EMAV Review: Life Sucks *****1/2 Irresistible

Gobble Up this Life

By Paul Atreides

Photo by Richard Brusky

In a wild and ostentatious retelling of Checkov’s Uncle Vanya, playwright Aaron Posner takes the characters and delves into modern conundrums of family, friend, and frenemy relationships with Life Sucks.

Now showing at Vegas Theatre Company (VTC), director Daz Weller assembled an extraordinary cast and brought a flawless production fraught with angst and fun. As souls cry out for help and understanding and love among old friends, family members, and ex-lovers, the energy here is high octane. It mixes a shred of drama into the comedy without missing a beat.

Each actor dons their character like a second skin. They all break the fourth wall to engage the audience and slink back to the script without us actually realizing it. From the obnoxious Vanya (Erik Amblad) to the silly Pickles (Amy Solomon), from the pontificating Professor (Timothy Cummings) to the down-to-earth Babs (China Hudson), from the beauty queen Ella (Jamie Carvelli) to the plain Sonia (Amanda Guaredado), to the exhausted Dr. Aster (Nick Huff) there’s not a false note to be found. By turn, each character is lonely, hopeful, lustful, and just the slightest bit hapless in their approach to life.

Each one gets a short scene to themselves. It’s here where both China Hudson and Erik Amblad really stand above the rest. Hudson is magnetic as Babs. When she mentions dirt boys and boots and says, “I would’ve liked to nibble on those,” she manages to convey regret, lust, and hope for life all at the same time. Amblad has a monologue in Act 3 and delivers it with so much truth that you could have heard a pin drop; he’s a master at breaking the fourth wall and improvisation with the audience.

Whitney Lehn Meltz has designed a set that brings the audience right into the home by surrounding the audience with set pieces making the play more intimate and immediate. Jake Harrell’s sound manages to perfectly add to the atmosphere with a mixture of standards, blues, and pop.

This marks the 20th year for VTC (formerly Cockroach) and its 10th year in the space at Art Square. As theatre strives to entice audiences back to live shows after the pandemic, Life Sucks they’ve provided a shining gem to do so. At 2 hours and 20 minutes (including intermission), this production flies by in an instant. The play contains strong language, live (blank) gunfire, and smoking, and VTC recommends this for audiences aged 13+.

Does life suck? Everyone has troubles. Everyone has regrets. Everyone has lost dreams. But, as Hudson says toward the end of the play, gratitude for the successes and the good things should make us want to “eat every morsel of life.”

The performance was SRO for an opening night in the middle of the week. Tickets will disappear fast. Go, gobble this up before it’s gone.

What: Life Sucks

When: 7:30 p.m. 11/1,2,5,11,12,14,18

2 p.m. 11/5,12,13

5 p.m. 11/6,13,20

6:30 p.m. 11/13

Where: 1025 S. 1st St., Suite 110

Tickets: $20 - $38 (www.theatre.vegas)

Grade: *****1/2 Irresistable

Producer: Vegas Theatre Company; Artistic Director: Daz Weller; Director: Daz Weller; Set Design: Whitney Lehn Meltz; Lighting Design: Gina Manago; Sound Design: Jake Harrell; Costume Design: Candice Wynants; Combat Director: Kevin Stevens; Technical Director: Camren Wakefield; Stage Manager: Zachary Krause

Vegas Theatre Company Opens 2022/2023 Season

Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel explores controversial issues

Vegas Theatre Company (VTC) presents the Las Vegas premiere of Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, a play as gut-wrenching as it is funny and paints a truthful portrait of the fears, hopes, and bonds of teenage girls. The play will run at Vegas Theatre Company at Art Square from Sept. 14 to Oct. 2.

Ester is a swimmer trying to stay afloat. Amy is curled up on the locker room floor. Dry Land is a play about abortion, female friendship, resiliency, and what happens in one high school locker room after everybody’s left.

“I’m so passionate about this play”, says VTC’s Artistic Director Daz Weller, “it leaped off the page with a voice so ferociously youthful and honest that it demanded to be produced. Ruby Rae Spiegel fearlessly addresses the realities young women in the US face when dealing with unwanted pregnancies and has created a play that, at its heart, is about connection, loyalty, and love.”

Spiegel wrote the play when she was 21 after reading an article about the rise of DIY abortions in the US. She was also influenced by her own personal experience with a pregnancy scare that led to the more emotional core of the play.

“That feeling of intense aloneness in your own body,” says Spiegel, “that you are the only one that can do anything about this, and it is just in you. That stuck with me.” In an interview with Whatsonstage.com, Spiegel says, “I think the play is as much about abortion as it is about female friendship and loneliness. But it's not a solemn play, it has humor and darkness, the way life does. The title of the play is about safety, trying to find that safe place to swim ashore. My philosophy is that I'm trying to show the experience of abortion without shame.”

“Presenting a play like Dry Land is the core work of VTC,” says Weller, “To tell stories which lift up the voices of the marginalized. Stories that illuminate our world and encourage empathy. Stories that bring us together.”

Jasmine Kojouri and Natalie Senecal direct Juliana Renee Martin, Deseree Whitt, Karsyn Wilson, John Allen and Romeo Lopez for a Sept. 16 opening at Vegas Theatre Company at Art Square.

Scenic design is by Irene Nguyen, lighting design is by Gina Manago, sound design is by Jacob Harrell, costume design is by Arian Marie Moye, production photography is by Alicia Lee, and the production stage manager is Kamryn Shackleford.

Dry Land was developed at New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Summer Theater Session as well as the Ojai Playwrights Conference. It premiered at New York’s HERE Arts Center in a production by Colt Coeur. It was a 2014-15 finalist for the Susan Blackburn Prize, included on the first annual Kilroy’s List as one of the most recommended new plays by female and trans authors in 2014, reprinted in the December 2015 issue of American Theatre magazine, and is published by Dramatist’s Play Service.

Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land premiered Off-Broadway in a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at Colt Coeur, following development in New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater Readings Festival and the Ojai Playwrights Conference. A finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the play has since gone on to be produced in over ten cities in the United States, London, Sydney, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, and more.

Vegas Theatre Company (formerly Cockroach Theatre) is one of Las Vegas' most distinguished and beloved theatre companies. From its home at Art Square in the City of Las Vegas Arts District it has produced, co-produced, facilitated, and offered its venue for the production of plays, opera, variety shows, improv, and theatre festivals. With a focus on new and neglected work, VTC has produced the regional premieres of many of the most important plays of the past two decades.

Dry Land will be presented at Vegas Theatre Company, located inside Art Square in the 18b Arts District, 1025 S1st St. Free parking is available in the lot adjacent to Art Square. Dry Land runs from Sept. 14 to Oct. 2. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Sept. 14, 16, 17, 23, 26, and 30; 2 p.m. Sept. 24 and 5 p.m. Sept. 18, 25, and Oct. 2.

Tickets start at $25, with special $20 tickets for the preview on Sept. 14. A limited number of $15 Student Rush Tickets are available at the box 1 hour before each show. For reservations and information, visit www.theatre.vegas or call (725) 222 9661

EMAV Review: On Golden Pond at Vegas Theatre Company ★★★★

40-plus and still golden

By Paul Atreides

★★★★ - Delicious

It’s been more than a year since my last theatre review. The play “Thurgood” was presented in person to an audience of six in the venue, which seats 155. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on the theatre community with dark houses. But it looks like we’re back, baby.

Venturing out among unmasked people was a little scary, but how could I not attend when the two lead roles of Ethel and Norman Thayer are filled by Las Vegas icons Valerie Carpenter-Bernstein and Gary Lunn, respectively.

For the final production of their 21-22 season, Vegas Theatre Company (formerly Cockroach Theatre) has mounted “On Golden Pond” by Ernest Thompson. It’s a script that mostly holds up after 43 years. After all, there are still curmudgeonly old men who would be lost without their caring wives.

Lunn takes curmudgeon and makes us love him. His Norman is full of fun. There’s a half-smile that appears when he’s poking fun at someone else’s expense. The only one who catches on fast and sees it for what it is is his future son-in-law, Bill Ray. When Lunn dispenses with being old and near death, the idea that he’s serious is just below the surface of the factiousness. Lunn is having a good time, and it shows.

After 49 years of marriage, his wife Ethel is well aware of Norman’s shenanigans. Carpenter-Bernstein responds to the “old poop” with total love and understanding. She brings feistiness and a tiny bit of looniness to the role while, at the same time, keeping a laser focus on the husband, who seems to be obsessed with aging and dying.

Playing daughter Chelsea (Katrina Currow) is a tough, unenviable task. The script doesn’t provide the transitional dialogue needed to move from happiness to ruminating on her faulty relationship with a father she refers to as Norman rather than Daddy to allowing herself to show her excitement and happiness at having gotten married while on vacation in Brussels. As a result, Currow still pulls off a decent job.

As Chelsea’s fiancé-turned-husband, Bill Ray, Mario Peoples, is on to Norman pretty quickly. Given one scene, he delivers a fine performance putting Norman in his place and coming to what might be considered a gentleman’s agreement when it comes to sex with Chelsea.

Billy (Sofonyas Alebachew) is Bill’s 13-year-old son. Alebachew portrays Billy as a beaming, fun-loving kid from the get-go rather than the sullen, rebelling child of divorce. And that’s the problem. When he first meets Norman, he tries to shock and taunt an old man. By the end of the play, they’ve become buddies and partners in crime. However, it feels as if any character growth is missing.

The supporting cast also includes Erik Amblad as Charlie, the guy who delivers the mail to the residents of Golden Pond via boat and has kept a candle burning for Chelsea. Amblad digs into Charlie with gusto, mining every extrinsic motivation in the script to great success. He’s a joy to watch, and the laugh is contagious.

Overall, it’s a lovely evening that starts out with Jenn Chandler playing her cello and singing to entertain the audience with tunes such as “Summer Wind” and “Singing In the Rain.” Her interpretations of the songs, along with the scene interludes she’s composed for the production, are wonderfully fitting.

What: On Golden Pond

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday - Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday; 5 p.m. Sunday through May 8

No performance Friday, May 6 due to First Friday

Where: Vegas Theatre Company, 1025 S. 1st St

Tickets: $25 - $33 (725-222-9661 or visit theatre.vegas

Grade: **** Delicious

Producer: Vegas Theatre Company; Director: Daz Weller; Set Design: Whitney Lehn Meltz; Lighting Design: Jordan Hall; Sound/Projection Design: M. Sohaa Smith; Stage Manager: Lily E Vetter; Original Compositions/Live Music: Jenn Chandler