Tucson Weekly: The New Two (February 11

Quintessential Productions And City Players Are Two Budding Theatre Companies Showing Real Promise.
By Dave Irwin
IT WAS A marvelous contrast: a young company already hitting its stride and a brand new organization staging its first production. Quintessential Productions, only a year and a half old, has found its niche and given us a flawless version of George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance. CityPlayers Theatre Company, in their start-up production, gives us a thoughtful update of Shakespeare's The Tempest, which is entertaining despite its flaws.
Directed by Brian Kearney, Misalliance is a sitting-room comedy of manners and ideas. Shaw's script manages to be both quaintly nostalgic and forward thinking, loaded with the issues of Edwardian England, referencing Darwin and Nietzsche among others. The polarities of science vs. religion, age vs. youth, brains vs. brawn and male vs. female are played out in a comedic forum that informs and entertains. While the first half of the play concentrates on ideas, the second half lightens the discussion with physical humor, leaving the audience laughing almost the entire time.
Review The cast is consistently strong, the best ensemble Quintessential has assembled in its short life. It includes retired UA Shaw expert John Mills and current English professor Bill Epstein, who work wonderfully together as aristocratic elder statesman Lord Summerhays and industrialist John Tarelton, over-read and eager to prove he is not boorishly bourgeois. Special kudos go to Natalie Carroll as the bright-eyed, in-your-face daughter, Hypatia Tarleton; and the second act's comedy relief team, Jonathan Ingbretson, Laura Ann Herman and Tim Koch. In particular, Herman, as Polish acrobat Lina Szczepanowska, dominates her scenes as Shaw's epitome of female independence and physical development. Koch, as a confused Communist clerk aspiring to vengeance, is hilarious with his perfect timing and controlled body language, vacillating between resolution and doubt.
Quintessential, which was founded by Herman with Kearney as her right-hand man, has long-range plans to expand beyond its current 40-seat theatre, adding a rehearsal hall, storage and offices, as well as an additional 160-seat theatre at the same location. Note to funding sources: This is an organization with a clear, consistent vision and a highly capable cadre of people that seems to enlarge at every turn. In a relatively short time, it's found its audience through thoughtful stagings of classic theatre by Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams and others. They've achieved that prized combination in the arts of being both highly imaginative and extremely reliable.
THE FIRST NIGHT of the first production at CityPlayers was an interesting and entertaining counterpoint to the achievements of Quintessential. It was, of course, plagued by the expected difficulties; and although it occasionally teetered towards disaster, it ultimately came off well enough.
Based on Shakespeare's best romance, Tempest, directed and freely adapted by John Gunn, pares away the Bard's flowery Elizabethan language to leave the various plots more fully exposed. It would be an unfair over-simplification to call it "Shakespeare for Dummies." Rather, it was more like a quartet arrangement of an orchestral work, where the nuances of timbre are sacrificed to provide more clarity of line. As a result, the various dramatic elements of Shakespeare were more clearly defined, at the expense of language that usually requires an annotated copy of the script to understand its archaic allusions. Rewriting a Master always arouses suspicion, but if you've left Shakespeare productions in the past mumbling about the thickness of the dialogue, this production may suffice.
Four of the 15-member cast deserve specific mention: James Driscoll MacEachron was outstanding as Ariel. His light, dancer-like movements and clear delivery showed deep and genuine talent, as well as insight into this wispy sprite's character. His counterpart, Caliban, the bastard child of a witch, was played well by Sandra Lynn Rogers, with a balance between being malevolent and pitifully misunderstood. Vasna B. Chan, as the imperious queen Alonsa, is someone to watch in future productions, where hopefully she'll have even meatier roles. Charles D. Prokopp, as Gonzalo, added much comic relief with his expressive face and funny body sounds.
Gunn's production had numerous deft touches: the use of puppets and screens for shipwreck and magic scenes; Ariel's faceless hood and hand-held mask; the vaudevillian counterpoint in the drunken scenes of Stephana, (Bella Vivante), Tinculo (Arthur Sinclair) and Caliban; and the shift of male roles to women, with Collene Kelleher as Prospera, rather than Prospero.
Among the problems were a 15-minute delay in opening the theatre, outside noise from passing motorcycles and trains (additional insulation is already planned); and opening night allowances aside, several players needed to memorize their lines better to avoid inappropriate pauses.
Rising from the ashes of the short-lived Millennium Theatre Company, CityPlayers, with Gunn as artistic director and Sean Zackson as general manager, has cachet. Gunn is widely respected for artistic vision and directorial skills. Their upcoming schedule looks very promising, including Ann Jellicoe's swinging '60s British comedy, The Knack--And How To Get It in March; and Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, to be directed by Chan in April. It will be interesting to see how CityPlayers fares, say 18 months from now, in developing its physical space from the old Firestone garage, and in attracting talented individuals to the troupe to share its vision.
Quintessential Productions presents George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance through February 20. Performances are at the Quintessential Stage, 118 S. Fifth Ave. Show times are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10 general, $8 for seniors, students and military personnel. For information and reservations, call 798-0708.
CityPlayers Theater Company presents Tempest, an adaptation of the Shakespeare play, through February 28 at CityPlayers Playhouse, 439 N. Sixth Ave. (southwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Sixth Street). Performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, and 7:30 p.m. Monday. Tickets are $12 general, with senior and student discounts on Sunday and Monday only. For reservations and information, call 571-1300.

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