ReviewPlays.com Best of 2006!
Congratulations to Charles Howerton and Veronique Ory for making ReviewPlays.com's Best of 2006 list.
Each year Jose Ruiz posts a list of his top 10 for actresses, actors, and plays.
Charles Howerton - Slow Dance on a Killing Ground -Athena Theatre
Veronique Ory Wait Until Dark -Athena Theatre
We are honored and excited for the recognition.
Full best of 2006 list - ReviewPlays.com
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground
Thank you for coming to see Slow Dance on the Killing Ground by William Hanley. Your support to Athena Theatre is invaluable.
Sincerely,
Athena Theatre Company
Director: Mark Thomas Boergers
Production Stage Manager: Kevin Jordan
Set Design: Stefan Depner
Lighting Design: Johnny Ryman
Costume Design: Adam Voigts
Sound Design: John Bobek
Publicity: John Richard Petersen
Casting Director: Stephen Snyder, JS Snyder & Assoc
Casting Associate: Lilo Grunwald
Postcard Design: Jeremy Asher (website)
Starring
Charles Howerton as Glas
Matthew Thompson as Randall
Veronique Ory as Rosie
Kim Parmon as Choreographer and Dancer
Adrian Vatsky as Dancer
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays @ 8pm
June 22nd thru July 29th
General Admission $15 presale on-line
Or $20 cash only at the door
Ovation Award Eligible LAStageAlliance.com
The Lounge Theatre (Map)
6201 Santa Monica Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90038
(@ El Centro, 1 blk east of Vine)
Press Release
Hollywood, CA: Athena Theatre Company continues its 2006 season with William Hanley’s drama SLOW DANCE ON THE KILLING GROUND. The New York Times writes: "As the curtain rises, a poor, dusty shop with its dirty window obscuring the dark hostile night, with its mean little counter, and with its juke box glaring vulgarly from the side, the storekeeper is taking inventory. The door is flung open, letting in a lithe young Negro, weirdly gotten up in a soft, high-crowned hat over his kinky little mop, sunglasses, a cape, short slacks and sneakers. Mr. Hanley calls this act Pas de Deux. In this dance for two, the characters make hesitant approaches, circle, feint, threaten each other with gun and ice pick but scarcely make contact. The young man is obviously a hunted man. Through the circumlocutions of his odd mixture of jive talk and fancy literary allusions, there pants a sense of terror. The storekeeper is a non-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, is close-mouthed, suspicious, anxious to avoid self-involvement & In the second act the Pas de Deux becomes Pas de Trois. The third dancer is Rosie, an eighteen-year old from Riverdale, has wandered into the shop after losing her way while looking for the address of an abortionist. Rosie has no illusions about her homeliness or about the encounter that has led to her troubles & the laconic German and the flowery young man react to her with a sensitivity and concern that seem to diminish the furies within them. Finally the German is driven to revealing the truth about himself as the young man, at last, in the third act, faces his inexorable fate out there on the killing ground." This Los Angeles production will include Charles Howerton, Veronique Ory, and Matthew Thompson; in addition integrates the contributions of Kim Parmon in choreography and dance with Adrian Vatsky. An incredible team works behind the scenes on this production, including Set Designer Stefan Depner, Costume Designer Adam Voigts, Lighting Designer Johnny Ryman, Sound Designer John Bobek, Casting Director Stephen Snyder, JS Snyder & Associates, Casting Associate Lilo Grunwald, and Production Stage Manager Kevin Jordan. Post Card Design created by Jeremy Asher.
SLOW DANCE ON THE KILLING GROUND will play at the Lounge Theatre on Theater Row in Hollywood at 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. from June 22 thru July 29, every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 pm. Tickets can be reserved online for $15 at www.AthenaTheatre.com or purchased at the door for $20 (cash only please). Ample free street parking is available.
If you'd like to arrange an interview with the cast or director, need more information, reservations or complimentary press passes, please call 818-754-1423 or email us at Veronique@AthenaTheatre.com.
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground - Theaterealtor.com Review
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground
by William Hanley, directed by Mark Thomas Boergers
Athena Theatre at The Lounge Theatre / June 22-July 29, 2006
WITH Charles Howerton, Veronique Ory, Matthew Thompson
DANCERS: Kim Parmon, Adrian Vatsky
PRODUCTION: Stefan Depner, set; Adam Voigts, costumes; Johnny
Ryman, lights; John Bobek, sound; Kim Parmon, choreography
The Athena Theatre has invested its modest resources
in mounting a production of little-known William
Hanley's 40-year-old ‘Slow Dance on the Killing Ground’ –
a serious contender for the Dreariest Title title currently
held by Lynn Nottage’s ‘Crumbs from the Table of Joy.’
Obviously not a play selection calculated to pack the
tiny Lounge Theatre with easy marks. Yet, last
Saturday night they nearly filled the house with people
who had at least 'Placed' in the pre-show free-style
parking competition and who, without so much as an
unwrapped lozenge, whispered epiphany or evicted
throat-frog to break the spell, watched Hanley's talky,
near motionless play become a taut masquerade for
three actors: One step back, two steps forward; one
step to deceive, two steps to come clean.
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground,which continues through July 29 at the Lounge (corner Santa Monica and El Centro), was introduced on Broadway in 1964. The play takes place on June 1, 1962, a day New York City countertops were cluttered with front page stories about the previous day's execution of Adolph Eichmann. In 1960 the Mossad had captured the high-ranking Nazi in
Argentina and removed him to Israel to answer for his part in Germany's extermination of millions. Hanley with graceful insights from director Mark Thomas Boergers uses that event as backdrop without making this a Holocaust play. He dances his characters just close enough to that abyss to bring out the darkness in their personal histories. By the end, the play leaves us with a sense that justice and retribution are forces of nature that cannot be escaped, but with which we must somehow reconcile ourselves.
Hanley's three characters are strangers meeting by accident in a small New York shop owned by a middle-aged German immigrant named Glas (Charles Howerton). The story unfolds in real time, so the length of the play (minus an intermission) encompasses everything that happens in the two hours they spend together. Randall (Matthew Thompson) is the young man who initiates things by cannonballing into the shop as if he's the star of a fox hunt. He quickly smooths himself down and engages the half-empty Glas in an oblique game of cat-and-mouse, first proving his intellectual superiority, then his upper hand for violence, and finally his moral advantage. Sometime later a young woman named Rosie (Veronique Ory) slips in, bearing the scrap of misread directions that should have had her at her abortion appointment hours earlier. Each character has enough secret showing to give the others something to pull on, with plenty left hidden to unravel as the evening unfolds.
This little microcosm that Hanley has devised allows him to touch on a number of tough subjects. Each topic: racism, anti-Semitism, the holocaust, teen pregnancy/abortion, matricide, prostitution, corrections facilities and the justice system are given extra spin by each character's involvement in, denial of, or intolerance of them.
The men are better at masking their personal crimes and weaving the cover stories that protect them. Rosie is more candid and open. She is the one still able to avoid that dance along the black hole of guilt. All, however, prefer to see someone else come clean than to air his or her secrets. The gradual cycle of revelations and threats are played like a precise card game in which each player trumps the previous one. The evening ends when the final revelation proves the high card and that player is out. The discussion constantly sparks questions: Who has the right to judge another? Are the Israelis more justified in executing Eichmann than an abused child is of killing the perpetrating parent? Is abortion murder? How guilty is someone who is a passive participant in a crime? One character asks another if he would be 'willing to die to save my life?' a question that never leaves the stage, but moves from an absurd notion to one that bears thought to one that might in fact be the answer to the whole mess.
Howerton wears his role of Glas as comfortably as he does his shopkeeper's apron. There is, in fact, a worn quality to Glas. Howerton waits for his moments, always preferring as Glas would to just blend into his shop. It's a wonderfully natural performance. As Randall, Thompson has the play's flashiest role. Despite being a young man, he is closest to the end of his life. Perhaps that's why he packs so much into every speech. Purported to have an IQ above 180, Randall delights in showing off his vocabulary and his perspicacity, but can't stop from displaying a hair-trigger temper. It makes for an extremely dense and varied line-load as he shifts in and out of black street patois -- his disguise. It's a showcase role that Thompson makes look easy. Whether showing off his overwrought language or trying to disguise it behind in your face jangle-jive, he's constantly firing on multi-syllable cylinders. When Mod Squad's Clarence Williams III created the role he was recognized with a Tony nomination and a Theater World Award. The role comes with a danger, however, as it begs an actor to go overboard. It's a line Thompson is clearly aware but needs always to watch. As Rosie, Ory has the least stage time and, as mentioned, the least darkness to conceal. Still, she works her part as foil for the other two very well, blending the right amounts of naivete, commitment and indignation.
The lighting design is lovely. The opening cross fade as the upstage scrim opaques out the dancers to reveal Glas on his ladder is a beautifully rendered bit of transportation. However, at least three times the lights cut to just stage right to isolate an actor. Unfortunately, the actor was at best half in the light. If it can't be coordinated, just leave the whole place lighted. As mentioned, however, the designer's use of the scrim storefront window to show the dancers worked well. Unfortunately, the dancing, while nice at first, did not carry the tension that the actors were creating. Especially when a dancer can be seen just walking offstage before the scrim fills in. At this performance, the final tableau missed the timing needed for the A-Ha moment, which was unfortunate given the actors' performances.
Still, Boergers' work with this cast gives Hanley's surprisingly interesting script a good spin, and turns this theater cum lounge into a welcome place for strangers to meet for an evening of probing conversation and an added dimension to the idea of a play performed in real time. - Cristofer Gross / theaterealtor.com
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground - ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE
The Athena Theatre company in Hollywood presents William Hanley's SLOW DANCE ON THE KILLING GROUND, a melodrama of three people from three different backgrounds who face their difficult life in the present along with their deep dark past.
The setting is a Brooklyn, New York sweet shop located in a rather gritty neighborhood. The date is June 1st, 1962. This was the day when Adolf Eichmann was executed by hanging for "crimes against humanity" in his part of the Nazi party's role to eliminate the Jewish population in occupied Europe during the days of World War Two. The sweet shop is run by Mr. Glas (Charles Howerton), an older man of German extraction. In walks Randall (Matthew Thompson), a hip "Negro" who is very talkative and claims he has an IQ if 187. At first, Mr. Glas sees this man to be first a pest, later as a threat. From Randall's pondering Glas over the reaction to Eichmann's execution splashed on the headlines of that day's newspaper, he learns that Glas was in Germany in the early days of the Nazi occupation, but as a political prisoner than was a Jewish one. Randall has his own secret past as well, and perhaps a current one running away from somebody or perhaps something. Added to this mix is another urban soul who also wanders in the shop: an eighteen year old named Rosie (Veronique Ory), a street savvy woman from the Bronx who, as Randall and Glas, has her own personal issues. (In her case, she is pregnant and is seeking an abortion). This chance meeting of these three brings out a dark side to all, as they face what was to them and what is, or perhaps what really is!
This play, the only significant work written by Hanley, was first performed in 1964 and dealt with rather harsh issues of the day; from racism of the "Negro", to the issues of poverty, to the struggles of what American society is all about, and what it should be. Some of the consequences discussed has somewhat changed today, but not necessary for the better. That is why this play is just as fresh and relevant as it was some 40+ years before! The three performers appear to be deep into their characters; Howerton as the elderly man fulfilling his part of the American dream, Thompson as the jive small time hustler with a be-bop attitude, and Ory as the confused sheltered girl who wants to do better for herself while slipping along the way. The playwright used a three-act stance as in a dance residual (pas de deux, pas de trois, and coda). This imagery is presented by a pair of tango dancers (Kim Parmon and Adrian Vatsky) who brings each act as a visible expression to what this trio in the sweet shop are experiencing--real or otherwise!
Directed by Mark Thomas Boergers, SLOW DANCE ON THE KILLING GROUND is an overdue dormant gem that was worth the uncovering. It goes to show one that the so-called "good old days" were not as good as one remembers. Then again, there is a lot of episodes occurring in the naked city at all hours of the day. Perhaps this was one of them. And will things become better in the next 40 years? It all depends on one's interpretation of what "better" supposedly means!
SLOW DANCE ON THE KILLING GROUND, presented by the Athena Theater company and performs at The Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd. (one block east of Vine Street), Hollywood, until July 29th. Showtimes are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights @ 8:00 PM. Reservations, call (818) 754-1423.
Visit the web site at http://www.athenatheatre.com
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ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE
(Vol. 11-No. 26-Week of June 26th, 2006)
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground - Entertainment Today Review
By Beth Temkin
The Athena Theatre Company's production of William Hanley's Slow Dance on the Killing Ground is a gloomy play with well-drawn characters, performed by a brilliant trio of actors. Two smooth dancers (Kim Parmon and Adrian Vatsky) open to seductive Argentine tango music, as though on a movie screen, and the backdrop then becomes a blurry shop window. The storekeeper Glas (Charles Howerton) takes inventory late at night as a young black man named Randall (Matthew Thompson) dashes into the shop. Randall has escaped from, as he puts it, the "killing ground" outside. Wearing a hat and sunglasses, Randall speaks in rapid jive talk, asking Glas endless questions.
The conversation is mostly one-sided, as the inscrutable Glas is wary of the young stranger. Glas walks with a limp, his voice tinged with a German accent, and wears a tattoo on his arm. He does not take Randall seriously until he removes his glasses and hat. Thereafter, Randall's speech turns quite cultured. Glas repeatedly calls Randall Sonny, exacerbating Randall's Jeckle-and-Hyde personality.
The end of Act One sees Rosie (Veronique Ory) enter the bar and collapse. She hasn't eaten for 24 hours and is three hours late for her appointment to see an abortionist.
Gradually, these three troubled souls from very different backgrounds become closely connected. Their various truths are revealed one by one, softly spotlighted by Johnny Ryman. The dark mood is sustained by realistic set design by Stefan Depner, as well as sensuous tango dancing between acts, under the direction of Mark Thomas Boergers.
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground - Tolucan Times Review
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground Performs at Hollywood's Lounge Theatre
By Gail Roberts
HOLLYWOOD Playwright William Hanley's showpiece, Slow Dance on the Killing Ground, presented here at Hollywood's Lounge Theatre, is an involved story of the period's culture clash, generation gap, morality, pretense, guilt, and not the least, redemption.
Most of the action in this three-character piece takes place in a dusty old Brooklyn soda shop on a dark and dangerous street (the treacherous neighborhood outside the store is referred to as the "killing ground"). Hanley calls his first act a Pas de Deux, where two characters, the elderly shopkeeper, Mr. Glas (Charles Howerton) and the young black fugitive, Randall (Matthew Thompson) perform a kind of conversational choreography transitioning between the topography of age, background and race amid 60's mores.
Howerton turns in a fine performance marked by understatement and restraint as the former non-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. His counterpoint is Randall, the hunted jive-talkin', opinionated young renegade who masks his panic with contrived cool.
The second act becomes a Pas de Trois when the third character, young Rosie (Veronique Ory) enters the shop on her way to an abortionist. The young Rosie's attitudes and false bravado (not quite disguising her naivite) bring together the two opposing men in a sensitive effort to save her while facing their own demons.
Director Mark Thomas Boergers made an interesting step by adding two background tango dancers to this production. My thought was that the playwright was using dance imagery as a metaphor for the characters and their interplay. I'm not sure this literal interpretation with actual dancers was all that essential or effective.
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground performs at the Lounge Theatre in Hollywood Thurs thru Sat until July 29. For tickets, call (818) 754-1423 or visit www.AthenaTheatre.com.
Slow Dance on the Killing Ground - Reviewplays.com
To say that this is a compelling story would do a huge injustice to the production. We are taken back to June 1, 1962 , a day after Adolph Eichmann was executed in Ramleh Prison for his role in the Nazi holocaust. The setting is a second rate candy store in a Brooklyn neighborhood where store owner Glas, a fifty-ish German non-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, is taking inventory late at night. A young man named Randall, a gentleman of some color”, as he describes himself, storms into the candy store, apparently hiding from something or someone and quickly establishes a dominant position in the conversation with the owner. Randall wears sunglasses (at night), sports an umbrella and a little cap and is an obvious game player, given to verbal obfuscation and self aggrandizing, declaring that he has an IQ of 187; he proceeds to prove it by reciting random literary passages from Kafka and others. Later Rosie, a young girl, enters, saying she is lost and wants directions to an address in another not so great part of town, revealing she’s on her way to an abortion appointment.
This is the triangle set up in author William Hanley's 1964 play, which twice hit the boards in New York and was twice rejected by the critics and the audience. Nevertheless, the Athena Theatre Company decided to cinch its thespian belt another notch and go for it again, in spite of the production's less than illustrious past.
Good choice!
In spite of some minor bumps, the overly wordy, seemingly action-less work gets a tight workout by director Mark Thomas Boergers who manages to bring it to the surface making some important social statements along the way. Boergers allows the characters to draw themselves out slowly, giving us a chance to get to know them a little better and this waiting pays handsome dividends at the end when we discover some disturbing and horrible truths.
The absolute anchor in this piece is Charles Howerton, who as Glas, is a marvel of stoicism and control. Badgered and bullied by the recalcitrant Randall, Glas maintains a sense of muffled mystery and bemused understanding almost empathizing with young Randall, even though he suspects the youth could become serious trouble. Howerton’s portrait of a man with an agonizing secret and a desperate desire for forgiveness is one of the most compelling performances this year. His excellent reproduction of a foreign accent makes for chilling authenticity.
Rosie is a convolution of ideas, highly opinionated and thoroughly confused. When queried by Randall about her feelings on death, she quickly responds, "I'm against it!", yet is frustrated at having missed her appointment with the abortionist. She also declares she's writing a college thesis on the concentration camps and quickly seizes the opportunity to question Glas. In past years, this website has written many accolades about the work of Veronique Ory, but this portrayal of Rosie goes to a different level of what she has done before. Played with a mix of youth and innocence with a craftily thought out plan as to why the abortion is necessary, (which both Randall and Glas manage to shake with relative ease), Veronique has dug deep into the character and managed to find a good chunk of her soul, which she then reveals to the audience in a performance that's as thoughtful as it is sincere.
Matthew Thompson makes Randall a thoroughly obnoxious individual. He is impudent, disrespectful and a total phony, as evidenced by the way Randall chooses to change his speech pattern and vocabulary now with a deep ghetto swagger then a refined scholarly diction. Even when Randall discloses his past, his secret fears and anxieties, one wonders if he's not just making it up for shock value or if he truly faces the horrific fate he describes. No doubt he is the product of a troubled past and a dysfunctional upbringing, and Thompson is great in the role. He will be much better when he completely masters his lines so that he does not trip on them as often as he did on opening night.
Even the best-intended deeds do not go unpunished and the inclusion of dancers behind a gossamer screen is the undoing of some of the more dramatic scenes, distracting from the main actors. To be sure, Kim Parmon and Adrian Vatsky are excellent dancers, (she being the lither) and while the symbolic effect of having dancers in the background is not totally lost, even a fuzzy dark image of a perfectly executed arabesque can affect the mood adversely. Great concept - not so great result.
As in Sartre's "No Exit" where the three characters in Hell become each other's torturer, so it is that the characters here become each other's judge and jury, even going through a mock trial where secrets are exposed and fears are confessed. Randall refers to the streets as the "killing ground" a place where the victims and the helpless are pursued; a place where the stalking is often slow and deliberate, like a dance, that teasingly brings the partners in and out until the final step.
The audience will decide if the author's intended message is one of redemption by confession, resurrection by attrition or revival by indifference.
Whatever your verdict, there is no debate that the Athena Theatre Company has constructed another significant plateau in their ever constant climb to excellence in theatre.
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