Sam Hurwitt stopped by and said some very cool things about Little Brother. Great shout-outs to the cast, director and design team. We especially love the closing lines:
Last Tuesday, we held the first read of Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day. The show was cast a long time ago (we keep having to do that earlier and earlier) so at first it kind of felt like some odd reunion. There are 10 actors in the show, and they all are amazing artists. Joining us that night was some of our design team and our stage manager, Ashley. We also have not one, but two!, dramaturgs on this show, who have helped compile research and will answer many of our questions during the process.
Pictured Xanadu Bruggers; Photo by Jamie Buschbaum
Which leads to a little introduction to this play. Bright Room is Kushner’s first play. 2/3rds of it takes place in 1932 Berlin, during the fall of Weimar Republic (a somewhat centrist democratic government), and the rise of the Nazi party into what would quickly become the Third Reich and the embodiment of what we call evil. The other 1/3 of the play takes place in 1990 Berlin, at the historic reunification of East and West.
Both parts take place in a single apartment. In the 1930s, it is rented by Anges Eggling (Xanadu Bruggers) where it is a cozy place for a group of friends, mostly artists and activists, to take shelter from the storm brewing outside. In the 1990s, it is where we meet Zillah Katz (no relation!), played by Maggie Ballard, a young NY Jew sifting through the past, much like we in the audience are doing with Kushner’s story.
Those familiar with this play might have read the above paragraphs and said, “what what what? Zillah is at her desk, in Greenwich Villiage, ranting about how Ronald Reagan is really Adolf Hitler! What do you mean she’s in Berlin?!?” Don’t worry, calm down, Zillah still rants. And still can’t sleep. Kushner, in the back of the published script, included an alternate take on the Zillah “interruptions” (as he calls them) which were first done at the NY Shakespeare Festival. He gives permission to do this version, and even a version without Zillah (but he accurately points out this makes the play much less dangerous).
The reason I chose the alternate version was not to be different (although there is also something to be said for that when doing a revival.) For some time I was sure we were doing the Zillah-at-her-desk version, as the monologues are hysterically funny/paranoid. Then I realized I really wanted to explore what it meant for Zillah to be in the same room as Agnes, and how exciting that collision of time and space would be on stage. Also, the reunification of Germany, which really can be looked at a step in the burial of the Nazi past, gives a specific time for this character to exist, and a real reason to be exploring what this subject means NOW. Zillah is also free in this version to be a little more real. She picks up a young German (Nick Trengove) who doesn’t speak English, and their lack of communication is funny, sweet and telling.
A Bright Room Called Day, like all of Tony Kushner’s writing, has already proved to be challenging and surprising, in the best possible way. My brain, at the end of each rehearsal, feels fully exercised. We have more questions than answers right now, but we are all excited to make this story our own, and to share it with you.
-bk, 1/28
This article appeared on page E – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle. That’s page 1 of Datebook. Awesome!
Little Brother: Drama. By Josh Costello, adapted from the novel by Cory Doctorow. Directed by Costello. Through Feb. 25. Custom Made Theatre Company, Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough St., S.F. Two hours. $25-$32. (510) 207-5774. www.custommade.org.
“As you read this, drones are flying overhead,” warns a program note for Custom Made Theatre’s world premiere of “Little Brother.” Point well taken. Sure it’s science fiction, but the most sobering aspect of Josh Costello’s bracing adaption of Cory Doctorow’s best-selling young-adult novel may be how rapidly events have caught up with the 2008 book.
Not that the Bay Bridge has been destroyed in a terrorist attack, as in the story. Nor has Homeland Security set up a secret detention center on Treasure Island – Gitmo-by-the-bay – and begun “disappearing” thousands of local citizens.
But other developments in the near-future world of “Brother” – the continued erosion of civil liberties, the growth of public and private surveillance, the emergence of “leaderless” online resistance and the sudden eruption of youth-led mass movements from Cairo to Wall Street – had materialized before Costello’s dramatization opened last week at the Gough Street Playhouse. That’s one reason the show has generated enough well-deserved buzz to extend its run another two weeks.
Briskly staged by Costello, “Brother” is a fast-paced techie-political adventure upholstered in clever live and animated video projections and energized by Chris Houston’s score and Daunielle Rasmussen’s freewheeling choreography. It’s also, Doctorow fans be warned, a radically cut and altered version of the book, but one that retains its attitude and rabble-rousing message.
Performed with youthful conviction by three actors, “Brother” is not the story of 17-year-old Mission hacker Marcus (a magnetic Daniel Petzold) – as his companions keep reminding him – but of cataclysmic events as witnessed (and influenced) by him.
Those include some high-tech hacking, being secretly and brutally interrogated by Homeland Security, sparking a groundswell of cyber-grassroots resistance to the burgeoning security-police state and falling back into its hands. Marissa Keltie is compelling as his super-smart, very direct hacker rival turned dedicated partner and girlfriend.
Keltie and Cory Censoprano play all the other roles – teens, teachers, parents, cops, interrogators (chillingly), reporters and more. Some aren’t filled out or differentiated as well as they could be, and there are holes and lapses in the script. “Brother” takes a little while to pull you in, but once it does, the story and actors generate a momentum that’s hard to resist.
Costello succeeds best in interweaving the story’s thriller plot and its comically touching romance with its outspoken politics. By the perhaps too-wishful-thinking end, we’re all fired up to embrace the Bill of Rights – as radical as that document now seems.
E-mail Robert Hurwitt at [email protected].
This article appeared on page E – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/27/DDJS1MSQI2.DTL#ixzz1knWNv5Bd
Our uber taleted director, Josh Costello, put together this trailer for Little Brother . Check it out!
We had another reviewer at previews, and didn’t even know it. Surprises like these don’t suck, especially both reviewers were careful to point out the shows were previews (a bit of a taboo in the theatre community.)
But -> no harm, no foul, right? Its another rave, and is 5/5 stars. What a great start!
Here’s a highlight…
