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I didn’t arrive in Owensboro in time to see the first performance of Sam Bobrick’s Flemming: An American Thriller on Thursday, the first night of the festival. However, its second performance on Saturday was the second WideScreen Audio Live! (WSAL) presentation I saw.
I realized during the first WSAL I attended that I was spending too much time making notes for my eventual page here and not enough time enjoying the play.
As a result, this will be a much slimmer report since, as time passes, my memory recall grows slimmer (how would you “grow” slimmer? Maybe I could decrease slimmer?). (NOTE: I found I could blather on, anyway.)
For this play, they chose to have the foley section (they actually had three people manning the foley props) become more integrated with the stage action. Sort of breaking the “third wall.”
The story has Henry Flemming (Henry is obviously a popular name in these stories; see My Gal Sunday) ditching his brokerage firm to become a private detective in a fit of mid-life crisis.
In one aspect, Henry and his wife Karen, played superbly by Deana Duncan, bring to mind Nick and Nora Charles of the Thin Man films. They seem to be able to down limitless amounts of alcohol without becoming intoxicated. Perhaps even more impressive, the play’s characters mix up different drinks without becoming sick. One of the first things I learned, the hard way, was to stick with whatever I was drinking, and not mix it with too much else, particularly beer with liquor or liqueurs.
A constant stream of different drinks became a running gag where the cast gradually interacted more with the foley artists. A character, most often Karen Flemming, would take the orders and mix the drinks, but only in mime. The sounds, of course, came from the three foley artists. The drinks continued to increase in complexity and obscurity as the play progressed. The first drink was a Martini and then a gin and tonic. Before long, whiskey sours and vodka gimlets were ordered. Then a vermouth cassis and a Red Russian. As the drinks became more obscure, the foley crew looked more and more cross with the characters and were eventually forced to research the drink recipes in what appeared to be the trusty Mr. Boston Bartender’s Guide. In the end, the cast even stopped looking at the character supposedly mixing the drinks. Instead, they looked directly at the foley troupe, and described the contents of the drink to them.
The writer managed to insert a cute inside joke with the drink. The Red Russian is described in the script as “vodka and strawberry soda.” However, drinksmixer.com gives the ingredients as vodka and Cherry Heering liqueur. And, later in the play, no longer disguised within a mixed drink, two Cherry Heerings are ordered. (The Scripts book has “Heering” misspelled, or else the script revealed what the character thought the spelling was.) At any rate, it’s honest to say the script is filled with red Heerings. (Also, the deep-red drinks seem to increase along with the blood flow and body count.)
As in the double-play I saw the day before, I was watching out for other solutions for handling the sound effect of a kiss. For Fleming, they had Gary Sandy simply pucker up his lips and let fly, creating the sound of a kiss on his own.
One of the treasures of live performance is mistakes and their recovery. I’m slowly going through some Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson DVDs. As often as not, the makers of the DVDs chose an opening monologue that went wrong as the opening of the created episodes (mixing and matching from different shows to create a better-than-average representative “Best of Carson” episode). This was because Johnny was the master of recovering from goofs or jokes that fell flat. And it ended up funnier than expectations for the original gag.
At one point in the play, the actress playing the neighbor wife, Suzy, had delivered a line, and backed away from the microphone and the lights. The cast tended to do this when they weren’t “on,” but would be again, shortly. I think she may have forgotten how soon she had another line. Phil Proctor, playing the role of the neighbor husband, said her line while she was hanging back. It was a line that could easily have come from either character, so the audience didn’t notice. But just as he started the line, you could see the actress start, probably upon realization that she had a line at that point. She rushed the 3 steps back to the the microphone and said her line just as he finished it. Of course, while she was saying it, she realized that he had just said it. So, she immediately followed up with, “You just said that.” And he replied, “Yes, I did.” The audience roared with laughter and the cast continued, unperturbed.
Deana Duncan, aka Karen Flemming, is the Production Director for the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (WICA) near Seattle, Washington. Many of David Ossman’s and Judith Walcutt’s productions are staged there. She was in at least one of these, Don’t Crush That Dwarf (Hand Me the Pliers), a stage adaptation of a Firesign Theatre album. As I mentioned before, I thought she did a good job as Karen.
Amy Walker hails from Whidbey Island and has also performed at WICA. Amy, as Henry’s new gal Friday, also does well with the shorter, supporting role. My expectations for her portrayal of Betty in the evening’s Remember WENN were getting pretty high at this point.
Everyone did a great job and I hate not having something to say about each of them.
But I must single out Gary Sandy as Henry Fleming, new detective, and Phil Proctor as Stan Spencer, annoying psychiatrist neighbor. They both had their actor guns blazing and appeared to be having a good time. For each play, ballots are handed to the audience so they can rate the leads, the supporting roles, the foley, etc. Usually, there is only one lead actor and one lead actress. This means they can only compete against another person (or themselves) in a different, or same, role, with a different audience. For Flemming, both Sandy and Proctor were listed in the lead actor category. Which means they could directly compete against each other in front of the same audience. Perhaps this is what drove them to excel. Maybe they caused each other to “raise their game.” I don’t know. But they sure put on a good show.
Congratulations for multiple 2008 Angie Awards to:
Gary Sandy for Live Radio Theater — Best Actor — Henry Fleming — Flemming: An American Thriller.
Tony Brewer, Jessica Howell, Genesis Oliver for Live Radio Theatre — Best Foley — Flemming: An American Thriller.
David Ossman (pictured here with wife, Judith Walcutt, director of Remember WENN: Armchair Detectives) for Live Radio Theatre — Best Director — Flemming: An American Thriller.
Additionally, another Angie Award was presented for Live Radio Theatre — Best Special Event — Flemming: An American Thriller..
Of course, camera use during the play is prohibited by law. The images above were taken by the Festival’s official photographer, Bryan Leazenby. For a much better look at images of the plays, visit the Festival's Photo Gallery. Bryan can be contacted at bryan@onsiteimages.biz for prints. I did and I’m quite pleased.
