Pass Over
Review by Momo Doll

The scene has been set and it is a street in the ghetto, but also a plantation… but also, Egypt, a country built on slavery. In the NOLA Project's 'Pass Over',  Antoinette-Chinonye Nwandu creates an up close and personal view of the struggle of what it means to be a Black man in a modern city. It also examines how the impact of the horrors of the plantation continue to drive racial tensions to trauma of biblical proportions. This emotional ride takes the audience through peaks of laughter and valleys of sorrow while weaving a tale of hope, helplessness, and the intense harm caused by ignorance and inaction.

The story follows longtime friends Moses (Martin “Bats” Bradford, pictured) and Kitch (DC Paul), two young men with wells of trauma, dreaming about passing over into the promised land of the American dream. The audience gets a feeling of closeness and participation in the dreaming of these young men through the open-air setting of the play, which allows the actors to improvisationally use the sounds of New Orleans to remind the audience that this play could, and likely is, happening every day in our city with our very real community members. Moses and Kitch are a beautiful display of the comradery of young men who have bonded through years of shared survival in a way that grows friendship into unconditional love and brotherhood.
 
The arrival of a stranger who is clearly where he should not be and interactions with law enforcement, both characters played by Keith Claverie, highlight the impact that years of surviving just to stay alive has interpersonal communication and responses to everyday behavior.

The audience is drawn in to the discomfort of the interracial dynamic between the characters with life experience on opposite ends of the societal spectrum.  The interaction between the three man is a brilliant explanation of the deep impact of words and how the ignorance of privileged entitlement often poses a bigger threat to the dreams and advancement of the oppressed than open hatred. 

This play is an experience and a lesson in cultural differences between people living in the same city, the connection of history to the present, and deep love between friends. As an added bonus, there is also an abundance of pop culture references throughout the play that give moments of comedic relief during the turmoil of the 80 minutes of emotional investment in the lives of two men just dreaming of a life worth living. Take a friend down to the New Orleans  African American Museum and see this amazing performance.  You won’t regret it, and if you take “that” friend who is awkward in diverse groupings, then you could also be helping a friend learn. 

Pass Over plays at NOAAM through November 9th 
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH NOLA PROJECT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, TENAJ WALLACE
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Jekyll & Hyde @ JPAC
review by Todd Perley

Halloween is a good time to wear a mask and pretend to be something horrifying. If you need instruction, 'Jekyll & Hyde' is here to help.

The musical veers from Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 allegorical novella, adhering more to the first stage production from 1887, which most notably added a love interest—or interests, since both Jekyll and Hyde get girlfriends—aw, how sweet! The novella, play, and musical all explore the dichotomy of good v. evil in all of us and the battle between ego and id, but with murder and mayhem to zhuzh things up a notch. This seemed to be the Victorian zeitgeist of the moment, since a year after Stevenson gave us the good doctor and nasty ole’ Hyde, Oscar Wilde gave us Dorian Gray. So many naughty Victorian boys!

I prefer my musicals dark and eerie. 'Jekyll & Hyde' came out in 1990, eleven years after 'Sweeny Todd', and the two make lovely, macabre bookends. I’m fine with adding music to an eldritch tale if said music is sufficiently moody, frenetic, and sinister, which this certainly is. The songs complement the skeletal set and dreary lighting. It’s a fair guess that Danny Elfman saw 'Jekyll & Hyde' and was inspired by the songs for his 1993 scoring of 'Nightmare Before Christmas'. Both productions use music as paint for the spooky atmosphere effectively, and both are composed to perfection from the same color palate.

This is a juggernaut of a production, with the principle cast and ensemble numbering twenty-nine, plus a twenty-seat orchestra, resulting in a continuous wave of aural and visual inundation. Tough to keep this hectic pace going for nearly three hours, but they succeed.

Tyler Walls plays the eponymous hero/villain with empathy, and his pipes are frankly amazing. Ever try to sing a duet with yourself? Mr. Walls pulls it off. Monique Abry Knoepfler and Stephanie Abry (real life sisters-in-law) bring softness to the stage as Jekyll and Hyde’s respective boos, tempering the dark themes with humanity. And again with the pipes! The ensemble pieces, backed by the gorgeous orchestra, are hair-raising—a wall of exquisite sound, like hell’s own choir.

Ken Goode’s direction keeps the plot and character arcs sailing smoothly along. He has this to say: “The show is darker and more violent than most of the rest of the musical theatre canon,” (I’m here for it!), “but it is a lush melodrama at its core and its indulgent score and story keep it extremely relevant to current societal issues and conversations.” Societally relevant indeed. If you also find jolly catharsis in the violent dispatching of self-righteous hypocrites, this one’s for you.

Jekyll & Hyde plays through 3 November at Jefferson Performing Arts Center
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On November 7th, a new play will premier at the New Marigny Theatre. 'Open Up The Kingdom, Mama' is "a vexing modern day tragedy", written and directed by Anita Vatshell. Anita Vatshell is a playwright living in New Orleans. Vatshell describes the play: "A highly unexpected pregnancy causes controversy in this absurdist tragedy. A fifty-six year old widow must determine if her miracle conception is fate or the result of a Voodoo hex on her lover. Set in a post-Roe New Orleans where access to reproductive health care is severely restricted regardless of choice."

Anita is an RN with over twenty years' experience in reproductive health care and advocacy. As a playwright, her main emphasis is on reproductive justice with levity and compassion. Open Up The Kingdom Mama is the second in her reproductive trilogy of plays. Operating Theatre is the first of the trilogy and premiered in New Orleans November 2022. Anita’s plays have been produced in New Orleans and Missoula, Montana. Her work has been described as irreverent, witty, polished and powerful. For more information and ticketing, go to Open Up The Kingdom Mama. 

Jefferson Performing Arts is staging Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical at the Jefferson Performing Arts Center for two weekends, October 25 through November 3, 2024.  Tickets are on sale now by visiting www.jpas.org.
 
This local production features a cast of 28 local performers, with visiting artist Tyler Walls playing the role of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The musical is an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It explores the duality of man’s nature through the tragic tale of Dr. Henry Jekyll and his evil counterpart, Edward Hyde. This production is for mature audiences only, as it contains graphic murder scenes. Visit www.jpas.org for more information.

Double Jeopardy: Murder for Two @ Le Petit Theatre
Review by Todd Perley

In the mood for a cozy mystery this October? A ‘cozy’ being, of course, that most wonderful sub-genre of mysteries where the players are isolated, and the action focuses on the characters (all of whom are suspects), and not the grisly fact of murder itself, as presented by Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Angela Lansbury in “Murder She Wrote,” et al. In a genre that leans heavily on a twist, “Murder for Two” delivers a little extra twist right at the top: there are only two actors in this ensemble piece. How is that possible?

Max Dovale plays detective-wannabe Marcus Moscowicz with joyful, naïve vim and high hopes of getting that big promotion. And Mark Schenfisch plays…well, everyone else. That’s twelve more characters. The first mystery I wanted solved, reading the program before the play, was how they were going to pull this off.

It’s a surprise birthday party for famous novelist and family patriarch Arthur Whitney, and his surprise is delivered (with overkill) by being shot in the head. The detective assigned to the case is an hour away, but local cop Marcus and his silent (translation: non-existent) sidekick Lou are nearby, and they jump at the opportunity to do some sleuthing.

Schenfisch switches between his multitudinous characters with a feverish frenzy, quickly adjusting his hat or grabbing this or that accessory to denote who he is at any given moment, and changing his voice and accent to delineate between the suspects. This framework might turn out to be an incoherent mess, but with the energy, skill, and physicality of classic Robin Williams, we always know who Schenfisch is. You’d need an ace actor to make this work, and they found one. Add to the list of duties for both actors that they must sing and play piano, and I can imagine this would be a casting nightmare to check all those boxes.

Being a pianist myself, I was especially giddy with the music, played by one, the other, or both actors at once, often veering into Victor Borge or Marx Brothers territory with their pianistic pranks.

The setup of one actor playing all but one of the roles doesn’t get tired. On the contrary, the pacing of the whole piece increases steadily, reaching a crescendo of jaw-dropping energy by the end. I often thought Schenfisch’s rapid character changes mimicked a J. S. Bach fugue, voices intertwining like ivy, but not even Bach wrote a fugue for twelve voices.

Local theater veteran Ricky Graham directs this complicated, hilarious opus flawlessly, as I suspected he might, knowing his work as well as I do. Ricky always surpasses your expectations no matter what he puts his hand to.

If I started this play wondering how are they going to pull this off, I left the theater befuddled in a different way, thinking, how DID they pull that off? Did I just see what I thought I saw? Fourteen roles plays by two actors and a ghost, and somehow it all made sense? Howdunnit?

Murder for Two is killing it at Le Petit Theater through October 20th. Click here for ticketing and further information

A Survivin' Thing: Out of the Boil, A Climate Change Musical @ The New Marigny Theatre
Review by Todd Perley

​The setting: a New Orleans dive bar. The players: neighborhood working folk—a nurse, a teacher, a tech guy, some service industry, etc. The conversation: climate change, education, local infrastructure, and why doesn’t the Algiers ferry run twenty-four hours anymore? Sound familiar?

It should. I think we’ve all been to this bar with these people and discussed these things with similar passion. Except in Rel Farrar’s new play, these aren’t people; they’re crawfish. Socially aware crawfish, dressed in red, complete with little red claws. And they sing. They sing their P.O.V.s to the tunes of E.L.O. songs. Okay, so maybe we haven’t been to this bar.

The conflict: Chef Bezos (played by local treasure Ratty Scurvics) is offering a sizable grant to the crawfish that pitches the best socially-conscious scheme. I’m sure that will work out well. Clearly, the chef has the crawfish’s best interests in mind.

The characters are intellectual, hilarious, and self-aware, reminiscent of classic Woody Allen films. The arguments are tight and multi-faceted, never preaching to the choir. Tech Guy waxes rhapsodic on the philosophy of Ayn Rand to his girlfriend. When rebuffed, he sings his angry response to her via the song 'Evil Woman'.

While the arguments are mature, there’s a childlike joy throughout. All the props are over-sized. Picture a crawfish holding human-sized cups, beer bottles, cigarettes, or scissors, an effective offset to the serious themes when the lines are delivered by someone drinking from a shot glass the size of a paint bucket. The table is a board set upon a bottle of Mod Podge (those crafty crawfish!)

Danielle Small directs this serious piece with campy lightheartedness. The mood matches the tongue-in-cheek vibe of her 'Waterworld', which has played, hilariously, in local swimming pools for years (I look forward to these annually). Neal Todten as musical director pounds out E.L.O. hits on the piano beautifully.

But it’s the cast that brings the Zatarain’s to this crawfish berl. They’re all just having so much fun, and the actors’ joy is infectious. Whenever things get dark, someone starts playing darts…with dart props made of four foot pool noodles.

The goofiness never detracts from the message. As Rel tells us in her author’s note, “This show is about believing you can make things better…maybe pigs can fly (metaphorically speaking).”

You can suck da heads of these concerned mudbugs at the New Marigny Theater, October 3–6.
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