MICHAEL COOPER: MASKED MARVELS AND WONDER TALES

Ronald McDonal ARTS for Young America -- Viterbo University, Lacrosse, WI

This production was nearly identical to what we saw a year ago in Winona, MN. The kids enjoyed it so much that we got tickets again for this production. The only thing different, for us, was that my youngest son was chosen to go on stage and was the one picked for the "wacky" elevator ride sketch (last year, my older son was chosen). The show didn't hold quite the same magic for us, certainly because we knew what to expect, but it was still an enjoyable show.

Below is a copy of what I wrote last year.

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A master mime and mask-maker entertains with a series of skits, sketches, and vignettes.

This was a fantastic show. What an artisan! Cooper clever opened his show with a mime piece that had him wearing an over-sized baby-head mask. Half-way through the selection, he opened the baby mask (which then, swadled, became the baby) to reveal an old man mask.

Other sketches included a cowboy taming a horse, his impression of various animals (some with and some without masks), a fish fishing for a human, an audience participation piece in which he taught some children how to look like they were going down (and up) on an elevator and on stairs, and a coup de gras with a story about a dancing troll, in which he danced in stilts, wearing a troll mask and costume.

My children were completely entralled by this show, and my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it as well.

I had two, small, reservations about the show. First, I did feel that Mr. Cooper worked a little too hard to try to get some reaction and enthusiasm out of the stodgy, mid-western, Scandinavian-descendant audience. We're generally a pretty reserved bunch, so trying to get us to yell out comments during a show goes against our nature. It seemed as though his show is geared toward trying to get the audience to "ask" for things, which we generally just don't do.

And some times I thought his miming, while certainly competent, was less than spectacular -- specifically his mime of sitting in a chair. Hey...I understand the whole aging/weak knees thing, but if you can't get your butt a little more parallel to the floor, then I'm not going to buy that you're sitting in a chair. The first time he did it, I wasn't even sure that's what he was miming.

Still...a really tremendous show, with a hearty two thumbs up from me!

MSHSL Section 1-A One Act Play Festival 2007

The top two winners from the Sub-Section contests compete for the chance to move to the State festival. Participating schools were: Byron; Fillmore Central; Grand Meadow; Rushford-Peterson; St. Charles; Stewartville; Triton; Wabasha-Kellogg.

Plays performed were:

Wade the Bird -- Trista Baldwin
A Mother's Story -- Sandra Miller
Cannibals -- Heather Dundas
The Cards of Fate -- Ed Monk
A Danish Soap or The Danes of Our Lives -- Peter Filichi
The Bald Soprano -- Eugene Ionesco
I Never Saw a Moor -- John Schreiber
Normal People -- Mike Willis

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I cannot comment on the first three plays of the day. I directed Cannibals and was back stage during the performance, but from the parents who'd seen ever production said that it was the best yet.

But because we were third in line, we were preparing during the first two shows. As I had already seen Wade the Bird at sub-section, I didn't need to see it again. I am sorry I missed A Mother's Story.

The Cards of Fate, by Ed Monk, was an interesting show. The premise was interesting -- a game show in which the contestant's answers had consequences FAR beyond the television studio, and included life and death for some. The set and costumes for this production were extravagant. The acting, sadly, was mostly a pastiche of caricatures. While the script is written in such a way that the characters are a bit over-the-top, making them a little more real to the audience might have helped it to get across better. It came across as melodrama, rather than a dark comedy.

Peter Filichi's A Danish Soap or The Danes of Our Lives, depends, as you can imagine, on a series of puns relating to Shakespeare. I thought that the script was quite funny but that the staging of the play was absolutely dreadful. Some of the dialog was moderately funny, but again, that was largely due to the script, and not the performances, which I felt were wooden.

What can I say about The Bald Soprano, by my hero, Eugene Ionesco? It's done fairly often, but I thought that some of the choices for this productions where quite fun. I liked, specifically, the costuming. The choice of color coordinating, along with wildly colored hair, was quite nice. The timing was very good, and I really appreciate high school students who aren't afraid of the pause. Especially in a show like this. The maid was overly-annoying, the cuckoo in the clock was not absurd, but ridiculous, and the giant ear was ... what the hell was it?! It's not in the script. Still, the commitment to the piece by the cast was really tremendous.

John Schreiber's original piece, I Never Saw a Moor, was deathly dull, and only moderately well acted. This is an "issue" play, and lord knows we see an awful lot of those at the high school level. The difference is that it's not about AIDS or the holocaust or teen suicide. This time it was about epilepsy. Sorry, but issue plays drive me crazy.

The final play of the day, Normal People, by Mike Willis, was another "issue" play. This time about AIDS. A high school student contracts the HIV virus through a blood transfusion and gets full-blown AIDS and then ostricized by her classmates and school -- except by one boy, a high school football player who everyone thinks is a bit dull and a jerk. The acting was monotone and boring. Strange costume choices had matching boys and girls wearing matching, vivid color outfits. Why? Were we really not going to get who was dating whom? Did it matter? This was my choice for worst production of the day.

My prediction was that Bald Soprano would get top prize. I thought that 2nd place could go just about any way, depending on the judges. I was hoping ... perhaps even expecting ... that our production of Cannibals would place in the top four.

Final result:

1st place: The Bald Soprano

2nd place: A Mother's Story

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5th place: Cannibals

DON QUIXOTE -- Moscow Festival Ballet

Saint Mary's University of Minnesota School of the Arts
Page Series
dir: Sergey Radchenko
principal dancers: Grigorieva, Olga Tchemalina, Marianna Usina, Goukhar, Daev, Alexander Kazatsky, Anatholiy
soloist dancers: Alexy Lisitsin, Viacheslav Aksenov, Galina Glovanova, Andrey Chudin, Maria Barkova, Maria Socolnikova, Victoria Krakhmaleva, Alexander Rupishev, Anna Nekhlyudova, Yan Samigullin, Ekaterina Egorova, Alexander Pinugin, Maria Klueva, Irina Ivanova, Elena Khorosheva, Almaz Kalel, Timur Kinzikeev, Andrey Tarchokov, Yulia Kormishkina, Alina Dokuchaeva, Evgeniya Matyushina, Yulia Gridina, Yulia Proshkina, Victoria Kershis, Denis Sdvizhkov, Ivan Kaoitorov, Juhko Tanaka, Evleniya Sukhareva, Sofia Tomilina, Vitaly Zabelin, Denis Morozov, Taliana Suetina, Oksana Bondareva, Dmitriy Dmitriev
music: Leon Minkus
choreography: Marius Petipa
choreographers: Yurly Vetrov & Maria Bilova
sets: Lev Solodovnikov
costumes: Lev Solodovnikov
light designer: Maria Borodina

The Classical Ballet, as performed by the touring Russian company.

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It was rather fortuitous that I got to see this ballet. I'd wanted to go but hadn't gotten around to getting tickets, and then it was sold out. The morning of the show, however, I received a call from an old friend who said that she had an extra ticket and would I like to see it. Turns out that my friend had the prime, center seats, usually reserved for the university's president.

I enjoyed the ballet quite a bit (though I'm not at all sure what the hell it has to do with the story of Don Quixote) -- unlike many ballets which have graceful, slow-moving sections in which women in tutu's dance lithely around, this show was filled with a fair amount of men dancing. And quite frankly I enjoy the strength of male ballet dancing much more than the female dancing in most ballets I've seen.

Again, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly see that this is based in any way on Cervantes' classic novel, other than by having Don Quixote wander through each scene (yes, the character was there, but he never actually danced at all).

The dancers all seemed to be strong, though so many of them looked incredibly young, and as my friend pointed out, they were probably students out on their first tour.

The scenery was stunning and very ambitious for a small traveling company.

Over all, a really great experience and well worth attending.

MSHSL Sub-Section 1-A One Act Play Festival 2007

Seven, one-act plays, produced and performed by area high schools as part of the Minnesota State High School League One Act Play Festival. The schools are: Rushford-Peterson; Kingsland; Houston; Chatfield; Fillmore Central; Spring Grove; Mabel-Canton.

The plays performed were (in the order that they were presented):

The Dining Room by A.R. Gurney
The Ugly Duckling by A.A. Milne
Cannibals by Heather Dundas
Why I Am A Bachelor by Conrad Seiler
Final Dress Rehearsal by Jack Frakes
Wade The Bird by Trista Baldwin
Chipped by Forrest Musselman

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When I first caught a glimpse of the list of shows to be performed, I wondered why anyone in their right mind would choose The Dining Room. I first read this A.R. Gurney play when I was in college, and it has stuck with me as the most boring piece of theatre that I've ever come across. This production did little to change my impression. Although well directed and moderately well acted, the choice of material comes into question. I did come to understand some things about the play that I don't think I understood when I read it 25 years ago, but I still had the feeling of... "So what?" It never engaged me. It never drew me in or gave me any interesting insight. There's definitely a talented cast here that needs some real help with their focus. The premise for the show is one dining room that we see through the ages, by the different families that have used it, and what they have used it for.

The Ugly Duckling by A.A. Milne was an interesting choice for this competition because the same show was performed last year (successfully) by one of the other schools. This was the only production of the day that I did not get to see. What I heard was that this production had a western theme setting (last year's was a fairy-tale kingdom setting).

As I directed the production of Cannibals by Heather Dundas, I cannot comment on it without bias. It was a very good production, well performed, though with room for improvement.

Why I Am A Bachelor, by Conrad Seiler, was an amusing work with a lot of potential. This production could have used a little tighter direction. The "Lecturer" was funny, but wandered aimlessly a little too often. The "couple in love" were a bit stiff and the young man seemed very uncomfortable on stage The "mother," "aunt" and "little sister" were all fine. The two" stage hands" also seemed to be uncontrolled and therefore distracted rather than added to the production. And...it's a small thing, and probably a matter of personal taste, but if I had a performer with a tattoo on his/her body and it was not appropriate for the part, I would have dressed the character differently or at the very least had him/her put a bandage over it. The "aunt's" tattoo above her ankle was not appropriate for the character and very distracting. The story of the play was a man lecturing on the benefits of being a bachelor by showing how dreadful marriage was, and how man usually got into such a predicament.

The Jake Frakes play, Final Dress Rehearsal, was another play that could have used some tighter direction to keep the play in focus. I think that plays which have a lot of apparent chaos need to be even more tightly directed to LOOK chaotic, and not left up to the actors (especially high school student actors) to run around randomly. This performance had just enough of the "run around" feel to it that it lacked cohesion. This is too bad because it certainly had what was probably the strongest male performance in the character of the "Director" as played by Derek Mulhern. The story was, as titled, supposed to be the "final dress rehearsal" of a sure-to-fail performance of Cinderella.

Wade The Bird, by Trista Baldwin, was a very high school appropriate show. In competition, it is nice to have students playing roles that are not really much of a stretch for them. Playing characters who are in high school is helpful. The direction here was nice, with some really great tableaux images and some great sound effects. Here, too, some of the staging could be tightened up. The 30+ second schene change in total blackout was WAY too long ... and unnecessary. Either give them a little light, or find a way to use a different area of the stage, rather than trying to clear and reset it. The story revolved around "Wade" who was kicked out of school for setting fire to something in school, then talked about killing himself, and dreams a female friend was having of Wade as a bird. If Derek Mulhern from the previous show was not clearly the best male actor, it would be because of the tremendous performance put in by Alan Wiltgen as "Wade."

The final performance of the day was Chipped by Forrest Musselman. This work is a pastiche of computer-related items (eBay, on-line relationships, viruses, spam, etc). I thought that the play had a lot of potential, and this school actually did one of the best jobs that they've done in recent years, but, like many of the plays during the day, lacked tightness, focus, and relyed on the script to carry them. When discussing this play with my own students later, their consensus was that the play was out-dated. I agree, but I did think that it could still have been staged in such a way as to have winning potential.

I actually had a hard time predicting how the judges would go with this. I did think that we were clearly the best ensemble cast, but then I guess I feel that way every year. I did think that Wade The Bird was well performed, though it was a little bumpy here and there, and that Final Dress Rehearsal had some really great performances (amid some really cheesy performances). I thought that Cannibals, Wade The Bird, and Final Dress Rehearsal would fight for the top two spots.

And I was correct.

1st place: Cannibals
2nd place: Wade The Bird
3rd place: Final Dress Rehearsal

These competitions are fun to watch and to see the level of talent in our high schools. Those shows that don't do as well, in my opinion, are those whose schools which are using directors who aren't familiar with theatre.