FEATURES

A New Era at Perishable, plus
Twelfth Night and The Lion King
BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Theatergoers will be seeing more than a play when they check out Mickey Birnbaum's Big Death and Little Death at Perishable Theatre (October 9-29). They'll be watching a manifesto in action, a declaration of where this theater is heading.

"I like theater that kicks ass," declared Jason Nodler, the new artistic director of Perishable. "This play kicks ass. It's funny as hell. It's totally heartbreaking. You can dance to it. And it's gigantic - it's gigantic and it's totally personal. It's about everybody in this town and in this country and in this world. And it's a hell of a good ride."

He was speaking the day after the first table reading of the dark comedy, three months after being handed the baton by Mark Lerman, who was leaving after 15 years in charge. Nodler comes to Providence from Houston, where he founded Infernal Bridegroom Productions and headed that theater troupe for a decade.

The play he chose for his Providence directing debut is a coming-of-age comedy with a difference. Against a sonic background of death metal rock, teenage brother and sister Gary (Aaron Firicano) and Kristi (Laurabeth Greenwald) cope with such matters as an affair with his guidance counselor, her nearing-terminal anorexia, a traumatized Gulf War vet father - oh, and whether or not to destroy the universe.

Nodler's goals for Perishable include more than punchy plays, which the theater has had plenty of over its years.

"One primary change is I intend to form an ensemble, a company," he said. "Perishable has had artists that the theater has worked with over time, but there hasn't been a real stated commitment to a company of artists working together. "Another equally important change, I think, is I'm very much committed to audience development," he added. "With my company in Houston, according to our surveys, more than half of our audience did not regularly attend cultural arts events of any description."

One way he accomplished that at Infernal Bridegroom was to offer cheap tickets, so seats at Perishable will now go for $5.99 on opening weekend and at subsequent performances ($10 on Thursday, $12 on Friday, and $15 on Saturday).

Nodler also has plans for Perishable's annual Women's Playwriting Festival, which will take place before the year is out. The event will change from a short-form contest to an invitational event drawing from the best works of any length, by the best emerging female playwrights he can find.

Looks like we have a lot to look forward to at Perishable in seasons to come.

And there are more season highlights.

Next up at the big house around the corner is the Trinity Repertory Company production of Suddenly Last Summer, (September 30-November 6). Tennessee Williams's Gothic tale of trauma and madness is known best in its film incarnation, which caused 1959 audiences to gulp at such subjects as homosexuality and cannibalism. Directed by Mark Sutch, Trinity's version is being billed as a psychological thriller. Miriam Silverman plays Catherine Holly, who has been saying horrid things about what her cousin Sebastian did that fatal summer. Barbara Meek is in the Katharine Hepburn role of the formidable Mrs. Venable, the late Sebastian's mother, who wants Catherine lobotomized to shut her up. (Note that every performance at Trinity Rep this season will offer $15 rush tickets two hours before curtain and $10 back-bench seats.)

The Lion King's six-week residency at the Providence Performing Arts Center (October 20-December 4) will give local audiences the chance to experience this award-winning spectacle of dance, theater, masks, and puppets, originated by director/designer Julie Taymor to a score that includes songs by Elton John and Tim Rice.

In Pawtucket, the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre will be staging the Bard's Twelfth Night (November 17-December 18), directed by Anthony Estrella. Interesting prospects in the cast lineup include Casey Seymour Kim joshing it up as Feste the fool and Sam Babbitt playing the malevolent Malvolio. Speaking of Shakespeare, Providence College will be staging The Tempest (November 4-13).

In Warren, it's 2nd Story Theatre's turn to provide the annual dose of Sam Shepard for us myth-and-mayhem addicts with Curse of the Starving Class (September 30-October 30). The Tates are a farm family desperate to hold onto their land, if not to the American Dream, but foreclosure and assorted dysfunctions intervene. At Newport's Firehouse Theater, Bob Colonna will direct the original stage version of the 1944 Frank Capra film Arsenic and Old Lace (October 7-30). In a precociously black comedy for its time, a pair of sweetly murderous elderly sisters serve up their suspicious elderberry wine to elderly gentleman they deem sadly past their prime.

The Rhode Island Theatre Ensemble is presenting Peter Parnell's QED (October 11-23). One of the most fascinating particle physicists of our time, and certainly the most straight-talking, Richard Feynman will be portrayed by Chris Perrotti. RITE is also hosting an Elemental Theatre production of Tony Kushner's A Bright Room Called Day, directed by Peter Sampieri (October 27- November 5). The first play by the creator of Angels in America is set in the last months of the Weimar Republic, as brief scenes establish how the Nazis were allowed to come to power.

Brown University Theatre will start its season with Naomi Iizuka's 36 Views (October 13-23), which is about fraud in the art world. The Brownbrokers' new original musical is Moon Mary, by Angie Thurston, Ellarose Chary and Jon Russ (December 1-4). And the season opener at URI Theatre will be Noel Coward's sprightly Blithe Spirit (October 15-22), in which a séance in a country home summons up the ghost of a newlywed's first wife.

At Providence Black Repertory Company, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, by Lonnie Elder III, will run October 13-November 20. Written by the screenwriter of Sounder and A Woman Called Moses, the play is about an inner-city family trying to overcome the consequences of racism. At the Carriage House, the radio play Psicklops, by Raphael Lyon, will be performed on September 29, and the New York musical comedy troupe I Eat Pandas will do their improv on November 18.