All Over the Map

A man hires a friend to serve as his wife’s gigolo. This is the basic premise for Jeffrey Sweet’s Immoral Imperatives, currently running at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater in Cape Cod. “It’s a play that at first seems to be about sex but, in fact is about love,” says director James Glossman. Hank, a retired university professor, has recently relocated to the Florida Keys with his younger wife, Terri. Hank suffers from impotence, and arranges for his friend Dale, who has come to stay with the couple, to fulfill Terri’s sexual needs. “They really think they can plan out and live their lives in a way that involves detaching what you do from how you feel about it,” says Glossman. “And the thing I think is wonderful about the play is that love, generosity, and tenderness come in and screw up their plans.”

Veteran actors Malachi Throne and Laura Esterman star as Hank and Terri. “People come into the rehearsal hall and they’ll be absolutely certain that Laura and Malachi have worked together before,” says Glossman. “They seem so much like a married couple.” While Throne and Esterman had never met prior to this production, Esterman has previously shared the stage with W.T. Martin, who plays Dale. “They’re the ones with all this history and they get to have jokes with each other about things that happened 30 years ago,” remarks Glossman.

This is the third Jeffrey Sweet play and the second production of Immoral Imperatives that Glossman has directed (the previous one was at New Jersey’s Luna Stage this past May, with an entirely different cast). “The show in New Jersey was a smaller theater and ended up being a little softer, a little friendlier,” says the director. “This one is slightly faster, slightly harder. I think both reads are entirely appropriate. This has been a great opportunity for me to watch, guide, and distill while the actors find their way to put their stamp on the material.”

One of the appeals of the play for Glossman is that the narrative centers around characters in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who are still capable of making mistakes. “Oddly enough, I find that a very positive thing,” he says. “I think it’s great that you can go out and royally screw up your life in new ways, even when you have grandchildren.”

— D.B.

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The Darvag Theater launched its first production in 1985 and mostly presented plays in Farsi until about five years ago, when there was a group decision to reach out to the next generation. The company’s latest production is an English translation of Bahram Beyzaie’s Death of Yazdgerd, a classic Iranian play.

When it first opened in the late 1970s at the time of the Iranian revolution, Death of Yazdgerd courted controversy for its irreverent depiction of religion, royalty, the ruling class, and — perhaps most provocatively of all — empowered women. The show tells a largely true story of what happened when the last Shah of the Sassanid Empire was found dead at an old mill. Actress Bella Warda plays the heroine, the miller’s wife, who is under suspicion for his murder. Her determined struggle for survival is one of the play’s major plot lines.

According to Warda, the heightened language of the play has led some people to compare it to Greek tragedy. Like Greek thespians, these actors also wear masks, but their use of this device has a distinctly regional origin. “The kings in those days wore masks when they were in public,” she explains, “Nobody was supposed to see their countenance.” Beyzaie reportedly intended the play to evoke Japanese theater in terms of style, but Darvag’s current production favors a more realistic approach.

There have been some efforts to highlight the play’s universality and relevance. For example, the action of the play is set during the Arab conquest of Persia in the seventh century, but the company avoided any use of the term “Arab” in this version because, as Warda points out, “the world is changing and that word now has another meaning. We’re hoping that the audience will think our stories are similar; I don’t want them coming in to watch an ‘exotic’ play from Iran.” Ultimately, she says, Death of Yazdgerd delivers a very timely message about how the poor suffer during times of great change: “It was written about 2,500 years ago, but what have we learned?”

— A.K.

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“The process is the best part of directing for me,” says John Strasser. “I want the people that I work with to expand their creativity. I try to create an atmosphere where other artists have the freedom to explore and develop their acting, stage design, and production talents.” Strasser is currently helming Conscription of the Fates, a program of one-acts by The Tin Ceiling, a St. Louis-based company.

A trio of playwrights — Robin Garrels, Ben Gaa, and Jason Lauderdale — pooled their talents to create this evening of theater. “There is a general theme of people confronted with life choices in each play,” says Strasser, “but I’m treating them as separate entities.” According to the director, the plays attempt to answer universal questions, for example: “Should superheroes retire or franchise? Should Mr. X discard philosophical furniture? Does the way we die define our lives?”

As for the production’s title, Strasser notes that it works on two levels. “Each of the plays deals with fateful choices, and the playwrights were ‘drafted’ by the producer,” he explains. Strasser has worked with The Tin Ceiling on several projects in the past and is excited by the troupe’s creative output. “Their fresh approach to each production captures the revolutionary spirit of theater,” he states. “For me, Conscription of the Fates is a great opportunity to stage the works of three writers who offer the St. Louis audience stories that are worth telling and worth experiencing.”

— D.B.

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This interview with playwright Michael McKeever almost didn’t happen because he was not at his phone for three days. When I finally reached McKeever, I found out why he was so difficult to contact: In anticipation of the arrival of Hurricane Ivan, he was scrambling to board up his windows and make new plans for opening weekend of his play Wait and See at the New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida. The company had gone through the same drill about two weeks earlier with Hurricane Frances and had lost four days of rehearsal time in total.

The disastrous weather added its own layer of drama to an already dramatic production. Wait and See tells the story of a musician who, after improbably surviving a plane crash, begins to be followed by a band of holy rollers who believe that he’s the Second Coming. The play’s themes and plot twists have obvious resonance in the post-September 11 world and, coincidentally, Wait and See was originally slated to open on the third anniversary of the attacks. According to the playwright, “We kept saying, ‘We’re opening Saturday! We’re opening Saturday!’ But it wasn’t until Tuesday of that week that I personally realized what date that was.” As it happened, Ivan bumped up the opening to the 10th. Says McKeever, “It’s really funny that the play’s called Wait and See, because that became the running joke during the rehearsal process. ‘Are we going to open this weekend? I guess we’ll wait and see!'”

Although McKeever admits that the had the World Trade Center attacks in mind while penning this dark comedy, he tried to avoid making specific political statements. That proved difficult because Wait and See is set and is being produced in South Florida, ground zero for those eyeing the voting process in the upcoming elections. In this politically charged territory, some of the play’s dialogue has taken on double meanings. “One of the characters says, ‘I don’t like the governor, I don’t like his wife.’ On opening night, it got applause,” the playwright relates.

Despite all of the production’s struggles, McKeever says that the reaction of the audience this past weekend was overwhelmingly positive. “The Theater Gods came together!” he exclaims. “Talk about miracles!”

— A.K.