The Piano Tuner Hits a Good Note
By A. Sic
In the spirit of excellent novels coupled with Lifeline Theatre’s equally inventive stage adaptations, The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason, is as brilliantly crafted for the stage as originally written. Tailored for a visual audience by James E. Grote, this exotic adventure concerning a British War Office and an ordinary piano tuner comes alive through the masterful direction of Jonathan Berry.
Edgar Drake, a withdrawn piano tuner lives a quiet Victorian life with his loving wife Katherine. He travels across the world amongst the wilderness of war-torn Burma, occupied by the British in 1866, to tune a grand piano. Here he meets Anthonly Carroll, a man whose work is so important to the effort in Burma, his musical foibles are to be pandered to. Carroll convinces Edgar that he believes music is the key to peace. A stunning stay in an exotic land, this exploration of colonialism and conquest is not only appropriate and timely but deals with pressing political and social matters.
Although Daniel Mason was only 26 when he wrote the novel in 2002, it was regarded as genius. Held to the bar with the likes of E.M. Forster and Rudyard Kipling for the obvious similarity in chronicle of place, Mason forces his hero to become just the opposite. Forced to deal with treachery and deceit, his trust in the wrong people, self-imposed cynicism, love for art, and inevitable human nature, become the downfall of a culture.
Upon entering the theatre space, the world, as you know it, is instantly transformed. The set design, a careful jungle like structure that includes weaved bamboo and necessary plat forming, is care of Alan Donahue. A giant waterfall spills across the background thoughtfully counterbalanced by a life-size piano center stage. In this fantasy, brilliant colors represent flowers and blood- red fabric engages in dance. This variety of representation combined with vivid imaginary circumstance is used regularly throughout the piece.
Patrick Blashill is perfect as the seemingly austere Edgar Drake. Emanating truth in every aspect of his performance and possessing obvious connections with his fellow cast mates as well as the text, Patrick is so grounded and powerful, you forget you are watching a performance. It is only befitting that all his cast mates are up to speed, most of who double or triple in character. Much like the age-old art of storytelling, a chorus is used for opulence, exposition, and to establish environment. Eric Martig and Danny Bernardo prove to be physical chameleons. Their various postures and changes in corporal presence are crucial in the audience’s understanding of social class and importance in this distant land. Kurt Ehrmann is deceivingly pleasant as Anthonly and Shole Milos is very entertaining. Yosh Hayashi has a wonder vocal quality, Fawzia Mirza is exotic by nature, and Melanie Esplin’s high energy is a nice balance for Patrick’s character.
This thrilling and wild adventure is brilliantly colored; both by Mason’s pen, and the Lifeline stage.
Fun at the Ashbury Coffee House
By James Payne
When I’m bored on a Thursday night, I fret not. Why? Because I always seem to find myself headed to the Ashbury Coffee House in Willow Springs. But not for the coffee, I go to see Sunni Williams host the weekly improv. Along with the event’s co-founder, Chad Feipal, Sunni leads the audience and their teams of faithful regulars through a series of games that test the skills of all the improvisers.
Going on seven years, Sunni and Chad found their way to a night of improv at Low Sodium Entertainment. They found themselves taken by this newly discovered world, and began going there every Friday night for some time before they eventually started taking classes there. Shortly thereafter, the two decided to include their friends in their new discovery. That’s when Sunni had a talk with the people at the Ashbury, where she had been booking bands, and reserved herself an improv night thereafter for every week. With a night to publicly have fun and show their skills, she and her team began practicing their improvising ability in her basement on a regular basis.
During that time, her friend Alec filmed them every so often, eventually leading to the making of two DVD’s. Over the past five years, Sunni and her team have made appearances at places like Lot 4 (a sports bar in Chicago Ridge) the Uppercrust in Palos Hills and a few other locations in the Chicagoland area. Sunni went on to tell me that their group has had many hardships including quite a few dropouts and developing several new people as well. Though, Sunni admits that she had some of her own troubles as well, for instance stepping back from the lead position on a few separate occasions. Sunni now states that she feels like they’re in a rebuilding stage of the group, but that everything is going good, and based on their performances, I agree.
It can sometimes be hard to keep the audience entertained for the entire show when it comes to improv, especially when the stage is open to any newcomers that happen to be there, which can make for some unintelligible, or inexperienced, improvisers. Still, the crowd at Ashbury seems to be getting bigger every week. Not to mention, my own unfailing attendance speaks for itself. Although you’ll never find any audience that’s totally accepting to an unpleasing act, the improv at the Ash is a great place for beginners. Naturally, everyone’s bound to bomb the stage on occasion, but this group seems to keep up with each other very well, and more often than not, remain consistently funny throughout the entire 10pm to1am night.
Although, I never go on the stage myself and choose to remain an observer, my favorite game of theirs is the one they call “the alphabet game”. In this game they have two people go onto the stage and one of them says whatever he/she wants to say, as long as it starts with the letter “A”. Then the other person on stage responds, starting their response off with the letter “B”. This continues up to “Z” and then loops around to “A” again. As the game progresses, the ability to hold a normal conversation with each other becomes much more difficult, while adding just the right flavor to the already funny improv dialogue. As soon as one of the players fails to begin their line using the correct letter, or just chokes, he/she gets booted off the stage and is replaced with another volunteer. This is just one of their many creative games. They also play games like the ever so popular “freeze tag”, or “the good the bad and the stupid”. Whatever games they decide to play it’s always a fun Thursday night at the Asbury.
The Ashbury Coffee House also hosts many different charity drives. Last year, they collected used eyeglasses and fitted about one hundred kids per school in the inner city of Chicago. This year they’re doing the same thing in Mexico. You can help by dropping off your old eyeglasses in their drop box at the Ashbury Coffee House (8965 Archer Avenue, Willow Springs) or check out www.giftofsight.org.
You can find out more about their improv team at this website: www.Myspace.com/wewarnedyouimprov.
Latest Buzz Theatre
Buzz Theatre 02-08-07
Buzz Theatre 01-25-07
Buzz Theatre 12-28-06
Buzz Theatre 12-14-06