CurtainUp
CurtainUp

The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings
www.curtainup.com


a list of all book reviews, see our,
VALVESGate valvePRESSURE VALVESGlobe valveCHECK VALVES

HOME PAGE

SITE GUIDE

SEARCH

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

REVIEWS

FEATURES

NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings


LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us

A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Courting Vampires


Death's my sentence and life's my crime. — Nina
Laura Schellhardt takes death by AIDS and turns it into a mythic metaphor. Its narrated by furious repressed Rill, (Carey Peters) about the life and death of her sister, Nina, (Maya Lawson), a dancer, who was the light and joy of the family.

Kurt Boetcher's scenic design at the Boston Court Theatre has floor panels that reveal tables or graves and a door that descends from the ceiling and vivid projections by Jonathon Stearns depict the fireworks Nina gleefully boxes with. Director Jessica Kubzansky doesn't let the play stray too far into whimsy. The sisters' mother has run away and their father is a victim of progressive phobias. Rill, who has a job as a fact-checker and has buried her father's shotgun in the backyard, seems the stable one between the fantasies of the father and the romantic fixations of Nina. Rill's voice has the tone of someone telling a horror story. who sees things as she wants to create them and always knows exactly where that shotgun lies. She won't give people their real names, instead calling them Dr. Whosit and Lawyer Whatsit. As she puts it: "No name. It will stick. I'd rather it didn't."

A trial takes place in Rill's imagination and the expert witness she calls is a real vampire, though hardly cast in the traditional mode. All the male parts are played by one vastly versatile actor, Bo Foxworth. The case could be made that all men are the same to Rill, beginning with her father. Nina's fey sensibility feeds into the other-worldly ambiance of the play. She calls her fatal love, Jim Slade, "the man I want to undo me" and says when he made love to her in his vampire way, he whispered "Welcome to the Twilight."

Schellhardt's play uses reality as the seeding ground for the myths we weave around passion. Her writing has a lyric quality. Rill says furiously of her dying sister: "What's been lost here. Cannot be. Measured. It includes skipping stones and fireflies and races, barefoot, over rock. It includes tap shoes and footlights and a thousand clapping hands. It includes, in no particular order: hair brushes, road trips, leaf piles, pills, barricades, banisters, showers, swings, boats made of newsprint and men made of snow and moreover. It includes a future. A vast unrealized future. So tell me. You tell me. How do you measure that?"

Rill's symbiotic relationship with her sister ends with what may be Rill's dream, though it's Nina's line: "There will always be us, Rilly." Although all the characters seem bizarre, their weirdness is of a piece with the metaphorical flavor Schellhardt uses to color the tragic reality of her story.
Courting Vampires
Playwright: Laura Schellhardt
Director: Jessica Kubzansky
Cast: Carey Peters (Rill), Maya Lawson (Nina), Bo Foxworth (Man)
Scenic Design: Kurt Boetcher
Costume Design: E. B. Brooks
Lighting Design: Tim Swiss
Original Music and Sound Design: Bruno Louchouarn
Projection Design: Jonathon Stearns
Prop Design: Nick Santiago
Production Stage Manager: Hope Villanueva
Running Time: Two hours, 15 minutes, one intermission
Running Dates: May 9-June 7, 2009
Where: The Theatre@Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena. Reservations: (626) 683-6883.
Reviewed by Laura Hitchcock on May 9, 2009.


REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of Courting Vampires
  • I disagree with the review of Courting Vampires
  • The review made me eager to see Courting Vampires
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

You can also contact us at Curtainup at Facebook or Curtainup at Twitter
a list of all book reviews, see our,
VALVESGate valvePRESSURE VALVESGlobe valveCHECK VALVES
Google
high pressure valve
manual valvevalvesvalve company motorized valveball valvepressure valve buy valvebutterfly valve Check valvereturn valve
Web    
www.curtainup.com
South Pacific  Revival
South Pacific


In the Heights
In the Heights


Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide
Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide


amazon
Sweeney Todd DVD

broadwaynewyork.com


The Broadway Theatre Archive>


amazon



©Copyright 2009, Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com