Dear Jack, Dear Louise at The WWII Museum’s Stage Door Canteen through October 11
Approaching The World War II Museum to see Ken Ludwig’s new play Dear Jack, Dear Louise, described as a love story about two strangers who meet by letter during World War II and who will eventually become Ludwig’s parents, I wondered if it would be more like A. R. Gurney’s Love Letters or Ludwig’s own wacky comedies Lend Me a Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo.
It turned out to be neither but, rather, its own singular, immensely satisfying, very humane tale that should become a permanent feature of our National WWII Museum.
Beginning in June 1942, U.S. Army Captain Jack Ludwig, a military doctor stationed in Oregon, and Louise Rabiner, an aspiring actress and dancer in New York City, start corresponding, having been introduced by their parents who are acquaintances.
Dear Jack, Dear Louise, however, is no simple “he says, she says” show. Ludwig lets his imagination run wild (it turns out that his parents’ letters had actually been destroyed) and what starts as an epistolary bank-and-forth evolves into dialog that ricochets over many miles much as texts do today. Interestingly, part of DJDL’s drama comes from its participants waiting for responses from the other and pondering as to what’s causing the delay, only they’re not staring at a cell phone while doing so.
Dr. Ludwig comes from outside Philadelphia and is a bit stiff at first. Brooklyn-born Louise is perky and charming, and aspires to perform on Broadway. Both are Jewish, but neither seems terribly religious. Both are sweet kids and very decent people.
Pete Winfrey and Oriana Lada in Dear Jack, Dear Louise (photo by Hillary Taylor)
As they write to each other, they reveal their hopes and the challenges they face. She visits his family with comic results that broaden the lens of the narrative. They plan to meet but fate steps in the way. They break up. They get back together. And no spoiler here (or else the play wouldn’t have been written), finally they meet. In person.
Throughout, Ludwig writes with a sure hand that allows you to believe this is how it happened; in a Q&A after the performance, Ludwig stated that the story may be original, owing to the letters no longer being around, but it’s very much his parents’ voices, lovingly crafted from their lives.
Ludwig miraculously creates a gripping sense of dramatic tension despite Jack and Louise never interacting directly till the very end; at numerous points along the way I had to tell myself “It’s all going to turn out alright and Ken’s the proof” whilst on the proverbial edge of my seat. Perhaps even more importantly, at no point does the material become melodramatic or sentimental which might have resulted from a less skilled playwriting hand.
Risa Brainin’s smooth direction keeps the action flowing, the narrative clear, and well-utilizes the Stage Door Canteen space, she having staged previous productions in-the-round and on a thrust stage. During the Q&A, she stated that she insisted that her two actors never look directly at each other till the final moment, a wise choice.
Both members of the cast, Oriana Lada as Louise and Pete Winfrey as Jack, are superb. At first, Lada, playing an actress, gets to show off a wider range of emotions, but as Jack is shipped overseas in Act Two and confronts the demands and horrors of war, Winfrey displays a depth of feeling that Jack had not previously ever exposed.
If both Lada and Winfrey expertly fill out the contours of these two utterly engaging young people, they each infuse their characterizations with an ineffable emotive life force that raises the stakes of Dear Jack, Dear Louise, and compels one to care deeply about what happens to them. Lada and Winfrey both have extensive professional credits; I hope one day, when they’re stars, we’ll be able to say “I saw them when…”
Michael Klaers’ lighting is subtle yet effective. Devon Painter adds just-right period appropriate costumes; when Louise unfurled the apron she would use when volunteering at the Stage Door Canteen, the simple garment got a round of applause from the audience who appreciated the reference to the legendary institution that serves as the theater’s namesake.
When, during the Q&A, an audience member asked Ludwig where he hopes Dear Jack, Dear Louise goes next, he responded, without hesitating “To Broadway.” As appropriate as it is seeing Ludwig’s tribute to his parents at The WWII Museum’s Stage Door Canteen, this beautiful and unique love story, so well told, deserves a run in New York so an even wider audience can get to know Louise and Jack.
Ken Ludwig
[For tickets and more information, go to https://www.nationalww2museum.org/programs/ken-ludwigs-dear-jack-dear-louise]
Amadeus at CANOA through October 10
Heading to the Bywater to see Fat Squirrel’s production of Amadeus at CANOA, I wondered “How would they handle the spectacular sets, the extravagant costumes, and all the powdered wigs?” Turns out they handled them very well…by doing away with them.
Unlike other directors who slavishly recreate previous interpretations of established works, Director Andrea Watson wisely took another approach. Yes, there were some fancy waistcoats but they seemed to have been sourced from various people’s Mardi Gras closets; the program doesn’t even list a costume designer.
Other than that, for Peter Shaffer’sTony and Oscar-winning drama that explores the nature of creativity, Watson utilized a mostly bare stage except for a few tables and chairs. Her prime reconceptualization was to place all but the main characters (and a very few minor ones) in upstage boxes and have them move to prerecorded voices as they “spoke” as though they were marionettes. This bold move emphasized the puppet-like nature of both nobility and workers, all enthralled to others who controlled them, topmost being Emperor Joseph II, though even he could be controlled by seeming subservients.
This enabled Watson (and the audience) to focus on the three main characters–Antonio Salieri (Clint Johnson), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Rahim Glaspy), and Constanze Mozart (Roney Lee Jones)–as Salieri, a very successful 18th century composer, rails against God for gifting Mozart with a sublime talent that he knows will eventually eclipse his own, and as Wolfgang & Constanze evolve from playful young lovers to desperate artists living on the edge while the jealous Salieri tries to destroy Mozart.
Watson well-charts the play’s shifting emotional tones and her “less is more” staging engagingly illuminates Shaffer’s text. Keenly paced, from adagio to allegro, 3 hours pass fleetingly by (tho, occasionally, one wishes Shaffer had edited some of his verbose passages). Most notably, Watson deploys her cast around the stage, not only avoiding static images, but smartly using the spaces between the actors to create tension of fortissimo proportions.
I might only have wished that, perhaps in the second act, Watson had let her “puppet actors” perform naturally, as real human beings. After the 75-minute first act, the concept has served its purpose, and it might’ve been more powerful to see “human actors” as the characters increasingly intimidate and turn on Mozart. This is just a thought; I still applaud Watson for the fresh vision she brought to the play.
Watson is terrifically abetted by Johnson, Glaspy, and Jones, singly and as they share the stage in various duets and as a trio.
Roney Lee Jones, Rahim Glaspy, and Clint Johnson in Amadeus
We first encounter Johnson, employing a convincing Italian accent, as an older Salieri, haunted by his actions of years ago. He expertly navigates an extended, exposition-filled opening monolog, savoring Shaffer’s aperçus such as “Music is God’s art.”
Johnson then transforms into the 31-year-old Salieri, who’s deeply affected by the young Mozart’s music. “I heard the voice of God,” he says admiringly, then adds with disdain upon observing Mozart’s feral behavior, “The voice of an obscene child,” aptly commenting on these and other lines with the simplest arch of an eyebrow or pucker of his lips.
Wisely underplaying Salieri’s grand passions, Johnson peels off Salieri’s outer armor exposing his immense self-disgust, fueled by his jealousy of Mozart’s tremendous talents. If Johnson “sings” Salieri’s angry arias in which he challenges God with insightful passion, he exquisitely delivers a more gentle speech as he watches the premiere of The Magic Flute. It is a masterful performance.
Johnson is well-matched by Glaspy as the preternaturally talented Mozart. Full of youthful energy, Glaspy brings out Mozart’s guileless pleasure when he takes a brief composition of Salieri’s and effortlessly improves it. Yet Glaspy also fully inhabits, rivetingly, Mozart’s more insecure moments as his marriage dissolves and he deals with the bona fide pain that washes over him following his father’s death.
I would have just wished, in the play’s earlier sections, that Glaspy had more organically portrayed Mozart’s child-like qualities rather than “acting” them with calculated giggles. Glaspy is a naturally funny performer (reviewing the panto Sleeping Beauty at Le Petitin 2016 in which he played the Prince, I wrote “Glaspy nails the style, giving a winning performance both silly and sophisticated.”), and his Mozart would’ve been even more virtuosic had he allowed his innate comic ferocity to prevail; Director Watson must share the blame for not giving better guidance. Still, Glaspy’s savage and tender Mozart demonstrates just how wide a range of talents this actor/singer/comedian has.
As Constanze, Mozart’s young wife (just 20 when they wed), Jones is simply extraordinary. Spiritedly playing along with Mozart’s romantic/sexual game at the start, Jones’ expressive physiognomy well-conveys not only Constanze’s intelligence but the wariness she must have relied upon to deal with a male-dominated world.
In her scenes with Johnson’s Salieri, in which they negotiate terms, sexual and otherwise, for his advancing Mozart’s position in court, it’s like watching a high-level tennis match as each scores points as well as defends themself. And at the end, as Mozart dies a pathetic death, she lovingly holds Glaspy in a way that brings to mind the Pietà.
As the Venticelli, who kind of function as a Greek chorus, Andrew Hagen is very good, Lorna Street Dopson even better as she squeezes every nuance out of each of her lines. The rest of the puppets, er, I mean cast are all fine.
In just four short years, with such productions as Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi, The Baltimore Waltz, The Trojan Women, The Crucible, and, now Amadeus, Fat Squirrel has become one of New Orleans most vital theater companies. I look forward to their future productions.
[For more information and tickets, go to https://fatsquirrelnola.square.site/now-onstage]
