Cloud 9 may be the best thing Jobsite Theater has ever done. Wonderful ensemble acting, terrific direction and colorful design all combine to make Caryl Churchill's comedy about gender a splendid success. I've had my doubts over the years about the quality of Jobsite's work, but with this superb production, those doubts can (cautiously) rest. This is first-class theater from start to finish. I'd even go so far as to say that with this production, Jobsite has justified its existence. If its future shows are anywhere near as good, Tampa Bay area theatergoers have a lot to look forward to.
Cloud 9, as you may know, has an extremely odd shape. In Act One we're in Victorian-era Africa among English colonials. In Act Two we're in London 100 years later — but the characters have aged only 25 years. Another important dichotomy: In the first half of the play a father-figure dominates, while in the second half several mothers move in and out of focus singly and together. And then there are all the gender and race confusions: a male character played by a woman, a female played by a man, a black servant played by a white person and a 5-year-old girl played by an adult male.
There's not a lot of plot: a visit by an explorer to the colonials in Act One and the breaking up and readjusting of some modern couples in Act Two. But Churchill is after something more important than plot: she wants us to see how uncapturable life is, how unwilling it is to fit anyone's mold. So though the patriarch Clive tries to keep good order in Act One, his servant doesn't quite serve, his son plays with dolls, his friend Harry makes advances on his wife Betty and he himself can't keep away from the standoffish widow Saunders. Things aren't that much better for the more liberated characters in Act Two: Edward can't keep his lover Gerry from wandering, Martin loses his wife Victoria to Lin, and the kids Kathy and Tommy are always running off in all directions. Liberation, Churchill's saying, isn't the end of uncertainty; it's just the choosing of uncertainties of a more necessary type. We moderns may still be dazed and confused, but at least we're living authentically. And that's real progress.
And speaking of progress, this is the most convincing ensemble work that I've ever seen the Jobsite troupe do. Certainly a lot of the credit has to go to director Ami Sallee Corley, who has clearly demanded precision from her actors, and who's managed to attain it even with a notoriously complicated script. David M. Jenkins as patriarch Clive and Shawn Paonessa as his wife Betty set the farcical tone at the very beginning, chatting lovingly in front of Brian Smallheer's cheerful red brick set. But we're soon equally delighted with Michael C. McGreevy as the servant Joshua and the impressive Brandy Pedersen as the doll-loving Edward. (Edward's sister Victoria is actually played by a doll in Act One and then by Pedersen in Act Two.)
Also first-rate are the performances of Katrina Stevenson as Clive's pedantic mother-in-law Maud and Summer Bohnenkamp-Jenkins as both a governess and the widow Saunders. Finally, Jason Vaughan Evans is funny as randy bisexual explorer Harry Bagley, the sort of man you wouldn't trust with your sister or your brother.
In Act Two, the same seven actors are back, but all in different roles. Jenkins is hilarious as mischievous 5-year-old Kathy and Pedersen as adult Victoria is wonderfully sincere. Additonally, the performances of Stevenson as Victoria's lover and McGreevy as a quiet-spoken, adult gay Edward are excellent.
But the still center of the act is Bohnenkamp- Jenkins' performance as Betty, now separated from her husband and coming to grips between nervous giggles with the untidy lives all around her. Betty's key speech in this act is about her discovery of masturbation as a key to self-possession. And it's beautifully rendered by Bohnenkamp-Jenkins. In fact, only Evans as Victoria's husband and Paonessa as Edward's lover don't quite convince in these modern sequences. But there's magic when characters from Act One briefly appear and confront their modern counterparts. And in fact, there's a kind of magic in this whole experience.
With this play, Jobsite Theater has come of age.
An Intriguing Duo The Alley Cat Players are offering a double bill at the ¡Viva La Frida! Cafe y Galeria, and though neither play is very successful, each contains interesting, even fascinating moments.
Emeralds In An Onion Field, by local actor/writer Ned Averill-Snell, is about two men who are mysteriously hurled into a room containing nothing but a toilet. One of them has a gun, which they repeatedly fight over, and both of them have intriguing ideas about manliness and fatherhood.
The problem is, it's unlikely that their conversation on these topics would ever occur under these conditions; they want the bar from The Iceman Cometh, not the hell from No Exit. Fortunately, Averill-Snell's a talented writer, so some segments of the play are enjoyable for themselves (and context be damned).
Averill-Snell is also one of the actors along with Jimmy Chang and they both turn in fine performances. Director Steve Mountain makes the best of an unlikely story, though the tussles over the gun couldn't be less persuasive, and Averill-Snell's verbal rage needs scaling back from time to time.
The second play is Tom Stoppard's Artist Descending A Staircase. Of the four actors in the show, only Chang, as a young blind man named Stephen, commands our full attention. Elaine Cloud Goller, Teresa Elena Gallar and Denice Lemons as three avant-garde artists never convince us of their reality. And Stoppard's play, which depends on some sophisticated flashbacks and flashforwards, comes across, mostly, as a muddle. Still, there are a few brilliant exchanges on the meaning of modern art and on the validity of art in a world where some people are starving.
It's a pleasure to come across this little-known play, but director Jo Averill-Snell needs to be more demanding of her actors and designers. Even the highest-quality script can't survive a third-rate production.
This Alley Cat's got moxie. But has it got taste?
Performance Critic Mark E. Leib can be reached at mark.leib@weeklyplanet.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 305.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2003.