What a great title for a review of Centre Stage's Sweeney Todd. I'm glad I thought of it. Unfortunately, that's about all I could come up with, because the title is all too true. I woke up yesterday monstrous ill and had to cancel (sob) my seats for the show. What's worse--every other show time is already booked on my calendar :(

So that's all I have to share with you. Except this recipe for Really Helpful Sick Time Tea. Many of you probably already do honey/lemon tea, but this one has a secret ingredient that I've found to be most helpful.

Really Helpful Sick Time Tea
--Green Tea (I prefer a loose leaf Japanese Sencha--pick some up at the Asian market near you)
--Juice of half a Lemon (it HAS to be from a fresh lemon. That stuff in a plastic bottle DOES NOT work for this).
--Local, Raw Honey. (MUST be local and raw. The pasteurized cooked-to-death stuff at your grocery store will actually make your illness worse.)
And the secret ingredient?
--A dash of cloves.
--Oh, and of course, boiling water.

Easy, helpful, and much more yummier than "Honegar with a Sprinkling of Cayenne Pepper" (hoooie! trust me on that one). It's good for what ails you--unless what ails you is not being able to see Sweeney Todd because you waited too long for tickets. So don't wait.

As my friend yesterday so helpfully put it, "It's the greatest play that's ever played" and you've not seen it yet?!?! Ever?!?!? No, friend. I haven't (ah-ah-ah-choo!)

So do yourself a favor. Drink lots of healthy beverages, snap up some tickets, and go be sickened by the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

DISCLAIMER:
I am not a doctor any more than Sweeney Todd is a barber. This recipe may not be as lethal as a visit to Mr. Todd, but then again, it just might be. Be it on your own head if you attempt this brew and fail to consult a medical doctor for any ailments from which you may be suffering.

There. I'm done. (Sniffle). Let me know how the play played.

Once upon a time, we told myths to explore the world and our place in it. But then we grew cleverer and faster than our ancestors. We invented Science. Now we know about evolution and pi and the square roots of all kinds of Very Important Numbers. We know how to harness nuclear power so that we can make more energy so that we can own more stuff so that we can be happier or at least kill the people who make us unhappy. Myths? They were all about useless, unquantifiable, irrational stuff like love. Totally untrustworthy; who needs 'em?

I do, for one. And I suspect you do, too. Science and rationalism can't answer every human need, but it seems that's all we've got these days (that, or piddling little "stories" designed to make us all buy the same products to look the same way to be happy or at least ignore the people who don't buy the same product and therefore make us unhappy). If you, like me, are strung out on schedules and stats and need a heaping dose of humanity, then I propose that Warehouse Theatre's season opener is just the magic the gods ordered. Walk, run, swim, FLY to see Metamorphoses. This gorgeous production is more than a crash course in Greek mythology; it's about what it means to walk on this earth with other people. I'd wager it's the most important (and startling) play of Greenville's 2011/2012 theatre season.

And if you don't care about any of that irrational humanity gobbledy-gook? Let me give you some cold hard facts to prove that you (even you!) should hie you to the nearest phone (or e-mail client) and order up some tickets.

1. The whole play takes place IN A POOL. Which, as you know, cost lots and lots and lots of money to build. And as you know, more money = more better. So there you have it. (Of course, being in a pool also makes the play astonishingly beautiful. If you care about such things.)

2. Even if you've never peeked at the Greeks in your life, money couldn't buy you a better tour guide. Shannon Robert (director) takes care to ease us into the irrationality of this new-old world. The opening scenes are reigned in, clearly articulated, and paced slowly enough that our ears can adjust to these strange cadences. (Of course, once we're acclimated, Robert plunges us head-first into the disorienting ether of Ovid. Staging becomes more and more erratic and bizarre. It's brilliant, really.)

3. I know we don't have Oscars in Greenville, but if you want to see really good acting (really, really good), skip the movies and see this show. Again, wait for things to warm up. In the beginning, the actors are just helping you along. But once they've got you where they want you, pow! There's a knockout performance by . . . well, just about everyone in this eleven person cast. I think I'll just list Melissa Peters for her disturbing (and disturbingly sympathetic) Myrrha. But then I remember all the times Jason D. Johnson and Jason M. Shipman made me laugh, and how well they inhabited each of their roles with such distinction and clarity. And how Matthew Merritt and Debra Capps kept making me cry. And how . . . 'Nough said.

4. I will now quote to you from an esteemed Therapist, skilled in diagnosing all of our modern problems by scientifically proven methods learned at an expensive school. (Of course, it's the therapist from Metamorphoses, but that shouldn't matter, should it?) "Myths are the earliest forms of science . . . Unfortunately we give our mythic side scant attention these days. As a result, a great deal escapes us and we no longer understand our own actions. So it remains important and salutary to speak not only of the rational and easily understood, but also of enigmatic things: the irrational and the ambiguous. To speak both privately and publicly."
--Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses. Now playing at Warehouse Theatre. Do Not Miss It.

PS. A note to parents: Esther Williams this is not. This is Ovid--you know, that old Greek guy who is still banned from a lot of classrooms for being, ahem, "inappropriate." Please leave the wee swimmers at home.

--
Mary Zimmerman's "Metamorphoses"
Presented by Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948. Through September 10. Tickets $25.

There are three types of people in this city of ours:
1. Those who hear "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels the Musical starring a FOX News celebrity" and run straight to the theatre without even asking which FOX News celebrity.
2. Those who, upon hearing the word "musical," run-dash-sprint! in the opposite direction.
3. Those who are morbidly curious. Can such a thing be done? A musical? Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? Really? And so we (yes, I am of this third category)--we pick up our tickets with trepidation.

If you're in the first or second category, I'm not even going to talk to you. You've already made up your mind, and judging from the Center Stage's production, you'll be ecstatic if you just stay your course. The musical-y inclined will thrill at the set! the dancing! quick costuming! laughing! The runners-away will shudder at such sections as (I'm not making this up) "Let's All Yodel." Stay your course.

But what about those curious among us? Here are the observations of one trepidatious (not a word) theatre-goer.

1. The lyrics are brilliantly clever, hilarious in spaces (when asked to describe the magic of being alive, Freddy lists such things as: "my hotel gives away free shampOOOOO"). The book also sometimes bowls you right over (Especially when discussing the glories of Wagner and bacon....) If you at all like word-play, reparte--go! Lane and Yazbek have cooked up such a feast as will not disappoint.

2. Some of the scenes are hysterical. "All About Ruprecht" is one of the funniest things I've seen this season. Todd Weir's Freddy Benson is perfect here--the faux "disturbed" brother may have run off Lawrence's unwanted fiance, but he's enough to drag the audience back for a second round of laughs. If you love to laugh--go. (Just save your drinks till intermission....)

3. If you just want to see if this Dirty Rotten Scoundrels worked as a musical? Eh. Maybe you should join up with some of those runners away.

3. a. Choreography. In trying to wow us with Musical-ity, the Choreographers That Be crammed the space with more chorus girls that you can shake a stick at. The resulting dance sequences (of which there are plenty) went limp. I will say, that when the number of dancing dames was severely limited--such as in "The More We Dance" the relatively simple choreography became electric. The dancers had freedom to move, to be energetic, and I was delightfully entranced.

3. b. Music. There were some songs that really worked: those whose lyrics were too clever not to work ("All About Ruprecht"), and those that were an outright parody of the musical form ("Love is My Legs" was one hysterical example). In both cases, the performers truly inhabited the music and had the audience doubled over in laughter. I wished for (but could not find) the same let-loose sincerity from the other musical numbers.

I would like to note that there were some strong performances (Todd Weir's Freddy Benson I've already mentioned). Melanie Ann Wiliford was refreshingly in command of her Muriel Eubanks, and more: her singing had the note of truth, whether she was being funny or no. Hers was an intelligent, stable performance, and I'm glad I saw it.

Runners to the theatre--I hope you still run, and run fast. You will have a blast. Runners away, you have been warned. Wonderers? Now that's up to you.

Regardless of your thoughts on the Black History Month (and the fact that it happens to occupy the shortest month of the year)--JDew's "One Voice" at Warehouse Theatre is almost as moving a sweep through famous Black Americans (and Greenvillians) as one could hope for.

JDew (this is a solo show) handles each character with just the right amounts of restraint and rage and hope. He builds his material to a fevered climax. Shivery vocals by Valisa Smith, a tearful interview with Greenville's Wilfred J. Walker, Sr., followed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream. JDew has done his job perfectly--the audience is strained to the heights. We're waiting for that long-promised Justice to roll down.

And then! And then! It never does. Not that there hasn't been any notable history after King, but that there isn't any more in the show. Instead, there comes a baffling interlude. Right when those mighty waters are about to break, in comes Cassius Clay. And not the Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali of renowned political activism ("Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?"), but the clowinish Clay of early days. And even more unfortunately, the same is true for the following act: Bill Cosby in all his humorous glory, not the Bill Cosby who is still speaking hard to the racial problems of the day.

Don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with the performance. JDew hilariously embodies both men, and the audience is more than ready for a laughing break. Still, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to that longing for justice? For the longing that JDew stirred up and whipped to a frenzy? Where did all that fevered emotion go? What on earth happened between '68 and 2008--when JDew again picks up his threads of oppression and redemption with Obama's "Yes We Can." Don't tell me all we did was laugh. Something happened in those forty years between one man's assassination and another man's election.

Despite it's little foibles, this is still a show worth seeing--in its current incarnation and (I hope) in a more carefully structured version some time in the future. And while I am hoping, let me also hope that someday soon JDew's show will not have to be limited to that narrow window of time we call "Black History Month," but that it will be viewed with as much enthusiasm and interest all the other months of the year.

--
JDew's "One Voice" Directed by Ron Pyle.
Presented by Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948.

In keeping with the spirit of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" let me begin this review by being awkwardly personal. I've spent the last two weeks in a dark place (artistically, spiritually, practically, relationally, every-ally). So when time comes 'round to review Warehouse Theatre's latest offering, here was my gut reaction: "I really don't want to spend three hours in a room with people screaming obscenities at each other." My beleaguered husband's gut reaction was "Maybe you should call in sick for this one." Dark places or no, maybe this is also your inclination regarding such painful masterpieces of the theatre: Why on earth should I watch people lacerate each other?

Now let me borrow another convention from the play: erudition. The Greeks had a handy concept for why these stories are important. It's called catharsis, and I think it works something like this (correct me, George, if I'm wrong).

1. You go to Warehouse Theatre, and you watch Mimi Wyche be one witch of a woman as Martha. You can't help but watch her. Wyche's work is like fire--entrancing, beautiful, and sickeningly destructive. (If you've only got the fortitude to see one Martha before you die, you'd do well to pick Wyche's.)

2. You feel her husband George (played by Chip Egan) sink deeper and deeper into the bogs of his dead-end middle-aged nightmare. Thanks to Egan's raw, natural performance, you feel yourself slipping into that slew as well.

3. You watch them air their dirtiest secrets, tear at each other's most tender places, and generally destroy each other in front of two complete strangers, Nick (Brock Koonce) and Honey (Debra Capps), both of whom get singed in the fire, and both of whom know how to occupy the right amount of space in the story. Capps is charming and frail; Koonce is bullish and condescending; neither try to wrest your attention from the real fire between George and Martha.

4. You enjoy director Roy Fluhrer's masterful pacing, and (no thanks to the Greeks) you take breaks, called intermissions. All of this helps you survive the fire.

5. Then you see them all burn up: George, Martha, all their pretenses, and all the little illusions they've created in order to survive.

6. And you could have a miniature light-bulb moment, say, "Hey, I don't have it that bad," feel better about your life, and move on until the next flavor of existential crisis blah strikes your fancy.

7. Or, you cold have genuine (Greek) pity for the characters, the people around you, yourself. You might even be able to recognize and confront some of your own fear-filled illusions, and step forward with George and Martha into something that isn't radiant and isn't perfect, but just might be a little bit more truthful.

That ending is one of the most truthful moments I've scene in a theatre in a long time, and it's worth every bit of agony to get there. It's not easy. It hurts. But it is (as so few things are) truly vital. Darkness or no, I'm especially glad I didn't call in sick.
--
Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Presented by Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948. Through February 5. Tickets $25.

If you don't know the story, it goes something like this (no spoilers, I promise): Wormwood, neophyte fiend and demon tormentor, gets his first job stealing Mike's soul. But being such a dunce at the whole evil-devil-thing, he needs uncle Screwtape to give advice. Lots of advice. Too much advice? Controlling? While it may not be your Grandmother's C.S. Lewis, Warehouse Theatre's, Screwtape still offers plenty to chew on. (And no, I'm not talking about the oft-threatened feast of defunct demons.)

Let's start with the adaptation, which appears to be an interesting contortionist exercise by James Forsyth. The script almost seems a reaction against demon Screwtape's (in)famously arrogant pontifications. Forsyth has cast-off the epistolary structure in favor of forcing a rather castrated Screwtape to bungle his way through the "adventures" alongside his nephew Wormwood. The result is a script that can't seem to decide where (or how) to cast its fiendish gaze. It's not satirical. It's not absurd. It's definitely not real. It's . . . ?

This is not to say anything against the actors charged with playing these conflicted roles, or the fantastic designers. Shannon Robert turns in a fun and functional set worthy of Wonderland's rabbit hole. April Schaeffer deserves double applause, both for the show's electric choreography (these sections spoke more to Lewis' point than most of Forsyth's text--I found myself wishing for an entirely dance-based riff on Screwtape) and for her own beautifully stylized Milly. Roberta Barnes (Slumtrimpet the demon sexpert) and Michele Labar (Mike's [s]Mother) followed suit with their own hyperbolic performances.

Jason Adkins provides a disconcertingly normal (disillusioned, often discouraged) chap for the devils to torment, and Tara Sweeney excels in a particularly difficult role--one that could have easily run into a saintly sweet and surface-y lampoon. Instead, her overtly Christian Judy comes off as refreshingly complete. And one last brief note of kudos to Miranda Notus: the small character Queenie who absolutely commanded her scene and my attention. I hope to see more from her soon.

Then of course, we have the demons. Screwtape (Kevin Treu) and Wormwood (Daryl Ward Phillipy). Both exerted tremendous force and energy on the text and on their "patient." Phillipy even pulled off some grand laughs. But unfortunately for the poor devils, I think the adaptation lacked an essential verve, a vital energy, of belief. At every turn the text undercuts the spirits (incompetent fools), and steals the heart of what could be two delicious villains. I mean, we all know, wink, wink, that devils aren't real. Right? Well, at least for the space of an evening, let us feel their full and fallen glory.

And as for Lewis' theology--well, I'll let the seminary students duke it out on that one. Did or didn't Forsythe remain true to Lewis' doctrine of the soul? Your answer will depend on two things: just how closely you attend to the surprise ending(s), and how much trust you (foolishly?) put in the original Screwtape as a reliable narrator of his own tail. Uhm...tale.

--
James Forsyth's "Screwtape," adaptated from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters
Presented by Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St., Greenville (864) 235-6948. Through December 18. Tickets $25. Students $15.

Lala Levy would love to be Scarlet O'Hara. Or write about her. Or at least watch her at the movies all day long. Lala's family would just like her to find someone to take her to Ballyhoo--the premier social event for Who's Who among the Southern Jews in 1939. What nobody wants is for a stranger from New York to upset their whole family with prickly issues of racism among their own. Alfred Uhry's "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" at Centre Stage is a hilarious look at how we all, no matter the race, discriminate against each other.

And since we're discriminating, I have to confess to some myself: The men are far and away the treat of this production. Straight man, heartthrob, and deliciously exaggerated scoundrel, they are all a delight to watch. Peter Haloulos plays the charming and ever put-upon Adolph Freitag--an elderly gentleman living with his two sisters and two nieces. His performance is lovable and true. Chris Cashon is completely beguiling as Joe Farkas, the stranger in their midst, "the other kind" of Jew, and Matthew Merritt plays such a believably affected rapscallion (Peach Weil, the blue-blood Jew of Louisiana) that you can't help but fall in love with him.

Among the women, Kelly Wallace consistently kept the laughs coming for her airy and charming Reba Freitag. And as for the rest, make no mistake, each came into her charming own in the second half of the play. Unfortunately for the actresses, Uhry charges his women with bearing large swaths of exposition and introduction in the first half of the show--exposition that hadn't quite found its way into the heart. But post-intermission, when all that back-story was out of the way and we knew who went with whom and why and what exactly was the matter with the odd duck Lala and the family mattress business and relations for two generations back, then the actresses found their cores and gave the men a run for their money (literally--lavish ball gowns, fits of hysteria and fainting, expensive deserts, and why on earth it is that women always go to the bathroom in groups).

Of course it's deeper than that, since what we're laughing about are issues of division, discrimination, cultural identity, war. But Uhry woos us with so much humor (who can't laugh at the delectable "Gone With the Wind" jokes? Or the age-old Christmas/Hanukkah quips?) that we find ourselves laughing to a broader compassion for our fellow men (and women).

So here's my advice to you. Grab someone you love (take a lesson from Boo Levy, and let nothing stop you), grab some tickets, and luxuriate in Rick Connor's comforting set. Listen well in the first half, laugh and laugh (and learn a little), and look forward to a little holiday romance with your special someone.

--
Alfred Uhry's "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" Directed by Chip Egan. Set: Rick Connor.

Presented by Centre Stage, 501 River Street, Greenville, SC (864) 233-6733. Through December 18. Tickets $25, with discounts for seniors and students.