Duo’s Vigorous Work Grabs Hold in Albion’s Witty Drama ‘Lungs’

Duo’s Vigorous Work Grabs Hold in Albion’s Witty Drama ‘Lungs’

By Lynn Venhaus

With its emotionally rich storytelling, “Lungs” demands much from Joel Moses and Nicole Angeli, who fearlessly tackle those challenges in their finely chiseled performances as M and W.

As a couple linked through many years, the pair have seamlessly plumbed the depths of human nature to expose raw nerves, painful truths and tender intimacy. They start out as young lovers – enlightened, independent thinkers — figuring out their life together and separately, then acquire experiences and perspective, increasingly uncertain of tomorrow.

Because of their fluent reactions to developing relationship situations, you hang on to every twist and hairpin turn of daily living in this offbeat, unconventional drama that is laced with humor – and just may elicit a tear or two.

Under director Ellie Schwetye’s shrewd guidance, the duo has created such a level of comfort that it appears to unfold spontaneously, in real time. Their mental acuity, verbal dexterity, and agile physicality is astonishing, as is Schwetye’s modulated pacing.

Angeli and Moses are on stage the entire time, being honest and open, overthinking their lives as developing people on a planet in crisis. They reveal their flaws as they personify their genders – as they interpret the assignment. She’s more neurotic, but also empowered; he’s more even keel, but willing to adjust and can jump in, then deal with consequences. And you never doubt their sincerity.  

Duncan Macmillan’s thoroughly relatable two-hander play confronts making grown-up decisions that change your life’s trajectory — the small moments and the big milestones, the planned and the unplanned.

A recurring theme concerns current global environmental and climate changes underway. With such issues as carbon footprints, depletion of natural resources, and overpopulation being real dilemmas, M and W debate bringing children into the modern world. Is it reckless, risky or responsible – and are they ready?

The setting is various locations in the south of England, over a period of many years. Macmillan’s not so much obsessed with pollution as he is focused on communication as citizens of the world and our place in it.

The sagacious Albion Theatre is closing out its second full season with this penetrating production after entering the regional professional theater scene in 2022. Its mission is to present British playwrights (with forays into other United Kingdom territories and Ireland), mainly highlighting social, political and cultural influences.

This is their most contemporary effort to date. A Gen X’er, Macmillan was born in England.

Photo by John Lamb

Schwetye has minimally staged this 105-minute play without intermission, using Erik Kuhn’s bare set design that features two sloping slabs and a stationary middle. Her crisp sound design and Tony Anselmo’s natural lighting design keep that aesthetic, as does one casual costume design each by Tracey Newcomb. CJ Langdon did double duty as assistant director and stage manager.

The actors, both St. Louis Theater Circle Award winners, color in the rest – their ages, places and times in the ebb and flow of their lives. W is a Ph.D. grad student; M is a musician when they’re introduced in a ‘queue’ at Ikea. The team seasoned the material well, emphasizing the beats of Macmillan’s on-the-nose prose for optimum effect.

Macmillan’s 2013 play, ‘Every Brilliant Thing,” is in the same lane as “Lungs,” examining the complexities of modern living. It’s been staged several times in St. Louis, including a production Schwetye directed for New Jewish Theatre in spring 2023. The playwright is exceptionally articulate about being human, fretful and striving for goodness.

This match-up feels like five sets of championship tennis on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Surely the intensity would exhaust both actors, but they seem invigorated. By the time Angeli and Moses bittersweetly wrap up this story, the audience has been through a tsunami of ‘feels,’ and all earned.

“Lungs” is not injected with any artificial sweeteners or saturated fat, and the play’s lean, muscular style is riveting. You may not have figured these two people out by the conclusion, but you know them, and are in awe of the actors’ ability to just ‘be,’ no pretense.

With such an articulate, sharp-witted piece, I am reminded that, for all our modern worries, above all, we get to carry each other.

Albion Theatre presents “Lungs” Oct. 18 to Nov. 3, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Kranzberg Black Box Theatre, 501 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63103. For more information, visit www.albiontheatrestl.org.

Performances Power An Intriguing Mystery-Thriller ‘Mindgame’

Performances Power An Intriguing Mystery-Thriller ‘Mindgame’

By Lynn Venhaus

“Mindgame” is one of those clever psychological thrillers that keeps you guessing through two acts, as the twists and gasps mount.

Set in an experimental maximum-security asylum for the criminally insane, a feeling of dread permeates the drab walls of Fairfields, which is located in an isolated part of the English countryside. In the director’s office, you can only imagine what horrors are on the other side of the door.

The program notes state that “nothing is what it seems.”

The 1999 play written by Anthony Horowitz is a rather verbose exercise, but the tension builds as we question who is legit and who is unhinged, and why the psychopaths who live undetected next door send chills up our spines.

It takes place in the summer at the turn of the 21st century, hence the modern references instead of the dated Agatha Christie-Arthur Conan Doyle tropes.

When Act One begins, a journalist has an appointment to see the director in hopes of gaining permission to interview a notorious serial killer named Easterman for a true-crime book. Easterman’s terrifying string of murders were grisly – and we’ll hear about them in more detail. Would you go near Hannibal Lecter or Ed Gein?

We will also hear about more cases, and while Easterman is fictional, the other stories are based on real murderers. For instance, sadist Andrei Chikatilo who is mentioned killed more than 50 women and children.

As presented by Albion Theatre, “Mindgame” is a tour de force for its two leading actors, Chuck Winning and Nick Freed, who are reminiscent of Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier going toe to toe (or head-to-head) in the brilliant 1972 film “Sleuth,” which was based on Anthony Shaffer’s Tony-winning play. (Fun fact: Both were so captivating that they were nominated for Oscars, losing to Marlon Brando for “The Godfather.”)

The third cast member, Nicole Angeli, is Nurse Paisley, and as always, she delivers a multi-layered performance in a smaller supporting, but pivotal, role.

Winning, Angeli and Freed. Photo by John Lamb

Winning, as Doctor Farquhar, and Freed, as writer Mark Styler, are on stage nearly the whole time, and work so well together that it’s like watching a 5-set tennis match at the Wimbledon finals, such are the nimble verbal volleys and quicksilver shifts of power between their characters.

Earlier this year, both actors stood out in Albion’s second play, “The Birthday Party.” As a pair of menacing villains, Winning was a revelation and Freed, who moved here from Chicago, made a stunning debut.

Winning’s Farquhar is garrulous, pompous, and brainy, displaying contempt for the patients and superiority in his psychoanalysis and therapy skills. When he pontificates about his perception of how to treat the mentally ill, Winning’s hot-air blathering teeters on that fine line between ridiculous and expertise.

Freed’s Styler is confident, cocky, and skeptical at first, then increasingly unsettled by the surroundings and peculiar behaviors. His instincts are finely tuned as his moods change.

The play is elaborate in how it threads the needle from point A to point B – and that can get a little tedious as dynamics flip. However, the actors hold our attention and bring out the best in each other as scene partners, and Robert Ashton ups the ante with his adroit direction.

In British slang, the mystery’s a corker, and Ashton, a nimble theater veteran with a flair for crisp and purposeful staging, masterfully controls the suspense.

To give more away would be to spoil the plot, and the fun part of being in the audience is the discovery. Because you know something’s not quite right, and deceit and delusions are there for the deducing.

It’s a credit to all involved that they never tip us off, stay in the moment and do not anticipate what’s ahead, making us fascinated by what’s unfolding.

The technical sight and sound work are also sharp, with Erik Kuhn the tech director and set designer, and an expert fight choreographer. Eric Wennlund’s lighting design is both functional and artful while Jacob Baxley’s sound design adds layers of fright. Stage Manager and Assistant Director Gwynneth Rausch keeps the danse macabre taut.

It’s only Albion’s fourth show, and they have impressed with their well-staged productions featuring strong performances and outstanding production values. Founded in 2022 to explore the rich history of playwrighting in Britain, with regular trips across the sea to Ireland, they not only entertainan audience, but strive to inform them of the social, political, and cultural influences of the time. So far, they are nailing every facet of the archetypes of a good drama/comedy.

One thing is always a given – that the accents will be spot-on, and the trio’s work here is superb. Albion provides a word and phrases guide for us in their programs, too.

If you like hair raised and minds bent, this is a dandy way to spend 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Chuck Winning as Dr Farquhar. Photo by John Lamb.

Albion Theatre presents “Mindgame” by Anthony Horowitz from Oct. 20 to Nov. 5 at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand in Grand Center. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For more information, visit www. albiontheatrestl.org.

Tickets On Sale for Midnight Company’s St. Louis Premiere of ‘It Is Magic’

Tickets On Sale for Midnight Company’s St. Louis Premiere of ‘It Is Magic’

Tickets are on sale for The Midnight Company’s St. Louis premiere production of Mickle Maher’s It Is Magic at MetroTix.com.  Performances, at Kranzberg’s Black Box Theatre, are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays October 21 through November 6, with all shows at 8pm.  Tickets are $15 for Thursdays and $20 for Fridays and Saturdays.  The production will be following all Kranzberg Arts Foundation safety protocols, including proof of vaccination for entry, and masks at all times.

It Is Magic is a sorrowful and hilarious meditation on the deep, ancient evil at the heart of the community theatre audition process, and an investigation into the mysteries of theatre-making itself.  Two sisters, community theatre veterans who’ve never had the chance to contribute artistically, are holding auditions for their adult version of The Three Little Pigs in the theatre basement, while the group’s pretentious artistic director is attending, then avoiding, opening night of his MacBeth on the MainStage above.  A third sister appears, and reality becomes really magical at the local playhouse.

It Is Magic premiered in Chicago in May, 2019, and Third Coast Review called it “…one of those love letters to theatre…delightfully wacky,” while New City Stage said “Any show that juggles loving critics and tearing their throats out is good in my book.”  Midnight has previously presented two Mickle Maher plays, The Hunchback Variations and An Apology For The Course And Outcome of Certain Events As Delivered By Doctor John Faustus On This His Final Evening.  

Mickle Maher plays have Off-Broadway and around the world, and have been supported by grants from the NEA, the Rockefeller MAP fund, and Creative Capital. They include There is a Happiness That Morning Is; Song About Himself; The Strangerer; Spirits to Enforce; Cyrano (translator), The Cabinet; Lady Madeline; The Pine; and An Actor Prepares (an adaptation of Stanislavsky’s seminal book). He is a cofounder of Chicago’s Theater Oobleck, and has taught playwriting and related subjects at the University of Chicago, Columbia College, and Northwestern University. He recently wrote the book and lyrics for a new musical about basketball, commissioned by the Catastrophic Theatre of Houston and Daryl Morey, the General Manager of the Houston Rockets. And he’s currently adapting the graphic novel Berlin by Jason Lutes for the Court Theatre.

Suki Peters will direct It Is Magic.  In Spring, 2022, Suki will play the bride in Cherokee Street Theatre’s adaptation of Kill Bill, and she will direct Once for R-S Theatrics.  The cast for It Is Magic includes Nicole Angeli as Sandy, desperate to get a part in a play, the part being the lead role of the Wolf in her sister’s play.  Nicole was most recently seen in Metro Theater’s It’s A Wonderful Life, in West End’s Photograph 51, and in Stray Dog’s Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House.  Michelle Hand portrays her sister, the first-time, aspiring playwright, Deb.  This past year Michelle was in Max & Louie’s Tiny Beautiful Things and SATE’s Zoom show Tonya And The Totes In Subterrstrata.  Carl Overly Jr. is Tim in the play, another actor vying for that coveted Big Bad Wolf role.  Carl was in recent productions of St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s King Lear and COCA’s Billy Elliott, and upcoming will direct Rimers Of Eldritch at St Louis University.  Chrissie Watkins will be Elizabeth, arriving from seemingly nowhere to land smackdab in the middle of the audition process.  Chrissie was seen in Alpha Players’ The Mountaintop this summer.   And Midnight’s Artistic Director, Joe Hanrahan is in the role of Mortier Civic Playhouse Artistic Director Ken Mason, as arrogant, self-absorbed and sporadically brilliant as any Artistic Director comes.  This year Joe has acted in Midnight productions of Here Lies Henry, and in his own scripts of Now Playing Third Base For The St. Louis Cardinals Bond James Bond, My Violin My Voice at the St. Louis Fringe Festival, and Tonight’s Special at the St. Louis Theatre Showcase.  He will next be seen in his new script, Midnight’s Tinsel Town in December.

Linda Menard will be the Stage Manager for the show, Elizabeth Henning is designing costumes, Kevin Bowman is designing the set and lights, and Ted Drury will design sound.

For more information, visit MidnightCompany.com  

The Midnight Company Announces 2021 Season of 4 Plays

The Midnight Company Announces 2021 Season of 4 Plays

The Midnight Company will present four plays in 2021, including two St. Louis Premieres and one World Premiere.  The Company, which presented the only live theatre in town during the pandemic with Eric Bogosian’s SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL in November 2020, and mindful of the fears and realities of the ongoing virus war, will open the season with two one-man plays in June and July.

Midnight’s Artistic Director Joe Hanrahan said, “Last November, we worked with the State’s MissouriArtSafe program, the City of St. Louis and the Kranzberg organization to make sure all safety guidelines were in place and being followed.  We’ll be doing the same going forward, hoping that vaccine efforts will continue to positively affect quality of life, enabling us to provide  quality theatrical experiences for our audiences.”

Hanrahan also said, “If there’s a theme to this season, with theatre coming back it’s appropriate that these shows deal with the theatre and show business.  While HERE LIES HENRY focuses on the Art and Science of Lying (particularly relevant to this age of political and societal falsehoods), Marlon Brando did say ‘Acting is lying for a living.’  Our second show, NOW PLAYING THIRD BASE… specifically occurs during a young man’s introduction to live theatre, of a sort.  IT IS MAGIC, our third show, actually takes place during auditions in the basement of a theatre, and TINSEL TOWN, the season closer, tells three stories set in the Los Angeles entertainment world.”
  
The Company opens with HERE LIES HENRY by Daniel MacIvor, June 10-27 at the Kranzberg Black Box.  It will be directed by Ellie Schwetye, with Joe Hanrahan as Henry, a man in a room with a mission to tell you something you don’t already know.  He’s also a liar.  Midnight has presented two plays by MacIvor (a celebrated Canadian writer/performer) including CUL-DE-SAC, and then HOUSE at the 2015 St. Louis Fringe.  Hanrahan performed both one-man shows, and critics said “ CUL-DE-SAC takes you places you may not want to go.  But Hanrahan makes a spellbinding guide.” (Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and “HOUSE is a perfect combination of virtuoso acting and compelling storytelling.” (Chuck Lavazzi, KDHX.)

Tickets for HERE LIES HENRY, a St. Louis Premiere, will go on sale May 10 at MetroTix.com, and prices, performances, capacity and safety procedures will be announced at that time.


Midnight will then present the rescheduled (from 2020) NOW PLAYING THIRD BASE FOR THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS…BOND, JAMES BOND, written and performed by Joe Hanrahan, directed by Shane Signorino, with video design by Michael B. Perkins. It will run July 8-23 at The Chapel.  First presented at the St. Louis Fringe in 2018, the script has been expanded, and Hanrahan said, “The Fringe version of this show had to come in under an hour.  This version, with additional material, should be deeper, hopefully richer.”  NOW PLAYING… is a memory show, of when a teen was introduced, in an unusual way, to live theatre, while the rest of life, including baseball, James Bond, racism, The Beatles, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and more swirled around him.  Michelle Kenyon in Snoop’s Theatre Thoughts called the play “…entertaining, educational, thought-provoking…” and also said it was “…difficult to describe, but what it is is excellent.”

In October, Hanrahan’s short play PATIENT #47 will be presented as part of True Community Theatre’s TRUTH, LIES, and CONFESSIONS October 1-3 at The Chapel.  PATIENT #47 was originally presented at the 2019 Theatre Crawl And later in the month, Midnight will begin to add additional performers to their cast lists. 

Midnight will present Mickle Maher’s IT IS MAGIC, also rescheduled from 2020, directed by Suki Peters, October 21-November 6 at the Kranzberg Black Box.  IT IS MAGIC takes place in the basement of a community theatre.  Two sisters, tireless long-term theatre volunteers but ignored in the artistic process, have finally received their chance to write and act for the group.  While opening night of the company’s Scottish Play goes on in the MainStage above them, they’re holding auditions for the role of the Big Bad Wolf for their new script, an adult version of THREE LITTLE PIGS.  But an inebriated, jaded artistic director and an unexpected, wild Third Sister intrude, delivering dire changes, dangerous chaos and, eventually, magic.  

The cast for the production includes Nicole Angeli, Michelle Hand, Joe Hanrahan, Britteny Henry and Carl Overly.  Chicago’s Third Coast Review called IT IS MAGIC “…one of those love letters to theatre…delightfully wacky,” and New City Stage in Chicago said “Any show that juggles loving critics with tearing their throats out is good in my book.”  

Midnight has previously presented Maher’s THE HUNCHBACK VARIATIONS and AN APOLOGY FOR THE COURSE OF CERTAIN EVENTS AS DELIVERED BY DOCTOR JOHN FAUSTUS ON THIS HIS FINAL EVENING (twice each), and IT IS MAGIC will be a St. Louis Premiere.
And rounding out the year (and rounding out a cycle of plays from three St. Louis theatre artists) is the World Premiere of TINSEL TOWN 3 Short Plays – 24 Hours In L.A. by Joe Hanrahan.  It will run December 2-18 at Avatar Studios, a television production studio on the edge of Downtown St. Louis, near Market and Jefferson, and will be directed by Rachel Tibbetts.   (Midnight has previously presented TITLE AND DEED and LITTLE THING BIG THING at Avatar.)

Joe Hanrahan

 In TINSEL TOWN, Ellie Schwetye and Hanrahan each play characters in the three plays set in the Los Angeles entertainment world.  In LATE LUNCH ON MELROSE, Hanrahan is a talent agent trying to convince his movie star client, Schwetye, to accept the new normal.  In JUST OFF SUNSET, Schwetye is a rock singer/songwriter who’s just finished a frustrating gig at a club, and Hanrahan is a grizzled backup musician who’s seen it all in the industry.  And in SHOOT IN SANTA MONICA, Hanrahan is a British actor brought to Hollywood for a role in a science fiction film, and Schwetye is the director trying to get her first film under her belt.

Hanrahan first worked with Tibbetts when he recruited her to direct an earlier Midnight run of SEX DRUGS ROCK & ROLL, after seeing her direction of BACHELORETTE for her home company, SATE.  Thus began an association between their two companies, with Hanrahan acting in ONE FLEA SPARE, OF MICE AND MEN, DOCTOR FAUSTUS and 2020’s APHRA BEHN FESTIVAL for SATE; and Schwetye directing JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG(with Tibbetts in the cast) and A MODEL FOR MATISSE for Midnight.

But it was during the winter of 2016/2017 that these three did two plays together that demanded a third, sometime in the future, to complete a triptych.  At that time, Hanrahan directed Schwetye and Tibbetts in the vampire drama, CUDDLES, for SATE, followed by Schwetye directing Tibbetts and Hanrahan in Midnight’s Irish thriller, LITTLE THING BIG THING.  So a third show was needed, with (as TINSEL TOWN provides) roles for Schwetye and Hanrahan, and Tibbetts directing.  And thus, the cycle will be complete, and TINSEL TOWN will bring Midnight’s 2021 season to  a close.