4.48 Psychosis at Iron Crow

In keeping with the Iron Crow Theatre Company’s tradition of staging unconventional, thought-provoking, often dark dramas, the kick-off to their three-play 2014-2015 Season did not disappoint.  You know you’re in for a signature Iron Crow theatrical experience when before the play begins the audience observes a body dressed in white, highlighted by occasional red lighting, lying prone on the otherwise darkened Theatre Project stage with some gloomy New Age music droning in the background prior to its presentation of 4.48 Psychosis.   #hocoarts

Nick Horan (L.) and Katie Keddell  Photo: Zachary Z. Handler

Though Iron Crow bills itself as Baltimore’s queer theatre company, 4.48 Psychosis by British playwright Sarah Kane stepped aside from past Iron Crow plays that usually have LGBTQ themes woven into the scripts.  Research reveals, however, that Kane had affairs with women, so this presentation does have an LGBTQ connection even if the subject matter was mostly devoid of it.

In fact, 4.48 Psychosis doesn’t even have a plot, structure, timeline or staging directions.  Iron Crow’s artistic director Steven J. Satta attests to that fact in a press release announcing the season: “The play is written in a manner, which is not realistic or linear but rather abstract and disjointed, which is appropriate when dealing with issues of mental health—the rational does not apply.”

For full review, visit MD Theatre Guide.

Iron Crow Resurrects Poe in 'The Homo Poe Show'

It was an ambitious undertaking for the Iron Crow Theater Company’s founder and artistic director Steven J. Satta to create a production inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and present them through a “queer lens,” as he put it.  The offbeat 19^th century author, poet and critic who died in Baltimore from a host of possible causes, would seem like a good fit for this Baltimore-based community theatre company whose plays generally center on issues relating to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and are characterized by atypical, thought-provoking scripts with a good dose of sexuality immersed in the topics.

Alec Weinberg and Nick Horan in “Grieving and Sequins”
Photo: Zachary Handler

“Iron Crow has always had a very big definition of ‘queer’ - to include expression that skews or re-invents things in a dramatic way that connects to gender or sexual themes,” Mr. Satta told me prior to the opening of The Homo Poe Show at the Theatre Project.  “I think that Poe is already more than halfway towards this definition of ‘queer’.  His take on the world is so idiosyncratic and unexpected (twisted, in some cases) that he created his own genre of literature.  He deals often with obsession and lost love, which, while it is not explicitly sexual in his stories, is an easy path into the territories of gender and sexual desire.” 

#hocoarts

Mr. Satta summoned up several playwrights who had previously helped give Iron Crow its edgy persona and strung together seven short pieces—a mixture of individual mini-plays and some aerial dance performances—in an attempt to present Poe’s works through this “queer” lens.  Mr. Satta also wrote one of the pieces and, along with Ryan Clark, directed the production.   As Poe’s efforts over the years met with mixed results, so, too, did The Homo Poe Show.

For full review, visit MD Theatre Guide.

Iron Crow’s 'Slipping' is Sure-Footed Drama



Tanner Medding as Eli and Rich Buchanan as Jake

We know how complicated love can be.  With all its obvious pleasures associated with it, we recognize how many challenges exist and how they must be overcome to sustain a loving relationship.  Tricky as that proposition is, imagine how it must be for a teenager to cope with figuring out what true love is.   Then add to that mixture the pain of family loss, his own self-loathing, a past that maintains a strong grip on his psyche, and his dealing with a sexual orientation that society frowns upon albeit to a lesser degree than years ago.

This is what Eli, the central character in Daniel Talbott’s powerful first full-length play, Slipping, currently presented by the Iron Crow Theatre Company, has to confront.   According to Talbott, the play was inspired by among other factors, his own experiences with his best friend in high school.

Iron Crow’s artistic director Steven J. Satta tightly helmed the Baltimore offering and did so with his usual expertise and meticulous attention to detail.  Aided by a strong cast and technical crew, Slipping portrays the angst that most teenagers feel as they grow up especially in matters of the heart.

Towson University student Tanner Medding was blessed with taking on the complex role of Eli to demonstrate his proficient acting skills as well as his ability to remove and put on clothing at a frenetic pace throughout. 

Eli left San Francisco following his father’s death in a car accident to move to Iowa with his mother Jan (played by Michele Minnick).  He had a difficult time in adjusting. 

Eli is gay.  The factors leading to his father’s death troubled him, and he regrets he never had the opportunity to tell his dad the truth about himself.  He is constantly haunted by a crush back home, Chris (Christopher H. Zargarbashi) whose internalized homophobia prevented them from forming a loving relationship.  When he moved to Iowa, Eli seemed out of place (dying his hair a sort of pinkish hue didn’t help his assimilation) and was burdened by the memories of his past.

He is befriended by a new boy, 17 year-old Jake (Rich Buchanan), a handsome, popular, seemingly straight baseball player, who discovers his own attraction to Eli.  Suspicious of Jake’s motives, Eli at first rejects a sexual encounter with Jake but ultimately relents.

They remain friends with benefits for months with the entire school becoming aware of their “relationship.”  But each time Jake tries to solidify that relationship, the angry, jaded, often-sullen Eli pushes back.

As a subplot, the audience learns that Jan was never in love with her husband, that she cheated on him, and didn’t wait long enough “for the insurance to be settled” before she engages in her own sexual encounters.  One thing in her favor, which mitigated Eli’s already difficult adolescence, is that she is supportive of his sexual orientation.
Nonetheless, the melancholy Eli continues a problematic self-mutilation practice of “cutting” that began in San Francisco—the consequences of which open the play.

Through flashbacks to events in San Francisco and rapid back flips to the present in Iowa, Talbott constructs the foundation of Eli’s character and opens the window into his sexuality.  Eli is timid while in San Francisco but transforms into a bitter yet vulnerable youth in Iowa. 
Christopher Zargarbashi, having appeared in Iron Crow’s Love and Human Remains and Swimming in the Shallows, played the dangerous Chris with dramatic verve.  His physical attractiveness and penchant for dominating Eli explain why Eli was so hung up on him.   “I wanted to be owned by him,” Eli laments.  But that was not going to happen.

Appearing in five scenes, Chris presents a dark, scary caricature who abhors the fact that he and Eli had sexual encounters and projects that hatred onto Eli by mistreating him.  As they say, love is blind.   Chris warns Eli of the consequences “if any of this gets out,” and in a heart-pounding moment says, “Every time I see you at school I want to just rip you apart.”

Rich Buchanan, who was stellar in Iron Crow’s The Soldier Dreams, is more than up to the task of playing Jake.  His polished acting skills, energy, voice inflections and movements are clearly on display in this role.  Jake’s youthful sexual chemistry with Eli is flawless.

Michele Minnick, another Iron Crow veteran, was solid as Jan.  As Eli’s mother, she was challenged by his suspicions that his father’s death was somehow caused by her.  Eli was closer to his father than Jan, and it is evident in the dynamics of their relationship. 

Tanner Medding is outstanding.  Onstage for almost all of the scenes, Medding plays brooding Eli expertly, playing opposite each of the other three characters who all have conflicts with him.

One device the play employs is that Eli would go off occasionally to the side of the stage in a spotlight and speaking into a microphone to deliver soliloquies on his reflections. The mic isn’t needed as the echo chamber effects of the sound amplification interferes a bit with the monologue.  Other than that, Sound Designer Todd Mion aptly used music in scene changes to great effect.

Tanner Medding as Eli and Rich Buchanan as Jake

Another device was the role of two stage hands in interacting with Eli.  They are frequently called upon to move props on and off the cozy Theatre Project stage as one would expect.  But with subtle gestures, they either help Eli to stand up or prod him to move a chair—almost metaphorically trying to assist him on his path towards happiness.

Eli is often seen as an unlikable character whose journey is fraught with danger, sadness and disappointment.  But as the play progresses and his hardships exposed, empathy for him gains traction.

This is not a feel-good story in that it poignantly examines gay teen angst.  Talbott does sprinkle in some humor and jokes, however, to lighten the mood a tad.  But Slipping is a sturdy drama, directed and performed with sure-footed skill.
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Running Time: One hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.

Advisory: This play contains full nudity and profanity and is not recommended for children.

Slipping runs through April 13 at the Theatre Project, 45 East Preston St. in Baltimore.  For tickets, visit Iron Crow Theatre online or call 443-637-CROW (2769).

'The Typographer’s Dream': Not Your Humdrum Day at Work

Jenny Male, Sarah Ford Gorman and Steven J. Satta-Fleming

“What if people really were their jobs?”  


This is the overriding theme in the Iron Crow Theatre’s 75-minute production of Adam Bock’s The Typographer’s Dream—the final installment of the 2011-2012 season.  It’s a smart, funny and unique theatrical experience that is masterful in its simplicity and clever in its use of language. 

Performed at the Swirnow Theater at the Mattin Center on the Johns Hopkins University campus, the stage is essentially bare except for three tables extended together and three chairs.  At each chair sits a typographer (Margaret, played by Sarah Ford Gorman), a geographer who is Canadian (Annalise, played by Jenny Male), and a stenographer (Dave, played by Steven J. Satta-Fleming). 

For full review, visit MD Theatre Guide.