Ensemble Theatre – Page 2

A FULL PLATE: 2010 in Theater: Santa Barbara Kept On Keepin’ On

December 24, 2010July 9, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Santa Barbara’s theater scene marked anniversaries, said goodbye to some well-loved people and maintained high-quality shows in difficult times in 2010.

For companies, it was a year of stasis. The city college’s theater group is still waiting for Garvin Theatre renovations to finish, but that has led to some interesting work in Interim Theatre, converted temporarily from a classroom. Alan Ayckbourn’s “Time of My Life” featured some of Santa Barbara’s best actors Ed Lee, Katie Thatcher, Brian Harwell, et al. for a twisted dagger of a comedy, while “Machinal” and the “The Suicide” featured nothing but SBCC’s drama students onstage, and both productions (revivals of 1920s plays) were brave and daring. The Ayckbourn play also marked the farewell production of Rick Mokler, who had been directing for 20 years. Katie Laris has big shoes to fill, and one can already see she’s ready to take the department in a new, vibrant direction.

Silly in your stocking: ‘The Mystery of Irma Vep’ brings belly laughs

December 6, 2010July 10, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Joseph Fuqua, right, and Jamie Torcellini, left, fashioned one of the umpteen wardrobe combos in Ensemble Theatre's production of "Irma Vep" over the weekend at Alhecama Theatre. DAVIDBAZEMORE.COM PHOTO — Joseph Fuqua, right, and Jamie Torcellini, left, fashioned one of the umpteen wardrobe combos in Ensemble Theatre’s production of “Irma Vep” over the weekend at Alhecama Theatre.
DAVIDBAZEMORE.COM PHOTO

Christmas shows at the Ensemble Theatre headquarters during Jonathan Fox’s tenure as artistic director have been well-meaning but slight. As an antidote to serious drama they have provided some polite laughs with plays that usually wear out their welcome by the second act. Last year’s “Tea at Five” was more successful, a Katherine Hepburn bio that worked precisely because it wasn’t about Christmas.

And now with “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” Ensemble has a great show on its hands. There’s no mistletoe to speak of, just wolfsbane to ward off lycanthropes. But it is imbued with a very silly, crazed energy, just what we need as the year comes to a close.

Getting away with it : ‘Loot’ returns to Swinging London for a tale of murder and robbery … and laughs

June 8, 2010June 3, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

From left, Ned Schmidtke as Truscott and Wyatt Fenner as Dennis. DAVID BAZEMORE PHOTOS — From left, Ned Schmidtke as Truscott and Wyatt Fenner as Dennis.
DAVID BAZEMORE PHOTOS

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” said L.P. Hartley in his opening lines to “The Go-Between.” Joe Orton’s “Loot,” which opened this past weekend at the Alhecama Theatre, is very foreign indeed. The farce makes traveling back to the Swinging London of the mid-1960s feel as long a trip as one to Oscar Wilde’s 19th-century Britain. As they say about traveling in new cars, your mileage may vary.

Orton was the enfant terrible of the new playwrights of his time, busting genres like Tom Stoppard but poking the establishment where it irritated them most. With his life cut short at age 34, we wonder where Orton might have gone — more political like Stoppard or Harold Pinter? Would he have been an ambassador of bad taste, like our filmmaker John Waters? Or just petered out?

Life Imitates Farce – Joe Orton’s ‘Loot’ comes to Ensemble Theatre

June 4, 2010June 3, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Clockwise from top left: Julian Rubel plays policeman Bobby Meadows, Heather Prete is Fay, Kerby Joe Grubb plays Hal and Wyatt Fenner is Dennis in Ensemble's "Loot." David Bazemore Photo — Clockwise from top left: Julian Rubel plays policeman Bobby Meadows, Heather Prete is Fay, Kerby Joe Grubb plays Hal and Wyatt Fenner is Dennis in Ensemble’s “Loot.”
David Bazemore Photo

During the original stage run of Joe Orton’s “Loot,” which features a dead mother as a plot device that spurs the action, the playwright’s mother died.

Orton went to Leicester for the funeral, then returned to London and the production. There is a scene where the dead mother’s false teeth are played like castanets. Backstage, Orton handed his mother’s real set to the actor Kenneth Cranham, who blanched.

Through a glass, sadly : Ensemble Theatre Company stages Tennessee Williams’ classic ‘The Glass Menagerie’

April 13, 2010May 21, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Joe Delafield as Tom; Sara Botsford as his mother, Amanda; and Erin Pineda as Laura, Amanda's daughter and Tom's older sister. DAVID BAZEMORE PHOTOS — Joe Delafield as Tom; Sara Botsford as his mother, Amanda; and Erin Pineda as Laura, Amanda’s daughter and Tom’s older sister.
DAVID BAZEMORE PHOTOS

First thoughts upon entering the Alhecama Theatre for this production of “The Glass Menagerie” — has the stage ever contained this much depth? By its use of sliding doors, three levels, and some beautiful floor lighting, we get taken back to the dark and dank St. Louis tenement where playwright Tennessee Williams exorcised the ghosts of his past and reincarnated them as unforgettable characters.

On walks Tom Wingfield, played by Joe Delafield. He stands outside the tenement he shares with his mother and sister, lights a cigarette and leans against the wall, looking like the anti-hero in a film noir. But he’s no gumshoe, and his staccato Southern accent — young, fast, clipped, like George W. Bush, but with 10 times the vocabulary — lays out the rules of the play: Memory, spirits, exaggerations. And then there are the things that we realize he is not telling us about: shame, guilt, betrayal, and regret.

Grit and Polish – Ensemble Theatre takes on Tennessee Williams and ‘The Glass Menagerie’

April 9, 2010May 21, 2015 tedmills Leave a comment

Erin Pineda plays Laura and Joel J. Gelman is the "Gentleman Caller," on whom the Wingfield family pins their hopes and dreams, in Ensemble Theatre's production of "The Glass Menagerie." David Bazemore — Erin Pineda plays Laura and Joel J. Gelman is the “Gentleman Caller,” on whom the Wingfield family pins their hopes and dreams, in Ensemble Theatre’s production of “The Glass Menagerie.”
David Bazemore

There’s a lot of dust and funk that has covered “The Glass Menagerie” in the 65 years since its premiere. The campy parodies, the popular and “definitive” portrayals of the Wingfield family by stars like Katharine Hepburn, John Malkovich and Karen Allen. The celluloid amber of Anthony Harvey’s 1973 version. But if any company in town can polish and make this classic look brand new, it’s Jonathan Fox and Ensemble Theatre.

“The characters have become iconic and the lines are so well-known, like ‘Hamlet,’ ” says Fox, who directs. “It becomes a challenge to figure out what might be fresh.”