Art by Zee

Josh Smyth, Eric Riedmann , Emily Fairbrook and Steve West in Charley’s Aunt at Taproot (photo by Erik Stuhaug)

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Jack Chesney and his Oxford schoolmate Charles Wykeham have a problem: they’re in love. Jack (Eric Reidmann) longs for the love of the charming Kitty Verdun (Anne Kennedy) while Charley (Josh Smyth) pines for pretty Amy Spettigue (Emily Fairbrook). Standing in their way is the complicated etiquette of Victorian England’s middle class morality – they can’t even invite the young ladies to lunch without a proper chaperon in attendance. Hope rises when the millionaire aunt supporting his education telegraphs Charley to announce her imminent arrival. Hope falls when a second telegram announces her cancellation.

What are the lovelorn lads to do? Why, convince their pal Lord Fancourt Babberly (Steve West) to put on the costume he bought for his theatrical group and impersonate the aunt no one’s ever seen, of course. Thus begins a madcap afternoon of mistaken identity, romantic confusion and the riotously funny results of well-intentioned lies in Charley’s Aunt, now playing at Taproot Theater.

Lord Fancourt – “Babbs”, to his pals – makes a spectacularly awful Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez, the widow from Brazil, “where the nuts come from”, but people see what they want to see to great comic effect.

Jack’s father, Sir Francis (Andrew Litzky), finds “Donna Lucia” appalling, but attempts to woo her for the sake of his son who will be forced to work for a living after graduation since their family title comes with no money attached. Misses Verdun and Spettigue seem far more interested in fussing over Charley’s “aunt” than being wooed by their would-be suitors, much to Babbs’ delight and his friends’ great dismay. Stern Stephen Spettigue (Nolan Palmer), uncle of Amy and guardian of Kitty, first disdains then desires “Donna Lucia”. Just when it seems things can’t possibly get any more out of hand, the real Donna Lucia (Llysa Holland) arrives with a young woman (Samie Dietzer) who has a history tied to more than one “Charley’s Aunt”.

First performed in 1892, Charley’s Aunt delighted its early audiences with its gentle satire of stuffy manners; while modern theatergoers will find the antiquated ettiquette even more ridiculous, the romantic comedy has aged very well by being at its heart a simple spoof of the silly lengths people to go for the sake of love, a theme that never really gets old. Director Karen Lund keeps the three-act play moving at an energetic pace and, as always, the Taproot production staff does an excellent job of transforming a simple stage into a thoroughly convincing set.

Among the cast, Steve West deserves special praise for making Charley’s false aunt so convincingly unconvincing. Don Brady is delightful as Jack’s put upon valet Brassett whose disbelieving asides at the madness going around him are uniformly amusing.

Charley’s Aunt continues at Taproot Theater through June 12. Tickets available in person at the box office, over the phone at 206.781.9707 or online.

As a special bonus, Taproot Improv Comedy returns to the stage on Friday nights following mainstage performances. Tickets are $10 or $8 with a ticket to Charley’s Aunt.

“No matter what we do, is it really going to make a difference?”

That’s the question behind ReGeneration.

Director Philip Montgomery and producer Matt DeRoss were in town to discuss their recently finished documentary about the causes of social and political apathy in youth and young adults and what can be done to get them more inspired. Featuring well known figures like Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman, ReGeneration‘s real focus is on young people, taking a look at the activities of a musical collective called STS9, a young conservative family, and a group of high school students.

The genesis of the project came back in the time period shortly after the Katrina disaster when Montgomery and DeRoss started having conversations about what was going on in the world. Montgomery considered himself politically and socially aware, but realized he had a tendency toward apathy and that really bothered him. With economic disaster and two wars affecting the US, why wasn’t he doing more? Why wasn’t his whole generation doing more?

Montgomery feels it is important to differentiate between apathy and cynicism, but makes it clear that one leads to the other. Specifically, one of the reasons there’s so much apathy is that there’s so much cynicism. Why care when you just expect bad things to happen. He references the political activism back in the 1960s by the “Baby Boomers”: “[They] were just learning that governments weren’t looking out for the best interests of the people…this inspired them to go out and fight.”

Generations since, he says, assume that “Of course the government’s corrupt. What can I do about it?”

Apathy, then, isn’t really about disinterest, it’s about feeling disenfranchised. Both he and DeRoss feel a contributing factor to this disengagement is how little time we spend with nature. It’s easy to feel disconnected from the world when you’re not engaging with it directly. Additionally, isolation leads to distorted perspectives. Every day he gets e-mail petitions for one cause or another, just like many others are, and yet, really, how much influence does an e-mail petition or a Facebook group really have? (Not much, actually.) Consumer habits are another factor to consider – there are many sponsored products that one can buy that donate to one cause or another, but “Why can’t we just give our time for the sake of doing it” or cutting out the middleman to make direct donations.

Says DeRoss: “The big message we’d like to get across is the disinterest from nature. You say you care about the environment, but how much do you care when you’re looking an iMac screen all day?”

The filmmakers hope to move people from simple interest to empathy. “You understand more and start to care more and then you start to be part of the solution.”

As they started to put them film together, they began by making a “wish list” of people they wanted involved, people who had inspired them, and discovered that they were far from the only people thinking about these issues. “About 99 percent [of the people they contacted] said yes.”

Making the film took considerable time – neither was able to work on it full time so the film had to put together in bits and pieces on nights and weekends. It took about a year and a half for them to get the money and it wasn’t until 2007 that they were able to start filming. Their first SIFF screening really was their first screening and the film wasn’t finished in post until about a week ago. The film doesn’t yet have distribution, but Montgomery and DeRoss have already witnessed its power on an audience. They took it up to Everett to screen for students there and were overwhelmed by the response, getting a standing ovation from a thousand high school students.

Harvey Fierstein and cast of Fiddler in the Roof photo ©2010 Carol Rosegg

Tradition is very important to Tevye, an impoverished milkman living in the Russian village of Anatevka in 1905. Tradition is how Tevye, his family, and his fellow villagers keep order in their lives. Tevye fantasizes about how much easier his life would be if he were a rich man, but despite all the grumbling he does, Tevye is generally happy with the status quo. Tradition works for him.

His children, on the other hand, aren’t exactly thrilled with tradition. His three oldest daughters have all reached the age to consider marriage. Tradition dictates that marriages be arranged but first Tevye’s oldest daughter Tzeitel successfully begs her father to free her from her arranged marriage so she can marry the man she truly loves. Next his second daughter, Hodel, tells him she is marrying young radical Perchik and they are asking for a blessing, not permission. Underneath his bluff, blustery exterior is a man who dearly loves his children and wants them to be happy, so Tevye forces himself to consider that there may be times when it’s okay to make a new tradition. Third daughter Chava, however, pushes him too far by defying his orders to stay away from the gentile she loves and running off to secretly marry him. Although it breaks his heart, Tevye insists on casting her from their family.

Soon after, word comes to the village that the Tsar is ordering all Jews out of the village in three days’ time. With heavy hearts, Tevye, his family and friends all must leave their home and scatter to the winds. Knowing that she may never see her family again, Chava returns to tell them goodbye and let them know that she and her husband Fyedka are leaving the village themselves, unable to live in a place so cruel. Tevye then must make one final choice between tradition and his love for his daughters.

Harvey Fierstein stars as Tevye. His is a warm, funny Tevye – you can’t help but like him, even when he’s being cranky or conceited, which he is quite often. He is completely believable as a man willing to bend from the tradition he values for the sake of the children he values even more. Fierstein puts the distinctively gravelly voice he’s so well known for to good use throughout his dialogue, making the funny parts just that much more funny. However, his voice is a limitation in a play with so many notable songs – here he is adequate, at best.

The rest of the cast is mostly strong. Susan Cella has the thankless task of playing Tevye’s wife Golde who spends most of the play being a shrew. Cella manages to inject enough humanity into Golde to make her emotions believable, a task considerably more impressive than it might sound. All three of the women portraying Tevye’s oldest daughters – Kaitlin Stilwell as Tzeitel, Jamie Davis as Hodel, and Deborah Grausman as Chava – are outstanding. Less thrilling were the actors playing the men each of these young women breaks tradition for: Colby Foytik’s Perchik is so appealing it’s easy to understand why Hodel would be willing to leave the home she loves for the bitter cold of Siberia to be with him but Zal Owen’s Motel the Tailor is far too passive, particularly in what’s meant to be his shining moment of bravery leading up to “Miracle of Miracles”. As Fyedka, Matthew Marks seems almost a stereotype of bland niceness.

Two of the strongest performances were from minor characters: Mary Stout’s Yente is adorably funny every time she’s on stage and Stephen Lee Anderson infuses the Constable with enough life to make his betrayals of Tevye and the villagers truly painful.

Fiddler on the Roof continues at the Paramount through May 30.