bitchy Noel Coward romp.

There's almost no back story, very little setup, we're plunged into what feels like the last days of a dying, sour situation and it moves - for a while - at a breakneck pace, time vanishing with the light, both dark and blisteringly bright, on that stage that makes it clear why this was nicknamed (in polite print media) The Cockfight Play.  The first third also interestingly sets up a scene, where John tells M what he loves about him, physically, in a way that manages to be very sweet and incredibly manipulative at the same time.  The power dynamic shifts decisively in those moments and M feels less in control, feels more like a rounded person, though I don't think the characters are really the point here.

The play hits a snag with its second third and the introduction of W, the woman John and M are - at least on the surface - fighting about in several of the first section's scenes because John leaves M for her and comes back.  W is played by Elena Perantoni and the performance is phenomenal - sexy and charming and damaged and a little weird and clear-eyed enough I often felt like she was the one character who has a shot at walking out of this smoking crater and finding some happiness for herself.  As we see her circle around John, and likewise, and the energy shifts to more of a playful seduction, less of a tete-a-tete.  There are great sequences here, including a crackling, electric sex scene played in complete darkness, but by the time the play shifts again I couldn't help but think it leans too hard on the tension that the scenes we're watching go between the scenes we've already seen.  W's character is fleshed out even less than either of the men and the scenes don't really stand on their own, they only carry dramatic weight because they serve as backfill.

The final third is a dinner party thrown by M to which W is invited for John to make a decision between the two of them.  Naturally, there's a surprise guest, who I won't give away except to say he's played beautifully by Ken Erney, as there always seems to be in drawing room plays whether murder or sex, and naturally the two lovers both show up assured John has chosen each of them.  Of course things go wrong, and the play ramps back up to that electrifying claws-out energy of the beginning but this is the point where the play started to feel too long and my energy and attention started to flag. Worst of all in a coda that I think is supposed to be emotional, and I did find myself gripped by an unexpected, wild sympathy for M but mostly just comes off as grating.

Ultimately, I think my problem was confusion.  In discussing with the folks I saw the play with, by the end I felt like we were supposed to see M as significantly (15 years maybe?) older than John - both in his desperation to not be alone and especially in John's teary "I'm just your trophy now" speech - but with a youngish good looking guy like Drew Eberly (and the play makes very clear that he's wealthy) I didn't understand why.  It's to the credit of Short's direction and Glover's charm that these questions didn't occur to me until the very end but it robbed the ending of some punch I think it was supposed to have.  Also, F sticking around and forcing a resolution didn't jibe with the character as I saw her in the second third of the play.  I didn't feel like the quality of the love either party had received from John - as shown in the text - justified that kind of devotion and I didn't feel like the comic exaggeration of the play quite got me over that believability hump.

Ian Short's bold, physical take in his direction does a great job of making sure the audience knows where to look and still misdirecting us at vital moments, a hard feat with so few characters and no real set to speak of.  Jarod Wilson's lighting choices seemed good but - and I'm not sure if this was his call or the stage manager - often the transitions between them felt very sloppy.  With so few technical elements, and with a palette that goes from can't-see-anything-to a white light so bright I cringed, it felt like that should have been razor sharp.

Despite feeling like it's a third too long, I came out very glad I saw this.  When the laughs are coming they come fast and furious and never feel like the play or the actors are straining for them.  Drew Eberly is a roman candle here, burning with dazzling intensity but more than that, when he snaps to another mood or another scene the control is like watching someone on a tightrope.  David Glover, who's been destroying anything he gets his teeth on this season, hit it out of the park - a marvel of nuance and charm.  And Perantoni who I gushed about a couple paragraphs ago really is that good with maybe the least to work off in the writing.

If you're up for having that taste in your mouth for almost two hours without a break, the pleasures in Cock are many and throbbing.  Okay, okay, I had to indulge myself in one last spurt of puns.  All right, all right...

Cock runs through May 24th.  Tickets are available at http://avltheatre.com/tickets/

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Sides of the Coin: "How We Got On" by Idris Goodwin and "We Are Proud to Present..." by Jackie Sibblies Drury presented by Available Light

The presence of beauty reminds us of its all too frequent absence and demands that we remedy that absence to the best of our ability, if only to salve the pain of lack.  Again in Rilke's words: there is no part that doesn't see you:  you must change your life...The pain that beauty often induces (beauty is something we undergo, a passion) is the pain of the awareness of the absence of such a thing in or as our lives, beauty's reminder of our own inadequacy.  Rilke's archaic torso is after all a fragment of a god: beauty shines out in what remains, reminding us of a wholeness just out of reach. It reminds us of the possible that does not exist.
-Reginald Shepherd, "Notes Toward Beauty"

As someone who tries to see a lot of anything that piques my interest and especially as someone who tries to see almost anything Available Light Theater produces, this season has been a remarkable bounty.  After a 2012-2013 that felt tentative and unsure, 2013-2014 has been a roaring success of dancing with swords and dangling off edges so far.  As we lean into the home stretch, signified by their announcement of next season on May 14th and with both Ian Short's production of Mike Bartlett's Cock opening tonight and Matt Slaybaugh's adaptation of the novel Leaving Atocha Station next month, I wanted to take a second and talk about the one-two punch of their last two shows which blew me away and which I didn't get the chance to write about in this space.

The most recent two plays of the season both come with Humana Festival pedigrees and are breathing, vibrant takes on the American neurosis.  The black experience, the pain and joy of self-invention, the deeper pain of invention being denied, and the double edged sword of this fucked up thing we all call "truth" all boil up in How We Got On by Idris Goodwin (staged February 6-22) and We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 by Jackie Sibblies Drury (staged March 27-April 12).

I've talked a lot in this space - and in discussions with A. and others - about Available Light's "sweet spot" often being works where the real subject is the difficulty of making art and the ability of that making to change our lives.  With Idris Goodwin's How We Got On they found one of the most perfect examples of how richly satisfying that kind of play can be and executed it perfectly.  It's an evening of theater I could only call "motherfucking magical".  All else is details and noise, but I'm going to go there anyway.

Goodwin's play is a cut-up of refracted memory focusing on three teenagers in the suburb of a large Midwestern metropolis, The City.  The City is big enough for ghettos and to support a major league basketball team (subtly deployed as the relief of class fissures among the unnamed town's black community).
The time is the late '80s when middle class black and white flight from the city is at an apex and hip-hop began to infuse every aspect of pop culture.

The pov character is Hank, played by David Glover (previously very good in Short North Stage's Passing Strange), a self-serious sponge prone to fits of excitement.  He knows he could be great and he knows there's something worth knowing inside himself but he doesn't quite have the confidence or the experience to get other people on board yet.  When he meets Julian, played by Rudy Frias, a new implant from The City who turns out to be Hank's former basketball camp rival with a hard-edged swagger and irresistible charm but with rhymes he bites from people like Big Daddy Kane, righteous indignation rapidly cools into a mutual arrangement with Hank as hypeman and writer and Julian as the face and voice.  For kids of a high school age, it seems de rigeur that this will be complicated by a member of the opposite sex but refreshingly Luann's, played by Kayla Jackmon, presence isn't as an object to be fought over - she's got her own agenda and is as big a rap fan as either of the fellas, the triangle has more to do with artistic ferment and ambition.

The heartbreak in How We Got On is a reaffirmation of how much impact our parents' expectations (or lack thereof) and attention (or lack thereof) has on all of us.  Julian's father's drinking problem and bravado are a calculated picture of a man who can't quite escape the past and is crumbling in the light of this-will-never-get-better, Hank's father is a strict disciplinarian but with a core of love of and respect (and a little extra money to help bankroll a drum machine), and Luann's father is a basketball player moved from the city to give his children a better life who is the least well-drawn of any of them but seems to pay her no mind at all.  Tied into this heartbreak is that sensation that some people overcome the horrible hand they've been dealt and some people just don't.  Whatever peer group they have isn't always enough inspiration.

It's important you buy these characters as kids and you buy how exciting the world is through their eyes.  As songs get created, the songs are so good you believe the quick high school fame but they still feel just amateurish enough that you don't have a hard time believing they wouldn't break out of their town.  You understand it as a first step and the audience really roots for them to continue.  The hunger to be heard, to be seen, to be understood, is palpable and catchy enough that I still have two of the songs from the show in my head months later.  This is, of course, helped immeasurably by rock hard and razor sharp sound design by Dave Wallingford.  Watching Julian's face as he eases into a breathtaking bit of rhyme or a basketball shot is so full of the joy of feeling creation course through you that it's doubly troubling how easily discouraged he gets and that's the crux of How We Got On.  In a different light, "getting on" is about the diminishing of expectations but it never quite goes there.

I haven't brought up The Selector yet which is the key to the piece, and is played exquisitely by Wilma Hatton. Hatton's work was new to me before this show but I was fully blown away.  Narrator, tour guide, and focal point for the play's transitions through time and space, the name and (I don't know if this was part of the script or a choice between the actor and director) the fact that the omniscient selector is Jamaican underlines hip-hop's growth out of reggae, reminds the audience that many of the early rap stars (including DJ Kool Herc) came from a Jamaican background) and makes it feel specific in a way that, say, a Fab 5 Freddy knockoff might not have.  In addition to directly addressing the audience and setting up scenes and characters, Hatton also steps in as each of the adult authority figures on the edges of this coming of age story.  Interestingly, these figures are almost uniformly male; played so brilliantly that it doesn't feel gimmicky but there's a definite tension between the weight of the performance and the weight of the character.  It's a virtuosic performance like you don't see often and one it would be hard for me to forget.

The acting's phenomenal, all around.  Jackmon is a wonder of motion and confidence and teasing charm. Glover's intensity and deep confidence leavened by a earnestness and goofiness was the most relatable character for me (given my teenage years) but is also riveting, impossible to take your eyes off whenever he's on stage. Rudy Frias might have the most difficult, textured part and he hits every note in a way that makes it look easy.

Last but definitely not least, attention should be paid to the triumvirate of Michelle Whited on costumes, Brad Steinmetz on Scenic Design, and Drew Eberly's direction.  Whited's costuming choices are very subtle, they feel like what I remember from a similar town in the same era (if I gauge the era right, I'm 4-5 years younger than the characters) but don't throw it in your face, "THIS IS 1988!  1988, Y'ALL!" and don't try too hard.  Steinmetz's basketball court with a DJ booth at one side set also grounds us visually in the early days of hip-hop, parties in the park, and emphasizes the importance of basketball as a cultural force in the era while also underscoring the feeling that in every situation someone is winning and someone is losing - the density of information delivered with minimal dressing is breathtaking.  Eberly's staging of the audience on both sides of the stage keeps the basketball metaphor in motion and also forces the actors to reorient themselves almost as frequently as The Selector spins the moment into another, subliminally reinforcing the turntable quality of the narrative, and the comic timing he gets out of this play is perfect.  Each beat is finely calibrated and cut as though by a razor.

Drury's We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 is a rougher, much grimmer piece, a cracked mirror image of How We Got On.  It also starts being about amateur art, a group who have done some rudimentary research about the horrific genocide in Namibia and want to put on something about it - a play, a pageant, something.  And as we follow the cast's arguments about what shape that should take - from the problematic starting point that the only "known record" is the letters of the white colonizers - we watch the bandage get ripped off until the last third is a horrifying pit of bubbling, oozing neurosis turning into psychosis.  This is going to be more elliptical because I don't want to give any of the plot away in case someone else is doing this play.

The six cast members include: two white men, Jordan Fehr (labeled as "Actor 1" also "White Man") and Matt Hermes ("Actor 3" also "Another White Man"); two black men, David Glover ("Actor 4" also "Another Black Man") and Ben Jones ("Actor 2" also "Black Man"); a white woman, Acacia Leigh Duncan ("Actor 5" also "Sarah"); and a black woman, Shanelle Marie ("Black Woman" also "Another Sarah").  The lack of information about who these people are (as evidenced by the character names in the script) and what brought them together both in the first place and what possessed them to work on this as a piece of subject matter is something I kept returning to.  Is it a class?  Is that why no one leaves? Is it part in a long string of previously successful pieces and this one's just going off the rails?  I feel like part of the key is the title's reference to this as a "presentation" coupled with the fact that no one seems to have done any real research except for finding the letters from the colonists point of view and a timeline they've cobbled together but by the end of the piece I kind of enjoyed not knowing.

The way everyone argued to be heard, from relatively self-evident criticisms the audience would also have, like Ben Jones' character's "How long are we going to have to watch white people fall in love?" to wilder flights like David Glover's character's acting-to-get-laid monologue about a king and his wives every sentence felt like it was working on multiple levels.  There are racial tensions playing out across these 6 people in ways both archetypal and very subtle.  There are gender tensions less prevalent but still palpable (or maybe they're as strong there and I didn't pick up on them enough because as a man I'm socialized to be less attuned to them).  There's the danger of trying to get along, trying to massage the group too much.  There's the danger of caring too much, taking things too personally, and the corollary danger of not taking things personally enough.  There's the danger of not knowing your voice and not knowing what you want to say with a piece before you bring other people and ideas into it.  The danger of losing yourself.

It's key and it's telling that once the show within the show has gone off the rails the two white actors lean back on the accents and the racist humor of the American South when neither of them has been shown to be southern previous to this and the time and tenor of the "jokes" is removed from the specifics of the setting of the play they're trying to make.  Also telling and, I think, key is that when reality comes crashing back down at the end of the piece, the white people comfort each other.   Not the black actors who were just steamrolled in the horror of their subconscious minds.  That line where satire curdles into just reveling in the horrible thing you're "joking" about is more brilliantly elucidated in this than any other piece of theater I've ever seen and I left barely able to talk or make eye contact with anyone.

The acting's all superlative. Shanelle Marie as the leader of the group, maybe de facto, maybe just because she wanted it the most, has maybe the hardest, least showy role of the lot but everything that happens is filtered through her and she shoulders the biggest weight of keeping the story moving.  Jordan Fehr (also doing double duty as Fight Captain) and David Glover both continue an insane streak of fantastic work, keeping their characters grounded in an emotional reality.  Acacia Duncan, as always, is a rock.  Matt Hermes (last seen in 33 Variations as Beethoven, though he also directed Good People and God of Carnage for NPT last year) as the putative villain of the piece gives a nuanced and dynamic performance.  And Ben Jones blew my hair back, for me the discovery of this show.  He has to go through a dizzying array of moods and intentions and every time he reaches he swings hard and swings far and sticks the landing.

Jarod Wilson's lighting and Dave Wallingford's sound are so subtle they could easily be missed but in something so minimal they're crucial to making sure the audience is paying attention where they should be.  And Slaybaugh's direction is just about perfect, it's hard to picture this funny, horrifying material being handled with a defter hand.  Not an evening I can say in good conscience I enjoyed, but the most memorable evening of art so far (and in these five months it's had some stiff competition).

To Cock. Coming soon.  I won't be this long without writing, I promise.

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Church by Young Jean-Lee, Available Light, Riffe Center; August 20, 2009

"I beg for haven: Prisons, let open you gates-


A refugee from Belief seeks a cell tonight.

Executioners near the woman at the window.


Damn you, Elijah, I'll bless Jezebel tonight.

Lord, cried out the idols, Don't let us be broken;


Only we can convert the infidels tonight.

Has God's vintage loneliness turned to vinegar?


He's poured rust into the Sacred Well tonight."


-Agha Shahid Ali, "Ghazal"

I've always loved old gospel music and Renaissance religious art, but the religious expressions that really move me or raise my hackles are plagued with doubt. Like they're working through something to convince themselves. Current 93, Leonard Cohen, and now Young Jean-Lee's new play, Church. Young Jean-Lee has said she tries to make whatever the last show she'd like to make is. It's like she's writing herself into aesthetic corners and trusting that the truth of her approach and the truth of the performances will carry her out. And Available Light, I believe doing the first performance of this not done by Jean-Lee's own troupe, shows up again as one of the most interesting, provocative theater companies Columbus has or has ever had.

The play is about working through her lack of belief, or lack of concrete belief anyway, and it's structured like a televangelist/mega-church's service I used to grow up listening to because I fell asleep too late with the TV on, with gentle words in soothing cadence that explode into almost baffling anger and then recede but somehow feel like they never lost control, never lost the arc of the message. It opens on a darkened stage with Reverend Jose (Ian Short) saying in an even tone that gets progressively more and more of an edge, as it calls out the audience for grasping for tiny things, and talking about our attempts to quit smoking, quit drinking, quit bad relationships and "that's what you talk about when you're trying to be deep." When the lights come up there's Reverend Kate (Kate Watts, so good in God's Ear as the couple's almost-oblivious daughter) asking the audience questions and turning somewhat ludicrous, mocking "prayer requests" into things that aren't so ludicrous.

And it goes through sermons from Kate, rambling and surreal but periodically stabbing you in the heart, Reverend Eleni (Eleni Papaleonardos), working through her addiction to be loved and exploding in an indictment of those who would use religion for bigotry or exclusion, and Revererend Jose bounces off the good will he's already built up and then comes back out and starts discussing mummies and mummies are real and god and the devil are both mummies until he breaks down. Then there's dancing which is perfect, unforced, but well-choreographed, and sone group harmonies by Reverends Kate, Eleni and Casey (Acacia Duncan), and ultimately a choir comes out and takes the stage.

All of the Jean Lee plays I've seen seem to rotate around what you think, what you feel like you should think, what you say and what you're trying to avoid saying, both publicly and privately. This makes no attempt to hide the surface absurdity of some of these concepts (translated as chicken blood and mummies, using the old Bunuel surrealist technique of horror images to hint at a deeper psychological interest), but it flashes back and forth between these and totally rational words and explanations to create this dichotomy and draw you in. Maybe this is a little slighter than The Shipment or Dragons Flying to Heaven, but it might be more moving than either, at least for me.

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