Forward Theater Company News

REVIEW

Forward’s A Thousand Words: The art of the story,
the story of the art

Christian Neuhaus, Dane101
2/2/12

 Photo by Nick Berard

I’ve been entertained by each of the productions by Forward Theater Company that I’ve seen and written about for Dane101.com, but their latest (closing this Sunday) is one that I found both entertaining and instructive. It’s A Thousand Words, by local writer Gwendolyn Rice, and it provides a sterling demonstration of how an “ideas” play can also be be dramatically interesting. There are many questions that are prompted by the play — driven by an exploration of who can “possess” art — and the prompting comes naturally, through realistic and well-drawn characters’ reactions to an enticing but plausible scenario.

Scenes alternate between a contemporary and historical narrative. In the present day, Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Sally Quinn is charged with obtaining from Cuba some newly-discovered photographs by Walker Evans, which the Met has a claim on due to a provision in Evans’s will. Before she undertakes that task she makes a trip to Kansas to arrange a Met exhibit featuring the work of a community of quilters, and the two pursuits conflate unexpectedly in the person of a woman claiming to be Evans’ granddaughter. The story of the 1930s follows Evans himself as he and newly-acquired writing partner Shirley Hughes, on assignment from the Farm Security Administration, go on their own trip to Kansas to chronicle rural poverty.

The structure and plot of A Thousand Words invites one to consider many ideas, but not in a prescriptive way. Ownership of art. The connection between art and story. Use of art for a purpose, illustrated by the Farm Security Administration and the Met. The value of folk art with respect to “conventional” art — Quinn looks askance at the idea of Walker Evans tote bags but appears to have no problem suggesting that kind of merchandising for the quilters. The business of art (Quinn’s boss at the Met isn’t a fan of the kind of collaboration among arts organization that’s been going on in Madison).

The two stories play out in an intriguing way (“like a thriller,” in the words of A.V. Club Madison), with scenes parsing out a succession of interesting wrinkles to their respective plots. The historical scenes had particular appeal for me, due in large part to the way Evans charismatically insinuated himself into a mentor kind of role for Hughes. One moment between the pair that especially stood out for me, because it was such great writing about writing, was when Evans asks Hughes to create a word picture of a woman they see on a train. Hughes begins with something literary, then more authentic, and then, prompted by Evans, chooses the essential element — the “one word.”

The performers maintained the high quality Forward has established with its ensemble casts. One of the reasons I liked the 1930s scenes so much as the appeal Josh Aaron McCabe showed as a charming man-of-the-world type that wouldn’t be out of place in a screwball comedy. (McCabe is a UW-Madison MFA recipient I saw in University Theatre’s Sight Unseen, another play about art. He was also in a Sherlock Holmes spoof, something I have some affinity with.) T. Stacy Hicks was enjoyable as the fastidious autocrat who oversaw Quinn at the Met. Sarah Day as Sally Quinn was engaging as always, and (as she did in Forward’s Why Torture is Wrong...) got an enthusiastic audience response to her vigorous delivery of the Madison equivalent of a “USA! USA!” chant.

The script for A Thousand Words was developed partly through the Wisconsin Wrights project. It was a pleasure to see Forward do a full-length world premiere by a Wisconsin playwright so early in the company’s existence, and I’m glad to see them continue new play development in 2012 with staged readings of two more new plays.

A Thousand Words is at Overture Center’s Promenade Hall Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m, Saturday at 4 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. There’s also an art exhibition at Overture in conjunction with the play. The play will also be performed at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre starting February 16.

REVIEW

Forward Theater Company premieres thought-provoking
A Thousand Words

Jennifer A. Smith, The Isthmus
1/21/12

Sarah Day, left, and Georgina McKee in Forward Theater Company's A Thousand Words. Photo by Nick Berard

A Thousand Words, premiered by Forward Theater Company Friday night in Overture Center's Promenade Hall, deftly bounces between past and present and themes of art, friendship and art-world conflict. Written by local playwright (and Forward communications director) Gwendolyn Rice, it imagines what might transpire if a previously undiscovered cache of Walker Evans photographs was found among possessions of Ernest Hemingway in Cuba.

Evans ranks as one of the 20th century's greatest photographers, and his images of the Great Depression are seared into the national consciousness. Yet Rice's play is not a stiff, reverential period piece. In fact, the scenes set in the 1930s — as Evans sets out for Kansas with a young woman writer as part of a Farm Security Administration project to document the lives of rural people — are the liveliest.

It would be strange to call A Thousand Words a buddy comedy, but much of its appeal stems from the dynamic between Evans (Josh Aaron McCabe) and Shirley Hughes (Molly Rhode), who dreams of making it as a writer. Thrown together by circumstance, they banter and spar, yet tenderness emerges. And in an unforced way, Shirley learns from Evans, who was famous for capturing people in unguarded moments. "People are interesting all on their own," he says. "Don't judge, just describe."

McCabe plays Evans with looseness and ease — the photographer is a living, breathing person, not a name destined for the history books. As the fictional Shirley, Rhode is a high point of the play. Her face seems straight out of a 1930s movie, and Hyewon Park's costume designs complete the look. There's a poignancy to the arc of Shirley's story (details of which I won't spoil) that I found the most satisfying element of the play.

The play's present-day scenes are perhaps not as fully worked out. American Players Theatre favorite and Forward advisory company member Sarah Day plays Sally Quinn, a curator from the Metropolitan Museum of Art who is in Kansas in preparation for a show of quilts by the women of Garden City.

Sally's boss back in New York is Brian (T. Stacy Hicks), a type-A philistine who cares more about hawking tote bags at 50 bucks a pop in the gift shop than acting fairly to acquire the newly discovered Evans photographs. Hicks' performance as the museum honcho is a bit cartoonish (as is his depiction of another character, a mud-caked Kansas farmer); he could stand to dial it back a few notches.

It also seems unlikely that a museum would let its agenda be driven by knickknacks. While gift shops and their endless supply of mugs and T-shirts are ubiquitous, there are many reasons for that, such as waning public support for cultural institutions.

Sally is more nuanced; she cares about the art, but also has a mercenary and patronizing side, especially in her dealings with Andrea, a young woman in Garden City who runs a small marketing firm.

While I found the Depression-era scenes more successful than the modern-day ones, the alternating structure of A Thousand Words keeps things moving swiftly, propelling the action forward. Directed by Forward artistic director Jennifer Uphoff Gray, the production (which moves to Milwaukee Chamber Theatre after its Overture run) is entertaining, thought-provoking and a very welcome chance to see new work.

REVIEW

'A Thousand Words' review: On perception, before and after the shutter clicks

Lindsay Christians, 77 Square
1/22/12

Photographer Walker Evans (Josh Aaron McCabe) and writer Shirley Hughes (Molly Rhode) make their way toward Kansas during the Depression in "A Thousand Words." Forward Theater premiered the play in Promenade Hall.
Photo by Nick Berard

Squeezed together in a jostling train car, the photographer turns to the writer.

What do you see?, he asks.

She pauses, then weaves a fantastic picture of a woman sitting nearby, with "raven black hair" and "ruby silk ... woven by gypsies."

Try again, he tells her. Don't judge. Just describe.

How an artist changes the people around him, whether it's with a photograph, a compliment or a famous legacy, is at the core of Gwendolyn Rice's insightful play "A Thousand Words," produced by Forward Theater Co. through Sunday, Feb. 5.

Walker Evans' famous Depression-era photos (none of which we ever see) transform the lives of the people around them. They're high art to some, family heirlooms to others.

The play moves back and forth in time, between the 1930s and the present day.

Evans and Shirley Hughes, a young writer with literary ambitions, are strapped for money when they take an assignment to "put a happy face on propaganda for the Farm Security Administration." The trip takes them to Kansas: poor families, big skies and never-ending dust.

Back in the present, Sally Quinn leaves her office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to purchase quilts from a group of elderly ladies in Garden City, Kansas.

A local marketing exec, Andrea, keeps a close eye on the deal, warning Sally not to "confuse goodwill with gullibility." By dramatic coincidence, Andrea also has a connection to recently discovered photographs taken by Walker Evans, photos the Met is trying to acquire.

Whether he's onstage or off, the play belongs to Walker, played by Josh McCabe (a UW-Madison MFA alum).

McCabe stops short of swagger, but he's clearly the most confident voice in the play, a watcher of people in their unguarded moments. Affection simmers between Walker and Shirley, an open question with a surprising resolution.

As Shirley, Molly Rhode looks straight out of a classic Hollywood film, like the wholesome, Midwestern girl Jean Harlow used to be.

But Rhode spends much of the play in a pout. She sighs with exasperation, moans about "desperate, hopeless" Kansas and actively hampers Walker's journalistic style. Shirley seems a foil for Walker's optimism, but this frequently makes her irritating.

Back in present-day Kansas, Georgina McKee nearly steals the show as Andrea, whose "Midwestern nice" tone barely conceals a prickly defensiveness. She's a fine match for Sarah Day's determined, slightly idealistic Sally.

The story veers in confusing directions, often surrounding Sally's supervisor at the Met, Brian. T. Stacy Hicks tosses off witty comments, but his character seems superfluous, a sounding board for Sally to spout off about the Value of Outsider Art.

There are hiccups in the script that jolt us out of the drama, as when Andrea retorts that they "get USA Today" in Kansas or Sally waxes on about isolation and folk art. (The internet goes to Garden City, too.)

And designer Nate Stuber's set of storage boxes is too blank — it looks like he had a $10 budget and raided a high school storage closet. Brief impressionistic images from lighting designer Jason Fassl help, but the effect is thrown-together.

Direction by artistic director Jennifer Uphoff Gray is sensitive and subtle. She pinpoints small, telling moments — Shirley's self-consciousness, Sally's minor addiction to caffeine, Walker's simultaneous need to be noticed and blend in.

In "A Thousand Words," playwright Rice knows that it's the stories behind the images, whether real or imagined, that fascinate us. In this often charming new play, the characters invite us to look again, reconsider, and perhaps discover something new.

‘A Thousand Words’ considers the power of pictures

Lindsay Christians, 77 Square
1-17-12

Photo by Zane Williams

For Madison writer Gwendolyn Rice, there’s always one character in each of her plays with whom she’s a little infatuated.

In “A Thousand Words,” a premiere presented by Forward Theater Co. this weekend in Promenade Hall, that character is Walker Evans.

Evans, who died in 1975, was an American photographer best known for his images of destitute farmers and their families during the Great Depression.

As imagined by Rice in her play (which is not a strict biography), Evans is intelligent, stubborn, self-centered and capricious. He doesn’t like being told what to do. He is talented, and he knows it.

“I am in love with Walker Evans,” said Rice. “When I first wrote the play, he’s very suave, he’s very witty, he’s very smart. He says the right things.

“And so it was interesting to go back and find his foibles, and find the places where he needed to learn.”

This is Rice’s fourth full-length play, her first to be given a full production by a professional theater company — two companies, in fact. “A Thousand Words” is being co-produced by Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, where the Madison production will move from Feb. 16-March 11. Rice has served as Forward’s publicist since the company was founded in 2009.

In her plays, Rice likes to take two stories and wind them together. She gave “A Thousand Words” a back-and-forth structure as it moves between the 1930s and present day.

One part of the story follows Evans, the photographer, and Shirley, a tentative young writer, after they receive an assignment from the Farm Security Administration to document the condition of sharecroppers in the West and Midwest. They bicker, sleep in barns and run out of gas, forming an unlikely bond along the way.

Walker Evans “wants to capture moments as they are, and let that speak for itself,” said actor Josh McCabe, who returns to play Evans after first reading the role at the Wisconsin ’Wrights New Play Project in 2008.

“He carried a little hidden camera in his coat and took pictures of people in the subway. … There’s a great line in the play when he’s talking with Shirley, and she says that doesn’t seem nice; if they don’t know their picture’s being taken they can’t prepare for it.

“And he says, ‘Nice? I’m not poking fun.’ It’s his own fascination with people, to capture who they are when they don’t think anyone’s looking.”

The other part of the story takes place in the present day, when some of Evans’ photos are found among Ernest Hemingway’s personal effects in a dive bar in Cuba. (Rice found inspiration for the play in a news clipping about this, a real event.)

The photos are, of course, quite valuable. Sally, an exhibitions manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is on a work trip to Kansas to acquire some quilts when she discovers an unexpected connection (and complication) with the newly discovered Evans photos.

Since the first readings of “A Thousand Words,” Sally’s character has evolved. Sarah Day plays her in Forward’s production as an academic with the best intentions, who nonetheless engages in hard-line negotiations with a Kansas-based marketing exec who has her own claims on Evans’ legacy.

“I’m excited to share this art,” Day said, describing her character’s motivations. “It’s important for people to see this art, to appreciate the work that’s been created, as opposed to getting it to sell it.”

Day likes that the play asks complicated questions, like what artwork has value, who decides what is art and who gets to see it.

The characters in “A Thousand Words” wonder whether or not a back story makes a photograph more interesting (or valuable), and what is owed to the people who either appear in a famous photograph or make valuable folk art, from recognition to monetary compensation.

“You know, ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words,’ but is the ‘Mona Lisa’ more interesting if you know the background?” Day said. “Or is that art valuable because you look at it and you say, ‘That is beauty.’ You don’t need to know anything else about it.”

Rice’s play doesn’t offer easy answers, least of all for the playwright herself.

“It’s about the power of words and pictures. It’s about the ownership of art, and the ability of art and artists to change the world,” she said. “These photographers were going out and literally changing the way America thought about its own citizens.”