The Lonely Highway by Hans Frank
returns to Hyde Park Theatre.
Two nights only!
Friday, December 18 and Saturday, December 19 at 8:00 PM.
Tickets: $15
For reservations, call 479-PLAY.
Sloppy Sean returns to his old stomping grounds at The Hyde Park Theatre for two evenings of comedy, mayhem, and Rock-a-Billy. The Lonely Highway has been called a cross between Pee Wee's Playhouse and The Porter Waggoner Show, with a dash of Andy Kaufman.
Backed by the band Glambilly, Sloppy Sean will take you where few audiences dare to go.
Call 479-PLAY for tickets and more info.
And on Thursday, December 17 ATHENS v SPARTA rocks the Hyde Park Theatre. See why they have sold out The Cactus Cafe twice in the past year. Amazing musicians, great vocals, and narration by HPT's Ken Webster.
Tickets $10
Show begins at 8:00 PM
Call 479-PLAY to make reservations.
Friday, December 4, 2009
The Lonely Highway by Hans Frank
returns to Hyde Park Theatre.
Two nights only!
Friday, December 18 and Saturday, December 19 at 8:00 PM.
Tickets: $15
For reservations, call 479-PLAY.
Sloppy Sean returns to his old stomping grounds at The Hyde Park Theatre for two evenings of comedy, mayhem, and Rock-a-Billy. The Lonely Highway has been called a cross between Pee Wee's Playhouse and The Porter Waggoner Show, with a dash of Andy Kaufman.
Backed by the band Glambilly, Sloppy Sean will take you where few audiences dare to go.
Call 479-PLAY for tickets and more info.
returns to Hyde Park Theatre.
Two nights only!
Friday, December 18 and Saturday, December 19 at 8:00 PM.
Tickets: $15
For reservations, call 479-PLAY.
Sloppy Sean returns to his old stomping grounds at The Hyde Park Theatre for two evenings of comedy, mayhem, and Rock-a-Billy. The Lonely Highway has been called a cross between Pee Wee's Playhouse and The Porter Waggoner Show, with a dash of Andy Kaufman.
Backed by the band Glambilly, Sloppy Sean will take you where few audiences dare to go.
Call 479-PLAY for tickets and more info.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Chronicle also raves about THE COLLECTION
Avimaan Syam wrote a lovely review of THE COLLECTION in The Austin Chronicle.
Arts Review
BY AVIMAAN SYAM
The Collection
Hyde Park Theatre, through Oct. 10
Running time: 1 hr, 15 min
Having never committed adultery myself, I can only theorize on the subtle art of deception required to mask an affair. There are details you need to know and details you definitely need not to.
Times. Locations. What someone wore. What someone did to someone else's unmentionables. Whether the affair actually happened or was entirely made up. It's enough to make your head spin, but it's those details that the characters of Harold Pinter's The Collection struggle with, bandy about, and continually deceive themselves and the audience over. Ah, Pinter!
Pinter plays live in the beyond. The horrible, amazing truth lives just beyond the next scene, hopefully, expectantly. Characters talk beyond what other characters know. Motives and meanings, directions and decisions live just out of the audience's perception.
There's this constant feeling that you're missing something, that you'll figure it out soon, only ... only it's Pinter.
And yet for all the looming questions and ominous portents, Pinter's works are incredibly subtle and wickedly comic. It's an intricate balance, but Ken Webster and the Hyde Park Theatre do a wonderful job walking that line with their performance of The Collection.
Bill (Joey Hood), a young dress designer, lives with the older Harry Kane. Their relationship lives somewhere between father and son and boy toy and cantankerous sugar daddy. An anonymous man starts pursuing the neat Bill, and upon their first confrontation we learn that the man, James, wants to meet the man that cuckolded him. Howdy, Bill.
The narrative that follows that revelation plays out like a never-ending status game. For a while, James commands the stage, brimming with the power of victimhood. Bill then trumps him by laying out details of the affair that James never knew. Harry pulls the knowledge right from under them. Anon everything switches, back and forth, status and power and pace. I'm not sure any playwright so vividly captures the power of silence.
If I'm going on about the play and not the production, it's because HPT's staging so truly catches the spirit of Pinter. I was reminded of a quote attributed to Shakespeare at Winedale founder James Ayres: "You're not funny; Shakespeare's funny." In other words, trust the text.
Webster's production trusts The Collection to be funny, dramatic, and engaging. The action is very relaxed, effortless even in its precision. There could be a lot of sound and fury in this did-they/didn't-they affair, but everyone's remarkably civil about the whole thing, which gnaws at the audience's expectations. We want fights, tears, professions of love. What we get is subtlety, silence, maybes. It's all tension and no release, and it's maddening, delightfully maddening.
Hood and Webster work so well together: Hood's Bill is prim, proper, and easily bothered, while Webster's James is cool, collected, unnerving. The acting throughout never seems more or less than it needs to be. And Paul Davis must be commended for another efficient, effective set.
There are so many veiled emotions inside a Pinter play; the relationships ever-changing, the character with the least power ending up with the most. Instead of getting lost, the Hyde Park Theatre cast makes it look easy in this engaging, comedic production.
Arts Review
BY AVIMAAN SYAM
The Collection
Hyde Park Theatre, through Oct. 10
Running time: 1 hr, 15 min
Having never committed adultery myself, I can only theorize on the subtle art of deception required to mask an affair. There are details you need to know and details you definitely need not to.
Times. Locations. What someone wore. What someone did to someone else's unmentionables. Whether the affair actually happened or was entirely made up. It's enough to make your head spin, but it's those details that the characters of Harold Pinter's The Collection struggle with, bandy about, and continually deceive themselves and the audience over. Ah, Pinter!
Pinter plays live in the beyond. The horrible, amazing truth lives just beyond the next scene, hopefully, expectantly. Characters talk beyond what other characters know. Motives and meanings, directions and decisions live just out of the audience's perception.
There's this constant feeling that you're missing something, that you'll figure it out soon, only ... only it's Pinter.
And yet for all the looming questions and ominous portents, Pinter's works are incredibly subtle and wickedly comic. It's an intricate balance, but Ken Webster and the Hyde Park Theatre do a wonderful job walking that line with their performance of The Collection.
Bill (Joey Hood), a young dress designer, lives with the older Harry Kane. Their relationship lives somewhere between father and son and boy toy and cantankerous sugar daddy. An anonymous man starts pursuing the neat Bill, and upon their first confrontation we learn that the man, James, wants to meet the man that cuckolded him. Howdy, Bill.
The narrative that follows that revelation plays out like a never-ending status game. For a while, James commands the stage, brimming with the power of victimhood. Bill then trumps him by laying out details of the affair that James never knew. Harry pulls the knowledge right from under them. Anon everything switches, back and forth, status and power and pace. I'm not sure any playwright so vividly captures the power of silence.
If I'm going on about the play and not the production, it's because HPT's staging so truly catches the spirit of Pinter. I was reminded of a quote attributed to Shakespeare at Winedale founder James Ayres: "You're not funny; Shakespeare's funny." In other words, trust the text.
Webster's production trusts The Collection to be funny, dramatic, and engaging. The action is very relaxed, effortless even in its precision. There could be a lot of sound and fury in this did-they/didn't-they affair, but everyone's remarkably civil about the whole thing, which gnaws at the audience's expectations. We want fights, tears, professions of love. What we get is subtlety, silence, maybes. It's all tension and no release, and it's maddening, delightfully maddening.
Hood and Webster work so well together: Hood's Bill is prim, proper, and easily bothered, while Webster's James is cool, collected, unnerving. The acting throughout never seems more or less than it needs to be. And Paul Davis must be commended for another efficient, effective set.
There are so many veiled emotions inside a Pinter play; the relationships ever-changing, the character with the least power ending up with the most. Instead of getting lost, the Hyde Park Theatre cast makes it look easy in this engaging, comedic production.
Examiner.com review of THE COLLECTION
Ryan Johnson reviewed THE COLLECTION in examiner.com
Harold Pinter is a difficult playwright to pull off. With his ambiguities, subtleties and pregnant silences, there’s just too many things that could go wrong in a production of his works, so when Hyde Park Theater decided to open their season with one of his works, theater fans were right to have some doubts. Thankfully, this production was in the able hands of widely acclaimed director Ken Webster, winner of more B. Iden Payne and Austin Critics’ Table Awards than almost any other person in town. Instead of picking from one of the playwright’s many intense dramas, Webster and company instead decided on one his darker comedies, The Collection. This story of two couples, and the confusion that arises from a love affair that may or may not have happened, is told not just in words, but also in long, lingering looks, startling moments of silence, and some marvelous physicality, and with a talented group of actors at his disposal, Webster is able to pull it off beautifully.
Hyde Park has a habit of finding some of the best actors in Austin to grace its stage, and their latest production is no exception. Ken Webster himself stars as James, a serious, stoic gentleman who has just discovered from his wife that she had an affair with another man, dress designer Bill, played by Joey Hood, seen previously in the acclaimed drama Killer Joe, as well as Hyde Park Theater’s bombs in your mouth. He plays the character with modest style and grace, as well as the healthy swagger of a successful young man. The wife, Stella, also a dress designer, played by Kelsey King, winner of multiple B. Iden Payne and Austin Critics’ Table Awards, is seductive without being too sexual, spending most of her time trying to come to terms with her admission of adultery. The stand performance out of the cast, however, comes from a character completely independent of these two couples, Harry, played by Ian Manners, a regular in Shakespeare works across the city, making his first trip to Hyde Park with this production, whose hilarious cantankerous old coot elicits laughter whenever he takes the stage.
What you get with a trip to see The Collection is the combination of one of Austin’s best directors, with one of the world's best playwrights, with some of the top acting talent the capital city has to offer, and the result is a sight to behold. The show will have audiences laughing, crying, even sweating with anticipation throughout its runtime, and you won’t want to miss a second of it. The play contains quite a bit of sexual conversation, and some suggestive themes, but there’s nothing so obscene that it should keep any teenager away who wants to get a lesson in classic theater. For those wanting to know about the theater of Pinter, or for those who simply enjoy a nice play, come on down to Hyde Park Theater to experience one of the greatest productions of the week.
The Collection is playing until October 10th at Hyde Park Theater. For directions, tickets, or information on their spectacular upcoming season, be sure to visit their website at hydeparktheatre.org.
Harold Pinter is a difficult playwright to pull off. With his ambiguities, subtleties and pregnant silences, there’s just too many things that could go wrong in a production of his works, so when Hyde Park Theater decided to open their season with one of his works, theater fans were right to have some doubts. Thankfully, this production was in the able hands of widely acclaimed director Ken Webster, winner of more B. Iden Payne and Austin Critics’ Table Awards than almost any other person in town. Instead of picking from one of the playwright’s many intense dramas, Webster and company instead decided on one his darker comedies, The Collection. This story of two couples, and the confusion that arises from a love affair that may or may not have happened, is told not just in words, but also in long, lingering looks, startling moments of silence, and some marvelous physicality, and with a talented group of actors at his disposal, Webster is able to pull it off beautifully.
Hyde Park has a habit of finding some of the best actors in Austin to grace its stage, and their latest production is no exception. Ken Webster himself stars as James, a serious, stoic gentleman who has just discovered from his wife that she had an affair with another man, dress designer Bill, played by Joey Hood, seen previously in the acclaimed drama Killer Joe, as well as Hyde Park Theater’s bombs in your mouth. He plays the character with modest style and grace, as well as the healthy swagger of a successful young man. The wife, Stella, also a dress designer, played by Kelsey King, winner of multiple B. Iden Payne and Austin Critics’ Table Awards, is seductive without being too sexual, spending most of her time trying to come to terms with her admission of adultery. The stand performance out of the cast, however, comes from a character completely independent of these two couples, Harry, played by Ian Manners, a regular in Shakespeare works across the city, making his first trip to Hyde Park with this production, whose hilarious cantankerous old coot elicits laughter whenever he takes the stage.
What you get with a trip to see The Collection is the combination of one of Austin’s best directors, with one of the world's best playwrights, with some of the top acting talent the capital city has to offer, and the result is a sight to behold. The show will have audiences laughing, crying, even sweating with anticipation throughout its runtime, and you won’t want to miss a second of it. The play contains quite a bit of sexual conversation, and some suggestive themes, but there’s nothing so obscene that it should keep any teenager away who wants to get a lesson in classic theater. For those wanting to know about the theater of Pinter, or for those who simply enjoy a nice play, come on down to Hyde Park Theater to experience one of the greatest productions of the week.
The Collection is playing until October 10th at Hyde Park Theater. For directions, tickets, or information on their spectacular upcoming season, be sure to visit their website at hydeparktheatre.org.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Rave review for THE COLLECTION
Spike Gillespie with The Austinist wrote a lovely review of our current production, THE COLLECTION by Harld Pinter.
The Collection, a play written by Harold Pinter and currently showing at Hyde Park Theatre, is purposefully ambiguous and, at times, flat out intentionally confusing. That said, the truly puzzling thing about the performance, which is directed by (and also features) Austin’s own gift-to-the-stage, Ken Webster, is this: In this town where the standing ovation is de rigeur, to the point that a gaggle of pre-schoolers toddling across the street can merit wild vertical applause, Webster and company did not receive a sustained, leap-to-their feet round of deafening clapping from the near full house in attendance last Friday night.
Which is not to say the crowd was unappreciative. Oh no. From the laughter that punctuated the evening at all the right moments, it was clear folks got what was going on— as much as one could get it. Maybe, then, everyone was just stunned into ass-stuck-in-seat mode at the end. Or perhaps they stayed down in hopes that the cast would come back out and run through the entire 73 minutes a second time. That would’ve been just fine.
Webster has impeccable taste when it comes to selecting plays. That said, more often than not he veers toward the incredibly dark and, oftentimes, violent. With The Collection, though, he has selected a piece that, while it certainly has enough dark emotional elements, doesn’t step into the realm of physical violation visited upon one character by another.
Instead, as we figure out eventually, James (Webster) is led to believe that Bill (Joey Hood) has committed adultery with his wife, Stella (Kelsey Kling). Toss into this mix the fourth character in the play, Harry (Ian Manners), who is some sort of mentor (or is that master?) of Bill—his decades younger “roommate—” and there’s plenty to keep the show moving right along.
And yet, though it does move, at the same time The Collection simultaneously has the pacing of an episode of Mad Men, which is to say Pinter does not rush the plot. The dialogue, also like Mad Men, is often succinct, and Pinter’s trademark pauses are more than a little pregnant. Thus when James confronts Bill, as he does more than once, often it is his long silences (accompanied by Webster’s excellent facial expressions) that get across his point. Think of Javier Bardem’s chilling quiet moments in No Country for Old Men.
When language is employed in The Collection, it is employed precisely and spot on. Here we have four people all working with more or less the same story and yet this same story is told, viewed, dissected, confirmed and denied multiple times and through widely varying perspectives. A pleasant confusion ensues for the audience as we are challenged to examine our own thoughts and feelings on infidelity, what constitutes “truth,” and whom we ultimately choose to believe.
Webster couldn’t give a bad performance even if Javier Bardem was directing him to do so with the sawed off barrel of a shotgun. Ian Manners, who happens to also be a UT Professor, perfectly inhabits the character of stodgy old Englishman, ever demanding in his silk dressing gown. Kelsey Kling is excellent as a woman who is either seeking to set things straight via true confession or hoping to stir shit up via the opposite—we might never know. But it is Joey Hood here who deserves the most kudos. No stranger to the HPT stage, he’s done strong turns in Killer Joe and Bombs in Your Mouth. But this is his most shining moment to date as a slums-to-manor bad boy, toying with those around him in a slow cat-dangles-mouse ritual. Put them all together on a set designed by design genius Paul Davis and, to understate the matter, there’s not a thing to complain about in The Collection.
The Collection runs through October 10th at Hyde Park Theatre.
The Collection, a play written by Harold Pinter and currently showing at Hyde Park Theatre, is purposefully ambiguous and, at times, flat out intentionally confusing. That said, the truly puzzling thing about the performance, which is directed by (and also features) Austin’s own gift-to-the-stage, Ken Webster, is this: In this town where the standing ovation is de rigeur, to the point that a gaggle of pre-schoolers toddling across the street can merit wild vertical applause, Webster and company did not receive a sustained, leap-to-their feet round of deafening clapping from the near full house in attendance last Friday night.
Which is not to say the crowd was unappreciative. Oh no. From the laughter that punctuated the evening at all the right moments, it was clear folks got what was going on— as much as one could get it. Maybe, then, everyone was just stunned into ass-stuck-in-seat mode at the end. Or perhaps they stayed down in hopes that the cast would come back out and run through the entire 73 minutes a second time. That would’ve been just fine.
Webster has impeccable taste when it comes to selecting plays. That said, more often than not he veers toward the incredibly dark and, oftentimes, violent. With The Collection, though, he has selected a piece that, while it certainly has enough dark emotional elements, doesn’t step into the realm of physical violation visited upon one character by another.
Instead, as we figure out eventually, James (Webster) is led to believe that Bill (Joey Hood) has committed adultery with his wife, Stella (Kelsey Kling). Toss into this mix the fourth character in the play, Harry (Ian Manners), who is some sort of mentor (or is that master?) of Bill—his decades younger “roommate—” and there’s plenty to keep the show moving right along.
And yet, though it does move, at the same time The Collection simultaneously has the pacing of an episode of Mad Men, which is to say Pinter does not rush the plot. The dialogue, also like Mad Men, is often succinct, and Pinter’s trademark pauses are more than a little pregnant. Thus when James confronts Bill, as he does more than once, often it is his long silences (accompanied by Webster’s excellent facial expressions) that get across his point. Think of Javier Bardem’s chilling quiet moments in No Country for Old Men.
When language is employed in The Collection, it is employed precisely and spot on. Here we have four people all working with more or less the same story and yet this same story is told, viewed, dissected, confirmed and denied multiple times and through widely varying perspectives. A pleasant confusion ensues for the audience as we are challenged to examine our own thoughts and feelings on infidelity, what constitutes “truth,” and whom we ultimately choose to believe.
Webster couldn’t give a bad performance even if Javier Bardem was directing him to do so with the sawed off barrel of a shotgun. Ian Manners, who happens to also be a UT Professor, perfectly inhabits the character of stodgy old Englishman, ever demanding in his silk dressing gown. Kelsey Kling is excellent as a woman who is either seeking to set things straight via true confession or hoping to stir shit up via the opposite—we might never know. But it is Joey Hood here who deserves the most kudos. No stranger to the HPT stage, he’s done strong turns in Killer Joe and Bombs in Your Mouth. But this is his most shining moment to date as a slums-to-manor bad boy, toying with those around him in a slow cat-dangles-mouse ritual. Put them all together on a set designed by design genius Paul Davis and, to understate the matter, there’s not a thing to complain about in The Collection.
The Collection runs through October 10th at Hyde Park Theatre.
Monday, September 14, 2009
THE COLLECTION on KUT
Michael Lee at KUT put together this great piece for Arts Eclectic on KUT.
http://kut.org/items/show/18148
http://kut.org/items/show/18148
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Collection opening weekend
The first weekend of THE COLLECTION has been a joy to work on. Opening night's audience was smaller than we would have liked, but very responsive. Friday night's show was sold out and was one of the greatest audiences I've ever had the pleasure of performing for. Joey Hood, Ian Manners, and Kelsey Kling have been giving incredible performances. The set, lights, costumes, and sound are all top-notch. Looking forward to tonight's performance, as we close out our first of five weekends.
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