the empty spaces theatre co.
press release & ticket information | photo gallery | reviews
By Katie Ball (from Facebook)
Bach at Leipzig equals goodness!
Share
I got to see “Bach at Leipzig” this past weekend and when I originally heard it was being worked up by Kevin G. Becker, the director of “The Pillowman”, and with that same cast in tow I was thrilled because Pillowman still stands as one of my favorite productions here in town. And to go from drama's dark underbelly to Bach's hysterical antics shows the tremendous range of everyone involved. This is one of those productions where I don't want to give too much away because it's just so damned fun but here's the basic gist.
Story synopsis:
The year is 1722, the place: the Thomaskirsche church in Leipzig, Germany. Organists from far and wide have brought their original compositions to compete for the position of Kappelmeister (Choir Master). Like veteran pageant contestants, the musicians know each other or know of each other, offering a good bit of catty leverage to be used to hysterical effect. Each musician comes from unique backgrounds, some rich some poor - some musically innovative and some content to color within the lines. Each is driven by his own specific need for the position, and most will use whatever means necessary to win.
The cast, which is thankfully solid all across the board includes Kevin Sigman with his colossal silent film presence getting roars from merely a raised brow. There's also John Bateman who plays a foppish dandy with unwaivering flounce; Josh Geohagen as Georg Lenck is both wily and charming, a man you hate to love; Tommy Keesling as the fiercely driven yet under appreciated Georg Kauffmann delivers a magnetic performance as always. Not to be outdone Stephen Lima plays an adorable wide-eyed, yet insightful fool who single-handedly takes the laughter to giddy heights. And then the enigmatic Georg Telemann played by “Anonymous” - and though you never see his face he has a lovely speaking voice. And finally, Mark Edward Smith as Johann Freidrich Fasch. Fasch's character is the nucleus of this hysterical storm raging 'round. He stands with utter conviction in his ideals about what music can and should be. Smith, like the rest, gets his own share of the laughs but he is also offered the most opportunities to dive a little deeper - and he owns it.
If a classical music theme and the date line scares you it's true that a yen for college humanities and the smallest bit of music theory will certainly add to your experience, but it isn't required by any stretch of the imagination. Take Monty Python's comic timing, farcical misunderstandings, and yes a bit of drag, and have it played by really strong actors – making for an action-packed immersion into absurdity that's bookended by those occasional stop-on-a-dime beautiful moments of quiet and stillness; offering just enough time to think “Whoa these guys are good” - and then someone loses their pants and you're off to the races again.
Because of the fast pace I'm surprised there were only a few opening night bugs with lighting and sound cues, and a few noticeable moments where a line got stepped on - but there was so much more that was done right. And while delivered with a deft and light hand “Bach” covers some age-old epic themes: fights for supremacy and power, religious differences joined by war, closed door double dealings (or triple and quadruple dealings, even). The production also covers the strains of societal expectations, as well as the great debate in art: Change and innovation, or maintain the status quo? I'm not going to try and convince you that any of this is touched upon with great depth and weight, who needs that? Hell we're all living the majority of this stuff here and now and I personally don't need to be thumped over the head with it, do you? But to be offered the chance to laugh at it all, I'm talking doubled-over knee-slapping belly laughs – to be surprised and delighted – and to walk away with a lighter heart? That's gold in my book. Go see “Bach at Leipzig” and leave your worries at the door.
Theater review: ‘Bach at Leipzig’ finds the funny side of life’s big questions
By Matthew J. Palm, Orlando Sentinel
11:20 p.m. EST, February 27, 2010
In a fugue, we are told during Bach at Leipzig, a musical subject is introduced and then reiterated by other instrumental "voices," each bringing something new to the mix.
In Bach at Leipzig, presented by Empty Spaces Theatre Co., playwright Itamar Moses has crafted a consistently funny fugue on the ideas of predestination vs. choice and rigidity vs. innovation.
Oh, and there's some silly walks, a man in woman's clothes and wordplay one-liners straight from the days of Vaudeville thrown in for good measure.
You don't have to know a whit about classical music to appreciate the show — but an appreciation for Monty Python sketches will work in your favor.
Sample joke:
"What brings you here?" asks one character. "Stagecoach, mostly," replies another deadpan, without missing a beat.
Much comic mileage is also wrung out of the fact that all the principal characters, German organists of the 1700s, are named either Johann or Georg. The six musicians have gathered upon the death of a noted German church organist, and each wants to snag the prestigious position for himself.
The desperate lengths and devious ways they try to outfox one another and snag the job for themselves reflect on the nature of humankind. As the plotting grows more ridiculous, the laughs grow louder.
Only once or twice does Moses' philosophical musing get in the way of the broad jokes. That the comedy works so well is due in no small part to the cast members, who create more fully formed personas than the collection of comic quirks provided by the author.
Stephen Lima plays naïveté for more than cheap laughs, while Josh Geoghagan brings a bracing modern sensibility among the powered-wig set to his con-man role. Mark Edward Smith and Tommy Keesling handle the deepest debating, but never sound like they are preaching.
Helping to reduce the sense of sermonizing, director Kevin Becker wisely keeps everyone moving about the simple set, even including a wild sword fight (choreographed by William Warriner) near play's end.
By the time the show reaches its frenzied climax, secret identities have been revealed and old animosities have been healed, even if the deeper questions remain.
As in a fugue, all the plot strands come together for a grand finish, with just a touch of surprise.
‘Bach at Leipzig'
• What: Empty Spaces Theatre Co. production of an Itamar Moses comedy.
• Where: Lowndes Shakespeare Center, 812 E. Rollins St., in Loch Haven Park, Orlando.
•When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, through March 12.
•How much: $20 adults, $15 students and seniors.
•Call: 407-328-9005.
•Online: emptyspacestheatre.org
Copyright © 2010, Orlando Sentinel
Bach At Leipzig
By Itamar Moses
Directed by Kevin G. Becker
Empty Spaces Theatre Company at the Orlando Shakespeare Theatre
Lutheran church music should praise of God and edify the congregation, but the politics behind it would overwhelm the Doge of Venice. It’s Tuesday, 1722, and Johann Kuhnau dies unexpectedly. He was the lead organist atthe biggest, baddest church in Leipzig, and his job made him as close to a rock star as the Protestants allow. Still, a job opening is a job opening, and the city council of Leipzig is interviewing qualified applicants. A half dozen show up – J. F. Fasch (Mark Edward Smith) was once Kuhnau’s favorite pupil, G. B. Schott (Tommy Keesling) assisted him in his last years, G. Lenck (Josh Geoghagan) is too broke to afford a middle name, G. F. Kaufmann (Stephen Lima) can’t find the call board, J. M. Steindorf (John Bateman) would prefer to dance, and J. C. Grainer (Kevin Sigman) knows he has the job, so long as someone better like Telemann or J. S. Bach doesn’t spoil things by showing up. As the applicants connive and scheme to either get rid of their competition or do a deal that involves running a boys school, the engage in a theatrical fugue of exposition, countersubject, and stretto. People are drugged, outrageous promises are made and broken, and a wealth of jokes that are only accessible to those schooled in the history of the Counter Reformation fill the room.
OK, so most of the jokes didn’t draw laughs, but it was a small, secular crowd the night I caught this intellectual gem of a show. Still, the backstabbing machinations are enough to make a great comedy, and Mark Edward Smith might be the best intellectual of the lot. He’s sober, confident, and determined to outmaneuver the officious Keesling. John Bateman did the best broad comedy in his whiteface and tights, and closely competed with Geoghagan and his milkmaid’s dress. Sigman’s perpetual number two status and knack for being upstaged by the scene worked in his favor, and I actually rooted for him to get the job. Mr. Lima played a much nicer, gentler role than usual, and he’s most likely to get his house burned for incorrect views on predestination and original sin.
With a set that looked like a pipe organ and well presented music, you might take this as a farce, but I’ve been around church meetings and can assure you that salvation is wrought by committees, and you do NOT want to get appointed chairman to one of them. Director Becker pulled nice, tight show out of this complex script, and even at the most complicated points the thrust and parry of argument stays with you.
For more information on Empty Spaces Theater Company, visit http://www.emptyspacestheatre.org
This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Uncategorized, theater. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Feeling Bach’s enlightenment
Bach at Leipzig
by Empty Spaces Theatre Co.
Through March 12 at Lowndes Shakespeare Center, 812 E. Rollins St.
407-328-9005
www.emptyspacestheatre.org
$20
Right from the start, Bach at Leipzig is a witty spoof – and yet not. After all, the closest the title character comes to making an appearance is through his music, heard only in offstage bursts. What does appear are the emotions and manipulations of six eminently forgettable German composers, all in Leipzig in June 1722 to compete for a prime job: organist at the Thomaskirche. The job, famously, went to Johann Sebastian Bach, a surprise appointment that in playwright Itamar Moses’ ingenious riff on Enlightenment ideals ended up bringing his six competitors together in awe.
But only after they beg, borrow and steal from one another, clash in a swordfight (that falls just short of thrillingly swashbuckling) and tell their own stories in spotlighted soliloquies under the guise of writing letters bound for home. All that would be more than enough tension and hilarity, but director Kevin G. Becker with Seth Kubersky has pushed Moses’ conceit to dizzying heights.
Jennifer Bonner’s costumes are foppish and Susan Woodbury’s makeup and wigs are over-the-top, particularly the tight red ringlets that Josh Geoghagan (as the amoral Georg
Lenck) tosses – nervously or flirtatiously. By contrast, John DiDonna’s spare, angular set is a neutral foil to the nonstop action, and Mary Heffernan’s lighting is wonderfully eccentric, especially in scenes dominated by rapid-fire exchanges among the opinionated musicians and in low and moody quiet moments.
Then there are the flourishes: the constant preening with lacy ruffs; the confusion over names (everyone is either a Georg or a Johann); and, in a sight gag that was funnier each time it was performed, the tiny toy pigeons each musician unfolds at the end of his letter and then throws into the air, as if it really had taken wing. There are quirks, too: As Johann Christoph Graupner, Germany’s second-best organist, Kevin Sigman teeters between a smug self-satisfaction and an anxious fury that has him muttering the mantra, “Think less of them who think less of you. Think less …”
Most of all, however, the play’s success depends on its kaleidoscopic mishmash of history, theology and music, all configured in a crystalline construct that reflects the mathematical purity of Bach’s music. Patterns swirl through the play as each of the musicians appear, disappear and reappear in various configurations and reach their crescendo at the end, from the brilliantly choreographed swordfight to those epistolary soliloquies.
Upon learning that Bach has won the coveted church appointment, the contenders open the double door to hear his music and break into a spoken six-part fugue. It’s an amazing feat that demands brisk articulation from the cast and full attention from the audience to keep up with the breakneck pace and multiple layers of meaning. What makes it fun are the constant gags, double-entendres, puns and ironic references, thrown out so casually that some surely got away.
It hardly matters, though. Empty Spaces’ production is a baroquely dense confection and an intellectual extravaganza that toys with ideas and facts, fugues and themes. As one character says, off-handedly, he doesn’t know what his era will be called – but surely it will be known for its lack of enlightenment.
— Laura Stewart
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
the empty spaces theatre company Orlando, Florida info@emptyspacestheatre.org Copyright 2005-2009. All Rights Reserved.
Website: Lucas Production Inc. | Photography: Photography by Shani