The K of D by Laura Schellhardt. World Premiere
Portfolio Weekly, September 2007
Expecting an actor to distinctly contour in quick succession sixteen different characters that range in age from twelve to sixty appears tantamount to try ascending Mount Everest in regular footwear. Yet, for its opening production of the new season at The Kimball Theatre in Williamsburg, the Virginia Premiere Theatre, under the gifted leadership of Producing Artistic Director Robert Ruffin, dared the challenge with The K of D, an innovatively written play by the young and promising playwright Laura Schellhardt.
The play deals with the geneses of "urban legends," which, so the playwright says, "is kind of funny seeing how most of 'em take place someplace rural." Here it is Saint Marys, a small town in west Ohio, where Dairy Queen reigns, drive-thru movies have grown dark, liquor marts thrive, and the display cases of Main-Street stores are full of flies. Central to the story is Charlotte McGraw, a twelve year-old gangly girl, whose twin brother Jamie was hit on his way to school by a rusty dodge, driven by an ingrate redneck. As she cradles her mortally-injured brother in her arms, he kisses her with his dying breath. Charlotte, thus, inherits "the kiss of death," which she then puts to use in behalf of mercy and revenge.
It is this assemblage of diverse characters that portrays the mix of fact and fiction in legends' chemistry as well as the pulse that sustains this small forsaken town. Schellhardt's dialogue is distinguished by a verisimilitude that uncannily captures the idiosyncratic rhythms and linguistic ornamentations of today's teenspeak. Despite its raw naturalism, the language nonetheless transcends the mundane by a subtle poetic quality that marks good playwriting. Albeit highly episodic in structure, the numerous scenes, together with their multiple localities, are linked with a fluency reminiscent of a leaf smoothly bobbing down a mountain stream.
Giving life to it all, under the experienced direction of Rebecca Taylor, is Mary Wadkins, an accomplished professional actress who is also the co-founder and Producing Director of VPT. She is no stranger to carrying an evening of theatre by herself, having performed The Belle of Amherst across the nation and in Europe, as well as A Woman of Independent Means at VPT, recently revived at the Northeast Theatre in Scranton, PA.
On a simple platform set with one chair as a prop (Lausanne Davis-Carpenter, set design), Wadkins fixes the audience's attention with apparent ease. Switching with a brisk pace for ninety minutes from one character to another while maintaining clear individual profiles in both verbal and physical characterizations is, to state the obvious, a mammoth challenge. Wadkins' various carefully calibrated portrayals, although executed in crisp colors, never lapse into broad caricature. Her background as a trained and practiced clown and dancer helps fleshing out her performance with an impressive array of nuances. An outstanding piece of work! The audience happily vented their appreciation. Among the unmerited standing ovations that have flooded local theatres in recent years, Wadkins' was genuinely earned.
Virginia Gazette, September 2007
The
fall season is moving away from the new-play idea to safer ground.
"The K of D" is billed as a supernatural thriller that
originated at the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Festival. Using only a
sparse platform and a chair, actress Mary Wadkins plays 17 discrete
roles that left last Friday night's audience rapt with attention. Subtle
sound effects were timed within a millisecond as she told a riveting
story about growing up in rural Ohio. The malaprops alone rival Richard
Sheridan's.
WHRO,
October 2007
Hello, I'm Edgar Loessin with Loessin at Large. The new theatre season is underway in Hampton Roads. For me it began with THE K OF D. Be forewarned that this highly original drama in the magical presence of Mary Wadkins is a hard act to follow for other theatres .because Mary Wadkins is a conjure .woman, blessed with extraordinary acting powers.
Wadkins
is petite, somewhat larger than a stick of dynamite,
with flashes of brilliant explosions that make this thriller a riveting
hour and a half or so in the theatre. She plays seventeen characters.
They include of a pack of teenagers in a woebegone town in Ohio, a
set of parents, a father and his adult son and his assorted girl
friends. Wadkins manages to give distinctive life and breath, depth and
dimension, to each of them. She's a masterful quick sketch
artist shifting from one character to others in the blink of an eye.
I've never seen a performance quite like this one in any of our area's
theatres or anywhere else for that matter.
The
action takes place over a long hot summer. One of the characters points
out that legendary summers have a "the" before them, as in the
summer of the tornado, or the summer of the locusts. The ghost
story events of this play happen in the summer of death.
The twin brother of young skinny Charlotte is hit and killed by an
automobile. As he is dying, he kisses his sister on the lips. From
then on, starting with a cricket, everything Charlotte kisses dies. Then
a dog is laid to rest. Is it her kisses or maybe something
else causing the escalating deaths? More I can not tell you.
Playwright
Schellhardt's dialogue and narration are a mother lode of lyrical
beauty and hypnotic intensity. You want to grasp every word. She creates
chills and thrills and mystery and suspense that every good
thriller must have. Director Rebecca Taylor finds every possible color
and variation in guiding Wadkins through her thesaurus of
characters with rapid fire transitions and unrelenting intensity. One might
feel the need of a sort of breathing pause on occasion to define
significant moments. Also, I'm not sure the playwright has found a clear
cathartic conclusion for the play. To be sure these are minor points
of concern before this work has a major performance in Washington D.C.
Set
designer Lausanne Davis-Carpenter has come up with a graceful, fluid
performance space that she lights with subtle, enhancing beauty.
Most significantly, Bart Fasbender has created a world of sounds
that assume the role of a second actor. The interplay and blending
of Wadkins and his auditory ambience are quite remarkable unto
themselves.
Smith! Being the Life and Death of Cap'n John, by Ivor Noel Hume. World Premiere
. makes a vital contribution to the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown's founding, and seems destined to become one of the major theatrical attractions in Colonial Williamsburg's future.
An award-winning writer and renowned archaeologist, Hume skillfully orchestrates a plot that mixes the escalating pressures of the moment-Smith being under a mounting threat of eviction because of unpaid depths-with highlights of the Captain's multifaceted life as related through his faithful servant Jack Porter. Except for the beginning, which frames the story retrospectively, and the ending, which has Jack render prospectively Smith's epitaph, the play interlaces seamlessly the present with the past. Hume's language, enlarged by a subtle sense of humor, echoes the flavor and syntax of early 17th century England, and wraps itself around the listener like a warm blanket.
Director Rebecca Taylor moves the play along at a vigorous pace, although on occasion at the expense of Hume's nuanced language. Yet Taylor's versed directorial hand manages nevertheless to create an hour of theatre with exciting promise.
Crista Elise Bermann plays Meg. Hailing from Cornwall, Bergmann shapes her role with the ruggedness typical of Meg's native land and accent. As the principal conduit for telling the story of Smith's life (adventurer, explorer, mapmaker, geographer, ethnographer, soldier, governor, sailor, admiral, writer), John Hamant as Jack Porter is assigned the play's major load. Seasoned by years of acting experience in CW's programs and buttressed by talent, he captures the audience's attention at once and knows how to sustain it. During his histrionic marathon he parades his command of timing, inflection, use of space, comic shadings, and emotional color.
Bruno Koch
Smith! Being the Life and Death of Cap'n John, produced by Virginia Premiere Theatre at the Kimball Theater, is inventive, witty and a drama well worth seeing.
Smith! is brought to the stage by award winning British Playwright Ivor Noël Hume, a recognized authority on the history of English colonization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He has also earned the distinction as an Officer of the British Empire (O.B.E), dubbed by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, in 1992.
This one act drama is about Captain John Smith during his last hours of life and set in an upper room of the Three Tun's Inn, in London. Strikingly simple, the set designed by Lausanne Davis Carpenter was constructed using a backdrop of burlap panels, with a fixed covered poster bed and a panel of three windows frames minus the windows. The set is transformed by lighting designer, Todd Cooke which changed the raw fabric to look like parchment to create an ambiance that works effectively allowing the audience to be transported to 1631.
Porter delivers a commanding performance. His character resembled that of Albert Finney's in the 1983 movie The Dresser.
The script was straight forward, clean, witty and moving. Beadle as the dying Smith gives outburst from time to time during the course of the play from behinds the curtains that shields him from the audience and only emerges to the forefront for his melodramatic death scene. As the insipid Doctor Davenant, played Joel Grow, Davenant effectively plays Smith's board caregiver who is not impressed as Porter obviously is. A bit of feistiness and uplifting energy was successfully brought about by the Inn's maiden named Meg, played by Crista Bergmann.
The production offers insight to historical truths with a creative flair which proves to be an entertaining history lesson with a philosophical twist.
"Winning Liberty Land" World Premiere
If you are about to drop from exhaustion after a day of strenuous of visiting Williamsburg on foot in 90-degree weather, the Kimball Theatre will not only give you a comforting retrieve from the heat, but it will also invigorate your weary bones with Playwrights Premiere Theatre's lighthearted and occasionally wacky series of vignettes of local history.
Director Rebecca Taylor and choreographer Michelle Isler join forces in producing a full hour of rollicking fun. John Tracy's delightful musical stew keeps the audience humming, and the small yet versatile cast multiplies by its members slipping nimbly from one part into another.
Winning Liberty Land should be a refreshing addition to this summer's offerings of Colonial Williamsburg. It is a peachy spoof on the early days of our founding fathers.
Bruno Koch, Portfolio Weekly
"Don't Dance Me Outside" World Premiere
What's real and not real, what's true and not true are often deliberately subject to change in this fascinating, refreshingly original, romantic comedy.
The two actors work very well together. They bounce playwright William Borden's dialogue back and forth like a tennis ball.
We learn what is true about the characters, what is fantasy, and through a clever jump in time and a kind of role-playing, what could happen. There are a lot of "what ifs" to avoid "what is", and yet it's the "what is" that ultimately clarifies - and I think, enriches their lives. They're happy at the end and so is the audience.
Peter Moore's direction is just right all the time. Lausanne Davis-Carpenter's sets and Todd Cooke's lighting are most effective. Three comely lasses make the set changes a charming ballet. Don't miss this one!
by Edgar Loessin (WHRO)Portfolio Weekly November 15th, 2005
Those harboring the notion that sexual passion and/or spontaneous love are the exclusive purview of the young, will swiftly be converted to the contrary when seeing William Borden's romantic-comedy "Don't Dance Me Outside," presented by the Playwrights Premiere Theatre of Williamsburg.
Borden, whose plays have widely been seen nationally and internationally, demonstrates his innovative spirit as a writer by having Butch and Ardis take an imaginary trip through a second marriage (which pretty much takes up the entire second act). The journey is replete with the ups and downs that customarily attend marriage. There is diminishing love, sex that slowly vanishes, ample self-interest, rankle, combativeness, flirtation with divorce, and professional ambition that can rattle the foundation of the union. It could well be a paradigm of the 21st-century marriage.
Borden provides a delightful evening. His dialogue travels with the precision and bounce of a first-rate ping-pong match. Single words, short phrases, and incomplete sentences fire the imagination and often turn the proceedings into an elegant game of chess.
In the highly skilled hands of director Peter Moore and such seasoned actors as Julian Bailey (Butch) and Phyllis Wright (Ardis), the material takes on a life of memorable vibrancy. Moore moves the play along with fluidity and imagination. He cleverly turns the change of scenery (from medium to high-class hotel room) into a nifty intermezzo.
Bailey gives a finely layered and flavorful performance as Butch, and Wright, exploiting her expert timing acquired as a stand-up comedian, delivers a delicious portrayal of Ardis. Their interactions are exemplary of superior ensemble work.
Congratulations are in order for Producing Artistic Director Robert Ruffin and Producing Director Mary Wadkins. Their remarkable efforts of bringing new and professionally-executed plays to local audiences under frequently difficult circumstances deserve our notice and admiration. May sold-out houses be their reward.
By Bruno Koch "Portfolio Weekly"
"The Waiting Room" World Premiere
Hello, I'm Edgar Loessin with "Loessin at Large." Let me say straight away that this world premiere of "The Waiting Room" by Simon Brook is a sheer delight from start to finish. In his play, Brook, a young man from Australia, goes back to the days of the 50's and 60's when the Theatre of the Absurd caught the attention of playwrights in Europe and America.
You can have your weighty, scholarly discussions about what this play means when you get home. While at the theatre relax and let your mind go where it will.
This is where Mr. Brook is coming from. He has three clowns in his play who are scintillating wits. Director David Zarko puts them through their paces with the precision of a skilled surgeon. They are not circus clowns with bulbous noses, but ever changing real people in one perpetual helluva mess.
Robert Ruffin, in one of Karyn Austin's very well conceived costumes, is a Chaplinesque prodigy screwing up everything he touches. Mary Wadkins is indescribably hilarious as Wilfred. She is Mammy Yoakum, Lucy from Charlie Brown, Minnie Pearl and Dr. Ruth cloned into one woman, one petite, powerful hell raiser. It may be the result of too many prat falls. On the subject of prat falls, Geoff Gould is a grand master of that art, and every other attribute of physical and mental comedy as he goes through his Protean states of being. Lausanne Davis-Carpenter's set is neat and crisp. There's jazzy lighting by Todd Cooke enhanced by Bart Fasbender's far out sound effects. Neat and crisp describes every aspect of this absolutely, totally professional production by the Playwrights Premiere Theatre.
I hope the City Fathers of Williamsburg and its citizens take notice of what's in their midst. They have a unique theatre: it's a professional company performing exclusively new, never done before, plays from around the world. It's a big goal, but the early successes of these talented theatre artists make it appear quite possible and attainable. This is Edgar Loessin with "Loessin at Large" and I'll see you at the next opening.
Edgar Loessin - WHRO
Robert P. Arthur of Portfolio Weekly
"Simon Brook's lovely little throwback of an Absurdist drama .It's a grand old utterly old-fashioned ultra modern play. absolutely out of date in a contemporary way. Brook's writing is slick and clever, the pacing flawless, the humor dark and adolescent, but advanced . The acting and production values are, by the way, superb. Mary Wadkins and Robert Ruffin . in tandem, and with the help of director David Zarko . conduct a clinic in physical comedy, and comic timing. Both are extremely skillful performers, professional to the teeth, who have been successful in New York, nationally and internationally. Both seem to show new strengths each time out and are quickly gaining reputations in the area commensurate with their resumes. [And] moon faced Geoff Gould has just enough Gump about him to play an endless line of stupid, semi-malleable, goofball, everyman Smiths to hysterical perfection.... Wonderful job! .the show was easily the equal of the best work at the Virginia Stage Company or the American Theatre."
Robert P. Arthur, Critic Portfolio Weekly
The Australian Embassy
"The Australian Embassy congratulates Playwrights Premiere Theatre on its recent premiere of Simon Brook's The Waiting Room and recognizes such projects as valuable to fostering international understanding through cultural exchange."
Ron Ramsey, Director of Cultural Affairs, Australian Embassy
A Chesapeake Celebration! World Premiere
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Just a note to thank you again for allowing the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to be a small part of "A Chesapeake Celebration!" I thoroughly enjoyed the production -- reminded me so much of my own youth growing up on the James River -- and from the size and response of Saturday night's audience, many others enjoyed it as well. I hope you can take the show on the road and share it with the rest of Virginia.
One final note of good news -- last week we heard from an individual who happened to have been visiting Williamsburg and attended the show. He had never heard of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation before, but after seeing "A Chesapeake Celebration!" he has donated $5,000 to CBF. That's a gift directly attributable to you and your persistence to get CBF involved. Thank you very, very much!
Chuck Epes -Virginia Communications Coordinator, Chesapeake Bay Foundation
"A Woman of Independent Means" Revival Premiere
Portfolio Weekly, 2003
Fine workmanship prevails in the joint efforts of Wadkins and Taylor. Having worked together before in New York in their respective capacities, they move the play along with a crisp yet unhurried pace. The numerous transitions are managed in ways that impart both structure and interest to the performance. In the process we see Wadkins transforming herself from a ten-year old into an elderly lady of eighty. Costume and make-up changes produce a near-seamless flow of action. Wadkins experience as an actress shows. Especially her physical and vocal characterization of Bess in her most advanced years create moments of memorable poignancy.. One cannot help but be impressed by the loftiness of the company's announced objectives. Playwrights Premiere Theatre is fully deserving of our notice and, for good measure, the kind of support owed to a most worthwhile undertaking.
Bruno Koch - Portfolio Magazine
An extraordinary life, on stage. well done.
David Nicholson - The Daily Press
Transcript of Radio Broadcast, 2003 WHRO Radio, Norfolk, VA
Hailey tells her story in a series of letters that are read as crisp, witty dialogue by Mary Wadkins who gives a whirlwind Tour de Force performance that makes us become intensely involved in the cavalcade of emotional mountains that Bess encounters. Wadkins explores every cell and fiber that make up this woman who never ceases to relish the delicious aspects of living but is also acutely aware that the very process of being alive poses unanswerable questions and inexplicable pain. With the magic that only good actors possess, Wadkins takes us from youth to death physically as well. It's a performance not to be missed. Much credit must be given to director Rebecca Taylor who sees to it that many diverse elements mesh smoothly and effortlessly into a seamless whole. George Hillow's set is minimal and highly functional. Todd Cooke's lighting is fluid and evocative. This is the first offering by the newly formed Playwrights Premiere Theatre. While this play is a small package, it does not belie that old truth that good things do not necessarily need large containers. We look forward to future efforts.
Edgar Loessin- WHRO Public Radio
"Joanna's Husband and David's Wife" Revival Premiere
If this production is indicative of others to come our theatre menu is about to be greatly enriched.
Edgar Loessin- WHRO Public Radio
I'm so grateful to you both for your continuing faith in me and my work. I have you to thank for the changes I made in the script of "Joanna's Husband and David's Wife" both before and after your production. I saw the play in Blowing Rock NC and it worked wonderfully.
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey - Best-selling author, Broadway playwright
Reviews of PPT's Touring and Educational Programs
The Great English Poets at The Poetry Society of Virginia
[The Great English Poets] brought the beauty and power of these masters of poetry to a level that will be both appreciated and understood by all ages.[and] pumped life into dusty volumes that have been far too long on the shelf. I heartily endorse your efforts to bring this program into the schools and colleges of the Commonwealth.
Edward Lull - President, The Poetry Society of Virginia
The Belle of Amherst at The Williamsburg Regional Library
We have worked with a number of theatrical groups as well as solo performers in our theatre, but working with you was among the most rewarding experiences our staff has had. All in all, it was a very professional collaboration, and one that we wish others who use our facilities could emulate.
Patrick Golden - Program Director, Williamsburg Library
The Belle of Amherst at The Virginia Association of Teachers of English
The [VATE] is very thankful for the Playwrights Premiere Theatre for sponsoring this exceptional event and, especially Mary Wadkins, for her outstanding performance.!
Janice Suppa-Friedman, President, Virginia Association of Teachers of English
 |
| "Virginia Premiere Theatre with its exceptional productions is a major addition to our artistic environment. our region will be greatly enriched" |
| - Jeanne Zeidler, Mayor of Williamsburg |
| "The audience rewarded the production with a deserved standing ovation." |
| - Portfolio Magazine |
| "An extraordinary life, on stage.well done." |
| - David Nicholson, The Daily Press |
| "Peter Moore's direction is just right all the time. Lausanne Davis-Carpenter's sets and Todd Cooke's lighting are most effective. Don't miss this one." |
| - Edgar Loessin, WHRO Public Radio |