Bootless Artworks' Dead Man's Cell Phone

Lindsey Burkland as Jean

As much as I know Bootless Artworks would prefer to have their own permanent theater (and who can blame them?) there’s something exciting about going to a different location for every Bootless play. It’s like an adventure, especially when the theater is an empty storefront in the Shipyard Shops, as it was for last year’s The Pillowman, and as it is for the current show, Dead Man’s Cell Phone.

The makeshift (and I mean that in the best sense of the word) theater has a low stage and about 45 seats on risers, ensuring that there isn’t a bad seat in the house. On Saturday night, the place was packed -- I think they even added a few extra seats. Bootless has been offering online deals for this show, and it seems it’s paying off. After Dead Man’s Cell Phone, I would bet that many of the new patrons will be back.

Directed by Rosanne DellAversano, who also designed the sets and costumes, Dead Man’s Cell Phone tells the story of a woman named Jean (Lindsey Burkland), who finds herself caught up in a whole new life when she starts answering the cell phone of a dead man in a cafe. The dead man, Gordon (Randall McCann), had a mysterious life filled with colorful characters, including his somewhat neurotic firecracker of a mom, played by Ruth K. Brown; his basket case wife, played by Jennifer Huth; his mistress, played by Lauren Ojeda; and his lonesome brother, played by Bob DeMarco. Jean, as the last person to see Gordon alive, delivers them messages of his final thoughts and words -- despite the fact that she never actually spoke to him.

Bob Demarco as Dwight and Lindsey Buckland as Jean

There’s more to Sarah Ruhl’s darkly comic story, as it takes a surreal turn and we learn more about Gordon than the idealized image Jean has built up. At its core, Cell Phone is about yearning to make real connections in an electronic world. It’s funny, well-acted, and fresh -- a bargain at any price.

You can still catch Dead Man’s Cell Phone this weekend through February 4 (the Sunday show has been cancelled). See bootless.org for more information.

Don’t let the WDL’s Parade pass by without seeing it!

The Wilmington Drama League’s latest production, Parade, doesn’t have the story you would expect from a musical with such a joyous name. The musical written by Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown is based on a true crime story that occurred in 1913 in Georgia. The musical explores the sensationalized murder case of a popular thirteen-year-old girl, Mary Phagan on the day of the annual Confederate Memorial Day parade. The young girl’s boss, Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager from New York, is falsely convicted for the killing by the corrupt local prosecutor, Hugh Dorsey. Frank’s wife, Lucille, will stop at nothing to prove that her devoted and hard-working husband is innocent, even if it requires the assistance of Georgia’s governor.

The amazingly talented Brendan Sheehan, who in my opinion is one of the best local performers in Delaware, gives an incredible performance as Leo. He finds the heart of this character and takes the audience on a journey into one man’s revelations. Sheehan is joined by a stellar cast, including Rebecca Gallatin as Lucille and Jeffrey Santoro as Hugh. Both performers rise to the challenge of this compelling production and also give outstanding performances. Patrick Sutton as Britt Craig, a journalist covering the case, gives a rousing performance in one of the production’s big dance numbers, “Big News!”  

Chris Turner’s direction and interpretation of the tragic musical is superb. The multimedia production includes pictures from the time period projected on a screen at the back of the stage. This added element engages the audience gives an actual glimpse of the early 1900s lifestyle.

Parade runs until February 11, 2012. For information and tickets, visit www.wilmingtondramaleague.org.

Copeland String Quartet with Janet Jackson Witman

Janet Jackson Witman, harpist, was guest artist at Sunday’s Copeland Quartet concert at the Church of the Holy City. Ms. Witman played Aria in classic style by Marcel Grandjany in a version for harp and string quartet. Grandjany, a French harpist who emigrated to North America, wrote this as a concert etude to show the exploits possible with arpeggios on a harp. Ms. Witman executed the arpeggios with clarity, dexterity and a lyrical but gentle sound that resounded in the small church. Since every pew was full, there was little reverberation, yet harp sounded quite clear even in the back pews.

The next piece Ms. Witman chose was a piece that the Pleyel company had commission of Claude Debussy, Danses pour harpe chromatique. As orchestral parts for the harp began to include more and more chromatic passages, Pleyel tried to develop a harp with two sets of strings so the harpist would not need so many pedal changes. Unfortunately, the harpe chromatique did not win over the world of harpists and, like Ms. Witman, they had to learn to make incredibly fast pedal changes rather than deal with so many strings.

The quartet had been more of an accompanying orchestra for the harp in the first two pieces, but the Beethoven ‘harp quartet’, (String quartet No. 10 in E-flat major, opus 74), showed us they were quite capable of taking on more prominent roles. The players gave each voice its own character in Beethoven’s very long coda at the end of the first movement, providing a harmonic balance and shaping each chord with great musical sensitivity. The adagio ma non troppo second movement was a vehicle to show all of the melodic nuances of each of the four instruments – with the presto demanding their precision and alternating and exchanging of melodic phrases with seamless timing and matching lines. For four musicians to trade off a phrase and have it sound as if one person planned the slurs, intonation and dynamics is quite a feat, but nothing compared to their brave finale at the end of the allegretto con variazioni.

They will be at the Church of the Holy Trinity on April 1 or you can hear them by buying one of their two CDs.

See www.copelandstringquartet.com