CAN'T TAKE THE PRESSURE

posted by James Reel

    Last weekend, while waiting for The Fever to begin (see the review link below), I exchanged a few words with Kathy Allen, the Arizona Daily Star theater critic. I don’t chat much with Kathy; our tenures at the Star didn’t overlap and so she’s not one of my old newsroom pals, and while we do catch sight of each other at plays we don’t often speak, because, being shy, I clamp myself into my seat and try not to socialize with anybody. But Kathy has always been friendly toward me, and as she passed by last Saturday night she told me that she’d been relieved to see that my review of the last show at Top Hat Theatre Club was about as negative as hers. The production had its positive elements, but overall it smacked of amateurism. ("In an Agatha Christie mystery," I wrote indelicately, "the corpse on stage shouldn't be the production itself.") “I’ll keep going,” Kathy said, “but I don’t think I’ll review them anymore.”
    I’m not ready to give up on Top Hat yet, but it turns out the matter is beyond my control.
    The company has a new show opening this weekend, and yesterday I called to snag a pair of tickets to review it. I left a message noting that nobody had sent me the customary press release about the show. Later, company director James Mitchell Gooden called back.
    “I didn’t send you a press release because I’d rather that you not come,” he said with his usual pleasant demeanor.
    “What’s up?” I asked.
    “Well,” he said, not at all spitefully, “I don’t need your help.”
    In other words, he wants some time to develop his company before potentially subjecting it to further negative reviews. P.T. Barnum said there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but Barnum was a hugely successful showman who could afford to welcome even bad press. Gooden’s company, only about six months old, isn’t that tough. So until further notice, you won’t have me telling you what to think about Top Hat. You probably won't have Kathy Allen, either.
    Actually, I’m rather pleased by this turn of events. Not only does it free up at least four hours of my weekend (including seeing the show, writing the review, travel time), but being “disinvited” by a theater must mean I’ve finally arrived as a critic. If I keep this up, I won’t have to bother going anywhere.

FEVER

posted by James Reel

    If you peruse the latest Tucson Weekly, you’ll see that I’m quite impressed by the Rogue Theatre’s production of Wallace Shawn’s The Fever, featuring J. Andrew McGrath:

    He veers from one subject to another; at the time, the transition makes sense, but a moment later, you can't remember how he got from the subject of ice cream to an anecdote about a woman who joined the guerrillas in the hills. He is sick. He is feverish. Something in him needs to be purged. …
    Cynthia Meier directs actor J. Andrew McGrath in a production stripped down to its absolute essentials. The Fever has been presented elsewhere with elaborate sound and light cues, even dancers. That's a mistake, I think; Meier wisely focuses our concentration on McGrath, because all the color and distraction we need exist in the feverish mind of his character.