Norm Foster arrives in San Miguel
By Kirsten Dehner February 15, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Theater The Love List Fri, Feb 8 thru Sat, Feb 23, 8pm Wed, Sun matinees, 3pm Villa Jacaranda Aldama 53 200–400 pesos

Norm Foster, one of Canada’s most prolific playwrights, arrives in San Miguel this week to see the Mexican premiere of his comedy, The Love List. A gala dinner and champagne reception, with entertainment, follows the February 21 performance. Tickets are available at the Villa Jacaranda, Aldama 53.

The following is a conversation between Foster and Kirsten Dehner, one of the stars of the show.

Kirsten Dehner: Where did the idea for The Love List come from?

Norm Foster: An actor friend who lives in Stratford asked me to write a play for himself and an actor friend of his about a woman who comes between two friends. I got halfway through it and it started to feel like a tried and true love triangle and I wanted something different. That’s when I came up with the idea for the woman character’s “background.” That’s all I can say without giving too much away.

KD: Can you describe one or two aspects of the writing process for the play? Related ideas: did one character show up first in your imagination, and if so, which one? Or did the characters and their predicament appear together, at once? What were some of the writing challenges you faced?

NF: Bill and Leon both came to me at the same time. It seemed like a nice friendship to me. These are two guys who really genuinely care for one another. Justine came later on because I had to figure out what kind of woman could break up this wonderful friendship. The biggest challenge, I suppose, was the build in the play. You have to keep the audience guessing all the way and build the interest and the energy every step of the way. 

KD: Beneath all the humor, you raise some core issues about relationships. Would you care to elaborate on this?

NF: Most of the plays I write have something to do with relationships, probably because I’m not very successful at relationships myself, so I find it good therapy to work on them in my plays. Hah! I think the relationships in any story are the most important elements in the story and I work as hard as I can to make them believable.

KD: You have performed in The Love List as an actor. What was it like playing a role you had written? Did you discover new things about your character in performance that you didn’t know about when you were creating him as a writer?

NF: I have played both Bill and Leon in The Love List. And I enjoyed playing both of them for different reasons. Leon has a certain roguish charm about him and I liked playing that aspect of him. He’s very cavalier. And Bill? Well, Bill gets to kiss the girl. A lot. ‘Nuff said? And yes, I find I discover new things about the character when I play him. And I think other actors might discover different things when they play the character. Every actor brings something of his or her own to the part.

KD: What is it like for a playwright to see his work performed in different parts of the world? Do you find that the play’s humor is universally understood wherever it is produced, or have you noticed differences in the way it is received? In this context, any thoughts on the Mexican premiere?

NF: I would hope that the play’s themes and humor are fairly universal. I actually think about that when I write my plays. I don’t like to set it in a certain city or town. I like the audience to imagine where it is located for themselves. I like to let the audience do some of the work for me. And to go to a play of mine abroad, and sit in the audience and hear the audience react...well, there is nothing like it in the world. Believe me.

KD: Have you been to Mexico and/or San Miguel de Allende before, or is this your first visit? Is there anything special you would like to explore while you’re here? 

NF: I have never been to Mexico before. Oddly enough, my older sister, Marlene Kidder lived in San Miguel de Allende about 10 or 12 years ago. She lived there for five years I think. Marlene passed away last summer and I hope to meet some folks who knew her when I’m there. I also want to take plenty of photos. Photography is my hobby. 

KD: Are you presently working on a new play? Care to tell us anything about it—what the themes are, when it might be finished or produced?

NF: I have just finished a play called Old Love that will premiere in a Canadian town called Port Dover this summer. I am currently working on two new plays: A Christmas show called Bob’s Your Elf which will premiere just outside of Ottawa this Christmas, and a new play called Skin Flick which will premiere in January 2009 in Halifax.

Fiddle-de-dee, it’s fun!
By Christine Foster 

Theater Moonlight and Magnolias Tue–Sat, February 19–23, 8pm Sun, Feb 24, 5pm Teatro Santa Ana Biblioteca Pública Reloj 50A 150 pesos, all seats reserved 200 pesos, opening night with reception

Gone with the Wind is many people’s favorite film and considered David O. Selznick’s magnum opus. It won eight Academy Awards and became the highest-grossing movie of all time (adjusting for inflation). But how did Margaret Mitchell’s masterpiece about the embittered postwar South really make it to the silver screen?

Ron Hutchinson offers an inspired answer in his play Moonlight and Magnolias. A dissatisfied Selznick (Rudy Hornish) has just shut down film production at enormous expense, pulled director Victor Fleming (Jim Newell) from his Wizard of Oz duties and offered Ben Hecht (Michael Gottlieb) $15,000 to re-re-rewrite Sidney Howard’s treatment. Kidnapped by the manipulative Selznick and imprisoned with a bullying, blustering Fleming, Hecht is denied proper sleep or food except for peanuts and bananas for five days, and yet somehow succeeds where F. Scott Fitzgerald and dozens of others had failed. He writes a workable script for GWTW. 

As the five days whiz by and balled-up pieces of typing paper, peanut shells and empty banana peels engulf the office, Selznick and Fleming make a frantic attempt to convey the story to Hecht (who’s never read the book) by acting out key scenes. Along the way, the three debate everything from whether the Hays office will let Rhett say he doesn’t give a “damn,” to the morality of Scarlett slapping the young slave, Prissy, to the dangers of glorifying the Confederacy.

Left-leaning newspaperman Hecht trumpets his superior cultural perspective and artistic principles while selling out for the paycheck. Nevertheless, it is his relentless and loudly expressed horror at Margaret Mitchell’s work—which he considers maudlin, melodramatic and, worst of all, hard to follow—that is the hysterical heartbeat of the play. Momentum never dissipates, nor does Selznick’s obsessive need to control the exhausted Fleming and Hecht under what he admits, with considerable understatement, are “far from ideal literary conditions.”

First presented at Chicago’s Goodman Theater, then at the Manhattan Theater Club, this rollicking satire was also seen in San Miguel at Playreaders in 2007, where it was such a hit it was quickly slated to become a full production.

Taking the audience on a mad romp through the lunacy of movie making, Hutchinson’s writing is always fast, funny and sharply observed, and director Lola Smith lets her terrific cast have their heads in this frothy mix of farce, wit and slapstick. It’s an on-target tribute to Hollywood’s highly flexible integrity—and fiddle-de-dee, it’s a hoot.

Tickets to Moonlight and Magnolias are150 pesos and all seats are reserved. Opening night with a post-show reception includes wine, coffee and a selection of delicious desserts, for 200 pesos. Tickets are available in the Biblioteca patio 10:30am–1:30pm and the theater box office 4–7pm.

Playreaders presents Sam Shepard’s True West
By Tom King

Theater
True West
Tue–Thu, Feb 19–21, 7pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
Donation 20 pesos

An iconic American play by an iconic American author, True West created a sensation in New York City’s 2000 theater season when Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly alternated in the lead roles of Austin and Lee, both earning critical raves and Tony nominations. The story of two very different brothers who’ve landed in their mother’s home at the edge of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California at the same time, True West exposes deep truths about identity and ambition, and often is both harrowing and very funny at the same time.

Lee, played by Tim Johnson, is a drifter and petty thief, while Austin, played by Nick Beles, is an aspiring screenwriter with a wife and family. But re-exposure to each other produces profound changes in what they want from life, and from Austin’s producer, Saul Kimmer, played by Tom Frazee. Nancy Nugent does the show-stopping role of Mom.

Since its premiere in 1980, the roles of True West’s two brothers have attracted some of our most prominent actors, including Peter Boyle, Tommy Lee Jones, Peter Coyote, Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, Dennis Quaid and Jim Belushi. In addition, Bruce Willis starred in the Showtime TV adaptation.

The play is a more traditional narrative than most plays that Shepard has written. But like many of his works, its inspiration lies in the myths of American life and popular culture. Of his more than 45 plays, 11 have won Obie Awards and Shepard’s play Buried Child was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1979.

The doors open at 7pm and the performance begins at 7:30pm. Sound and lights will be handled by Eli Nadel and the play is directed by Tom King.

One woman’s vision of Joan of Arc
By Arleta Jeziorska

Theater
Joan of Arc: Vision thru Fire
Fri & Sat, Feb 22–23, 7pm
Rancho Los Labradores
150 pesos

“During the times of the witch hunts, over five million women were burned at the stake—those who had studied, the priestess, the gypsies, the mystics, the lovers of nature, those who collected herbal medicines, and any others interested in the natural world.”

One of them was Joan of Arc: The virgin, the simple girl from the country, the messenger of god, great military commander, witch, heretic, whore and saint. Who was this women, in reality?

I invite you to share with me this theatrical experience of searching through fire and empty space, to create worlds and realities. I invite you to look for visions and characters, to try to see with clarity, if there is something in our life worth the pain of our struggle.

Or maybe, just forget it and let it die. As in the poem of Octavio Paz, which says, “Leave the life to the living, to the life, and bury the dead and forget them, as the earth does in fruits...”

A one-woman show, Joan of Arc: Vision thru Fire, written and directed by John Morrow, with music by Peter Ross in the Opera Theater of Rancho Los Labradores (Highway to Dolores ), February 22 and 23, 7pm. Transportation provided from the El Cardo Parking Garage leaving at 6pm, included in the cost of the ticket, 150 pesos.

With these performances, I open a new cycle of work as an actress.

Arleta Jeziorska, born in Poland is a professional actress in cinema, television and theater. She is part of the SMS (San Miguel Sustainable) organization which creates and supports sustainable, environmental projects for San Miguel and surrounding communities.

John Morrow, director, actor, and writer, has worked in the avant garde theater scene in New York City, and also helped to found the theater department at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He currently lives in San Miguel.

Peter Ross is a master teacher, player and maker of the shakuachi flute. He lives in San Miguel and gives private lessons.