An aging Don Juan in a dusty resort sees a woman sitting alone with her pet Pomeranian. What better way to strike up a conversation than through a lady's dog? Of course, the dog knows this can only turn out badly. But how do you protect someone you love when no one takes you (or your bark) very seriously?
Cast List: Nicole Strykowski, Joseph O'Malley, Greg Gutting, Valina Cutler
Week One (Feb. 15-18) BUY NOW ONLINE or call (415) 439-2456
An intern program gives former teenage misfit Nicole Strykowski a spot on the stage, a fantasy that buffered her through a rocky childhood
Sunday, June 19, 2005
SU-JIN YIM
ASHLAND -- A few hours before curtain, standing in a small, nondescript dressing room backstage, Nicole Strykowski has almost completed her transformation.
Gone are the big, silver hoop earrings and low-rise jeans. The lotus tattoo on her right hip hides under the green scales of her body suit. She tucks her white-blond hair under a black stocking cap, all but erasing her Hollywood starlet looks.
Gone also is any vestige of the teenage misfit who cleaned motel rooms for money.
Tonight, the 27-year-old intern at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a devil. A cardinal. A friar and a duchess.
Tonight, the 2005 cast and crew of Christopher Marlowe's 16th-century play "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" face their first public test, performing a preview in front of a live audience.
For Strykowski, it's an even bigger test, the best glimpse she's had yet to see if the life she's crafted from a bumpy childhood, a self-funded college education and a litany of other jobs will actually become the professional dream she's held so long. To be an actor. To be in theater.
Getting out of a rut
Like most people, Strykowski didn't start out with a dream life.
After her parents divorced when she was 5 years old, she bounced between the two homes until she was 13. Her father didn't pay child support, and her mom worked two jobs to support her and her sister. By the time she was 12, Strykowski already was working full time as a paid-under-the-table waitress and a nanny. At 15, she dropped out of school to travel.
In her working life, she's been a secretary, a maid, a ski-lift instructor, a nanny and a bartender.
Several years ago, Strykowski found herself feeling unfulfilled.
Four years earlier, the striking 5-foot-8-inch blonde had moved to Ashland, a picturesque college town she loved for its laid-back lifestyle and the renowned Shakespeare festival.
Now she felt stuck in her restaurant manager job but reluctant to let go of the stability.
I hate my life, she complained to a friend and her mother, who lives in Medford.
What do you want to do, they asked?
The answer came quickly. The only thing Strykowski, who acted in her first play at age 5, ever wanted to do was theater.
But she had no formal training. A high school dropout who earned her GED at 16, college seemed inconceivable.
In fact, it turned out to be surprisingly easy, she says. Student loans and eight years of tending bar and waiting tables in Ashland paid her way through four years at Southern Oregon University. She sat in the front row in art history and loved every minute.
Tough but vulnerable
Early her freshman year, Strykowski caught the eye of festival veteran Jim Edmondson, who was holding auditions for an SOU production of "The Laramie Project."
"She was a standout because of her energy and a great intelligence that doesn't quite go with her appearance," says Edmondson, who also is directing her in "Faustus." "I've known other kids that beautiful that would have just coasted on physical beauty and charm."
Edmondson quickly learned Strykowski was different. She had been cast as the best friend of Matthew Shepard, who was killed in anti-gay violence in Laramie, Wyo.
During a monologue, the slender girl with the big, brown eyes and almost husky voice broke down.
"I was mortified," Strykowski remembers. The girl who did not cry at news of her parents' divorce does not like to cry in front of people.
But Edmondson was thankful. The play is emotionally taut and can easily scare actors, he says.
"She was the first to have a total meltdown in a scene," he remembers. "She could go there. And she took care of others when they went there."
A pivotal internship
Strykowski calls the "Laramie Project" her "favorite theater experience ever," thanks in part to Edmondson. She is thrilled she gets to work with him as a festival intern.
It's dreams like these that the 70-year-old Oregon festival hopes to nurture with a not-yet year-old program designed to bring young and emerging talent into the small, college town.
The program is called Fellowships, Assistantships, Internships and Residencies. Interns get hands-on experience in their theater specialty, whether it's directing, acting or set design, says Christine Menzies, who directs the program.
At other theaters, interns "may spend many hours at the photocopier or walking a guest artist's dog or fetching water," she says. "My role is to make sure they're here to learn and to interact."
Menzies, who taught at Portland State University for four years, says she is working with universities in Ohio, Idaho, Pennsylvania and Oregon to regularly bring undergraduate and graduate students into the festival. Southern Oregon University, where Strykowski just graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in performance, has long had a relationship with the festival.
For Strykowski landing the paid internship was a dream come true. To win the sought-after internship, she first won the approval of Southern Oregon faculty, who decide which students to recommend each year.
Then she auditioned before two of the festival's artistic staff who picked her and three other acting interns.
No longer just an audience member, as she had been for 14 years, Strykowski now has her own key backstage, where she places her name on a sign-in list and bids hello to everyone she sees.
The first time the company met this season, Strykowski momentarily forgot what roles she would play.
"When we did our first ("Faustus") read-through, I was terrified," she says. "You think, you're in a show reading with people you've admired for years and all of sudden you're right next to them."
"They're so good. I don't want to suck in front of them."
The first time she stood on the Elizabethan stage during tech rehearsal for "Faustus," she was stunned.
"Bats are flying around. The sunset's beautiful," she recalls. "You're thinking this is what was happening almost 500 years ago. It's just magic."
Autographs and uncertainty
On a recent night, the Shakespeare festival's biggest theater thrums with an audience of school kids, families and senior citizens amid the threat of rain. It is the first preview of "Faustus" open to the public.
At home before the show, Strykowski stretched, practicing yoga moves to loosen her muscles. Backstage, she worked on drawings for a costume-design class.
Strykowski spends much of "Faustus" onstage but her role as a devil has her crouched silently in the background. Her small speaking role as a duchess comes and goes as a minor plot point.
By the time the play is over, it is past 11:30 p.m. When she and other cast members emerge, they're surprised to find autograph seekers. A group of grade-schoolers have waited to get their signatures.
Could this be a sign of things to come in Strykowski's young acting career? She hopes so.
Strykowski's internship lasts through October. What happens after that depends on five minutes this week. That's when she auditions for a spot for the 2006 season. She won't hear back for a few months.
Like all actors, the waiting period leaves her nervous. So, sitting at a brewpub the day after the preview, she's eager to hear what her director, Edmondson, has said about her to this reporter.
"Tell me! Tell me!" she says, her eyes lighting up. She smiles at his description of her discipline and her "blend of vulnerability and ability to go deep."
She calls him her "fairy godmother" then, suddenly, realizes how late she is. Rehearsal starts in five minutes. Snatching up her bag, she takes off running.
"Anything could happen," she says of her future. "It's crazy."
An incredibly talented cast has come together to bring The One Eye King to life. Even though we have begun production, there are still a number of parts to be filled . Cast members thus far are: Robert Armstrong, Grace Thorsen, Gabe Recos, Nicole Strykowski, Scott Ford, Tamara Barrus and Scott McEnroe.
The One Eye King is the second feature length production of Bison Motion Pictures which is based in southern Oregon. The movie is an independent production and upon its completion will be submitted to numerous film festivals. Shooting began in late October 2004. Due to the schedule of the cast and crew production has been limited to Saturdays and Sundays. Completion of principal photography is expected in the spring of 2005. The story follows six suicidal contestants as they participate in a reality internet service which allows subscribers to wager on the outcome of a series of Russian Roulette style games. One by one the contestants are eliminated in their effort to win the game and become a multi-millionaire. The web service is strictly for international high rollers who love the thrill of life and death competition. But trouble begins when a subscriber recognizes one of the contestants as his missing cousin.
For more information about The One Eye King or Bison Motion Pictures please contact us at bisonvideo@charter.net or P.O. Box 8302 / Medford, Oregon 98504 or log on to www.bisonmotionpictures.com or www.diebeforeiwake.com for information about our first motion picture.
"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night."
Indeed it is. Bumpy, witty, sly and very, very funny.
"The Wisdom of Eve," at Camelot Theatre Company, has all the lines we remember from "All About Eve," the 1950 movie with Bette Davis, and a whole lot more. It's all here - the story of the bigger-than-life Broadway actress Margo Channing and the young conniving ingénue, Eve Harrington - along with a fast-moving mix of backstage Broadway and not-so-loyal friendship.
To be sure, Camelot's Artistic Managing Director Livia Genise makes Margo Channing very much her own character. Genise does not do a riff on anyone else's performance of Margo Channing. Lovable, impulsive, accomplished and insecure, Genise's Margo is a many-faceted and accomplished woman. Genise makes it clear that Margo's anger at Eve is as much about betrayal as it is about a fading career.
Camelot Theatre and the production's director John Litton have a real find in Nicole Strykowski as Eve Harrington. She holds her own with the outstanding Genise and the other experienced cast members. From the moment her waif-like Eve cons Channing's friend Karen Roberts (Linda Otto) into an introduction to her "idol," Strykowski effectively underlays Eve's ingénue persona with the character's true calculating self. We see Eve insinuate, seduce and blackmail her way up the ladder, from secretary to understudy to star, using the hapless stage manager Harvey (Larry Ziegelmeyer), the naïve Karen, and the besotted playwright Lloyd Roberts (Daniel Grossbard). Only Margo's husband Bill Samson (Doug Mitchell) sees Eve for the snake she really is.
Strykowski is a drama department senior at Southern Oregon University. She has already made a name for herself in SOU and local productions and she will be interning at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival this season.
These star turns are ably backed by Al Laney as gossip columnist Tally-Ho Thompson, Marilyn Simmonds-Cole as Channing's dresser Leila and Jennifer McWhorter as the real ingénue Vera Franklin. (Tai Sammons took over the role on Feb. 7 and will continue through the end of the run). John Simutis does a brief but sly turn as agent Bert Hinkle.
John Litton's direction is a bit too "busy" for my taste. The play's dialogue is fast and intelligent and Litton would be better served by having his actors react less and not ping-pong so much about the stage. Maybe it was first night nerves? The second act seemed to go much better. The actors were more relaxed, less purposelessly frenetic and their timing improved.
Camelot Theatre has knocked itself out with this production. There is an elaborate set, designed by Nick Walsch, with the stage divided between a recreation of a Broadway star's dressing room and the living room of a fashionable Manhattan apartment. Best of all are Dotti Isom's costumes - the tailored suits, sleek dresses and politically-incorrect furs that indelibly set the time and place of the action.
"The Wisdom of Eve" started in 1946 as a short story in Cosmopolitan magazine by Mary Orr, who then turned it into a radio play for NBC. Twentieth Century Fox bought all rights (for $5,000) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had just written the successful "Letter to Three Wives" was hired to write and direct. "All About Eve" was actually written for Claudette Colbert. When Colbert became unavailable due to a ruptured disc, Mankiewicz reluctantly cast Bette Davis, whose career, like Margo Channing's, was fading as she got older. The role of Eve was written for Jeanne Crain, who also had to bow out of the production, and a young, untried Anne Baxter replaced her. Mankiewicz kept most of Orr's snappy dialogue but his genius was to add the character of an acerbic theater critic, Addison DeWitt (played by George Sanders), to provide the narration and a spectacular confrontation scene with Eve. In 1970, the movie was adapted into the hit musical "Applause" with Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing.
"The Wisdom of Eve" plays at Camelot Theatre Company in Talent through March 6, with performances Friday, Saturday and Monday at 8 p.m. and a matinee on Sunday at 2 p.m. There is a special pay-what-you-can performance tonight at 8 p.m. For more information, call 535-5250.
Theater: Artattack Theatre Ensemble Show: The Glass Menagerie Run Dates: December 6, 2004 Review by:Steve Heiman
Written near the end of WWII and first staged in Chicago in 1944, The Glass Menagerie became an instant American Classic when it hit Broadway the next year, catapulting author Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams to national acclaim and winning the New York Drama Critic’s Circle award for the best play of 1945. Casting new light on this often produced memory play is no simple task, yet one that Artattack Theater Ensemble and Director Justin Lockwood has succeeded in brilliantly. A relatively simple story of a broken family, the play centers on the fragile and introverted life of Laura (Nicole Strykowski), who sees the world through eyes tainted with insecurity and fear. While autism had not yet been fully diagnosed in 1944 there are overtones that Laura suffers from some light form of autism, as well as her physical handicap (a lame leg), and she withdraws when forced to interact with circumstances beyond her everyday environment. All but trapped within her house with a well-meaning but tyrannical mother, she retreats into her world of outdated music and her collection of miniature glass animals. The play is loosely biographical, as Williams himself had a sister who suffered from mental instabilities, and the delicate yet substantial bond between Laura and her ‘independent’ brother Tom is an integral part of this beautiful script. The play is told from the remorseful perspective of Tom after many years have passed, and we see his sister and mother not just as they were, but also as he now remembers them, with a fuller understanding and greater empathy. This is where director Lockwood finds true genius, as he incorporates most of Williams Director notes directly into older Tom’s remembrances, revealing nuances and depth that is not normally part of the script. Lockwood also makes the daring yet obvious choice of splitting this character into two roles, with one actor playing older Tom (Douglas Mitchell) and another playing younger Tom (Adam Cuppy). Mitchell is simply marvelous as the emotionally torn older Tom, his demeanor and voice anguished as he recalls his youthful folly. Most especially poignant are the moments as he wanders through the remembered environment of his youth, watching as his memories unfold. Chills ran up and down my spine when he offers the occasional response in place of the younger Tom. Cuppy brings forth a younger Tom nearly brimming over with frustration that is wonderfully tempered by his devotion to his sister. The subtext, which amply points to his covert homosexual tendencies, is treated with suggestive subtlety, but Cuppy’s best moment comes when his repressed anger finally erupts and we see his true level of angst at his mother's dominion. Linda Otto as the mother Amanda epitomizes everything that is wrong with blind fundamentalism; a good ‘Christian woman’ Amanda flaunts her southern attitudes and mores like a peacock showing its feathers, all for show. She is a “bird-like woman without a nest, living on the crust of humility” and she cannot abide by any perspective that might contradict her worldview, even ostracizing her own son for a relatively minor disagreement. She enables Laura’s social disabilities by treating her like a simple child, and yet is simultaneously lost in her fantasy of a ‘gentleman caller’ coming and sweeping Laura off into the perfect life that deserted her when her husband walked out the door. While the script makes this character considerably outdated, her underlying fundamentalism, need for control, and inability to understand another perspective are sadly still present in much of today’s culture. Strykowski is exquisite as the remote and mournful Laura, giving her character a delicate and easily bruised nature. What is most fascinating about this role is that the wonder and joy of life, hidden by Laura’s outward demeanor, are still present, revealed in her simple love of music and art. Strykowski floats about the stage like an insubstantial ghost, her movement and voice tremulous and uncertain, most especially when confronting her mother, yet she leaves an indelible imprint of beauty and sweetness upon our psyches. When a gentleman finally does come calling (Dale Nakagawa) Strykowski's slow acceptance of him is patient and believable. Nakagawa as Jim (a coworker of Tom) is perhaps a touch too curt in movement and voice to let us believe Laura will open up to him, but is engaging and very comfortable on stage nonetheless. He has some great comic moments as he meets the Amanda and her amazing ability to talk a mile a minute. Director Lockwood places Tom’s memory characters in an all white environment, an effective and beautiful comment on the simple purity of Laura. All white costumes and a wonderful lighting design complete this simple yet elegant set, and keep the focus on the characters themselves as they struggle to find meaning in their lives. With virtually no props, including the glass menagerie itself, Lockwood forces us to engage both our minds and our imaginations, and perhaps allowing us to open a window on our own illusions and imaginary faults. Each of the characters lives is obscured by illusion; Laura’s stem from her autistic mind set and her overwhelming fear; her mother is lost in remembrances of the past and her fantasies of the future; Tom’s illusions stem from his desperate need to escape the depressing reality of his life. Both children secretly despise their controlling mother, but neither can authentically confront her. Tom seeks a solution outside while Laura retreats to her inner landscape. Today we know much more about autism, as well as depression and many other mental disorders, and it is a fair assessment to say that in some small way, we are each of us blinded by our own illusions, for we each see the world in a completely unique and untranslatable manner, refracted through our own subjective worldview. This play clearly reminds us of the importance of speaking our truth and of the consequences that our actions have. Written over half a decade ago, The Glass Menagerie still has relevance and meaning in our modern culture, and the Artattack Theatre Ensemble succeeds in bridging the generation gap of this touching and beautiful play.
