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| OC REGISTER Rude Guerrilla good at 'Sleeping Around' The Santa Ana troupe gets at the emotional core – our need to connect – of the 1998 British play. By ERIC MARCHESE Special to the Register To say that "Sleeping Around," the 1998 British reworking of Arthur Schnitzler's play "Reigen," is Rude Guerrilla Theater Company material is to state the obvious. The piece has sex, nudity, sex, profanity, sex and more sex. But to assess the play only on the basis of these superficial trappings is to miss the point. "Reigen" strove to condemn sexual promiscuity, causing a scandal in the process simply by depicting a roundelay of sexual encounters on stage. The authors of "Sleeping Around" - Mark Ravenhill, Hilary Fannin, Stephen Greenhorn and Abi Morgan - use the 1897 play as a dramatic springboard for their own ideas about the various meanings of sexual intimacy. Based on a viewing of the Rude Guerrilla production ("Sleeping Around's" U.S. premiere), the playwrights' goal is to illustrate the deeply human need to connect with others - a point poignantly brought to light in Dave Barton's Empire Theater staging. There's no question we're watching a group of actors, which Barton emphasizes by having all 10 cast members on stage at once as the audience files in and takes their seats. As an energetic rock score is played, the cast interacts with one another and mingles with the audience. Once the play formally begins, the outlines of Schnitzler are apparent. In the first scene, marketing guru Sarah (Deborah Conroy) tries to seduce Murray (Paul Nicholson), a prim marketing professor, on a hotel balcony during a corporate function. Next is a sexual encounter between Murray and one of his students, Kate (Kelly Quigley), aboard a glass-bottomed houseboat. The round continues with Kate, working graveyard at a warehouse, and temp-job security guard Joel (Steven Parker); Joel and Lyndsey (Johnna Adams), a lonely wife he's picked up on his way home from work; Lyndsey and Pete (Craig Johnson), the AIDS-ridden man she loves; and so on to the final scene, which pairs young Ryan (Keith Bennett) with Sarah and brings the plays "story" around, full circle. Considering that "Sleeping Around" involved four writers, it achieves a remarkable degree of unity. While all 12 scenes are well written, only certain ones achieve a compelling quality. You might think this was a weakness of the script. It's not. "Sleeping Around" moves and breathes organically, with natural lulls between the script's high points and, throughout, a welcome sense of humor. Among the highs are the minidramas involving Adams' character, Lyndsey, and the troubled marriage of Colin (Bryan Jennings) and Helen (Lynne Harris). A poignant scene unfolds in Joel's shabby flat as he and Lyndsey struggle to make an emotional connection. The pair are awkward and tentative, and the scene is touching and often surprisingly funny. With her Cockney accent, Adams is especially affecting, her Lyndsey needy yet apologetic. Ultimately, they're just two lonely souls at 4 in the morning. Adams' scene with Johnson is powerful in a different way, exposing key information like an onion, one layer at a time. New-age healer Lyndsey has been trying to restore Pete's health. He's HIV-positive and can't bring himself to make love to her for fear of infecting her. As touching as the preceding scene, and all the more painful, this playlet ends with the memorable line "Love me while I'm alive, not after I'm dead." Colin is married but still hung up on ex-girlfriend Lorraine (Michelle Bylenga). The distracting sounds of another couple making love abort their own encounter, infuriating Lorraine and leaving her alone, sad and pensive. At home in his bedroom, Colin receives the scorn of wife Helen, whom he worships to the point of emotional suffocation. Jennings is uncomprehending, then furious, then wounded; Harris is explosive. Jennings and Harris' scene is a focal point of "Sleeping Around," depicting a marriage in which both confused partners seek solace from others. The next day, in a secluded area of a park, Helen makes love to the punctuality-obsessed Greg (Aurelio Locsin) in a scene that comically contrasts a romantic soul (Helen) with a practical one (Greg). The gratifying script is handled with consummate skill by Barton and his well-chosen cast, whose British accents are near-flawless. And there's a certain sense of satisfaction when the final scene rolls around and brings us back to square one. |
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| LA TIMES
Round and round the roundelay |
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| Sleeping Around Is Much More—and Less Rude Guerrilla’s vignettes about coital acts by Stacy Davies I thought I was going to see a play about fucking. And while these 12 vignettes written by four U.K. playwrights (Hilary Fannin, Stephen Greenhorn, Abi Morgan and Mark Ravenhill) and proficiently directed by Dave Barton certainly contain the coital act in various forms and locations, there’s something more interesting than copulation going on. As with all Rude Guerrilla productions I’ve seen, there is a desire on the part of the company, director and crew to show us something we haven’t seen before. This yearning to dig deep is what makes Rude Guerrilla great, even if some of the material they produce is mediocre. If this is failed art, at least it’s art. In Sleeping Around, only two of the 12 scenes are the stuff you wish lasted an entire theater night ("A Kitchen," "A Park"). Half a dozen others are interesting but thankfully short; the remaining four are a snooze. Throughout, the acting is top-notch, especially when it comes to the astonishing Johnna Adams (Lyndsey in "A Kitchen") and the disturbingly spot-on Kelly Quigley (Kate in "A Glass-Bottomed Houseboat"). But what are these scenes about, if not fucking? It’s not readily apparent. Each scene contains a character from the previous scene, now in a totally different power situation: the dominated becomes the dominating; the dynamics of personality change, often abruptly. But the play isn’t really about that either. We’re not asked to know these characters completely or to understand their interpersonal histories. We all change up our roles depending on who we’re with and upon whose turf we stand—or lay. And this is what we might reflect upon: Why do we give one person power and not another? The answer might be something material, or perhaps we cling to a dead relationship because we’re lost without it. Maybe a fling offers us a kind of freedom—if we’re willing to put up with degradation. Or maybe we don’t fuck at all but reveal our sexuality by coming as close as we can to the act before pulling back, getting fulfillment from that tension. Sex that does not come from love is a powerful and uniquely personal tool. And that is what Sleeping Around is about. It seems obvious—if you can look past the very distracting act of getting it on. But can you? SLEEPING AROUND BY RUDE GUERRILLA AT THE EMPIRE THEATER, 200 N. BROADWAY, SANTA ANA, (714) 547-4688. FRI.-SAT., 8 P.M.; SUN., 2:30 P.M. NO PERFORMANCES THANKSGIVING WEEKEND. THROUGH DEC. 15. $12-$15. |
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| Http://WWW.Wallfour.com Sleeping Around: Much More than a Bunch of Fucking Brits Collaboratively written by four writers and staged with twelve actors, the daisy chain of relationships in Sleeping Around offers the audience much more than a theatrical circle jerk. Produced by Rude Guerrilla and directed by Dave Barton, this show is certain to leave audiences clinging the parts of the circle they feel most tied to. With how rapidly this show moves from scene to scene, you may feel like you had a one-night stand yourself. But this only means that you had enough time to get attached. Each actor in this show must establish their character and their situation quickly, because before you know it, they're gone. Once you've seen a character in two scenes, you won't see them again. At first this seemed disheartening--the strong performances given made it easy to get absorbed into the lives of the various characters, so when they leave the stage for good it was natural to feel unresolved. But why ask for more? Is it not enough that you've seen them for who they are? If we were to choose a scene and watch it play out, how could any of them end without simplifying the characters? It would compromise characters who felt real and trade them in for characters whose real problems could be wrapped up minutes before the curtain call. So from that point of view, all you could hope for was more time between scenes to really grasp on to each situation and hold on to the relationships you've gotten attached to. But no time for that, the next scene has already begun. It's no wonder the lack of intermission goes unnoticed. But it is this movement from scene to scene that invites you into the complexity of each character. Each actor, though playing a single character, is really asked to play more than one role. Each character shifts from subservient to dominant depending on who their counterpart is on stage. Though they are established quickly in their first scene, they don't have time to develop in a single direction. Instead, in their second scene, you see that they already have another aspect of themselves developed. Only traces of their previous scene are allowed to filter in to affect the multi-dimensional embodiment of their character. This again leads to the truth of character on this stage. Contrary to most shows, these characters are not trying to develop themselves for their audience. They are not looking for resolutions to make themselves feel good or make their audience feel like there is closure. Better than that, they are showing their audience who they are, who they would be even if there was no audience. The fact that they decided to show you themselves in the moments when the fucking occurs should just be looked at as a fringe benefit. Though this daisy chain comes full circle, it does not feel like a circle at all. It makes more of an ellipse. From the beginning, the ring is pulled downward: from the first scene you are progressively dragged into examinations that feel deeper, if not declined toward hopelessness. This is good. But by the time you hit rock bottom with the scene between Colin and Helen, (Bryan Jennings and Lynne Harris) the energy of the remaining scenes seem displaced. The ascent back toward the original character of Sarah (Deborah Conroy) whose character makes the clasp of the chain, are filled with scenes that are performed well, but whose relationships become trivialized as they become progressively light-hearted. In short, I was not ready to be picked back up quite so quickly. The most striking performances therefore come in the descent. The character of Joel (Steven Parker), comically well timed and charismatic in his warehouse scene with Kate, (Kelly Quigley) moves from a tabletop cunnilingus to a [kitchen] scene with Lyndsey (Johnna Adams) where his feelings of want and despair are fully realized. Parker does well in moving his character far from being a funnyman-bit-role into a deeply internalized individual with much more underneath his security guard uniform. Johnna Adams keeps the introspection going from this scene and well into her next, from late night Coco Pops, to bedside with her lover whom she must save from AIDS in order to not let go of him. Adams is equally strong in both scenes. In her scene with Joel, she delicately shows the loneliness and social insecurities that stem from her own self-esteem. With her lover Pete (Craig Johnson) these feelings come to full bloom in the visualized garden they create to say goodbye to each other. Though the title may suggest unattached or uncommitted relationships, Sleeping Around is more of a testament to showing that fucking is a by-product of truly complex relations. If all the sleeping around that happened on Cinemax were borne out of these relationships, we could leave the volume on late at night and put up with all of the saxophone music. |
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| "sleeping around" rude guerrilla theater co. santa ana, ca 16 december 02 reviewed by mark jonas You there-yes, you. All of you. Don't stand out there, in the cold. Come into the Empire Theater in Santa Ana. Actors are waiting for you-actors in pajamas and nightgowns and the odd uniform or club getup. They all look terrific and sexy. They mingle among you, sharing the holiday spirit. They want you to watch them, they're going to take some clothes off and share themselves with you. What could be better? If you're not getting any-and who is, really? -- then walk in out of the cold and see Rude Guerrilla Theater Company's production of "Sleeping Around". It's another venturesome choice for a brave ensemble. It's also a coup-the U.S. premiere of a new Mark Ravenhill play. Well, it's not really a Mark Ravenhill play: it's actually a collaboration. In 1998, four young playwrights from various corners of the United Kingdom-Hillary Fannin (Ireland), Stephen Greenhorn (Scotland), and Abi Morgan and Ravenhill (England) -- got together and developed the piece for a company called Plaines Plough, of which Ravenhill was literary manager. Subsequently, "Sleeping Around" was produced at the Donmar Warehouse, and elsewhere, and now here. The template is Arthur Schintzler's "Reigen" (meaning "roundelay" in German, "circle" or "ring" in English, and translated in French as "La Ronde"). That's right, another take on Schintzler's 1900 classic about a chain of sexual encounters-also the basis for David Hare's "The Blue Room" and Michael John LaChiusa's "Hello Again". But instead of using two actors for this kind of script, Rude Guerrilla artistic director Dave Barton has decided to use 12 actors to play 12 characters in 12 scenes. It's a good idea. Barton has elicited some strong performances, clearly getting the actors to feel at ease in these very intimate moments. Several of the scenes involve nudity; many involve sex. Others are merely about the memory of sex, or the want of it. The play is really about intimacy-intimacy in the face of a busy, potentially dehumanizing consumer culture. The play opens on a "corporate balcony" as a marketing executive (Deborah Conroy) and an author (Paul Nicholson) watch the Coca-Cola logo being projected onto the moon. Yes, the moon: it's being leased for corporate advertising. (There's no chart of who wrote what scene, but I'll bet this touch is Ravenhill's.) She sucks him off discreetly in an effort to hire him for the ad campaign, taking one for the corporation. And we're off and fucking. And so begins a story of marks and Coca-Cola, as we watch good-hearted people commit or ponder infidelities, or trouble themselves with temptation, in a marketplace culture. The play is less a capitalist critique than a collective cry for love. Several of the actors, and scenes, are outstanding. Steven Parker and Johnna Adams achieve a touching level of affection in a scene over bowls of corn puffs, as two secretly lonely souls who meet by chance at 4:00 in the morning. Adams and Craig Johnson, as a couple dealing with AIDS, engage in an involving verbal dance that leads to an erotic climax. Bryan Jennings puts fire into his work and elicits notable sympathy in duos with an ex-girlfriend (Michelle Bylenga) and a wife he nearly rapes (Lynne Harris). Harris and Aurelio Locsin, playing a nerdy, time-obsessed businessman, share a sweet and funny scene having sex in the park, and Julie Jagusiak and Keith Bennett transform a bedsit into an unusually romantic arena for a first seduction. Barton's direction imbues the scenes with a wonderful, natural pace, and kudos must be given to Michelle Fontenot's stage management for the easy transitions between scenes. When Southern Californians talk of theater in Orange County, they usually talk of South Coast Repertory. But Rude Guerrilla, in its own way, is just as important. The company consistently raises the bar for the local 99-seat theater scene, and is worthy of national recognition for its choices-another Ravenhill play, "Some Explicit Polaroids", is coming up, after a revival of Keith Curran's "Walking the Dead". It's a place where bold, uncompromised theater goes down, and a place you should visit. After all, it's cold out there. How about a fuck? |
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| http://www.the-greenroom.net/ One Love By DANIEL G. LAM THE GREEN ROOM THEATRE CRITIC Friday, November 22, 2002 Teasing, game playing, and role-playing are all part of the dating scene we are use[d] to witnessing and have experienced from time to time. Some people may not enjoy these rituals and others view it as a part of life. Through dating, the human race hopes to finding a potential mate for sex or for sex and marriage. Santa Ana's Rude Guerrilla Theater Company brings new meaning to the word "dating" as they present the United State[s] Premiere of Sleeping Around. Written by authors Hilary Fannin, Stephen Greenhorn, Abi Morgan, and Mark Ravenhill, Sleeping Around tells the story of just that--sleeping around as shared amongst six heterosexual couples. Over a span of 125-intermissionless minutes, Sleeping Around takes the audience on a journey of twelve scenes over the course of 72 hours. Some scenes may offend theatre-goers and other scenes may be downright emotionally touching. Regardless of the simulated situations, the play confirms one fact: humans do require sex as a form of power and/or satisfying one’s desires. Sleeping Around received its world premiere at London’s Salisbury Playhouse in March 1998 and later that month at the Donmar Warehouse. Paines Plough originally developed the play in association with the Royal National Theatre Studio. Co-author Mark Ravenhill is probably best known for his play Shopping and Fucking and his latest work Mother Clapp’s Molly House premiered at the National Theatre and West End. Fannin, Greenhorn, and Morgan primarily write for British film, television, and radio. The Rude Guerrilla Theater Company [is a] bold, fresh face infecting the Orange County theatre scene with new ideas on the classical repertoire and staging contemporary works to educate the community. The five-year-old theatre company…present[s] quality productions with an extremely talented group of individuals, work[ing] beautifully as a team and rarely attempt[ing] to outshine each other on stage…. Indeed, the young ensemble[‘s] dramatic capabilities are far superior to many regional and professional groups around the country. The group occupie[s] a storefront space with a lobby and a rectangular black box theatre comfortably holding 5[0] seats…. [In Sleeping Around] [t]he scenes are performed in four areas of the stage evolving from a bed, two elevated platforms to resemble a balcony and a swimming pool, a park, and a warehouse with props supplied by Michelle Fontenot. Costume designer Peter Balgoyen[‘s] everyday clothing for the twelve actors and Dawn Hess[‘s] …minimalist lighting designs captur[ed] each intimate scene. Standout performers include Johnna Adams as Lyndsey in scenes four and five with [a] dead-on British accent and Bryan Jennings as Colin [,] portraying a violently emotional husband in scene eight [with] Lynne Harris as [his wife] Helen. Artistic director and sound designer Dave Barton has established himself as a realistic stage director. Each actor’s natural moves [may be] uncomforting for audience members but it…captures the bare essentials of intimate theatre. … The Rude Guerrilla Theater Company has faith in their work and [if] their quality[y] remain[s]… [as] high as witnessed in this evening’s play, audience members will become loyal customers. With inexpensive tickets prices, the trek south to Santa Ana is well worth the effort. This review has been edited for clarity. No positive or negative opinions were added or removed. |
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