Wanna Give It a Go? Imaginary Mr. Marmalade!

By Guest Blogger, Kevin Regan
Kevin Regan is the Director of Multimedia and a player with CSz Philadelphia as well as a sometime performer, producer and other "p-words" with Wilmington's City Theater Company.

Emma Orr and Thomas Russell

You have a mere three chances to see Mr. Marmalade by Noah Haidle, at Chapel Street Players in Newark this weekend. That means you should keep that babysitter you have scheduled, but cancel whatever you planned for the evening. Then you can spend the night laughing hysterically at Lucy and her imaginary friend, Mr. Marmalade, while wondering what the hell your kids are doing.

Mr. Marmalade is an extremely dark comedy about children, for adults. Directed by CSP veteran J.W. Pukatsch, it explores a theme that has been tackled by everyone from Stephen Sondheim (Children Will Listen) to everyone's favorite 1980s Anti-Drug PSA ("I learned it from watching you...") — that our children are internalizing everything we say and do.

Lucy, who is played to perfection by Emma Orr, is a lonely four-year-old with a healthy imagination. As long as your definition of "healthy" includes sex, drugs and the occasional dildo thrown in for good measure. She creates a world based on all of the unseen men her mother brings into their home. This amalgamation is transformed into her friend, Mr. Marmalade, played with equal parts charm and sleaze by Thomas Russell, to create the bigger-than-life character. Think The Cat in the Hat, if Dr. Seuss was a sadist and you'll begin to get the picture. His addictions, bombastic temper and self-centeredness do little to alleviate the little girl's loneliness.

The whole show takes place in the family living room over the course of one night, while Lucy's mother Sookie (Tricia LaRock) is on a date. Lucy interacts with both real and imagined characters, including the disinterested babysitter (Rachel Diamond), Mr. Marmalade's hilarious and often injured assistant Bradley (Jimmy Van Buren) and a very real five-year-old named Larry (Andrew Dluhy), who might have more baggage than Marmalade himself. Lucy & Larry will have to work to find a way to exist in the harsh reality of our adult world.

Pukatsch does an amazing job utilizing the simple family room set, representing the four-year-old's reality, in both fantastic and pragmatic scenes. Especially poignant is the dance scene with Lucy and Mr. Marmalade while Bradley croons a la a 1940s nightclub. Orr, as well as Dluhy, is exceptional as an adult actor playing a child without ever becoming "cartoonish." And Russell's morally lacking Marmalade will make you wonder if you picked the right person to babysit your kids tonight.

Unfortunately, a lot of theaters go dark in the summer months for fear that the audiences cannot be lured away from vacation. I applauded Chapel Street Theater for putting up this show, even if it is only for a short three-day run. I implore you to leave the beach behind for a day and see this adult world through the eyes of a four-year-old this weekend. Mr. Marmalade is playing Thursday (7/10), Friday (7/11) and Saturday (7/12). All showtimes are 8:00pm.

Now STOP READING THIS and buy your tickets at chapelstreetplayers.org/reservation.php.

A Couple of Ladies Visit "The Odd Couple"

By Guest Bloggers Dottie Verne — lifelong Ardentown resident and artist and Kathleen Ford — Wilmingtonian recently returned home, former Wilmington Arts Commission Administrator and Art lover.

Once again, the New Candlelight Theatre (NCT) was a delight. On June 20, we trekked over to the woods of Arden for NCT’s production of The Odd Couple, which ran from 6/6-6/22. The play was presented with a clever twist from the original — the two (historically male) characters with very opposite personalities were both played by women.

Tori Healy played Olive Madison and Gerri Weagraff played Florence Unger with great humor. The actors seemed to be having fun with the fast-moving witty repartee. The show really came alive in the second act, when the two charming Spanish gentlemen arrived, hysterically played by Dan Healy and Anthony Connell.

New Candlelight Theatre certainly is a local gem!

See www.nctstage.org.

Summing Up the 2014 Delaware Chamber Music Festival

Delaware Chamber Music Festival Quartet, L-R:
Clancy Newman, Burchard Tang, Hirono Oka, Barbara Govatos 

Alas, all things must end — as did the Delaware Chamber Music Festival today (Sunday, June 22, 2014).

The programming must be commended for variety and standards.  Barbara Govatos and friends have consistently chosen works from the past which often are seldom used — either because they are not known or because they are so wildly difficult (such as the Tchaikovsky Trio Opus 50 performed in the first concert) — or they choose women composers who never got a fair shake (e.g., Rebecca Clarke's piece in the second concert themed "The Expressive Viola").  And speaking of fair shake, when you hear such artists as Burchard Tang and Che-Hung Chen play the viola up close and personal, it shows the audience that the viola deserves a role as solo instrument.

The incredible ability of Marcantonio Barone and the joy with which he and Charles Abramovic tore through excerpts of the Brahms Hungarian Dances for piano, four hands; the energy and excitement of Benito Meza's clarinet giving new impetus to Louise Farrenc (a woman composer who DID get a fair shake, but was later relegated to the attic); the introduction of new works by Clancy Newman and Kenji Bunch.  All are enough to make this series an experiment in innovative programming for some of the best musicians in the region.  How lucky we are, too, that The Music School of Delaware is such an acoustically inviting venue, convenient to Wilmington and Philadelphia as well as points south.

The first concert in the Festival (Friday, June 13) featured a chestnut — Beethoven's Piano Trio in E-flat major, Opus 1, No. 1 — played with daring and flawless passion by Govatos, Clancy Newman and Marcantonio Barone.  The introduction of a piece so hard it is rarely performed — Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor, Opus 50 — was a distinctive treat.

The second concert (Sunday, June 15) let the viola shine with a stellar performance of Rebecca Clarke's Sonata for viola and piano.  It also included the Lament for two violas in c minor by Frank Bridge and the Brahms' String quintet in G major, Opus 111.  This concert let us hear more of Burchard Tang's fine viola playing as well as that of Che-Hung Chen.

The third concert (Friday, June 20) was entitled Fresh Ink! as it featured the US Premiere of Clancy Newman's Collision Course for piano, clarinet and cello (2013).  Guest clarinet player Benito Meza not only put his fresh energy to work on the new piece by Newman, but also breathed new life into the Trio for clarinet, cello and piano in E-flat major, Opus 44 by Louise Farrenc.  The performance of the 2002 Broken Music for cello and piano by Kenji Bunch was also a new experience, with Bartok fretboard slapping on the cello by Newman and damping of hammers by Marcantonio Barone.  But the boyish vigor with which Charles Abramovic and Barone gleefully played the excerpts of Brahms' 21 Hungarian Dances for piano, four hands, was the freshest 'ink' of the evening.

The final concert (Sunday, June 22) was all string quartets, performed by the Festival Quartet themselves.  They coordinate so well to communicate Franz Josef Haydn's jokes, Dvorak's passion and Schubert's complex and often operatic sounding works.  Each has a special gift that is hard to describe.  Hirono Oka, so shy and quiet in person, pushes her violin bow to create a round, secure, sometimes aggressive sound.  Burchard Tang had some very high and exciting lines, sometimes in duet with the violin and sometimes with the cello.  Clancy Newman had cello notes which soared high in the range with ease and his smooth sound belied his ability to rock out for Broken Music and his own Collision Course.  DCMF Music Director Barbara Govatos, who manages everything from reception cookies to recognizing her music students from decades past, puts all those thoughts down when she bows her head to decide on her tempo and expression before each movement of the grand Schubert quartet.

How sad that we have to wait one more year to hear more!

See www.dcmf.org.