Zoetic Stage is justifiably proud of its resident actors, the only true repertory company in South Florida. But even more important to the group’s success are its resident playwrights, notably Christopher Demos-Brown, whose works range from political drama (When the Sun Shone Brighter) to family comedy (Captiva) to his latest, Fear Up Harsh, a mournful tale of the aftermath of contemporary wartime.
These diverse plays are connected by Demos-Brown’s skill as a storyteller, and he has a particularly powerful story to tell this time. Fear Up Harsh — military jargon for extreme interrogation techniques verging on torture — focuses on an Iraq veteran who rescued six of his fellow soldiers.
Now back stateside and wheelchair-bound, Captain Rob Wellman (Shane Tanner) is being groomed for receipt of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Marine public affairs officers begin shaping his story for public consumption, but it just might unravel due to the sudden appearance of loose cannon, profane Mary Lou Boudreaux (Karen Stephens), a black corporal who has some information that could tarnish Wellman’s glory.
Boudreaux is a compelling character, a voice of sardonic truth amid the coded military-speak, and Stephens relishes the role. On our first sighting of her, she has let herself into Wellman’s house, helped herself to his liquor and is confronted by his daughter Shawn (appealing newcomer Jessica Brooke Sanford), a military academy-bound chip off her father’s block who has never encountered such sarcastic candor about the war effort. Rounding out the cast is chameleon-like Stephen G. Anthony, playing a handful of military bureaucratic spin-doctors.
Demos-Brown captures the clipped cadences of these tightly-wound characters, with a tale that lets us observe as their world comes unraveled. Director Stuart Meltzer stages the world premiere in the Arsht Center’s Studio Theatre on an evocative scenic design by Jodi Dellaventura that suggests how the war haunts those who fought it even after they return home.
The Vietnam War generated a number of theatrical responses and presumably so will the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Demos-Brown was not directly involved in either Middle East action, but he has created a visceral and cerebral portrait of that war, overseas and afterwards.
FEAR UP HARSH, Zoetic Stage, Arsht Center Carnival Studio Theater, 1300 Biscayne Boulevard, Miami. Through Sunday. Tickets: $45. Call: (305) 949-6672.
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Michael McKeever is such a prolific and facile playwright that it is easy to forget that he is also an accomplished actor. He is currently showcased in a tough, stirring drama, Dan Clancy’s The Timekeepers, receiving its South Florida premiere from Island City Stage. The company performs at cramped Empire Stage in Fort Lauderdale, a problematic playing space at best, but for this tale of life inside the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, the sense of claustrophobia only adds to the work’s impact.
McKeever plays a Jewish prisoner named Benjamin, a watchmaker by trade who has made his pact with the devil. He spends his days repairing the watches taken off the wrists of prisoners before they are herded off to their death. For this, he gets a reprieve from the inevitable endgame, so he tries to blot out the horrors just beyond his barracks by concentrating on his solitary task.
His routine is interrupted one day by the arrival of Hans (Mike Westrich), a gay man who has convinced the guards that he too can fix timepieces. The two men, the Jew and the homosexual, are deeply prejudiced against one another, but they learn to co-exist as Benjamin begrudgingly teaches Hans enough about the workings of watches to keep him alive.
Clancy, who resides in Fort Lauderdale, has created a microcosm of the Holocaust, filled out with a third character, a brute of a prison guard known only as Capo (Matt Stabile) representing Nazi oppression. The Timekeepers is bare-bones theater, with simple, wary conversation between the odd couple inmates and little action, but the sounds of arriving prisoners trudging to their demise artfully implies the unseen atrocities.
Director Michael Leeds deftly orchestrates the stark world of these characters, with a deliberate, unforced pace that is all the more harrowing. McKeever’s Benjamin is a meticulous creature, which he conveys right down to a nervous facial tic. Westrich, by contrast, is more extroverted, an annoyance to his barracks mate, but a wary détente grows between them over a shared appreciation of opera.
Both actors give some of their best work here, just as The Timekeepers is a high water mark for Island City Stage.
THE TIMEKEEPERS, Island City Stage at Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive, Fort Lauderdale. Through Saturday, Nov. 30. Tickets: $30. Call: (954) 678-1496.
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To all the Christmas Carols, Nutcrackers, Messiahs and other can’t-miss holiday entertainments, you might as well add the stage version of Irving Berlin’s 1954 movie musical White Christmas, except the new Wick Theatre has managed to botch the show and drain it of most of its holiday cheer.
Coming close on the heels of the Wick’s impressive debut with The Sound of Music, White Christmas had the proverbial hard act to follow. But even without that comparison, one cannot miss how lackluster and listless this naturally ebullient musical now seems.
The show’s chief asset is the Berlin score, full of such memorable songs as Sisters, Count Your Blessings, the title tune and some 17 more. As if the original songs from the movie were not enough, the stage show crams in Blue Skies, I Love a Piano and others, without bothering to find much reason for them.
As those familiar with the movie starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye know, the plot revolves around a glib song-and-dance duo who entertain the troops during World War II, then become fixtures on Broadway during peacetime. They meet and become smitten with the sister act of Betty and Judy Haynes, following them to a failing Vermont inn that just so happens to be owned by their former commanding officer. To help the old man, they — what else? — decide to put on a show, excuse enough to sing whatever they feel like singing.
In the Crosby role, James Cichewicz is a capable crooner, but seems at sea whenever the music stops. Cannon Starnes takes on Kaye’s part, but misses the humor in it. Similarly, Kelly Shook (Betty) has a pleasant singing voice and Julie Kleiner (Judy) dances proficiently, but they must have been absent for personality rehearsals.
Fortunately, the charisma void is filled by Mermanesque Missy McArdle in the relatively minor supporting role of Martha, the inn’s bookkeeper. For no particular reason, she belts Let Me Sing and I’m Happy and the show momentarily comes to life.
The stage adaptation by David Ives and Paul Blake is pretty punk and it comes off worse under Stacy Stephens’ lazy direction. Choreographer Wendy Hall has to create steps for several big production numbers, but she settles for generic moves that are about nothing.
Even if your visiting aunt is not very discerning, this is not the show to take her to this holiday season. And you can skip it as well.
WHITE CHRISTMAS, The Wick Theatre, 7901 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton. Through Wednesday, Dec. 25. Tickets: $58. Call: (561) 995-2333.