Displaying items by tag: Gage Wallace

It’s an intriguing proposition for a play: two actors meet for the first time on stage. One, the First Actor,  has rehearsed the play, while the Second Actor has never even read it.

In An Oak Tree, this dynamic repeats for each day’s performance – 22 in all by the time it ends its run on December 9 - with a freshly cast Second Actor encountering anew the script, the audience, and the actor he plays against.

Written by Tim Crouch, An Oak Tree is also a daring exercise in dramatic abstraction, and a multi-layered exploration of meta-theatrical performance.

The storyline gives a suggestion of how An Oak Tree plays out. The First Actor is a stage hypnotist (played by Gage Wallace with tremendous precision and verve), putting on shows that incorporate audience participation - giving us the first of those meta layers, a “show within the show.”

The dramatic tension rises as we learn that First Actor’s little girl has been killed in a car accident, and that Second Actor is the responsible party. Calling for volunteers from the audience (but it’s another layer, an imaginary audience - we live patrons were warned at the outset not to volunteer), the First Actor sees among the audience volunteers the very driver (the Second Actor) who killed the little girl.

First Actor’s grief and anger rise. He hypnotizes Second Actor and puts him through a series of demeaning exercises, including an admission of guilt for the act. The eight other volunteers (none are visible, of course) are dismissed, so that only Second Actor and First Actor remain.

The dynamics become ugly between First Actor and the hypnotized Second Actor, who slips in and out of awareness in this scene, and there is increasing discomfit between the two characters. We feel the discomfort as well, and witness a shift in power between the characters as the scene progresses.

So how does a non-scripted character perform his or her role (both men and women are cast as Second Actor, including Alejandro Tey the night I saw the show). Actors are freewheeling spirits, generally – but they do like to rehearse the script, and to be prepared before they enter the stage. An Oak Tree has elements of improvisational performance and sight-reading of lines. These 22 venturesome Second Actors – Alejandro Tey showed his quick wit and deft dramatic skills - have willingly subjected themselves to the trial devised by Crouch's play.

As to practicalities of producing the show, Crouch and director Jeremy Aluma allow First Actor to brief the real live audience on some background, and their role, as the show commences. When Second Actor is introduced, he or she is given two or three pages of dialog to read from directly, at various points. And Second Actor also wears an audio device to receive whispered verbal cues from First Actor, who at other times offers those cues and prompts aloud, or whispers them into the ear of Second Actor.

This one-hour show by Red Theater is provocative and intriguing, even mind-bending for avid theater goers. It will have you thinking about it for days afterward. An Oak Tree is at Chicago's Athenaeum Theatre through December 9. 

In Irish Theatre of Chicago’s newest production “The White Road”, performed at The Den Theatre in Wicker Park, we get exactly what we are hoping for – an intense adventure that pits man against nature at its most vicious form. Based on the true heroics of Irish-born polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, “The White Road” tells the story of yet another incredible undertaking where all hope lies solely in one’s will to survive.

Setting sail from South Georgia on December 5^th, 1914, Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctica expedition triumphantly leaves shore aboard The Endurance with a crew of twenty-eight with the intent on crossing the Antarctica continent from one coast to the other by way of the South Pole. Hopes are high and excitement is in the air as the crew embarks on a journey never before accomplished.  

Said Shackleton beforehand, "After the conquest of the South Pole by [Roald] Amundsen who, by a narrow margin of days only, was in advance of the British Expedition under [Robert Falcon] Scott, there remained but one great main object of Antarctic journeying - the crossing of the South Polar continent from sea to sea". 

As history tells, it was a plight that was never meant to be.

Upon approaching Antarctica they are met with pack ice that surrounds their sea vessel threatening to sink it. Completely alone and hundreds of miles away from any form of civilization, this is where one of the greatest tales of survival begins.  

In the two-hour-plus play, we meet a variety of characters that make up this memorable crew – and we like them all. From a nature photographer who keeps the camera rolling at all costs to life and limb, to an enthusiastic stowaway boy starved for adventure, to a whaler/banjo-plucker who lifts the men's spirits with song, we don’t just see a nameless crew, instead we really get to know a unique and diverse lot of individuals. Piven ensemble member Paul Dunckel’s performance of the fearless expedition leader makes Shackleton highly likeable, as the wise and self-sacrificing explorer. Dunckel leads this talented cast with the constitution and perseverance one would associate with an expedition leader, whereas he can convincingly make the tough decisions whilst his loyal troops still rally behind him.

Along with Dunckel, Irish Theatre Company ensemble members Kevin Theis and Matthew Isler are accompanied by Nicholas Bailey, Steve Herson, Neal Starbird, Michael McKeogh, Joseph Stearns, Stephen Walker and Gage Wallace, comprising this fine cast that generates a whirlwind of strong performances.   

Making this play even more entertaining is the way the set is used to put us aboard The Endurance smack dab in the middle of the frozen, glacier-filled waters. Sound effects are strategically used in tandem with projections to successfully create storm effects while creative choreography takes us on a deadly hike through icy mountains.

This is one of those true incredible adventure stories that are long forgotten by most that, thanks to storytellers like The Irish Theatre of Chicago, we now get to experience and share in the surprisingly unbelievable depth of human spirit brought on by fantastic circumstances.

I should note that though this is a wonderful story taken from the pages of early 20th century history, if you are thinking of bring a young adult, be aware that there is a scene containing as a crew member streaks across the deck of the ship. 

Fittingly directed by ensemble member Robert Kauzlaric and written by Karen Tarjan, the world premiere run of “The White Road” is being performed at The Den Theatre through June 13^th. For tickets and/or more information visit www.irishtheatreofchicago.org.