"The Sunset Limited" is an excellent choice for a reader's theater production. The sentences are straight razors of flickering aspect, as capable of scribing sharply limned images as of slicing unerringly to the very heart of darkness. And as there are only two characters, Black (Archie Coleman) and White (Bob Harvey) to wield these razors, The Sunset Limited is a focused and economical package. And for most of the evening, Soundstage Productions' "reader's theatre on steroids" version (more on this later) proves that McCarthy's language and actors with good voices are all that is vital for a strong production of this play; it is only in the dying moments that something goes wrong with the theory, and makes one long for a fully staged and fully realized Sunset.

Harvey has a needling quality to his voice, and White's highly intellectualized approach to life comes out as an almost-patronizing tone. Coleman gives Black a sonorous, languid quality, warmth and compassion that turns cloying as he and White argue round and round with neither man making headway against the other's belief or lack thereof. But an ultimate answer is not the point. The debate of life versus death is the star attraction here.

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[The Theatre of the Mind concept] ... suits some plays better than others, and it's perfect for their current offering, Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited.

...their conversation is so interesting that you won't mind the fact that nothing really happens: the pleasure comes from the expression of ideas rather than dramatic action.

...the Soundstage Production makes for an invigorating and thought-provoking evening of theatre.

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Lanford Wilson's lyrical drama about hypocrisy in a moribund Missouri town is prized for the tightly woven point and counterpoint in the dialogue. Under David Houghton's direction, this choir-like quality is emphasized by the use of script books placed on music stands as the only set decoration; projected black-and-white photos of cast members in a real small town provide a backdrop. When actors are massed together, it works well, creating the image of a town locked in a death spiral. The town outcast, Skelly (Collins Lewis) delivers the strongest performance. Matt Kemmerer brings a natural, quiet appeal to Walter, the newcomer all the ladies swoon for. As one half of the acidic gossip duo that serves as a vituperative Greek chorus, Allison Hoppe's nasal and insidious Wilma is a nagging, menacing presence — the true voice of Eldritch.

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Soundstage Productions enriches the St. Louis theatre community by bringing us staged readings of rarely performed works. Their current production, Arthur Miller's A Memory of Two Mondays, directed by Dave Houghton, is a perfect choice for Soundstage because while no one would place it among Miller's major plays (in fact, it often seems more like sketches from the playwright's notebook than a finished work), it remains interesting for the light it sheds on the playwright and his working processes.

I suspect Miller was fond of this work because it recalls a time in his youth when all possibilities seemed open to him and when he had begun to experience that strange duality common among writers, who become detached observers of even their own lives. Miller's representative in A Memory of Two Mondays is Bert, a young man working at the warehouse while saving money to go to college. He's the one who doesn't fit in among the warehouse workers, the one who can't understand how anyone could bear a life in which each day, and each year, is pretty much like the last. What he doesn't yet realize is that for most people, life is not some wonderful dream of the future but the reality of what you live every day, and it doesn't change that much, so you just do the best you can to get on with it.

Outstanding characterizations are achieved by Jeanne Trevor as Agnes, Matthew Kemmerer as Kenneth, Jason Meyers as Bert and Bob Harvey as Tom. Lighting by Jesse Russell was simple and effective, as were projections of the factory in the changing seasons, and musical choices by Carmen Larimore-Russell. Other cast members are Tom Moore as Raymond, Heather Schmidt as Patricia, Randy Stinebaker as Gus, Archie Coleman as Jim, Dave Bornholdt as Larry, and Dave Weis and Chuck Colson in multiple roles.

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Soundstage Productions dedicates itself to quality staged readings, and everything I’ve seen there has been first rate. Now, under the sensitive direction of David Houghton, they’ve presented Horton Foote’s The Carpetbagger’s Children. Horton Foote is a simply amazing treasure. He’s been writing rich, wonderful, deeply American plays for over six decades—more than sixty of them, all told—not to mention his many wonderful film scripts (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Trip to Bountiful, and Tender Mercies among many). At the age of ninety-one he is still active as a screen-writer—still stays up all night to get that scene just right—and on September 27 he has a play premiering in New York. Like The Carpetbagger’s Children, its theme—in fact its title—is Dividing the Estate.

The three actresses are all strong, each with a true southern flavor. Helene Meyer, as the black-sheep, Grace Ann, is strong-minded and testy. Carmen Larimore-Russell invests Cornelia, the responsible soul, with determined commitment. And the lovely Laura Ernst brings such a glowing presence to Sissy, the happy “baby” of the family! Her voice, heard in a number of songs, is truly beautiful. Indeed she does “Brighten the Corner”. Her “Mighty Lake a Rose” is, by itself, worth the price of admission.

As usual, technical elements are minimal but they’re excellent. Wonderful, perfectly selected old photos provide a projected background throughout. There is an admirable respect for and commitment to Foote’s text—and this production does that text great justice.

The Carpetbagger’s Children has closed, but you should not miss Soundstage’s next production, Arthur Miller’s A Memory of Two Mondays, opening November 15. For tickets call 314-968-8070.

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"The Woolgatherer" by William Mastrosimone is a charming dark comedy about two lonely people struggling to connect. Cliff is a truck driver stuck in town while his rig is being repaired. Rose works at the local five-and-dime and is a woolgatherer in two senses of the word: she habitually withdraws from reality into her daydreams, and she also collects sweaters from the men who have passed through her life.

This relationship doesn't seem likely to succeed: Cliff is an amiable fellow but has only one thing on his mind, while Rose has been burned too often in that department already. Will Cliff become just another sweater in Rose's closet, or will they manage to connect and have the relationship they both desperately want?

"The Woolgatherer" is an excellent choice for Soundstage Productions, a local company which specializes in a sort of augmented reader's theatre. Mastrosimone's text is operatic in its structure: exposition is conveyed through rapid-fire dialogue between Cliff and Rose (that's the recitative), while monologues interrupt the action and allow them to reveal their inner-most thoughts and feelings (those are the arias). It's alternately funny and touching, and laudably economical as well: in less than ninety minutes, Mastrosimone creates two complex characters, makes us care about them, and sets up and resolves a conflict which speaks to the most basic of human needs.

While the script is well-written, the dramatic situation is entirely ordinary and both characters are perilously close to being stock figures from the Off Broadway division of Central Casting. The reader's theatre presentation manages to have the best of both worlds, keeping the focus on Mastrosimone's words while disguising the slightness of the story itself, which would be more obvious in a full-scale production.

Both actors create convincing characters. Kylee Miller's Rose is alternately vulnerable and exasperating, putting on pseudo-intellectual airs while revealing far more of herself than she intends to. David Bornholdt's Cliff begins as a pleasant guy looking for a good time, then becomes genuinely concerned about Rose when he recognizes her vulnerability. The direction by David Houghton keeps the focus squarely on Mastrosimone's text, enhanced by minimal staging, lighting and costumes. Carmen Larimore's musical selections, consisting of popular songs with themes of daydreaming or trucking, enhanced the evening's enjoyment. I could have done without the projected slides, however, which added nothing to the descriptions already present in the text.

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Harold Pinter is one of the few playwrights who have become adjectives: you know, like “Shakespearean”, “Shavian”, “Chekhovian”, “Brechtian”. We so easily say “Pinteresque” to convey that sense of subtle menace seeping through the cracks of mundane detail that is otherwise very difficult to describe.

Soundstage Productions offered some prime Pinter last weekend but, alas, for only two performances [Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6, 2007]. Soundstage, the creation of Randy and Ann Stinebaker with David Houghton, focuses on the spoken text, doing what are essentially staged readings. They always find fine actors, and though the technical aspects are kept to a minimum these are usually very carefully and artistically done.

Their Evening with Harold Pinter includes a delightful scattering of his very early sketches and a famous early one-act, “The Room”. Pinter came on the scene in the late 50's, and these sketches show clearly why he's been classed with the “absurdists” then arising in Europe: Ionesco, Adamov, Genet and so on. The sketches typically focus on a simple mundane event and elaborate it into either quite surreal or peculiarly threatening dimensions. One scene, for instance, shows us a factory supervisor reporting to management about potential labor trouble: it seems the men just don't like the brass petcocks they've been making, or the parallel male stud couplings, or a score of other items. Pinter seems to have mined the depths of a manufacturing supplier's hardware catalogue, and this deluge of abstruse technicalia mounts strangely into wild humor. In another sketch an interviewer talks with the proprietor of a porno shop who keeps “dossierés” on his “clientelly”. All the sketches are, in a way, Monty Python silly-but with that oddly disturbing and distinctive edge.

The one-act “The Room” is much darker - certainly among the least comic of Pinter's works. It's full of dark symbols and of that talking at cross purposes which Pinter waves like a flag to mark most of his plays. Perhaps not so delightful as the sketches, but it's pure Pinter and very well done.

The production is crisply professional. The cast is simply splendid: Bob Harvey, Archie Coleman, Deborah Dennet and Laura Ernst do the sketches. Then for “The Room” they are joined by Mike Ketcher, Collin Lewis and our beloved Jeanne Trevor.

Director David Houghton has managed the whole evening with deftness and balance. Not the least of his accomplishments is to draw convincing and consistent working-class English accents out of each member of the cast. They also deal fairly successfully with the terrible hard acoustics of the Regional Arts Commission space. The quite perfect sound is not credited, though I believe it was done by Carmen Larimore. Lighting is very effective, and the background of projected drawings is beautifully done; kudos to technical director Jess Russell. It's too bad if you missed it - An Evening with Harold Pinter. But keep an eye out for the next production by Soundstage.

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"Think of this as a last round of applause for work that lives in memory long after the curtain has rung down."

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At least since Odysseus, writers have celebrated the adventures of guys who hit the road. Gals make it into the stories as faithful Penelopes, waiting at home, or seductive Circes, doling out trouble or comfort at stops along the way.

Now playwright Melanie Marnich has given us a short play about a young woman who hits the road. Lucy emerges from the waters of the Great Lakes - or maybe it's her mother's womb. Her quest takes her all over the U.S., winding up again in water, the Pacific off San Francisco - or maybe it's another kind of womb.

Lucy is looking for - well, she's looking for a Big Love, and the Meaning of Life, and all the things we look for to make some sense out of our journey through this world. She almost finds it a few times with various guys, and various other gals help or hinder her. She winds up with an abusive Auto Repair Man, leaving her in need of repair herself, though the Auto Repair Man struck me as a little too much like a playwright's desperate attempt to find a way to wrap things up. The ending didn't satisfy me.

Lucy finds inspiration in news stories about a woman astrophysicist who is also a serial killer. Lucy gets to meet this woman in her dreams - and maybe in real life. There is a surreal quality to several of the episodes in Quake. Ultimately, this role model for mold-breaking, assertive womanhood disappoints Lucy by retreating into suburban housewifely anonymity.Playwright Marnich makes good use of such pop culture icons, and has knowing fun with the cliches of our everyday speech.

Speech is important here. Lucy narrates much of what goes on. That makes the script a good fit for Soundstage's characteristic production style, presenting the play as a modified staged reading - more staged than reading, but with scripts in the actors' hands. Director Sarah Armstrong gives the performers enough movement to make the action clear and interesting on her basic black set. Vicki Hermann's economical costumes help identify various characters as the actors double and triple their roles. Neale Glass contributes an unobtrusive sound design; Chris Dageforde composed music.

Bridget Barisonek projects Lucy's innocence, uncertainty, and questing spirit, though I would like to see the growth and depth that her adventures add to the character. Kim Furlow nails the astrophysicist serial killer with her usual dry wit. Nick Kelly, Luke Lindberg, and Khnemu Menu-Ra as the various men Lucy meets and Suki Peters as the women all do fine work in drawing clearly defined quick sketches of each. Kelly is particularly funny as Lucy's first man, the Barbecue Guy.

As a script, Quake feels unfinished in places, but the potential in its concept and the fine writing throughout make it worth a visit to Soundstage Productions' realization of the piece. It continues Thursday through Saturday evenings through October 14th, 2006, at the HH Studio in Maplewood. Call 314-968-8070 for tickets.

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Just saw SoundStage's production of "Touch the Names" this afternoon -- a really, really cool piece of theatre, much more interesting and surprising than I expected, talking about those who died in Vietnam and are memorialized on the Vietnam Wall, but also about those left behind, about the war itself, about all the complex emotions still wrapped up in that moment in our history. And it was also a sobering reminder that today isn't all that different from back then -- the parallels are fascinating and sometimes really disturbing.

Strong cast, great direction, great material. And the coolest surprise -- Kathy Schottel singing really meaningful period songs and playing guitar to punctuate the play (including a couple songs from "Jacques Brel").

All in all, a terrific, emotional piece of theatre done very well. I think they're considering doing more performances this fall -- if they do, don't miss it!

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Talk about good things in small packages.

A very tiny theater - 50 seats? fewer? - makes Deborah Brevoort's tender story about a meeting between the ghost of Elvis (Steve Davis, who opens the show with a dazzling song set) and a lonely fan (Helene Meyer) feel as if it's playing out inside your head, like a dream.

Gentlemen should give up front-row seats to ladies, who may be lucky enough to receive a kingly scarf.

This production is the show's professional premier.

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Judith Newmark in today's [Post-Dispatch] gives us a positive report on three shows that opened last week.  Try to work these quite-different but equally-deserving-of-your-attention productions into your busy schedules.

... I can report that Blue Moon Over Memphis is a touching bit of nostalgia, beautifully performed by Steve Davis, who not so much performs Elvis but is Elvis, backed up by a fine supporting cast; great fun to be immersed in.   Helene Meyer stops the show with her touching portrayal of "the devoted fan".

Reportedly sold out, but Ann might be able to work you in.  Give her a call.

By the way, on the evening I saw Blue Moon, Judith [Newmark] was among the ladies who were bussed on the cheek by Elvis and got the scarf she mentions (laced with his perspiration!) and went along with the schtick with enthusiasm and grace, as did all the ladies so "honored".  Wonderful business from performer and audience as well!

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Soundstage Productions has a niche to fill, and fill it they do. The company, founded by husband and wife Randy and Ann Steinbaker, takes a minimalist approach to theater, stripping away the bright lights, fancy costumes, and elaborate sets, instead focusing on the stories at hand. While a staged reading may conjure up images of actors sitting around onstage, barely moving, Soundstage is able to eschew that image and inject its productions with a certain style that makes you forget you’re watching reader’s theater.

Their current production, Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home (which runs 85 minutes with no intermission), is a perfect example of the power that such a reading can muster. The story is told partly in third person as it’s happening by the mother and father—almost as if the actors were reading stage directions (or subtext?)—and partly by monologues by the children, with the occasional spoken lines of the grandparents and a Unitarian Minister. We enter the story in the car on the way to a church service. Husband and Wife (G.P. Hunsaker and Donna Northcott, respectively) set the tone for the show by speaking in hushed and sometimes exasperated voices, and it becomes known that Husband is having an affair and that Wife is aware, causing her to have issues with self-doubt and despondency.

Vogel manages to take a clichéd family arrangement and make it feel unique with her text, and Hunsaker and Northcott do a marvelous job of establishing the tense feeling that will later boil over. The actors playing the children are also just as solid in their roles, both as the children they start out as, and as the adults they become in the second half of the show. Rebecca (Melissa Rae Brown) is the archetype of the eldest sibling, Stephen (Jeremiah Martin) is the middle child, and probably the most conflicted of the three (and of the rest of the family when you get down to it), and Claire (Ember Hyde) is by proxy daddy’s little girl. Each of the three actors playing the children exhibit a quiet desperation that underlies the despondent narration by Northcott and Hunsaker, and imparts a feeling of dysfunction better than any dialogue could.

Prior to visiting the grandparents, the family visits a Unitarian church where the Minister (Robert Ashton) spurs an interest in the children to ask why they’re there. Rebecca pines after “hot” Catholic boys, Claire wants to sing Christmas carols, and Stephen is taken by the mention of far-East spirituality. The Minister’s sermon speaks of the common threads between the many religions of the world, and serves to draw those not of the Christian faith into understanding the stress that this holiday can sometimes bring. Ashton gives a fine reading, juxtaposing calmness against the family’s building tension.

That tension is released in an explosive moment between Husband and his in-laws in the middle of the story. The Grandfather (Steven Clark)—obviously not happy that his daughter married a Jewish man—lets his bigotry shine through after Husband punishes Stephen for accidentally breaking Claire’s new gold bracelet by sending him out to the car during supper. Here is where we see the tensions come to the surface and disrupt what would otherwise have been a merely awkward situation. All the while, Grandmother (Marilyn Bass-Hayes) is off in her own little world, giving the children gifts that she found in the neighbor’s trash. It almost seems as if the personalities of Grandfather and Grandmother, as well as Husband and Wife, are products of their respective marriages. In a seemingly vicious circle, one partner seems to be the cause for the other’s state of mind.

The last part of the story shows how the children have carried their parents’ dysfunction into their adult lives. All three children give monologues—without the use of scripts—to their significant others while being locked outside of their respective homes. The two sisters also brood on the death of Stephen from AIDS, and integrate this feeling of loss into their pleas for their partners to let them in from the cold. Vogel tries to create a profound feeling of loss between the female siblings, with Stephen’s ghost watching over them to ensure that they don’t give up their lives, either by way of suicide (as in Claire’s case), or by simply surrendering to nature (Rebecca). Vogel succeeds—but only to a certain extent. It almost seems like an after-school special in one respect, with the resolutions arriving all too conveniently. Aside from the ending, the script is a fantastic work by Vogel, and Sarah Armstrong’s deft direction and staging carry the material far.

Augmenting the story is a nice, understated set that consists of a few risers and a backdrop that has some of the more poetic lines of the play emblazoned on it. The minimalist set and lights serve the story well, and I would argue that if this play were given the full treatment, it would not contain the gravitas that this presentation had.

If Soundstage Productions are able to keep their staged readings this interesting, I can see many great plays being introduced to St. Louis audiences that might otherwise go unnoticed. Being able to put up shows on a small budget like this increases the accessibility for directors, actors, and producers to be exposed to new and seldom seen plays, and allows us to envision what a full-scale production might be like.

Soundstage Productions presents of Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home through February 18 at HH Studios (2500 Sutton Ave., Maplewood). Tickets are $12, and are available at the box office. Seating is limited, and reservations can be made by calling 314-968-8070. Performances are at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. For more information on Soundstage Productions, visit their Web site.

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The human ear is the doorway to the heart. And St. Louis theatre-goers are once again being offered a dramatic aural feast. Hard on the heels of Dylan Thomas’ play for voices, Under Milk Wood, at West End Players comes the powerful new offering by Soundstage Productions. It’s Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home. Soundstage’s mission is “to strip a show to its essence, tell the story and find the images in the words.” And with Vogel’s play this mission is accomplished superbly. There’s no scenery save a backdrop filled with evocative phrases; much of the play is presented by actors seated with scripts; yet the performance rises far beyond the usual “staged reading”.

Paula Vogel won the Pulitzer Prize for “How I Learned to Drive” a few years ago, and is one of our most produced new playwrights. The Long Christmas Ride Home tells the story of a family under stress. The marriage is strained, the father is involved in yet another affair. The three children struggle with this tension and with their own questions of sexual identity. A visit to the grandparents over Christmas ends in an explosion of temper and a bitter drive back home. The last part of the play (done without scripts) is a sort of “flash-forward” wherein we see the children as adults—each facing the failure of a relationship—each literally left “out in the cold”.

The play, as originally produced, showed a strong Oriental influence: Vogel represents the young children as puppets, seated on the laps of the actors who will portray them as adults. In the Soundstage production this device is discarded—and, I think, to great advantage. After experiencing the very moving performance that director Sarah Armstrong has put before us I can only view Vogel’s puppetry as a self-conscious bit of experimentation which is not at all necessary to the dramatic effect of the piece.

The cast is uniformly strong. G. P. Hunsaker and Donna Northcott are utterly convincing as the philandering husband and his worried, resentful, self-doubting wife. Melissa Rae Brown, Jeremiah Martin and Ember Hyde beautifully capture the pain of the children. During the long ride the young children are silent—their words spoken for them by the parents; but these three actors’ faces convey such silent anguish! As adults each has a powerful monologue where they face the rejection of their lovers. Steven Clark and Marilyn Bass-Hayes, as the grandparents, properly give them a broader stroke; Vogel draws these characters with just a touch of the grotesque as we see them through the husband’s eyes. Robert Ashton captures the same slightly elevated style in the role of a very liberal Unitarian preacher.

The resolution of the play is perhaps just a little too pat. As if in an effort to be utterly even-handed Vogel’s three failed relationships include one heterosexual, one gay, and one lesbian. And, a little too expectedly, the gay son almost consciously contracts aids. But these are small quibbles. Overall Vogel’s characters ring profoundly true in situations that other writers too often make cliché. Vogel paints a world where Christmas packages are, for the most part, filled with disappointment; where life repeatedly reminds us that what’s done cannot be undone; and where one must be continually amazed at the precious things that people throw away. If you don’t experience a twinge of heartache then you’ve never betrayed a relationship or suffered a betrayal, you’ve never felt the guilt of being a favored child.

This fine production of Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home is presented by Soundstage Productions at the H.H. Studios in Maplewood, Fridays and Saturdays through February 18.

Performing Arts Reviews are made possible by our contributing listeners and by the Webster University Film Series. For information and the current schedule call 314-968-7487 or on the web at www.webster.edu/filmseries.html. This is Steve Callahan for KDHX, St. Louis.