n Miami

C’mon,
Get Happy!

From left, Angela Billadeau, Andy Meyers and Sea Bard in the premiere of Happy at Montana Repertory Theatre.
Terry Cyr

obert Caisley considers himself a generally happy person, for a playwright.

“For a long time, I thought, ‘Shouldn’t I have a deep, psychological scar that I should write about?’” he muses.
Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, Caisley couldn’t identify any scars. Instead, the inspiration for his newest
play, Happy, sprang from a play studies class he was teaching at the University of Idaho, where he is the head of the
dramatic writing program.
“My students were discussing the flaws of the greatest characters of the Western canon,” Caisley recalls. “What
dawned on me was that more often than not, the tragic flaw of a character is negative—jealousy, ambition, blood-lust.
Then I thought, ‘What if the flaw of character was something positive? Their happiness, contentedness or agreeability?’”
And that reversal became the conceit of Happy, running at the New Theatre in Miami through Dec. 16 as a
National New Play Network rolling world premiere. A blissfully content man named Alfred—who has a good job, a
happy marriage and a daughter (albeit a special needs one)—meets a woman named Eva who is a chronic pessimist.
Over the course of a dinner party, Alfred starts to question the authenticity of his own happiness.
This is the third play of Caisley’s that has been produced at New Theatre, which he considers his second home.
“Rob is the perfect mix of daredevil and artisan,” exclaims artistic director Ricky J. Martinez, who recommended Happy
to NNPN’s National Showcase of New Plays in 2011. “Plot-driven plays aren’t risky—to me they are predictable.
What’s risky is surrendering to the world and language of your characters like Rob does.”
Happy premiered at Montana Repertory Theatre in October and will go on to run at 6th Street Playhouse in
Santa Rosa, Calif., April 5­­–21 and New Jersey Repertory Company May 30–June 30. Questioning the validity of
happiness prompted Caisley to look deeper into his natural joie de vivre. “There have been times in my life that I
wanted to not be happy,” he assesses. “If you are generally a buoyant person and you have a bad day, people begrudge
you this. But if you are dour, you can have all the bad days you want!” —Diep Tran
december12 AMERICANTHEATRE 21
 Front & Center

n SAN D I E G O , C A L I F.

Those Evil Machines

productions share that blazing collision of theatre artistry and
event.” McAnuff returns the affection for La Jolla: “I think
there are very few places that could actually do this show,” he
says. “This theatre has not only the play-development skills and
dramaturgical skills, but also the technical know-how to mount
a piece like this.”
A piece like what? McAnuff is reluctant to over-describe
it, but he says the stage Yoshimi is almost entirely sung-through,
and includes all the songs on the album as well as a few other

dana holliday
thematically related Lips tracks, like “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”
Kimiko Glenn, center, as Yoshimi in from 2006’s At War with the Mystics. However, he notes, “There
rehearsal at La Jolla Playhouse for Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
is a lot of visual storytelling that really adds layers to the kind
of science fiction/anime story that Wayne Coyne, the Flaming
Turning sound recordings into stage shows Lips frontman, implied on the album.”
has become a cottage industry for Tony-winning director Des The titular pink robots have kept their featured role, and are
McAnuff. He directed the theatrical debut of The Who’s Tommy and being fashioned by Basil Twist, creator of such otherworldly spectacles
the 2012 Broadway revival of Jesus Christ Superstar, both of which as the underwater puppet show Symphonie Fantastique. “As soon as
began life as concept albums, as well as the docu-jukebox mega-hit you get into the idea of pink robots, Basil Twist immediately comes
Jersey Boys, built around the songs of the Four Seasons. Now, he’s to mind,” says McAnuff. The alpha bots are 14 feet tall, encasing a
helming another long-awaited disc-to-stage adaptation: Yoshimi wire-suspended actor wearing a massive headpiece and arm extensions
Battles the Pink Robots, based on the critically acclaimed 2002 album that turn his wrists into elbows. That actor’s feet rest at the robot’s
by space-rock icons the Flaming Lips. waistline, so two other puppeteers have to manipulate the robot’s
Yoshimi runs through Dec. 16 at La Jolla Playhouse, where legs, while two more carefully steer its movements along guide wires.
McAnuff, who headed the company for many years, also midwifed Despite the mesmerizing visuals, McAnuff is confident that the
Tommy and the Superstar revival. Artistic director Christopher Ashley Lips’s songs, like the poignant “Do You Realize?”, will lift the show
was attracted to the chemistry between McAnuff and the stagecraft- well beyond gee-whiz stagecraft. “I think, as with Wayne’s other work,
loving band: “Anyone who’s ever seen a Flaming Lips concert has the piece has heart,” McAnuff says. “And I hope that the audience
experienced their sheer, unbridled theatricality. Des McAnuff’s will go on a meaningful emotional journey.” —Justin Warner

n FAY E T T E V I L L E , A R K .
n SAN TA R OSA , C A L I F.

High on Romance The Truth In the eyes of Amy Pinto,

One of the most insistent oddities in Tennes- Hamelin—the complacent village that
see Williams’s oeuvre—a flighty 1960 comedy About That stiffed the Piper—looks a lot like any

Piper
about young love on a college campus called small town in Sonoma County’s wine
Period of Adjustment—is coming Dec. 6–30 country: “Small, well fed, neat lawns,
to Arkansas’s TheatreSquared under Sean everyone enterprising with high-end tourism the bread and butter of the town.” So for
Patrick Reilly’s direction. Williams wrote the Pinto, artistic director of the Imaginists Theatre Collective, it wasn’t hard to empathize
play, he confessed in later years, “in a rush with the infamous Piper. “We understood the Piper, his bitterness. Not just the fact that
of activity partly induced by drugs,” and it he was not paid, but that his ‘gift’ was not valued. What happens when you lock out art?
ran on Broadway for an underwhelming 132 What does a society look like that places no value on what is, essentially, invaluable?”
performances before being adapted for a In response to those questions, the Imaginists devised a “contemporary and
sexy 1962 screen version starring Jane Fon- timeless fairy tale”—The Ratcatcher, running through Dec. 16 at the Santa Rosa
da and Anthony Franciosa. Set on Christmas Theatre. The play revisits Hamelin, in subsequent years, when the local tourism board
Eve, the play touches a few characteristically and the town council have tailored the de-
dark notes—the main two male characters are tails of the original story, making “Piper
Korean War vets, and one suffers from post- Day” Hamelin’s biggest tourist event. But
traumatic stress disorder—but it’s mainly a the truth still haunts some townspeople,
giddy, light-hearted relationship romp that including three children the Piper left be-
bears scant resemblance to anything else Wil- hind—one blind, one lame, one deaf—who
liams wrote for stage or screen. Reilly and are now in their twenties. In collaboration
artistic director Bob Ford figure that Williams with local band the Crux, the Imaginists
Tibidabo photography

in a comic mode will be just the ticket for have created a piece which is, as Pinto puts
TheatreSquared patrons in a holiday mood. it, “part town council meeting, part caba-
—Jim O’Quinn ret, part pancake breakfast, part concert From left, Amy Pinto, Eliot Fintushel and
Brent Lindsay in The Ratcatcher.
and part fairy-tale magic.” —Bryna Turner

22 AMERICANTHEATRE december1 2
 d ec e mb e r
ALMANAC Ne w Yo rk C i ty
n

105 years ago (1907)

appy as a ‘P’ in ‘S’ Playwright Robert Askins
Broadway producer Herman Levin is
born in Philadelphia. In addition to his has inhabited several different universes.
many Broadway hits, Levin will win He grew up on a tree farm in rural Texas,
three Tony Awards in the course of attended a privileged Baptist private school
his career, two as producer for My Fair
and now resides in New York City. His
Lady in 1957 and another as producer
latest play, P.S. Jones and the Frozen City,
of The Great White Hope in 1969.
is a follow-up to last year’s surprise hit

Courtesy of Laura Barisonzi Photography

80 years ago (1932)
Hand to God—which featured a demonic
Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus
mount their original stage adaptation puppet in an after-school Christian Puppet
of Alice in Wonderland at the Civic Ministries class—and manages to cre-
Repertory Theatre in New York City ate another universe entirely. P.S. Jones,
using only Lewis Carroll’s dialogue directed by the sure-handed José Zayas,
from Alice in Wonderland and Through runs at the New Ohio Theatre in New
the Looking-Glass. The cast includes York City Dec. 5–23.
Burgess Meredith, Joseph Schild-
In the play, a little boy named Pig
kraut and Le Gallienne as the White
Queen. The production runs for 127 Playwright Robert Askins holding a Shit, or P.S., grows up on a hog farm and
puppet mock-up by Eric Wright and Puppet dreams of moving to the Frozen City, but
performances and spawns numerous
Kitchen.
revivals. he must first cross the forbidden Burning
75 years ago (1937) Waste. “It’s a basic hero’s journey,” says
San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, built in Askins, “kind of like a puppet ‘Star Wars.’” But when P.S. arrives in the Frozen City, it’s not
1935 as part of the California Pacific what he expected. He must battle a giant spider and ultimately destroy the city in order to
International Exposition, is remodeled start something new. Says director Zayas, “It’s about someone growing up and facing the
for permanent use. Craig Noel stars difference between dreams and reality.”
in the opening production, John Van
Askins was inspired by outsider artist Henry Darger’s 720-page book In the Realms of
Druten’s The Distaff Side. Noel will go
on to lead the theatre as artistic direc- the Unreal. “How do you construct a master narrative in a hyper-narrative environment?”
tor for more than five decades. Askins wonders. He employed a Darger technique while mixing genres in order to create
something weird and epic.
50 years ago (1962)
North Carolina’s Cape Fear Regional Is the play political? Zayas reasons, “Any good fantasy set in a post-post-apocolyptic
Theatre is founded as Fayetteville universe is going to be inherently political.” Askins admits that a case could be made that
Little Theatre. The company opens P.S. Jones is about the Occupy movement. “Pig Shit brings down the city because he is so
with Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. disappointed with it. So in some ways, this play is about the frustration of being young in
This small community of local actors America—how shall we live now when there is no hope for us to do better than our parents?”
will grow into a professional theatre
But before you can classify the play as politically minded puppet theatre, Askins merrily
highly committed to arts in education
interjects, “We like to label shit; that’s the human project! Is this an internal disease or an external
and will be recognized as one of the
state’s leading regional theatres. problem? Puppets are strange-making objects and lead us to more nuanced understandings.
So I like puppets.” And P.S. Jones is anything but didactic. “I want to make big adventurous
stories,” Askins says, grinning, “with weirdo characters and a lot of laughter.” —Eliza Bent
n n e w yo rk c ity

Still Working is an appropriate time for a revival of

ry Museum to research and dissect Terkel’s
raw interview transcripts. Although the na-
ture of work itself has been transformed
Working. Based on Studs Terkel’s 1974 over the past 40 years due to technology,
book of interviews, the musical, origi- Greenberg realized that “the more things
nally adapted by Stephen Schwartz change, the more they stay the same.”
and Nina Faso, recounts the lives of ev- With 6 actors playing 36 characters,
eryday blue-collar workers—from tele- the minimalist revival “creates a more inti-
phone operators to truck drivers. mate engagement with the audience,” the
Director Gordon Greenberg has director says. Even the stage manager and
collaborated on a fresh adaptation with technical crew have onstage cameos. “We
Craig Schwartz

Schwartz and Faso, as well as composer wanted to show the work that goes into an
Donna Lynne Champlin in Working in a 2009 Lin-Manuel Miranda, who contributed evening of theatre,” Greenberg avows.
workshop at California’s Old Globe Theatre.
two songs reflecting the growing ethnic Despite the current economic decline,
diversity of America’s workforce. Pros- Working’s heartbeat still rings true: “In the
After the hypercharged pect Thea­ter Company premieres the re- end, everyone finds joy and purpose in their
climate of election season—with each jobs vival Dec. 1–30 at 59E59 Theaters in NYC. work through the beauty of simple things,”
report sparking a media maelstrom—this Greenberg visited the Chicago Histo- Greenberg concludes. —Sydney Arndt

december12 AMERICANTHEATRE 23