Kill the Debbie Downers! Kill Them! Kill Them! Kill Them Off Review Shotgun Players

Kill THE DEBBIE DOWNERS! KILL THEM! Impale THEM! KILL THEM OFF!

Mark Jackson & Beth Wilmurt

Nathaniel Andalis, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Gabby Battista, Sam Jackson & Billy Rapheal

First, I must brand an upfront confession. Either I missed all the particular "Sabbatum Nighttime Live" shows between 2004 and 2010 when various versions of Rachel Datch's grapheme, "Debbie Downer," appeared; or that party pooper who could of a sudden burst the airship of whatsoever happy gathering with her negativity just did non leave a lasting impression on me. For that reason, I arrived at Shotgun Players premiere of KILL THE DEBBIE DOWNERS! Impale THEM! Kill THEM! Impale THEM OFF! totally in the fog what to look. By the end of the two hour, no intermission conglomeration of spoken text, interpretative dance, vocal and instrumental music, mod film clips, and audition sing-alongs, my fog had somewhat lifted merely how all these elements related to one of my favorite Anton Chekhov plays, Three Sisters, was nevertheless quite cloudy for me.

The Cast

Marking Jackson and Beth Wilmurt have created and directed what is touted in the program as "a new theatre piece" – with "play" not being an adequate clarification since a plot with beginning, middle, and stop does non fit this creative but ofttimes-confusing – and sometimes a bit boring – mishmash of visual and aural occurrences. Their production does refer to each of the 4 acts of Chekhov's masterpiece (as announced via projected titles); and the sisters' paralyzing dissatisfaction with their lives and inabilities to make decisions to meliorate those lives are played out by the fine cast assembled. In that location is also fine usage past the creators/directors of pauses that speak volumes about the sisters' boredom with life and their perpetual state of stasis. There are sequences of repeated lines delivered in different manners that illustrate the probable means that memories play out again and over again of better days when the sisters lived in Moscow with their dear, now-deceased father and of their repeated want – i that never goes anywhere – to leave their nowadays minor town and go back to the big city. And there is an opening sequence of coming together individually the six characters (of the over dozen in Chekhov's original) of KILL THE DEBBIE DOWNERS that for me was the highlight of the evening, with each thespian capturing in diverse ways the essence of that particular Chekhovian personality.

Only every bit the acts progress, crazy diversions multiply that for me did not always add upwardly to amplifying or enlightening the original source material. When there is a alleged effort to focus on "one detail unparticular day" taken from Act Two, snippets of conversations proceed, sometimes with characters unseen or with an actor switching to some other character. Even for the well-versed Chekhov lover, following what is happening becomes hard. (I kept wishing that I had re-read the play before coming. I cannot imagine how anyone who is totally or even just vaguely familiar could understand what is occurring.)

Nathaniel Andalis, Sam Jackson, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart & Amanda Farbstein

A birthday party for the youngest sister – 20-twelvemonth-old Irina – becomes an all-bandage dance-a-thon with everything from Russian steps, Broadway kick-lines, chair-hugging knee joint-slapping, and even patty-caking with quite shocked and mostly reluctant audience members. A soldier who transforms into a crush poet delivers something merely short of jibberish while a sing-along with the audience about the never-seen blood brother Andrey ("This is Andrey'southward happy song; it's not very long") goes on for seemingly forever. A harrowing, five-or-so-minute video of recent devastating and disturbing current events – the video opening Act Three – begs for explanation of how it relates. (Is it referring to the chaos coming soon to 1901 Russia, the setting of the play?). While all these and many more innovative inserts add together a mixture of farcical, sinister, and foreboding flavors to this set up of lives where nothing is happening fast (another Chekhovian favorite theme), the creators neglect too often, in my opinion, to tie them enough to the original and to make them interesting and compelling. As the minutes ticked, I establish myself (and watched numerous others around me) checking my watch to see how much longer before the two hours would finally end.

Sam Jackson

With those rather astringent caveats bated, the efforts of the cast are to be commended. As the oldest sister, Olga, Sam Jackson is outstanding in delivering the thrice-repeated opening lines of Paul Shmidt'south translation of Three Sisters ("It was a twelvemonth ago, information technology was years ago, that male parent died") – kickoff intensely and with fervent decision to "go dorsum to Moscow," second with contemptuous sarcasm bordering on acrimony, and tertiary every bit if frenetically chatting equally a local gossip. When she declares with an assertion point, "I'k tired of existence Olga," Ms. Jackson had me convinced nosotros were in for an exceptional product. (After, her sung rendition of "That's Life" is another musical and thematic-capturing highlight of the evening.)

Gabby Battista too is excellent equally the young Irina, bringing a spark of youth that slowly takes on the desperation of feeling and acting similar she is already an aged woman with her oft-repeated "I can't remember" and a gasping determination of "Life is choking u.s. up." The centre sister, Masha, is played by Erin Mei-Ling Stuart with mysterious arrogance that repeatedly become sullen and angry virtually her own dissatisfied plight in life.

Gabby Battista, Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, Amanda Farbstein, Nathaniel Andalis & Sam Jackson

Joining the sisters – who often are looking out opaque windows that reveal nothing of the world exterior of the house they now live as if in prison – is Amanda Farbstein who brings a bright sense of what it is similar being isolated and rejected as the sister-in-police, Natasha. She is the target that the sisters pleasance themselves mocking, only she later transforms in her assuming stance and steps into a woman no longer willing to sit in the corner unseen. Rounding out the inhabitants are Nathaniel Andalis as the soldier Solyony and Billy Raphael as the good doctor Chebutyken (and in this production, talented piano and accordion player), both of whom are attracted to the young Irina in ways adjoining on crude and creepy.

Along with the opaque windows that hang to form invisible side-walls, Mikiko Uesugi's set includes a likened opaque back-wall that emphasizes the inabilities of the house's inhabitants to run into or get beyond where they take become permanently stuck. The lighting of Ray Oppenheimer brings an array of shimmering colors that reflect on that back wall in blues, browns, and purples the characters' and scenes' current moods. From trains to clock chimes, Sara Witsch'due south sound pattern adds its reminders of the loneliness and the isolation of this family.

Shotgun Players' Impale THE DEBBIE DOWNERS! Kill THEM! Kill THEM! KILL THEM OFF! has wonderful moments of both honoring and poking fun at Chekhovian characters who cannot get their butts off chairs (literally at times in this production) to move on in their lives to places they would rather be. Yet, in this Mark Jackson & Beth Wilmurt oft-bizarre collage of comic and tragic, there are also instances where the choice of an obscure song, a floor-hugging dance motility, a collapsing building picture clip, or a truncated dialogue from the script goes places that do little to enlighten or to entertain.

Rating: 3 E

KILL THE DEBBIE DOWNERS! Kill THEM! KILL THEM! Impale THEM OFF! continues through April 21, 2019 on the Ashby Phase of Shotgun Players, 1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley. Tickets are bachelor online at world wide web.shotgunplayers.org or past calling 510-841-6500.

Photos by Robbie Sweeney

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Source: https://theatreeddys.com/2019/04/kill-the-debbie-downers-kill-them-kill-them-kill-them-off.html

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