Allen Toussaint @ The Pabst Theater

By Blaine Schultz After an quick instrumental tune to warm up, Allen Toussaint ran through a medley of some of the hits he wrote and produced for other artists – just in case you didn’t know who he is. In 2006 Toussaint collaborated with Elvis Costello on a post-Katrina album and tour that refreshed the public’s memory that since the 1950s Toussaint has written and produced a swath of music that remains quintessentially New Orleans. “A Certain Girl,” “Mother In Law,” “Fortune Teller,” “Working in a Coalmine,” “Lipstick Traces,” “Brickyard Blues,” “What Do You Want the Girl to Do?,” “Yes We Can” and “Southern Nights.” While fire engines swarmed City Hall Saturday night at the Pabst Theater, Tousaint and his four-piece group moved seamlessly from regional hits to blink-and you-missed-it classical interludes to anecdotes introducing many of the tunes. In his double-breasted suit and Birkenstock shoes, Toussaint comes off as the personification of erudite and just plain cool. As a vocalist he’s laidback and funky. It’s easy to see him as living through vocalists like Lee Dorsey and Ernie K-Doe while settled into the studio life of a writer/producer/arranger. But this night’s rare performance proved he’s equally adept on stage. The audience could have used a dance floor. As a musician, Toussant’s piano playing is heir to the great Professor Longhair, and it is that rolling lefthand rhumba that anchors many of the tunes. But he also exhibits his genius in re-imagining Longhair’s rollicking “Tipitina” in a minor key as “Ascension Day” on the Costello collaboration, The River in Reverse. At the Pabst Toussaint alternated between the two. While he’s been covered by everyone from The Yardbirds to Devo to Warren Zevon (not to mention arranging horns for the Band), arguably Glen Campbell’s cover of “Southern Nights” is where most listener’s have come into contact with Toussaint’s music. He ended his set with long spoken introduction to the song, reminiscing of family trips out to the Louisiana countryside as a child to visit relatives, all the while playing variations on the tune’s melody. The band members listened with their heads bowed as if transported as well. It was one of the few moments all night the audience was still. Opener Pieta Brown played a short set of her folk and blues tunes accompanied by guitar guru Bo Ramsey. As the daughter of esteemed songwriter Greg Brown, Pieta is challenged to move away from the old man’s shadow – but she is well on her way. Her singing coupled with Ramsey’s filigrees created some hypnotic moments that took the listener into movies her lyrics created. Songs about escaping small-town life and characters with a “train in his head just looking for a track” suggest her career is moving in the right direction. VS

Almost, Maine

By Russ Bickerstaff As temperatures climb after some of the coldest days of the year, the Boulevard Theatre opens a wintery romantic comedy set in frigid rural Maine. Almost, Maine is a series of short dialogues between eight pairs of people who all have different relationships with love. It’s a pleasant evening in the intimate space of the Boulevard that is well worth going out into the cold to enjoy. The stage is a deep blue decorated in white. A few evergreens inhabit the tiny space accompanying a huge snowman holding cards that state the title of each short. It’s an interesting effect coming in from the authentic cold of Bay View in February to arrive in the warmth of an artificial winter onstage in the fictional space known as Almost, Maine. It’s explained relatively early on that the name is used to identify a section of the state that never quite gained its own name. In the cold of rural America in the dark of winter, people struggle to make and keep romantic connections through the course of eight different stories. The opening bit also closes the show. Liz Mistele and Siddhartha Valicharlavenkata play stereotypical young lovers working out a geographical paradox of intimacy. It’s a somewhat clever bit that establishes Mistele as the woman who sets the stage in a variety of different costumes. It also establishes Valicharlavenkata as a pretty solid actor. He last showed up as a waiter in Boulevard’s production of Beyond Therapy this past August, but here he is given the center of the stage and takes to it pretty well. While it’s pretty safe to say that playwright John Cariani probably wasn’t imagining a deep Indian accent mixing in and amongst the locals in rural Maine, Valicharlavenkata has such an engaging presence that it seems natural. The introductory bit is followed by a short entitled, Her Heart. It’s a piece about a lost woman (Jan Nelson) and the stranger (Michael Weber) whose lawn on which she has pitched a tent. Weber puts in a solid performance here and later on in Where It Went – the programs most intense bit of drama. Cynthia L. Paplaczyk was originally cast as the woman in this piece, but had to drop out of the performance on Friday night of opening weekend. Jan Nelson was acting with a script, but she managed a compellingly heartfelt performance nonetheless. Nelson’s performance in The Story of Hope a little later on in the program is a bit more intense as she plays a woman attempting to confront a romance she turned away from years ago. Beth Monhollen also makes quite an impression in a couple of bits about friendship becoming something more intense, first with Valicharlavenkata in Seeing the Thing and then with Kirsten Mulvey in They Fell. Monhollen brings the same sweetness to the stage that she did in Boulevard’s production of Marion Bridge last month. Love that had been cast away is looked at from a completely different […]

From the flood waters

By Jon M. Gilbertson Allen Toussaint is one of those legends whom not a lot of people know – by name, that is. They might, however, be familiar with songs he wrote: “Working In a Coalmine,” “Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette).” They have probably heard songs he produced: the original version of “Lady Marmalade,” Lee Dorsey’s “Ya Ya.” They even might have noted his piano playing: as a session man for Joe Cocker and Albert King, among others. He doesn’t seem to mind being a relatively anonymous individual. “It merely is my life’s vocation to be a producer,” he says in the mildest of tones. “I’ve been happy to do what I’ve been doing, by being so satisfied and so much in the comfort zone that I never thought much more about that. I don’t really regret or feel anything that should’ve happened didn’t happen thus far.” Nevertheless, Toussaint has recently experienced greater visibility, in substantial part because in the summer of 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded his home in New Orleans (the city of his birth in 1938) and washed him out of a lifetime of memories. He moved to New York City and began playing there – in fact, he still does a club residency there. In New York he encountered an acquaintance, Elvis Costello. Toussaint had worked with him just a little bit before, and on Costello’s 1989 album Spike had played lovely, dexterous piano during the ballad “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror.” Costello had an idea. “He told me he always wanted to do an Allen Toussaint songbook,” Toussaint says. “And with the timing as it was, we decided to see about bringing that to fruition. It was his brainchild.” Ah, but children do often surprise us in delightful ways, and so it was with The River in Reverse, the album that Costello and Toussaint released last spring. As fans of either would expect, each brought incredible musicians to the collaboration: Costello the Imposters, Toussaint the Crescent City Horns and guitarist Anthony Brown. And Costello delved well into the Toussaint songbook, narrowing his broad enthusiasm down to seven classics. Then Costello and Toussaint wrote five songs together, and as a further surprise, the new and the old material coalesced beautifully, as did the musicians. Costello, famously a first-rate singer with a third-rate voice, didn’t so much rise to the occasion as bound up to and vault over it. For Toussaint, The River in Reverse modified an old adage: when one door is submerged, another crests the surface. “I must say with the displacement of Katrina, working with Elvis has sort of launched a different career for me that’s still going on,” Toussaint says. “Touring is very much a part of my life now, and it’s quite a lesson to be there right with the people, because you can feel the pulse of them all, as opposed to being in the studio waiting for the red light to come on.” He says this pleasurably, as though the pulse is […]

Honor Song

By Milwaukee’s theatre season has been host to a higher than normal concentration of single-person shows, and some rather lofty figures have been conjured to the stage this season including Charles Dickens (James Ridge in Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s Dickens In America) and Harry S. Truman (Don Devona in Boulevard Theatre’s Give ‘em Hell Harry). Single-person autobiographical monologues can be really tricky to pull off, requiring the right actor matched up with the right historical figure animated by the right script in the right space. It’s a tall order. If it works, there’s an alchemy between actors, stage an audience that is among the most primal theatre experiences imaginable. If it doesn’t, it’s an audience trapped in a room with a single actor for a period of time no watch could accurately quantify. Thankfully, In Tandem Theatre has found a satisfying combination of the right elements with its production of Honor Song: The Dr. Rosa Minoka-Hill Story. In the cozy basement of the historic Brumder Mansion, Laurie Birmingham stars as Wisconsin’s first female Native American doctor. Only the second Native American ever to receive a medical degree, Dr. Rosa Minoka-Hill spent much of her time with the Oneida in northern Wisconsin in the first half of the 20th century. Birmingham cleverly delivers the thoughts and feelings of Minoka-Hill as carefully written by local playwright Carol O. Smart, Minoka-Hills granddaughter, who used to spend summers with her. The life of one of the country’s first female doctors has got to hold many more fascinating stories than could fill a single monologue. Smart’s composition here is well thought-out and well paced. The script has been evolving since it was first produced in 1993 in collaboration with Carroll College, and when Minoka-Hill speaks through Birmingham, one gets a sense of that journey peering out between Smart’s words. There are only a few dry stretches in the story, which covers the events of Minoka-Hill’s life played out steadily with no intermission. The historic Brumder mansion’s basement is an excellent space for this production. One has a sense of walking into history when entering a place contemporary to the real Minoka-Hill. The modest set amidst much grander trappings from the same era is a bit disorienting at first, but once Birmingham takes the stage the illusion begins to settle in. The audience loses itself in the story of the many difficulties of being a doctor for the poor and the impoverished in the rural Midwest from the perspective of a very, very compassionate woman. It’s a thoroughly engrossing, compellingly concise single-person drama. Actor and character mesh, with Birmingham dedicating more than enough of herself to the role to capture the audience’s attention for the entire length of the monologue. VS In Tandem Theatre’s production of Honor Song: The Dr. Rosa Minoka-Hill Story runs now through February 11 at the Brumder Mansion. Tickets can be purchased by calling In Tandem at 414-444-2316. Form more information, visit In Tandem Theatre online at www.intandemtheatre.com.

Tartuffe

By Russ Bickerstaff Based on the original play by Molière, Kirke Mechem’s Tartuffe is one of the most successful contemporary American operas ever written. A competent realization of Molière’s classic tale, the Skylight Opera Theatre’s production closes this coming weekend. Set in ancient France, the story tells the tale of a wealthy man named Orgon (David Barron) who has befriended a man named Tartuffe (John Muriello) whom he believes to be a thoroughly pious man of God. His family tries its best to convince Orgon of his foolishness as he heaps wealth praise on Tartuffe and generally makes a colossal fool out of himself. It’s a long and twisting plot that lends itself well to modern opera. The excessive dramatics and overarching themes of deceit, love and such all work exceedingly well in opera. While some of the finer, more subtle moments in Molière’s brilliant comedy are lost in the adaptation, the story gains a certain emotional depth in song that isn’t explicit in dialogue alone. The Skylight cast deliver on some of the stronger moments Mechem has adapted for the opera. David Barron makes for a likeable Orgon. Alice Berneche is quite brilliant as his daughter Mariane. The scene between the two of them when he asks her to marry Tartuffe is one of the most memorable in the entire production. A lot of its strength rests quite squarely in the anxiety pouring out of Berneche as she directly faces the audience in not so subtle reaction to what her father is asking of her. Berneche’s voice is beautiful, but it’s the rest of her performance that beautifully rounds out a role that isn’t nearly as impressive in previous non-musical productions. Danielle Hermon Wood also puts in a memorable performance as Dorine, Orgon’s maid and Mariane’s friend who schemes to stop the wedding arrangements with Tartuffe and decisively rid the household of him. Dorine is often quite clearly the sharpest character onstage. Wood makes this intelligence seem organic and effortless. The title role of Tartuffe can be played in a million different ways. John Muriello plays it with intriguing texture. His long, disheveled hair and ragged clothing don’t just look shabby . . . the way Muriello carries himself, they actually look unhealthy. He’s playing a comic villain in a way that’s almost sympathetic. It makes for a surprising depth at the center of the production when Muriello finally appears on stage in the flesh well into the story. Lee Ernst takes the stage with the role in a couple of weeks with the Milwaukee Rep. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s going to do with the character. Production elements of Tartuffe are everything one would expect out of a big budget Skylight production. Costuming is lush without being overpowering. Lighting by Cynthia Stilllings provides the comfortable illusion of physical depth that is not actually present on stage. Van Santvoord’s set design adds considerably to the illusion of depth as well as scenic elements rotate to change settings. […]

Living the dream

By Amy Elliott + Photo by Kate Engeriser “Everybody knows about these people,” the boy mutters. “It’s been drummed into their heads about 15,000 times.” He is a young student with a simple assignment: write a two-page essay about an African-American hero. But he is plagued by a classical academic anxiety: hasn’t it all been said before? Crushed by the pressure of history against his attempts to think and work creatively, he resigns and hangs his head. And then he is visited by the spectre of Harriet Tubman leading a chorus of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The boy’s encounter with the legendary abolitionist is only the first in a long parade of dreamers, leaders, thinkers and changers. This is We Are The Dream, the story of history revisited and myths refreshed. The performance is the work of the African-American Children’s Theater (AACT), a nonprofit organization that has been providing arts education and mounting productions in the community since 1989. This is the first year that AACT has been able to expand its activities to include a resident company of eight to fourteen-year-old actors with exceptional talent, drive and commitment. The company members focus on perfecting their stagecraft in major collaborative roles both on and off the stage. For We Are The Dream, the small company researched, wrote and directed the play together. “I learned about people I never heard of before,” says resident Jakayla Dills. “Everybody knows about Martin Luther King, but I never learned anything about Barbara Jordan.” Jakayla plays Jordan, a former Texas state senator and the first southern black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Jakayla also appears as writer and civil rights activist Mary Church, one of the first black women to earn a college degree. When she is not in front of the audience, she is behind the scenes, mastering the skills of stage manager. Mahdi Gransbury, who stars as the plagued schoolboy, doubles as the assistant director for the play. “We work within our group,” says Constance Clark, founder and executive director of AACT, who is helping Mahdi learn about technical theater in hopes that he will be able to take over light, sound and stage design soon. “Ultimately,” she says, “he plans to take over everything.” Mahdi smirks and deviously laces his fingers. AACT’s team spirit befits the group’s goals, which extend far beyond the desire to put on a good show. Theater is a discipline; it enhances confidence, sharpens listening skills, fosters active participation and encourages healthy expression. Before each rehearsal, the kids spend some time talking to each other, sharing their ideas and anxieties. Then they channel their energy into their craft. “Art expresses all your feelings,” says resident Ashante Alfred. “If you’re having a bad day, it just makes you feel happier.” Working through a play can be rigorous, but when the curtain falls, the children go home with a certain artistic wisdom better learned by practice than by books. Some of the actors find that the challenge […]

Paris Ortiz

By Blaine Schultz + Photo by Kate Engeriser Paris Ortiz’ fluid guitar sound has been integral to bands in Milwaukee from Psychedelicasi to Big Dumb Dick to his current group The Cocksmiths. If we believe the cliché that lead guitarists in heavy-leaning rock groups are typically as subtle as brontosauri, then Oritz is more like an archaeopteryx in the sky above – often less a focal point than an integrated part. With The Cocksmiths’ trio of guitars, sonic real estate is at a premium, which means listening is as important as playing. 1. What is the one piece of musical gear you find essential to your sound? My Marshall amplifier. It has such a distinctive, versatile sound. It gives me a solid, crunchy/dirty sound for my rhythms and a sweet, sustained tone for my leads. It has the most amazing feedback. I can hit a note, then stand in front of my amp and that note will sing out for as long as I stand there holding it. 2. What lessons have you learned, good or bad, that you apply to The Cocksmiths? Be true to yourself. Just go out there and play what’s inside of you. There was a point in my life where I had managers and labels telling me what to wear, how to move on stage and how long a song should be. Of course The Cocksmiths want a record deal but we don’t pay attention to who’s popular and who’s getting the most airplay. Everyone in this band has different influence from rockabilly, swing, hard rock and indie music. Yet, we all come to a common ground where no one feels cheated or like they’re playing something they don’t want to. 3. How does your heritage influence your music? I am Hispanic and Latin music is very rhythmic and percussive-oriented, but I don’t know if it’s heritage as much as environment. I grew up in a dominantly African-American neighborhood, so my early influences were Prince, Funkadelic and Hendrix. It really made me a very rhythmic player. As I got older I had friends from all walks of life. Those relationships introduced me to everything from Zeppelin to Ozzy to The Eagles. If I need to be bluesy with a country flair I can do that. I’ll have a reference and if I need to bring it and hammer out an aggressive wah-filled solo I can do that too. 4. If someone had never seen or heard The Cocksmiths, how would you describe the band? A huge wall of whiskey rock. Our bio states, “Picture if the Black Crowes and Soundgarden had a child and it was raised and beaten by Johnny Cash – that’s The Cocksmiths.” 5. Is there a solo (not necessarily guitar) that you never get tired of hearing? That’s a hard one. I would say any solo by Jimi Hendrix. They were passionate, bluesy aggressive solos that fit the song. He was the master. I always loved the solo from “Sultans of […]

Puzzles and Games

By Puzzle Answers Page 1 Puzzle Answers Page 2 Puzzle Answers Page 3

The Bird and the Bee

One can’t help but feel like the self-titled debut from L.A. duo The Bird and the Bee answers the question that’s burned in the minds of music aficionados for years: What would it sound like if Jewel and Stereolab grew up on Martin Denny and Herb Alpert records? The opening track (and first single), “Again and Again,” immediately calls all three touch points to mind, as it’s the perfect declaration of what the duo’s all about: providing the soundtrack to cocktail parties on Mars. The entire album speaks to a fascination for merging past with future. The exotic flavor of “Again and Again” is augmented by a thick, fuzzy synth, adding some space-age low end. “I’m a Broken Heart” ups the stakes with some ‘50s R&B/Doo-Wap stylings – if the girls were wearing vinyl and tinfoil and performing on one of those moon bases artistically rendered in atomic-age In the Year 2000 picture books. And the absence of nearly any real drums in favor of machines and sequencers brings the “yesterday’s music tomorrow” vibe home. The duo doesn’t skimp on the hooks, either – “Broken Heart” is instantly hummable, as is the fantastic chorus to “I Hate Camera” and, really, most any of the tracks on the CD. All the singing is done by the female member of the duo, Inara George (a name that is too awesome to be real), and her ability to harmonize with herself is to be envied; her background vocals move the melodies in some very interesting, attention-demanding directions. The Bird and The Bee make party music for people who like to party without raising their voices while sipping their martinis. Throw it into the disc changer at your next formal. VS

Topdog/Underdog

Golden Apollo

By Russ Bickerstaff Local playwright John Manno’s Golden Apollo is a clever fusion between contemporary aesthetics and ancient legend. Having opened a couple of weeks ago, the reasonably offbeat theatrical presentation’s debut run with Insurgent Theatre ends this coming weekend. While the Insurgent’s cast manages an ensemble performance that respectably fits the script, Manno’s Golden Apollo has more than enough potential to deserve a much bigger venue than the tiny confines the Insurgent Theatre provides at the Astor Theatre. Somewhere near the center of the story lies a brilliant immortal woman named Leto. Leto’s been around for several millennia, having taken the form of an attractive, young woman played by Stephanie Adela Barenett. She is immensely wealthy and powerful, living in a huge, palatial mansion looked after by an exotic servant who used to be a king (Shawn Smith). At the opening of the first act, we see Leto begin an experiment that results in fusing the more brilliant qualities of three different men into one known as Sinbad, (Jason Hames). He was perhaps meant to be the perfect man, but can that guarantee happiness? There in the first moments of that first act lie all the elements that are going to occupy the rest of the play. Lofty intellectual ideas are discussed with some pretty interesting dialogue by earth bound voices adorned in simple, modest costuming on a very minimal set meant to represent a vast mansion. The discrepancy between the tiny space of the Astor Theatre’s stage and the place it’s meant to represent is functionally diminished by use of sparse lighting and negative space. Still, it would be interesting to see this story play out with a substantially bigger budget. As Leto, Barnett has enough poise to carry her end of the production quite well. Playing a compelling, modern, three-dimensional goddess would be a challenge for any actress, but Barnett carries it off well. She plays Leto’s intellectual brilliance with precisely the kind of elevated modesty Manno wrote into the character. Her relationship with Sinbad is a complex one. Leto plays many different roles in relationship to Sinbad, but it’s toward the end of the play when we see the maternal aspect of her relationship with him, which really shows the kind of thought Barnett has put into the character. As Sinbad, Hames plays a number of angles quite well, but the greater character seems a bit out of reach. We see his interest in Leto gradually give way to frustration. We see these elements play out in someone who is extremely human, but Hames doesn’t quite reach the complexity of a person who has been forged out of three people. There are strong parallels between Sinbad and Dr. Frankenstein’s creation in the original Mary Shelley novel. Though, the greater challenges of playing a creation grown resentful of its creator never quite materialize in Hames’ performance. Many actual moments work for Hames, particularly those with Barnett, but there’s a larger sense of the character missing from the […]

The Apples in Stereo

As any negative nabob can tell you (and in fact is telling you right now), it’s extremely difficult to favor the pop – or pop!, onomatopoeically speaking – in pop-rock without coming across as a chirpy Pollyanna. Even the Apples in Stereo, for all their honest effervescence, have periodically seemed like the token frown-upside-down representatives inside the Elephant 6 collective. Apples leader Robert Schneider has often overcome such perceptions with pure conviction. And New Magnetic Wonder, the band’s first full-length since 2002’s The Velocity of Sound, layers a considerable amount of ambition atop Schneider’s foundation of belief. Actually, New Magnetic Wonder layers a lot of layers: the opening two tracks, “Can You Feel It?” and “Skyway,” quite un-ironically recall the massive, colorful edifices once erected by ELO and Queen. (There are even a few guitar figures reminiscent of Brian May’s overheated parts on the Flash Gordon soundtrack.) Various effects and exotic and/or vintage instruments reinforce the hugeness. Yet Schneider’s ever-youthful voice and childlike romanticism temper the grandeur, and a song like “Sun Is Out” is as charmingly ramshackle as one of The Beatles’ looser offerings. A generous handful of light interludes, including Mellotron samples and the accurately titled “Vocoder Ba Ba” also help to erase the threat of grandiloquence. The only sad thing about this album is that it marks longtime member Hilarie Sidney’s departure to devote full attention to her band, The High Water Marks, although her positive glow shines with “Sunndal Song” and “Sunday Sounds.” Otherwise, New Magnetic Wonder brims with joy. While it’s playing, the world actually looks brighter. VS