ROB ZOMBIE, MAVERIK CENTER,, Thursday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m., $40-$50
Any regular readers of this space know that I love me some Rob Zombie. I don’t listen to a ton of hard-rock or metal, but the insistent grooves Zombie has laced his music with through the years, via White Zombie and then as a solo artist, always strike a chord with me. And his live shows? Forget about it–they’re some of the most fun you can have in an arena- or amphitheater-sized venue. The man pumps plenty of the money generated from ticket sales right back into his stage presentation. We’re talking fire, video screens, robots and monsters stalking the stage, all while Zombie, guitar ace John 5 and the rest of the boys kick up a mighty racket. The only reticence I have about recommending Zombie’s show at the Maverik Center is the co-headliner, Korn, a band I’ve loathed since they arrived on the scene. As co-headliners on this “Night of the Living Dreads” tour, it’s hard to say who will play first each night, or whether they’ll alternate. Suffice to say, I’ll be skipping Korn either way.
Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People addresses a lot of Big Issues in its two acts–class, race, family, destiny, whether or not a person can ever really leave the past behind and move on with their life.
Remarkably, he does all those things in a script full of humor (save for some seriously dramatic turns), vividly drawn characters and evocative dialogue that takes the audience straight to the working-class Southie part of Boston.
All that being true, I walked out of Salt Lake Acting Company most impressed with the performance of Nell Gwynn as Margie, the character the story revolves around from the very first scene. In it, she’s fired from her low-paying job, and the scene is relatively brief, just Margaret and her boss, Stevie (Gordon Dunn), a man who clearly has affection for Margaret, but is being pressured by his own boss to fire her for repeatedly being late. As she tries to convince Stevie to keep her on, explaining the circumstances in her life that force her tardiness, Lindsay-Abaire gives us all we need to empathize with Margie’s situation for the rest of the play.
(left to right) Nell Gwynn, Michelle Patrick, Robert Scott Smith
Much of that narrative revolves around Margaret’s effort to find another job and take care of her daughter, a pursuit that leads her to reconnect with an old boyfriend who used a combination of smarts and luck to get out of Southie and become a doctor. Mike (Robert Scott Smith) moved back to Boston–albeit in posh Chestnut Hill–with his wife Kate (Michelle Patrick) and daughter, and when Margie hears about it, she shows up at his office in hopes of landing some office work.
The reunion of Margie and Mike starts somewhat uncomfortably, as you’d expect between two old friends who haven’t seen each other in 30 years. The difference in their economic circumstances lends an edge to their interactions almost immediately; while Margaret claims to just be “busting balls” when she jokes about his putting on airs and ignoring his hardscrabble hometown upbringing, the accusation clearly stings. He ends up asking her to a dinner party at his house as a means of smoothing things over, suggesting Margie might be able to find work by intermingling with his other guests.
When Mike calls to cancel because his daughter is sick, Margaret is suspicious and thinks he’s lying, leading her to show up in Chestnut Hill anyway, where Mike, Margie and Mike’s wife Kate proceed to spend a night that reveals long-buried secrets I won’t spoil here, but they inspired the audience I saw the show with to audibly gasp more than once.
Throughout, Gwynn inhabits the character of Margie and does an incredible job of fleshing out the character. It’s a powerhouse performance, and some of the other characters pale a bit in comparison, lacking the different sides of Margie that we’ve come to know. Some of that is on the script, and some of it is simply how vividly Gwynn’s Margie is drawn and delivered.
Between Lindsay-Abaire’s script, an engaging production staged by director Robin Wilks-Dunn and Gwynn’s performance, consider Good People is a must-see.
Good People runs at Salt Lake Acting Company Wednesdays through Sundays until November 24. Visit the SLAC Website for showtimes, tickets and more information.
(Photos by David Daniels, courtesy of Salt Lake Acting Company)
DEER TICK, THE URBAN LOUNGE, Tuesday, 9 p.m., $20
Deer Tick’s John McCauley has never had any problems on past efforts in invoking a gritty, drug-fueled existence buoyed by a life-affirming rock and roll habit, and on the Rhode Island band’s latest release, he and his gang may have just perfected the Deer Tick aesthetic. Negativity is a remarkably strong set, and five albums in, Deer Tick just seems to be getting better in the studio. This time around, Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin lends a hand as producer, capturing McCauley and the rest of the quintet in fine form. While Deer Tick will never quite capture the feel of their live performances on record, likewise it’s hard to imagine some of the new songs will sound as good on stage as they do on Negativity. But it will be damn fun to hear them try. They are a consistently great live band, and I expect McCauley’s new odes to the seedier side of life will sound excellent next to their older material. Robert Ellis opens the show.
The set-up in Other Desert Cities makes it seem like the audience is in store for a relatively straightforward family drama. But the new production by Pioneer Theatre Company is anything but that.
The play opens on Christmas Eve 2004 at the Palm Springs home of old Hollywood hands-turned-GOP stalwarts Polly (Joyce Cohen) and Lyman (Dennis Parlato) Wyeth. The Wyeths are welcoming their politically liberal children for the hoidays for the first time in years, and while their politics might have diverged from their parents’, son Trip (Michael Zlabinger) and daughter Brooke (Nancy Lemenager) share their folks’ quick wit and knack for verbal sparring, as does houseguest Silda, Polly’s sister and one-time writing partner.
Left to right: Dennis Parlato, Joyce Cohen, Kate Skinner. Behind them: Nancy Lemenager and Michael Zlabinger
The reunion at the show’s start sets up what’s to come with fiery and hilarious exchanges between the parents and their children that outline the characters’ respective political stripes–only to subvert them as the action unfolds later. Lyman’s desire to help Brooke financially shows the parental love that still resides in him and Polly despite their political estrangement from their author daughter, while Polly’s observation that Brooke needn’t dress “like a refuge from a library in Kabul” is a fine example of that love being cut with wicked jabs in areas where the parents find their children lacking.
Propelling the drama among the family members is Brooke’s revelation that she has penned a book about the family, including plenty about a character always felt but never seen on stage. Son and brother Henry, an anti-Vietnam War activist who died in a bombing incident, was Brooke’s best friend, but her need to dissect the family and rip the scab off her parents’ tragic loss of their son sets up a night of family secrets revealed and explored at the Wyeth house.
The script by Jon Robin Baitz is full of some of the most emotionally rich and biting dialogue I’ve heard from a stage in a long time; it’s easy to understand why Other Desert Cities was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 after successful runs on and off Broadway when it debuted in 2011. And the actors tear into that script with roundly excellent performances.
The mother-daughter dynamic playing out between Polly and Brooke, and delivered with incredible skill by Cohen and Lemanger, is the highlight of Other Desert Cities, but every character is truly given a chance to shine. That’s a credit to Baitz’s script, as well as the direction by former Pioneer Artistic Director Charles Morey.
While the story is highly personal to the Wyeths, the questions addressed in Other Desert Cities are large, indeed. Watching the Wyeths tackle the issues eating at their family, issues easily expanded to reflect questions for Americans in general, is a joy in the capable hands of all involved with Pioneer’s production. It’s no light and fluffy night at the theater for the audience–but it’s most definitely a worthwhile one.
Other Desert Cities runs at Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre Mondays through Saturdays through Nov. 9. Visit Pioneer’s website for showtimes, tickets and more information.
(All photos courtesy Pioneer Theatre Company)
LIVING COLOUR, THE DEPOT, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 8 p.m., $22
I’m not much for collecting music memorabilia. I have plenty of concert t-shirts, a few posters and autographs, but considering the number of shows I’ve attended through the years, I’m pretty light on physical mementos. One treasured keepsake that I have tucked in a photo album is the playlist ripped from the stage of the Speedway Cafe from Living Colour’s 1988 show at the old all-ages venue long since torn down. Simply put, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The band was touring behind its debut, Vivid, a stellar blend of hard rock and funk that was a hit thanks to MTV hits like “Cult of Personality.” At the time, a rock band consisting of four black men–let alone one that was all over MTV and the radio–was pretty much unheard of, but the band’s incredible musicianship was undeniable. Guitarist Vernon Reid, the ringleader, had roots in jazz, but when he turned his mind toward rock and recruited singer Corey Glover, along with a stellar rhythm section, the connection among the bandmates was kinetic. They went on after Vivid to release a few more well-received albums and to play larger venues–one show at the old Utah State Fair Park Coliseum sticks out in my mind–before splitting up. Occasional reunion tours have eluded Salt Lake City since, but now they’re coming to town on a tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of Vivid, playing the entire album along with other songs, no doubt. Despite the passage of time, my expectations are sky high for this show.
Daniel Nailen 