“We have no hassles in here. Here, life is beautiful!” intones the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club in Cat Call Productions’ inaugural showing of Cabaret.

Under the direction of Deb DeGrosse, the Tower Theatre transforms into Berlin at the end of the Golden Age of the Weimer Republic. The threat of the Nazi’s burgeoning—and imminent—rise to power is either ignored, or somehow forgiven, by all except the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club.

Equal parts hedonistic and angelic, the Emcee, a fleshy apparition, a one-man Greek chorus played with pitch-perfect aplomb by Rick Johnson, becomes the conscious of Cabaret. Johnson rivals the Tony-award winning interpretation of the Emcee by Broadway veteran Allan Cumming as he leads us through worlds both real and imagined until his prescience blurs the lines between. It’s not so much that he passes judgment during his more ghost-like stage moments, more that he becomes an all-knowing figure mired in the futility of naïve optimists. From Johnson’s first appearance on stage as he sings his way through a glorious rendition of “Wilkommen” the audience is transfixed. I assumed this caliber of talent could only be seen in New York or LA, but Johnson steals the show.

Sally Bowles, played with unflinching optimism by 20-year-old Corinne Sharlet, grabs the audience with her first raucous performance of “Don’t Tell Mama” and keeps us rooting for her, in spite of her impending decline. She is the unabashed star, and favorite lady-of-the-evening to club owner Max, until the American writer Cliff Bradshaw comes to town. Joe Wegner plays Bradshaw with a heroic, Old-Hollywood earnestness. But this is not Hollywood. His pleas for everyone to “wake-up” to Adolf Hitler’s sinister rise to power sadly go unanswered, even by his lover, Sally. The other love story in Cabaret, played with sweetness and heart by Helen Watts as Fraulein Schneider and Bob Vogel as Herr Schultz, illustrates with deep and personalized sadness the horrors of the Nazis’ plan.

Other highlights include Mary Kilpatrick, co-founder of BEAT, as a scene-stealing Kit Kat girl and Kevin Houser as Ernst Ludwig, a man with unwavering loyalty to the Nazi party. Houser’s accent is believable and the swastika on his arm serves as an ominous foil to the clown-like make-up worn with a near vulgarity by the Emcee.

Fraulein Kost, played by Allyson Milner, a soldier-loving prostitute who “outs” Herr Schultz as a Jew, delivers an unforgettable rendition of Tomorrow Never Knows and we almost understand the characters’ misguided notion that “gather[ing] together to greet the storm” will make the political thunderclouds on the horizon give way to sunshine.

To bring 1929 Germany to life, Cat Call Productions has enlisted the talents of choreographer Michelle Mejaski (owner of theGotta Dance! studio), musical director Torrey Newhart and the costume design of Cat Call owner and executive producer Tifany LeGuyonne.

This is an adults-only show, proven by the eye covering of two young ladies sitting in front of me, as the Emcee and his two lovers, one female, one somewhat dubious male, stimulate sex acts behind a backlit movie screen to the song “Two Ladies.” This is envelope-pushing at its finest—thought-provoking, disturbing and sometimes uncomfortable, which are the brash indicators of a modern live theatre experience.

The full seats on opening night prove that there is a High Desert audience waiting to experience the sex and sass, the extreme politics and the extended metaphor of a nation’s obliviousness to the Nazi takeover.

Cabaret

Remaining shows: Thursday-Saturday, 8pm. Tower Theatre, 835 NW Wall St. $25. Tickets at towertheatre.org. Recommended for adults only.

“Who at least doesn’t want to visit someplace beautiful?” questions the Stubby Motherlover, the song-singing, 30-fingered creature, one of many captivating characters to make an appearance in Guy J. Jackson’s Tintar Isle.

Jackson, a consummate storyteller, recently moved back to Bend after performing original material for three years in England. In a riveting hour and a half, he creates a world that is nearly incomparable in its originality. I would say, think Garrison Keillor—if Keillor was cool—combined with Lewis Carroll at his Jabberwocky best, but even this analogy fails to capture the touching strangeness of Tintar Isle.

Full disclosure, this review is based on my experience sitting through a rehearsal performance of 2^nd Street Theatre’s Steel Magnolias, when there was still a whole week to go before the play was set to open, where a photographer buzzed around on stage for the first half an hour of the show, chasing the actors like persistent flies at a BBQ, and there was still ongoing discussion about how to hang the set curtains. Yet based on said performance I believe the audience at the play’s opening night, and every night thereafter, are in for a treat to rival any of the desserts at Truvy’s beauty parlor.

The performances of the Steel Magnolias cast shone fiercely through under the expert direction of Juliah Ramaker. Every member kept up his or her character flawlessly despite the distractions, so much so, in fact, that even the costume changes played out like fascinating little sketches. They delivered, as an ensemble, an outstandingly powerful presence. A play like Steel Magnolias, although a classic and the basis of a much-loved film, could in less talented hands have turned out a mere trifle, or an overblown melodrama. But in the hands of 2^nd Street Theatre it is a sensitive, quietly moving drama highlighted by well-timed, expertly dispensed comedy.

It’s the story of a group of Louisiana ladies who gather at their local salon to discuss everything and anything from recipes and the antics of their husbands to the celebrations and tragedies of their lives. The highs and lows play out in a lovingly conceived 1980s beauty parlor. The ladies are soft and spiky, serious and silly, like, well, real people—these are no Sex And The City-like female types—they each have their distinctive traits. Truvy is romantic, Ouiser is jaded, but as their individual plots unfold, their personalities exchange, flip and reverse.

The play relies on the performances colliding and complimenting and it is here that the 2^nd Street Theatre cast truly excels. Their interchanges are so effervescent and easygoing, they’ll have you hanging on their every word from the start—as though you yourself are right there with them in the salon, waiting your turn in the hairdresser’s chair.

Jenn Copsey plays Shelby, and is brilliant as the defiant daughter of Deborah Feffer’s fretful M’Lynn. Together they create an absorbing central dynamic, having perfected the muttered asides and knowing glances of a mother-daughter relationship. Susan Benson gets some hilarious one-liners as confident, cheeky businesswoman Clariee Belcher and sends them out with aplomb, while Lynn Talbot plays the sweet and sour of grouchy Ouiser Boudreaux with dexterity.

Rickey Minder has the transformation of Annelle from timid waif to willful Baptist convert down to a seamless evolution of subtle mannerisms. As the owner of Truvy’s Beauty Parlour and the lynchpin of the group, Ellen Valway provides a strong foundation to the ensemble and an endearingly ditsy character.

Steel Magnolias will make you laugh, it’ll make you cry, and it’ll make a perfectly lovely night out with your own gang of friends.

 

Steel Magnolias

2^nd Street Theatre, August 20 - September 5, Wednesdays through Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 3pm. Opening night champagne and dessert reception at 7pm. $18/adults, $16/students and seniors.

It was a night of gin martinis and evening gloves at the Tower Theatre, an homage to Ol' Blue Eyes that all ages will fall for. My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra, produced by Innovation Theatre Works under the artistic direction of Chris Rennolds and Brad Hills, is a journey to a time where elegance ruled, men loved dames, dames loved mink stoles, and the world, at least for the duration of a song, believed in the fable of perfect love.

An ensemble cast, led by Broadway veteran Daniel Guzman, croons through a medley of fifty-eight standards intermixed with Sinatra tidbits delivered with the affability of a vintage nightclub act. Guzman, a haberdasher's dream endowed with an engaging sense of "cool" and a lush voice that refuses to lose its masculine edge, is the highlight of My Way from the time the curtain opens on his iconic, tuxedoed silhouette to the magnetic way he commands such classic songs as That's Life and New York, New York. Guzman's reverence and dedication to the material never drops to the level of impersonation. My Way is Guzman's heartfelt and charismatic tribute. He acknowledges there can only ever be one Chairman of the Board¸ but effortlessly manages to transfix the audience from his very first note.

With everything from whips cracking to hips popping, the circus has come to town and has jammed itself into the cozy confines of the CTC in the form of a striking production of La Cage Aux Folles.

As I watched the play, the laughter ringing in my ears behind me was the real show; the La Cage Aux Folles isn't shy on the audience participation. We  threw our heads back, clapping and shaking with the music, extreme fun and flamboyance unfolding on the stage.