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Hattiloo Theatre
Our Mission is to develop a Black theatre that is accessible, reflective, and relevant of a multicultural community.
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Member Reviews
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Event Name: Hattiloo in the Park presents "Spunk"
"newonthescene"
Review
posted by:
Margaret
from Arkansas,
Sep 17, 2011
This play was good. The actors put their all into the play. Even though it was outside, it was done very professional. I can only amagine how good it would be with all the indoor equipment that could be used. This is the first play I have ever seen. After seeing this one makes me want to go to more live plays.
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Event Name: If Scrooge Was A Brother (Musical)
"For what ages?"
Comment
posted by:
Aunt Katherine
from Elizabethton TN,
Dec 16, 2010
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Event Name: If Scrooge Was A Brother (Musical)
"A Must See"
Review
posted by:
Kbmurrell
from Memphis, TN,
Dec 12, 2010
This play was great. I bought the tickets for my husband and I for our 12th anniversary. I thought this would be a play that he would like, and I was right. We both loved it. It is so nice to have a place to go in the Memphis area that caters to the African American community. We will most definitely return for more.
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Event Name: Shakespeare's Women
"Review by Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Mar 23, 2010
A Nina Simone recording pleads musically, amidst the scene changes of Hattiloo Theatre’s current production Shakespeare’s Women, “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good…oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood!” Willy S. himself couldn’t have more poetically expressed the pleasures and challenges of Hattiloo’s ambitious effort. Earnest and aspirant, this hodgepodge of scenes and speeches from the Stratfordian’s more estrogen-filled works tickles and amuses and intrigues with the implication that an empowering and unifying thread runs through the plays – though never makes the connection.
As an academic exercise (and perhaps even more as a company-enriching endeavor), this pastiche of the Bard’s bits and pieces is a success. Revealed compellingly is the fact that a few hundred years before women were voting, they were - at least in the fantasy of the theatre – trying court cases, taking the reins of romantic courtship and influencing world events. That Hattiloo Theatre (which bills itself as a black repertory) has tackled this project is a further testament to the universality and pliability of the source material. Shakespeare may have originated from an oppressively white literary tradition, but his words and ideas sound swell coming out of anyone.
As a theatrical event, Shakespeare’s Women comes off as, well, bits and pieces and not a whole. Unclear is why these particular scenes were assembled (what, no Cleopatra?), what idea runs through them all and – alas – no playfulness in how they are presented, save for a few sung moments in Act II. A conceptual piece with no concept, it would be hoped that focus would have been spent on the language but, with some notable exceptions, the varied experience of the company occasionally obscures the work of the author. Standouts include, but are not limited to, Lorna Jefferson, (acting out a powerful Queen Elizabeth and “Mad” Margaret and singing out “Valentine’s Day”), Pamela Poletti (as splendid Viola and Hermia) and Don Rico Webber (a simmering Shylock).
Once, in a Shakespeare-in-Film class, I got back the following comment on a paper: “As charming as your ramblings are, this rambles.” So too does Shakespeare’s Women, though with charm to spare and potential abounding.
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Event Name: Piano Lesson
"Review by Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Feb 16, 2010
Any theatre wanting to produce Hamlet or King Lear or Hedda Gabler, or other well-known play with a difficult title role, would be well advised to make sure that an actor is available to play it before you put it on. The entire purpose of a play can rest on the shoulders of one person, or in the case of The Piano Lesson, one item. Alas, like a King Lear audition where no old men show up or a violin recital played by a banjo, Hattiloo Theatre's The Piano Lesson is sunk early and often by a lousy lead instrument.
Pittsburgh, 1936. Bernice (Mary Pruitt) lives in a house with her uncle Doaker (TC Sharpe) and daughter Maretha (Anitra Higgins). Life is upended by the arrival of Bernice's brother Boy Willie (Cooli Crawford) and his crony Lymon (Robert Olsen, Jr.). Boy Willie, a Mississippi sharecropper, has arrived with a truckload of watermelons. Once they're sold, he intends to load up and sell the piano. It's an heirloom of staggering importance, having passed through the family over three generations of death, heartache, slavery and recovery.
The plot - a tug of war between Bernice and Boy Willie - is complicated by possible romance between Bernice and Lymon and the colorful storytelling between Doaker and washed up friend Wining Boy (newcomer Anthony Bell who, through sheer presence and authenticity to the material, delivers one of the most delightful performances in Memphis this season). Also lurking in the house - a ghost, either real or imagined, who has a stake in the fate of the piano.
The piano is terrible. Forget that the production breezes over the script requirement that it be played throughout the show. It is a cheap, battered 20th century upright with two thin strips of wood clumsily affixed with indecipherable scratches in the surface to approximate the lovingly adorned carvings so intricately described. Not the magnificent item described throughout. And while a lousy prop shouldn't be a dealbreaker - this isn't a prop. It's the prop. The set is no better - a 20th century hodgepodge that totally obscures the play's 1936 setting. So while the cast is winning and evenly talented, the physical world provided the audience make it impossible to fully understand the big deal about the piano, believe in the bewildering, supernatural ending, or grasp the play's much-deserved 1990 Pulitzer Prize.
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Event Name: Willie & Esther
"Review by ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver Bo List"
Comment
posted by:
Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Jan 16, 2010
There is almost no plot in Hattiloo Theatre's Willie and Esther. An absurd couple schemes to rob a bank. They don't. Later, they scheme again to steal from a skuzzy slumlord and make off with a toaster oven. Finis! Never mind that there's hardly any narrative. The title characters are storied enough themselves. If these two oddballs actually accomplished anything, their predicament would diminish in interest. Living just above poverty and imbued, seemingly, with neither intellect nor talent, Willie and Esther represent the many untold souls who don?t often end up the subject of plays. They'd like to live in a nicer home. They'd like to drive instead of ride the bus. They want to live, feel well, and stay together. Their aims are modest by dramatic standards but what could be more important?
Willie (J.S. Tate) works in the back of a grocery, while Esther (Precious J. Morris) seems to scrape by as a beautician. They're not subtle people; they seem to say everything they think, and are prone to egregious malapropisms: since Willie handles produce all day, Esther declares him a "producer" while, at some point, "something is rotten in the state of Denver." Hence, Willie and Esther is essentially a two-person comedy riff on middle-aged relationships. The title characters are basically the kind of crazies you try to avoid on the street but these two have, essentially, the same things in common as do all longtime couples: affection, secrets, shared goals, resentments and enduring attraction.
James Graham Bronson's funny, touching script is as simple as his subjects, though his intended tone is hard to grasp in a production in which the two leads seem encouraged to bicker and cajole at full volume, full-speed ahead, at all times. No matter; their chemistry is marvelously winning and both performers embrace their work fearlessly. Morris hops emotions faster than a Whack-A-Mole game, and employs every tactic in the book to get a proper marriage proposal out of Esther?s fella. Tate, meanwhile, has either chosen or been instructed to give Willie a series of unmentioned facial twitches that, if not exhausting him, certainly distracts the audience from his work, otherwise strong conveying an odd but admirable pride in a man who seems to have little else. But they have each other, and that's a lot.
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Event Name: For Colored Girls
"Preview"
Comment
posted by:
Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Ravers
from Memphis, TN,
Oct 26, 2009
It's been almost 35 years since Ntozake Shange's landmark play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf debuted off-Broadway - catapulting Shange to the forefront of contemporary social thinkers and illuminating the condition of the modern black woman for New York audiences. Since then, times have changed - but the continuing challenges that face black women have kept the play a staple of regional and community theatres. Opening October 29 at Hattiloo Theatre and directed by Patricia Smith, For Colored Girls returns to Memphis and a community where (for better and for worse) the play's themes are still alive and relevant.
"The play is classic because the themes concerning black women have not changed much since 1975," writes Ekundayo Bandele, Hattiloo's Artistic Director. "Themes such as rape, low self esteem as a symptom of bad relationships, the need to bond with other black women, family, and the splendors and pains of love. Because these themes are the foundation of the play, it's relevant, not only for black women, but for a lot of women, in general."
The play, a dance-y "choreo-poem" more than a traditional theatrical narrative, sees twenty of Shange's poetic expressions brought to life by an ensemble of seven nameless women (each wearing a different color scheme, they go by "Woman in Blue," "Woman in Orange," etc.). Often set in a bar (the first production, in Berkeley CA, was performed in one), this version is set in a sanitarium, "to heighten the healing aspect" of the play, according to Bandele. The title itself refers to a sense of healing, referencing "the breaking point of the human heart. Sometimes suicide is an attractive option when the pain of living becomes too much to endure."
For Colored Girls's non-linear structure makes it an odd choice to be made into a film, yet Tyler Perry is slated to direct a 2011 release. Marquee names like Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry and Angela Bassett are rumored to star (as well as Perry himself, though presumably not in his well-rehearsed drag). Can the vivid experience of the stage play be duplicated or expanded in movie theaters? Bandele is skeptical. "I don't think a film version will be able to capture the emotional torrent that runs from woman to woman," he says. "It's a play of poems, not dialogue; for that reason, I believe the stage version is best."
Audiences will get their chance to see Shange's work as she first intended it.
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Event Name: A Streetcar Named Desire
"A Streetcar Named Desire by Billy Pullen ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Billy Pullen
from Memphis, TN,
Oct 03, 2009
An African-American theatre in 2009 that tackles a Tennessee Williams classic about fading Southern aristocracy in 1947 New Orleans might be compared to an all white theatre company tackling Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. I could continue with possible analogies, but I'll cease with the observation that both scenarios take some time for audience adjustment and an extension of the suspension of disbelief concept.
Director Leslie "Sticky" Reddoch is challenged with a tiny stage that serves as both a blessing and a curse. The claustrophobia of housing an unwelcomed poor relative in a tiny French quarter duplex serves the play well, but pivotal scenes where physical conflict is required such as the famous Stanley Kowalski vs. the radio scene and the notorious rape scene leave...well, much to be desired.
The main ingredient missing here in this challenging production is lust or at least the consistency of it. The lecherous quality of Blanche comes through in a brief scene with the young boy collecting for the newspaper, but the chemistry among the four main players is inconsistent. Ekundayo Bandele as Stanley sounds all macho, but never totally convinces as a sensual but assaulting epitome of manhood that Stella (Krissy Cain-Bolden) simply cannot resist. Cain-Bolden is charming in scenes with her older sister, but misfires in scenes with Stanley. The ambivalence of attraction and fear does not evolve. Bronzjuan Worthy as Blanche does emote sensuality, but other elements in that character such as desperation, manipulation, and even pathos are missing. Delvyn Brown's Mitch strikes a likeable note as the more civilized among Stanley's lot, but the sheer tragedy of being deceived by the worldly-wise Blanche is not there. In fact, the downright devastation of both Mitch and Stella as they watch Blanche's delusional exit to an asylum is also lost.
Some items that may been influential in these missing poignant moments include awkward blocking. Stanley doesn't have room to really throw a radio out the window with menacing conviction or pitch the old relics from Blanche?s trunk. Nor is there room to "choreographically" wet down the drunken Stanley. Other stage business is diminished during the showdown between Blanche and Stanley, and Blanche's altercation with the nurse. However, the cast, especially Bandele and Worthy, capture most of the lyrical cadence of Williams' masterpiece, but unfortunately much of the animalism is lacking.
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Event Name: God's Trombones (A Musical)
"Hattiloo's season-opening God's Trombones is not a play."
Review
posted by:
Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Aug 31, 2009
Hattiloo Theatre's season-opening God's Trombones is not a play. This is not a judgment, rather it is an observation. A production like this, based on the 1927 collection of poems by James Weldon Johnson, requires a larger descriptive noun. Barefoot in the Park, Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible - these are plays. They have beginnings, middles, ends, a narrative arch and a forward momentum of tension, conflict and resolution. Hattiloo's God's Trombones is an event, a celebration. The experience of this kind of production is less a journey, as might be said of conventional theatre offerings, and more of a destination. The time spent is not in the getting there; it is in the being there. That said (neither to dismiss nor discount, rather to clarify toward the possible expectations of its audience), God's Trombones provides a vivid and vibrant destination.
For Bo's complete review, see the event detail.
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Event Name: God's Trombones (A Musical)
"God's Trombones"
Comment
posted by:
Billy Pullen - ArtsMemphis Rants & Ravers
from Memphis, TN,
Aug 24, 2009
Ekundayo Bandele, founder and artistic director of the Hatttiloo Theatre, has grasped just the right touch for the 1927 God's Trombones, a compilation of music and poetic sermons by James Weldon Johnson. Set in a rural church circa in late nineteenth century, this piece pulls all emotional levels from tenderness and mercy to chastisement and downright hell-fire damnation.
For complete review by Billy Pullen, see event detail.
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